Date Point: November 10y11m2w AV
Mrwrki Station, Unnamed System, Deep space
Kirk
“Okay. Von Neumann Colony-In-A-Can, third test… And we’re sure that bug in the navigation code is worked out?”
“Dude, if this one does a moth impression into the sun again, I’ll have the factory print me a hat just so I can eat it.”
“Good enough for me…boot it.”
Lieutenant-Colonel Nadeau just could not sit still at times like these, but humans were like that in Kirk’s experience. Even the aggressively sedentary Lewis was fidgeting in his seat as the mark three Coltainer woke itself up and ran through its startup sequence.
Nadeau, however, prowled. It was entirely the appropriate word, a kind of intense stalking routine that saw him circle from workstation to workstation as the experiment unfolded, keeping himself apprised of every nuance of it.
Kirk, as always, found that he was an eerie monument to stillness in a sea of fidgeting and it was a slight mystery to him why that should be. Not why he should be so calm, but why the humans were so nervous. As the previous experiment had rather conclusively demonstrated, even a total catastrophic failure was no great setback.
But, they took everything about the project personally. He’d even heard them describe it as their “baby”, and as was so often the case he was given occasion to reflect on the deep insights into human psychology that a seemingly innocuous turn of phrase could offer.
“Okay… CIC-3 boot sequence complete… She’s running NAVTHINK.”
Stellar navigation was a prerequisite technology for even being an interstellar civilization, and the humans like every other species before them had readily managed to adapt their algorithms to work in any system and not just their native star. Planetary survey software, however, was a different matter.
Humans had, so far, manually surveyed every planet they found. Of course they had done so via remote instruments and an assortment of deep space probes and wheeled rovers, using photographs and radar imagery, but all of the actual assessment had been conducted by a skilled human mind. The coltainers, however, would have to be automated, and while the Dominion had long since mastered the art of automated survey the humans didn’t trust anything Dominion-made. And so they were reinventing the interstellar equivalent of the wheel by programming new survey software from first principles.
They weren’t doing so completely from scratch at least—they were at least referencing the Dominion software and borrowing its parameters—but they were still re-climbing a well-trodden mountain as if they were the very first, like ignoring the carefully cut steps and handrails in favor of scaling the untackled cliffs with rope and pitons.
Working out the basics of that software had been CIC-1’s job. They had manually orbited it over a nearby world and ran the survey by hand, which also served as a test of the instruments.
CIC-2’s objective had then been a test of the device’s ability to navigate under its own power and start exploring system bodies for potential colony sites of its own initiative. Unfortunately it had failed to correctly identify the local star as being a star and the control room had watched despondently as it powered merrily into the unnamed red giant’s coronasphere at three kilolights.
Lewis had summed it up perfectly: “Woops.”
CIC-3 was hopefully smarter than its predecessor, and as Kirk watched he saw all the humans relax. Lewis’ fidgeting stopped, Lee stopped bouncing his leg, Nadeau’s prowling slowed and he stood up straighter. Kirk watched the device’s icon traverse the system and alight around the first planet.
“It’s running GEOSURVEY.”
“Yeah, we need to add habitable zone and atmo prerequisites, but for testing purposes…”
“Right.”
“I take it the test is going well?” Kirk asked as Nadeau ambled past him with his hands behind his back.
“Well, it hasn’t blown up yet…” Nadeau joked wryly, which was a sure sign that he was in a good mood.
“I am impressed.”
“…Kirk, sometimes it’s hard to tell if you’re being sarcastic.”
“No, I am sincere,” Kirk spread all four arms openly. “To my knowledge, nobody has tried to re-invent these tools in thousands of years. Even the Corti adopted the technology of the extant interstellar civilization when they arose. As did my people, the Guvnurag, the Gaoians…”
“And us,” Nadeau pointed out. “We’ve sanitized the hell outta them, but I don’t think any of our strategic lords and masters are going to feel totally comfortable until every system and every bit and byte flowing through those systems was designed by us.”
