I was standing on the bridge next to Jophixa as we slipped out of hyperspace into the system Terran databases labelled HD 48948, a K type star approximately 55 light years from Sol, and ten light years from the edge explored space. Jo had called me to the bridge ten minutes earlier so I’d be there to be able to share the first look at the outpost we were here to investigate.

  While the HD 48948 system had a rocky super Earth planet orbiting at about 0.07AU, the star’s output of X-rays left it barren, and was likely the reason for it not being the location of the outpost (unless there was something super shielded under the surface). Instead, the outpost was orbiting above the outermost planet, HD 48948 d, a purple and green ice giant.

  “Ms. Aacen, are you detecting the outpost on sensors?” Jophixa asked as the hyperspace tunnel closed behind us.

  That had been a startling surprise when I’d stepped onto the bridge. Instead of just Toftri sitting to the front of the bridge, there was now a second seat placed to his left, where my sister Jesse was now sitting. It seemed she’d been able to pick up enough of giobhioni computer operations protocols to operate the ships OPS station. So Jophixa had decided to give her a trial run. It wasn’t as if Stacy couldn’t correct any critical mistakes in sensor readings if there were any.

  “Sepaq, Commander,” my sister replied smartly, doing her best to sound like a military officer. “Sensors showing an orbital platform above HD48948 in what appears to be a low, geostationary orbit. Radiation from the star is causing some interference, but I'm reading some signs of power from the facility. THe outpost may still be operational Commander.”

  “Can we get a visual?”

  “Sepaq, putting it on the holo now, Commander.”

  The fore section of the bridge shimmered slightly, and a holographic projection appeared, depicting an enormous space station above the partial disc of the planet’s horizon. It was a configuration unlike any species in known space used, with 3 long almost crystalline shaped spires, evenly spaced around a pair of narrow seeming rings and connected to a central orb. From the bottom of the orb, a spindly column extended down towards the planet, terminating in a bulbous point with a small hubbed wheel around it. The entire setup made it look almost like an enormous scepter of sorts, even more so when you factored in what appeared to be a shimmering beam of some sort lancing out of the lower section, down into the planet’s atmosphere.

  “Is that some sort of projected force field to harvest hydrogen and helium from the planet’s atmosphere?” I asked. The Commonwealth didn’t have technology like that, just like we didn’t have things like the Atmospheric Containment Barrier. We could manage protective shields, but the fine tuned control to project a field that far out, and use it to vacuum up gases, the idea was incredible.

  Jophixa glanced over at me and smiled, “It is. And if we’re lucky, we might be able to top up our fusion tanks. Stars bless us, they might even have antimatter production happening over there.”

  “It could very well be Commander.” Stacy chimed in, “Though we’ll need to get closer to get any sense of that. The background radiation from HD48948 would mask any sign of antimatter production. It’s surprising that the harvesting beam is still active after all this time, however, especially if the station is derelict as suspected. I suggest we approach with caution, and with shield up. Someone might have already reclaimed the station, even if it’s not Enigma Osiris or the Ktonshi, they still might be hostile.”

  “Good point Stacy.” Jophixa acknowledged with a nod, “Be’tsar, shields up, set course for the station, standard sublight velocity please. Let’s not startle anyone by going in too hot.”

  “Sepaq, Commander. We’ll reach HD 48948 d in approximately 78 minutes”

  I felt the thrum of the conventional engines activating through the ships deck plating. It had been one of those things that had taken me quite a while to get used to about giobhioni engine technology. The vibrations of their various propulsion types felt unlike any modern day drives of the same sort when felt through the deck plating. Where Terran drives had a monotonous rippling rumble that put you in the mind of some great big cat growling, and Benastian drives held faint choral quality of many voices holding a single note, as if listening to an opera singer doing warmups from several rooms away, Giobhioni drives were almost melodic. The vibrations that whispered through my ship boots seemed to sing a barely there tune of shifting balances.

  Remembering Toftri’s explanation of how the hyperdrive systems worked, constantly needing to be tuned to be in balance with the shifting currents of hyperspace, it made sense when you thought about it. If the drive emissions were constantly being adjusted to be in tune with the ever shifting currents of hyperspace, their vibrations would be too. It still, however, took some getting used to when you were used to hearing the single note quality of other technologies.

  “Stacy, what’s the status of the manufacture of Mr. Aacen’s prototype defence platform?” Jophixa asked, snapping me back into the moment and causing me to direct a look of surprise at her.

  “The prototype should be finished in just over 90 minutes, Commander.” was Stacy’s reply, “I was able to catch a minor design flaw in the fire control system, and fine tune manufacturing processes before I loaded it into the mini-fac with your additional specifications ma’am. It was a simple flaw that would have been caught in prototype testing, and corrected in rework.”

