#demon planet

Misam, a yellow-orange giant, had a system of 9 planets that had first begun Human colonisation in 2115. This put it as one of the last groups of planets terraformed and colonised in the Diaspora, but the Human presence was still a good hundred-seventy-five years old at this point. It remained well-maintained, of course; despite Misam's location a class-3 Fold manoeuvr away from many of the other major systems, it was rich in resources to be exploited and not home to any sapient indigenous races, so the industrious Humans—who no longer lived on Earth in any capacity, and thus referred to themselves as "Extraterrestrials"—had spread over every terrestrial planet and most of the good-sized moons and dwarf planets as well by now.

Mickie Lane strolled through a small museum set within the Samarqand Spaceport on Acantha, Misam's fourth planet, skimming the plaques and inscriptions emplaced near surviving examples of the very first system settlers' tools and buildings. By now, all the original infrastructure was long gone—torn down after too many repairs and repurposed, or simply replaced with better materials as they became available—but everywhere Humans went, they erected memorials to their past, and always planned on keeping some early souvenirs anytime they began a new journey or settlement.

Many of the Misam system's first residents had been descended from nations originally living along old Earth's Silk Road, an ancient trade route on its largest continent, and this coloured the feel of much of the system's unique subculture; proud explorers and recorders, the people of Misam hoped to be the jumping-off point for further excursions deep into the galaxy and the discovery of new frontiers.

It was one such excursion Lane hoped to lead. A member of the Starforce military's Transspaceguild, the full resources of the Triumvirate government were made available to her branch for officially-designated jumpship trips out into unvisited solar systems; spacers often referred to this as simply "Tripping". She was on Acantha in the Misam system to pick up the last component needed for the upcoming trip, a hydrogen extractor to power the fuel-cells of the Fold engine in case of emergency.

Seeing nothing in the museum's modest gift shop she found worthy of purchase, Lane continued on across the polished silver-blue tile floor toward the Logistics wing. She had some time yet before her pickup was expected to be ready, but with little else demanding her immediate attention, a chance to sit for a while would be welcome.

As it turned out, she didn't need to sit long.

"Margaret Lane?"

Lane, in a seat near the front row of the waiting area, rose back to her feet; she raised a hand in the clerk's direction to indicate she'd heard. She locked the screen of the AmanuenSys she'd been reading a light novel on and tucked it back in her satchel before slinging it over one shoulder, taking several long strides toward the desk.

The clerk—a Celosian with an impressive bouffant of silver hair, an androgynous face, and a finely-toned triangular torso beneath their uniform—gave Lane a polite customer-service smile, scanning the readout in front of them. "All right, Ms.—sorry, Captain Lane—we have your extractor ready," they said in fluid, unaccented Hindi. "No payment is due. Please acknowledge here." They held out a sheet of digipaper, which she dutifully pressed one fingertip to in the highlighted box. Her full name in fake cursive sprinted across the empty lines in Romanic, Cyrillenic, Ji, Devanagari, Neodemotic, Enlili cuneiform, and Nyfuthark. "Lucky you. These don't come cheap," the clerk observed wryly, entering the last few bits of data required.

"Perks of government contracts," she responded. "We're SCC, scheduled for a Trip out toward an earmarked system a Class-5 Fold manoeuvr away."

"Es-see-see?"

"Ah—sorry, that might not be familiar. It's from the first letters of its name in English, 'Surveying and Charting Corps'. Explorers, basically." The clerk nodded, understanding. "Ah. I'm surprised that with a race as curious and wide-ranging as Humans that you delegate the exploration to just a single faction."

Lane laughed. "Hardly! But SSC are the ones with the Triumvirate stamp of approval, so we get to draw the official maps." She adjusted the strap hanging on her shoulder. "And we get the nice subsidies for things like hydrogen extractors. Water we can recycle on long trips, but hydrogen is a little harder to make shipboard." With a rueful smile, she added, "I know that's not how you folks or the Sekhtali do it, but sadly, not all humans are psionic enough."

The elf-like alien gave her a sympathetic smile, flipping over their digipaper. "What was your docking station, Captain?"

"Uh, Cerulean 571." The clerk nodded in acknowledgment, swiping a few fields on the digipaper and keying in a sequence.

"Thank you very much. We'll have that delivered for setup within two standard hours. I hope you have a pleasant rest of your cycle—and a safe Trip."