And so the journeys begin, with the Captain and medical droid remaining on the ship, which was powered down to a hibernation mode. The medical droid had no AI system and the Captain wasn't programmed with boredom, it knew how to wait.

Taking the equipment was Gesto and Dr. Zimorax, who hauled Diana with her.

There was a small and very frosty conversation about this the night before.

'But I'm here to explore and make connections. How am I supposed to make memories trapped with you and some middle-aged nanny.' Diana got the two security officers mixed up. And it was more of a statement that a rhetorical question.

'You'll have a month to argue over interpretations of pottery shards and play cards to see who has to do the washing up. Maybe even more if we find anything. You stay as long as I do.'

Diana bristled. 'But I'm a capable student. I don't need you.' She didn't want to explain that she worried what the others thought, or that what she thought they thought. She knew her aunt to be cold and sharp and would likely shrug her concerns off as weak and childish.

'And I don't need you either, but I am stuck with you, with all of you,' Dr. Zimorax added, aware the bite of admitting how she loathed Diana was too cruel even for her. Diana didn't look at all like her mother or father, but certainly had something of her grandfather in the mouth. It became apparent in the pouting-sneer, a childish scrunching of the lips and nose.

'So let me go on my own with the others.'

'Simply not. If you even go home with a scratch…I wouldn't hear the end of it.'

'Wow, thanks for caring about my safety!'

'Diana, I have told you, and your mother told you, I am not close to the family. But you are still under my care—as are the other students, so you will come with me and that will be the end of it.'

Vazican had met Diana twice before she showed up to class one day. The first at her naming celebration, the second at her death of an uncle (Vazican's uncle, but Diana still called him uncle for simplicity). They had not spoke for long on either occasion and Vazican did not stay long at either occasion. Their relationship has not flourished in the time Diana knew her aunt, despite efforts by both parties. They could be civil, but not friendly.

The other part of the crew, the ones travelling on foot who would be camping out for two nights, was everyone else. They were given protective clothing, which was a jumpsuit that somehow managed to keep them cool if they pressed a button that created a stop-gap. It was designed to naturally ventilate the entire body without risking small creatures infiltrating. It was an unflattering green with a vulgar red lining.

The military group set out carrying the rations and equipment, as this is what they were hired to do, but the Doctor, after going on about something called Girl Guides, it was agreed that the students would take a crack at carrying the equipment. Dr. Matsumoto offered, despite looking like it would crush him, in fact he insisted, agreed with the Doctor.

'You know, I've spent my whole life indoors reading—'

'I should not consider that to be a disadvantage to your character, Doctor Matsumoto.'

'Please, Suya, or Susie, Doctor. And yes, true, I am well-read and well-rounded but I—I've felt I've missed out. It's why I swapped with Vazi, give her more time with Diana.'

The other students looked at each other, or at least Chitra looked at Icrel because Orlo felt he was above this and just there for exposition (he also wasn't humanoid and didn't have eyes). Icrel wasn't sure what Chitra was trying to say and Chitra was trying to get a read on both of them before she said anything. She was sure they had opinions on Diana like her, but she wasn't sure if they were similar to hers.

'We're full of family connections on this ship, it seems,' said Dr. Chen.

There was a ripple of polite laughter. One of the jokes Dr. Chen continued was that she and Gesto Chen were related, constantly changing what this relation was.

The landscape was sparse, only Dr. Matsumoto noticed much that was interesting, but not worth commenting. He taught Icrel and shared Orlo with Dr. Zimorax. He did not know Diana or Chitra other than them being exceptional students.

There was little to say and so little was said. Most of them enjoyed the quiet. There was life on the planet, orbital satellites registered heat signatures from minute creatures, but that was on another continent, one where the first complex life had likely began. Perhaps where the meteorite had struck and infected the world.

But in this green and hushed land it was a quiet unlike they had ever experienced. Sound dampening chambers create silence, a vacuum of noise that is nothing. Even in the deepest part of the country, or alone in a colony dome, there was always noise. They had never experienced this before and so one of them had to break the spell by commenting on it:

'It's so quiet,' Chitra said over the panting of her peers and ruffling of their clothes.

