“I have to say, Rhuar, that was an impressive launch,” remarked Jesri, unbuckling her harness. “What kind of conversion did you hit?” The space outside the window was a deep, inky black, occasionally disrupted by faint pulses of light streaming by the sides of the ship. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this deep outside of…” She trailed off. “Uh, more massive ships, at any rate.”

Rhuar unjacked, panting, and stumbled for a second before shaking himself thoroughly. “Looks like I blew past fifty,” he said, his exhaustion failing to keep a note of pride from his voice.

“Holy shit,” Jesri said, her eyes widening. Anything upwards of a twenty-fold mass multiplier off a jump ramp was considered to be excellent, the artificially enhanced weight slinging smaller ships much deeper into hyperspace than they could penetrate unassisted. Fifty plunged their small freighter well past those plebeian levels and into the true abyss normally reserved for the mightiest of warships. Apparently Rhuar’s minor attack of smug was well-warranted.

“Eh,” shrugged Rhuar, rolling his head to the side, “you should see it when I nail a jump with a full hold. You’re full black all the way, go so fast you wouldn’t believe it.” He looked at Jesri. “Well, maybe you would.”

Jesri laughed. “How long will the transit take at this depth?”

Rhuar tapped a few console buttons. “Well, we could probably cut it down to two hours or so, but it’d be a comfier exit if we came up near the end. Three hours, maybe?”

She let out a low whistle. Those were world-class numbers, truly something to brag about. “Thanks, Rhuar,” she said, “I’ll let Anja and Kick know.” The dog nodded, turning back to the console and twitching slightly as he reconnected. Jesri scrambled down the short stairs and back towards the medbay, where she found Anja helping Qktk sit up on the bay’s medical bed.

Blue and white nanowraps bound the top of Qktk’s head like a bizarre turban, covering the site of his injury. He looked shaky, but awake and alert. “Madam Jesri,” he clattered, nodding at her. “I think I recall a jump as I was waking up. Are we safely away?”

Jesri nodded, sitting on the edge of his bed. “Yeah, you’ve got one hell of a pilot.” She shot a glance at Anja. “Rhuar says we’ll be at Harsi in three hours, even with a soft-drop.” Anja hung up the diagnostic scanner with a suitably impressed look while her patient preened from the bed.

“Yes, Mr. Rhuar is quite the talent,” he said. “I actually only hired him for his artificer skills, so finding out he could pilot was a happy surprise. Don’t tell him this, but he could probably make much more money as a pilot with his gifts.”

Anja laughed, and Jesri chucked the Htt on the upper arm with her fist. “Oh, don’t sell yourself short,” teased Jesri. “I have a feeling you two will be cleaning up after we part ways.”

Qktk and Anja gave her inquiring looks. “Rhuar and I had a talk as we were leaving,” Jesri explained. “Rhuar feels that Harsi could be somewhat hazardous, but that the risk would be properly offset if we allocated residential access at a few stations.”

The Htt peered at Jesri curiously, but Anja’s eyes narrowed. “May we speak a moment, sister?”, she said evenly, gesturing to the door of the medbay. Sensing a stiffening of the air in the room, Qktk eased himself up from the bed and rattled to the floor, testing his limbs.

“I do believe a walk would do me some good, so if you’ll excuse me…” He nodded gratefully towards the two women. “Madam Jesri, Madam Anja, thank you for your care.”

They returned the gesture as he ambled out, then turned to face each other as Anja slapped the door controls. Almost before it had hissed closed, the warmth had fled from her face. “Sister, I do wish you’d consult with me before making promises like that,” she said. “I don’t dislike the bug and the dog, but giving them real access sits poorly with me.”

Jesri rolled her eyes, easing herself up from the bed. “Oh, don’t start with that,” she scolded, “you had nothing to say when I gave guest rights to the Uen just now.”

Anja shook her head. “That was teaching a lesson, with rights had been given away long ago. You’re proposing to barter our inheritance to pay a fare, sister.”

