Microstory 2474: MOE Dome 42

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MOE stands for Molten Oxide Electrolysis. This is the method that they use here on Castlebourne to produce a breathable atmosphere. The thing about barren terrestrial planets is that there’s usually a ton of oxygen, it’s just trapped in the rocks. Earth has it floating around, along with other gases, like nitrogen and hydrogen. Separating that all out isn’t easy, but it’s possible, and absolutely necessary here. So you got your dome in place, and it’s all sealed up, but that doesn’t make the inside anymore livable than the outside. Whoever first colonized this planet could have carried it with them, theoretically, but that...that’s a lot. It’s called in situ resource utilization. Use what’s available where you are, even if it takes work to process. There are about fifty-six MOE domes right now. I chose to take a tour of this one, because I like the number, but they’re all the same. I’m kidding, this was the only MOE Dome open for tours. I won’t go over their entire process, since that should be a surprise if you come here, lol. I’m kidding, it’s boring and dry, and that’s not what a review is for. It’s my job to tell you what my experience was like, and speculate as to what your experience will be like if you choose to do it too. These big machines grind up rocks, melt them down, and extract the constituent molecules. It’s all very technical. I thought it was cool to see the process, but I’m kind of a dummy. If you already know all this, it may seem normal and prosaic. Like yeah, of course that’s how they do it. I’ve seen it a million times. Well, then you don’t have to come, do you? There was this one woman on my tour who kept asking questions, but you know, in that kind of way that makes it clear that she already knew the answers, and just wanted us to be so impressed with her. Well, she was wrong or not quite right a number of times, which the tour guide respectfully corrected. He was a human, so I thought that was a pretty cool touch too, given how automated this whole planet has to be to function. If you’re into this stuff, come take a look for a couple of hours. If you’re not, I won’t try to convince you to try. Just remember that this effects us all. Until every dome has an established ecology which recycles air as efficiently and unceasingly as Earth does in its natural state, MOE Domes are probably the most important ones we got. I hope you appreciate that, whether you think it’s boring to watch and learn about, or not.

Microstory 2347: Earth, April 23, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

Yes, some people live above the toxin line, on top of mountains, but it’s not like every sufficiently tall mountain is inhabited, because not every one is habitable. The really tall ones are too high and too steep. I mean, you might find a cavern to survive in with your family somewhere lower down on a given mountain, but you couldn’t build a civilization there. I should clarify too that the air on top of Mauna Kea isn’t great either, it’s just not fogged enough to stop them from using the telescopes. They don’t have domes, since that would interfere with the views from the telescopes, so they built compartmentalized vestibules to keep the fumes from getting inside the buildings, always keep the doors closed, and only go outside in hazmat suits. All told, I think there are about forty mountain top safe zones, which take varying degrees of precautions. Some of them still require that people wear filtered masks, and on some of the higher ones, they wear oxygen masks because it would be hard to breathe whether the apocalypse had happened or not. Yes, we had a number of jobs that took us to these mountaintops. In fact, earlier ones involved us transporting people to ones at lower elevations, then later having to evacuate those same people, because the toxins started rising. No one really knew how the gases would settle, since the poisoning of our air was a gradual development, not a sudden burst. There was a lot of chaos in those days. I’m sorry to say that we lost people because there wasn’t enough room, nor enough time. Or we just weren’t there, because we were busy somewhere else. I would say that we settled into some stability about five years ago? It’s not perfect, and obviously things are always changing—as we’ve talked about, we just picked up some new friends from Australia—but it wasn’t an urgent need. We’re now in a place where we’ve mostly accepted how things are, and are doing our best with the cards that we’ve been dealt. Observatory access is one aspect of that. Earlier this decade, there was no registering for viewing. No one was concerned with granting people access to information. It was only about survival. That’s all anyone had the bandwidth for. I wouldn’t say that things are great nowadays, but they have certainly been worse. Anyway, I don’t want to get too depressing here. Attached is the file for the outfit that we could wear for our imaginary joint birthday party. Well, it’s a collection with a few options. We can keep talking about it, but we don’t have much time before the date rolls around. Let me know when you’ll have access to your telescope so we know when to schedule our own festivities.

Trying to find Vacuus through the smog,

Condor

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 3, 2455

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When Mateo and Leona finally had the time to meet back up in their bunker room together, they both said, “I need to leave,” at the same time. They were surprised by the other’s declaration, and certain that it couldn’t have been for the same reason. They were right. They spent all evening talking about their respective missions until the end of their day when they jumped forward to the future. They then went to sleep to get their full five hours before waking up to have breakfast with their friends, Carlin included. He was vital to both operations, so he needed to know what was going on too.

The tension in the air was undeniable. Even though they didn’t know that they were coming together for a meeting, everyone seemed to feel that that was part of the reason they were here, not just to eat. Leona sat up straight to speak. “Olimpia saved our lives a few days ago when she used the Sangster Canopy to break through the dimensional membrane that separated Salmonverse from Fort Underhill. This was especially impressive since that membrane was particularly thick. Hogarth Pudeyonavic designed her artificial universe this way on purpose, in order to protect it from intruders. The way I understand it, that’s what makes it a fort. Someone evidently figured out how to replicate that technology, and-or extend it to our home universe as well, which was why we couldn’t just turn our ship around to escape.

“We must do the same, for this universe. What Angela and I learned from the Ochivar we interrogated was that they are not going to stop coming. This is a playground for them. They’re testing their infiltration methods, but it could worsen. They might later test weapons of mass destruction, or ultimately their sterilization pathogen. Time in this brane does not match up with time in theirs, which means that they could come here from any moment in their history. We believe that these invaders are coming from relatively early on in that history. The ones that the locals have detained as prisoners of war would therefore not be armed with the same knowledge that the future Ochivari we and our friends have encountered had. They’re young, and dumb, and people like that are reckless, and unpredictable. Shutting them out completely may be this world’s only hope. So I have to go back to where we came from, approach the Angry Fifth Divisioner who keeps trying to kill us, and get him to lead me to whatever actually intelligent person or group that he’s working with. Carlin, I would ask you to...relapse me there.”

“Me as well,” Marie offered.

“I was about to volunteer,” Angela argued with her sister.

“Like she said,” Marie began, “she’ll be confronting a dangerous man, who is probably working with a more dangerous group of people. She needs a fighter.”

“I am a fighter,” Leona reminded them. “I can go alone.”

