Nyx is moaning in both discomfort and pure sugary happiness from eating too many cookies when she realizes they’re weightless again, “FTL?”

  Cai is looking at his wrist computer, which has a hologram of a space station floating above it. Written below she sees ‘Barnard Station,’ “I’m trying to see if I can tell where they’d hide a secret lab. Someplace not even scavengers would find it…” He looks at Nyx, “Do you remember anything?”

  Nyx feels very nauseous, but happy as she sits up straight in her chair and realizes she’s strapped in. She doesn’t remember if she did it herself or Cai did.

  She tries to remember the attack on the station. It was so long ago, and she tried not to remember any of it, “Just other Felis kids like me. We were bein’ scared, and I ran. Left the other kids. Was crawlin’ in a maintenance shaft and ran. That shunk eatin’ cap’n found me as soon as I was climbin’ out.”

  Cai nods, “Okay… Do you remember anything about the shaft? Any turns or other things?”

  “Straight as a dum keel. It was bein’ sparkin’ cold, too! Could see my dum breathin’!”

  Cai smiles, “That’s a big clue. How many places on a space station could get cold enough to see your breath? At least one with working heating, I guess.”

  Nyx thinks for a moment, “Maybe it’s bein’ by the fuel tanks or runnin’ from one ‘o those supports runnin’ ‘tween the spire and ring?”

  Cai nods, “Yeah. Those are what I’m thinking too.” He points to the fuel blisters at each end of the station’s spire, “I’m thinking of one of these fuel blisters. I always wondered why a small science station needed fuel blisters this big, especially since it used solar power.”

  Nyx glances at the large, flat panels that circle the habitat ring, “Solar?”

  “They turn the star’s light into electricity. Barnard station only needs fuel for refueling ships. I always thought they had fuel blisters this big so they didn’t need fuel tankers to come so often. But what if they hid a lab in one or both? I mean, who would think to look inside tanks of liquid hydrogen for anything other than liquid hydrogen? I’m guessing the pirates drained the blisters but didn’t bother to look inside? Have you heard of anyone saying they found hidden rooms inside Barnard’s fuel blisters?”

  Nyx thinks. All it would take is one crew cutting into the blisters to see what was inside, but scrap metal wasn’t something most pirates cared about.

  Nyx shakes her head, “Not a goddum thing. Pieces ‘o shunk woulda been braggin’ to Earth ‘n back if they were findin’ somethin’.”

  Cai nods, “Okay. Let’s get ready. We’ll be there in less than half an hour, but I’m dropping us a little far out so we can scan for other ships so even if there are any we’ll have time to react.” He pauses, “Oh, your new space suit isn’t ready yet, so you’ll have to use your old one. I put it in the washer when you took a shower, so it might be done now.”

  She recalls the Az Gaper’s washer that hadn’t worked as long as she could remember.

  They moved ‘up’ two decks to the room with the machines, her loose clothes billowing out around her, and she covers herself when she notices Cai quickly looks away as he looks behind him as she follows. She needed to get a better shirt. The pants were very comfortable, though.

  How much did he see?

  “Quit lookin’ down my goddum shirt!” She hisses. Though she’s embarrassed that she doesn’t have much to show off, even if he did see. In fact, his pecs were bigger than her chest, which only made her bristle even more.

  Cai scratches his chin, “Sorry. I’m not used to having anyone on the ship with me, let alone women.”

  Nyx pauses at that, “How long is it bein’ since yer last crew?”

  “Let’s see… a hundred and six years ago? Not long after Earth disappeared.” He pauses, “They wanted to help the survivors but got killed a few years later during some food riots when some terrorists destroyed the dome on Shackleton-de Gerlache Colony on Luna.”

  Nyx hadn’t ever heard of that place, “Sparks… Were ya knowin’ them well?”

  Cai nodded, “Alan and his wife Lily were with me for twenty years. I think they were Earth sick and wanted to move back, anyway. They also wanted kids. At least more since their others had already grown up. Though… they disappeared with the Earth.”

  Nyx couldn’t imagine what it was like to live through the disappearance of Earth, “Were ya havin’ a wife and kids?”

  “I had a son who disappeared when the Earth did. Wife died of cancer before the longevity drugs came out. That was in 2037 so… has it been over three hundred years?”

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  Nyx tried to recall what year it was now and couldn’t remember. No need for calendars in space.

  He goes to a machine that’s humming with life, and she notices pieces of her space suit sitting next to it. There’s a robot on it polishing the metal and hard sections that didn’t go in the wash.

  “Hmm, still has a half hour on the wash. How about I show you around so you know what everything does here?”

  Nyx nods, “Yeah.”

  Cai spends the next few minutes showing her around. She sees her clothes being made in a small clothing fabricator. Her medicine is being made in a chemical fabricator that looks easily the most complex, with tubes, tanks, and other things she can’t even understand visible around it. There’s a metal fabricator that’s currently making parts for a new space suit. Even one that is working on some sort of electronics that she recognizes as a board for an engine valve controller.

