Stepping stone

Sola emerged from the weave into a system that sparkled like road dust in the afternoon sun. Dustin leaned back in his chair and gestured to the vast clouds that filled the system even as particles caused green flickers to appear over the ship’s shields. “There you go, Meli. As requested, a proto-system. Rye, how are the shields holding up?”

The Rabyth woman glanced up from the console she was sat at. “Solid so far Dusty. Impacts are low velocity and spread across the entire array - as long as we don’t go too close to any of the accretion disks where the remaining matter is forming into planetoids then we should be fine. I can probably tune the array if ya do want to do a fly-by, but I’d rather not if I don’t have to. It’ll be a pain in the ass, and then I’d have to re-tune them for combat when we leave.”

Nodding, Dustin turned to the other women present. “Any scans in particular you want to run, love? I’m pretty sure Aricia can take photos wherever we go, so this is more a trip for you than anything else.”

Meli adjusted slightly in her seat - she wasn’t sitting at her console, instead resting in a chair that Bleu had ordered be brought onto the bridge just for this - and nodded. “Our onward path is on the far side of the system, but we don’t need to do near passes of the planetoids, Sola’s sensors will be fine at range. If we can loop around to the right of the star though - that’d allow us to scan examples of both inner and outer planets during formation if that’d be alright, husband?”

Sammie didn’t wait for Dustin to reply, instead just giving a thumbs up from the pilot’s seat and banking Sola away from the jump point, towards the first of the indicated collections of space-dust. “What distance should I maintain for safety, chief engineer?”

Rye frowned, tapping the console for a moment. “Assuming the dust keeps condensing at roughly a flat rate which seems reasonable, keep us around eighty thousand out from the edge of the disks and we should be fine. I’ll monitor the shields and let ya know if we need to back off any.”

This stop was just one of a handful of micro-missions Dustin had picked up on their route from Tho’unn space back to Earth. Technically, it wasn’t a necessary stop at all - their real target was another system along the route where they would be dropping off a cargo of supplies to a research outpost. But, as soon as Meli had spotted that one of their potential jump paths would take them through a system where the star had only recently ignited she’d begged to take the detour to gather scientific data.

Given his wife had been getting increasingly irritated by Bleu’s orders and the resulting enforced lack of duties, Dustin had wisely agreed. Agreed, that is, after double checking with Rye that the ship would be alright, as most vessels avoided freshly forming systems due to the larger than normal amount of micro-meteors and space dust that would impact the hull. Arriving at your destination with your ship looking like a cheese-grater was not good for your repair bills after all.

Leaving Bleu in command so that Meli could stay on the bridge without the doctor blowing a fuse while his wife directed both science staff and Sammie to get her the best possible data (to pour over once she inevitably got relegated to bed rest either before or after labour), Dustin headed down to the viewing gallery. The massive room was far more packed than normal, even considering they’d just arrived in a new system. Word had clearly gotten out that they were travelling somewhere special, and so practically everyone who had time off had gathered.

Someone had also clearly turned down the gravity plating, given the bounciness in Dustin’s step as he crossed the threshold. Given that Aricia was currently sitting on one of the metal beams that lined the ceiling with her wings gently flapping to keep balance as she snapped pictures over the heads of the crowd (and occasionally of the heads of the crowd), it wasn’t too hard to figure out who was responsible.

There was a general party atmosphere as Dustin pushed his way through the throng; Naera and her team had been busy, and appeared to have set up a few stands dispensing food on sticks or in buns. Drifting over to the nearest, he glanced down at what was on offer.

“I tried a few different street food ideas before settling on this one, here, try it…” Naera said, leaning over the counter and handing him a hotdog. “It’s a sausage in a bun, I think according to Earth tradition I’m supposed to offer to ritually sacrifice myself in order to keep the cost low? But given I made it out of our general supplies I don’t actually know how much it cost to make, so I hope it’s okay if I skip that step.”

It took Dustin a moment or two of frantic thinking to work out what the plant girl meant, then he sighed. “Has Emely been letting you read fiction without a cultural translation guide again?” he asked, leaning forward and ruffling the green-skinned woman’s hair affectionately with his free hand. “That particular reference was more to do with overly enthusiastic salesmen, and isn’t a ritual thing. Besides…” he took a bite, then grinned and talked around a mouthful “…’m pretty sure that kind of sausage-inna-bun causes severe gastric distress, while the only distress the crew will get from these is just that there’s not enough of them.”

Drifting away from the Caenii a moment later, Dustin managed to make it through to the front of the crowd by the simple fact that he was the ambassador and captain, and his crew naturally moved out of his way. Nodding and smiling at his subordinates as he went, he arrived to find Defia and Jaisyl stood awkwardly side-by-side staring out at the swirling dust clouds where they caught the light of the young star.

The rogue Fractal was grimacing as she stared out the window, in contrast to the looks of wonder on the rest of the crew, and so Dustin moved closer, draping his arm across her shoulders. “Something the matter, Defia?” he asked softly, hoping that whatever it was would be something easily fixable - and that it wasn’t something Jaisyl had said before his arrival.

“Statement. This system is unpleasant. I understood that the crew would gather to observe the proto-planets, and so I am here to observe. I am finding this difficult. There are excessive amounts of particulate, and I am struggling to process the incoming electromagnetic data.” Defia’s eyes locked on Dustin, and he noted with concern that one pupil was significantly larger than the other.

“Maybe you shouldn’t stare out at it if you’re struggling that much… nobody will think twice if you let someone else have a turn by the window” he replied, gently turning the void-black woman by the shoulders and facing her away from the swirling, glittering clouds outside.

“That’s what I said - but she didn’t seem to want to listen to me.” Jaisyl said with a sniff, before glancing out of the window and following behind as Dustin started to escort Defia back the way he’d come. “In any case, it is a rather pretty display - but I’m sure Meli’a will have taken some images of it we can look at later on.”

Dustin was rather surprised the princess was following - but as the crowd moved to fill the gap they’d just left he noticed just a hint of a crack in her usual façade. The press of so many bodies seemed to unnerve her, and despite his main focus being on getting Defia somewhere safe to de-stress he reached out instinctively to take her hand. To his surprise, Jaisyl didn’t object and took it almost instantly.

The Tho’unn woman’s hand was cold and clammy with sweat as he led them past the food stalls and back to the doors. Only when the doorway to the viewing gallery closed behind them did she let go, taking a deep breath before turning to him. “I… appreciate your assistance in helping me escape the press of people. I am not… not used to so many, so close to me.” She smiled - a lightning fast quirk of her mouth, before she turned to the blinking Fractal next to them. “What about you, Defia? Do you feel better now we are away from all those peop… I mean, all that space dust?”