The outpost was quiet, as it always was. Now and then, a rogue object would pass through. In that case, the resident officer would retrieve it and place it in a safe holding place, until such time when the owners would request its return. That hadn't happened yet.
Not surprising, really. The owners were hundreds of millions of miles away. They hadn't developed the technology to send one of their own people any further than their own natural satellite. Surprising, really, as they were more than willing to send valuable (to them, anyway) pieces of equipment shooting through space, never to return.
The officer sighed. There had been nothing interesting happening for the past forty-seven cycles. One cycle was comprised of ten aans, each of which was about two Earth hours long. A cycle was therefore comparable to one Earth day.
Sometimes, though very rarely, a rogue spaceship would enter the protected zone of Sol Sys-63674. Then the officer would apprehend this vehicle and turn it away politely but firmly. The Sol Sys-63674 was a protected system, after all.
It was the Council of Jurai that had decided, several centuries ago, that all systems containing planets that had sentient life, but hadn't developed sufficient technology to build interplanetary space vehicles, were to be quarantined. Once this technology was invented on that planet, they were covertly introduced to the galaxy. That is, on a need-to-know basis only. It was then up to the representatives of that planet to decide whether it should continue to research this technology, or whether it should instead leave it, keeping the knowledge of the rest of the galaxy blissfully unaware to the people of that planet.
That had happened about fifty Earth years ago. The meeting-place had been a remote location in what the Earthlings called Nevada, America. A delegate had been dispatched from the Jurai central command office to make first contact with the Earthlings. The ship, upon arrival, had sent a message to the leaders of that day, inviting them to Nevada for a conference. Once they had arrived, the Juraian council introduced themselves and explained Earth's situation.
The President of America had shamelessly proclaimed himself the leader of the world, at least to himself, and made all the demands. Asking the questions wasn't that difficult, as the general languages of the galaxy were English and Japanese, two opposite languages into which any local language could be subtly changed to over the course of many centuries. This is what had happened throughout the galaxy, in order to make communications easier.
The real problem was the publicity. The Americans immediately wanted claim to the aliens, despite these aliens being human also. Since the aliens had landed on America, the President of this country wanted to claim the contact as being their own. The Russians, however, did not agree. If anything, they wanted to share this revelation, as they didn't want to look bad for not discovering these aliens. The Japanese wanted to show the world a larger place, of which the Earth was an insignificant part. This might calm feelings between nations and hopefully unite everyone. The Germans were between the Russians and the Japanese. Since their take-over by the Allies and the Russians, they wanted to be more peaceful and accept these aliens into their lives.
The aliens themselves just sat quietly on the other side of the desk, feeling rather uncomfortable while everyone else was arguing. Then they decided to leave. A civilisation that still thought separately, and not as a whole, shouldn't be allowed to explore anything new. So they left.
There was a cover-up, as there always is, and the incident was forgotten as the Roswell Incident, the Area 51 Encounter, and so forth.
And now, fifty years later, the outpost officer on Pluto sat, waiting for something remotely interesting to happen to her.
On a whim, she decided to traverse the gap to the twin planet of Charon. Charon was half the size of Pluto, and remained always in the same spot overhead. There was a very good reason for this: a strong metal walkway attached the two, allowing movement between the main base and the recreational facilities without the need of a spacesuit or a ship.
She decided to walk the distance instead of taking the autocar, as she wanted the exercise. It was quite some distance, but there were conveyor belts running through the passage, which cut the transition time between the two planets to about fifty minutes. Once at the other end she emerged into a small room with a door at the other end. The door led to a large hologrammic room, which could display in detail anything it was commanded to as an interactive combination of light and magnetic fields. A control panel was fit into the wall next to the door. She went up to it and tapped in a few commands. She then went through the door.
She emerged in a lush countryside, with fields stretching into the distance. To one side of her was a forest, and the other a large lake with sandy beaches. She approached the lake, the door disappearing behind her.
She took her clothes off and folded them onto a beach towel conveniently placed next to the water. She picked up the swimming costume, also there, and pulled it on. Then she dived into the water and swum across the lake and back. It was a long trip, so when she got back she sat down in the water and laid back, the water level halfway up her body. She closed her eyes.
**********
And of course, Ryoko and Ayeka were fighting again. Not near the kitchen - they knew better than that - but in most other places. And they were doing a good job of destroying everything except each other. Tenchi had long since escaped to the carrot field, where yet another job was needing to be done, and Washu had retreated to the safety of her lab. The good thing about her lab was that it was in another dimension, on five planets countless light years away. That meant it was quiet. Sasami, as for some reason she mostly is, was in the kitchen preparing some food.
Mihoshi had left the house, and was going for a walk. She ended up in the carrot field. Tenchi was nearby.
Tenchi looked up. "Oh, hello Mihoshi," he greeted. "What are you up to?"
"I just went for a walk," Mihoshi said. "For some reason I've ended up here."
"Well, it's always nice to have company," Tenchi said, before getting back to digging. "So has the fighting stopped yet?" he asked.
"No," Mihoshi said. "Just after I left, the front door exploded."
Tenchi sighed. "Yet more work for me, then," he said sadly. He was getting sweaty, so he took his shirt off. It being a hot day didn't help either. He cast his shirt to the side, near to where Mihoshi was sitting.
Mihoshi just stared at Tenchi. 'Wow,' she thought. 'Now I remember why I'm attracted to him.' She started to blush.
Tenchi looked at her. "Mihoshi, are you alright?" he asked. "Your face is all red."
"Oh, it's the heat," Mihoshi covered.
A loud siren suddenly sounded. Tenchi jerked his head up and looked around. "What's that?" he asked.
Mihoshi also looked up.
**********
The officer woke up, to hear the alert siren beeping all around her. She got out of the water and quickly dressed, before going out of the hologrammic room and cancelling the alert on the control panel outside. Apparently there was a pursuit in progress nearby, and she was required to be ready, in case she was needed.
The officer rushed back to the main base, getting there in five minutes using the autocar this time, and started to activate her ship. The base's intelligent computer loaded itself into the ship, and performed some systems checks. The officer boarded and changed into her uniform, before sitting down in the cockpit and performing some last minute operations. Once everything was done she sat back.
And waited.