+++ Jonathan Jones +++

Outer Sector

Hyperspace

En Route to Lubola System

August 9, 327th Cycle

I just passed through what was quite a massive region with high Anti-Matter concentrations. Unfortunately, it delayed me for a few days, as I had to slow down the ship through it.

Fortunately, I was used to extended periods of loneliness and misery anyway. At that moment, I slept, played games, read books, or fixed shit (goddamned maintenance drones! I paid bucks for it!) in order to pass the time. Thankfully, nothing too interesting happened.

And you wouldn't want interesting things happening whenever you were in hyperspace (or real space) anyway. Like a sudden Communard flotilla asking for a "revolutionary tax", or, god forbid, a Pirate wolf pack.

My ship wasn't that bad, to be honest. Sure, it wouldn't survive any engagement should I get caught with bad luck, but it wasn't like I had any other option but to hide and run anyway. That was my style of life here. Run and hide.

Union patrol? Go dark, turn off the damned transponder, and hide in an asteroid field till they pass through. Pirates? Emergency burn to the other way. Angry Communards looking for some revolutionary glory? Copy and paste the previous methodology.

So far, it worked, and I expected it to work easily. The Reaper-Class Corvette was fast—one of the fastest League-scouting corvettes. Most of all, its fuel efficiency and storage allowed it to operate independently, though, I definitely wouldn't be hauling myself to the furthest corners of this desolate Sector with just this.

The only downside was the utter lack of weapon mounts present on this ship. It was a tradeoff, and that was just reality in ship designs. This thing didn't have much in terms of vents to vent off heat from its subsystems. Thus, if some wanker kept my shields up for long enough, and kept my four forward-facing turrets firing, I could easily overheat the powerplant and the ship’s reactor.

And again this thing didn't have many hard points. The four that existed on the modular mounts of this ship could only carry light weapons. Thus, I only installed Licht PD Lasers on it. It could crap on some fighters, corvettes, or civilian ships (though it does have the capacity to go overdrive for some proper anti-ship action—though, its components could easily breakdown in such settings), but it wouldn't do much (except aid me while outrunning missiles and fighters).

Quite frankly, if a low-tech frigate from, shall we say, the FEG (like a Roen-Class) decided to chase my arse (perhaps I smuggled drugs again in Chanza or something, and got detected), it'd just fire a few salvos of light coilgun slugs, overheat my powerplant (thus forcing me to lower shields) and crap on my exposed hull with missiles. I wouldn't stand a chance!

Thus, my mantra. Fight bad—running good. Like some true lowlife of this hopeless sector, a newbie bottom feeder would not have many options. I had already dabbled in many illegal activities since I escaped Loran just to keep this rustbucket of a hull going, so there was no other choice.

I really do hope Lubola contains something good at least.

Now, about the Outer Sector, after the First and Second Revolutionary Wars, it had long been abandoned. Especially during the First Revolutionary War, when the Avantian Revolution almost overran the Federal Emergency Government seventy years after the Link-Gates died—which was when the 8th Fleet of the Federation (stuck in this sector) declared a sector-wide martial law three hundred twenty-seven years ago and became the dominant force of the Sagittarius Sector.

Much of the Outer Sector had to be abandoned due to the sheer devastation of the First Revolutionary War. Then after that, the Sagittarius Union (and dozens of worlds that declared independence) rebelled from the FEG, and with the help of Stable Dynamics' AI fleets (because the FEG wanted them to purge their AI tech, and Stable Dynamics didn't want that, thus leading to war), they cemented the collapse of human civilization in the Outer Sector in the Second Revolutionary War and also devastated much of the Inner Sector. That was only thirty years ago.

Just a look outside made me sigh. It was a dead void. Only the desperate ventured here, as the Outer Sector was filled with horrors and dangers beyond the control of all governments left in this Sector. But there was always something lucrative that awaited those who did.

Lubola would be the first system outside of the Inner Sector that I would visit. First steps into the Outer Sector, I guess. And that was as true as anything. This was my first time venturing out here, and as I looked at the empty and silent void of hyperspace, I felt both a cold chill and that silent voice excited for the opportunity that awaited me.

Though…if I were being honest with myself, this was nothing but suicide. I guess I had been driven so far to desperation and aimlessness at this point. Perhaps Lubola would be good though. Perhaps there would be some good loot to haul. Perhaps an abandoned space station, mining station, or orbital dock works to check and loot.

Perhaps even data chips that contained long-forgotten blueprints of technologies we use but do not understand. It always sold exorbitantly well, for no one understood the advanced technologies of the Federation three hundred years ago.

If it weren't for the blueprints left behind, this sector would be in the dark ages. And worse of all, almost all of these blueprints were hard to decipher. You only followed the manuals, and plugged it into the appropriate Industrial 3D Printers, or else it would self-terminate. No reproduction, no copying. I suppose the old megacorporations of the Federation wanted a death grip on technology. Stable Dynamics would come into the mind nowadays as an example.

It was a dwindling finite commodity. Thus, it always sold well. I hoped I would find some.

Didn't change a thing really. If anything bad happened, it would be the end of me. This, I believe, would be the greatest gamble that I ever did. Die or survive, I suppose…not that it mattered. I had nothing to leave behind but my ship and my corpse.

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Soon, I finally reached Lubola System. I made a conscious choice to pick the jump point close to the outer edges of the system, as I wanted to avoid any crappy business.

