Sheppard looked out the window of his cloaked jumper at the alien intruder: a plain, white cylinder with two large rings just inwards of either end, also white. A set of four radiators, set at ninety degrees to each other filled the space between the rings.
"Unknown small craft, we see you. You're already way too close, and we have a point-defence lock on you. Uncloak, cut power, and prepare to be taken aboard."
"So, Andos, are you sure you want to do this?" asked Meris, standing in a small starport waiting room.
"Yes, I'm sure. Besides, I already forked myself. It's not that often that you get to tell the government when you plan to die and pass on your assets to your fork."
"Dying?"
"Look at it this way. I'm going into a completely other universe! That we can't get information from, and the only promise that I'll survive is that the other universe is the similarity of physics and the vast distances between stars. Also, I can't go back, ever, because we only know the targeting information for this other universe."
"Now that you say it that way, it really does sound like dying."
"Nevermind. I came back to life already."
Andos saw himself walk in.
"Hey, bro. Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Yeah, I'm sure. Are you offering to switch places? We are, after all, the same person."
"Well, one of us has to stay. While I don't really want to 'die', I'm fine with the adventure."
"It helps not being really dead, just dead with a fork."
"Andos, whichever one is going, are you ready to get going?"
"Yep," said Andos. "Let's go, and I'll stay home."
Meris and Andos walked towards the boarding lounge for the shuttle. The shuttle was a specially designed and manufactured exploration shuttle, designed specially for this mission. It was powerful, agile, and well-armed. The sleek, almost bird-like lines of the shuttle quickly rose through the atmosphere on its fusion torch, rising to meet Andos' ship, the Going and Staying Gone. The ship was the standard design for a frigate: a main hull, cylindrical, with spherical caps on either end, then two drive rings, large and bulky, mounted just inboards of the spherical caps, with radiators, weapons, and other equipment being mounted inside the volume defined by the rings, and on the caps, but no further out than the distance from the rings to the hull. The ship was painted a uniform, sleek white, and was fairly bristling with weapons, leaning heavily on Gauss weapons and lasers, and less heavy on missiles or torpedoes. Another striking feature was a pair of two long, cylindrical tubes on either side of the craft, outside of the rings. These tubes were very rough, and had not been painted.
"So, you folks only gave me a frigate?"
"Don't worry, Andos. This frigate will be more than enough. It's got a shuttlecraft in it, and that shuttlecraft has a whole planetary base prefab in there, along with an exploration vehicle or two. You've got a whole set of personal gear, too."
"Power armour?"
"Yup, and a Gauss rifle."
"Atlantis, Sheppard. I've been detected by the alien craft. It's still staying in the outer solar system, for now."
"Unknown small craft, we know where you are – even though you're not emitting any heat, we can still feel your mass."
"Did you just call me fat?" Sheppard muttered. "Unknown ship, identify yourself. You're in our space."
"Unknown small craft, you identify. You're in our inner point defence perimeter."
"Unknown ship, bullshit. I'm nowhere near you."
"Whoa!" Sheppard yelled, as his headphones suddenly screeched with a loud burst of jamming, before settling down back into slience.
"Unknown small craft, heave to."
"Delfey dock, this is the Going and Staying Gone. Request permission to undock."
"Staying Gone, permission granted. Proceed on indicated course to dock safety limit."
"Acknowledged."
Sheppard wrenched his jumper around, heading away from the ship at great speed, accelerating as fast as he could. Mental alarms blared as his ship was hit by a large laser blast, dealing moderate damage.
"Unknown small craft, that was our navigational lidar. Do you want us to start using real weapons?"
Sheppard didn't answer, and started to jink and dodge as best as he could.
"Unknown small craft, heave to and prepare to be taken aboard."
Sheppard continued to accelerate away.
"So be it."
Alarms blared in the cockpit as a drive pod was destroyed with accompanying explosion.
"Damn!" Sheppard cursed, as he struggled to stop the puddle jumper from spinning out.
"Unknown small craft, heave to or we will fire for effect."
"Atlantis, Sheppard. I'm under attack by the alien ship."
"Lastra system control, this is the Going and Staying Gone. Request permission to engage exotic ship drive system."
"Staying Gone, Lastra syscon. Permission granted. You have two light-minutes clearance in all directions. Good luck."
"Lastra syscon, Staying Gone. Copy permission. Thanks for your help. Goodbye."
