Welcome to the Journal of Now and Forever. This Journal is a collection of my Star Control and Star Control 2 fiction. Note: Some of this material is, by necessity, extrapolation from the slim information provided by canon sources.

New fiction is posted first at My Livejournal before it appears here. This story is in response to 15 Minute Ficlets' Challenge #104.

Otto doesn't mind so much that the invasion of Earth is no longer planned. Hyperspace is what's important. In an invasion, he might get killed. Yes, they all have some awareness of their own mortality, but some of them are still willing to risk their lives if it means killing Earthlings. Otto isn't sure he can go quite that far. After all, he became a pilot because he loves hyperspace.

But if any of the spacers wondered what they'd be doing, they have their answer now. Besides continuing patrols on the Earthward side of Androsynth space, they are to keep a lookout for Precursor artifacts. As far as Otto's concerned, this presents a challenge; how will they know a Precursor artifact from, say, a Spathi one? But the Hierarchy gave them some indications of what the Precursors were like, and they were, if the Hierarchy is to be believed, very tall. Five to eight meters tall and twice as wide, Otto's heard, and he's not sure how that would work, given the mass of such a being, but then he wouldn't have said the Ilwrath were physiologically feasible either. Yet they exist.

It sounds like every race everywhere tries to find Precursor artifacts, and the Precursors themselves are long gone – hundreds of thousands of years, easily. And the stuff could be anywhere and do anything. The Hierarchy hungers for Precursor work, and – rather uncharacteristically, given the Androsynths' recent experience with them – the Ur-Quan give great rewards for any Precursor things found. Ergo, Commander Pain wants Precursor artifacts found too. Or any indication that Precursors were even in the Vulpeculae constellation.

Otto himself isn't likely to find anything. He doesn't do shuttle landings onto Vulpeculan planets – hasn't even been on Eta Vulpeculae 2's surface since the Exodus. Of course, he'd be part of the crew involved if anything was found. But overall, it looks to him like a combination project: it gives the spacers busywork – go explore the planets you haven't really looked at yet – and it might generate something solid for the Hierarchy. He's just the pilot.

It'll be very boring work, pushing from one planet to the next within a system, knowing that other spacers are doing the same thing in the other systems. Otto wonders which one of the Vulpeculaes his duty will take him to. Not that he hasn't been to all of them at one point or another.

The other thing that's said of the Precursors is that even their trash is valuable. And to look for the 'rainbow worlds,' those that show up as brilliantly colored under certain atmospheric and planetary scans. The Guardians now have capability for those scans, but even that just involves pushing a button whenever the next planet comes into range. Otto strongly suspects the search for rainbow worlds in the Vulpeculaes is busywork; the Ur-Quan surely would know if one was here, given how many forces they have in the area at this time.

All the same, Otto knows this is better than war. Boredom always is. And who knows? Maybe some spacer will actually find something. But more likely not.

Comments? Email me: laridian at aol dot com