Epsilon Outi III, also called Samra. Its official designation is Hyrdacos Sector XY-D A9-707 3, a factoid Rendon seemed to have memorized alongside numerous other tidbits of information no one else would care about. Lalsan was subject to many of these details during the ten minute trip to the observation post. Rendon, it seemed, had no filter when it came to the history of Samra. It also seemed he was under the impression that Lalsan knew a good deal about the topic, which could not be further from the truth.

Aside from that, the trip was rather uneventful, as expected. Lalsan instead read the employee roster on his tablet. The roster was separated into two sections: planet-side and station-side. Like Rendon said, there were only 2 others on the planet-side section. The station-side section was more populous, but not by much. Including Rendon himself, there was 7 people on the list. In total, there were 9 station staff. Since his name was not on the list, Lalsan would be the 10th if hired.

Tuning out Rendon’s speech, Lalsan skimmed through the list. For a minor operation located deep within Zarrel space, it was surprisingly diverse. The Zarrel Grand Initiative was the nation that held control over the Epsilon Outi system, and it’s primary and founder species was the Rhidal, reaching almost 70% of the nation’s entire populace, spread throughout thousands of star systems. The operation, surprisingly, had about the same ratio of Rhidal to other species, with 6 out of the 9 members being Rhidal. For what was supposed to be a Galactic Community operation, it was surprisingly homogeneous.

For context, the Galactic Community was the supranational governing body for the entire galaxy. Every space-faring government, with the exception of a scant few, were a part of the Community. The purpose of the Community was to foster understanding and maintain peace and order throughout the galaxy. To achieve this purpose, the Community would pass laws that all the members must follow, or be subject to sanctions also passed by the Community. In other words, it was a very hands-off galactic government, a government that had so many citizens that even a species with a trillion members would make up less than 1% of the Community’s population.

Although there were more than a trillion Rhidal in the galaxy, there certainly weren’t so many that the ratio would be skewed so heavily. Even if it was located in Zarrel space, it was still a Community operation, so it should stand to reason that the pool of applicants would be from the entirety of the Community. There should be no reason why the majority of employees were Rhidal. And yet, they were.

Suddenly, a thought entered Lalsan’s mind. He had applied to the position without much thought, only looking at the job description. He had not investigated the primitive planet nor its people. He knew they were called Samrans, after the planet, but nothing outside of that. With a quick Galnet search, he found a page about the species. The first thing that caught his eye was the image of the species, and it all clicked into place. As stated by the article itself, the Samrans were remarkably similar to Rhidal in appearance, having next to no physical features that Lalsan would call “uncanny”. At a glance, they were practically indistinguishable from Rhidal.

Curiosity piqued, Lalsan read further. The Samrans had much the same biology as pre-genetic manipulation Rhidal, and were once believed to be of the same genetic line. This theory was later disproven, and was instead ruled as a case of parallel evolution, with the two species having no common ancestor. Though a most fascinating topic, there have been multiple cases of parallel evolution with other species. For example, the Raxxuim Empire and the Xaelixh Confederacy have nearly identical founder species, but there was no evidence pointing to any genetic relation. In fact, they had evolved on opposite sides of the galaxy, almost as far away from each other as physically possible. There was apparently quite the confusion when they first met each other.

Although this case was not unique, it did garner quite an interest. According to the article, the Grand Initiative’s observation post over the planet was the largest and most populous in the entire nation. It would seem that anyone with an interest in observing the Samrans chose the research observation post, rather than the Community’s police station. Lalsan suppressed a laugh, observing how he chose the most unpopular job on the most popular primitive planet.

“Dropping out of supercruise now.” Rendon said, louder than before, snapping Lalsan from his readings.

Lalsan sat up in his chair and buckled his seatbelt. Ahead, outside the cockpit, was an orbital station rapidly increasing in size. Rendon pressed a button on his console and the ship shuddered as it dropped from supercruise and space unfolded itself back to normal. Lalsan’s stomach churned as the ship shook, not used to the shaking that usually came with the exit from supercruise. He had shelled out the extra money for a stability upgrade for his own ship and had gone long enough without that horrid vibration to forget to prepare himself.

“Hey, do you, ugh, have a vomit bag?” Lalsan tried to cover his mouth, but had forgotten that his helmet was in the way.

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“Oh, uh, there’s one on the back of your seat, should be around the neck area.” Rendon’s head flicked between the cockpit and Lalsan.

Lalsan fumbled around a bit before finding the bag. “Thanks.” He groaned out before ripping off his helmet and dry heaving into the bag.

It took a moment for him to regain control of his unruly stomach. Sighing in relief, he dropped the empty bag on his lap and reattached his helmet.

