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**Sombs** · 02-24-2022, 12:07 PM,

February 22nd, 829 A.S. - Uncharted System 37

Two hours ago, the Apahanta reached this new system. Something was off, because usually, when we enter a new system, we don't just stay near the jump hole but instead start exploring it. This time, however, there was silence. Sombra and I decided to go to the observation deck. A few others joined us. We looked out of the window and found ourselves surrounded by a giant blue nebula in a system with an type O star, guessing by size and color. Most notably, however, was the fact that the space around us was constantly discharging. Thousands of little lightnings from what looked like out of nowhere to nowhere. Our first assumption was that this kind of environment was the cause for the unexpected stop.

A few minutes later, when Ezrael realized that everyone was likely speculating about the situation, he made an announcement for us all to come to the canteen. Despite him having said, in the very same sentence, that there is nothing to worry about, people were slightly worried, including me. So the crew gathered and sat down in the canteen, a bunch of them prefering to stand while most simply sat down at the tables. Ezrael and Sherry then moved to the counter and he began speaking.

"First of all, as I said, there is nothing to be worried about. We're not in danger. That being said, we do have an irregular situation here with this system, in multiple ways. The first and most obvious thing, as most of you likely have already heard about, is the local environment. We don't exactly know what it is we are looking at, but it does not seem to affect the Apahanta itself. Shields are holding and these electrical discharges don't seem to be strong enough to harm them in any way. For obvious reasons, we'll keep the shields up, however, meaning we can't cloak in this system without risking, you know, getting hit by those discharges, which could fuck around with our electronics and all that." He rubbed one of his eyebrows for a moment before continuing. It was obvious that there was something that bothered him.

"I mean, you know we're all alone out here, so that doesn't really matter. I just feel naked without the cloak. Anyway, the actual issue is that we can't use the jump hole to return to the system we were coming from. That, too, is likely not much of an issue and more of a small inconvenience, since so far we backtracked only twice since leaving Sirius, and then we also have the jump drive as our get-out-of-jail-card."

"What concerns us is the fact that the phenomenon that destabilizes the jump hole possibly covers this entire system, meaning other jump holes might be unstable, too. This means we could be trapped in this system for a while until we either use the jump drive for either a blind jump, a jump back to Sirius or we find a way to deal with this phenomenon." The Commander put up what could be vaguely interpreted as a smile. "As the Captain said, this is more of an inconvenience than an issue. It technically does not matter whether we move around or stay in a system for a longer time, unless the system is hazardous to us. As this system here, which is Uncharted System 37 - so far no better name - does not seem to pose a threat, we can stay here for a while."

"The Rover exploring the system before we got here located a few cool sites to visit. There is a gas giant with a volcanic moon, and apparently there is goldilocks planet orbiting this sun, too. We don't know it for sure yet, but there is a chance it could be habitable."

This made some of us exchange looks. So far we had been avoiding planets because of the entire trouble with biohazards like bacteria and viruses. Everything we needed was on the Apahanta anyway. The fact he mentioned it was unexpected, not just to me. Luckily, Ezrael was good at picking up on those clues. He continued.

"If this planet really is habitable, I would like to send a few robots down there to set up a small camp. If we're going to stay here for a longer time, we can use that to have the robots do some mining. It is always better to have more resources than less. And in a worst-case-scenario, we would have a potential shelter prepared planetside, similar to the little base we set up in U-S-3-2. Investing the resources for a dozen robots so that they in return provide the resources for hundreds of them, you know, a clever investment."

"Nothing to worry about, but we're preparing for the worst, regardless, huh?" Sombra asked, almost provokingly.

"One could say so. Again, nothing to be worried about, but we're so far away from Sirius that we can start slowing down and actually take a look at everything around us. We have everything we need, now, but we can afford preparing some back-ups." Maybe it was just me interpreting too much into his body language, yet the way he sighed after that made it obvious there was more about it. "I want all five Rovers to be scouting the system. The Little Blue and the Apotheosis stay with the Apahanta. Everyone else should take a look at the sensor readings. I want everyone to help with finding out what is going on with these electric discharges and what exactly affects the jump holes."

The briefing kept going on for a few minutes. Sherry told everyone what to do in detail. In the end, Sombra and I got no specific assignment apart from the usual "if you can make yourself useful, do that". Not much to do on a ship that is maintained by an AI, 400 robots and a bunch of trained experts. So we decided to go back to the observation deck. Some time ago, Sombra decided to get some furniture in there as so far there had only been a few benches. Now there are multiple couches in front of the big windows, meaning people could make themselves really comfy while looking out into space.

"I haven't thought about that before," Sombra said without any context, looking at the blue nebula. She sat on the couch, while I lay on it, with my head in her lap. Her hand was gently brushing through my hair.

"What do you mean?"

"This journey. We were so eager to leave Sirius, that we didn't really think about what the destination is. Now we're at least 37 jumps away from Omicron Kappa. That's very far away. So what is the destination? Do we just keep going endlessly or are we settling down somewhere? Build a station or a settlement?"

I looked up at her. "What would you prefer?"

"No idea. I don't really care, really. As long as I have you and our needs are covered, I don't care whether we are in space or on a planet or whatever. I'm just wondering what Ezrael's plan is."

"He probably doesn't care either. He just wanted to leave Sirius and get as much distance between him and Maren and the Order as possible. I can imagine he'll keep hoping for something similar to Curacao, though. Maybe that's why he's so curious about the planet."

"I wouldn't mind a planet like Curacao. It wouldn't be the same without OSC, though. Much of the charme of Curacao comes from the people that go there to party."

A short burst of air left my nose. "Two thirds of this crew are female."

"And?"

"I'm certain that's enough women to make him feel like Curacao again."

"Wait, two thirds, really? That's kinda bad!" She looked down at me, one of her hands now on my chest, the other caressing my cheek.

"Why?"

"Well, we won't see any other humans for the rest of our lives. And as long as we don't die by some kind of sickness or by accident, we'll be alive for a very long time. We age a lot slower thanks for nanobots repairing our stem cells, so as long as we have those, we'll look like now for a very long time. And you're extremely pretty. I know there are at least three people on this ship who wouldn't mind having sex with you, aside from me. You get my idea?"

"Erh, I'm more concerned that you said people and not women." I sighed. She had a way of saying very nice things in a very casual way, which I adored. "You don't need to be worried, though. I can barely keep up with your, ehm, daily needs, so I don't care about any other women at all."

She gently smiled down at me. "I'm trying my best. But thank you for saying it." Leaning forward to kiss me on the lips, her long black hair fell all over my face, tickling me, while her boobs pushed against my temple. It was awkward and funny, I had to giggle.

"Now that you mentioned it, who are the three people you were talking about?"

"I won't tell."

"You know, if you don't tell me, I'll paranoidically assume it could be anyone and stay away from everyone."

"Works for me." She smirked at me like the little troll she was.

Uncharted System Stories: 18 | 32 | 34 | 37 | 38 | 85

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