Six mostly uncomfortable hours later, a thunderclap reverberated through the Esperanto.

Blyyn froze in position, having been about to pick up one of the cards the Terran had dealt her in trying to teach her a game.

Munto had been helping, but the game followed a strange kind of logic.

The thunderclap seemed to startle Rix and Blyyn and Rix all but threw down his cards and raced for the command deck. He was out of the room and down the hall as Blyyn started to loosen her feathers enough to want to follow.

By the time she made her way to the command deck, feeling ridiculous and needing to do something about this void suit, even it was stripping it off at risk of becoming ill, Rix appeared to be quickly toggling buttons and checking various panels.

“What was that?” Blyyn asked.

“Jumpspace exit. It’s not usually that loud, but I’ve never used Pack mode before. I’ll have to make sure we didn’t damage anything,” Rix said, Munto translating it rapid-fire for Blyyn.

‘Just because it is worth mentioning, it does appear that we brought the station with us.’

Rix and Blyyn looked out the windows and saw that the station was indeed there.

Or at least most of it.

Almost instantly, the signs of atmospheric leaks and major structural damage was becoming obvious.

Rix, with Munto’s help, disconnected from the station and took a moment to orbit it before redocking.

The station was only half there and what was there was damaged to such a degree that even a well outfitted repair crew would have had a tough time putting it back together.

“Looks like a broken chie nut,” mumbled Rix when they’d gotten a little distance and Munto started playing the scanners over the station.

Munto noted how saddened Blyyn looked. If Rix noticed, he didn’t say anything.

“As much as I hate to ask, but is there anything we can salvage?” Rix asked, taking a moment to carefully flash the rune ‘practicality/survival’.

Neither Blyyn nor Munto responded, Munto focused on watching Blyyn, but having fully heard the Terran’s question and just not responding yet.

Blyyn had looked over for long enough to see the rune, but had gone back to looking at her station.

But then, it wasn’t really hers was it. Not anymore. She’d abandoned her duty. She’d begged the Terran to steal it for her so that she’d have something.

No, this wasn’t what she’d wanted at all.

A deep sense of shame and guilt filled her, the excitement of leaving having drained away in the last few hours.

“Will they find us again?” she asked after a while.

“Probably. But we’ve got some time. To them, we’ve been off the map for two and a half days. Long enough that they’ll have started a search, but won’t have any idea on which direction we went. Plus, we’re out in the void, so that makes us extra hard to find,” Rix said, a kind of pain in his voice that Munto recalled when Rix had spoken of the Essentia.

‘Yes, we should be able to salvage something. If we’re able to salvage some of the right equipment, we might be able to make it so that Blyyn can get out of that void suit.’

“Yes please!” Blyyn turned away from the window at the very thought of this.

“Ok, well, then I guess let’s get docked and see what survived. Your living quarters were part of the inner section, so that should still be there,” Rix pointed to the scanned diagram of the half-disintegrated station. “Anything else we should keep an eye out for, Em?”

‘The Esperanto’s atmospheric system needs rebuilt. The station atmospheric system should be comprised of enough smaller units that one of those might suit the Esperanto and we could reclaim some of that space.’

“Or, and this is just a thought, we can see about hooking it up between the inner and outer hull and give ourselves some atmosphere to work in out there. It won’t be much, but it’d at least let one or both of us get out of those suits while we see about salvaging what we can,” Rix shrugged.

Munto looked at the space between the hulls, the various machines that filled it, and the stacks of parts and materials throughout. It wasn’t a terrible idea, but Munto wasn’t certain as to what kind of work the Terran was wanting to attempt here in the middle of the void.

Munto hadn’t really paid attention when they’d left jumpspace, noting only that the nearest stars were 31 light years away and 52 light years away at fast measurement. Of what Munto had downloaded and cross referenced in terms of stellar cartography, neither of the stars had inhabited systems in orbit. This was not an unexpected occurrence, but it definitely took Munto a few moments to get their bearings.

The jump drive had pushed them into the void approximately 8 systems away. Munto needed to know something though.

‘How did you make the calculation for our jump without the additional coordinates?’

“Truth be told, I spun the dial, checked that it wasn’t going to drop us in the middle of a system, and ran with it. But that was before we went into Pack mode, so I had no idea it was going to drop us here,” Rix said.

‘That seems unwisely risky to have not recalculated prior to our jump.’

“Given what the jump did to the station, did you really want to risk it possibly destroying one of your fellow TACITs?” Rix seemed almost amused, but flashed a rune of ‘serious query’.

‘Of course not.’

“Then there you go.”

“Where were we supposed to have ended up?” Blyyn asked. “If I hadn’t asked you to bring my station.”

