Book 5: Chapter 60: Encounter
Icarus
February 2338
Wormhole network
After our failure at the DMZ system, we’d decided to visit another civilization at random while we tried to work out a strategy going forward.
This last one had been especially interesting. The locals had essentially colonized their entire system, from the hot-as-hell Mercury-type planet near their sun to the freezing example of Fimbulwinter at the edge of their Kuiper belt. In addition, every single moon was covered in structures, and every asteroid bigger than about a half kilometer in diameter seemed to have been hollowed out and spun up for gravity.
And all empty.
I was trying very hard to avoid the feeling that I was in some kind of Stephen King horror story, where perhaps a carnivorous clown had eaten everyone. But it was hard.
As we oriented ourselves to the local orbital plane, my external sensors started blaring. “Woo-hoo,” I yelled. “Action at last.”
“Celebration is premature,” Dae retorted. “Let’s make sure we survive first.”