“This project will have ramifications far beyond the Colonies-In-A-Can.”
“That’s the idea.” Nadeau glanced over to where Lewis was ‘dude’-ing and casually swearing his way through enthusing about the device’s smooth orbital insertion. “We’re performing more R&D here than just the coltainers.”
He cleared his throat. “Actually.. About the coltainers…”
“Yes?” Kirk knew where this was going, but he waited politely regardless.
“They, uh, the whole project does kinda need those Guvnurag force fields…”
“Vedregnenug is considering the request,” Kirk replied, evenly.
“He’s been considering it for months.”
“Yes.”
“Sorry, but that seems, um… That seems like it’d be enough time. To me.”
“Really?” Kirk loooked down at Nadeau from great height, using every one of his many meters to his advantage. Humans really didn’t like that, he’d found: something in their instincts got apologetic and deferential when altitude was involved. “And what is it that you think he’s considering?”
“Well… whether to give them to us, right?”
“Ah. No. No, he has passed that stage of his deliberations,” Kirk corrected him. “He is wrestling with a rather more difficult problem now.”
“Which is?”
“He is an exile, and the upper ranks of his government are most certainly riddled with Hierarchy agents. Now, you might in theory be able to rescue a more… intense and fractious species like the Gaoians from such a predicament, but you must understand that Vedreg is by Guvnurag standards a decisive leader who goes with his gut.”
“…Really?” Nadeau asked, weakly.
“By their standards,” Kirk nodded gravely.
“…Wow.”
“Yes. You can see therefore that the problem was never persuading him that you need them, but is instead going to lie in… extracting them from the Confederacy.” Kirk cleared his throat and made a confession. “In fact, I myself had to resort to theft.”
“…You did, eh?”
“Yes. Time was of the essence. A more diplomatic approach would only have resulted in Cimbrean being swarmed by the Hunters. In this case, however, you have time.”
“The plan is to reverse-engineer them and build our own, Kirk. That’ll take time as well,” Nadeau said. “We can’t trust anything the Hierarchy might have touched.”
“Can you not? I dare say if the Hierarchy could disrupt those shields then Earth would have burned years ago.”
“Better safe than sorry.”
Kirk considered him thoughtfully. “…I have a rule,” he said, at length.
“Oh?”
“Yes. I never tell a human that something is impossible. You have a vexing propensity for proving me wrong. I will therefore only tell you that it is…” He paused and chose his words carefully, “exceedingly unlikely that you will successfully reverse-engineer those forcefields.”
“Anything they can do, we can do,” Nadeau declared confidently.
“Then allow me to revise my statement to: it is exceedingly unlikely that you will reverse-engineer those forcefields soon enough. While I admire the human talent for cognitive acrobatics, the Guvnurag have several advantages.”
“Such as?”
Kirk shifted his weight and his head swayed on the end of his long neck as he considered his reply. “…Tell me, Lieutenant-Colonel. Who is the scientist you most admire?”
“Huh? Um…“ Nadeau touched his jaw thoughtfully. “…Probably… Darwin, I guess. Why?”
“Newton? Einstein?”
“Sure. Great men.”
“Indeed. One an obsc ure Swiss patent clerk who completely re-wrote human understanding of the nature of space and time, the other an English eccentric-”
“He stuck a needle in his eye and was obsessed with alchemy.”
“As I said, an eccentric,” Kirk cleared his throat, “who nevertheless invented a whole new mathematical language which has become the new benchmark for sapience in Dominion law, and used it to describe the behaviour of the planets and stars.”
“Okay…?” Nadeau’s tone was polite but made it clear he really hoped Kirk would get to the point soon.
“Among the Guvnurag, those achievements belong to a single individual.”
“…No shit? Wow.”