“What I’m proposing, sister, is proper compensation. You bullied poor Kick into letting us on board in the first place, at which point an armed mob targeting us attacked their home and their livelihood. Kick almost died in the escape, and without Rhuar we would be arriving at Harsi days from now instead of hours.” Jesri folded her arms across her chest and glared at Anja. “They’ve been nothing but gracious and we’ve been a calamity for them.”

Anja stalked over to Jesri and stuck a finger against her breastbone. “Money,” she said, jabbing with each syllable. “I don’t dispute that we’ve incurred a debt, but that’s what money exists to repay. Neither of us is destitute.”

Jesri snorted at the understatement. For people their age, compound interest made the entire game somewhat unfair. “Rhuar didn’t ask for money,” she retorted, “he asked for a chance to earn it. They’re locksmiths, Anja, they have more use for this than anyone.”

This failed to mollify Anja, who spun away from Jesri with a glowering look. “Locksmiths?”, she growled, “It’s bad enough to give rights to strangers, but vandals and robbers besides?”

“They’re just opening doors!”, shouted Jesri. “If you think it’s so wrong to do it their way, you should be glad to give them an alternative.” She forced herself to take a breath. “We’ve been around a long time, but we’ll die eventually. Should humanity’s works help the future or stand apart from it? What do you want Earth’s legacy to be?”

Anja met her gaze unblinkingly. “Victory,” she said. “We’ll finish what we started.”

Jesri laughed unkindly. “Victory for who? For Earth? There’s no victory left there, we lost that battle no matter what you think we can do for the war. We can click our heels together and shout terra invicta until the stars burn cold, but that doesn’t make it any less of a lie.”

Anja slapped Jesri across the face, her eyes furious and blazing. Jesri took the blow without attempting to dodge, but caught Anja’s wrist before she could withdraw her arm.

“If you fight, you’re fighting for their sake now,” she said, her face stinging. “Nobody else is left.”

Anja tore her hand away and stormed out, leaving Jesri alone in the medbay. She sat down on the bed again, rubbing her cheek. After several long minutes she sighed and hauled herself up. She felt every bit of her age. Toggling the lights, she sealed the bay shut and moved off to find where her wayward sister had gone.

Rhuar and Qktk sat on the bridge, watching the ripples of light drifting past as the ship cut a wake through the midnight void of deep hyperspace. The ship was mostly silent as it cruised, which meant that the indistinct sounds of Jesri and Anja’s altercation were hard to ignore.

Qktk looked over at Rhuar, chittering to himself. “I’ve really done it this time, haven’t I?”, he observed.

The dog grinned at him toothily. “Captain, I don’t believe either of us had the option to walk away from the moment they met us. Quietly being mediocre is off the table until they decide we’re done.”

Qktk got up to pace the length of the bridge, his arms rattling in consternation. “I’m not one for politics, or conflict. Quietly being mediocre was my best quality.”

Rhuar chuffed laughter at him. “Don’t be modest, Captain. You may not like making a splash, but you always walk away with your due.”

“Of course,” retorted Qktk, “because I know when to walk away. Now the exit is closed off, and I can’t see the top or bottom of this.”

Rhuar contemplated his words and found that he didn’t have a good response. The two of them sat silently on the bridge, waiting for the first stars to shine out of the void.

The bridge was awash with light towards the end of the jump, soap-bubble fragments of a starscape sliding back and forth in a luminous shell as the freighter skipped along the thin boundaries of hyperspace. Jesri poked her head in from the corridor, then ambled up to stand beside the crew.

She flashed Qktk a friendly smile when he turned his head. “Looks like we’re almost out, huh?”

He nodded, chirping. “We’re in the final runup. You should watch, Madam Jesri - Mr. Rhuar is something of an artist in this regard.”

