4.13 - Welcome to the 27th century
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters.
Spoilers: Season 3.13 and Mr. Mallozzi's official continuation on his blog 4.01+4.02.
Summary: The Raza discovers an old ship stranded on an eternal journey and the crew ends up in the cross-fire between corporations arguing over it and the ancient crew. Eventually they stumble about unlikely alleys and a link to some of their pasts.
A/N: This is my virtual Season 4 season's finale. Maybe you wanna read my other stories first to get a general idea, yet this story can also stand on its own.
4.03 - Don't be so sure of what you have
4.0X - I Wish I Could Take Your Pain Away
40X - I Can't Bribe Them Enough to Not Tell
X – X – X – X – X
Chapter 1
"Do you really think it's a good idea to park the Raza so close to a star for so long?" SIX picked up another puzzle piece and tried to figure if it was a bluish part of the sky, a bluish part of the ocean or a bluish part of one of the countless dolphins. After comparing it with the picture on the carton, he decided that it was most likely a fish-part and put it onto the small heap next to TWO and Irena, who were still occupied with the fin of their first dolphin.
Android picked the piece, he had just put down, up once again and dropped it onto FOUR's heap of sky-pieces. "We are in the radiation shadow of a class K giant. For the next 18.4 hours we will be fine. Repairs to the weapons should be completed within the next 4.7 hours."
Chewing on a protein bar, a green one of course, THREE grumbled snippets of most likely curses under his breath as he rearranged the overlapping pieces in the right bottom corner of the puzzle for the umpteenth time. Even their little genius hacker had admitted that the pieces could be placed in three different combinations and still all look like they would fit, which they obviously didn't. Since everything was blue this was no real surprise. From the corner of his eyes, THREE saw the android's hand close in to his section of the puzzle. "Don't, Robot! I wanna figure it out myself." Even he had some pride.
"You already spent the past 34 minutes on rearranging these ten pieces."
"I will get it done by myself!" He gazed over to the big man, who held the bottom-carton with still several hundreds of pieces in it. "Tiny, you sure there aren't any more edge-pieces left?"
SIX frowned a bit disturbed onto his friend and his troublesome corner. "I'm sure and the way it looks you already do have too many edge-pieces. How the hell did you manage to make it look like another dolphin could fit in there?"
"Philistine!" He picked up another bothersome piece and turned it in his fingers several times before throwing it next to FIVE's hand. "Hey Kid, I think that's a piece of your anemones."
Wordlessly the teenager took the new piece and looked through the many gaps in the maritime structure until she found one it actually fitted. "Thanks."
"Did you think about what we'll do when we eventually finish this puzzle?" SIX asked and added more pieces to the sky-heap of FOUR, who sat like always cross-legged and in silence at work.
TWO sighed. "We are putting so much work in it. Destroying it afterwards would be a waste."
"No destroying!" Irena wore a determined scowl.
"Can we glue it together or so? And hang it as a picture to the walls?" FIVE suggested and finished another portion of her anemones.
"Specialized glue exactly for this purpose does exist. We could pick up a bottle at our next space station stop."
"Put it onto the shopping list, Android."
"Yes, TWO."
"Aww finally! I did it!" THREE cried out in triumph. "It fits now!"
"Bending the edges or making the pieces fit with force does not count, THREE." TWO chided without looking up from the dolphin, she and Irena eventually had finished. Only seven more to go…
"I didn't!" A slightly childish frown spread over his forehead by her assumption. "Have a look for yourself!"
To save the relaxed atmosphere FIVE looked up from her rocks and anemones and inspected the devilish corner of ocean. It did indeed look like it was meant to fit this way. "Well done. Now you can help me with the underwater-mountains." She scooted over slightly. Last time one of them decided his part was done and left, suddenly one after one followed and in the end, she and a sleeping Irena were the only ones left. And she loved these family-moments too much.
"This is strange."
THREE looked over their android's shoulder onto the piece she was holding. "It's not strange, it's a part of those clown-fishes. What's strange, is that they are bluish as well…"
"I don't mean the puzzle. Our long range scanners just caught sign of another vessel orbiting this same star only 30.000 km from our position."
Going by her expression TWO was immediately in her boss-mode. "Affiliation?"