Kirk shook his head gravely, a slow and impressive gesture on any Rrrrtk. “As I said, advantages. Shadarvanag passed away at the extraordinarily ripe old age of…” He tilted his head back and calculated. “…yes, about three hundred and forty-two, in Earth years. She had the luxury of time on her side, and a Guvnurag with time on her side who is left to think in peace…”
“Kirk, sorry, I think you’re rambling…”
“My rambling is relevant. Guvnurag can live three times as long as a human, and have the patience and psychology to ruminate on a problem for years. Combine that with the fact that their civilization developed the warp drive before yours had properly begun to make iron tools…”
“So you’re saying they’re so far ahead of us, we don’t know how far ahead of us they are,” Nadeau summarized.
“Sufficiently so that I fear you will have no choice but to rely on their system forcefield design rather than research your own.” Kirk shrugged, for Nadeau’s benefit: It was an awkward and complicated gesture with four arms. “But, as I said. I think that if the Hierarchy had compromised those things, we would not be having this conversation.”
Nadeau looked at the unfolding experiment again. “…Annoying.”
Kirk made an inquisitive noise.
“…Your spymaster network must have reported in about that, uh, altercation with the Alliance warmaster by now, eh?”
“Indeed. Both sides are so completely intimidated that the peace should last for a year or two.”
“That’s us. We kick ass, we turn the galaxy on its head, we burn the rulebook and write a new one, and it still turns out we’re way behind. That’s… frustrating.”
“It’s terrifying,” Kirk told him, candidly. “I’m as staunch an ally as your species has, but please do not think that you do not scare me, Lieutenant-Colonel. The people who welcome change are the ones who should be most afraid of it.”
“How d’you figure that?”
“Because they are the ones who have to make it a change for the better.”
Sergeant Lee stood up before Nadeau could reply and joined them. “Good news. CIC-3 seems to be a complete success,” he reported.
“Excellent. We’ll test her the whole week just to be sure, but I think we can let Lewis get back to working with Campbell on the PODCAST.”
“They’ll both be happy about that.” Lee hesitated. “…Actually, on an unrelated note, if you need me I took the liberty of moving myself down onto C deck.”
“You did? Okay.” Nadeau nodded. “Any particular reason?””
“My room was next to Campbell’s and, um…” Lee glanced behind him to check that they were out of Lewis’ earshot, then lowered his voice anyway. “They get loud.”
“Ah. Fair enough.”
“Yeah.” Something seemed to occur to Lee. “Um… Just so we’re clear, I’m not making a complaint or anything. I already resolved it.”
“That’s understood.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Carry on.”
Nadeau snorted and ran a hand over his bald scalp as the younger man departed, and batted the corner of his tablet against this palm thoughtfully before turning to Kirk. “Any insights into that?” he asked.
Kirk shook his mane in his natural equivalent of a shrug. “As a rule, I stay out of human sexuality. I prefer simpler pursuits, like overthrowing the status quo of the whole galaxy.”
Nadeau laughed. “Heh! Wise. Sometimes I wish I had, too.”
Kirk decided not to ask questions. Instead he straightened up from the splay-legged stance of an Rrrtk at his ease. “Speaking of my *’spymaster network’*…”
“Yes?”
“During our visit to Aru, there was a question that went unresolved, and it has been gnawing at me. I have a… hunch.”
“I thought you didn’t do hunches?”
“As a rule I do not, which is why this one is important. I plan to follow up on it.”
“I don’t think I’d be happy to let you leave right now, Kirk. Getting you back inside the shield safely…”
“I am not asking to leave. I intend to…dangle the problem in front of some contacts of mine and let them do the rest.”
“Okay… How much will it cost?”
“It should not cost AEC anything. This is not a request for permission, Lieutenant-Colonel, it is a notification. I do not know what to expect from this investigation but it is not impossible that some human intervention may be requested later.”
“…Right. I’ll pass that along to Scotch Creek. What’s the investigation?”
“I suspect that the Hierarchy’s campaign of genocide may reach beyond Deathworld species and extend to older species that are becoming advanced enough to perhaps leave them behind. If I am correct, the truth may lie on the planet Aru. Unfortunately the last time I was on that planet we were forced to flee before I could complete my investigation. If I am right, it may still be possible to save a species from extinction.”
