he stars stretched endlessly across the viewscreen, a velvet ocean scattered with pinpricks of light. For hours, the SS Sojourner had cruised through the quiet dark, her engines humming steady and sure.

Then came the sound.

A faint, tinny burst broke through the static on long-range communications. At first it was just noise, the kind of cosmic interference every starship officer had trained themselves to ignore. But then the pattern emerged: a repeating code, clipped and distorted, a voice buried in the hiss.

=^=”Captain we are receiveing a distress call, nearby system about 10 light years for Tera Nova” =^= The NE at the coms station called.

There are those who call me Tim? GM