DSS Baldursdottir, in far orbit of LHS 1140

23.5 megaseconds since the catastrophe

Legend had it that back when the original Outbound Project was vetting systems to send Dream of Spring, LHS 1140 was high on the list. It boasted a super-Earth as the outermost of two planets, designated "1140 b" by virtue of having been discovered before the inner "1140 c". In the end, David Aaronovski, founder and charismatic leader of the Outbound had declared himself "inspired" by TRAPPIST-1, and the rest was now long since history.

A few hundred years later, Earth's final collapse spurred the leadership in TRAPPIST-1—now David's Star—to begin spreading humanity out among the stars. LHS 1140 was recalled as a possible target. A small skipship could reach the system in two skips, about two weeks' travel, given the need to recharge the capacitor between skips. A colony-sized ship would run smack into the old Skip Drive's mass penalties, requiring shorter skips and longer recharge time, but it was still seen as feasible.

The technology of the time also did not enable any means of communicating faster-than-light over long distances. Both Skip and later Jump Drive required a ship to physically travel, pick up whatever messages the locals had, drop off the mail in turn, and then bounce out again. A regular courier circuit had long since been in place between Sol and David's Star, for example, and was still servicing Neptune Anchorage and Jove Junction and keeping them connected.

The colonists of LHS 1140, however, were looking for independence. The planet they dubbed "New Victoria" turned out to be that most rare and important thing that Revi'i was not: habitable without alteration of either the planet or its inhabitants. They planned to settle down into a pastoral and mechanical technology level and forget the rest of the universe existed. As an added bonus, LHS 1140 was not known to throw out flares, so an event like the one that finally scorched Earth was highly unlikely.

For their part, the authorities at Newer York were in favor of a scattering of independent outposts of humanity. They still valued the interchange of news and ideas, and a general sense that the other people were still alive. There was no way the New Victorians could stop Newer York from sending ships to peer down and see what they were up to.

Bowing to that reality, they reached a compromise: Newer York could send one representative, with a small staff, who could live on-world. That representative could have just enough technology to send messages to a "mailbox" satellite orbiting out by the skip-boundary. Otherwise, they were expected to live like a law-abiding citizen. That treaty had not been updated, so the technology was still a dead-drop, not a time compression relay.

Hannah bat Chaya, contemplated all this history as her ship came into the system. She suspected the New Victorians had thought such restrictions would discourage anyone from wanting to play ambassador. She wondered if they were disappointed or delighted to find out that they were not the only people who sometimes fantasized about a lower-tech life. Regardless, from that day until this, the post had only been vacant as the result of premature death of the incumbent.

The treaty allowed David's Star to send a courier every two months to exchange mail. Every five years, they could send a ship with landing craft, which could land at a remote location. This allowed the new representative to debark and the old one to return if they chose. Many did not. Not too long after, this agreement was extended to include the idea that individuals who were generally well behaved, but could not live within the strictures of New Victorian society could go out into exile and enter Newer York's Ellis program.

Admiral Donato had sent her to this backwater as her first real stop. That had seemed odd to her. This system was not part of the Tau Ceti Treaty, any more than it was a dependent of David's Star. Most of its inhabitants only vaguely knew there was a wider human universe, and probably had no idea that a disaster had struck much of it. It seemed to her that there were a lot more "interesting" systems she ought to be trying to visit.

"That," Donato had said, "is the point." He'd been maddeningly unforthcoming beyond that and looked like he was sorry he'd said even that much.

Regardless, the timing was right for the usual courier exchange. Baldursdottir was just overkill for a milkrun. She was eager to get on with the survey of Tau Ceti Treaty systems promised to Captain Singer. She faced that prospect with both dread and hope, given what she and her crew—then on Alexei Leonov—had already found at Ross 508 and Serpent's Head. But people had survived at Gliese. They survived at Tau Ceti itself. There were still possibilities that were not dreadful, and Hannah clung to them.

So really, her only complaint was the itch in her head that told her there were more consequential things she should be doing than playing postman.

Her reverie was broken by her comms officer, Bartolomeo, saying, "Captain, we've got the mail packet from the sat. There's an item flagged urgent."

Donato had told her to feel free to open the mail if she had any reason to, and provided her with the cyphers. "Urgent" sounded like a reason.

"Send it to my screen."

"Yes, ma'am."

From: Lars Sigurdson, Ambassador Plenipotentiary from 
      David's Star to the Court of Victoria XXXIV
To: Admiral of the Outbound; Governor of David's Star Republic
Date: 11 Av 2541 AS [interpolated from local date and calculation]
Subject: I hate being right

The disturbances I reported in my last missive ripened into
revolution, which was over surprisingly quickly.

The revolutionary government has accepted my credentials
during good behavior. They continue, as they have since I first
detected their activities four local years ago, to hold me at arm's
length. They are respectul and mannerly enough, but merely tolerant of
my presence, assuming that David's Star has secretly been supporting
Her Majesty's government despite our ongoing professions of
non-interference. They are also aware that it would require some time 
for me to arrange to leave even if they wished to expel me.