“Oh, yeah?” Marie asked. “What happens when you need to defuse a bomb while keeping an angry horde of crazed zombies at bay? Can you do both at the same time?”

Leona gave her a look, and held there for a moment. “I’ll give you a million dollars if I find myself in a situation where there’s a bomb, and a bunch of zombies.”

“How will you pay?” Marie questioned. “You’ll be dead. I’m going with you. We don’t separate; not completely, not anymore. After what happened to me in the Third Rail, and Olimpia in her kasma, I won’t allow it. Carlin, you remember that. I’m telling you to never relapse only one of us somewhere. If she tries, you come to me immediately afterwards, and send me exactly where she went. Leona, you can’t prevent that.”

“She’s right,” Carlin agreed. “I don’t like people being alone either. You could order me to stand down, and I’ll just ignore that.”

Leona sighed. “Okay. I’m sorry, Angela, but she’s right. She’s better suited for this mission. You’re both smart and capable, but she was a spy, and we may need to spy.”

Angela folded her arms. “She wasn’t a spy, she was an asset. Totally different.”

“You can come with me,” Mateo suggested.

“Where are you going?” Ramses asked.

“I have my own mission,” Mateo began. “Speaking of the Third Rail, I once disappeared from that mine in Russia. Carlin can show me what happened; how I ended up with a solid block of timonite in my stomach. I don’t think that I just skipped over time. I think I went somewhere, and spent time there. It’s been long enough. I have to recover those memories. I am getting the feeling that it is of vital importance. I don’t know why, but now is the time.”

Angela took Mateo by the hand. “I would be honored to accompany you.”

“You’ll likely run into your past self,” Ramses pointed out.

“That’s probably why you lost your memories in the first place,” Olimpia conjectured. “You did it on purpose to prevent a paradox.”

“That’s the reigning theory,” Mateo concurred.

Ramses looked over at Olimpia. “I suppose the C-team will stay here to man the fort, huh?”

Leona scoffed. “Ramses, we’re on the front lines. Don’t downplay that. These people need you. Now that the breach detector is done, you need to start working on the breach predictor.”

“Good point.” He bobbled his head. “Some might even say that we’re on the most important mission out of the three groups.”

“Carlin?” Mateo started. “You’ve not actually agreed to relapse us yet.”

“You’re right, I’ve not,” he replied. “That’s probably because I wouldn’t know how to get you back. I’m not a boomerang thrower.”

“We discussed that last year,” Leona said. “I can always go to the nearest Nexus, and plead my case to Venus Opsocor. Mateo has a psychic bond with a woman named Amber Fossward, who can link him up to a bulk traveler. We’ll find a way back.”

“Those sound like very unreliable and vague strategies,” Carlin determined.

“I will admit to that,” Leona replied. “We always find a way, though. I’ve decided to stop worrying about it. Remember, someone wants us here. They set in place a series of events that led us to this planet on a day that, according to the local calendar, matches our pattern back home. It couldn’t be a coincidence; the odds are too low. If we had never left, it would be June 3, 2455.”

“That’s even more vague,” Carlin pressed. “You’re putting your faith in a higher power, like some dumb Santien trying to cleanse the population.”

“I hardly think it’s that,” Leona insisted, “but it’s not your concern. You only need to help us get out of here. Please?”

For some reason, Carlin looked to Olimpia for guidance. She nodded her head slightly. “Okay. I’ll send the four of you to your two missions. But I take no responsibility for what happens after that.”

“We would never blame you for it,” Mateo assured him. “You should know us better than that.”

“You knew me when I was a child, and children don’t have very good memories.” That was a decent point. They had missed so many years of his life. He was practically a stranger to them now. But he was a McIver, and that was good enough for them to trust him with this. “Are you going to tell the Primus where you’re going?”

“We won’t get into specifics,” Leona answered. “She doesn’t need to know, in case it doesn’t work out. We’ll just tell her that we’re going off to find help.”

“Okay.” Carlin stood up. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

“Thank you,” Leona said. “Oli, could we talk?”

“Sure,” Olimpia replied.

“Leona?” Ramses asked. “Could we talk?”

She laughed. “Sure. Just give us a minute.”

Leona transported Olimpia to the same place in the Gobi desert where she and Angela discussed the ramifications of the Ochivar’s claim that some of the exo-universe infiltrators were human, and would be more difficult to detect. If neither Leona nor Angela ever managed to come back, someone else needed to carry the burden of that information. She was free to dispense it as she felt was prudent, but Leona gave her some advice in this matter. It was a very delicate and sociopolitically charged situation. Once they were done with that, she met with Ramses in his lab on the Vellani Ambassador.

He presented her with a PRU, which stood for Portable Resource Unit. It was a special backpack that could be affixed to, or detached from, their integrated multipurpose suit. There were four components: oxygen, water, food, and other supplies. One side was flexible, capable of conforming to the body of the user as they moved around, while the other sides were more rigid and durable. They were not wearing them when they were spirited away to the Garden Dimension, but stored on the Ambassador. He had been lobbying for them to keep them on at all times, as well as the helmet, which could magnetically attach to the outside for a real turtle look.

“Okay,” she relented. “I will take them with us. But you’re the one who designed our bodies to be able to survive in the vacuum of outer space.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t design them to help you survive the equilibrium of interuniversal space apparently, though. And anyway, that’s not the reason I brought you here, or why I’m so excited.” He was smiling widely. “These are special. I modified them myself with miniature dimensional generators. They now come with three months’ worth of water and the liquefied dayfruit that comes through your feeding tube.” He flicked the food tube that was presently collapsed into Leona’s IMS collar.

“Dayfruit smoothie, my favorite,” Leona said sarcastically. This variety of the versatile food took a lot of the taste out of the daily nutritionally-complete food, and drinking it from the tube made it impossible to switch to other flavors, since it logistically had to come from one storage container.

“It beats dyin’,” he reasoned. “The oxygen tank is a lot larger too, which places less strain on the carbon scrubber, though that has also been upgraded, as have the surface ramscoop nodes.” Theoretically, a regular person could survive for weeks in outer space with nothing more than their suits, and a resource unit. There were minute amounts of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon atoms in the interstellar medium, which the PRU’s ramscoop could suck up, and process for power, air, and even food. To Leona’s knowledge, no one had ever tested this, though, because that would be insane.

“Yeah, you’re right,” she acknowledged. “Did you modify the other three that we need for the two away missions?”

