The Airlock

The briefing room smelled of recycled air and stale coffee, a familiar tang that clung to every off-world outpost I’d ever visited. But this time, the holo-display flickering in front of me showed something new: a swarm of small craft—hundreds of them—clustered around a cave entrance on a rocky, uncharted moon. The numbers alone were staggering, the largest concentration of ships I’d ever heard of. Most were recognizable designs—sleek scout drones, boxy haulers, the usual fare of human and allied tech. But one stood out, an oddity with curves and angles that hinted at the same tech base, yet refused to fit neatly into any category.


“Agent Kael,” Commander Ruiz said, her voice clipped as she tapped the holo-display, zooming in on the cave. “This is why you’re here. Inside that cave is what we’re calling Shipping Container Number 4. Alien tech, same as the others we’ve found—roughly the size of one of our short containers, parked in an artificially widened cavern. No idea what it does, no idea why it’s surrounded by all these ships. That’s your job.”


I leaned back in my chair, arms crossed, letting the hum of the outpost’s air filters fill the silence. They always brought me in for the weird ones. My psych profile said I was “non-standard,” a polite way of saying I didn’t think like most people. Growing up, I’d had to stretch my mind just to figure out why humans did what they did—turns out, that knack worked just as well on animals, aliens, and AIs. I was their wildcard, the guy who saw patterns where others saw chaos.


“Any theories so far?” I asked, nodding at the holo-display.


Ruiz shrugged. “Best guess? It’s a hub of some kind. Those ships didn’t park themselves there by accident. But we’re not cracking it open until you take a look.”


“Fair enough,” I said, standing. “I’ll need a full kit—sensors, recorders, the works. And coffee. Real coffee, not that synth sludge.”
She smirked. “You’ll get what we’ve got. Good luck, Kael.”


The cave loomed ahead, its jagged mouth swallowing the faint light of the moon’s surface. The ships outside stood silent, a forest of metal husks casting long shadows. My suit hummed as I stepped inside, its sensors pinging data back to the outpost in real time. The container sat dead center, a smooth, matte-black box about ten meters long, its surface unmarred by seams or markings. The cave walls around it were too perfect—laser-cut, not natural.


I circled it slowly, my boots crunching on loose gravel. “You’re a quiet one,” I muttered, tapping my wrist display to start recording. “What’s your story?”


No response, of course. Just the faint hum of my suit’s systems and the steady pulse of quantum-linked sensors feeding data to Ruiz and her team. I spent hours poking around—scanning, prodding, thinking. The ships outside suggested traffic, movement, purpose. The container’s placement screamed “doorway.” By the time I submitted my report, I was sure of it.


“It’s an airlock,” I said over the comms, leaning against the container’s side. “Not for atmosphere, though. It’s a gate. Leads somewhere else—another system, maybe another galaxy. Those ships? They’re either waiting to go through or they came from the other side.”
Ruiz’s voice crackled back, skeptical. “An airlock? You’ve got evidence?”


“Patterns,” I said. “The ships are staged like they’re queuing up. The container’s tech matches nothing we’ve got, but it’s got that same ‘built-for-a-purpose’ vibe as the others we’ve found. Call it a hunch.”


A long pause. Then: “Kael, if you’re right, this changes everything. Command’s offering triple your cumulative earnings to date if you can prove it. Go through, come back, tell us what’s on the other side.”


I grinned inside my helmet. “triple, huh? You’re lucky I’m curious.”


Loading the airlock took half a day. We piled in every autopack we had—compact drones stuffed with supplies: food, tools, spare parts. My suit was top-of-the-line, a self-contained ecosystem recycling air, water, and waste. The quantum sensors were the real prize, though—tied to our network across any distance, theoretically even the other side of the universe. Whatever I saw, they’d see.


“Ready?” Ruiz asked as I stood in front of the container. A faint seam had appeared on its side after I’d triggered it—how, I wasn’t sure, just a mix of instinct and fiddling with its surface.


“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I said, stepping inside. The seam sealed shut behind me, and everything went black.
For a moment, there was nothing—no sound, no light, no sense of motion. Then a jolt, like the universe hiccupped, and I stumbled into… somewhere else.


A vast chamber stretched out before me, its walls glowing with a soft, bioluminescent blue. Towers of alien machinery hummed in the distance, and a swarm of small craft—different from the ones outside the cave—buzzed through the air. A voice boomed, not in my ears but in my skull, synthetic and cold.


“Intruder detected. State your purpose.”


I froze, then raised my hands slowly. “Uh, hi. Name’s Kael. I’m… exploring? Didn’t mean to trespass. What is this place?”


A pause. The voice returned, calmer. “This is Relay Station 7-Kappa, a transit hub for the Concordance. Your entry violates protocol. Identify your origin.”


“Earth,” I said. “Human. We found your airlock—sorry, your gate—and I came through to see what’s up. That’s all.”


Another pause, longer this time. My sensors were going wild, capturing everything. Then the voice spoke again. “Your species is unregistered. Quantum technology detected. This is forbidden under Concordance Law 14-B. Sanctions will apply.”


“Sanctions?” I echoed. “Wait, hold on—what does that mean?”


“Your world will be restricted. Quantum systems will be disabled for one solar cycle. Permitted territories have been assigned. Data will be provided. Depart now.”


Before I could argue, the airlock hummed behind me. I stepped back through, clutching my recordings, and landed back in the cave with a thud.


Ruiz was waiting when I emerged, her face pale as she skimmed the data streaming in. “Kael, what the hell did you do?”


“Met the neighbors,” I said, pulling off my helmet. “They’re not happy. We broke some rule—quantum tech’s a no-no. They’re shutting it down for a year. No quantum computers, no comms. Gave us a rulebook and a map of where we’re allowed to go. Oh, and some tech specs that’ll make your engineers drool.”


She stared at me. “A year? Most of Earth doesn’t even know we’ve got that stuff. The colonies—”


“Will manage,” I cut in. “We’ve got old-school backups. And this—” I tapped my wrist display, grinning. “This is worth it. We just got a peek at the galaxy’s highway system. 2025’s going to be wild.”


Ruiz groaned, but I could see the spark in her eyes. “You’re insane, Kael.”


“Yeah,” I said, heading for the outpost. “But I’m right.”