Thousands of lightyears from both the Sol System and Upsilon Andromedae, around a burned-out husk of a red dwarf, a massive tube-shaped construction completed another orbit. Uncountable tiny specs of lights covered it while its dull surface gleamed darkly red from the sun.

It had been moving around the same sun for countless millennia and would likely continue to do so for many more. Nearby hung an equally impressive device. Called a Shipslinger by some, it was the biggest of its kind, and all those smaller ones were mottled after.

A steady stream of, by comparison, tiny-looking ships were moving out of the tube-like construction, lining up in front of the behemoth of a Shipslinger. When a certain number was reached, the Shipslinger's orange rings began pulsating.

The tiny-looking ships moved forward like a cloud of bees, entering the Shipslinger. A burst of orange light followed, and then the ships almost disappeared into tiny specs as they were hurled away at slightly over half the speed of light.

As the Shipslinger's lights dimmed, new ships began to line up to repeat the cycle as they had for the last nearly two thousand years.

Deep within the enormous cylinder-shaped building was a room filled with tiny stars. Anyone with knowledge of it would recognize it as an enormous star map of the surrounding galaxy. Thousands upon thousands of orange squares moved away from the center like an ever-expanding web.

No being of any kind seemed present, but had there been; it might have noticed a single orange square vanish, leaving behind a tiny bleeping light- one of a few dozen.

--

Garrick tapped his finger on the armrest, listening to the soft ticking echo around him. It was the only sound, and he drew a slight bit of comfort from its repetitiveness. A bad habit he'd long since thought he'd lost.

He'd been trying to determine why his X4 implant wasn't working, and there wasn't a single good option. The good options had passed five, fifteen, and thirty minutes ago, being a reboot, a malfunction requiring a reset, or a full reset. Power wasn't the problem either, as it could draw emergency power from him to, at a minimum, show a clock or a status.

No, there were only a few reasons for it still being offline, and none of them made him happy.

It had either been fried, which meant he was going to have brain damage, it had been externally turned off- which was supposedly impossible, or some EMP had caused it to go into a fail safe. The only reasonable one to him was the latter… but if it wasn't online yet, that meant its low-powered semi-boot was still detecting some type of prolonged EMP trouble.

That could also be why he was slowly starting to get a headache- a novelty he'd not experienced in a decade or more.

One thing he had noticed, a surprisingly little tidbit, was that he somehow was pretty sure he knew how much time was passing. If it was the result of having a clock on his screen for his entire life or just his own internal biology picking up the slack, he didn't know, nor did he care.

What he cared about was that he'd been here for at least thirty minutes. That meant, by protocol, he was supposed to break free of whatever was holding now.

Now, he just needed to figure out how.

If this thing was some fail-safe to guard the captain in case of emergency, there has to be a way out, he thought.

He'd used his hands to scout the area of his container and had found that he had barely enough space to stretch his arms. Worse, pulling up his legs was impossible because the thing wrapped around him had his feet and ankles snapped into place. If that was how it was supposed to be, he didn't know.

"If I make it out of this alive, I'm going to have some serious words with the person who came up with that System-AI and this bloody chair," he grunted.

Taking a deep breath, he began methodically scanning every surface he could, from the tight area around his shins to the sides of his chair along his head. He'd wanted to do it right away, but his training had hammered itself deep into his being. Never go out of containment unless signaled or the time frame had gone.

His old instructor would have probably told him he was lucky that he'd only had to wait thirty minutes.

Lucky… yeah…

As he made a second pass, he felt a slight sheen of sweat on his face. They wouldn't have just expected someone to get him free, right?

Then his thinly-gloved fingers ran across it, a slight depression near the left armrest on the material wrapping around him.

"Alright, here we go," he said, prepping himself mentally.

Then he pressed the indent, which proved a mechanical button that needed to be pushed inside nearly as far as his hand could go. There was a rattling followed by a familiar sound that caused his heart to sink.

The explosive hissing of atmosphere dispersing into a vacuum. It lasted for only a moment, then there was absolute silence except for his own breathing and the rustling of his body in his suit.

No atmosphere that makes sense.

Garrick started as the entire front of whatever was around him flipped open like a shell.

"Shit…" he cursed as he looked out at what had been the bridge of one of the most technologically sophisticated ships humanity had to offer.

The wall behind where the screen should have been was ripped away, along with the screen and the entire section of the ship behind it. Debris of twisted metal and large chunks of the graphtanium hull plating floated about outside like they had been paper and cardboard rippled and crumpled by an angry child.

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Watching a single, massive chunk gently float away, Garrick swallowed.

So far, for being near indestructible, he thought, recalling the things he'd learned about the graphene-titanium alloy.

He pushed himself slightly up, making sure to keep a tight grip on his chair and the thick metal pod that had covered it. One look around showed he didn't have to look for survivors among his bridge crew. Although the walls behind him were merely charred and semi-molten, the only sign of another human was a few helmets, semi-crumped and covered with dark brown smudges. The small crusts of ice crystals around the edges glittered in the light coming from the ripped-apart hull. More of the brown, paint-like splatters covered parts of the wall where it hadn't been blasted away.

The exposure to vacuum removed most semblance of blood, but Garrick had seen plenty of similar settings to recognize

Garrick held back a slowly growing worry as he turned back to the hole and searched for a good handhold near the edge. With ease born from decades of experience, he pushed himself up and towards a pipe that had been twisted and mangled beyond recognition. It remained stuck on multiple points and showed no sharp edges.

