The gods are your guide.
This is not a metaphor. This is terrifyingly literal. No science or artifice of man can perceive the ever-shifting nature of Poseidon's void at the pace a ship at full burn moves through it.
The galaxy is ancient and even the dark spaces between stars are cluttered. Vast hulks, the amalgamated mass of thousands of wrecked starships caught and blown about by Poseidon's winds move through the stellar void like nightmare planets. Great leviathans, oceanic swarms and creatures that were long ago human fill these impossible ecosystems of the void. Ancient weapons, trading convoys, mega-architecture, or even whole planets have been hurled into the dark to drift amidst clouds of blue-green nebulae.
In ancient days, it was perceived that the universe faced the inevitable death of physics. Natural philosophers proposed the existence of entropy overwhelming a closed system, leading to the stars scattering and burning cold. Such a concern made its way all the way to the Imperial throne where even the leadership allowed themselves to doubt the power of Zeus. It was to be the last time.
Zeus cast forth her hand, and from the galactic core erupted forth a cataclysmic storm. The entire galaxy was blanketed in polychromatic nebulae dust, feeding and renewing the stars, blotting out the heavens, and creating a dark age that lasted five hundred years. Since then space has not been black, and only the most ancient poems refer to it as such. Space is red. Space is gold. Space is veridian and blue and white and lit with the fire of renewed suns. To look upon the void is to look upon the most magnificent vistas painted by a god who had refined sunsets to the finest art back on ancient Gaia and sought now to broaden her palette.
So, through this turbulent space, through the wreckage of humanity's many great and many fallen empires, the boundless works of the natural world, and the eruptions of new stars in the thickest parts of the great clouds of dust, ships dare to travel. They do so with books and charts indicating where the greatest known obstacles are - precious relics, charted by daring explorers and worth fortunes. But there are no scanners that can pierce the storms of dust and energy. There are no sensors that can pick out heat signatures from the flickering ignition-sparks of new stars. A captain who wishes to travel these depths, does their best to stick to a known, charted route no matter how circuitous, for every potential short cut is a potential graveyard. And even within those well known routes, new and terrible dangers can drift as a log falls across a road or a storm cuts short a sea voyage.
To survive these unpredictable dangers of the void then the only forewarning one might gain is through careful prayer and invocation of the gods. Every spacefaring society that tried to do without was rendered extinct and their debris now serves as hazards and reminders for those who do give proper sacrifice.
But even for the favoured the ride is bumpy. The invincible adamantine prows of voidships still clatter and ring with the impact of meteors. Occasionally there are mighty crashes as the arrowlike starships inadvertently ram a large meteor at relativistic speeds. The perfect miracle of materials science renders these sundering collisions merely extremely uncomfortable for those inside rather than the instant death that would be presented to the vessels of a lesser civilization enduring such an impact. In ancient days, ramming a ship at hyperspeed was a dramatic and jaw-dropping gesture. These days it is a trivial reality of astral navigation, no more meaningful than hitting a pothole in the road.
*
Redana!
Though hitting a major asteroid at lightspeed is a mere inconvenience, it is nonetheless an inconvenience. The Plousios has been forced to a halt for some emergency repairs to the prow in the wake of a particularly nasty impact. Coming to a halt in the void of space is a perilous thing, far more dangerous than performing repairs in the relative safety of a charted sun and planet's orbit. There are things alive out here, after all, and the longer you wait the greater the chance that you are rendered into permanent biomass for the ecosystem.
So these repairs are a rush job - but it's still a rush job measured in days. Iskarot the Hermetician is working alongside you and while his initial impression of you was a combination of his natural irritablism mixed with a genuine fear and respect for your Imperial title, the ice has broken a bit as you've worked side by side. And oh, hasn't it been good to spend your days in demanding physical labour? Pain of your injured leg notwithstanding, there's been more than enough work to blot out any other kinds of pain that you might otherwise focus on.
But now you're sitting together on an observation deck after a long morning's work, opening up a packed lunch cooked by Dolce, staring out at the slow-motion collision of two massive dust storms, swirling together the red and white like capillary veins of blood spreading out over a white canvas.
