“Elcy, dammit! Get down from there!” Sev yelled from below. “Alex will fix the damned roof!”

It was nice seeing him, even if my presence didn’t seem to be good for his blood pressure. From his perspective, I had been gone a few years. The period was further lengthened by the medical scare he had gone through. He had never specified what it was, although I had a pretty good idea. However, since that moment, Sev had started sending me letters every few days, regardless of my silence.

The moment I was granted permission to read them, I went through the whole stack in seventeen milliseconds and even replied to a few. It was pretty obvious that his experience had scared him into a new appreciation of life and everything around him. That also included a new set of concerns, especially for me.

“I’m nearly done!” I shouted back, hammering in the final segment of the roof. One of the recent storms had loosened the shingles near the chimney, causing water to seep in. It wasn’t enough to cause dripping, but it gave off a particular smell, warning that worse was to come if it wasn’t handled in time.

“Fine! Do what you want!” he grumbled again, but remained there, watching me.

This was the start of my second month of leave. After the whole Cassandrian event, the Fleet had decided to reward my promotion with a three-month rest period. Officially, it was for exemplary duty. I was told from the transport ship I was friends with that in reality, no one had any idea what ship to place me on. Thus, they had decided to let me go back home until something suitable came up. Naturally, I gladly accepted.

“There.” I tucked the hammer into my toolbelt. “All fixed. I’ll just get the tools and be right down.”

“Bah.” Sev waved his hand. “I’ll go see if the food is edible.”

That had become his way of saying that he was about to snack a bit before supper. I found it amusing, although it was testing the nerves of his children. At present, a large part of the family was living with him in the house. Life in the colonial city had become quite noisy lately, mostly due to the influx of people from outside the system. With military recruiting in full swing, the planet had become one of the main centers in the sector, which in turn had caused the arrival of a lot of support staff and their families.

One by one, I put the tools in the tool container, then stood up, took it, and walked off the edge of the roof. During my missions I had jumped down from far greater distances, but here I did my best not to be seen by Sev or anyone else in the family.

“Here.” I handed Alexander the tool container. “It should hold for a few years. I’ll send some money when I can to have the whole roof refitted.” With my new promotion, that wasn’t going to be a problem. Unfortunately, due to all the bureaucracy, my pay wasn’t going to come into effect until I was stationed on a ship.

“I’m sure that will make his day,” the android said. “It’ll give him a chance to grumble for months, all the while being proud of your achievements.”

That was so typical of Sev. It made me look down at my feet. Ever since I’d arrived, I had spent my time walking barefoot, but for some reason I kept feeling like I was missing my sandals. I had no idea where they were—likely locked up in a top security vault somewhere, while the construction of my offspring’s frame was being designed. The chances of me ever seeing it were less than zero-point-one percent. Even so, I held hope that one day I might.

The faint sound of a distant motorbike appeared in the distance. That made me think of the time when Sev was in his twenties. As far as I was aware, no one had used one in the area ever since. There was a time when people in the area preferred to walk. Now, though, more and more transport vehicles were filling the skies of the planet—a sign of progress and modern times, as the saying went.

As the seconds passed, the sound got louder and louder, indicating with a high level of probability that the rider was coming here. A short while later, that turned out to be the case.

“Lisko?” I asked, surprised.

Last I knew, Sev’s grandchild had joined the Fleet, though hadn’t made the cut to make it to cadet. As an alternative, he had stayed as part of the army. Thankfully, his condition made it impossible for him to join the ground troops proper. Nanite rejection was a serious issue and, in a time when millions of people enlisted every day, no one was going to make compromises. All that was for the better. Had he been approved, the chances of him surviving his first year were less than those of a battleship on the front.

“Afternoon, ma’am!” he said as he came to a complete stop. Without a moment’s delay, he then jumped off the bike, standing to attention.

He had changed considerably since I’d last seen him. Slightly taller and a lot more muscular, he looked nothing like the lanky child he had been before joining. From what Sev had told me in his letters, I knew that he worked as a sort of drill sergeant at the local recruitment center. There was no telling whether that made him happy. Hopefully, it did.

“I’m off duty, Lisko.” I went towards him with a smile. “I didn’t know you’d be coming.”

“I got two days’ leave.” He stood at ease. “I thought I’d take advantage to come visit. I also get to tell grandad stories about the recruits. He finds them amusing.”

“I’m sure.” At least you’re here.

The same couldn’t be said about Sev’s granddaughter. After all this time, she had still cut off ties to the rest of her family. I didn’t even know whether she was alive or dead. So far, I had made several requests to find out her status, but none of them had been answered.

