It appeared that whatever sort of jump that Rix had orchestrated, it was just enough.

Munto carefully eyed the space around them and did what they could to keep the jump drive ready and the systems topped up as Rix and Blyyn salvaged what they could of the station with Munto’s walking frame.

Blyyn had started by pointing to the blue panel and lever. The writing wasn’t one that Rix could read, but he recognized the format.

With further inspection, it turned out that the outpost station was very old, but not as old as Rix. Despite Rix’s familiarity with the design, it being apparently very similar to the normal TSC outposts, it appeared to be labeled with an entirely different lexicon in the few places that the labels still remained.

Munto asked what this meant to Rix.

“It means it wasn’t part of the colony at least. Maybe a research station or even just a stellar watch station. They weren’t common in my time, but they did exist in a few of the station-only systems. Mostly just as a kind of a lifeboat or ranger station, so that you’re at least not too alone,” Rix said in response.

“But why are these markings blue?” Munto finally asked.

Rix blinked at the walking frame as though it were ridiculously obvious.

“What…. What if, that’s the emergency color. It makes sense in a way,” Rix said, eyes slightly glazed as he stared intently at the panel.

“What do you mean?” Blyyn asked.

“There’s a kind of… genetic problem some Terrans have. Problems with mixing two parts of the spectrum. Sometimes it’s worse and it’s full-blown colorblind. I don’t know if Quinn have anything similar where they maybe mix up two parts of what you can see,” Rix looked at Blyyn.

Blyyn looked thoughtful for a moment.

“I know I’ve heard of chicks who require treatment while very young to prevent certain maladies from impacting their development and lives as adults, but nothing in particular to that,” she replied.

“Well, in my time, it wasn’t fixable. Green-red colorblindness was actually very common on certain worlds. Not something they were particularly proud of, but you have to learn to work around such things and since not everyone comes from prime or colony world with proper education structures, you fall back to the basics.”

“You mean that this was perhaps a means of correcting for green-red colorblindness?” Munto prompted.

It did make sense. At the same time however, it made Munto question how and why it had been introduced to TACITs and why their sensor spectrum had been tweaked to have issues with the colors in question.

“Maybe. Just a guess. None of the ships I was ever on had anything like that, so it’s a guess as much as anything. It’d fit though,” Rix shrugged, the suit moving up and down.

The station itself held very little in the way of secrets otherwise. The trinary computing systems were hardwired into the station, but were of barebones functionality, even to Munto.

Munto was able to guess at the station’s age based solely on the few timestamps the various softwares had - ~800 years old. Which, given normal circumstances, would have been considered extraordinary if it had been examined sooner. At least to Munto.

On the few worlds that Munto had located ruins, very often they were in shambles and barely recognizable. This station had still been in active service to a mostly different species, atmosphere not withstanding.

Munto tried to recall the oldest station they had ever visited. It wasn’t a common practice to log such memories, so Munto had to think hard through their various station-side visits, even aboard TACIT constructions.

Strangely, none of them came to Munto’s mind as being ‘old’. Not in the same way.

The Matrices were updated almost constantly. The Manufactories were fully refurbished every 50 years, ensuring the latest technologies supporting the TACITs continued to do so without fail. The various species’ stations were often no greater than three or four hundred years old, with that being on the far outside of what Munto could guess about in themselves.

Still, Munto was able to talk to the station at this deeper level now and did what they could to plumb every corner for information or materials to be collected. However, as the station’s emergency power was little more than a trickle, there wasn’t too much that could be done. Especially in terms of relaying Munto’s self between the Esperanto and the walking frame.

Some various odds and ends left over by Quinn of years past had tumbled out and while Blyyn had explained their meanings to Rix and Munto, she apparently had no interest in keeping any of it.

The autofabricator was what Munto wanted to bring onboard, but knew from the size and the power requirements that it would be impossible to operate it while in jumpspace, but since it would be almost impossible to mount it into the Esperanto, the discussion was moot.

