FIRST OF THE SIXTH MONTH

EPOCH YEAR 4192

TERRADATE 2237

...

Terran Star Commune

Auxiliary Craft

Lucent Valentine

CASSANDRA looked across the board at Ilondren. The Khellzen game of Travellers was not one Cass knew well, but she was determined to win.

Even if Ilondren knew the game better than her.

Even if she seemed to be losing.

"Fifth bitpoint to the second column..." said Cass, thoughtfully.

Ilondren raised her eyebrows. "That's... not advisable, but go on."

BZZZZHT "Tower to- backup blinker says Lucent Valentine. Please forward your manifesto, and for Veil's sake, switch your transponder on."

Neither of the girls noticed. Cass went through with her move, and Ilondren smiled and laughed softly.

“Cassandra Rose, I have you cornered. Second bitpoint in the fifth column is a classically silly move that even a sheer beginner would know how to counter. You have lost.”

"Oh, Veil, come the fuck on!"

bzzzht "Are you playing Travellers? Oh, for..."

Cass blushed strongly. Elves do not blush, so Ilondren found this, to put it Terranly, absolutely adorable.

"Hmph," were all the words Cass could find.

A clanking of padded pawsteps was heard down the hall to the Valentine's quarters.

"I'll be taking the requisition for that wine now, dear."

The clanking grew closer, and ended in a crescendo resembling an irritated growl.

You two are dumber than a radrat on Old Earth, mouthed K'Sari. "Hi, Tower, apologies for my idiot crewmates. Forwarding the stuff now."

You turned off the fuckin' transponder? she mouthed again.

Cass humphed. "We were going through a cosmostorm! If it was on it would've been knocked outta service!" she said, squeakily.

"Well, get a new- is that Travellers? Oh for sweet Veil-"

"Yes, Sari, it's Travellers! Can ya teach me how to-" Cass gestured to Illy, "beat the pretty Elf?"

"Oh no, no! I remember this bet. You're gonna have to do without that wine, Illy, we need a new transponder, pronto."

Ilondren began to protest, but was swiftly silenced by another transmission from Tower.

bzzht "You guys are fun. I've got the manifesto, a dockpad is prepared. Welcome to the Port Meredith Ring."

The Ring was a large hab-station, floating in orbit of Bayard City on Port Meredith. Port Meredith was the Terran Star Commune's first colony outside of Sol, and still held a great deal of pride for Terrans, and indeed the whole Friendship Accord. It enjoyed a small amount of axial tilt, making its surface a cacophony of unusual colours; purples and deep oranges and bright reds.

"Someone wake up Akarn. I'll take us into the docks."

The Ring was growing at an extremely fast space. Since the Friendship Accord treaty in 4159, the station had become a primary node of trade in the galactic region. It was filled with people from as far as Heickh, and a vast number of unusual and exotic goods. When the Valentine landed, the crew was greeted by a worried technician, and despite Akarn's insistences that it's fine, really, vintage, even! a checkover was insisted upon. The perfect diagnostic result earned a rightful hmph from Akarn.

The Ring was open to anyone, though the maze-like labyrinthine nature of its structure meant there were safety officers posted at certain points to help with navigation and so forth. The entrance was a large gate, with the founding date of the Ring and a starmap from 4157 emblazoned on it. The safety officer there looked the crew up and down.

"Aren't you girls a ragtag bunch?"

K'Sari gleamed. "Dashing, too, daring and brave! Sweet as he- Hey, what the hell, Illy?"

"We are not here to flirt with the pretty lady at the gates."

K'Sari let her ears fluff up. A typical catfolk empty threat, and adorable to many others.

"Maybe the lady is here to, though. Anyway, I'm going to put the Ring maps on your pagers, and..." she winked at K'Sari, "if you need anything, let someone know!"

K'Sari smiled toothily. If a Khell could blush, then Sari would be. "Thanks, miss! We'll be good."

Ilondren laughed. "Veil, Sari, hurry up!"

The Ring always had a hopeful feeling to it. The only noise aside from the sea of people was the whizzing of the elevated magrails overhead.

"So-" began Cass, "where do we find our guy?"

"Damn good question, Cass. Who knows, really? Who knows anything in this bitch of a galaxy?" K'Sari rolled her eyes.

Ilondren interrupted, "I believe what our catty friend is trying to

say is this: you have the map on your pager. And, also, you're a bit daft. Don't growl like that, Sari, it's too cute."

"Oh. Oh!" Cass pulled up the map. "The, uh... oh good Veil. The bar on the seventh district?"

"What? Looks like I'm getting a nice glass of wine after all." said Ilondren.

"So I wasn't the only forgetful one." said Cass. Akarn nodded. "Nor was I, apparently."

"I am surrounded by idiots." Sari said, annoyedly but lovingly.

The Seventh District is a calmer area of the Ring. It's not as packed with trade or events. It also hosts some of the only residential areas on the whole spaceport. The bar they were headed for, the Stargalleon's Stern, was as reputable an establishment as you get in a spacering. Which meant it was expensive, and their contact had an eye for luxury.

The Stern was dressed in the style of a pub on Old Earth, or a specific region of it, anyway. The proprietor was a Cezanth foxfolk who held a strong like for the aesthetics of Earth before the Great Destruction. Dashing soldiers, giant skyscrapers- capitalism! Etc, et cetera. It was funny, to his Terran patrons. Why would anyone want to go back to that?

The walls were panelled with a type of hardwood grown planetside in Bayard City, dressed with innaccurate but fun portraits of Old Earth figures. There were tanks of beer over the counter, and the bartenders loved to say on tap. It was a fun place.

