StarDate: Unknown

Location: The Dead Rim

The Dead Rim was as dead as space could get. It was a region of debris a couple of parsecs wide, cluttered with the remnants of barren planets and wayward asteroids. The sector of space was aptly named because it was where old spaceships went to die; parked on or around the orbit of the rogue planet known as Kriesler-22b.

After becoming an interstellar reject, isolated from the rest of its system, Kriesler-22b became home to all manner of intergalactic refuse, even the dregs of civilization like space buccaneers, smugglers and outcasts made it their haven; nobody else wanted it.

The various odds and ends strewn across the planet’s orbit formed two gigantic rings of wreckage which could play haywire with ship instruments. Thus, it was an area you would have been hard pressed to approach, unless you had a death wish. Or had people after you that wanted you very dead.

For Azhurra, who piloted a runner class courier ship, this area of space provided an opportunity to lose her pursuers before going to lay low elsewhere. Today was one of those days, and she was on the run from the Galactic Sentinels after a courier run gone wrong.

The Galactic Sentinels were the law enforcement arm of the Galactic Council, a governing body made up of capitalist conglomerates that had this sector under their thumb. Azhurra Many were the times that Eleanor gave her pursuers the slip, but sometimes things took a turn for the worse.

What were the odds that a stray plasma shot would be just what was needed to jolt a defunct warp gate back to life, with disastrous consequences? What were the odds that a stolen piece of proprietary technology would interact with this destabilized warp gate to create a never before phenomenon, that was theoretically possible but in reality, not so? Azhurra could only curse as the courier class starship decelerated as though swimming through the thick viscous ink of an Norsa squid.

“Ugh, what now!”

“ We have encountered a space-time anomaly mistress. Analysis cannot get clear readings for accurate designation.”

“Dead stars Irina! we don’t have time for this, expound!”

“We seem to be in trouble,”

“Tell me something I don’t know”

The runner-class spaceship’s hull began to creak and groan under the shearing gravitational forces of the anomaly. Warning alarms and klaxon sirens began to blare as Azhurra slammed down her spacesuit’s visor and buckled up in her pilot’s chair.

“Do you want the good news or the bad news Mistress?”

“Spare me the claptrap and tell me!”

“ The good news is the Sentinels are calling off their pursuit; the bad news is that we’re entering an event horizon of sorts.”

“Can we use the stolen tech?”

“Negative Mistress, to do so we’ll have to expend energy fifty times an order or magnitude of what we have right now. I would advise against such a course of action as it seems to be interacting with the phenomenon in unprecedented ways. I recommend riding out the gravitational waves and skirting the edge of the anomaly. A fly-by if you will, similar to how trans-system freighters lock on to the gravity well of a star for long transits.”

“Switch to impulse thrust and do it Irina!”

“ Switching to impulse thrust for evasive maneuvers and disengaging main core functions.”

If there was something that Azhurra learnt from skirting the event horizon of a black hole, it was that there was only one shot at this. There were nine in ten chances it could fail, so Azhurra prayed to her lucky stars and pulled on the control shifters until her palms were pale from exertion. Then there was a big jolt that reverberated through the hull of the ship and jarred her bones

“Report!”

“As I said, the piece of technology slated for delivery has been interacting with the phenomenon’s event horizon since our entry. Even though it was on standby mode it seems to have exacerbated the situation. Anomaly designation has now been classified and escalated to space-time rift, uh oh…”

“Uh?! When did you get a subroutine for exclamation cues?”

At that moment, Azhurra knew that, perhaps, this was one of those nine in ten chances that she was not coming out of this unscathed. Temporal phenomenons were rare, but not unheard of. Perhaps, her lucky stars had gone supernova, dead, like the rest of space in this part of the Dead Rim.

“Now entering the temporal event horizon, cycling shields to match gravitational distortions. Estimated time to contact…stand by, recalculating…Recalculation unavailable due to excess tachyon density. Internal gravity failing―Brace for impact!”