“Of course. I modified them all.” He reached over his shoulder, and tapped twice on his own PRU. “I need you to convince the other three to wear them now. I’ll take care of Olimpia. I’m sure we’ll all need them at some point, and I would feel better if you had them at any rate.”

Leona nodded. “Marie and I will operate at PREPCON three, I promise.” This preparedness condition required the user to be wearing the suit in its near entirety, as well as the PRU, with the helmet attached to its dock. The higher levels didn’t demand quite this much readiness, and for the lower levels, the helmet was on the user’s head. A member of the crew of a ship who was on duty was expected to be ready to be shot out of an airlock, or a hull breach, at all times, but that wasn’t necessary while they were simply walking around a planet with an atmosphere. This was the space travel equivalent to the DEFCON system.

“Thank you.”

Leona ordered the rest of the members of the away teams to report to Ramses for a short training session regarding the new PRUs. Meanwhile, she met with Naraschone and Kineret about what they were doing. She told them that they needed to investigate ways to stop the Ochivari from being able to come here at all, but that she couldn’t explain more than that. They planned on relapsing after everyone was finished packing up, but Ramses’ bulk portal detector went off. Mateo teleported Carlin right to the location in a rare opportunity for him to get to the scene within moments of an alert. The teleportation should have made it a quick detour, but Carlin was required to report to an after-action debrief. Fortunately, Mateo was able to jump them to the Defense Bunker too. He was asked to participate anyway, but it only took them about an hour, after which they were able to return to the Executive Bunker.

“Will it hurt?” Olimpia asked.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Carlin said to her. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. There was something going on between them, but it seemed rather nascent.

“Yeah, but I don’t want it to hurt my friends.”

He smiled. “People report that it’s jarring, but not painful.”

“We’ll be all right,” Marie promised.

“Have you thought about exactly where you wanna go?” Carlin asked the group.

Mateo handed him a piece of paper. “These are the coordinates to the Russian mine. I don’t know for sure that I traveled through time on that day, but it’s likely.”

“I don’t need this. You’re the navigator, as my teachers would call it. I’m just the engine. Concentrate on your destination. Mrs. Matic?”

“I have a few options in my head. I too am unsure, but I’m hoping that crossing into a bulk aperture sufficiently qualifies as a time travel event. We have to locate that angry Fifth Divisioner who trapped us in the kasma. He must be somewhere close. If not, there are other, less than ideal options where we’ll have to go the long way around.”

“Okay. Say your final goodbyes,” Carlin advised.

They hugged and kissed each other, then separated into their pairs to either make their way back to their own pasts, or stay exactly where they were. Ramses and Olimpia watched, fearing the worst for their loved ones, but hopeful that everything was going to work out. “Okay,” Olimpia said after they were gone. “It may all be up to us now.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 12, 2398

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Mateo survived his trip up into orbit. He concentrated on making the jump to the best satellite for the job, according to what little information Ramses gave him about it. He placed the scanner on the hull and let it go. It started spinning and transforming on its own, staying in place, and freeing Mateo to die. He didn’t, of course. His body too transformed, back into the way it was before they got stuck in this reality, but after Leona downloaded his mind to this upgraded substrate. Ramses did say that they would be able to survive in the vacuum of space, though to be fair, he said that it could last for hours. All he could do was hang onto the satellite he had co-opted, and hope for a miracle. His biological enhancements were back, but his temporal powers were gone. He could feel both the timonite, and the telekinetic coating, drip off of him, and land by the scanner. He had no way of teleporting back home. All he could do was feel.

If Mateo were better with technology, maybe he could figure out how to send a message to Ramses through the scanner, but he didn’t know what any of its few buttons did, and he couldn’t risk pressing them if one turned out to be an off button, or something. It was better to sacrifice himself than to ruin their best chance of finding Meredarchos and Erlendr. His only option was to send vibes outwards and hope that a member of his team could feel them. He thought that maybe he could feel Leona’s emotions in return, but it was hard to tell. What Ramses failed to explain was that surviving in the vacuum is not the same thing as breathing in an atmosphere. It’s not painful, but it’s highly uncomfortable. Imagine stretching your arms out in the morning, or after you’ve finished the first paragraph and a half of a story that you’re writing. Now imagine never being able to put your arms down, or readjust your position in any way. That’s what it’s like to be in space, unable to breathe—not needing to, but still feeling the constant urge to respire.

Leona saved him yesterday in a spacesuit, which could not have come too soon. There is no telling how long Mateo would have been able to hold on. It had become even harder to go without having normal bodily function than it was at the beginning. She wrapped him in an emergency vacuum-sealed tent, and opened a tank of oxygen. It slowly repaired the damage that space had done to him, and before their supply ran out, Leona had already installed and activated the carbon scrubber. They have been sitting here ever since then, still tied to the satellite, waiting for the end of quarantine. Something on the planet is keeping them from realizing their full potential in these bodies. That’s the only explanation for why Mateo isn’t a popsicle right now. He has to recover completely before it’s safe for him to go back to whatever that is. They were also not entirely sure what that recovery would entail, or how detrimental it could be to just start trying to walk around on the ground afterwards. So far, neither of them has experienced any health issues. They were likely never in any danger. Even so, it was a necessary precaution, and one which might yet prove to be inadequate. They still have to see what it’s like for them down on the surface.

It’s time for that right now. At this point, the risks are no longer decreasing the longer they wait. It’s going to be a delicate dance. They’ll have to detach from the satellite, retract the tent, teleport the maximum distance, which should be a few dozen kilometers up in the air...and then parachute down. All with only one spacesuit.

Extremus: Year 46

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Exactly twenty-four years ago, then-Admiral Halan Yenant introduced then-Interim Captain Olindse Belo to then-Future Captain Kaiora Leithe. A lot has happened since that day. They were so young back then, so naïve, and none of them could have predicted how much they would go through—together—but later so, so very apart. Halan is still in hock. Their dream of getting him out never materialized. Olindse is in the future, but Kaiora doesn’t know when, which is for the best. In honor of both of them, Kaiora has decided to choose her own successor on the anniversary of her own official appointment. Of course, she knew it was coming, as does Future Captain Trudie Haynes. Today was meant to be the day they made the announcement, and had a party. Unfortunately, Kaiora isn’t in much of a festive mood, so it will have to be postponed. Still, she needs to explain it in person.