Rhuar bared his teeth in a grin, but said nothing. His muscles twitched sporadically and his eyes stared ahead, unfocused. Moving fast in hyperspace was easy, but moving slow required much finer control. The window to drop out within easy reach of their destination would span only a fraction of a second. Missing the window would drop them well outside the station’s entry envelope, after which they’d face the prospect of a long, slow burn to get back into position for docking.

The timbre of the ship’s engines changed slightly, and Jesri reached out to grab a chair. Qktk chittered at her, standing unsupported next to Rhuar. “Here we go,” he said, leaning towards the viewports.

The liquid lines of starlight brightened, flowed together, then snapped back to a stable starfield around the ship. Jesri felt a brief shudder in the decking, then stillness. Wisps of glowing light curled away from the hull and drifted past the viewports, dispersing to show the massive expanse of a transit station hanging close ahead of them.

Rhuar let all of his breath out in a whoosh, slumping over sideways on the decking. “Ok, short nap,” he said, tongue lolling out of his mouth. “Being this good is fucking exhausting.”

Jesri clapped her hands together. “That was spot on, and the smoothest exit I’ve had on any ship this size. Most of the old navy pilots would just try to shake up the groundpounders if they got the chance.”

Rhuar stretched his head up. “Lucky for you I’m not a navy pilot, then.”

She peered through the viewport at the station hanging silently against the stars, a thin crescent of light illuminating the near edge where the local star shone weakly against the grey hull. No telltale flashes or streaks of engine light played around the docks, and large swaths of the shadowed hull seemed darker than they should be. She frowned.

“Seems pretty quiet over there,” she muttered, scrolling through a data display.

Rhuar hauled himself to his feet with a grunt, then turned his head towards the station. “You’re not wrong,” he said, eyes darting rapidly. “Thermals are way below average, and I don’t read any recent drive trails. If people do live here, they’re not up to much. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that some of those near sections were unpowered.” He turned to Jesri. “I’ve never seen a transit station like this.”

“I have,” said Jesri grimly. “Reactor damage. The station is cutting power to nonessential systems and uninhabited sectors.”

Qktk rattled his arms. “How could something damage a transit station?”, he wondered, agitation creeping into his tone. “The way they’re built, that seems like it would be impossible.”

Jesri looked away, her eyes distant. “Oh, it’s possible.”

There was a long moment of silence, broken by Anja’s arrival on the bridge. She wandered up to stand next to Jesri, who indicated the silent bulk of the station with a jerk of her chin.

Anja frowned. “That could complicate things,” she said. “We did not have any reports indicating that this station was one of the damaged ones.”

“There are others?”, asked Rhuar, his ears twitching inquiringly. Anja gave him a pained look, and Jesri shook her head sadly.

“Most transit stations are like this,” Jesri sighed. “You just use the ones that survived. Right now there are around two hundred active stations-”

“Fewer,” whispered Anja, cutting her off. “One-hundred eighty nine left.”

Rhuar’s ears flicked back. “Wow, I had considered myself well-traveled having visited fifty or so. How many were there originally?”

Jesri closed her eyes. “Thousands.” Anja walked to stare out the viewport, turning her back on the group. Jesri looked at her, then turned back towards Rhuar and Qktk. “We shouldn’t sit exposed for too long. Can you see which parts of the docking ring still have power?”

Rhuar nodded, and a display flared with a map of the station. Three bright arcs were highlighted in green across the perimeter. “We can dock in any of these sections, I think. Based on our nav data, the old port operated out of this area here.” A smaller segment of the green area turned blue.

Jesri nodded, then pointed to a smaller arc several segments away. “Let’s dock here,” she said. “We’re already on that side, and it’s distant enough that we shouldn’t run into anyone.”

The engines hummed as Rhuar laid in a course.

The ship slid noiselessly towards the cavernous docking bay, the wide rectangular edges growing to dwarf them as they passed through. The ship vibrated softly as they moved through the docking field and into the bay’s atmosphere, light currents of wind buffeting the hull. Through the viewports, the slips bristled like a jagged row of needle teeth drawn with grey and white.

Aside from them, the bay was deserted.

