were different. Domino number two. Their heavily armed gray ships attacked the station and blockaded us from any contact with the Confederacy. The Seouras wouldn’t say what they wanted, they just kept us prisoner in Jocasta.
For nearly six months we tried to find ways to circumvent the blockade or communicate with the Confederacy, and to keep the station’s residents safe and fed. Six months of hell. Then domino number three arrived—a ship called
Calypso
appeared suddenly and activated a jump mine, which killed all but three of the crew. This was in January 2122.
Calypso
’s presence was a mystery at first. It couldn’t have traveled from Earth to Jocasta in flatspace within fifty years, which was how long the cryogenic sleep system was set to preserve the crew. On the other hand, human ships were not equipped with jump drives, nor was there a recorded jump point in the place where
Calypso
appeared. It couldn’t have jumped from Earth to Jocasta, because no jump points existed off the Central network. So we thought.
The
Calypso
crew’s plan was to head for Alpha Centauri from Earth, and after fifty years of frozen sleep, to decelerate and look for habitable planets in that system. A mad idea, and if they’d arrived on schedule in 2076, they would have found a small but thriving Melot station there. But instead they arrived near Jocasta. And we couldn’t tell how long they had been asleep.
Calypso
’s arrival signaled the end of the Seouras blockade. When we talked to the crew, they told us that an Invidi called An Serat helped them to leave Earth. We suspected then that
Calypso
might have jumped from a point somewhere along its course to Jocasta. I thought of An Serat’s help as being domino number four, although a little out of time.
It certainly set things off on Jocasta. I wanted to take a look at
Calypso
’s engines, because I thought the Nine should be able to have jump technology. Our resident Invidi, An Barik, wanted
Calypso
’s engines so the Nine would not have a chance at learning about them. A terrorist group who’d infiltrated the station also wanted the engines so they could use the jump drive to help them fight the Confederacy. And, finally, it turned out that the Seouras ships we had been resisting for six months were in fact ships of a different alien race called the Tor, who had taken the Seouras prisoner and forced them to communicate with the station for the purpose of... getting hold of
Calypso.
I tended to lose track of my dominoes at this point. Sometimes I put in extra ones for the gray Tor ships and the imprisoned Seouras. The Tor ships contained no live Tor, an aggressive alien species who’d fought a war with the Invidi for nearly a century. But after the Tor withdrew suddenly from Invidi space less than a decade ago, Earth time, we’d seen no sign of them. We never found out if the Tor ships had been traveling for millennia in flatspace, or if they appeared from their own jump point.
At any rate, the closest gray ship found out about
Calypso
and tried to take it. Murdoch and I stopped them by damaging the gray ship using a bomb he planted inside
Calypso.
The gray ship was damaged and retreated, leaving a field of debris behind.
Some of the debris contained pieces of
Calypso
’s engines. I salvaged those engines and started the
Calypso II
project.
In June 2122, I left Jocasta on a test flight and ended up in 2023. Which should be impossible. Dammit, where did I go wrong?
Someone knocked. Or rather, pulled the piece of string at the entry that rattled the pieces of pipe I’d hung in the center of the roof. A gentle
clackety-click
that roused me from my thoughts.
At first I thought it was the wind, grown strong enough to rattle the whole tent. But then it sounded again.
It had to be someone from the neighborhood. One of the gang that collected Grace’s “rent” would have simply pushed open the door and demanded payment. Maybe something had happened to the Assembly
For nearly six months we tried to find ways to circumvent the blockade or communicate with the Confederacy, and to keep the station’s residents safe and fed. Six months of hell. Then domino number three arrived—a ship called
Calypso
appeared suddenly and activated a jump mine, which killed all but three of the crew. This was in January 2122.
Calypso
’s presence was a mystery at first. It couldn’t have traveled from Earth to Jocasta in flatspace within fifty years, which was how long the cryogenic sleep system was set to preserve the crew. On the other hand, human ships were not equipped with jump drives, nor was there a recorded jump point in the place where
Calypso
appeared. It couldn’t have jumped from Earth to Jocasta, because no jump points existed off the Central network. So we thought.
The
Calypso
crew’s plan was to head for Alpha Centauri from Earth, and after fifty years of frozen sleep, to decelerate and look for habitable planets in that system. A mad idea, and if they’d arrived on schedule in 2076, they would have found a small but thriving Melot station there. But instead they arrived near Jocasta. And we couldn’t tell how long they had been asleep.
Calypso
’s arrival signaled the end of the Seouras blockade. When we talked to the crew, they told us that an Invidi called An Serat helped them to leave Earth. We suspected then that
Calypso
might have jumped from a point somewhere along its course to Jocasta. I thought of An Serat’s help as being domino number four, although a little out of time.
It certainly set things off on Jocasta. I wanted to take a look at
Calypso
’s engines, because I thought the Nine should be able to have jump technology. Our resident Invidi, An Barik, wanted
Calypso
’s engines so the Nine would not have a chance at learning about them. A terrorist group who’d infiltrated the station also wanted the engines so they could use the jump drive to help them fight the Confederacy. And, finally, it turned out that the Seouras ships we had been resisting for six months were in fact ships of a different alien race called the Tor, who had taken the Seouras prisoner and forced them to communicate with the station for the purpose of... getting hold of
Calypso.
I tended to lose track of my dominoes at this point. Sometimes I put in extra ones for the gray Tor ships and the imprisoned Seouras. The Tor ships contained no live Tor, an aggressive alien species who’d fought a war with the Invidi for nearly a century. But after the Tor withdrew suddenly from Invidi space less than a decade ago, Earth time, we’d seen no sign of them. We never found out if the Tor ships had been traveling for millennia in flatspace, or if they appeared from their own jump point.
At any rate, the closest gray ship found out about
Calypso
and tried to take it. Murdoch and I stopped them by damaging the gray ship using a bomb he planted inside
Calypso.
The gray ship was damaged and retreated, leaving a field of debris behind.
Some of the debris contained pieces of
Calypso
’s engines. I salvaged those engines and started the
Calypso II
project.
In June 2122, I left Jocasta on a test flight and ended up in 2023. Which should be impossible. Dammit, where did I go wrong?
Someone knocked. Or rather, pulled the piece of string at the entry that rattled the pieces of pipe I’d hung in the center of the roof. A gentle
clackety-click
that roused me from my thoughts.
At first I thought it was the wind, grown strong enough to rattle the whole tent. But then it sounded again.
It had to be someone from the neighborhood. One of the gang that collected Grace’s “rent” would have simply pushed open the door and demanded payment. Maybe something had happened to the Assembly
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