Munto took a rough guess based on the direction of their jump and the duration, expanded it for the semi-log distance calculation that seemed to best fit the jump drive’s travel distance by time, refined with the 2nd jump now, and mapped it to a screen in the command deck.

‘I believe we would have exited some 0.5 lightyears from GSR-42185. An uninhabited system, but one that is claimed by the Drukvi.’

“I’ve heard stories about them. Never met one thought,” Blyyn said, looking at the map and seeming to realize just how far they’d come in such a short time. “Is that the secret archaeotech? The FTL drive?”

“Archaeotech to you. Hyper advanced for the people of my time,” Rix said, smiling, still careful to keep his teeth hidden.

Blyyn wanted to retort, but some part of her wanted to hold back. It wasn’t the Terran part that was making her hold back. And it wasn’t that she was effectively at his mercy on this ship.

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She thought for a long moment about it.

No, it was because the Terran in front of her, while not technically an elder in terms of chronological age, would have been an elder in any culture she’d ever read about, even fictionally, because of his being stuck in hibernation.

Any being of elder status was one who had wisdom of their times, whether they were elders of their own species or comparatively elders in others, the lifespans of some species being that of mere years to the decades of some species to even the centuries that most TACITs were rumored to live.

In theory, Rix should be something of a… tukith….

“Munto, what does a tukith translate to in Terran? Like in terms of a meaning?” she asked.

‘A tukith is a kind of equal partner typically in business, but also in terms of adjoining houses. There is not an equivalent singular word in Terran. What makes you ask?’

“I’m trying to decide if Rix would agree to being a tukith instead of an elder,” she asked.

Munto considered the dialogs between the two as well as those that Munto had had directly with both organics.

‘I see no reason why he would object. Is there a reason you think he should be considered an elder?’

“It’s his ship for one. I couldn’t manage a ship of this size on my own. I don’t think my feathers could take it. And he’s from over 900 years ago. That means he’s thinking thoughts that nobody has thought for centuries.”

‘I disagree with the latter part of that statement, but I do take your meaning. Rix does have a substantial amount of knowledge from his time period which does not appear in any standard archive.’

“Why not though? I know I asked this before, but where did all the Terrans go and why?”

‘I do not have an answer to any of those questions.’

“Hey, any time you want to cut me in on the conversation?” Rix interjected.

“I’m sorry, Rix. I was wondering if you’d object to being called a tukith,” Blyyn answered and Munto started translating again.

Rix took a moment to check the scroll, where Munto had helpfully pushed the definition of tukith in as close as they could correlate between the two lexicons.

“Um, sure? I mean I don’t see why that would be an issue. I feel like I’m missing some part of what it means,” Rix said, shrugging.

‘Unfortunately the definition and cultural history would take much more than a simple definition to get across. It would be like yourself using the referenced 42 from your lexicon, a number which appears to have significant cultural reference, but for minimally obvious reasons.’

Rix brightened.

“Oh, right!” he said. “I’d be happy to be your, uh, tukiss.”

Blyyn nodded, something she’d noted the Terran did for positive acknowledgment and the two left the command deck.

Once Rix had climbed into a void suit, she had taken a moment to get out of her own to use the relief facilities on the Esperanto, strange as they were, complete with spraying water, and the consumption of a tray of mealworms and a container of water.

She hadn’t realized how hungry or thirsty she had been until she’d nearly dumped the container of water down her beak and nearly dug a hole in her food tray, in search of any errant mealworms.

Rix had proceeded into the space between the two hulls, and been apprising the status of the interior.

“Doesn’t look like we should try to pressurize this. Looks like that sound was jumpspace energy hitting the atmosphere of the leaking station and it got translated to us through the hulls,” he said when she came out, freshly clad in her void suit.

The door to the station was stuck mostly closed until Rix wedged a large metal shaft at an angle and levered.

It wasn’t that it should have surprised Blyyn, but it did. Seeing how quickly Rix had produced the large metal shaft and the practiced ease at which he used it seemed strange to her. She wasn’t certain why.

Her people had developed tools as well, but the way the Terran used this one seemed far less elegant or controlled that what a good Quinn might have used. It wasn’t that it was crude, but rather that it was so… imprecise. Not that it needed to be precise, but there was something in that which still bothered her.

Together, they entered the station through the levered open door.

The docking bay was a mess, the various shelves, contents, loaders, and assorted equipment was clearly tossed around the chamber. Rix pointed to a long cable that led under a pile of boxes.

“I’ll bet that’s our medical field generator,” he said and began digging, tossing the boxes with an almost practiced ease.