The door opens upon command. Kaiora can see Trudie through it now. She’s sitting on her couch, legs propped up on the ottoman, watching something on her main screen. She’s stuffing her face with civilian grade bagged food. She jumps up, and brushes crumbs off of her sweatshirt. “Captain, I wasn’t expecting you. How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” Kaiora answers. “Why aren’t you dressed?”

Trudie consults her watch. “Well, since the party’s cancelled, my day should be free. I don’t have class, or any meetings.”

“Who told you that the party is cancelled?” Kaiora questions.

“The logic ball.”

“The what?”

Trudie steps over, and removes a ball from its stand. It’s barely small enough for her to cup one hand around it. “You input data points with your voice, giving it as much context as possible, and it returns the probability of a given outcome, or a selected outcome. For instance..logic ball, what are the odds that Captain Leithe drops dead within the next five minutes?”

After she shakes it, the ball responds, “the chances are three to one hundred.”

“That can’t be right, that’s far too high.”

Kaiora points at the thing. “That has access to private medical records. Who gave you that?”

“It’s just a novelty item; anyone can get one. Why? What’s wrong with you?”

“Never mind. So you just guessed that I was going to cancel it?”

“Not guessing. Logic.”

Kaiora lets out her signature sigh. “If you’re going to become the next captain, you’re going to have to destroy that thing, and hope that no one ever finds out you once owned it.”

Trudie tilts her chin up to look at her Captain at a slightly altered angle. “Logic ball, what are the chances of someone discovering that—”

“No,” Kaiora interrupts. “No more questions. I came here to talk. I mean, I suppose that’s no longer necessary. I expected to find you here in full dress, perhaps hovering by the door.”

“Sorry, sir. I’ll try not to anticipate next time.”

“No, that’s...that’s a good characteristic in a leader. I’m just...I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Trudie assures her, “you’ve been through a lot. Do you...want to talk about it? I know we don’t know each other that well, but sometimes that’s what you need; someone whose opinion you don’t care about.”

“I care about your opinion. You’re the future captain of this ship. It’s time to stop underestimating yourself.”

“I understand, sir.” She widens her eyes to open up the floor for further discussion.

Kaiora realizes this. “No, I don’t need to talk. Really, I’m fine. She was old; old people die.”

Trudie nods silently.

“Well, I’ll let you carry on. I have to go be with my family.”

“Would I be able to attend the service?” Trudie asks more than offers. “That is...do you want me there.”

“That would be great. She would have liked you.”

Trudie nods again. “Logic ball, what are the chances I vaporize the ship if I destroy you by setting you on fire?” she jokes as Kaiora is leaving.

It’s not great that this logic ball device has access to private medical data, but she doesn’t want to worry about it right now. She just wants to focus on her family. She has a right to climb out of the captain’s chair every now and then. Still, she can’t just let it go, so she sends a quick message to Lars to look into it for her. Then she takes the long way around to her destination. She retained teleportation rights after she blocked them shipwide, but she doesn’t use it.

Her brother opens the door by hand wave. He shrugs his shoulders, and stares at her a moment. Then they hug each other warmly. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Kaiora echoes. “How’s Tinaya?”

“Ask her.” He steps aside, letting Kaiora into the unit. “She won’t talk to us.”

She goes into Tinaya’s room to find her sitting on her couch, staring at her screen, much in the same way Trudie was. She’s playing Quantum Colony. While it’s more common to engage in it using virtual reality, a user has the option of interfacing using any number of means, even simply by text commands typed out on a keyboard. Her avatar is currently floating aimlessly in the vacuum. The image of the asteroid where her homebase is located is getting smaller and smaller. Life support readings indicate that her character is running desperately low on oxygen. “Are you going to do something about that?”

The controller is technically in her hand, but as her fingers are open, and she’s resting them on the cushion, she doesn’t have any real control over it. “I don’t see why I would.”

Kaiora has to resist the urge to snatch the controller from her, and jetpack back to safety. It’s her character, she can do whatever she wants with it. Instead, she just sits down next to her, and mimics the physical slump her niece is in.

“Don’t mock me.”

“I’m not. This is comfortable. That looks comfortable too.” The game is hyperrealistic, so the avatar is actually suffocating to death before their eyes...and ears. “You know, that’s not how she died.”

“Yes, she did,” Tinaya contends. “Everyone who dies of being an old fuck chokes on their own spit in their final hours.”

“Don’t call her that.”

Tinaya folds her arms, and mutters an apology, but it’s too uncomfortable with the controller digging into her underarm, so she opens back up, and hurls it against the far wall. Kaiora takes this opportunity to pull Tinaya into a hug. “No! No!” she fights, but it’s not really what she wants. She gives up quickly, and accepts the embrace. She begins to cry upon her aunt’s shoulder. “Goddammit. She was so old. Why am I so upset?”

“Because you were close,” Kaiora answers. “Because you loved her.”

“People like us, we’re not allowed to cry.”

“Why do you say that?” Kaiora asks, releasing from the hug only so they can speak face to face. “People like us?”

Tinaya tries to wipe the tears from her cheeks. “Captains.”

Kaiora tears up, but smiles. “Captains are allowed to cry.”

“No, you’re not.” In private, Kaiora is right, but in public, Tinaya is.

“Well, my mother just died, so—” Kaiora interrupts herself with her own tears. “So I think they’ll understand.”

Tinaya returns the favor from before by initiating a second hug. They hold there for a while before Tinaya speaks again. “Do you...”

They separate. “Do I what?”

“Do you wish you could talk to her again? Would that make you feel better, or worse?”

Kaiora looks for answers on the floor. “I honestly don’t know. I guess...if I had to choose between seeing her one more time, and never again, I would choose the former.”

Tinaya studies her face to see if she’s telling the truth.

Kaiora squints her eyes, confused. This doesn’t sound like a hypothetical. “Why? Do you have a—you couldn’t. You don’t have a time mirror, or something, do you?”

“No, no,” Tinaya promises. “It’s nothing like that.”

“What are we talking about, Ti-ti?” That’s her pet name for her niece.

“Just don’t freak out, Titi.” That’s her pet name for her aunt. Tinaya prepares herself emotionally, and then retrieves a tiny box from her desk. It opens to reveal something called a visitor’s pass.