Nadeau nodded. “I can’t blame you for looking into it, then. Thanks for letting me know.”
Kirk nodded, stretched and turned to go. “We shall see,” he said, “if anything comes of it.”
Date Point: November 10y11m2w AV
HMS Sharman (HMNB Folctha), Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Major Owen Powell
“You’re a difficult man to get hold of. Busy?”
Officer Regaari shook his paw slightly to recover from the strength of Powell’s handshake as he sat, and Powell pretended not to notice. “Extremely. Now that Cimbrean has a permanent population of Females living here, there is a lot to do.”
Powell arched his eyebrow, and Regaari’s inadvertent innuendo dawned on him a little too late. He handled it smoothly though. “…By which I mean that the colony here is becoming increasingly important and I am the senior officer of my Clan currently present,” he explained.
“Hmm. Well, it’s your Clan I wanted to discuss,” Powell said.
“Is something the matter?”
“On the contrary. We’re bloody impressed.”
Regaari’s ears pricked up ever-so-slightly. It was a subtle tell, but it was a tell nonetheless.
“That is… high praise,” he said.
Powell sat back and folded his hands lightly on his belly in a relaxed posture. “There have been discussions at a strategic level,” he said. “A lot o’ soul-searching and examination of where our strengths and weaknesses are and the fact is that we’re sorely lacking in some critical areas. We’ve achieved a lot wi’ bloody limited resources and influence and we’re proud of it… but Whitecrest has more. You’ve already seen that there are things you can do that we can’t.”
“And you would like access,” Regaari surmised. “More access,” he corrected himself.
“Access for access. I reckon there’s much we can give you in turn, and I daresay there’s things we know that you don’t.”
“Such as?”
Powell rolled his jaw grimly and sat forward. “Do you know how much the SOR costs us?” he asked.
“…I have estimates.”
“Almost a third of our Dominion Development Credits budget has gone into this unit. And that’s just the DDCs. The cost in dollars and pounds has been, er, high enough that I’m sure you’re wondering what could be worth it. And you don’t find lads like the Lads just knockin’ around down the pub, either.”
“You would not assemble such a unit unless you had a compelling reason,” Regaari duck-nodded in the Gaoian style.
“Aye.”
“The Hunters?”
“I’m not yet at liberty to disclose the full reasons for the SOR’s existence. But consider also that we were able to create this unit and train them up to the standard you’ve seen. We’re offering to share that.”
“You would teach us your training techniques? I am… not certain they would apply to Gaoians. We are not deathworlders.”
“I think you’d be surprised,” Powell said, softly. “You’re a lot closer to us than you are to most others. But in any case we can at least lend human expertise and insight if nothing else. I’ll let you decide how valuable that is.”
Powell knew enough about Gaoian body language to see that Regaari was itching to spring from his seat and run off and make it happen, but the Whitecrests prided themselves on their poise and composure so instead Regaari sat and considered the proposal.
“I can see… several advantages to such an exchange,” he admitted at last. Powell nodded and slid a folder over the desk.
“That’s the details of it,” he said.
“I will take it to my superiors as quickly as I am able,” Regaari told him, and stood up. He picked up the folder and carefully held it against his side.
Powell stood up as well, and they shook hands. “I look forward to hearing what they have to say.”
A few pleasantries later, and Regaari was on his way. Powell sat back down and allowed a rare private smile to warm his face.
He was expecting great things.
Date Point: November 10y11m2w AV
Folctha, Cimbrean, the Far Reaches
Grandfather Gyotin of Starmind
Gyotin had taken to keeping a supply of hot chocolate just for Ava, he saw her that often. Visiting him was part of her routine, now: she’d show up in the middle of the day, vanish into the Folctha Faith Center’s church to pray and light a candle, then sit and… just talk. They didn’t meditate or discuss religious matters at all.
For Ava, it was a release. For Gyotin, an education.