They had reclaimed the other portable printer with all of the various recipes and templates that Munto had pre-loaded on it. It wasn’t much, but it would be a good supplement.

Munto looked around the Esperanto, trying to figure out where to put extra equipment. It was almost exhausting trying to think of how to help care for two organics, especially aboard a practically antique vessel like the Esperanto.

The cargo bay caught Munto’s roving search and they paused.

“Rix,” Munto prompted.

“Yeah, Em?” Rix looked up from the pile of crates he was sorting through to look at the walking frame.

“What’s in the cargo bay? Could we use that?” Munto asked.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“NO!” Rix shouted.

Blyyn wanted to cover her hearing, but couldn’t in the void suit, the Terran’s voice thunderingly loud over the communication system.

Rix took a moment and realized how he had reacted.

“No, we can’t. That has to remain sealed until we’re somewhere safe,” he said, much quieter this time.

“I thought you went in there to look for firmware information,” Munto replied, evenly, registering the Terran’s complaint, but trying to let it pass, having felt even the process in the far back of their mind shrink away at the power of the outburst.

“There’s a crate back there, next to the door. General tools and all. One of the kids on a different vessel wanted to bring it along, but their weights were already accounted for. I was strictly cargo, so a little extra didn’t matter too much to recalculate,” Rix said. “It’s his.”

Munto didn’t press the subject and allowed the Terran and Quinn to continue their search through the various piles of the station.

It didn’t take long for Munto to come up with another idea.

“How critical is the design of the Esperanto?” they asked.

“What crazy idea are you dreaming up, Em?” Rix seemed amused at the question.

“Could we not build out the Esperanto slightly to give ourselves additional space?” Munto asked.

“I doubt it. Last I checked, you still weren’t sure about the shielding the inner hull has,” Rix reminded Munto.

“And I still do not have a firm understanding of what the material structure is,” Munto admitted.

“And if we can’t access it in jumpspace, it won’t do us much good. Even if we were to strap it to the hull, there’s a chance it wouldn’t be there on the other end. Just see what taking an unshielded station through a short jump managed.”

Munto did have to admit, the shielding was important. They still weren’t sure what jumpspace was. It seemed to be endless void, devoid of gravity, gasses, and any form of detectable light or natural physics. In short, it was something that shouldn’t be capable of existing.

At least… according to conventional knowledge.

The Terran was a well of archaeo-wisdom. It was possible that he knew what jumpspace was or perhaps how the mechanism worked.

“What is jumpspace?” Blyyn helpfully asked while Munto was reflecting.

“Not exactly sure. All I really know is that it’s faster than what we used to have. Still ran into issues with time dilation, but it was better than it used to be,” Rix shrugged.

“Time dilation? Is that common in FTL travel?” Blyyn had never traveled more than a few minutes at FTL speeds, so it was news to her in either case.

“Not by FTL systems used by the Quinn. By the systems described and logged by Terrans of Rix’s time, it was much more common,” Munto interjected.

“It was nice though – being able to collect pay for the realtime, not FTL time was always a winner,” Rix smiled.

“So you were able to work substantially less than your equivalent because of time dilation?” Blyyn seemed confused.

“You’ve got it. Or at least that’s the joke. In truth, because of that, pay rates for pilots were pretty low. You made out pretty well in the end, but you spend a lot of time in FTL trying to making it back up,” Rix admitted.

“Did you spend a substantial amount of time in FTL?” Munto asked.

“I did my share,” Rix said. “So did a lot of folks. It tended to balance out.”

“How old are you biologically, both including and excluding FTL transits?” Munto pressed.

Rix stopped searching and stood still for a moment.

“I don’t actually know what it works out to being. A decade or two worth difference at a guess,” he eventually settled on.

Munto didn’t comment, but considered just how much time the Terran must have spent in the void, not including the long hibernation.

“You owned your own vessel?” Blyyn asked, bringing back up the Essentia from their prior jumpspace trip.

