Into the Unknown

As you pondered your predicament, the ground beneath you started to shake. As you braced for the rumbling quake, you made the decision in that moment that the colony ship looked a lot sturdier than this strange island of void-space. You turned toward Juno, who was already calmly walking toward the access hatch, seemingly unbothered by the shaking ground beneath her. Using your own extra-dimensional abilities, you faded from where you stood, to reappear walking next to Juno. "I, uh... I'm in. Assuming your ship's still intact, at least."

Juno glances your direction, slightly surprised by your sudden presence by her, but she hid her concerns about your abilities well. She reached out to fix a little bit of your hair that had fallen out of place during your little dimensional hop. "Yes, it's fully functional. Things look worse than they are with the ship, but the hull hasn't been damaged. I'm just not sure how to navigate to empty space when my sensors can't see all the dimensions they need."

With a quick tap on the hull, Juno opened up the ship, and walked onto a moving platform. You followed behind, staying close. The platform took care of getting you to the bridge in short order, and you marveled at the size of the ship the whole time as you peered through the glass panels to see all the different massive components that make up a colony ship--albeit, a completely empty one. The size was incredible! The technology was nothing like you'd ever seen! Everything looked so clean, shiny, new... futuristic.

"How long could you have been working on this ship? Decades? That can't be right, you don't look much older than me." You crossed your arms, looking at Juno.

"Oh, thanks. I'd like to say that I work hard to stay like this, but... well, I don't. It's easy. I imagine it's easy for you, too. But, we'll see if you can keep it up for two centuries," Juno said, winking at you.

Wait, WHAT?

"Two... two centuries?! How?" You asked, wide-eyed at this beautiful white-haired woman before you, now knowing she was apparently ageless as well.

Juno motioned to the bridge when the platform arrived, and guided you toward a console. "The nanites help, for sure. There's a lot of ways to constantly regenerate, I'm sure you'll figure something out. But also, tenacity, wanting to keep going. Because I've got a lot of people like me who live indefinitely long, are very capable in their respective fields, and whose existence is threatened constantly by others on Earth. That's what this ship is for, I had to make a choice whether to fight back on Earth, or seek some place that could be all our own to grow." A console near you lit up, and Juno pointed to it. "Can you work on the sensor configurations here? Shouldn't take you long."

After you processed everything Juno told you, you nodded and got to work. Juno said she struggled with this, but seeing the complex fourth-dimensional components in the calculations felt like second nature to you. You could do this in your sleep! Drawing on the screen before you, you started to define some sensor scanning ranges for the central computer to then parse for extra-dimensional obstacles. Fortunately, the interface felt familiar to you, kind of like you designed it. And in a way, you had.

"That feels so sad that you've become something advanced and people hate you for it," you said, leaning on your console while waiting for the computer to understand the inputs you'd given it. "But, where would you go? What would you do? Uh, assuming we each get back to where we need to go."

Juno adjusted a variety of settings at other consoles, before she takes a seat in a central chair on the bridge. "Oh, we'd picked out the Trappist-1 system, as our best opportunity for minimal terraforming, is the hope. Even if 1e is tidally-locked, there's still a lot of space in the habitable band. And then, after we've been able to build and grow... I hope we can make a repository of knowledge, like an interstellar library to serve the galaxy for those species that can find us and interpret our beacon. I don't think we could do this on Earth, but in our own space... Kelly and I will make sure everything works well."

You quirked an eyebrow, looking back to your console. "...There's a Kelly in the mix, huh."

For a while longer, and after many replicated triple-shot espressos, you and Juno stared at the holographic display just off the front edge of the bridge. Your sensor calibrations, if accurate--which you knew they were--indicated a rather winding route through what looked like some solid objects in three-dimensional space, but you made sure the hologram animated the disappearance of those solid objects as the simulated ship traversed its course. None of the sensors detected anyone else in the immediate vicinity, but they did spot an anomaly--in open space, there was some sort of space-time rift, which you had to triple-check to confirm that it wasn't an error in the sensor readings. Both of you agreed, that was probably the best chance back into at least some stable timeline to then figure out how to return to your home timelines. Likely, that rift was related to whatever event brought you here in the first place.

Juno tapped a button, and you heard a loud whine before feeling another rumble. "Now... we wait. The nav computer will follow the path your sensor calibrations indicate, and then I guess we'll approach that rift. We could use a few more hands on deck to monitor all the systems, though. We've got hull integrity, power distribution, life-support, on and on."

You smiled, and nodded. "I think I can help there!" Closing your eyes, you felt yourself step in multiple directions--before six of you stood shoulder to shoulder! Each clone looked very close to your original form, but your hair and eye colors differed for each. The green and pink haired variants quickly indicated Chloe and Ela, the brunette was clearly Zoe, while the nearly black hair looked very much like Kazumi's own. Normally, you would've had blonde hair as the 'core' body, but that honor went to Amanda, while you'd assumed Laura's auburn locks.

Juno tapped her chin, and then shrugged. "I'll take it. Pick a station, ladies. I've got a lot of questions, but... we've got a transit time of about twenty-two hours and nineteen minutes to the rift. With any luck, the rift will bring us close to some version of Earth. If so, I'll get us into orbit and then we can figure it out from there. If we have to get down to the surface to investigate the area further, I've got a shuttle for us. We might have to, to understand the connection between the rift and our own appearance here."

And so, you got to work. All of you.

...Though, work wasn't very exciting. The nav system operated flawlessly, and your calculations worked just as well. With no real danger to the ship, there was little more to do than glance at the consoles every so often. Chatting, playing games, napping, arguing about quantum probabilities, anything to pass the time after staring out at the roots of timelines through this space between dimensions somehow became dull to do. Hours crawled by, but eventually the rift came into view, as a large purple mirror-like void ripping through the space before the colony ship. The tear could've drawn in a whole planet if it was in just the wrong position... you just hoped one wasn't on its way here while you were on your way out!

"Rift contact in thirty seconds... twenty-five..." Juno gripped tightly at the armrests of her chairs. Not one of your component selves were any calmer, watching the strange plane of purple taking up the whole of the space before the colony ship. "Fifteen... ten... five... contact."

The colony ship started to shudder, groaning and creaking as the massive spacecraft splashed against the surface of the rift! Despite the vibration and noises, the hull integrity seemed unchanged. You could see the purple plane of energy pass through the bridge of the ship, seeing it come right for you and then push beyond you. To the best of your knowledge, you had just passed into a new universe, and you were dying to know what was on the other side!