For the most part, the people on this ship are just normal biological humans. They’re almost completely organic, with no upgrades or enhancements. Some exceptions to this aren’t even really exceptions. Their organs are stronger, and more resistant to disease. Their bodies age slower, and their chemicals generally stay better balanced. But this is part of genetic engineering that started before the ship took off to combat the couple thousand years of isolated evolutionary divergence that shortened human lifespans. No one here has been too drastically altered. Except that they have, because that’s what medicine is. And nanochips definitely qualify, because they provide everyone with the ability to interface with technology directly with their brains. Some use this more than others. Why, it’s what allows Kaiora to summon or banish people using teleportation. She doesn’t have to select on a screen who she wants to transport, or where she wants them to go. She just thinks it. This still requires a physical component, but it wouldn’t really work without the chip. Regardless, chip or no chip, people have a right to private computer processing. The visitor’s pass will allow Kaiora to access Tinaya’s personal data, and then Tinaya will revoke it simply by taking the pass back.

It’s a little gray transcranial electrode that attaches to the temple to minimal pain. Within seconds of attaching it, Kaiora has been transported to a quantum terminal. In the game, this is where access to each new star system begins. Players generally do not travel via ships, because they would be limited to sublight speeds. To get around, they quantum cast their consciousnesses from one terminal to a distant one, assuming they’ve been granted access. This must be Tinaya’s world.

“I’m on my way back,” Tinaya says through the comms. She must have connected with her avatar, and is trying to return to base.

“Do you need me to come get you?” Kaiora asks.

“No, it’s fine,” Tinaya replies. “I keep a drone nearby with extra oxygen. I just...didn’t use it. I’m using it now.”

“Why don’t your characters have short-range teleportation capabilities?”

“That’s not part of the game,” she explains.

Once Tinaya gets back, she has to inject herself with a stabilizer because of the amount of time her body went without oxygen. Apparently, players have the option of building themselves wholly organic substrates, wholly mechanical, or something in between. “That’s what I wanted to show you,” Tinaya says.

It’s only then that Kaiora catches herself in a mirror. She’s wearing her own face, rather than a temporary android’s. It’s not her regular face, though. It’s about half the age she actually is now. She gently places her hand on her cheek. “How did you do this?”

“DNA can be digitized,” Tinaya answers like it’s no big deal.

“Still, I didn’t...give you permission, or anything.”

“Yikes. Then you’re really not gonna like this.” Tinaya raises the transparency of a cryopod, and reveals another human figure.

The face is hard to make out, but then becomes clearer. It’s her mother—Tinaya’s grandmother. It’s a violation to create the likeness of someone without their permission, but Kaiora can’t help but be grateful for the opportunity to see her. She too is younger than she was when she passed a few days ago. This was how she looked when Kaiora was growing up. She snaps back to reality. “Why did you do this?”

“I was hoping you old people would join me one day. I have one for all of us. Mom, dad, even grandpa.”

“Why would you make one for grandpa?” Kaiora questions. “He was gone before you were old enough to play this game.”

“That’s what I’m actually showing you,” Tinaya says. “These are not just statues.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re dormant now, of course, but...they’re copies. I downloaded their consciousnesses from the database.”

“What database are you even talking about?”

“The database,” Tinaya repeats. “Of all the minds of all the people who live, or once lived, on Extremus.”

“Where did you find this database?”

Tinaya shrugs. “I dunno, I just linked with the ship.”

“Did you tell anyone else about this?”

“You said you wanted to talk to your mom again. Now you can. It’s actually her.”

Kaiora’s patience ran thin quite quickly. “Did you tell anyone about the database?” she asks once more.

“No.”

“Good.” Kaiora sighs. “You weren’t meant to find that. I’m going to have to do everything I can to protect you from them.”

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Extremus: Year 37

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Three and a half months later, and they still don’t have any answers. They can’t explain what they’re seeing in the mysterious box that the drone they sent out for resupply returned with. The person living inside of the box is too small to be seen with the naked eye. The glass the box itself is made of can be adjusted to magnify the image a little bit, and a microscope can make the image even larger, but it’s so far not enough to communicate. They can’t even make out the individual’s face, but she appears to be feminine, and she recognizes that giants are gawking at her. She mostly sits in a tiny chair, reading a tinier book, inside of a sort of living room that looks more like a movie set since there are two walls, and a floor, but no roof. She shows no signs of fear, insecurity, or general helplessness. The scientists placed in charge of figuring this out posit that she’s patiently waiting for them to do just that. One thing they’ve learned is that she refuses to leave the box. They drilled a little hole on the side, but she won’t crawl out of it for further testing. They don’t know why, so they’ve come up with a way to reach out to her.

“You wanna shrink somebody?” Kaiora questions.

“No, Captain,” Dr. Kreuleck says. He’s not in charge of the team, but the man who is has trouble communicating with anyone who doesn’t have at least three advanced degrees, so Daud usually finds himself as the interpreter between them. “The envoy will be piloting a miniature avatar. You’ll still be much larger than the specimen, but if you speak the same language, you ought to be small enough to carry on an intelligible conversation.”

“When you say you, you mean generic-you, right?”

“Umm...no, we were thinking actually you, sir,” Daud clarifies.

“Why would I be the one to do it?”

“We assumed you would want to make first contact.”

Kaiora hadn’t considered it. It sounds right, though, doesn’t it? She’s responsible for the crew and passengers, and she represents them in a way that no one else does, even compared to First Chair. Surely the technology is safe. Surrogate piloting is old technology that has only improved over time. There should be no danger to this. “That’s not what an envoy is,” she can’t help but point out. “You can’t be an envoy for yourself.”

“You mean yourself,” Daud jokes.

The Captain always tries to maintain a distance from everyone, for obvious professional reasons. She would be lying to herself, however, if she claimed to not find Daud’s company to be pleasant and enjoyable, but of course, no matter what she feels, she has to lie to everyone else. “Right.” She sighs, and takes another look at the nano-human, who’s presently sleeping in her little bed. “Tell me what to do. If it’s ready, I’ll make contact when she wakes up.”

Daud goes over the specifications of the interface pod. Everything is pretty standard. They will lie her back in the chair, hook her brain up to the machine, and then link her neural signals to the nanobot. It may never have been done at this scale before, but billions have experienced it in the history of mankind, so Kaiora isn’t worried. A few hours later, the specimen gets out of bed, cleans herself up, and then goes back to her books. That’s when they initialize the program.

