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Torma’s eyes fluttered open seconds after his stomach returned to its accustomed place. He glanced at Ardrix, slowly unfolding her limbs from the lotus position she’d adopted on her meditation mat when the five-minute warning to transition sounded.

“I’ve never been in hyperspace for such a lengthy duration.”

“Neither has anyone else aboard this ship or the entire task force.” She rose in a graceful motion. “My theory was correct. Entering a light trace dampens the effects. I felt no nausea whatsoever this time. You should join me next time.”

“I believe I will.” Torma reached out to stroke his workstation’s screen, which lit up with the bridge data feed anyone in Repulse could access. “It seems navigation brought us to the heliopause of a star system beyond the Hegemony. Whether it’s the right one is still up in the air.”

The day cabin’s primary display came to life with the image of a starfield. A blue circle surrounded one of them, slightly brighter than the others, marking the target.

“If we’re in the right spot, this is a system without habitable planets but five wormhole termini. Perhaps we’ll find the remains of old imperial wormhole forts, fueling stations, or automated mineral mining complexes.” He paused for a moment. “If Commodore Watanabe is willing to explore instead of heading directly for our exit wormhole. We are under something of a time constraint, our records of this place are sparse, and Jan Keter didn’t search for artifacts dating back to the old empire.”

“I’m sure the commodore will order long-range scans, the sort that our enterprising smuggler couldn’t carry out with his little ship. With any luck, they’ll pick up something that might show how our ancestors used this wormhole node.” Ardrix shrugged on the robes she wore in the privacy of their quarters, covering her exercise clothes.

“Indeed—” The public address system came to life, startling both.

“Now hear this. We arrived at the target system’s heliopause. Before proceeding on our next hyperspace jump, we will assume survey stations. Report any discrepancies or suspected issues to your divisional chiefs. That is all.”

Ardrix gave Torma a questioning glance. He touched his workstation’s screen and called up the lexicon.

“Survey stations means checking the ship bit by bit to make sure our lengthy FTL run didn’t cause undue stress on the hull or systems.”

“Is there a human equivalent, something that might detect undue stress on crew and passengers?”

He snorted with amusement.

“I think that’s called a Void Sister scan. Ask your colleagues if they need help. In any case, at least we know we hit the right star system, so that’s progress, though I can’t help but feel like the explorers of old. You know, the ones who left Mother Earth in the first faster-than-light starships almost two thousand years ago, not knowing what they would find at the end of an impossible journey.” A pause. “I wonder if we’ll ever find her again.”

“Who? Mother Earth?”

Torma nodded.

“Legend has it she was mostly abandoned shortly following the empire’s formation after vast swaths were scoured by civil war.”

Ardrix gave him an amused smile.

“Legend? I daresay the fate of our species’ original homeworld is mostly myth in an age when the fall of the empire has become in large part a fairy tale where fact cannot be separated from fiction.” A pause. “Is it true the navigation records that survived the collapse don’t give coordinates for Earth?”

“I couldn’t say. Perhaps Repulse’s sailing master knows.” Torma stood. “Now that my stomach has settled, it realized the midday meal should be ready. If we’re lucky, she’ll be there, and you can ask her.”

Lieutenant Commander Prince, the cruiser’s second officer and one of those who regularly ate with Torma and Ardrix, chuckled when the latter asked her about Earth.

“We know her galactic coordinates and spectral signature. But according to our files, Earth only has two wormhole termini which lead nowhere useful without several transits through uninhabited systems. As a result, she became a backwater once the empire’s entire shipping network shifted to wormhole travel. I’m afraid Earth withered on the vine, as one would say, well before the Retribution Fleet scoured rebellious worlds. In fact, she may have escaped that fate entirely because she no longer mattered.”

Ardrix put on a disconsolate expression.

“Quite a sad epitaph for our original home.”

Prince raised her coffee mug.

“Here’s hoping a functioning civilization flourishes on her surface, perhaps even a space-faring one, keeping the memory of bygone glories alive.”

Torma raised his own cup and smiled.

“I’ll second that motion.”

Once more, Ardrix marveled at his curious and unaccustomed lack of introspection. Did he not wonder how both made friends with the ship’s key officers so quickly? The thought of asking her obviously never crossed his mind.

He’d simply accepted the idea that his presence, and hers, as members of the commodore’s staff while he led his task force on a secret mission, was a good omen as far as the rank and file were concerned. After all, spacers loved their strange notions, the sort that most of humanity considered little short of superstition.

Ardrix gave him a sideways glance before concentrating on the simple meal before her. Fortunately, keeping the friends she’d helped him make took less and less effort with time as they grew accustomed to his presence. That he had a reasonably pleasant personality, despite being somewhat taciturn, when not hunting subversives helped, of course. Then there was the matter of them counting among the subversives, now that they’d left the Hegemony sphere without permission from the Council.

“How much time will we spend in this system?” She asked.

Prince swallowed a sip of coffee.

“We can’t make for the exit wormhole directly, so the plan is two jumps, with a pause between them so we can run a detailed scan, in case there are imperial remains that might be of interest.”

“And if we find some?”

“We’ll make a note for any follow-on mission.”

Torma nodded.

“Wise.”

Prince studied him with a thoughtful gaze.

“I hear you’re the ones who made this expedition possible.”

“We found intriguing evidence and passed it along to Naval Intelligence.”

“I didn’t know inter-service cooperation was that good on Wyvern.”

He cocked an eyebrow.

