Free Epic of Aravinda 1: The Truth Beyond the Sky by Andrew M. Crusoe

ring shape far above him. He’d never noticed it before because they seemed to be in the exact center of the huge ring. Yet, as he watched, he realized that this wasn’t quite accurate, either. They were moving forward, beyond the ring, at some speed. However, the ring was so large that it was difficult to judge how fast they were going.
    “Whoa.”
    “I suspect that we exited through this gate, and that we can use it to continue onward, as well.” Oonak paused. “Excellent. Navika has just located what appears to be a control panel on the ring, similar to what we found on Avani’s South Pole. We are heading there now.”
    The sensation of flying through space in a partly transparent ship was even more unsettling than flying over the ocean. Without feeling anything, he saw the edge of the ring grow closer and closer.
    Zahn looked down and instantly wished he hadn’t. The floor was still transparent, and now, instead of seeming to stand on thin air, he appeared to be standing on nothing at all. Below his feet was a vast array of tens of thousands of stars, and he decided to sit cross-legged on the bench once more.
    When they reached the edge of the ring, Zahn noticed another control panel with a row of glowing circles, and by now he was certain that the circles symbolized planets since there were the same amount of them as there were planets in the Kuvela system. Even Rodhas, the most distant planet, was indicated as a dim red orb. Most of the planets were.
    Since the first gate indicated Avani as a green orb, Zahn guessed that the dim red color meant there were no gates on most of the worlds, and this disappointed him. As an observer, he would have loved to visit Rodhas in person.
    In stark contrast to this, Avani’s green indicator was outlined in a warm starburst shape with golden threads coming off of the starburst. These threads connected to a golden band of light that led far above him and around the entire gate, creating a faint golden ring.
    Just above the planet symbols, he noticed a white point of light and smaller points above it. Zahn guessed this symbolized his sun, Kuvela-Dipa, in relation to nearby stars.
    “This control panel is quite similar to the one on Avani,” Oonak said. “It would appear that we can indeed use this gate to travel beyond your star. Do you see the strange markings below the panel? Those are the same ancient numbers that the first gate used. If my understanding of the number system is correct, we are currently at gate 3.3.2, 71.11.23, 000.”
    “Three zeroes at the end. What could that mean?” Zahn said.
    “I hypothesize that we are at a gate which serves as the center node for many other gates, and I suspect the way these addresses work will become more clear as we see more of them. Once we understand the addressing system, we can plot a direct path to the Confederation Council.”
    “So what do we do now, Oon? We can’t touch the control panel. It’s out there in a vacuum, and I just realized I haven’t seen any space suits in this ship at all.”
    “We take the next logical step, Zahn. We listen, and then we knock.” Oonak looked ahead. “Navika, scan for any energy signatures radiating off of the control panel itself and theorize about possible methods of communication.”
    A voice surrounded them, coming from everywhere.
    “No signals are being emitted from the control panel itself,” Navika said.
    Zahn looked down below the bench again, which appeared to be resting on nothing more than a faint dusting of stars.
    “However,” Navika said, “the gate is radiating a faint gravity wave from the center of the ring. It’s possible this wave could contain information. Analyzing. Oh, how elegant.”
    “Have you found a signal, Navika?” Zahn said.
    “A rather universal one, in fact. The gravity wave is creating a pattern of pulses that appear to be cycling through prime numbers. I would hypothesize that this gate network was explicitly designed to be relatively