Kaiora finds herself standing at the entrance to the box. The hole they drilled is as big as a building from her perspective. She has to climb up the side just to get to it, but it’s not that hard, because the glass is pretty rough, with lots of handholds. It’s not like she can get tired of it either, because she’s not really there. The bot is doing all the work, she’s just controlling it. After a little while, she reaches the edge, and walks over the threshold. Before she can climb down on the inside, everything changes. She can no longer see the box, or the movie set that the specimen lives in. She just sort of sees shapes and colors. Nothing looks distinct. She can’t orient herself. It’s all just a meaningless blur.

Kaiora forces herself back to her real body, and works hard to catch her breath. The experience was more traumatic than she even realized while it was happening. It was surreal, but now she’s shaken, and doesn’t want to go back. What the hell was that? “What the hell was that?”

“Tell us what happened,” Daud prompts.

She describes the images to the best of her ability, and slows down when the scientists seem to be having some kind of simultaneous revelation. “What? Tell me.”

“It was just a theory, and we tried to test for it, but we found it impossible to penetrate the box,” Daud doesn’t explain.

“You drilled a hole in it,” she points out.

“I mean, we can’t get our sensors in. We can’t take any readings. It seems that only visible light crosses the barrier.”

“Barrier?” Kaiora echoes. That word is really only used for one thing in regards to temporal manipulation. “You mean dimensional barrier.”

“Yes. She’s not actually tiny, she’s just in another dimension, which is being generated and sustained by a powersource somewhere inside the box. The glass serves as the boundary, and when you crossed it, you became part of it. You were in the form of a nanobot, so in the other dimension, you’re still in a nanobot, so from the perspective of everything else in there, that is how you appear...or rather don’t appear, because you were so small. At that point, to us, you were smaller than an atom.”

Kaiora nods once, and points to the box. “So in reality, she’s regular size; it’s just a different reality?”

“We believe so.”

“So if we teleported someone into the box, they would become her size.”

“Theoretically.”

“Why didn’t we do that in the first place?”

“If we were wrong, it could have destroyed the box, and the specimen. It would be like if we teleported a planet inside the Extremus.”

“Fair enough. But can’t you teleport her to this dimension?” Kaiora suggests.

Daud looks at the rest of the team. “We didn’t...think of that.”

Kaiora continues, “if we transport her from inside that box to our dimension, she should show up as a normal-sized person from our perspective. And if she doesn’t, she’s still safe, because we’ll know exactly where she is.”

Daud scratches the back of his head, embarrassed. “We’ll build the environment, and the laser teleporter. We have to be more precise than most teleportation jumps require. It should take us a few hours to be safe.”

“I’ll come back in a few hours.”

She does come back in a few hours, and the team is ready for the procedure. Kaiora takes one more look in the box. The specimen has straightened up her living environment. She’s made her bed, and shelved most of the books. She’s holding a large stack of some of them, though; presumably the ones she hasn’t read yet. She looks ready. She knows they’ve finally solved the problem. “Push it,” the Captain orders.

“We thought you might want to.” Daud lifts the single-button remote, and presents it to her with both hands.

Without thinking about it too hard, Kaiora unceremoniously presses the button, and activates the laser teleporter. A woman appears in the egress chamber, still holding her books. The bookcase behind her managed to come through too. The woman looks at it over her shoulder. “Oh, good. I was only able to hold about half of the ones I wanted.”

Kaiora recognizes her immediately, now that she can actually see her face. “Lieutenant Suárez, welcome back the Extremus. I’m Captain Kaiora Leithe, Third of Ten.”

One of the other scientists steps over, and carefully removes the books from Rita’s arms. “It’s nice to finally be back. We have a lot to discuss, but before I say anything, could someone please escort me to the hock. I need to talk to Halan first.”

Kaiora looks over at Daud. She knows that Halan is locked up, which begs the question how she would know such a thing after having been gone for nearly 34 years. “I suppose...that’s...a fair request. You’ll need a medical examination first, though.”

“I suppose that’s a fair request,” Rita echoes.

They’re careful not to let anyone else know that Rita is back. The Supply Recovery team that discovered the box in the first place agreed to secrecy, and still won’t be told this much anyway. Kaiora escorts Rita to Dr. Holmes’ office, and once the exam is over, to the hock, which adds yet another person to know the secret in Caldr Giordana. Hopefully that’s the last one besides Halan. Kaiora still doesn’t know what they’re going to do with her, and honestly, a former captain’s opinion will be invaluable in that regard.

After the pleasantries, Rita sits in the guest chair, nervously scratching her upper teeth against her index finger, but fortunately not biting down.

“Take your time,” Halan assures her.

“You’re safe,” Kaiora adds.

“Old Man knew what was going to happen. He was wearing a sort of survival pack. When Debra—that was Airlock Karen’s real name; I don’t know if anyone here ever knew that. Anyway, when she and I landed on the planet, there was no air. We were just in the vacuum of space, dying. I woke up however long later in a tent barely sufficient for two people. All three of us were in there together. Apparently, he had shot us with a teleporter gun, since we were a few meters away from him. Then he wrapped us all in the self-assembling tent. The rest of the survival supplies were in his bag. He called it the Heskit; Harsh Environment Survival Kit. It was equipped with carbon scrubbers, but since they take time to get going, he also had an oxygen tank that was good enough to last us six or seven hours. We didn’t have to share a mask. He just opened the valve, and filled the tent. I thought we were gonna die, but he just kept walking us up the steps. He had enough meal bars to last him a month alone, but we rationed them together, and still made it through that month.

“While we were waiting for the hydroponics to grow, a meat bioreactor printed meat patties for us. They weren’t particularly flavorful, and they took a shockingly long time, but they did the job. Everything was powered by small scale fusion reactors. He programmed and released nanites to build us a larger structure to live in using materials found on the planet. When we finally teleported there, we found that we were not alone. He was there, and he was a lot better off than we were. He was already wearing a vacuum suit, and brought with him far better supplies. To him it wasn’t an emergency, but a planned move. He wanted to live there. That was his temporary home, before...”

“Before he built a time machine to take over the galaxy before the Earthan humans could,” Halan tries to finish for her.

