08/06/22 Snippet, TOUR OF DUTY.

A discovery!

February 13th

We’re adjusting our next exit point! When I first heard the news, I would have put a period after that sentence. It’s not like we’re aiming for a precise spot in regular space to drop the beacons. As long as they’re in the right general location, that’s fine – and general location can mean ‘up to a light year, in any direction.’ Big for us, not so much for hyperspace.

But all of the crew — I try not to think of them as the ‘real crew’ — are excited. They weren’t saying why, and I didn’t want to look like a complete deadhead by asking, so I sidled over to Gravitonics to see if Dan had any idea what was going on. It was his department that was getting the ship to exit early, after all.

“Oh, yeah,” he told me over lunch. “It’s pretty chill, actually. We detected something artificial on the long-range scanners. Pretty big, too.”

“Really?” I replied, just like a smart person and everything. “How do you know?”

“Know what? That it’s artificial, or big?”

“Yeah.”