Even then, he looked only at his target as he floated towards it, making sure the section was clear before latching on. The inside of his gloves was reinforced but thin and only resisted puncturing no more.

The scene below and to the sides were identical to in front of him. A massive mess of debris, some hovering almost still, others drifting ever so slowly through each other.

Peering through it, it took him a few moments to locate the distant Precursor Shipslinger, and whatever tiny hope he might have had vanished. It was as much a torn-asunder mess as his Sibilis was. A dull orange glow came from its center, but it was dulling rapidly, and Garrick knew it wouldn't remain for much longer.

So… we are stuck here, he thought.

As he stared around, his keen eye picking out the distant, smaller debris fields with partial hulls, a sense of weary realization set in.

The explosion of the Precursor Shipslinger had taken out every ship here… The Sibilis had been the only one with a functioning shield when the blast hit, and from what he could see, the side facing the blast had been ripped apart.

I wonder what it was, Garrick thought absently. An explosion of this much force should have blown all the ships hundreds of miles away by now, their debris scattered away.

Turning his attention back to the remains of the Shipslinger, he saw its glow had now become so faint that it was hard to see against the backdrop of the star-filled sky.

Garrick took a deep breath, then let it out explosively.

"Fine, Dasbartin! Enough hanging around! You have air for a few days, no more. Go and find more and see if anyone else was lucky enough to survive. With some luck, that stubborn bastard Macdewil is still here."

Just mentioning Jack Macdewil's name made Garrick want to hurry up. His chief technology officer and best engineer had been with him for over fifteen years across three ships. If anyone could tell him if there was some viable plan to get something back online, it would be him.

He turned away from the destruction, looking at what remained of his bridge. He got his first real look at the metal pod that had saved him from death- a set of clamlike shells that had flipped out of the floor behind his chair. Easily two-foot thick graphtanium, it looked like it had been shot by a continuous stream of laser fire- the surface puckered and slightly molten.

"Atleast it worked like it should," he grunted before scanning the rest of his bridge.

One look told him he'd not find anything useful here.

Time to search for survivors, the thought, ignoring the nagging worry in the back of his mind.

He looked for his next handhold, then pulled himself forward. Te floated into the bridge and towards one of the three doors leading away and into the ship. The automated opening didn't work, not that he'd expected it, and he pulled himself along the door frame to the floor, where he slid open the small panel and pulled the emergency anchor. It took three attempts, the last with his feet against the wall before it would finally open halfway. One look beyond showed the bridge wasn't the only place hit.

The darkened hallway was filled with debris that drifted through in a mangled mess- wall plating having burst open from the stress. It faintly reminded him of an impact he'd seen between two frigates a few years ago, where the ships had looked like cans crushed together.

Garrick moved through the door and slowly pulled him further into the corridor.

"Great, old-world problems," he grunted as he reached up along the sides of his helmets and prayed to whatever god would deal with lonely captains that needed tech to work as he flipped a small switch. A wide, dispersed beam of light flicked on without a hitch, illuminating the hallway.

If not for the long tear in the hull that showed space beyond it or the debris drifting everywhere, it resembled their monthly no-gravity training.

Not that we are going to get any gravity for the foreseeable future, Garrick thought.

It took five minutes till he found the first body.

Logistics, he thought, as he looked at the yellow bordered sleeves and the similar neck that had a single stripe. Most of it was now dull and matted with brown smudges.

Garrick moved closer, flipped over the sleeve ending, and quickly removed one of the borders. As he worked, he tried to ignore the face of the body, trying not to look at the bloated, gray skin covered in icy blisters. Done, he kept the identification token in his hand, wondering what use there was.

Even if we survive, there's never any going back, he thought, looking around.

"Stick to the task," he snapped, echoing the words his first drill sergeant used to shout at them.

He continued on, feeling slightly more hopeful as he found that the closer he came to the engine, the less destruction could be seen. Reaching a crossing, he looked left, then right. The crew quarters first or the engine room?

After a moment's hesitation, he headed to the crew quarters, pulling himself along the handhelds in the walls meant for these situations. He didn't have high hopes for survivors, but if there were any, they would likely need help.

Almost an hour later, he glided back to the intersection, a small bag filled with sleeve tags with him. His face was grim, and a new set of bad memories had been added to those he already had. He knew it was a testament to the skill of his crew that many had been caught halfway to or in the process of getting their combat suits on. One unlucky individual had even managed to succeed in getting his helmet on, likely having beaten all previous records Garrick knew about. Sadly, it hadn't helped him when he was hurled against the wall, and his azure-glass visor had shattered.

"Let's hope Macdewil made it," he muttered to himself as he moved along the dark, familiar corridors.

As he pulled himself around a corner, he frowned. The normally locked door that led into the highly shielded and restricted engineering area was open.

He slowed down as he reached it- wishing his X4 implant was running. Having no way of communicating was going to be another problem.

Pulling himself into the large first room of the engineering area, a tiny flicker appeared in the top left of his vision.

~> Booting interrupted

~> Running in low-power mode

~> DateTime: 4120/11/01 16:12

~> Warnings being loaded: 1%

Finally, Garrick thought.