  “Very well. Mr. Aacen, I advise you to get everything prepared to be heading over to that station once the defense platform is finished and it’s been fitted to your EVA suit. You are also to grab a coil gun from the armory as backup in case the system fails.” She instructed, turning her chair to face me, “I’ll be suiting up to join you and will meet you in the shuttle bay. You will not be going into this one alone. If we had more combat trained crew on board, we’d be taking them as well. That station is enormous, and could hold any number of dangers or mysteries.”

  “Excuse me, Commander?” Jesse put in from her seat at OPS

  “Yes, Ms. Aacen?”

  “Commander, Ms. Mend’nasa, I believe, has in-depth combat training. When we were waiting for you to extract us from Yintari Three, she explained some of the education Benastians are required to go through before they graduate what they call ‘standard educational doctrine’. It sounded to me halfway to what Terrans do for bootcamp.”

  I could see Jophixa mulling the idea over in her head. “Alright Ms. Aacen, have both of the Mend’nasans join me in my office immediately. It’s time for a quick meeting with both of them. Mr. Aacen, I suggest you start prepping your gear. Once that manufacturing job is finished, I will expect you in the shuttle bay and ready to go.”

  Snapping to my best approximation of attention, I gave her a sharp “Sepaq, Commander!” and hurried off the bridge to my quarters.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Thirty minutes later, I had all the tools I thought I’d need laid out and ready, and was staring at my EVA suit. I was having trouble figuring out if it’d be worthwhile to gear up ahead of time, or wait for the defence augmentation to be finished. It would need to be connected to certain interfaces on the suit which I wouldn’t be able to reach once I had it on. I could get Boudya’s help with that, but if she was going to be coming along on this excursion, she was going to need to get prepared herself.

  “I wish you’d told me you’d put the plans into the Fac to cook Stacy.” I found myself muttering, still undecided on if I should get suited up or not. “I still wanted to check over a few of the details before giving it my final seal of approval, so to speak.”

  “Sorry Tommy-baby,” she replied unapologetically and actually rather chipperly, “the Commander asked me to confirm if I thought it was ready to print or not, and I wasn’t about to lie to her. Once I told her it was, she ordered me to put a rush on it, she wanted to make sure you had me watching your back when we headed over there. Then I double checked it again just before hitting go, and found that little oops in the connection interface and got it worked out for you. By that time you’d already decided to go to sleep early.”

  “Not that I can blame you. Boudya really kept you going most of the night before. And you! All the holo-programs on StellarNet say human men don’t generally have that kind of stamina!”

  “Hey, don’t look at me. That’s all Boudya’s doing. It’s supposedly some Benastian pheromones. I’d love to take credit, but I’m just a regular guy when Boudya’s not in the scenario.”

  “Mm-hmm.” I could hear the mischief in Stacy’s voice, “I wonder if Tratsa knows about this detail of Benastian physiology.”

  “You just keep that to yourself. If Boudya tells her, that’s fine, but you don’t need to be putting any ideas for experiments into Tratsa’s head.”

  “Spoilsport!”

  Right about then, the chime on my door let me know someone was requesting entry. “Speak of the Succubus. It’s Boudya, shall I let her in?”

  “Yeah, go ahead.” When the door opened, I said “I’m surprised you’re here. I thought you’d be in your quarters getting suited up yourself.”

  Looking nonplussed for a moment, she finally laughed. “Right, Stacy told you it was me.” she shook her head, “And as to getting ready…I’m not going with you. Tindron is.”

  “What!?” I looked at her in shock.

  Shrugging, we walked by me and started to get my EVA suit prepped for me to put on. “The commander felt it was unwise for the only two engineering trained people to head over there at the same time, and she has a point.” She turned and looked at me, “Strip.”

  I was familiar enough with that tone of voice from her that I didn’t even bother arguing, I simply started shucking off my clothes. “Tindron did the same training you did, right?” I asked her as I set my engineering coveralls aside, “And kept up with the skills? No offense meant, since I’ll be mostly dead weight in the military training department, but Tindron just always comes off as…”

  “Cerebral? Pacifistic? Non-violent?”

  “I was going to say gentle.” I said, shedding my undershirt and finally stepping out of my boxers. “Every time I’ve interacted with him he’s always been so empathic, calm and soothing, that it’s hard to picture him opening up a can of whup-ass in any way.”

  Her laugh filled my quarters, “That’s just the type of person he is, Thomas. The defense training is there, don’t doubt it. The two of us train together regularly, but he’d much prefer solving interpersonal conflicts through communication skills rather than with violence. He’s well aware that there are always situations where talking does not work though.” She paused, and held out the EVA suit so I could start getting into it before continuing. “He’s not entirely happy about being sent over there with you, but he’s also curious to see if there is another Stacy hiding over there. His work is specialized in machine-biological interfacing after all, so the desire to see how this particular species interacted with their computer systems has overpowered his usual good sense to stay out of military-like situations.”

  “Huh.”

  “What?”