Rhuar sidled up to one of the slips and unjacked, stretching his legs. “Ok, hard part’s over,” he grunted. “Now we just need to deal with all of the crazed cannibal bandits on the spooky derelict station.”

Jesri laughed and shook her head. “We’re far enough away from the old port that I’m hoping we don’t see anyone. We just need to head a short distance back from the docks to a data terminal, then we can leave. You can stay on the ship with the captain, we shouldn’t be gone more than an hour.”

Rhuar whined softly. “I wanna come,” he muttered.

Lifting an eyebrow, Jesri turned to face him. “What about the spooky cannibal bandits?,” she asked with a grin.

“You said yourself they probably wouldn’t be an issue,” he retorted, embarrassed. “This place feels like a bad fuckin idea, but I’m not such a tail-tucker that I’d miss out seeing whatever magical ancient human tech you’re about to mess with.”

“Fair enough,” said Jesri, “but if you come along you follow instructions. Your curiosity is secondary to our goal.”

Rhuar sniffed. “Which is?”

Jesri smiled wider. “Primary.” She turned to look at Anja. “I’m going to grab a few things for my bag, then we can head out.”

Five minutes later, the three of them stepped out onto the slip. The light breeze from the circulators rushed past them, the air neutral and dry. Rhuar looked around nervously. The docking bay stretched spare and empty in all directions, the flat grey decking spotless and uncluttered. “You know, this actually looks better than some of the ports I’ve been to.”

Anja’s lips pressed together in a line. “This is how it they should all look,” she said. “Most of the ports are so dirty these days.”

Jesri turned back to Qktk, who was standing in the hatch. “Captain, keep an eye out on things from the ship. Don’t open the hatch for anything but our return.”

The diminutive Htt nodded and chirped. “Of course, Madam Jesri.” He inclined his head to Anja and Rhuar, then stepped back and toggled the hatch closed. It hissed shut, leaving them alone on the slip.

“Now then,” said Anja brightly, “shall we?” She cocked her head for a moment, then nodded. “The station responds properly when queried. You should register too, once we’re out of the slips.”

They trekked over to the nearest bay exit, then passed through into the corridor beyond. Jesri stretched her shoulders, then addressed the ship. “Station Ariadne,” she said, “Captain Jesri Tam, TNMC Three Five Seven Two Sierra Four. Officer authorization, please.” The speakers gave a crackly chirrup in response. She turned to indicate Rhuar. “Register Artificer Rhuar with level five guest access and VIP protected status.”

Rhuar shot her a grateful look, mouth lolling open, then ran over to a nearby supply closet. The door hissed open, revealing a bare room beyond with a few sealed yellow barrels. He yipped delightedly, spinning in place before retreating and letting the door close. The two women watched him as he approached the door again, causing it to slide open.

Anja snorted. “That door wasn’t restricted to begin with,” she said quietly.

“Shhhh,” smirked Jesri. “Let him have a bit of fun.” She looked down the hall, pointing at a door. “We’re in the central dock for this segment, so the terminal should be straight back.” Anja nodded, and the two started walking towards the door. Rhuar tore himself away from the supply closet door and trotted along behind them, grinning like a maniac.

Anja led the group through a twisting series of corridors for several minutes. They walked in silence, their footsteps echoing softly against the gentle hum of the station and kicking up small puffs of dust from the deck. Yellow and red lichen speckled the walls, spreading from corners and seams.

They stopped in front of a large door, dark grey with a thick frame. It opened silently when Anja stood in front of it, sliding up to reveal a small, dark room covered in displays and blinking lights. “Well, here it is,” she remarked brightly. The three entered, and both women took a console.

After a few long minutes, Jesri frowned and looked up. “I’m not finding anything. It should be in the trace logs, right?” A message flashed red on her display, casting bloody highlights across the room. “The data is either corrupted or missing, I can’t access it.”

Anja pursed her lips. “Not missing, sister.” She tapped a few times on her console, and a map of the station swam up on the display. “The network links to the inner core appear to be down.”

