You could see ships docking, landing, circling, anything. It seemed like a rather busy port, considering it was still a hundred light-years or so away from Empire territory. "There," he said and point towards some point in space. "Two hundred light-years into that direction, lies the remains of what was once supposed to be the greatest technological marvel since the Hypergates five hundred years ago," he said.
"Remains...?" Naina said and raised an eyebrow. The man just nodded sadly.
"Yeah. I gathered you've been away for a while, so you don't know. The project was abandoned almost eight years ago, before they built much of the station at all, let alone any of the marvels.
"The Empire has been in a state of war for about six years now. The Di'gatha had been snapping at her hems for decades, but it all came to a point six years ago when a Di'gatha Supercruiser-class Warship dropped out of Hyper near some outer colony at the other end of the galaxy and just wiped it all out and landed on the planet, establishing Di'gatha presence inside the Empire border," the man explained.
Naina found herself just staring at him and listening to every word he said. She had been away from home for so long. And now war? Would that affect her mission...?
"So the Sunstar was abandoned...", Naina said quietly. "The greatest scientific platform in a millennium, and what, all scrapped because of war?"
The man nodded. "You see me, I don't give a rat's arse about science. It's not for me," he said. "But my daughter... she was so excited about the project. She was chosen to lead the first tentative trials at the base..." he said and his voice trailed out. His antlers twitched and glowed a dull red. "Sorry, I... I can't control my emotions," he said and tried to hide his antlers with his hands. Naina smiled at him and shook her head.
"Don't worry. I'm not judging. I mean, I'm not really a family type of person, spending a decade in space all by my lonesome, but I get it. I take it that your daughter never got to the station and her dreams were crushed?" Naina said and tried to smile awkwardly. The man shook his head and his mouth formed a mock smile.
"No, she got onto the platform just well... But the funding was cut and she was stranded there. They never unloaded the sleep pods. To save their lives, the scientists re-entered the pods and went to sleep, waiting for the talk of war to blow over. It never did. The Empire officially abandoned the project two years ago and apologized for the loss of life for their families. They just left them there!" He said and the last bit came out angry.
Naina just looked at him, feeling sorry. That was no way to go, running out of power in a sleep pod somewhere in the black... "I'm sorry...", she said. "But, I still don't know...Why you need my ship now, and why wouldn't anybody just go and pick them up, or ransack the place for tech? It's only a couple hundred light-years. I could go there and back in two days," she asked.
"The installation is in the middle of a sub-space bubble,", he said and shook his head. Naina's eyes flashed open.
"Daew! Sub-space bubble? Now it makes more sense... How'd they get there in the first place? That thing will fry a ship faster than I can blink! Or if not fry, at least strand it in the middle of nothing," she said.
The man nodded at her. "Yeah, they had some experimental technology on-board the ship they used to travel there. I don't know the details," he said, then looked at Naina. "But I do know a thing or two about spaceships," he said.
"For example, I happen to know that the M-Tech converter that you just bought from me only fits three Hyperdrive models that can accept the non-standard energy produced by the converter. It was short-lived tech, superbly effective, but the company was bought and torn apart and the tech buried for profits. And based on your looks and what you told me, and frankly, where we are, I'm guess it's not the long-range racing model."
"Alright, color me impressed," Naina said. "That's exactly why I bought the Travelstar in the first place. It had the Bursten 2-05 super-long-range Hyperdrive already installed, and I modified it still and installed the Togart fuel scoop and reserves on both sides. I needed range and best scoop, I didn't care about anything else. What about the Bursten?"
The man nodded. "As I figured. The third option is the Zuggart Military Drive, and I highly doubt there are three of them in existence that still work, and less still that are not used as toilets. It had to be the Bursten. And... Miss. You have the only drive capable of penetrating the sub-space bubble. The Hyperfield that the Bursten generates is of different phase, right? That's why you checked the polarity? Because the damn thing won't work on the standard polarity, right?"
"Well damn. You do know your stuff!", Naina said, impressed. "I didn't know about the sub-space bubble though... wait. So you want me to pierce through the bubble and bring back your daughter?" She said and blinked at the man.
"No, not as such," he said. "See.. we didn't split on very good terms. I highly doubt she'd want to come to me at all...", he said, and leaned against the window and closed his eyes. "See, she's not my biological daughter. I adopted her when she was two. She's a Quasarian."
"Quasarian!", Naina said a little too loudly and a little too excited. "Sorry, sorry," she added. "Just that... I've never met one, but...", she said. Images of greenish and blueish skin, large pink and violet eyes emerged inside her head. Slender bodies, perfectly symmetrical faces. It wasn't a surprise many of the top models in the known regions were Quasarians. They were universally thought as one of the most beautiful races, along with the elves.
"Well, yeah, and...", he said and spread his hands and waved them around. "This is no place for a Quasarian scientist," he said and grinned awkwardly.
"So, what do you want me to do with her, then?" Naina asked.
The man put his hands on his hips and looked hard at Naina. "Go there, take my daughter with you and take her to the Empire. Give her a second chance at life, and I'll give you everything I have," he said.
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