It took a three minutes to reach it. The top cover had apparently slammed shut in its journey across the space, protecting the inner parts to some degree.

“I doubt it will work. These are notoriously sensitive,” Blyyn said.

“Won’t know until we try. How about you go see if you can get into your quarters to get some more of your gear,” Rix suggested.

Blyyn nodded again and before she could turn to go, Rix reached out and touched her void suit clad wing.

“Hey. Be careful, partner.”

She nodded again and began a somewhat stiff walk towards her quarters, having to take various detours over and around various equipment that had broken loose, panels which had caved inward or outward, and even support beams which seemed to have carved the space in half.

She reached the space where her life had been centered around for so long.

There wasn’t much there left unruffled. The nest was a mess, the leaves having already started fracturing. And yet, in as much as she had wanted to come back to get something, anything, now that she was standing here, she couldn’t remember why.

Her life as a house-less was unremarkable and while she needed a few hygiene items, which she would take, there was very little that she actually wanted to try and take with.

The more she thought about it, the rixba leaves had probably been of most interest to her. Not the images of her former life or adventures. Not the stories of Quinn soaring on distant worlds. Not even the small collection of painted feathers that she’d accumulated.

Taking the few hygiene items and tucking them into the void suit pockets, she apprised the room a moment longer, before she spun on her back talon and headed off to the command deck, or whatever was left of it.

Due to the various pile of debris and outright open spaces, she had to deviate substantially to head that way. Passing the autofabricator, she was surprised to see something having been printed.

Reaching in, she pulled it out. It was a small flat sheet of some sort. There were markings on it. Nothing she recognized.

She tucked it into a small pocket on the suit and continued.

The command deck, much like the rest of the station, was a wreck. Most of the screen were destroyed, the windows completely gone and the far quarter of the room ripped away as though by a thoughtless giant.

Moving to one of the side panels, she checked for power. It was there, but only barely and on emergency reserves in any case.

She began transferring as much of the station memory onto this panel’s memory systems as she could. It wouldn’t likely be much or be terribly useful, but it would be something. Something to show the proof of the situation if she ever needed it.

It sadly also included all of her communications over the last 18 months, which wasn’t much other than official duties, but it was still proof.

Finishing, she pulled the memory cores and tucked them into the void suit pockets.

She took another look around the broken command deck. This had been where she had been. Where her duty had been. Her now abandoned duty.

Serving aboard a modified Terran station.

She’d asked about that during the card games, but Rix had been oddly silent about it and Munto hadn’t provided any particular explanation. All that Rix had confirmed is that it was a Terran station of the ‘outbox’ variety. Blyyn suspected that it was something to do with the colony that Rix was looking for and that Munto didn’t actually know anything, but had let the matter drop, choosing to discuss her former house as well as explaining the concept of house-less to Rix.

He’d taken it well, likening it to a subsection of ‘Old Terra’ culture which had a similar values structure.

The stories that Rix had of ‘Old Terra’ seemed like strange half-remembered fantasies, but they seemed to make him happy, so Blyyn was happy to listen to his tellings.

Turning from the command deck, she made her way back down to the docking bay, stopping by the food storage to collect what she could of what non-mealworm rations remained. The failing power meant that the stasis fields had died and so the mealworms had died in the vacuum.

She hoped what was left over would still be edible.

The docking bay was a mess of various boxes, with the conspicuous absence of Rix and the medical field generator.

She took this as a sign he was working to get it operational.

Heading back into the Esperanto, she made her way back to the inner hull and inside.

A silvery light greeted her almost immediately and seemed to be almost flowing through the hallways. It was unusual to say the least.

“Munto, what’s going on?”

‘Welcome back. I have been adjusting the settings on the medical field generator. One of the settings is a dynamic area of effect. Using the floor plan of the Esperanto, I have been focused on adjusting it to allow for a maximum of areas affected by it so that you will have sufficient access throughout the vessel.’

“It still works?” she was a bit incredulous.

‘Yes. Not as efficiently with the Esperanto’s power, but yes, it works.’

“Fantastic,” she said and pulled at the suit, taking only a moment to set down the stack of rations. She started opening the pockets to retrieve the memory cores and the strange printed item fell out into her feathers.

“Munto, I found something in the printer. Did you print anything with writing on it?” she asked.

“I do not believe so, but it is not impossible. What was it that you found?” came the mechanical voice of Munto.

“It’s like an old kind of book page, from when Quinn were still just one planet. But I can’t read it.”

Munto’s walking frame trundled up the corridor and turned to look at her, holding out its manipulators.

She held it out and the walking frame took it. Munto felt a kind of shock run through their system in seeing it.

****

**System Terran Message: He is not the last: 0451G-001-042D.

****