'A planet before recorded history,' mused Dr. Matsumoto. 'Only very basic vegetation. And depending on whether we can colonise, it might be just about to develop complex life. This is the quiet of being truly alone.'

This isn't true, but it would take another few years to realise this, what with time distortions.

'It reminds me of the orbital,' said Aumegden. They all began the steep steps up a mountain and were sweating cold. 'Sometimes, because I was young and it was dangerous, I was left in the satellite. I was actually born on the satellite. I was alone, completely isolated, sometimes solar flares would disrupt communication. A whisper would echo,' she paused to listen to the wind singing sonorous notes through the valleys of the mountain. 'You would always hear the engines hum though. I'd fall asleep to their hum in the night cycle.'

This made sense to Hestamoloc and Lt. Castillo who both noticed she had difficulty sleeping and often lingered in the engine room until she felt tired.

'Y'know when you're near a reactor core and the floor isn't properly insulated, when you stand barefoot, or just thin soles, you can feel the vibration through your body. When I was… ten, we returned to Parvax for the first time, it was my first time on a planet. I felt nauseous, dizzy. The gravity was close enough that the med-techs couldn't figure it out why I should be, but eventually… my body had gotten used to the vibrations of the ship.'

'You were nine. You arrived just before your tenth birthday. I remember reading they cancelled the public celebration because you were sick.'

Aumegden gave Dr. Chen an incredulous look. 'Yes, I forgot. Are you a fan of my parents?'

'No—apathetic—space travel and the research didn't matter to me. You weren't the first to be born in an orbital, or spend most of your life in unnatural gravity.'

'What exactly did your parents do?' asked Icrel.

'Didn't my dossier say not to ask me that?'

Icrel shrugged. 'I didn't know we got to write our own files.'

'You didn't. You weren't supposed to have access to yours,' said Lt. Castillo.

Aumegden gave a weak salute. 'Sorry Lieutenant, I just caught a glimpse. And my parents were part of the research into charged gravity, something about solar radiation and solar gravity.' She knew exactly what it was, but you know how it is.

'And what, did they care more about their reputation than you, or something?'

'Icrel!'

'Mister Sha-Pen!'

'What?'

'It's rude,' hissed Chitra.

'Icrel's from Sei,' said Orlo as an explanation. Which it was, Seiish culture sees personal boundaries and privacy rude. It is perhaps why the New Tangier government controls them indirectly, no secret service. It is perhaps that Orlo is not the whacky foreign-exchange student, but Icrel is.

Most of the group understood and as an attempt to remedy the awkwardness Chitra overshared about her parents' expectations—very low, they were excited by little and believed in living only for pleasure. Which is why she always worked hard, partly feeling she is built to be brilliant because it was wasted on her parents. Icrel, too, added something about parents, but no one paid attention because he was the weirdo and said something weird. Orlo did not feel like commenting because his exposition didn't matter just then.

'I did not pick you because of your parents,' said Lt. Castillo, with her usual warning tone. 'And I'm glad that you are all living up to your potential as part of my crew.'

'Does that include us?' asked Chitra, knowing exactly the type of woman Vanessa Castillo was.

'Yes. While we are away from the ship I am the commanding officer and you are all to follow my orders to prevent harm.'

'From you or the planet?'

This garnered a laugh, even from Lt. Castillo who made sure to remember it.

But Chitra was not done. 'Where do we even fall under as civilians? What's our rank, in your eyes, as civilians?'

'The three doctors are your commanding officers, with each of you students cadets.'

'So which of the doctors is higher ranking? Who do I have to butter up?'

'Doctor Zimorax isn't here.'

'Smart response, but not an answer,' teased Chitra, a little out of breath from the upwards hike. It had evened out a little, but they could still feel the upward thrust of their calves.

Lt. Castillo thought for a moment, watching Doctor Clayton in the lead, fresh and unspoiled by any exhaustion or much sweat. She pushed herself over rocks and bumpy mountain paths with ease. Even the fittest of the ground soldiers, Hestomoloc, was showing signs of effort.

Perhaps now, she thought; and answered so: 'Doctor Clayton would take lead.' At this, Lt. Castillo notice the Doctor cock her head a little. 'I think Doctor Matsumoto would be the first to admit he is struggling.'

Doctor Matsumoto responded with panting breaths.