“Oaksent didn’t build shit. He forced Old Man to do everything. He also had a gun; not a teleporter gun, but a real one with bullets. A schism formed between us. It quickly became clear that Debra was on his side, and Old Man and I were on the other. I never much liked Elder, but he was a lot better than that megalomaniac. In response to our impudence, Oaksent modified the orders so that the time machine would only fit two people. The two of them then went off on their merry mission in the past, leaving us only with that second structure, and a microreactor to power it. He took everything else, including the hydroponics, not because he needed it, but because he didn’t want us to have it. Now I thought we really were going to die, but then we saw it. A vehicle was driving over the regolith, heading our way. Long story short, they were descended from the embryos or whatever that Oaksent stole from the Bridger Section. This small faction had broken off from the rest of the empire. They didn’t have any strong feelings about us, or Extremus, but they figured they might as well execute a mission to rescue us, just to make sure we were all living in the same timeline.

“They agreed to let us join their group, and we did so, because we didn’t want them to kill us, or just let us die. I mean, you fall in with whoever you can to survive, right? I didn’t love the life, because it was needlessly difficult. The empire is clearly technologically advanced, but this faction subsisted on outdated and worn out technology, I guess as a means of expressing some kind of rebellious sentiment. Stuff constantly broke down, and we were always in danger of dying. I made it work, but Old Man couldn’t. He wanted to get back to the ship, so he built another time machine in secret. He tried to get me to go with him, but I refused. It was too risky. I don’t wanna mess with time. So I stayed, and that’s when my story begins...”

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Microstory 1835: Death Comes For Her

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The only crazy thing to happen to me was my death. It was so prolonged and complicated. It almost feels designed; like something out of a horror movie, written for ultimate suspense. Convoluted might be the word I would use for it. I kept getting this close to being killed by something, only to survive it, and make my way to the next danger, which also didn’t kill me. Obviously, it happened eventually, or you wouldn’t be receiving my story, so here it is. I woke up to the sound of my neighbor banging on my apartment door. I groaned, but I didn’t get up, because I couldn’t. I wasn’t paralyzed, but it felt like there was a silky web holding me against the bed. I heard a crash as he broke in, came into my room, and lifted me out. There had been a gas leak throughout the entire complex, and it evidently hit me worst. I survived, and breathed in the oxygen that the firefighter gave me. Everything was fine, and I was feeling livelier—albeit with a headache the likes of which I didn’t know was possible—when my oxygen tank exploded. I don’t know if someone shot it with a gun, or if the valve was turned wrong, or what the hell happened. All I know is I woke up feeling worse than ever, on the ground, covered in debris. I was still alive, though...for the moment. The ambulance, not so much. That thing was wrecked, so they gave me a new one, and tried to take me to a hospital, but wouldn’t you know it, that one wrecked too! We had just gotten through a huge winter storm, and most of the ice had melted, but there was just enough on the on-ramp to the highway to send us flying over the edge, down the grass verge by the underpass. I opened my eyes just as a semi-truck was barreling towards us, unable to stop either, for whatever reason; maybe another patch of ice. After that, someone pulled me out.

I was drifting in and out of consciousness, but I was alert enough to recognize that I was just riding in the backseat of some random person’s car. I asked the driver if he was taking me to the hospital, but he said that wasn’t what I needed. At last, he stopped. So I tried to escape, but he was too strong, and I was too hurt. He carried me up some steps, and onto a rooftop. He didn’t even explain what he had against me. He just unceremoniously dropped me over the edge, like it was the only logical thing to do. I don’t even know if he expected me to crash onto the pavement, or if he knew that a garbage truck was passing underneath at the right time. I suspect he wanted the truck to run me over, but didn’t time it right. I was even more hurt now, but still ticking. I tried to call out for the garbageman to stop, but there was all this noise, and I wasn’t confident anything was coming out of my mouth. The truck stopped, and trash fell on my head, including a bucket of knives. I don’t know why they were throwing them out. They were good enough to cut me a thousand times. After that, the compactor began to run, threatening to crush me, but something went wrong with the hydraulics, and it halted. The garbageman found me when he came back to investigate, and called for a third ambulance. On the way, it almost got in another accident, at least that’s what it felt like from the back. I finally made it to the hospital where I received a severe overdose of pain medication following surgery, apparently due to human error. But that isn’t what killed me either. No, throughout all of this, my wounds weren’t properly treated for a long time, and I found out too late that I contracted a nasty bacterial infection—likely from something in the garbage—which finally did me in two months later.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 7, 2365

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Total darkness. The team was floating around in it, like the vacuum of outer space, except they could still breathe, so it wasn’t that. Still, the air was thinning rapidly, and about as quickly, the temperature was dropping. Both Leona and Ramses had the good sense to switch on the flashlights on their cuffs, prompting the others to do the same. They were still in the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but none of the systems was working. No lights, no life support, no power whatsoever. The only things that were working were the cuffs. Leona pushed herself off from the table, and dove back into the hole leading to the engineering section. She removed her cuff, and got to work, even as her lungs were tightening. Ramses floated down next to her. He stuffed a rebreather into her mouth. It would increase her time by a few minutes probably, but that was it. There just wasn’t enough oxygen to recycle. Out of the corner of her eye, she could seem him drift off and away. He was sacrificing his own consciousness so she could save them all.

The Cassidy cuffs were powered by a series of nanofusion reactors. In fact, a lot of the bulk was just power generation. They weren’t designed to last forever, but a pretty long time. If she interfaced it with the AOC, it should supply enough power to restart life support systems, if only that, and if only for a short while. They needed to get their bearings, and assess their situation, and for that, they needed to be alive. Fortunately, the AOC had already been retrofitted with interface capabilities. That was how they were able to take the whole ship with them on their time jumps, by basically turning it into one giant Cassidy cuff. Even so, they had never thought to exploit that connection for an alternate power source, because the AOC had its own reactors. Completing this objective wasn’t as simple as plugging the cuff in, but as long as she worked quickly, she should be able to get it done before her friends suffered permanent brain damage. This was all assuming power loss was the reason the ship stopped working in the first place. It was probably what caused Gatewood to lose connection with Pluoraia, and they had just walked into the same trap.

There. For a few seconds after it was done, Leona closed her eyes and quite nearly prayed. That was how long it took for the system to kick in. Emergency lighting flickered on, and the air began to circulate. She didn’t wait to see if Ramses eventually woke back up. She reached into her bag of holding, and retrieved an oxygen injector. This was the quickest way to supply a patient with a jolt of energy when nothing else was available, or not available yet. As soon as his eyes popped open, she dug into her bag for four more injectors, but she only found three. Why did she not even have enough for everyone on the crew to use once? She had to make yet another snap decision. She pulled herself back up the ladder, and went for the ladies first. They weren’t more important than Mateo, but they were the most innocent. Rather, they deserved this the least. Reviving her husband would have felt selfish and dirty.

