An intricate dance had started behind the scenes at the scoutship program when the Tsla’o asked for help. The program - and the rest of the Confederation - would love to get a look at Tsla’o waveride technology. Therein came the problem of actually getting access to those drives. So when presented with a request for help finding suitable planets for the Tsla’o Empire’s sudden and massive humanitarian crisis, they struck a deal.

The Tsla’o would provide the waveriders and part of the build cost, they get whatever that ship finds. The program would provide a pilot since the Tsla’o pilots would not interface with the AIs. They wouldn’t give up one of their good, proven pilots, though. There was a long list of rejected applicants who were capable enough.

Alex Sorenson was one of these pilots. The problem they had with him was almost insignificant. So small that the whole of the rest of his scores almost overwhelmed it. Unfortunately, it was still very important to the people who set up the criteria for acceptance into the program.

It was projected that if he were given the right motivation, he would act impulsively. This was not ideal for someone who was going to be piloting a ship worth something in the neighborhood of three billion dCred into space that hadn’t been fully charted.

But the Tsla’o had picked up more than half of the cost of building the Kshlavo. Once the program had gotten their peek at the drives, two or three generations more advanced than what Humanity currently had, what they wanted was done. They had no problem handing it over to someone who would, as an example, step through an alien portal because it felt like the right thing to do at that moment.

By the time his boots hit the hard floor on the other side of the portal, Alex was reasonably sure that was not the best of his ideas. Pain stabbed through his chest, knocking the wind out of him. He staggered and fought for air, as though his lungs were unwilling to work for entirely too long.

That gave him time to really notice the nuances of the pain. It burned and rather felt like something was attempting to pry his ribcage apart from the inside. He fell to his knees and scraped at the chest plate of his suit with a gloved hand, his lungs finally pulling in cool air. He started asking for help in a not so polite manner before he noticed the audio connection to Carbon was off. Perfect.

Alex turned and looked, still clutching at his sternum. Carbon stood there on the other side looking stunned. Not what either of them had expected, apparently. That was something. She snapped out of it and stepped through, one hand already reaching for him as the pain faded down to something manageable.

Now it was Carbon’s turn. He caught the trailing end of a wheeze as their audio reconnected, then a grunt as she wrapped an arm around her chest and set her hand on his helmet to support herself.

“Give it a second. Goes away.” Alex waved a hand, still panting.

Carbon hissed something in Tsla, staring through him as her eyes dilated.

“Exactly.” He patted her hand and waited for her to even out.

It was a few moments before she straightened up, still rubbing at her chest plate. “The... What was that?”

“Don’t know. Not yet, anyway.” Alex slid a handheld scanner out of its cradle on his thigh, the screen lighting up as he flipped it open. He picked through the menu for medical scanning and turned it on himself, waving it over his chest. “Oh, well. That’s normal, right?”

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He held the scanner up for Carbon to see, a green holographic snapshot of his ribcage with a red sliver sitting on top of his sternum.

“That is not normal. Is it?”

“I’ve never had a little chunk of metal embedded in my chest, no. Can’t say I like it.” He cleared the scanner and waved it at Carbon, getting nothing through several layers of shields and armor. “You have medical in that thing?”

“Yes.” She tilted her head and frowned, “I have received one as well.”

“Perfect.” He stood and stretched, thumbing through the scanner’s menu again. “Same atmosphere in here as out there. Same everything, but with more biological material. Dust, pollen, mold, bacteria...”

“That is unsurprising.” She turned and looked at the portal, another snippet of Tsla escaping her in low tones. It had frosted over again, leaving them stuck there. The arch was different on this side. No symbols, just two rings of pale blue dots surrounding a bar turning at a lazy pace.

“Looks like a clock.” The outer ring had thirty dots, the inner another twelve. As they stood there watching it, one of the inner dots disappeared.

“It appears to be a timer.” She said, sounding thoroughly annoyed.

“So it does.” The scanner in his hand chirped, and he checked it. “Uh. Ran detailed scans on the bacteria, you know, Humans have a pretty rough history with bacteria. Bacillus and Agromyces are present.”

“Yes, Bacteria are always-” She stopped herself as she realized what he’d actually said, “your scanner recognizes the bacteria in the air?”

“Looks like there’s a form of yeast, too. I wish I had better equipment for this.”

Carbon produced a startled grunt. “There are several types of bacteria present from Schon, as well.”

“Beneficial?”

“I believe so, nothing is flagged as dangerous in my systems.”

“Great, same here.” Alex hit the switch that unlatched his faceplate and it flipped up, his helmet retracting and stowing itself away over his shoulder blades. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, a beatific smile on his face. “Ahh, grass. Been a long time since I smelled that.”

Carbon sputtered, arms flailing. “Do not do that! There is- We do not know what is here!”

Alex shrugged and wandered out into the knee-high grass, waving the scanner over his shoulder. “Both yours and mine says it’s clean out here. Besides, this is some nice air.”

She growled and followed him out, squinting in the sun. She shouted at him over the comm using her authoritative voice. “I did not authorize you to do that! Put your helmet back on now.”

“Authorize me? I’m not one of your underlings.” Alex grinned, amused and just a little annoyed at her tone as he scanned the horizon.

Carbon didn’t slow down. “It is dangerous, there are too many unknowns yet. We do not even know who created this gateway.”

“Yeah, about that. Do you see any other signs of life here? I mean, a city or something? A tether, aircraft, smoke from a fire?” He twisted and took a harder look around them, shaking his head as worry crossed his face. There should have been something other than a little hut in the middle of a field.

“I- Hn.” She ran out of steam when she saw his expression, her eyes focusing on the horizon as well. “There is something wrong...”

Alex nodded in agreement, the worry turning to confusion and then shock. He sat down in the grass hard, disbelieving what he was seeing. The horizon curved upwards, away from them in all directions. “Oh my god. We’re inside.”