“It’s not on Arcadia?”

Prince grimaced.

“We can’t be called a happy Hegemony Guards Corps family there, unfortunately. The rivalry between Navy, Ground Forces, and Commission is rather fierce. Neither trusts the other, though the two combatant services trust each other more than either trusts the Commission.”

“In truth, it would be just as bad in our star system if it weren’t for the Regent’s unblinking eye staring at us directly. That and the fact we share space with the Navy and Ground Forces HQs.”

Torma, ever the cautious Commission officer, wasn’t about to mention the personal relationships between flag officers of the three services who made this expedition possible. But they were no doubt a strong influence pushing back against mistrust and internecine conflicts.

A smile lit up Prince’s round face.

“Got it. Bickering and backstabbing where the top brass can overhear isn’t a career-enhancing move.”

“It depends on how, where, and who. Infighting still happens, just not as visibly.” Torma took a sip of coffee. “But back to your original question. The evidence we discovered in the course of our investigation hinted at a possible external threat to the Hegemony, hence our informing Naval Intelligence. Once I did my duty and briefed the CNI, events proceeded without my or Sister Ardrix’s intervention. We’re merely on this expedition as mission specialists of a sort.”

“And not what my fellow crew members and I expected.”

“You mean we don’t come across as dour, unfriendly political officers who spend their waking hours sniffing for subversion and treason?” Ardrix asked in a mischievous tone.

Prince nodded. “Something like that.”

“Many of us have hobbies and a sense of humor, Commander,” Torma replied, deadpan. “The good Sister here builds scale models of ancient torture instruments in her spare time, and I’m part of a group re-enacting Empress Dendera’s 1st Bodyguard Regiment during the Great Purge.”

When Prince gave him a startled look, not knowing whether he was joking, Torma winked. She let out a burst of laughter which stopped suddenly seconds later, and a faint air of embarrassment replaced her mirth.

“You are definitely not what we expected from a Commission colonel, sir. But no complaints on anyone’s part.”

“Good. Otherwise, we’d be forced to investigate. Any complaints that is.”

“Noted.” Prince drained her coffee and stood. “No rest for the wicked. It’s time I checked the navigation plots our sailing master and those in the other ships prepared.”

When she saw the question in both Torma’s and Ardrix’s eyes, Prince added, “It’s a way of making sure we’re not committing errors. If the five sailing masters come up with the same solution, then it’s either the right one, or we’re beyond hope. Should one or more of them differ from the rest, then they go back and re-run their calculations.”

“Ah. Added safety. Good. I’d hate for us to roam the galaxy, lost without hope of returning home.”

Prince chuckled.

“An error would hardly be that dramatic, but it might cost us precious fuel and even more precious time. Wormhole transit errors, on the other hand? Our charts are old, and termini do shift over time.”

She wiggled her fingers by way of goodbye and walked away.

“I think Commander Prince meant that last comment as a joke, Crevan,” Ardrix said in a low tone.

He gave the Sister a stern look.

“Why would you think it worried me?”

“Because I know you.”

They finished their meal and returned to their quarters. That evening, just before twenty-two hundred hours, Task Force Kruzenshtern went FTL again, its ships having shown no sign of undue stress from the long interstellar jump, and they crossed the system’s heliopause on the first leg. By the time breakfast rolled around, Repulse and her companions dropped out of hyperspace deep within the star system identified only by an old Imperial Catalog number.

They were enjoying a second cup of coffee in the mostly empty wardroom when Torma’s ship-issued communicator chimed. He retrieved it from his tunic pocket.

“Torma.”

“Flag CIC duty officer, sir. Our scans picked up something unusual, and the commodore wondered whether you and Sister Ardrix were free to join him in the CIC.”

They glanced at each other in surprise. Watanabe granted them the freedom of the CIC at the beginning of the voyage, but it was a privilege neither used without invitation, and this was the first one.

“A flag officer wondering if we’re free means he expects us there forthwith,” Torma murmured before draining his half-empty mug. “Besides, I’m curious about what they discovered.”

Watanabe didn’t stand on ceremony, and they entered the CIC without breaking step when the armored door slid aside silently. Once inside, both took seats at unoccupied stations and waited until the commodore, deep in conversation with his chief of staff, acknowledged them. After less than a minute, Watanabe’s chief of staff stepped away from the command chair, and the commodore turned to face them.

“I’m sure this will interest students of history such as yourselves. We picked up several faint distress beacon signals from this system’s second planet, an airless rock. We can’t decipher the data stream. It’s too degraded at this distance. But according to our records, the frequency is that used by the Navy during the empire’s final years.”

“Survivors?” The moment the question left Torma’s lips, he felt foolish. “Surviving ships, I mean.”

“Or wreckage. The signals are so faint we can barely make them out against the background static, indicating their power sources are almost depleted. That they survived this long is nothing short of amazing, however.”

“Will you check out the source close in, sir?”

“That’s why you’re here, Colonel. This may prolong our expedition by a few days, and as the closest thing to a political authority in the task force, I’d like your opinion.”

Torma immediately understood Watanabe was keen on examining the signals’ source and asking him if this side trip would come under the same political cover as the primary mission.

“I think it would be in the Hegemony’s interest if we investigated what might be still-functioning remains of the old Imperial Navy, sir.”

Watanabe glanced at his chief of staff.

“Please enter Colonel Torma’s advice into the task force mission log.”

“Sir.”

“And then get us there.”