Comets of Omen: The Presser Arc

The era of exploration was well underway. Humankind pushed Gateway devices to nearby stars at sub-light speed in order to extend the reach of the Worm Pipe communication and transit system. Once in place, Earth served as the center hub of chains of Gateways that permitted starships to jump from solar system to solar system into the depths of the unknown. So many Gateways were in motion that new solar systems opened frequently, but without much fanfare.

But there were shrewd and greedy eyes that watched for each new discovery. The Triad, Earth’s military fleet and soldiers who policed the growing human empire, was quick to visit habitable worlds to assess alien threats. The Worm Pipes could serve as a highway to invasion.

The commodity markets watched space exploration with a mix of excitement and dread. While new planets offered opportunity for rare treasures, a new planet could flood the human empire with goods. A hard-won crop on an older world could go worthless overnight if the terraforming factories of a new world produced a glut of the same crop.

For Triad command and commodity tsars, the instantaneous communications with the entire human race through the Gateways was critical. The information for defense and trade gave the wealthy and powerful time to act before the true impact of a new world was realized.

The bounty and profit of the Worm Pipe worlds was about to be disturbed. A race that lived based on a prefect vision of the future was found by the Triad on the frontier world of Frobe. As one man sought to harness the alien vision to make the Gateway communications obsolete, a warrior race received a prophecy of exodus to the human empire.