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 #72.

The sounds of the athletic competition faded as Otto made his way through the Second Chance to the navigation section. He had no interest in either the competition or the competitors, and after determining exactly where he was permitted to go on this vessel, decided to examine the star charts instead.

The Second Chance was the closest thing the Androsynth had to a flagship or capital ship, but it still wasn't anything huge; simply a larger sort of Guardian ship, with some design changes to accommodate for scale. The Second Chance was something of an experiment, and as far as Otto knew, it was unlikely to have any sister ships of the same type; so far they just hadn't had a need for anything much bigger. With a limited pool of spacers to draw from, it appeared that the decision had been made for many smaller craft rather than a few large ones.

Otto wondered what it would be like to pilot this ship. Scuttlebutt said the ship name was because it was somebody's second chance to get away in case things really hit the fan. Otto supposed it didn't much matter what was truth, as long as it handled well. Did it have the standard hyperspatial drive? Was the Second Chance "special" in armament or defense? Maybe more fuel to go farther? What he wouldn't give to try it out....

Navigation here had its own room, although by volume "closet" might be a closer definition. Otto presented his pass – a quickly scribbled note from Thad, Otto's mission leader – to the Androsynth on duty, and began scanning the charts. He didn't know what he was looking for, if anything, but it had to be more interesting than the good-natured brawling he half expected to hear about in the morning.

Space would not have been traversible, Otto knew, without hyperspatial drive. The empty distances between the stars would take generations to cross by Earth's conventional propulsion. It had taken an Androsynth engineer to discover and create the means by which the void could be crossed, but even hyperdrives needed refueling, and space was just plain huge.

The Second Chance's charts were a little more detailed than those familiar to Otto, but they still showed the far distance from Eta Vulpeculae 2 to the galactic core. Otto was curious about the quarks and why they aimed, if that was the right word, in that direction. But the charts didn't show him anything new; it would take many, many starbases, requiring replenishment or perhaps even colonies for support, to get remotely close to the galactic core.

Perhaps in the future, since they were extremely long-lived, the Androsynth could create such a pathway to the core, staffed by their offspring? An interesting thought, but not one that would see fruition for some years, at minimum.

Still, Otto thought, the charts here did have one advantage: they showed the likely new exploration routes and which ships would be assigned to them. He could start planning his piloting now, if he so chose. He did.

He'd been lucky for some time now, he reflected. Poszczescilo mu sie jak slepej kurze ziarko.* He was reluctant to rely on it, however. That would be too much like tempting fate.

A side benefit of his research, which he did not realize until after the fact, was that he was one of the few Skyblazer personnel not involved when the athletic competition got ugly shortly afterward.

* "As lucky as a blind chicken finding a piece of grain." – Polish idiom

Comments? Email me: laridian at aol dot com