Before converting to Buddhism and founding the Clan, Gyotin had been an engineer of sorts. A practical, jobbing technician at least and he’d refined his diagnostic and troubleshooting skills considerably while working on assorted spaceships. He was quite practiced at spotting patterns.
One such pattern was a quirk of English, which relied more heavily on accent and stress than its native speakers thought. The word ’contract’’ had four or five different meanings differentiated entirely by context and emphasis. Words and muscles could be contracted, as could diseases and debts, and you could contract some contractors by signing a contract.
Nowhere was this more pertinent, however, than in the difference between knowing something, and knowing something.
This was not the same thing as the click moment of finally being able to intuit a subject rather than merely knowing it in the abstract. English had a word for that: ’Grokking’. This was… something else.
It seemed, if Ava was to be believed, that a human could both know and grok that something was true… and still fail to be convinced. It was not enough to remember and to understand that something was true, they had to believe that it was true as well or else something in their head just… failed to grip onto it.
The fact that, to a human, belief apparently served as a component of knowledge…? Well, it explained much.
Ava seemed to be suffering from an inconsistent ability to apply belief. There were plenty of things that she did believe: in God, in Christ, in prayer and redemption and sin. Perhaps she was uncharacteristically inarticulate at describing the specifics of those beliefs, but her conviction was nevertheless absolute.
But on the other paw she just didn’t seem to be able to believe that her family and friends cared for her, or that she was any good at her job. And she certainly didn’t seem able to believe that she could make herself feel better by reaching out to others, even though she proved it to herself time and again by doing exactly that.
Which made the fact that she kept reaching out to Gyotin a bit of a puzzle, though he was cautious never to broach the subject in case it burst whatever delicate bubble of belief she’d built around him.
Eventually, she accidentally broached it herself, the day after one of her formal sessions at the military base. She’d never explained why she went there for them, and Gyotin had never asked.
She sat down with her hot chocolate as usual and treated Gyotin to a rare smile. She was having one of her good days. “Doctor Mears is getting me a therapy dog.”
Gyotin settled onto his zabuton and sniffed happily at his tea. “A… therapy dog?”
“Yeah. A dog who’s had special training to help me. He says that the dog could gently bring me out of my flashbacks or just let me cuddle him and let me talk about…y’know, whatever’s wrong. He’s mentioned them a couple of times, but this time he said he’s gonna go ahead and apply for one…”
“So this dog is… another sympathetic ear?”
“Yeah, but, like, not a human one. Not one who understands or judges.”
“I’m not human,” Gyotin pointed out. Ava made a complicated motion with her head that Gyotin had never quite deduced the meaning of.
“Yeah, but, like, you understand. You’re not human but you’re still a person. A thinking person.”
“Sapient.”
“Yeah.”
“So… why not talk to stuffed animal instead, if you don’t want sapient?”
Ava blinked at him. “I.. I mean I could, but… I dunno, I’d rather talk to somebody alive.”
Gyotin flicked his ear and twitched his whiskers as he tried to work that one out.. “So.. you want to talk to somebody alive, but not somebody alive?”
Ava adjusted her shirt collar. “…I mean, uh… yeah! Even if it does sound kinda weird when you put it that way.”
Gyotin sipped his tea. “I talk to other Gao. You know one experience lots of us have with humans? You treat us like dogs.”
“What? But… I mean, your Clan and the Females and all the Clanless they’re so respected here! Aren’t you?”
Gyotin chittered. “I don’t mean in disrespectful way. I never understood saying ’treated like a dog’ anyway because you humans love dogs. A human can be a liar, cheat, thief and abusive to partner, people will forgive that, look for good in them. If same person is cruel to a dog, though…” he extended his claws and mimed a slash in the air.
Ava didn’t seem to know how to respond to that. She drank her hot chocolate instead of answering, and frowned thoughtfully through the steam.
“No, you treat us like dogs because you love dogs, and we push lots of same buttons,” Gyotin explained. “Furry, teeth, loyal to each other… Even same body language in lots of ways. Even wagging tails, some Brownies.”
