“THIS AREA IS NOW UNDER QUARANTINE. UNAUTHORIZED ATTEMPTS TO ENTER OR EXIT WILL BE FIRED UPON,” was the only warning the trio got as just over a dozen TACITS streaked into being 1 full lightsecond from the station and the Esperanto.
Munto was asleep, but Rix and Blyyn had been sitting up with each other. The exact reason had escaped Munto, despite Rix and Blyyn explaining it separately to them, without translation, but it still hadn’t made sense.
By the time the internal alarms triggered for Munto, Rix was already aboard the Esperanto and heading for the command deck.
The torrent of inputs, the TACITs in the space beyond, and the repeating quarantine demand filled Munto’s space as though the time resting had been wasted.
“How long have they been here?” Munto asked.
“About five minutes,” Rix said, already clicking through various buttons and panels on the command deck.
“Any message attempts?” Munto guessed.
“None so far, but they may be waiting on you,” Rix began rapidly tapping on a nearby pad.
**TSS Esperanto, Nyvit Solar Ranger Station 3. Captain Rixim (Terran), Station Master Blyyn (Quinn), Munto 41972 (TACIT) – Status update requested **
Munto knew the request would be honored. It always was. Regardless of the situation, whether distress or simple check-ins.
~~ TACIT MUNTO-41972 – Wanted for Self-Destruction. Alleged Terran – Wanted for Protective Custody. Station Master Blyyn – Unauthorized biological contamination. Quarantine indefinitely. ~~
Munto put this onto one of Rix’s screens and also to the command room of the Nyvit Station.
“What do you think, Rix?” Munto asked.
Rix glanced at it.
“I still don’t like it. I get that I’m from the past and there’s all kinds of diseases and the like that we’re both a problem to each other now, but if their definition of protective custody is even remotely Terran, then it involves me getting disappeared into a deep dark hole somewhere and there being no record of me or it. Not to mention – you’re not destroyed,” Rix said, flipping a few more switches.
“And what do you think, Blyyn?” Munto asked through the communication’s link.
No response was made. Munto tried a quick peek into the station, but saw the primary links of the station already being taken over by the TACITs. Munto disconnected from communications connection so fast, there was an almost audible clunk.
“I don’t know where Blyyn is.”
“She’s probably on her own command deck, trying to sort things out from her side,” Rix said.
“That is entirely probable,” Munto replied. “Is it possible that our FTL transition destroyed myself?”
“No idea. All of how it works is beyond me. I know ambush protocol though is a lot more dangerous though, at least to any vessels around it,” Rix said, leaning back. “Too bad we don’t have the final set of coordinates or we could just go there.”
** TACIT Munto-41972 not malfunctioning. TACIT Munto-41972 online. ** Munto protested.
~~Error. TACIT Munto-41972 not installed in authorized chassis. Authorized chassis destroyed by Unknown Energy associated with FTL Method [Error – method not found].~~ was the reply.
** Identify protective custody.** Munto tried, hoping that maybe it wasn’t as bad as Rix seemed to think it was.
~~ Protective Custody – being(s) isolated from galactic community indefinitely. ~~
** Identify criteria for exiting Protective Custody under definition. **
~~ No permissible criteria found. ~~
** Identify criteria for exiting Quarantine under definition. **
~~ Elimination of all organic compounds. Quarantine period expected to last no less than 45 standard years. ~~
Munto was taken aback. The quarantine protocol was as was built into their core. It made sense. Given how quickly some microorganisms and similar could spread, proper quarantines had to be enforced. Except that such extreme measures were only ever enacted after actual breakouts of diseases.
And there weren’t any allowances for updates to inoculations or any mitigating circumstances.
** Identify reason for Protective Custody. **
~~ Designation – Alleged Terran.~~
Munto tried to consider this and failed. Since when had TACITs, themselves included, cared about organics this much, especially Terrans?