The Going and Staying Gone began spooling up its drive system, its reactor pumping energy into hydrogen plasma, its generators taking that energy back out in the form of electricity, which was fed into the two attached cylinders. Unfortunately, these were single-use devices, but if the mathematics were worked out properly, they would be able to propel a ship into another universe.
The two drive tubes used the electrical energy given to slowly bend space-time, pushing the ship slowly 'kata', or deeper into a gravity well. The space surrounding the ship distorted, and the ship started to redshift – the intense gravity well was sapping the energy out of escaping photons.
Suddenly, the gravity well was too deep for even light to escape, and the Going and Staying Gone was, according to mathematics and physics, no longer in this universe. The drives kept pushing the ship further and further kata, before in a final burst of energy, the drive tubes slammed the ship so far kata that the ship emerged, very far in the 'ana', or up-gravity direction in another universe. The drive tubes themselves were destroyed, but the ship's regular engines insulated the ship and its only occupant from the effects of the transition.
The ship quickly dropped from its position, far ana, back down to the normal level it should be at, the large distortion in space-time slowly fading away as the ship settled into this universe. The ship then jettisoned the remains of its drive tubes, and began searching for a viable star system in which to travel to.
"Unknown small craft, heave to now."
Sheppard cut power to his engines, before sending another message to Atlantis.
"Atlantis, Sheppard. I've been forced to surrender by the alien ship."
The Going and Staying Gone found a viable star system in which to build a base, identifying a system with two very habitable planets, plus a scattering of barren rocks, gas giants, and moons. Andos decided to go to that system to start off. So far, there had been no signs of life detected, but that wasn't too surprising.
Sheppard's puddle jumper floated in space, and the large, impossibly agile ship aligned its boat bay with the jumper, ready to take in into the ship.
With a bright flash of light, the ship emerged, near a marginal-habitability moon of a gas giant in the outer areas of the solar system. Andos noted the similarity to the planet he had left just a few days prior.
The ship alerted Andos to an incoming small craft, launched from the planet, and approaching on a brachistochrone towards his ship, going for a zero-zero intercept with his ship.
Sheppard's puddle jumper slowly floated nearer and nearer the ship, before mechanical arms reached out and grabbed the jumper, setting it down in a large space, and the bay doors slammed closed, a his of air revealed the chamber to have been depressurized before.
Andos watched as the small craft closed ever closer, apparently emitting no infrared radiation, but its mass and gravity drive emissions still betrayed its position. It drew ever closer, passing the ten light-second mark at which it was polite to identify oneself, passing the five light-second mark at which identification became almost obligatory, but only if you were a warship, the drawing closer, past the one light-second mark, which was the traditional small craft traffic control zone, then passing the one-quarter light-second mark, which marked the inner point defence perimeter. Andos saw that the ship had a hard lock on the craft.
"Unknown small craft, we see you. You're already way too close, and we have a point-defence lock on you. Uncloak, cut power, and prepare to be taken aboard."
Sheppard stepped out of the puddle jumper, into a large hangar bay with only one other small craft in it – a bird-like shuttle. Looking around, he didn't see anyone, but at the other end of the hangar, a door opened, and Andos, in a full suit of battle armour, stepped through, rifle at the ready.
"Drop your weapon!" Andos yelled, and Sheppard dove for cover within the jumper.
Sheppard fired his pistol four times, and hit Andos right in the centre of mass four times, four wonderful ten point shots. If only Andos had weaker armour: the bullets pinged off of his armour, and Andos holstered his weapon and moved into hand-to-hand range.
Sheppard struck first, an admirable attempt to grapple Andos, but even though Andos was weaker then Sheppard out of his armour, he was wearing a suit of powered armour, letting him multiply his strength many times over. Sheppard was thrown to the ground by Andos, who just stood there.
"So, mister, who are you?" Andos asked.
"What's it to you?" Sheppard replied.
"Well, let's just say that I don't really trust people who are determine to sneak up on me, even try to breach my point defence perimeter."
"I don't know what the hell you're talking about."
"Let me put it this way, real simple. The distance you were watching me from? Too close. Way too close. Have some sense of personal space. Nice OTV, by the way. A bit sluggish, but the acceleration sure was good."
"Thanks. Do you mind telling me what you're doing here?"
"Oh, I'm just exploring."
"Great. So am I. Now... take me to your leader."