Jesri groaned. “Please don’t say that,” she groused, pushing away from her console. Rhuar gave her an inquisitive look, cocking his head. “She’s saying the dock terminals aren’t going to work,” she explained. “We’re going to have to access the data core directly from the inner ring.”

He perked up. “We get to see the inner ring? Awesome!”

Anja smirked. “Yes, and the transit pods won’t be working. We get to walk there.”

Rhuar’s gaze flicked back and forth between them, his expression falling. “Uh, how far is it?”, he asked.

Jesri stood up. “We’d better get back to the ship and let Kick know we’ll be longer than expected.” Anja nodded and followed her out of the terminal room.

Rhuar rushed after them. “Hey, wait! Is it really far?”

Anja, Jesri and Rhuar approached a tall, heavy door at the end of a corridor. Anja stood in front of it and a muffled whine of machinery sounded. It built and grew higher pitched, then a jarring clunk sent vibrations through the deck. The whine stopped.

“Dammit,” said Jesri, closing her eyes.

The three had been walking for four hours, and this was the fifth broken door they’d encountered. Every time they found one, they had been forced to backtrack to a different section to continue their inward progress. With a straight path they could have been most of the way to the center by now, but their convoluted route and frequent interruptions meant that they were still stuck in the outer ring, nearly two thirds of the way out from the center.

“It would have been very convenient if it worked,” grumbled Anja. “The next door we could use to access the middle ring is a kilometer antispinward from here.”

Rhuar made an exasperated whining noise. “Are you sure it’s broken?”, he said, his exoskeleton unfolding to prod at the access panel.

Anja rolled her eyes. “You’re the locksmith, you tell me.”

“I don’t deal with broken doors,” Rhuar muttered, the arms of his exoskeleton peeling back the panel cover and prodding at the electronics underneath. “I’m not in the business of repairs. I deal with functional, locked doors. Hence, locksmith.”

Anja leaned against the corridor and took a drink of water from her bag. “Shouldn’t a locksmith be making locks as well? If all you do is unlock the locks it makes you more of a lockpick than a locksmith.”

Rhuar shot her an annoyed look as his arms kept working inside the panel. “I’m not a word historian or whatever-”

“Etymologist,” supplied Jesri.

Anja frowned. “Surely it’s just a linguist?”

“Whatever you’d like to call it,” continued Rhuar, glaring at her, “I’m in the business of opening locks. We can stand around talking about it, or we can-”

The door groaned and rose a meter, leaving a gap through which warm, humid air flowed softly. Rhuar blinked. “Huh,” he said. “Hey, the door’s open.”

Jesri bent down to peer through the gap. “Well,” she said, sucking her teeth, “it’s not pretty but it’s traversable.” She peered at Rhuar. “What are the odds this door will chop me in half if I try to go under it?”

Rhuar gave her an arch look. “And now I’m a statistician?”

Anja cocked her head. “Actuary?”

Jesri shook her head. “Okay, I deserved that.” She slipped her bag under the door, then bent and passed through. “Looks good over here. Come on through.”

Anja and Rhuar slid through the gap to emerge on the far side of the door, looking down the long corridor. It was wide and tall, even taller than the residential corridors on the outer parts of the station. A slight curve caused the corridor to bend out of sight after several hundred meters, but it looked as though it ran for a very long way. The floor and walls were thickly covered in lichen, with mosses crowding the sides of the hallway in splotchy greens and browns.

Anja beamed. “Oh, good. This is one of the primary radial corridors. It will take us all the way across the middle ring, at which point we can transit to the inner ring and reach the core.”

Rhuar peered into the distance. “How far is it across the middle ring?”

Jesri stretched her arms. “Ten kilometers. Ready?” She smirked at him and started walking, Anja on her heels.

Rhuar slumped. “You know, this is much less interesting than you made it sound on the ship.” He shook himself, then padded off down the hall.