'And Doctor Clayton clearly has military history. She is tactical.'

They were reaching the first crest in a mountain range, looking behind them they could see the landscape unfold in untouched wilderness, and the clearing where the Follgun was nested. The sky was blue with a little more turquoise than what they were used to on New Earth. Partly the spectrographic layout of the atmosphere and partly a reflection of the swathes of green around the planet and its oceans. The sun was still low in the sky, not yet reaching afternoon, vapour clouds drifted like watercolour paint.

The Doctor gave a smirk. 'You have my greatest appreciations Lieutenant.'

It was all mind games. This was a confirmation Lt. Castillo's suspicions were correct, but that the Doctor knew Lt. Castillo didn't know much beyond vagueness. Possibly, that knowing more would be dangerous, that possibly she was a spy and had ulterior motives that Castillo was under orders to follow but not the privileges of rank (or trusted) to know.

They continued on some more until Orlo simply couldn't help it: 'That is not answering the question directly and indirectly suggests you do have military history. You don't like lying, but you can't tell the truth. And you said it quite easily.'

Icrel leaned over, in a staged whisper: 'You're not supposed to say the quiet part out loud.'

Orlo, snappish: 'So?'

'It takes the fun out of it.'

'What fun?'

'Guessing if she's a spy sent to make sure we don't sell any treasure, or that we make sure there's grounds for this planet to be colonised by the Galactic Union.' Icrel was very aware of how human's interacted. Orlo to a lesser extent, but people just had to know how clever he was.

'And,' Dr. Matsumoto said between struggling breaths as he pushed himself forward, 'we don't even know, what you are a doctor of.'

'Well, I'm very talented and very private. I have a few degrees that bleed in to other subjects, most of which—wow, look at that view!' She stopped and they turned to look with her at the expanse of a pre-historic land, cluttered with greenery and distant mountains, some a wall of bright orange clay in the sunlight, others as shadowy, snow-capped thorns blurring around the edges for their distance.

'I think we could take a break now. We've been going for two hours.' The Doctor noticed Lt. Castillo about to disagree and so quickly added: 'And I think Tatsuya is going to collapse.'

Dr. Matsumoto thought about objecting, but felt his legs about to give in and so threw some of the bags to his students and sat on a stone. 'Yes, I am.'

They did not have any of the rations, but did drink water. They took time to listen to the quiet of the world. It was beautiful.

'Doctor, again, you haven't answered why you, a temporal physicist would have been military history.'

'Orlo! You're so bad at this,' said Icrel. Chitra looked at him, amused, he wasn't as funny as he was, but he did have humour in looking at the fourth wall.

The Doctor laughed and looked at Lt. Castillo, then to the other militarists. Joshua was staring into nothing, Aumedgen was meditating on the quietude, Hestamoloc was sitting by Dr. Matsumoto.

'Light speed technology distorts time. Spatial folding distorts time. Wormholes are not linear. As such some of the engineers asked for my opinion, but towards the end of the project asked me to join them and pool our knowledge. Yet in doing that, it catalysed what I had hoped they would not to do: Use it as a primitive form of time travel.'

'Primitive compared to who?' asked Joshua, staring into space, but with a furrowed brow.

'No one. Just that it was simplistic. Dangerous too.' The Doctor held up a hand to stall any questions as she looked out. She then pointed to a storm on the horizon, as they watched it appear form nothing the grey clouds flashed with lightning.

'Should we find shelter?' asked Dr. Matsumoto.

'Keep watching.'

Nobody paid attention to Joshua's small grunt as he rubbed his eyes.

The lights in the storm shifted to indigo and purple, then one red cut through it. It bent, cartoon-like, in the middle. Then briefly, ghost-like, it was cast wide towards them, flashes of rainbows.

'All hail,' whispered Chitra under her breathe.

'I don't think so,' said Orlo.

The cloud disappeared again, awkwardly stretching back into its point on the horizon and finally disappearing into the strange bend in its middle.

'That is our temporal distortion growing bigger. That storm was not of this time and was sent through other times it could have been. The lightning, refracted through light and gravity distortions.'

'Beautiful,' said Aumegden.

'Dangerous,' said Lt. Castillo.

'It's both,' said the Doctor.