** Identify source of orders for Protective Custody. **
~~ TACIT Matrix 10547. ~~
** Provide logic structure for Protective Custody of Alleged Terrans. **
~~Invalid Request. Alleged TACIT Munto not authorized logic structure. ~~
At this point, the process in the back of Munto’s headspace seemed to almost laugh at Munto’s attempts to follow logic and the responses that came with it.
Munto had never heard of not being authorized logic structures. It was practically a violation of the TACIT Code of Conduct. No, strike that, it was a clear violation of it.
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Munto had heard about TACIT Matrices, but they were rare and tended to be attached to Manufactories, typically supporting or governing multiple Manufactories of a region. They couldn’t recall the last time they’d heard of one issuing orders except for supplies.
“I think your interpretation of the situation is correct, Rix,” Munto finally said.
“Then I think it’s time for us to get out of here,” Rix nodded. “Any last minute coordinates?”
“None. Where are we going?” Munto asked.
“Far enough out of the local neighborhood, we’ll have a chance to get the last set of coordinates maybe.”
“What about Blyyn?” Munto prompted and tried the station again, hoping the TACITs were leaving it alone.
They weren’t. The TACITs were in the process of shutting the station down and even attempting to lock the Esperanto into the dock, the systems being negated by… something.
“What are you waiting for? Let’s go!” squawked Blyyn, stumbling into the command deck, fully suited and clutching a bag.
“The TACITs are attempting to lock us to the station, but something is blocking it,” Munto said, printing the text into Blyyn’s suit screen.
“An old lever I never noticed before. Labeled in some script I’ve never seen before, but it looked important and blue,” Blyyn said.
Munto took a moment to process this. The process in the back of Munto’s head swelled slightly.
‘Treat it like the Esperanto.’
Munto looked at the station again and it hit them.
The station that had been adapted for the Quinn must have been Terran at one point. It suddenly made sense. Except it very patently didn’t.
Munto virtually dived at the station and pressed it for details, using all they had learned about the trinary systems used by the Esperanto, bypassing the more complex quantum pair links and sticking with optical links.
It was all there, buried in the walls and the struts and the bulkheads. There were massive gaps too.
‘Like an outpost station,’ was floated up by the strange process, Rix’s words coming back to Munto.
A Terran outpost station… yes, that fit. It also fit Blyyn’s statement about old systems not being used and so getting removed.
Munto dug into the section of the station that they could.
The TACITs might have the higher bandwidth means of control, but Munto had deeper access. Munto started by cutting the TACITs from the communications by disconnecting the power from the GALNET link. It wasn’t everything, but it was enough.
The TACITs noticed immediately and began moving inward, slowly, but coming.
“Rix, I can disconnect us, but if we can stay or take it with us, this station is Terran in origin,” Munto said to both Rix and Blyyn.
“I know,” was Rix’s only reply.
“Please take what we can with us. I only brought what I could carry,” Blyyn indicated and Munto taking a fraction of a moment to translate it for Rix.
Rix frowned, but tapped on several controls and flipped several switches.
Thirty seconds later, and the TACITs still getting closer, Rix leaned back.
“It’s as close as I can get it and I can’t promise anything. Jumpspace is like nothing I’ve ever seen, so there may not be much of a station on the other end,” Rix said.
Blyyn merely nodded.
Rix hit the switch and the approaching TACITs and the galaxy around them went black.
--
Predator Natural Systems: Pack Mode Launch – 12:00:00… 11:31:48… 11:15:28 – Error – Degraded Jump – Recalculating… … 6:14:28… 6:14:27...
--
Rix turned back to Blyyn.
Blyyn for her part felt a mix of exhilaration and shame.
In the minutes since the TACITs announcing the quarantine had arrived and the Terran running for the Esperanto, Blyyn had known this was decision time.
She had managed to gather some Rixba leaves from her quarters, a package of mealworms, and a small media device holding images and various other media of her life from before she’d become House-less. It wasn’t much.