"Unknown."
The men followed TWO's example and scrambled to their feet and all watched a large ship which didn't resemble any of the known classes from any of the many corporations on the small screen of the mess. "Can you magnify the picture? There seems to be some writing on the outer hull." FOUR pointed out and the words "I.S.E. Providence" came into few. "I.S.E.?" This abbreviation of a corporation was to everyone unknown.
"International Space-service of Earth." Android provided as she and FIVE also joined the others around the small screen. "Fascinating." She continued on the questioning gazes of her crewmates. "According to historical data the I.S.E. Providence was sent on a 57 years journey to a possible habitable planet 174 light years away in the Aries-sector with a by then innovatory new design of the FTL-engine, which was discontinued due to the loss of contact to the Providence."
"Aries sector. It's already colonized and a journey there shouldn't take more than eleven or twelve months." TWO explained with a frown.
"This is correct, TWO, by nowadays standard FTL-drives. Back in the day of the Providence, the drives were still much slower and there weren't any space-stations available to refuel. The Providence had to take a zick-zack-course to refuel frequently and thus lengthened the original way by 3.94 times."
"Of what time do we speak here, Robot?"
"The Providence left Terra Prime 382 years ago and never arrived at her destination."
"382 years?!" FIVE exclaimed.
SIX sobered up first and eyed the picture of the ancient ship orbiting the sun of this system. "What is it doing here in this star?"
"Refueling." When the teenager repeated the word puzzled, Android elaborated. "The hydrogen of the star is used in the catalyst-reaction of this special type of FTL-engine. It is not as strong and fast as other models, yet it is the only one possible to recharge by gathering hydrogen from stars."
"It could fly forever." FIVE muttered in an engineering awe.
"That's what it seems to do." TWO faced the blond. "Do you think there is still someone alive over there?"
"You mean that they are travelling like nomads through the galaxy?" THREE frowned skeptically. "But why wouldn't they dock at some space station from time to time to resupply? You think they are completely autarkic?"
"The outer hull is still intact. Yet the radiation keeps me from scanning the inner of the ship as well as sending a sub-space message."
"Seems like there is only one way to find out." THREE picked his jacket up from the back of a chair and shrugged inside as he left the room.
SIX looked a bit worried. "How long do you think it will refuel before jumping again?"
"According to the news articles of this specific engine, refueling should take 10-14 hours depending on the class of star used."
Worrying her lower lip somewhat, the teenager looking into the round of her friends. "So we simply break in and say hello? We are most likely the first other human beings they encounter in almost 400 years."
"When we are closer with the Marauder, we will try to contact them." TWO's gaze fell onto Lulu, Pip and Raquel, who THREE had already fetched from his private armory as he rejoined them. "In any case, we will only take stun guns." She ignored her lover's groan. "But I doubt that we'll find anyone over there. The ship is most likely on auto-pilot for centuries."
"I have programmed a new FTL-course in case we take too long and the radiation threatens to penetrate the hull of the Raza."
TWO frowned at their enthusiastic android as she told her good-bye to her daughter. "You want to come, too?"
"I think my knowledge about those old news articles and thus the technic of that time could come in handy over there."
"I wanna go, too." FIVE made that sad face again, but knew she had lost, when Android was joining the away-team.
Cupping her face with one hand, TWO made the teenager look up. "We don't know what is waiting over there." She saw her roll her eyes. "If we have to go over there a second time and all is safe, you can go then."
FIVE pursed her lips. "Promise?"
"Promise."
"I'll bring you some archeological souvenir, Kid. But no ten pound data storage only holding one Gigabit."
"If they were able to build ships and FTL-engines like that, their data storages must have been already at Pentabits." FIVE shouted after the adults and fetched one of the kids-books from the sideboard before picking Irena up from the floor. "Come Irena, we'll read a book on the bridge."
"No puzzling?" the little blond pouted and hugged the older girl around the neck.
"We'll continue later when the others are back."
"Do you guys think, we could sell that ship to some museum?" Leave it to THREE to think of money.
"We'll see once we are over there. Now get inside the Marauder."
X – X – X – X – X
A/N: I hope there are still some Dark Matter fans out there, reading this.