Once she was finished with the other three, though, there was nothing more she could do for them. They would have to recover from here on their own. They didn’t keep tanks of oxygen on the ship. They had precisely two vacuum suits, which were stored all the way up in the airlock, and required power. She couldn’t give up on getting Mateo back, so she scooped him up, and dragged him to the nearest vent, holding his face against the grate, hoping that would be enough to reoxygenate his brain. The purpose of injectors was to help the patient while they were unconscious, and couldn’t try to breathe on their own. She couldn’t be sure that this would work, and as the seconds moved on without success, she began to doubt it was possible, and also maybe regret her decisions. No, that wasn’t fair. Angela, Olimpia, and Kivi deserved to live. If anyone was going to understand why she did what she did, it was Mateo.

Kivi suddenly crashed into both of them. She had her own injector, which she jammed into Mateo’s neck. He reawoke, and instinctively began to suck down the air on his own. By now, Ramses was back, and there was enough air circulating for him to speak. “Computer, report!”

“It’s not operational,” Leona explained. “I’m conserving power. The engineering console is the only thing on right now.”

“Go,” Kivi told Leona. “I’ll stay with him, make sure he’s okay.”

Leona nodded, and followed Ramses back down to engineering, where they started to search for answers. “Everything seems to be okay so far. Nothing was damaged, so it wasn’t an EMP, or something. It’s like...”

“It’s like whatever this was turned everything off, and drained all energy reserves.” He was seeing the same thing. “Nothing is broken.”

They continued to look through what little data they could summon.

“There,” Leona said, pointing at the screen.

“Yeah, heh. That’s all we need.”

“Turning on propulsion could...”

“Yeah.”

“It’s a little...”

“But not too much.”

“What are you two talking about in your little genius shorthand?” Mateo was down there with them now.

Leona sighed. “Transfer control up to the auxiliary console on the main deck,” she instructed Ramses. Then she floated over to Mateo, concerned. “How are you feeling?”

“Headache,” he answered, “but we all seem to have that.”

She nodded. “Oxygen deprivation. “It will go away on its own, but we can all take pain meds. Let’s go back up so we can explain what’s happening to the whole group.”

Since activating artificial gravity was an unnecessary drain on their energy, the two scientists held onto the railing while the other four strapped into the seats around the table to watch the presentation. Ramses began, “something took all of our power. We can’t find out what, because that would require data, and no data was saved from the moment it happened, because something took all the power. According to the ship’s logs, the trip was going smoothly, right up until it wasn’t. Everything shut off all at once. We were traveling at maximum reframe, which means our momentum carried us most of the rest of the way. Not all of the way, though.”

Leona took over, “we’re presently floating in the middle of intrasolar space, about eleven astronomical units from the host star, at an orbital inclination of about eighty-three degrees. In order to regain full power, we’ll have to cover the majority of that distance. Ramses designed the AOC with multiple redundancies, so solar power should be fine. It’s just not really good enough from this far out, not in a reasonable amount of time, anyway. Now, the great thing about fusion power, is that it’s scalable. The tiny ones that we all wear around our wrists are just as efficient as the ones that power entire cities. Obviously, however, being smaller, they can hold less deuterium. If we tried to bring this ship back to its former glory, it would drain fast, and we wouldn’t have anything to replenish it. That’s why you’re all wearing seatbelts right now, and why it’s still pretty cold, though not as deadly as it was becoming. The problem is that the math doesn’t work out. Using traditional means, we won’t make it close enough to the star to power up by the end of our day.”

“Can we use the ship’s teleporter to cover that distance more quickly?”

Ramses pointed to emphasize his words. “Yes, that will be faster. No, it won’t use less power. It’s like your petrol-powered car.”

Leona cleared her throat suggestively. “Uh, Ramses, none of these people drove cars, except for Mateo and me. Not even you!” she reminded him affectionately.

“Well, the analogy stands. They all know what cars are. My point is that if you drive slowly, you use less fuel, but it takes you longer to get there. If you drive faster, you spend less time using up your fuel, but you use a lot in a shorter time period. What we need to do is go right in the middle; find that happy medium.”

“So teleport part of the way, and propel the rest?” Kivi figured.

Ramses smiled sinisterly. “I’ve come up with something even better, which will use our power more efficiently than that.” Now he cleared his throat, but not suggestively; to prepare to wow them with his brilliance. “The whole idea behind teleportation is getting you from A to B instantaneously. You’re not supposed to fall down when you get there, which is why momentum is not part of the equation. I mean, it is, but it’s a safety thing that I won’t get into. What we need to do is not simply conserve momentum, but multiply it. I can rig this thing to teleport us one AU at a time, and every time we do, it will propel us another AU very quickly. This allows us to use what little power we have left more efficiently.”

“Why can’t we just use more of the cuffs?” Olimpia offered.

Ramses and Leona gave each other a look. “We could do that, yeah, but we don’t really want to, because we’re not sure if we’ll be able to refuel. This endeavor could also burn them out. Leona’s original cuff may never be usable again. It wasn’t designed for something like this.”

“Isn’t it worth it?” Olimpia pressed. “We don’t need the cuffs, we just like them.”

“If you lose your cuff, Olimpia, you’re going back to the echo.”

“I can think of worse fates,” she replied.

“This will work,” Ramses tried to assure them. “We just need to get to that star and then we’ll be good. I promise you.”

Mateo tried to stand up to comfort his friend, but the seatbelt got in the way. He didn’t undo it, because floating over would have been more awkward than staying put. “We trust you. If you both say the math works, it works. Who are we to argue?”

It didn’t work. But in the end, they decided as a group that it was good enough. The Cassidy cuff ran out of deuterium faster than they calculated it would. It wasn’t really anything Leona and Ramses did, but the battery projections on the cuffs themselves turned out to be slightly inaccurate. Based on even more math, the smart people were able to calculate that the ship could make the rest of the journey on its own, gathering solar energy little by little. The closer it drew, the more power it used, but also the more light the panels were able to absorb. It would be a fairly steady recharge, and by the time they returned to the timestream a year from now, it will have been orbiting the star for the last several weeks. That was when they would finally reach the planet, and figure out just what the hell was going on.

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