“Bracing!”

In an instant the ensnared spaceship came to a complete stop. Time seemed to stall, as Irina’s commentary became slurred and drawn out. Each word punctuating several casions at a time. Azhurra’s brain was still awake, firing all its synapses as her pupils dilated to take in one last blink towards the gaping maw of the temporal rift outside the main view screen.

The last thing she saw outside her bow ports was a dizzying kaleidoscope of colors that seemed to sear into her retinas before devolving into an inky black darker than a Rylithian night.

Stardate: Unknown

Location: Somewhere in the Sol system, unnamed asteroid belt

…stress

“Wah! Uh?”

“Mistress, you have to wake up!”

Azhurra woke up to blaring alarms. She was still shuddering from the rioting colors that she saw before she blacked out. Bleary she opened her eyes while unsuccessfully trying to unbuckle herself from the pilot’s seat. Her temple was throbbing as though a pile driver was being shoved through her brain.

“Shut down the alarms Irina, you are giving me migraines.

Statrep!”

“Hull integrity at 70 percent. Life support systems, gravity and propulsion failing . Estimated time of repair is unknown. I approximate three par’sols until we are dead in space.”

“Where are we?”

“Unknown. I do not recognize any of the stars in the adjacent space, navigation may not be possible with our current astrometric readings…”

“I sense a ‘but’ coming”

“ Yes, mistress. If I may, astrometric readings indicate there is an M-class planet orbiting a G-class mains sequence star. 73 percent of the planet is composed of water and air composition indicates a breathable atmosphere. Level of technology of said planet is negligible. I also advise you to check yourself into the Medical Bay, I am getting anomalous readings from your body. We cannot discount the probability the phenomenon has done something to you. Please retain your space-suit while at it as I cannot guarantee the life support systems will hold.”

“Alright then, as you wish”

Azhurra finally unbuckled herself from her pilot’s seat but as she was trying to get on her feet, she was assaulted with a bout of nausea. A sudden feeling of vertigo assaulted her and her legs gave way beneath her. Her mouth felt parched like she had been walking in the Nam’gean desert underneath the suns of a binary star system while her vision swum as she saw stars on the edges of her perception.

“What’s happening? How am I space-sick?”

She found herself leaning against the arm-rest of her pilot’s seat. She tried to heave non-existent food and ended up with the bitter taste of bile in her mouth. As she tried to right herself, she found blood on her cheek. She was bleeding from her facial orifices.

“ Mistress, your structural integrity is failing. I recommend you get to the medical bay immediately. Strap into the pilot’s chair.”

Azhurra’s trip to the med-bay was fraught with bouts of unconsciousness. She could perceive Irina trying to tell her something and all she caught on the edge of her perception were terms that made no sense to her as Irina tried to stabilize her vitals on the reclining pilot seat.

“ Mistress, I am afraid I’ll have to put you under for a while. I do not have time to explain everything, but going through that anomaly has done something to your biological make-up. According to my readings, you are not meant to exist, what that means…”

“Cut to the chase damn it..”

“You are an existential anomaly. Essentially, space-time is trying to reject you. Your biological matter is both in and out of phase. The only way to save you for the time being is to put you in cryosleep where matter is in a state of suspended animation,”

“Aaargh! just do it. Initiate emergency cryosleep! Directive authentication pattern Rylith-Aero-Nevidia-Two-Avaruus-Null !”

“ Directive authentication pattern Rylith-Aero-Nevidia-Two-Avaruus-Null accepted.”

As Azhurra’s consciousness faded, Irina moved her into the cryo-pod, reclining seat and all, where she would be put under. For the foreseeable future the AI would try to find a cure to her temporal displacement when they made landfall on a world, where they were strangers out of place…and presumably, time if Irina's chronometric readings were to be believed.

//Hand-over directives confirmed…

//Initiating cryo-sleep sequence…

//Activating ship-wide emergency protocols…