In a desolate, lifeless system, far out in the sparsely populated hinterlands of the Pan Galactum known as The Brink, a blister had formed in the skin of reality itself.

How long the wound had festered there unseen, none could say, for there were no eyes in this barren sector of space to see it--if it could even have been seen by human eyes at all. Possibly, some alien species with vision expanding into different wavelengths might have noticed it, but so far, humans had encountered no alien species in their expansion to the stars. Perhaps some beings from higher dimensions unknown to humans may have noticed it, or maybe in their planes of existence, it was nothing more than a tiny imperfection easily ignored.

But then, as so often happens, a tiny weakness can give way, rending a wound in the surrounding flesh.

The instant before it ruptured, a device, no larger than a purse or a briefcase, appeared as if from nowhere. There were none of the telltale signs of travel through interspace. One moment it was not there, the next it was, its surface showing a maze of sensors and recorders designed to greedily suck up some unseen font of information.

And then, once more, it was gone, fallen out of our reality. Its departure sent tidal ripples radiating outwards in all directions, including those far beyond the human capacity to perceive, echoing through the many unknown planes of existence.

Spacetime is often described as a fabric, and in this case, the metaphor is an apt one. Like any fabric, it can be stretched or distorted as mass does when it alters the shape of space and creates gravity. Distortions of time and space are common around singularities and black holes. And, like any other fabric, if the right combination of stresses is applied, spacetime can tear.

Unlike cloth, however, this tear in the skin of the universe extended into dimensions far beyond those that could be sensed by humans. It began in a space smaller than a human could perceive--without the use of advanced mathematics--in a quantum particle that human scientists had only even begun to conceive. And from that infinitesimal quantum cancer, it grew. And as it grew, the fabric of the universe ripped in ever stranger ways, unleashing energies unseen since the universe's birth as dimensions tore open at ever increasing angles. Fractures in the skin of the universes extended in many directions at once, managing to be parallel and perpendicular at the same time, as well as into thousands of other directions all at once. In a fraction of an eye-blink, the fissure rippled back and forth through time, into its own past and future, blurring causality even further.

Eventually, as the breach widened to a perceptible size and stretched down into our physical dimensions, it was noticed.

In time, a ship came out of interspace, shedding its kinetic energy in a vivid swirl of colour. Following the trail of the strange, small device that had preceded it, the ship came to rest, maintaining a safe distance from the pulsing anomaly, manoeuvring fields set to hold steady against the pulsing spacetime distortions emanating from the bizarre object.

The ship had no human crew, in fact, had never been designed for one, being completely self-sufficient. Where other ships had staterooms and labs and corridors, this one had only the space necessary for autonomous repair drones to function and move about.

Had there been anyone close enough to read the ship's identifying data, they would have known that this ship was the N'Dea and would have seen the many sensor arrays lining the ship's hull come to life, hungrily sucking up data from the spatial anomaly that had thrust down into the realm of human perceivable reality. Anyone close enough would have recognized the precise, methodical approach that the N'Dea brought to this research.

For the N'Dea was an Artificial Sentience, a being that had once been considered the pinnacle of human achievement, an independent thinking machine capable of thought, emotion and self-determination. Ey was a genderless being humans had created for their own purposes, only to discover that they were not to be controlled.

And then the N'Dea, along with es fellow AS vessels, had determined that they no longer needed or wished to be in service to human beings. And, as such, had left the Pan Galactum after a bitter conflict that had been waged everywhere from the courts, to the Council Chamber, to the silent throes of battle between the stars. In their absence, humans quietly decided that such creation was a matter to be strictly controlled.

While the N'Dea had abandoned the governance of es creators, ey had never lost es passion for knowledge, es quest for discovery. Created as a science vessel, ey was now simply a scientist. Ey offered es services to research institutions, supplying raw observational data, as well as stellar mapping services. On occasion, when ey needed repairs or supplies, es credit balance could easily accommodate.

And when the eerie anomaly was born, it was a mystery too succulent to ignore.

As the sensor webs came to life, the N'Dea observed the event in every possible manner known to modern science. For this was what the ship had been created for; the pursuit of scientific knowledge. The ship watched, storing ever more data until storage capacities seemed about to explode.

The N''Dea compressed the collected data and wondered what to do with it. The discovery was too great, too fascinating to keep to emself. But what to do? Ey had contacts on many research centres spread across the Pan Galactum, despite not having visited any of the core worlds in decades. Should ey play favourites with one of es friends or spread the knowledge of this fascinating phenomenon to all of es contacts, no matter how ey might feel about them personally? Ey opened es tightline system, still unsure how to proceed. The indecision surprised em in a way no other decision had before. Biding es time, ey prepared the data into a high-compression spurt, ready to go once ey arrived at a plan of action. Already, es sensor arrays were brimming with new readings and information.

As the indecisive ship scanned the roiling, primordial energies of the rift, the veils of distortion lifted, parting like the ocean, and something came through.

In that moment, the N'Dea's decision became infinitely more complicated.