“You okay?” Rendon asked.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine now. I’m just used to supercruise stabilizers is all.” Lalsan groaned.

“Docking Request: Accepted.” The flight computer intoned.

“Sorry about that.” Rendon replied, pulling the throttle to zero.

“Autodock: Initiated.” The flight computer reported.

“It’s fine. I forgot since I’ve been so long without one.” Lalsan assured him.

“Don’t know why they don’t come standard. They aren’t even that expensive of an upgrade. But since they don’t come standard, the committee doesn’t pay for them.”

“Don’t worry, I understand. I won’t blame anyone for my weak stomach.”

“You going to be alright?”

“Yeah. I’ll be good after walking around a bit.”

“Landing complete. Welcome to Samra Policing Station, commander.” The flight computer reported.

The ship jolted as the landing gear touched down on the pad. While the two had been talking, the flight computer had landed the ship. Lalsan released his seatbelt and took a deep breath before standing. His stomach had already began to settle down. Rendon was also rising from the commander’s chair.

“I’ll put the ship into the garage and then we can go.” Rendon said, pressing a few buttons on his left console to interact with the interface that was being displayed on his helmet.

There was another jolt of motion and a hiss of large hydraulics, and the ship began to sink into the station floor. More accurately, the landing pad was the one that was being lowered. Underneath the landing pad level was the garage floor. The landing pad slid along rails for a short period of time, making room for a different landing pad to move up and take the place of the one they had landed on. In the meantime, the two had moved to the landing airlock, which would take them to the stairs on the landing struts.

“By the way, if I get hired, will I need to bring my ship here, or will the main station hold it?” Lalsan asked as the airlock cycled.

“We have garages here, but they’re only so big. What ship do you fly?” Rendon responded.

“A Phantom Mk. IV.”

“A Hakesien? That’s a great ship. Wish they paid us enough to afford one.” Rendon laughed.

“It’s great, I love it.”

“I’m sure. Unfortunately, we only have a few medium-sized landing pads, and the only one we have open is the emergency one…”

“That’s a shame.”

The airlock hissed open, blasting cool, cold air into the pair’s faces. They walked down the integrated stairs of the landing gear as they continued their conversation.

“Thankfully, we do have some reserved garages back at the system outpost. We can’t park at the proper observation station – it’s always full.” Rendon shook his head in dismay.

“It’s that popular?” Lalsan tilted his head in confusion.

“It is. The overlap between people who want to work with pre-ftl civilizations and who want to make sure the rules are broken is… pretty small.”

“It’s a pretty common stereotype that pre-ftl researchers want to become gods of the civilizations they’re researching. I suppose the data supports that assumption.”

“Oh, they’re not all like that. Many of them are, but those that are don’t have any important positions, thankfully.”

“Make your job harder, no?”

Rendon laughed heartily. “That it would!”

While they were talking, the two had approached a door positioned on the wall behind the ship. The doors opened automatically to reveal a rather cramped hallway. Rendon guided him through as they continued their small talk. They entered an elevator and took a quick trip to the left, sending them to the ‘bottom’ of the station. While the directions were a bit hard to keep track of due to the use of gravity manipulation technology, the best way to describe it was that they had landed on the ‘wall’ of the station and were now headed to the ‘floor’.

Before they reached the floor, the gravity in the elevator turned off, allowing the two to reorient themselves to the direction of the new gravitational direction. Once they did, the gravity kicked back in, causing them to now be standing on what was once the wall. Seconds later, the elevator dinged and they had arrived on their floor. The doors opened to a humble lounge area, with what seemed to be a bar at the far end. No one else was in the room.

“Now, the team’s pretty small, so although I still make the decision on hiring, we thought it best you meet the rest of the team first. We’re all supposed to be working closely after all.” Rendon explained as they stepped out from the elevator.

“Well, now I’m nervous,” Lalsan joked. “I really hope I don’t make just one person hate me.”

“Haha! Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. There’s not a lot of room on the station, so take a seat somewhere and we’ll have a group meeting. Don’t worry too much about it and just be yourself. I’ll be right back with the rest of the team.”

With that, Rendon separated from Lalsan, heading off behind a door close to the bar area. Lalsan looked around for a moment before choosing a seat close to the windows. He gazed out at the dock, noticing the distinct lack of activity compared to the system outpost they were just at. The silence was so much more pervasive compared to that station. It was so empty and lifeless in this place that there was dust on the table next to his chair.

Epsilon Outi wasn’t an extremely active system. There were no active settlements in the system aside from Samra. There weren’t any grand mining operations, nor any large research outposts. For the most part, it was a completely unremarkable system – a part of the background that no one chooses as their home. As he pondered this idea, a thought rose up from within his heart.

Maybe here, I can disappear…