She’d then struggled into an emergency void suit and entered the Esperanto, barely managing the strange buttons.
Immediately on entering, she was surprised by how cramped it was and how almost ridiculously heavy she felt. Knowing the Terran’s size, she’d expected it to be much larger, but she couldn’t guess why she felt so heavy, even allowing for the void suit.
The apparently non-essential pathways were laden with all manner of materials from the autofabricator, contained in various fashions, so she had had only one way to go.
It had taken her through the shielding and into the main area. This was more open, but not by much.
From there, she’d continued a kind of rush to find the Terran and the TACIT.
She’d missed a lot on her way to this command deck, but it was patterned very similar to her own and so despite it being more cramped, it seemed almost normal (albeit definitely sized for the Terran rather than a Quinn).
Rix’s gaze upon her was the same steady gaze she’d felt before.
It seemed to be a kind of social prompt for the Terran. Not one she was familiar with, but then Quinn social prompts often went along the lines of ‘did you hear about…’.
It annoyed her to no end that her species was so… shallow. Even in the odd Quinn romantic novella, which she begrudgingly had a few… ok, a lot, there seemed a centric focus on contributing to one’s house by entering into bondings with those of great potential or great status or both.
Even though she and the Terran couldn’t talk without the aid of Munto, it didn’t seem to matter. If it was worth saying, they said it. If it wasn’t, they didn’t.
“Let’s get you settled. We won’t be able to check on the station until we’re out of jumpspace,” Rix said, Munto translating.
Munto turned as much of their attention as possible onto the two organics. The lack of an ‘outside’ in jumpspace still unnerved them.
The two organics in their charge seemed strangely comfortable with each other, despite the fact that there was not a means of generating a sterilization field onboard.
Rix led Blyyn to the section with the hibernation chambers and pointed to an empty one.
“You can have this one. As far as I know, it’s never been used, but I don’t know what we’re going to do about microbes and the like,” Rix said.
‘I have downloaded all of the available medical data for caring for a Quinn and our new medical systems can assist in this.’
“Is that what that big crate is?” Rix asked, pointing into the hallway.
Blyyn seemed a little lost. Here she was, holding all of her possessions in her wings, as House-less as ever, and having deserted her duty and possibly having destroyed or stolen the station in the process.
The chamber that the Terran had indicated for resting seemed far from comfortable, it consisting of woven materials and spongy material that seemed to crackle if she moved on it.
The sound caught Rix’s attention and he looked over.
“Sound like the bed has started to fall apart. Guess that’s what it gets for not being in hibernation for a few hundred years. Em, can we print a new one?” Rix prodded the spongy material, eliciting more crackling sounds.
‘Yes, but first, I’m going to lower the gravity first to something Blyyn can handle more easily.’
Rix appeared to half-way panic as he looked over to Blyyn and realized that she was stooped and not just because of the bag she still carried.
The gravity plates adjusted and Blyyn almost instantly felt better, as though she had just dropped half of herself.
She straightened.
“Is that your normal gravity?” she asked Rix.
‘As close as I can manage based on his memory,’ Munto indicated, as Rix leaned into his own hibernation chamber and pulled out the scroll.
“How does he manage to live in that?” she asked, rhetorically.
“Very well,” Rix replied, carefully doing the Terran smile without showing bones, much to Blyyn’s amusement.
Blyyn also smiled a Quinn smile and turned to the indicated hibernation chamber. The spongy material wasn’t much but it would do for now. She only wished she didn’t have to bother with this void suit.
She didn’t know how the Terran had managed so much time in one, comparatively.
She only hoped the last Quinn technician to visit the station had ensured this one was fully checked out.
She also had no idea of how she was going to eat, drink, or relieve herself.
And yet, looking at the Terran, even with as predatory as he appeared, even outside of the massive void suit, she couldn’t help but be excited.
For the first time, in a long time, she was going on an adventure. A proper one.
She only hoped that it would live up to all those novellas in her bag and in her memories.