“Same nose…” Ava cleared her throat. “Have I ever…?” she gestured from herself to him.
“A little.”
“I’m so sorry!” Ava put her drink down looking genuinely mortified. Gyotin waved his paw reassuringly.
“I try not to mind. I think is instinct, and instinct take over very easily when you not thinking. Besides, all species do it to other species. You ever met Versa Volc?”
“Uh… The slug guys in the robotic exosuits, right? Never met one.”
Gyotin duck-nodded. “Disgusting. Nice guys, but… what’s that word? Gross. Silly stupid prejudice, they are good people, sensitive, intelligent… too bad they are slimy and smell awful. And nobody like slimy, awful-smelling thing so people don’t react so well to them. People do it to you too.”
“They do?”
“Oh yeah!” Gyotin duck-nodded vigorously. “People see human, see danger. It’s written into your bodies, the way you move and sit and smell. Even now, even you, hard not to be a little scared of you. And I like you!”
Ava smiled. She was obviously touched, despite the context. “That… I’m sorry if I scare you, Gyotin. I like you as well. You help me so much.”
“Good! I’m glad.” Gyotin chittered warmly. “But try not to let anxiety take over about scaring: Human being scary is normal. You wouldn’t be you without it.”
“I’ll try.”
“But maybe that’s why you find it so easy to talk to me. I remind you of dog a little bit.”
“…If that was true, would you be okay with it?”
“Sure! Other Gao maybe not so much but for me is fine. I know you know I’m not just an animal. You never scratch my ears.”
“You don’t like that?”
“We do! But, ah… it means something different among Gao. If female scratches male’s ears…Well, he’s a lucky male.”
“Oh.”
Gyotin chittered again. “Leads to some awkwardness in Gao-human friendships.”
“Uh, yeah!”
“So. I think this dog will be good for you. Not a Gao surrogate—a real dog. Just don’t forget me, hmm?”
“Never!” Ava picked up her drink. “God, no. You… I don’t know where I’d be if I couldn’t come and talk to you.”
Gyotin pricked his ears up happily and sipped his tea, happy to be of help.
“Actually…” Ava said, thoughtfully, “Would it be okay if I wrote an article on what you just said? About Gaoians and dogs? Kind of a species sensitivity, consciousness-raising thing.”
“Of course! Be sure to get my good side.”
She laughed, which was a rare sight on her, then extended her mug. Two weathered but sturdy old ceramic containers tapped against each other.
“Deal.”
Date Point: November 10y11m2w AV
BGEV-11 Misfit, Unnamed system, Near 3Kpc Arm
Julian Etsicitty
The music industry hadn’t stopped during the years of Julian’s absence from Earth, and he made a point of not only listening to old familiar songs. Fortunately, Misfit was carrying a lot of music on file.
Contrary to the woe and tears of some critics who bemoaned the state of pop music, he was finding some excellent new bands with names like “I Prefer The Storm”, “Stone-D”, “Granuloma” “Savvz” and “To The Victor”, and the lab usually had the volume turned up just slightly short of hearing damage. That was something he shared with Xiù—they both liked their music turned way up, even if their tastes differed slightly. She was more into what she called “timeless hits” like Cyndi Lauper, Bonnie Tyler, Alanis Morissette and Adele, seasoned with some outrageously over-the-top syrupy Cantopop power ballads.
Both of them agreed that they had no idea what Allison liked. Scouring her playlist had turned up no detectable pattern, preferred genre or anything beyond that everything on it had probably been near the top of the singles charts at some point. It was a kind of urban radio mix, and she never played it at any volume above ’unobtrusive background noise’.
That was for when they were working alone on something, though. When the three of them were working together to fly the ship, the music had to be off.
Xiù sounded nervous. “Okay! Our first insertion into a system!”
Julian chuckled. “You’ve done it how many times?”
”Hundreds, in the simulator. I’m just paranoid that the simulator will be wrong.”