“I did. Free and clear, except the mandatory government use license. A bit annoying to keep up with, but compared to what it could have been, I didn’t mind it much. And they never bothered me to need it,” Rix smiled again.

“Why would they need it?” Blyyn continued.

“In case of an emergency or an invasion, all ships in a given local area automatically have to cede control to the local military authority,” Rix recited from memory.

“Why would there be an invasion?”

“Hmmm… well, it’s a little hard to explain. Terrans are a bit… uh… territorial and that kind of instinct extends to other Terrans, resources, and various intangibles. Terrans used to fight. A lot. The stories of Old Terra tells of countless wars between Terrans,” Rix took a moment to try and process how best to explain it to the Quinn.

Blyyn for her part took it well, but looked thoroughly disgusted (Munto helpfully flashing the equivalent rune in Rix’s helmet).

“Why would your people be so… distasteful in that?”

“We grew up in a universe with no one else. We were simply on our own and it’s what we came up with naturally. It’s because of that we even reached the void in the first place,” Rix locked his gaze on Blyyn, who half-way froze under the stare.

“But… are you not a cooperative species?” she asked, feeling her feathers starting to fluff involuntarily.

“Yes, but we are also very competitive and it is the combination of the two that led to such conflicts,” Rix finished his gaze and turned back to look at the overall space. “I think we’ve gotten everything we’ve come for. Unless there’s something else.”

“I cannot picture anything, but it would be advisable for us to prepare some meals for standby before we re-enter jumpspace,” Blyyn said, feeling better about the lack of predatory eyes on her.

“I will begin queuing several meals which can be kept at standard temperatures but covered for a reasonable length of time without risk of illness,” Munto said.

--

Rix had only just finished tapping in the coordinates to the jump drive and begun calculations for their jump when Munto saw the flashes of FTL transits.

“Rix, Blyyn. I believe we have been found. Do we wish to attempt to communicate at all?” Munto asked.

Rix and Blyyn looked at each other on the command deck, nodded as one and stared out of the front window.

“Nope. But they’re welcome to watch us wave goodbye,” Rix said, waving one hand at the window.

Blyyn imitated the motion, but felt silly in doing so.

And with the click of a switch, the universe and all the stars went out.

--

There was no rumble of transit back into realspace this time.

It was the sudden lack of a hum that the trio had gotten used to hearing that let them know.

Munto was already looking through the sensors as Blyyn and Rix headed to the command deck.

Munto froze, locked in staring at what couldn’t be real.

The mass of materials didn’t seem to be a ship, but that’s what it had to be. It was… well, there was no other word for it – it was terrifying. Even with as oversized as the Esperanto was for its nominal one person crew, the vessel which hung in the void near the white dwarf was disturbingly large.

Munto was transfixed by it. The vessel appeared to be in perfect station-keeping with the star, no small feat for such a vessel.

Munto began to scan it as best they could at this distance.

The returns sent processes to faltering.

The vessel was equipped with so many weapons of varying kinds that Munto couldn’t begin to identify what half of them did or what would happen if they were activated. The energy readings alone from the vessel, even slightly masked by the star, were still tremendous, speaking of fusion systems that must have been several times the size of the Esperanto.

Rix and Blyyn reached the command deck and Rix’s face broke into a grin.

“It’s a cruiser,” Rix said in an almost whispered tone.

Munto remembered and brought up the diagrams still stashed away from their much earlier forays into the TSC database. It was a match, allowing for a fairly substantial number of differences.

“I agree. No other species on record has built vessels of such magnitude,” Munto said.

“Is that a Terran ship?” Blyyn asked, the awe in her voice more than obvious.

‘In a manner of speaking,’ scrolled the text across a panel.

“Em?” Rix asked, suddenly nervous.

“It’s not me,” Munto said, and looked through the communications systems, seeing a strange new thread running through it, but unable to terminate it.

‘Welcome to my system. Please dock and allow me to meet you before you continue your journey,’ the text continued.

“Who are you?” Rix asked.

‘I am TACIT Prometheus.’