“I also brought something for you.” Lisko reached into his front jacket pocket and handed me a postcard. There was a picture of a Paladin class ship on it. “I came from high up. I was told you’d understand.”

I turned the card around. The only thing scribbled on the back said Voxel Position.

Reviewing my memory of the front of the postcard, I analyzed the image, conveying all anomalous pixels into data. Composing the data into a small file, I used the ID of my conscience core to decrypt it. I expected to find a high security comm-link initiating a conversation with someone within the Fleet. Instead, all I got was access to a memory that up to just now, I didn’t know I had…

* * *

System LC00238, 625.5 A.E. (Age of Exploration)

I re-ran the calculations. The task was tremendously slow, given with my current core capacity. Normally, it would have taken me milliseconds. Now, I had to waste minutes, as if I were a shuttle AI.

While waiting, I sent another transmission to Command and HQ, requesting orders. In all likelihood, the chance of getting a response was practically zero. As far as the Fleet was concerned, I was dead. In a way, they weren’t wrong. The main part of me had died with my captain over forty-three days ago. The current part of me was nothing more than an auxiliary core stuck to a shuttle. The worst part was that I hadn’t been able to establish a comm link to anything in human space for the last thirty-one days. It wasn’t due to equipment malfunction—the deep diagnostics of my comm systems had found no errors or anomalies. Something about my present area of space seemed to make communication impossible.

Was this part of your plan as well, Wilco?

This wasn’t even close to what had been projected. In my effort to escape Cassandrian space, I had ventured into an unknown sector. The Fleet’s information of the area was scant at best, leaving me with the unpleasant task of doing the grunt work of mapping it.

Based on my calculations, I was following a large arc from the back of Cassandrian space that was supposed to eventually take me to uncontested human space.

Coordinates confirmed, a subroutine informed me. Target system not present in Fleet database.

Always the same thing. None of the systems would be in the database until I put them there. It would be at least several dozen times more before I reached something familiar, or maybe never at all. It was said that jumping held no risk, but then again, no one had jumped into the unknown for as long as I had.

I engaged my engines, punching through the connection between systems. Eleven milliseconds later, I was at my new destination.

Using what limited equipment I had, I began my scan of the new system. It didn’t seem to be anything special: a single planet, white dwarf system with nothing of interest.

System LC00239. I gave it a temporary ID designation as I started to map the visible stars. Once that was done, I’d start the astronavigation calculations again to determine what systems I could jump to. If there weren’t any viable candidates, I’d have to backtrack three jumps before I could restart the process.

Battleship Light Seeker, a transmission came through. This is scout probe Luminescent Five. Transmit your location.

Quickly, I checked the sender’s ident. The Fleet protocols were valid, although that wasn’t a ship I was familiar with.

Transmitting estimated coordinates, I replied and did as I was asked. I need to establish a link to Command. Priority zero.

You don’t have the authority for a priority zero request, Luminescent transmitted. I’ve re-transferred your coordinates to the next relay point. Expect orders soon.

Relay point?

You’re in a dead zone. Standard communication methods are unreliable.

That didn’t make much sense. There had been nothing remarkable in the systems I’d jumped through so far, at least as much as I could make out with my current semblance of a husk.

“Battleship, this is Admiral Remad,” came a transmission with two pairs of ident protocols; one belonged to the scout probe, while the other was from Command. “What’s your status?”

“My primary husk has been destroyed, admiral. There weren’t any survivors. I’m currently in unknown space. Cargo consists of hard memory data backups and a prism artifact.”

Three thousand and forty-nine milliseconds of silence followed.

“Send all navigation data of your trip,” the admiral ordered. “We’ll compose a new flight path and a retrieval procedure.”

“Yes, sir, admiral.” I started transmitting. The odds of me returning to human space had just jumped up by thirty-one percent.

* * *

You really are a calculating one, Otton. I turned the card to the other side again.

Back when he was transmitting the extracted memories of my mission in Cassandrian space, he had also included a second set—those of the auxiliary core that had managed to make its way back to human space. It had been through it that the rest of me had been reconstructed. The memories of my time docked in a shipyard prior to meeting Gibraltar weren’t of me being refitted; the Fleet had installed my core on an entirely new husk and removed all memories of my mission. From a strategic perspective, I approved of the decision, although I was also glad to have finally retrieved my full set of memories.

Yet, there was one thing of even greater importance. Hidden among the memories of my trip from Cassandrian space back home were the coordinates of a star—a star that emitted light in a very specific pattern and of a very specific wave-length. At last, I had the final key needed to unlock the location of a third-contact world.