Xiù had every reason to be nervous. Dropping out of warp wasn’t as simple as just turning the engine off and letting the field collapse—the ship’s inertial frame of reference had to be matched with that of the destination system as well, or else they could easily find themselves flashing through the neighborhood at some huge relative velocity.
All of that was handled by the computers, but the pilot still needed to be on the alert.
Allison chimed in. Well, I’m ready when you are.”
”We’re waiting on Misfit, Shǎguā. Two minutes.”
“So what are we going to call this thing?” Julian asked.
“The system? The planet?” Allison asked.
“Both?”
Their naming system had been the subject of long conversations and some good-natured bickering during their weeks ‘at sea’, most of which had involved thinking of reasons to turn down an idea. They’d worried about copyright, about being too pop-culture, about not being pop-culture enough, about the unforeseeable ways in which language might adapt and change over the future years so that they didn’t end up accidentally giving today’s planet tomorrow’s epithet…
They could have just assembled a list of suitable historical figures or the contemporary equivalents of Amerigo Vespucci and gone with that, but they still wanted to put their own personality on their finds, too.
So, they had three lists. The special list, for stuff they knew would be remembered. The good list, for noteworthy stuff that probably wouldn’t get much attention outside of a corner of the scientific community, and the “it’ll do” list for everything they felt deserved a name but which would almost certainly go ignored.
*Misfit*’s tune changed. The steady note she’d been holding for a week now got flatter and lower. Behind him, Allison would be reeling in the huge wings of their WiTChES fields, whose edges let them bleed energy out of the flares of radiation made when interstellar plasma got pinched in the strange interface between their warp bubble and the rest of spacetime.
The trick wasn’t quite enough to run the warp drive indefinitely, but it improved their time between recharging stops from days to weeks. Longer if Allison turned up the reactor output a bit, but why expend Deuterium they didn’t have to? Misfit was built to hop from star to star and keep herself charged by tapping into their otherwise wasted energies: The fusion reactor was there for booting her up from idle, or if they needed a surge of extra power in an emergency.
Now, though, they were shifting fully onto capacitor power as Xiù slowed them down and the warp field’s boundary edge fluctuated. Julian reached up and turned one of the three monitors in his lab to navigation, which filled up with possible contacts as Misfit took note of every point of light she could see above a certain luminosity and tracked their parallax.
At a slow warp, a picture of the system didn’t take long to form.
“Seven planets. Four gas giants… our target is planet two.” he reported.
”Gotcha.”
Armed with the navigation data, Xiù could turn and pulse them across the AUs at four kilolights. Pathetically slow for interstellar distances, alarmingly quick for intrasystem warps. The icon representing Misfit became the end of a line, swept to the other end of that line, and Julian had to zoom in quite a long way on the display to see their orbit.
”All yours, Julian.” Xiù told him. There was a disappointed note in her voice. ”But I don’t think this one’s a winner…”
“Thank you, bǎobèi…”
Julian could see why she was pessimistic as soon as he switched to the visual camera and saw nothing but brilliant white clouds. There weren’t even any breaks in them: The whole planet was smooth with water vapor. Aiming *Misfit*’s instruments downwards only confirmed what he already suspected.
“…Yeah, the ambient temperature down there is four hundred Kelvin,” he reported. “All that water in the atmosphere is steam.”
”God dammit…” Allison sighed. ”So close.”
“It’d be temperate if the greenhouse effect hadn’t gone fucking nuts,” Julian observed. “Could be it’ll settle down in a few million years, could be it’ll turn into another Venus…. I mean, she basically is another Venus.”
“It’s pretty, though,” Xiù observed. ”From up here it’s almost too bright to look at.”
”So she’s pretty, she’s basically another Venus… how about we call her Aphrodite?” Allison suggested.
”I like that.”
“Guess we’re throwing the list away then… Aphrodite it is.” Julian recorded it with a smile. “Well hey, she may not be temperate, but she’s still our first planet!”