  “Just remembering you saying something similar about me during our argument back before I took that original job with Barstol. That I was letting my enthusiasm over the chance to look over a ship that size from an unknown species override my good sense.”

  “Well it was true!” she let out another laugh, helping get the awkward waste collection attachments in place. “And you and Tindron aren’t that much different when it comes to that kind of thing, he just happens to listen to me more.”

  I grabbed her hands once she was finished securing the last last of the seals around my waist, and pulled her around to look at me. “Hey, I learned my lesson from that. You know my reasons were more than just the alien ship, but I’m not going to be stupid like that again. If nothing else, I’ll make sure I have backup that’s aware of my suspicions going on, okay?”

  “You better.” she stated flatly, bringing her hands up to kiss my knuckles.

  “Don’t worry long, tall and blueberry,” Stacy put in from the suit’s speakers, “He’s got me keeping an eye on him from now on whether he likes it or not! I’m in his head, remember?”

  “That’s true! And I expect you to let me know if he’s going off and doing something stupid! It’s the only way I’m forgiving you for calling me Blueberry.”

  “Hey! I thought blueberry pie was Tommy-cakes’ favorite! That’s what he said the other night when he was…”

  “Stacy!” I cut in, blushing furiously, “what the hell!”

  At that point, both Her and Boudya were laughing so hard, Boudya fell over, and there was static coming from the speakers.

  When the manufacturing of the defense system was due to be finished, Boudya and I made sure to be in the cargo hold, waiting for it to roll out of the chute. Both of us were anxious to get it hooked up and the initial diagnostics run so we’d have time to identify if there were any kinks to work out. No design was ever perfect in the prototype stage, nor in the first couple of revisions, so we absolutely knew there were going to be issues we’d have to address. It was just going to be a matter of if they were going to be critical to functionality for this excursion, or if they’d be issues of reliability and efficiency.

  Boudya helped me get the pauldrons, hip brackets, and connection points all secure, then fixed the half a dozen or so sensor strips into their correct positions on the suit, and then I asked Stacy to begin the diagnostics routine.

  “Calibrating laser for target mode. Check.” one of the combat lasers popped out of the right shoulder pauldron and emitted a small red dot on the bulkhead in front of me. “Calibrating targeting alignment.” There was a pause as the laser moved in several dozen points in rapid succession. “Check. Accuracy with Laser system within acceptable range in calibration mode. Latency within expected limits. We will need to move to the armory to calibrate the coilgun systems.”

  “Acknowledged Stacy.” I replied, “initiate weapons safetied. We’ll head to the armory now.”

  The small laser turret on the pauldron folded itself back up and I felt several clicks through the suit and a low audible beep as mechanical locks made sure the weapons systems were completely safe. “Weapons stowed Tommy-cakes. All safe and tucked in bed. Let’s get to the armory.”

  It was only a short walk to the armory - the Elegance wasn’t a really big ship after all - and once we were there, we made short work of the rest of the diagnostics and calibrations. “I’m not entirely happy with the accuracy of the coilgun.” Stacy told me, making note of the significant wobble in one of the linkages causing a quarter of a degree variance over specifications on the y axis. Boudya had attempted to tighten up the linkage a couple times, but it just had to be a part out of tolerance.

  “I’m not either, Stacy. But we don’t have time to pull the whole unit apart and manufacture a new part before we reach the station. We have no idea how long we’ll have before either EO or the Ktonshi show up. The laser and plasma blaster are targeting fine, so is the stunner, and the micro-missiles locked on target well, even if the magazines only hold 6 shots each. And remember Jophixa, I mean, the commander wants me to take a sidearm as well, for backup.”

  “I’m surprised you aren’t feeling weighed down by all this. Those micro-missile systems aren’t light.” Boudya put in, running her long delicate fingers down my hips where the launchers were located.

  “These are Ocivna launchers.” Stacy explained, “One of the giobhioni’s closest allies before the stasis order. Very talented with missile systems, the systems are extremely light compared to others in their yield class. This model was bleeding edge and we had only just received the blueprints from them days before the stasis order came in. This will actually be the first time they see use by the giobhioni, or an agent of the giobhioni, as far as we know.”

  “Still, we’re going to have to be careful with any more mass we pack on to this system if I’m going to be operating under gravity.” I shook my head, thinking about everything I was going to be carting around when my tool kit was included. “Anything more, and I’d need to add in some kind of power assist function, which could become a major pain in the ass if I have to get into any tight spaces.”

  “But that could have a whole other advantage-” Stacy began, but stopped short, “Whoops, boss lady is asking why you aren’t in the shuttle bay yet Tommy-bear. You better get there chop chop. We can discuss the merits of power assists and me being able to take control of you later.”

  “Really Stacy! Blackest Void, you’re bad.” I shouted, as I hurried out of the armory, hearing the laughter from both of her and Boudya both. I swear, I thought to myself, between the two of them, they’ll drive me to drink!

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