A helping hand

The countdown to exiting the weave echoed across the bridge. Despite this being their first trip out from Earth after the refit, the main deck of the Solar Ascent was surprisingly empty - possibly due to the early hour of the morning. Even Dustin was there mostly because he hadn’t been able to sleep. Actually, it was closer to the truth to say that Meli had kept him up for a chunk of the night, the pair continuing their lovemaking for several hours before she finally curled into him and dozed off. He’d laid there for some time, looking up at the ceiling or down at his love just thinking about the future before eventually deciding that as late - or early - as it was, he wouldn’t get any value out of the little sleep he might get.

Extracting himself without waking Meli had taken a while, and then he’d opted for the traditional all-nighter morning procedure of a shower, massive glass of juice and then a mug of black coffee. Said mug was now grasped in one hand as he rested his head on the palm of the other and stared at the countdown clock on the vidscreen. Of the senior crew, only Sammie and Yril’k were with him on the bridge; the pilot confidently flexing her fingers over the controls ready to take over once the AI returned them to normal space, and the Vex’ess warrior watching the sensor station in the event that they jumped into something hostile.

“Yril’k, relax. You’re scaring the recruit by being that tense.” Dustin said softly, causing the insect woman to shift back from her position looming over the shoulder of the junior crew-member manning Meli’s station, who visibly relaxed now they no longer had a chitin-blade dangling idly near their head. Sola’s countdown concluded without fanfare, and the screens flickered to show the system they’d identified as the base for their first wave of scouting missions. Dustin still wasn’t exactly sure how the different elements of the fleet had been set up - the science behind figuring out the optimal locations to send their scouting vessels was apparently very sound according to Meli, but involved a lot of math he couldn’t make head nor tails of.

The main thing however was that his mission hadn’t fully changed - he still had ambassadorial work to do, which involved flying around and helping people - it was just that as he did so a net of other vessels would float a few jumps away, sweeping through targeted systems to do something involving sensors, weave bubble signatures and scanning that would hopefully let them track down places of interest for a more thorough sweep. Or, given Dustin’s trip so far, maybe they’d get lucky and run into one of the hostile vessels on the way out and be able to fully track where it was coming from. Any more recordings of the ships attacking civilians would only help fuel the argument for the council to do something after all, even if this first wave of human exploration came up a blank as far as an origin for the attackers went. They wouldn’t be the only ships Earth and her friends would be sending out - the docks back at Titan had been restocked with new hulls almost the instant the fleet had left.

“Sensors clear, sir” the junior officer at Meli’s usual station said, almost but not quite suppressing a sigh of further relief as Yril’k moved back to her own console. “Right. Take us away from the jump point, Sammie. The others should be dropping back in soon, so lets make it nice and clear for them.” With a nod, the pilot ran her hands over the controls and Sola’s engines sprang into life. Five minutes later, a series of chimes indicated the arrival of the rest of that part of the fleet who were using Sola as their centre-point for further sweeps. Small, sleek craft flickered into real space before fanning out, their destinations already locked in. “We’re being hailed by one of them, sir. It’s the Holmes” Another ensign attracted Dustin’s attention - this one working Emely’s console while the fox girl was asleep back in the ambassadorial chambers.

At a gesture from Dustin, the screen flickered to show a borderline piratical figure sprawled in the captain’s chair. Dustin grinned; he’d met the man during a briefing, and by all accounts the beard and general expression that he was only interested in plunder were purely cosmetic - he was actually quite quietly spoken in private. Not so now - “Ambassador. Thought one of us should check in before we jump to let you know the new ships are holding up well. That and my science officer wanted to pass on his thanks for you helping in this system - go on, kid, talk to the ambassador.” The voice was booming, but there was a paternal tone to it as the big man nudged a rather shy looking figure with a pair of antennae protruding from under a crop of sandy hair.

“By the guardian’s light, thank you ambassador. The monastery here is very important to my people - it did not feel right to fail to offer my gratitude for you personally attending to support them, and Captain Smythe insisted we speak to you rather than just send a message.” The little speech was accompanied by a bow; Dustin gave the young alien a smile and a nod in way of acknowledgment. “Don’t mention it, science officer. Just because we’re looking for monsters doesn’t mean I’ve lost sight of the importance of helping our neighbours out - and this system is only a jump from Earth. Don’t get more neighbourly than that. Anything else, Captain? If not, you have a few jumps ahead of you if I remember the target map, and I need to get in touch with the monastery.” Smythe shook his head, and a moment later the screen returned to showing the void of space.

Dustin leaned back in his chair and took a long drink of his coffee. The bitter liquid matched the feeling the lack of sleep was beginning to generate nicely; soon enough his lovers would wake and his mood would be less sombre, but out here in the dark of space and the quiet of the morning he allowed himself to feel a momentary moroseness at the thought of their mission’s objectives. “And just what do we do if the evidence we find isn’t enough for the council” he muttered to himself, before glancing up as the comms officer got his attention once again. “Sir?” Shaking his head, he pushed such gloomy thoughts to one side. “Nothing, ensign. Didn’t get enough sleep last night, so I’m in one of those moods where you try and plan for every contingency, no matter how bleak. Best to get to work to deal with that - patch me through to the monastery would you?”

Sola hung in the sky several hours later, her engines barely having to work at all against the low gravity of the world. Dustin sat in his ready room, listening politely to the robed alien seated opposite him. “Creation and destruction are both elements of the guardian. And this system has experienced both since the founding of our order - each time the second star’s influence comes into play we must move our home; we are quite used to this, and have already prepared much of what must be done. Your assistance is much appreciated in this matter; it will allow us to focus our attentions fully on the rituals we are to conduct. I would welcome your presence for those of course, Ambassador.”

The mission ahead of Dustin was a weird one, even by his standards. The system was a binary pair with a series of planets tracing truly odd orbits. Every few hundred years - around six hundred this time, although the exact number varied - three planets would move from inside the middle of the stars where their surface temperatures grew too hot to sustain life, another three would move in to replace them, and a further three would push out to the outer system where they would be cooled to near freezing. During this time period, two further planets, the only habitable ones in the system and literally called creation and destruction in the language of the abbot’s species - would be hit by or shielded from gravity surges. The abbey apparently moved between the two worlds each time this happened - partially as the surges caused immense destruction on one of the two, and partially as a form of ritualistic pilgrimage.

Dustin’s job - well, the Solar Ascent’s job technically - was to assist in this move; due to the odd motion of the system’s worlds, flying between the planets was a difficult business, and historically many pilgrims, monks and nuns had lost their lives piloting the abbey’s fleet of small shuttlecraft through the riptides and eddies. Sola on the other hand would cut through like a thrown dart, and could carry far more - so, once the abbot had finished a few rituals in one of the cargo bays they would be landing on the current abbey world to load the ship with relics as well as more practical supplies (which thankfully didn’t need a ritually purified storage unit) to transport them to the site of the new abbey. Given ten or fifteen years, the abbot said, and you wouldn’t even be able to tell the move had occurred - without Sola, it would have been closer to fifty. And it gave them something to do in the system while they waited for the other ships to report back; assuming nothing went wrong, the timings should line up perfectly for them to move on with the abbey successfully transplanted.