"SYS, send a probe please," I said, as I checked the other subsystems of my ship. I was already looking straight to the jump point, a massive hole in hyperspace after my ship’s FTL Drives expanded it a bit. I didn't understand the physics behind it—and I doubt that anyone does in this day and age. All you had to know was that when you go through it with the FTL NAV Drives on (parts also produced by long-forgotten tech—thank god for the blueprints) you either emerged in real space (if you came from hyperspace) or hyperspace (if you came from real space).

The tiny probe was soon launched from my ship and drifted straight into the jump point. Gravitational fluctuations from star systems (and even planetary bodies) created these tears in hyperspace, which meant once a real object drifted into it, it would emerge in real space. You needed an FTL Drive to enter hyperspace through these "jump points", but you only needed to drift into these "jump points" to emerge in real space. It made sense, hyperspace was strange, and matter disliked being in it.

Seems like no contacts. I told myself, as the probe returned its findings. Should be quite safe. Not that the probe would know much about anything a few more AUs away. Still, I shouldn't be ambushed by anything once I jumped.

The transponder was already off too, so I gave SYS the order to shut down non-essential systems and reduce the reactor's power generation down to fifty percent. Time to go dark.

Lubola…she was beautiful. A yellow dwarf reminiscent of Old Earth's Sol…or at least, according to what the history books said about the original homeworld of humanity. I wouldn't know though, if Sol was in the Orion Spur, or if it even existed. Many records of the Federation had been censored, wiped out, or distorted. I remember laughing back when I was schooled in Loran at how inconsistent the old tales of humanity were. History…it was far too distant.

Just like the rest of the old Federation. Or the rest of humanity for that matter. It was too lonely and devoid of life here, yet it was magnificent nonetheless. I wondered briefly about what used to be in Lubola. A few mining outposts and a colony that once mined volatile compounds—that was all the scarce records that I had found about it before going here.

"SYS, got any interesting data?" I asked, and the dumb AI replied at once. Debris field, a few AUs away. Quite interesting, not that I had any heavy equipment in the cargo bay to check. But perhaps there were some derelicts if I was lucky. I plotted the course and set off.

It took almost two hours, and I suppose I took the chance to plan out my next move before my ship arrived in the debris field. It must have been the site of a battle, there were abandoned escape pods and cargo pods everywhere. Broken pieces of metals, ship parts, and the like—it would have been dangerous if not for the artificial magnetic fields around my ship that kept them from colliding.

Damn…they really went down hard. It was a Gallant-Class Destroyer. Popular in the Union Navy, and always used by medium-sized patrols or for fleet escort. The wreck drifted lazily, and I could see massive gaping holes through its hull. This must have been their expedition. I moved my ship forward, and there were more destroyed ships.

I shuddered at one of them. A Forlorn-Class Assault Cruiser, its triangular hull cut in half, yet it still followed each other. It was as dead as a rock, its AM fuel stores must have gone nuclear during the battle. Whatever took them down, they made a mistake when they decided to fight whatever it was.

Why am I not running yet? I asked myself, as my ship passed through another drifting Union frigate, just as dead as the others. There's nothing here.

A ping sounded. I checked the transmission. Garbled and unrecognizable, it almost sounded like a strange distress signal.

"SYS, can you analyze that?"

"On it."

I sat back in my seat as I turned my ship in the direction of the pings. It was intensifying. And it drove me nuts. Survivors perhaps? Did they leave some of their crew alone after the battle? The pings were intensifying, and the garbles were becoming recognizable.

"SYS, isolate that signal!"

"Id*nti** y*ur***f. Y**r tr***po**ers are ***. Who are you?"

What the hell is that? A woman?

"Fix that signal, SYS."

"Stay back, spacefarer. You have no business here. Stay back. You are not supposed to be here."

What the…she sounds weird? Was that human? It sounded right, but wrong at the same time. Who the hell is this?

I looked down at what was in front of my Corvette. The screen feeds locked on it—a singular circular object. There were bluish lines through it, and the pings were coming from it.

I took my microphone.

"Identify yourself. Are you…that thing?"

"Please, just leave. This place is dangerous."

"I want to know, is that you?" The thing…what the hell was it? Why was it drifting like that in space? Did it contain a human? "Identify yourself."

"Why wouldn't you leave?"

"I didn't go here just to leave." This was far too interesting to pass by. "What…are…you? Why are you broadcasting those signals?"

"I…fine, please, help me then if you insist on being here. Help me reunite with my form."

"What? Again, what the hell are you?"

"I won't tell you until then."

The hell?! This gal wanted me to help her first before introducing herself. I half wanted to blast whatever it was with my PD Lasers, but that would be stupid. Still, why would I help it? For all I knew…

"I can't trust you."

"Neither can I."

What did I get myself into? She was sounding desperate now. Was she perhaps calling for something—help, that didn't arrive?

"You wouldn't do something strange…right?"

"You can blast me if you willed it."

"So we both have to trust each other?"

"I…I trust you."

"Are you human?"

"I trust you."

I frowned. Dodging questions like that…she was…or it…it was suspicious. But, damn it. My selfish instincts told me that perhaps I could sell this thing back into civilized space. If it was an advanced AI Core, those nutjobs in Stable Dynamics should cash in quite the killing for me if I took it back there. But…but something gnawed back into my mind.

Help her. I needed to help her.

"Fine, I trust you too."