”That sounds like something we should celebrate,” Allison suggested. ”I’ll bring round the candy bars.”
“Sounds good. Whaddya think, give it a day for the sensors to really do their thing, give the rest of the system a once-over and go from there?”
”And dump hull charge,” Xiù reminded him.
”That gives the planet-finder two days to work, too,” Allison added as she entered. Julian got a millisecond echo of her voice in his earpiece. She gave him a Hershey’s bar and a kiss then vanished to do the same for Xiù.
Julian nodded and activated the BEST. It was too bad they couldn’t operate the telescope at warp, but it was sensitive enough to be thrown off by the infinitesimal fluctuations in light level caused by the warp field.
He found there was something therapeutic about watching it work, though. The progress screen had a satisfying functional rhythm to it that reminded him of his grampa’s ancient PC whenever the old man had periodically defragged it, a procedure that had been obsolete even then. Scan, find, observe, move on. It could multi-task several stars at once, and happily ticked over to a new set of targets every two seconds, surveying the stars in patches the size of a Christmas card at arm’s length.
Which sounded big, but in fact the BEST needed three full days to survey the whole sky and that was only for the closest and most visible stars within half a kiloparsec. More than enough time to survey the system and get the basics on it.
He hit up Wikipedia while the dish was deploying and had a quick look at the archived entry on Aphrodite.
“Okay… I’m gonna name the system Acidalia, then.”
”I guess?” Xiù said.
“I’ll explain later. How’s our orbit?”
”We’re happy. My turn to cook?”
Julian snorted. Somehow the perky instant gear-shift from interstellar starship pilot to culinary wizard seemed completely natural in Xiù.
“What’re you making?”
”It’s a secret.”
”It’s always a secret,” Allison chimed in warmly.
”You like my secrets!”
“True. I never woulda guessed you could do that with canned peaches,” Julian agreed.
“Oh, you liked the canned peach surprise?” Xiù sounded pleased, but confused.
“Yeah, why?”
“Because I grabbed the wrong can. It was, um… meant to be chickpeas.”
“…Oh.” Julian considered that. “…Well, it was still nice.”
”We don’t make mistakes, we just have happy accidents.” The sound of Xiù’s chair evicting her from the cockpit was a solid thump through Julian’s wall
”Mistake or not, if you can accidentally substitute canned peaches for chickpeas and still get something that tastes that good, you’re a fucking miracle worker,” Allison opined.
”Yulna taught me that trick.”
“So, wait, where did the chickpeas end up?” Julian asked.
”I made hummus.”
Julian grinned to himself as the ship’s more… domestic background noise reasserted itself. There was a marked contrast between how they all sounded when they were being the crew, and how they sounded when they were being themselves. Once they were able to just let Misfit sit and run herself without them they could get back to the constants. Allison’s low-grade flirting with both of them. Xiù flitting like a bird from little task to little task, never dealing with the big things but still pulling her weight by staying on top of the disregarded details. He wondered what they’d pick out about him, if they mused along the same lines.
Happy ones, hopefully. Trust. Reassurance. He wanted to be the rock they could build on. After all his years of forced isolation, there was nothing better than that: It was the warm little glow that pushed away the Nightmare chill that had soaked into his bones and never quite left.
He left the scanner to run and joined them.
Date Point: November 10y11m3w AV
HMS Sharman (HMNB Folctha), Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Lieutenant Kieran Mears
Letter for notes:
RE: TSgt Martina Kovač
Sergeant Kovač has made excellent progress in overcoming her pyrophobia, which she developed after being injured during a fire aboard HMS Caledonia. She reports that she recently helped Sergeants Arés and Vandenberg construct a barbecue pit and test-fire it and says that she felt only “mild” anxiety as it was being lit.
She seems determined to confront her phobia head-on, and it seems to be working for her. I will see her in a year’s time for her annual assessment but made it clear to her that she is welcome at any time before then if she thinks it necessary.
-Lt. K Mears Counsellor, HMS Sharman