So far, the revolutionary movement has not quite tipped over into a
reign of terror, but it's hovering on the edge. Safety might suggest I
ask for pickup, but prudence dictates I remain to report what I can. A
premature withdrawl would only be seen as further evidence of
collusion with the _ancien regime_.

At this time, I strongly advise against landing.

I remain your most obedient and humble servant,
Sigurdson

Hannah stared at the missive, wondering if there could be deeper meaning, hidden messages, code words that Donato would recognize that she didn't. He had given her the cyphers but not any other clues as to what might be trigger words.

The import of the text itself sank in a few minutes later. Sigurdson had been expecting this uprising for some time, which meant Donato had known it was coming. That more than anything else he'd told her explained her presence here.

She started reading between the lines. The revolution was already over and done with. The rebels had already won. Unspoken was how they had managed such a coup in what had been so stable a society so quickly.

They accepted his presence and that he couldn't leave easily. That meant they understood he was an outworlder. The briefing she had been given suggested that even the ambassador's existence as such was not general knowledge, but these people knew. She supposed they could have gleaned that from espionage against the government they overthrew, but they also might have an advisor.

He was afraid for his life, despite their overt guarantees, but more afraid for the safety of anyone who landed, which meant nobody should come to his rescue.

The thought came to her unbidden: They had some kind of outside help.

She hated to leave him behind, but even if she had the authority, she had no wherewithal to extract him involuntarily.

Hannah was about to give Lieutenant Bartolomeo instructions for how to reply when she heard Lieutenant Stevens yelp. Stevens was manning the sensors. Standard procedure in any system was to take all kinds of readings "for science". Most systems were so well known that such scans were just a reinforcement of the status quo. A yelp, therefore, was not merely a discipline problem.

"Lieutenant?"

If he heard her, she couldn't tell. He was staring at his displays, inventing swear words and saying, "That's...not possible..." over and over.

Stevens continued his oblivious muttering, brow furrowed, fingers dancing across his keys, for a full minute. Then, slightly louder, Captain bat Chaya said again, "Lieutenant?"

It had no effect.

Finally, just shy of parade ground, she said, "Mr. Stevens, report!" It rang off the bulkheads. Two of the ratings who were relatively new and not used to their captain's vocal range winced.

It also produced another yelp, a deep blush on fair skin and a deep breath from Stevens. Finally, he said, "Ma'am, I beg to report one of three possibilities, in order of probability: firstly, that our sensorium is faulty and requires deep diagnostics; secondly, that your sensory officer, myself, is faulty and requires deep diagnostics; thirdly..." he broke off, and shook his head, clearly unable to believe the words he was about to say, "that something very like a jump-flare or time-compression emergence just occurred well inside the boundary."

She allowed herself a moment for shock. She couldn't have helped it. Then she said, "Show me!"

Almost before she finished that short sentence, a looped recording of what Stevens had been muttering about appeared in the main tank. A relatively small twisting of space that probably wouldn't have been visibly noticed on its own. The sidebar, however, told a tale of tachyons and other particles rarely seen in this system in any density, let alone densities comparable to an FTL transition.

And never, ever, inside the heliopause of the system. Any system. Ever.

But there it was, plain as day, and then a small object emerged. The readings showed another surge of particles. Then, a few minutes later, the same thing happened again, the object turned around and headed back through the impossible hole it had fallen out of, which closed neatly behind it.

It was just as well the ambassador did not want extraction. She could not spare the time, now. This system was not actually in relay range for ship-based comms, and the treaty did not allow them to establish a true relay. They would have to backtrack to report this.

"Helm, how long to get us back into range of that last relay we dropped?"

"About six days at 1000:1, ma'am."

That was as fast as they'd pushed the engines, so far. It wasn't fast enough.

"Comms, have we dropped off our mail?"

"Yes'm, but the ambassador—"

"—will be expecting an ack, at least. Send it, with my compliments, and tell him..." She stopped. She wasn't sure what to tell him. She was very, very sure she did not want to transmit groundside, even under encryption, what they'd just seen, why they had to leave so precipitously.

"Tell him that we are constrained to depart more quickly than expected, but that we will try to arrange someone come sooner than usual to keep him up to date on developments elsewhere."

It felt inadequate as she said it, but it was the best she could do.

"Sent, ma'am. Mailbox acks receipt. Do we wait to see if he gets the downlink?"

She considered, then said, "No. Helm, I need a different calculation. How soon could we be at Tau Ceti?"

"How hard should we push?"

"How hard can we push?"

"At 2000:1 it'd take about a month."

She shook her head. That wasn't fast enough, but doing the math roughly in her head, even if she had the newest, fanciest drive Zephyr boasted, it would only shave another week off of that. Still too long.

"OK. Original orders then. Get us back into range of that relay fast as we can."

"About three days at 2000:1. Ready on your order." He'd anticipated her. Just as well.

"Go!"

Humanity's Hold, 4053.21.11 CE

23.5 megaseconds since the catastrophe

Phase Three, Trial 4-B: complete success.