"So, Your Imperial Majesty..." the Hermetician said, tearing the wrapper off his sandwich. "The Plousios. She's in need of fundamental repair and overhaul, far more than this patch work we're doing right now. I suspect the ship spent a considerable amount of time underwater. Of the twenty decks, the bottom eleven are flooded - everything below the hull breach on deck twelve. The waterline is above the reactor, which is a problem because if the water reaches it the steam will flash-boil everyone working in the engine room. I currently have the situation stabilized by angling the grav-plates on decks ten-eleven towards the fore, but that means they can get jostled by direct impacts. I could try to drain it but I suspect that there is a functioning biosphere down there, and we could face a shipwide infestation of angry, hungry migratory giant enemy crabs who are sent looking for a new food source. I have developed a list of other major concerns that need attention, but I can't even begin to assess the damage, inventory our resources, or propose solutions until we've dealt with all of this sea water one way or another."
*
Vasilia and Dolce!
Music is filling the dining hall.
Galnius sits atop a table, plucking at a guitar with soft, mournful notes. The rest of their squad surrounds them, their own instruments set up - accordion, drums, violin, flute - but right now not playing. They're listening as their leader, helmet off to reveal a cascade of sandy, elfin hair that brackets their face as they sing in time with the soft music.
"I came begging to the Ferryman,
For I had no coins to spare.
I'd said spent it first on clothes and dice and whoring,
And last on drink and morphine.
I offered him my dreams in lien,
For wonder'ous memories I had aplenty
I told him first of kings and war and glory
And last of those who'd gone on ahead
I offered him my heart and love
For lovers I had too many
I sang him first of flesh and warmth and kisses
And last of children I'd never known
I came begging to the Ferryman,
For I'd gone to death a pauper.
He smiled and said that I was not the first
But he offered me a kindness at the last.
You come to me with naught but soldier's memories,
Drink from Lethe and you will at last be free."
*
Alexa!
"My gosh! Princess Redana!" said the Assistant Secretary of Fear and Doubt, squishing his tentacles together in delight. "Daughter of Director Nero, you say! She's not quite at the top of the list, but she's easily in the top three things the Eater of Worlds was afraid of. And she procreated! Oh my goodness, I can feel chills running right down my body. I should be taking notes! The most intelligent creature in the galaxy had a child - tell me more about her! What has she invented? What is she thinking about inventing? What kind of thing bothers her?"
The auguries are dark. They're confusing. You've been doing many of the navigation rituals for this journey - what form and method do you use to divine the will of the gods, Alexa? - and the signs of Ares and Athena are overwhelmingly dominant, but also confused and intermixed.
You know already that you're going to your home. The planet Barassidar, the Old Capital, the seat of the Warsage, bloody-handed Emperor Molech who sought to organize all of war according to one great and perfect design.
And distracting you from contemplating your impending doom is this wildly talkative octopus bureaucrat wearing a tricorn hat and flowing robe.
*
Bella!
The Anemoi is making incredible time. The Augurs say that Aphrodite has been uncharacteristically clear in his directions, and they believe that you are likely to arrive before Redana.
It doesn't feel like it. It feels like forever. Whenever the ship is starting to feel silent and still there's a tremble or grinding crash against the hull. The serfs who make their shuffling way through the dark, lightless, soundless rubbery interiors of the vessel are infuriatingly immune to these tremors and shakes - but they are satisfyingly spooked about running into you. The sight of the Praetor suddenly looming into the dim light of their candles always provokes a jump, a yelp, and a craven bow. One of life's few remaining pleasures.
The other major population aboard the ship are the terrifying owl soldiers, the Kaeri. The Kaeri are vicious, secretive and proud - you know that they consider themselves rivals to the Ceronians for the title of greatest soldiers of the Empire, and they've got a chip on their shoulder about it. Captain Lorventi in particular you remember from a feast where she clawed one of Odoacer's noble puppets half to death for insulting the Empress - a trait the Empress found commendable, but politically inconvenient. The other Kaeri call her the Redfeather, a title you gather has some context as a curse or indication of Ares' favour.
She's come calling.
"There is a human aboard this ship," she said, matte black armour moving fluidly about her body, glowing with a artificial orange light in the joints. The organic and the technological blend seamlessly in it - it's a relic, much like her foldable halberd. "Ivory Smile. Priest of Hades, defector from Odoacer. His presence," she clicked her beak, "complicates the chain of command, Praetor. Obviously my soldiers can be trusted, but I cannot be sure of the loyalty of the serfs," or you, "especially if threatened by an agent of a god. If you wish it I will dispose of him."
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