The moss at the sides of the hallway thickened as they walked, and after the first kilometer it formed a mossy bed of green stretching across the decking. Several centimeters of growth had accrued across the hall, supplemented in thicker areas by some sort of sparse grass.

Anja bounced experimentally on the moss, standing on the ball of one foot. “Springy,” she noted. “More comfortable to walk on.”

Jesri waved a hand at the ceiling. “Yeah, but it means the environmental controls are messed up. The humidity is way above normal. Plus, the green plants mean there was some sort of hydroponics breach. We’re probably going to have issues further in.”

Rhuar sniffed the air. “It does smell a bit mulchy from that direction. I don’t think it’s going to get any clearer as we keep going.”

Anja shrugged. “Not much we can do about it.” She squared her pack on her shoulders, and the group continued.

The greenery intensified as they continued, clover spreading underfoot as ivy covered the walls in a thick mat of green. The plants clustered densely where the hallway lighting was strongest, making regular patches of high growth as they progressed. The hallway grew dimmer as the ivy climbed in great shaggy clumps around the light tracks at the top of the hall, interspersed with hanging, thorny vines.

The two women were forced to dodge around clumps of thorned tendrils descending from the ceiling, stretching in verdant ropes over the passageway. Jesri pulled a long knife from her satchel. “This is worse than I’ve ever seen it,” she grumbled. She drew the knife slowly across a woody collection of vines and they parted with no resistance.

Rhuar stared at the cleanly sliced vine, fascinated, then turned wide eyes to Jesri. “Uh, can I see that knife for a second?”

Jesri gave him a look, then kept on walking forward.

Even with Jesri clearing a path they made poor forward progress through the strangling vegetation. The air was hot and humid, and Anja was muttering under her breath. Rhuar panted rapidly, his tongue hanging from his mouth and small clinging seeds dotting his coat. They pressed forward for a couple of kilometers, cleaving a rough green tunnel through the undergrowth.

They passed a hissing pipe at a junction, slick and green with huge mats of algae slumping around it. Anja smacked at it. “There it is,” she complained. “One stupid pipe spraying excess moisture around for a few thousand years and you have a jungle in the hallway.”

Rhuar stared at the tiny trickle of water from the pipe spraying out to coat a broad leaf with a sheen of beaded droplets. “Seems like it’s too small to cause all of this.”

Jesri shrugged. “It’s not a significant leak, but time is the ultimate force multiplier. If the environmental humidity regulators are out, this is more than enough to throw a station’s atmospheric mix out of balance.” Rhuar nodded, pondering.

The group pressed forward, leaving the hissing pipe behind. The vegetation grew higher with every step, the smell of rotting plant matter thick in the air. After clearing through a particularly gnarled tangle, Jesri stumbled forward and found herself in an open stretch of hallway. The ghost of a grin rose to her lips, but died quickly as she looked farther down the corridor. “Aw, shit,” she spat. “Guys, come up and look at this.”

Anja and Rhuar walked through the hole she had cut in the greenery and looked ahead. The hallway ahead of them was dim and murky, the plants along it brown and stunted. None of the wall lights were on past the point they had reached, and the far arc of the corridor was lost in shadow.

Rhuar peered into the darkness. “How long do you suppose this goes on for?”, he asked.

Anja shrugged. “Could be a few hundred meters, could be several kilometers. Hard to say, but it should not extend to the inner ring unless there are unrelated problems with that grid as well.”

“Great,” Jesri sighed. “Now it’s dark.” She reached into her satchel and grabbed a small, round ball of metal, which she tossed into the air. It floated up to hover over her head and began shining softly, illuminating the hallway with a dim amber glow. She turned to Rhuar, who was staring at the light intently.

“No,” she said.

Rhuar pouted. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Mmhmm,” replied Jesri, adjusting her satchel as she peered further ahead. “My mistake.” She began moving forward again, the ball of light trailing along above her head. Anja and Rhuar followed on her heels, casting the dying plants into shadow.

Together, the three walked into the darkness.