The crew arrived a little earlier than the contact they were meeting. "Well, isn't this... quaint?" said Cass, uncertainly.

"Quaint? Darling, this is dashingly beautiful. You Terrans have an eye for pretty drinking establishments."

"Do you even know the guy who runs this place? Afnori, he's called, Foxfolk from Narlim. Not a Terran, essentially."

"Oh, Sari, it's in a Terran style."

Cass tapped her foot. "What d'ya fancy? Might be worth avoiding getting tipsy, given we have a, y'know, rather important meeting."

Afnori turned his head from wiping a glass. "Hi there! Gimme a sec. Some asshole-" he dropped the glass, and it shattered into pieces. "Fuckin' Veil! 0976, can ya get that? Customers!"

A robot employee turned around and beeped in the affirmative. "Anyway, hi, hi, and hello. Welcome to the Stargalleon's Arms. What would you like?"

K'Sari started first. "I'll take the brandy from the Khell frontier. Do ya know which planet its from?"

"Planets, schmlanets. It's Khellzen brandy from the frontier. One of the five worlds out there, I'm sure. Unless the salesperson lied to me." Afnori shrugged. K'Sari shrugged back.

"And I'll just have a cream mocktail, thanks."

Ilondren looked at her girlfriend. "Cass, you are such a baby. I'll have a nice red wine. A nice one, please."

Cass slid around indignantly. "Of all species, Terrans have the lowest alcohol tolerance, y'know."

"Yes, and its adorable baby stuff. Cutie."

The bar filled up, then emptied out again, and repeat. It took around two hours in the end for their contact to arrive; a little later than expected, but not much so.

"Let me tell you a story..." their contact, an older retired Fleetcomm commissioner by the name of Sakaria Pryce had begun. "... in the Commune's early days, when the Accord was still a concept only at the negotiation table, there was a starship."

Sakaria's jacket was as handsome as it was intimidating. It was an older Fleetcomm issue, the kind you see in netfilms set in the 4150s or 60s. "This starship was a pride of the Terran fleet, at the time."

Cass thought of the Telescopic Glow, the ship she'd seen towbeamed out a witchspace breach in Bayard City. "It was called the Wayfarer. This was before the Fleet prefix was standardised, so no EC.

"The type of the ship is irrelevant. What is important is that the Wayfarer was one of the first ships fitted with a witchdrive. The tech was uncertain."

Sakaria sighed softly. "It wasn't ready, by any stretch. The ship breached a lane, to the Alpha Centauri system, before even-" she gestured to the planet beneath them, city lights glimmering.

"Before even Port Meredith had been established. The Terran First Systems were unknown. Anyway, it breached the lane, and we got a really disturbing transmission on comms."

K'Sari tilted her head. "Is that the encrypted audio file we have?" Sakaria nodded. "Also has something else."

"It never came back. Two hundred and fourteen of the early Commune's best crew died, or went missing, rather."

"Miss Pryce, where are you going with this?" asked Ilondren.

"I'll cut to the chase. Last month, we got a transmission from this ship, purportedly dead and done for. The epochtime register stamp on the signal said it was sent in 4238."

"Oh Veil. Okay. Is this classified?" Akarn's optical sensors whizzed.

"Sure is. I mean, sorry, yes, class five. I've sent y'all the passcode for the audio file. It should have another rendezvous in the metadata."

Fleetcomm Science Ship Wayfarer

Epoch Year 4238

Fourteenth of the Fourth Month

"Y'all have been real nice, thanks. We need a new witchdrive, Engineering says. If you could-"

"Wayfarer, your witchdrive has been obsolete for over 30 years. Again- we don't know how you got here."

(sigh) "C'mon, Fleetcomm, don't play with us. We want to go home."

(chatter can be heard on the other end) "Wayfarer, do we have consent to towbeam your ship to port?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever. What the hell's a towbeam?"

... "Wayfarer, you are far from your home. The year is 4238. Please, we want to check your ship's atomic decay."

(laughing) "Nice prank. T'was 2203 last I checked."

"O'Riley, check that. Do they mean Terradate?"

"... Captain, 2203 was Epoch 4158. They're damn near a century knocked outta time."

"Good Veil... 'kay, Wayfarer, your sensors should have picked up the info. Tune your uh, dish array, that's what they have, right?" "Yup."

"Tune the dish array to the fifth degree, increase listening range to .80, and read the sixteenth line of the tachyon disruption on the atomic side of things. It should have picked it up retroactively, so tune that back to when you entered the witchlane."

(another sigh) "If ya say so, Fleetcommy. Jackson, fetch the engineers. Doing that now."

(a pause)

"Commodore, the atomic decay is consistent with... about 80 years of time."

"Yes! Oh, Veil. Wayfarer, d'ya see the point of decay?"

"... when we entered the witchlane, 4158... holy fucking shit. 4238 reading now."

"Okay. Towbeam us, whoever you are. Take us anywhere."

(audio file ends)

(read metadata y/n?) Y

(metadata follows) EPOCHTIME SIGNATURE REGISTERED 4238.14.4

RECORDED AT COORDINATES [CORRUPTED CORRUPTED]

TIME OF TRANSMISSION TO FLEET [UNKNOWN/CORRUPTED]

(read more? y/n) Y

<p> Valentine, you see, don't ya? Head to these co-ords: [COORDINATES FOLLOW, INPUT TO COMPUTER Y/N?)

K'Sari sighed. "Y." and hit a key.