  From there, he shows her his exercise equipment, which she’s much less interested in, though she keeps glancing at his muscles and recalls how they moved when he used the arm machine earlier.

  Nyx does try one, but quickly tires out, “Why the spark would ya be makin’ yer arms hurt?”

  “It’s good for your body and muscles. Though I think you’ll be fine if you just do cardio. I can make you medicine that can make your body not lose bone and muscle from being in zero g for long periods of time, though you should exercise to increase your baseline strength and stamina.”

  Nyx grows at the machine. “Dum it… maybe just a bit.”

  Nyx didn’t want to look like a musclebound woman, but it looked amazing on Cai, though…

  Cai’s wrist computer beeps, “Looks like we’re dropping out of FTL. Want to go to the scanner deck? It’s the last deck forward.”

  Nyx looks up to the hatch, happy to see even more of the Donati, “Spark yeah.”

  They head forward to the scanner deck. It immediately hums to life as various holographic displays come to life as Cai enters.

  Nyx can’t even begin to understand what everything is for. X-ray detector? What is a gamma ray? Wide field telescope? Radio array? Infrared? Optical? Each of these had its own dedicated hologram, though currently in FTL they were empty.

  A large hologram appears in the center of the deck. It’s the Barnard system, “Okay, we know where mostly everything is, including where the debris from the attack fifteen years ago should be. So, anything new is probably a ship or probe. You can ignore the X-ray and gamma ray displays. Shouldn’t have anything show up on them unless there’s someone secretly using nuclear power or there’s someone doing dental work or looking at someone who broke a bone. I guess the star could be flaring too. If it is, we’ll have to leave if the flare is pointed at us.”

  Nyx looks at everything. It’s actually pretty boring as it’s just numbers and squiggly lines.

  Cai brightens, “Oh! Want me to send out a drone so you can see the Donati as it deploys its scanners?”

  Nyx’s ears perk up, “Spark yeah, I want to be seein’.”

  Cai just smiles, “You’ll see. I think you’ll like it more than watching numbers. And I promise, the numbers can be interesting if you know what you’re looking for. Like, you can see what kind of atmosphere a planet has even in a different solar system with the Donati’s instruments. That’s one way we decide which system to visit next, although it’s generally faster to go to a system than to take the time to scan every nearby star for planets.”

  Nyx tried to see why something like this would be interesting, “So ya bein’ lookin’ for other planets like Earth like that?”

  Cai nods, “Yeah, Earth sized planets of the right temperature with an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere. We know where most Earth sized planets are that could be habitable, but we need to inspect their atmospheres. Some have been close, but there’s always some reason they won’t work. Like poisonous atmospheres, no magnetic field to protect against cosmic rays or radiation, too much gravity, stuff like that. They’re also far apart, so it takes a while to reach each one.”

  Nyx nods along, trying to understand everything, “Huh…”

  There’s a beep, and the ship shifts back out of FTL.

  Cai turns to the scanners, “Okay, I’m not turning the engines on while we scan.” He enters some commands on his wrist computer, and a new hologram appears showing a drone leaving the ship.

  Soon, the drone is to the side, but near the front of the Donati.

  Cai nods, “Okay, when I deploy the sensors, expect lots of noise.”

  Nyx nods, remembering with embarrassment the times she’d jumped at the Donati making unexpected noises, “Got’cha. Be makin’ the dum noises.”

  Cai presses a button, and immediately Nyx hears clanging and whirring noises as machinery gets to work. It reminds her of the light gun on the Az Gaper deploying.

  Nyx watches in surprise as the front section of the Donati opens, the FTL emitters pulling back to make room for what is happening. Not just the front, but various other places open just behind with antennas and hatches appearing. The front section ends up becoming a dish-shaped object with an arm holding a device in front.

  “It’s a telescope. A twenty meter telescope to be exact. Not the biggest ever, but it’s more than enough for what we need.”

  There’s a clang as the telescope finishes deploying, “It helps ya be lookin’ far away?”

  Cai nods, “Yep! The biggest ones can resolve stars in other galaxies, which is overkill for what we need on the Donati. Almost every star in our galaxy has been mapped already, so our job as explorers are to look for things too dim to see, such as asteroids with lots of minerals or comets and ice for water.” There’s a beep, “Alright! Looks like the Donati has visual on Barnard Station…”

  An image appears. Barnard Station is in terrible shape. There are holes along one side, and Nyx spots at least three destroyed weapons blisters. There are arms radiating from the habitat ring that look like they used to hold something, but which have since disappeared.

  Cai nods, “Infrared isn’t seeing any signs of activity, and I don’t see any ships, and it looks like they dismantled the solar panels.” He turns to Nyx. “I’m going to scan other likely areas for ships just in case. While the Donati does that, let’s get in our spacesuits and get ready to dock.”

  Nyx gulps as she looks at the station and feels an uneasy feeling growing in her gut. What will she find there about herself? What about the group that Cai thinks made her? Does she want to accept that she doesn’t have parents and grew in a tube? Will she find evidence of where her friends went? Did they ever leave? “Goddum it! Let’s go.”