2245, The Beginning

"Good. NAV, time to wormhole?"

"Event horizon in 1 minute, sir."

"EM Sensors to active. I want to know what we have as soon as it appears"

He could see where the wormhole was going to appear. Minute flashes of light could be glimpsed ahead, indications of the massive outpouring to come. He felt the drives shut off as they brought the ship to a relative halt.

"10 seconds... here they come. 5... 4... 3... 2... 1..."

A brilliant blossom of light bloomed into existence, the fury of the barely controlled energies of the wormhole unleashed on the local space. The event horizon was easily 50km in diameter. Dreiss never grew tired of that sight. However, this time the events surrounding this glorious event would be burned into his mind forever.

"What do we have?" Dreiss asked his TAC officer.

"Just one contact for now. One metre diameter, metallic composition, approaching fast. Looks like a standard fuel pod. Wait..." A sudden expression of horror crossed his face. "SIR! I'm picking up-"

His voice was cut off as the anti-proton warheads contained within the fuel pod exploded, overwhelming even the light from the wormhole, blinding all those watching. The massive pulse of radiation blew out the sensors on the ship, and short circuiting most of the major electronic systems. Less than a second later the shockwave hit. The hellish energies vaporised the hull plating, turning the warship into a twisted hulk of slag. Ultimately, the ship's fusion reactor breached, cracking what remained of the hull like an egg, adding it's own energy, pathetic in comparison, to the maelstrom outside.

Katherine Adams stared idly out the view port at the Navy ship as the blue-white glare of its engines carried it away from the station. She and her husband had moved here only 6 months ago from Earth, to work in the stations hydroponics labs. Life on a space station was so different from the home they left behind. Only a couple of hundred million people remained on Earth. There was so much space; they had felt isolated and alone.

Here, however, it was a totally different. Nearly 500,000 people were living in a space station a little over 3 km long. Space was a luxury no one could afford up here. Katherine loved it, though. Everyone seemed to know everyone, the air was clean, work was fulfilling. She would never go back to the way things were.

She gasped in amazement as a wormhole appeared outside, a bright speck in the far distance. The sheer beauty always left her breathless. The small Navy starships were just distinguishable a short distance away. She wondered what they could find interesting about a wormhole. They certainly saw enough of them in their work, surely they were used to them by now.