Eleanor’s face went slack with surprise and sudden emotion, the anger falling away from her expression in an instant. Her mouth worked a few times before finally finding traction on her sister’s name.

“...Anja?”, she whispered, barely audible. Her eyes slid to the side, taking in Rhuar and Qktk before locking on the first officer’s station. “Jesri?”

Jesri smiled and nodded, not trusting her voice to remain steady through the rush of feeling in her chest. The three sisters stood gazing at each other for a long moment, drinking in each others’ presence through the viewscreen. As her shock subsided, Jesri noted several slight grey figures in Terran uniforms milling around behind Eleanor, manning bridge stations and checking data feeds. Compared to their own cavernously empty bridge, hers looked like a bustling market.

Anja giggled uncontrollably before shaking her head and recovering some of her equilibrium. “I was expecting everything but you, sister,” she said, “I have never been happier to be wrong.”

Eleanor straightened up, tugging on the bottom of her uniform jacket. “How… I never thought-”, she began, casting her gaze around their bridge. “Are there more with you?”

Anja’s smile froze, then faded. “No,” she said quietly.

“I can’t be greedy,” Eleanor replied with a quick laugh, waving the question away. “Just having the two of you here, after all this time - come, you have to dock at the station. I need to-!” She broke off, her sentence dissolving into flustered silence before she composed herself fully and gave them a steady, beaming smile. “Dock first. We can talk in person.”

They exchanged smiles and nods, then cut the connection after a lingering gaze.

The bridge was silent as the image reverted back to the tactical display, the two blue dots slowing to turn back towards port. Anja and Jesri shared a look, and Qktk cleared his throat.

“I don’t want to ruin the moment,” he said delicately, “but we should talk before we reach the station.”

Jesri nodded, realizing she had been holding her breath. “She didn’t send the transmissions,” she said. “Whoever did would have known we were coming, or at least that some Valkyrie were coming. Ellie was totally surprised.”

Anja frowned. “She was. A rare look on her. But-” She trailed off, thinking. “Rhuar, are you sure the transmission came from Nicnevin?”

“Oh yeah,” he replied. “There’s not a lot else out this way, and there wasn’t much of a spread in the vector.”

“So our benefactors didn’t want us to find them,” Jesri mused, “they wanted us to find Ellie?”

Anja shrugged. “As far as I am concerned, they just did us another priceless favor. Ships, a friendly port, allies. If not for them, I would still believe Ellie to be dead.”

“Same, I haven’t run into a single mention of her, not even early on…” Jesri paused, a thought occurring to her. “Anja, she must have been here the entire time.”

They all paused, considering. “If this station has been occupied since the fall,” Rhuar said slowly, “does that mean there are humans on it?”

“I didn’t see humans in the feed from their bridge,” Jesri replied, shaking her head. “A species I don’t recognize, smaller and greyish. Anyone know them?”

Qktk and Rhuar shrugged, while Anja shook her head, then sighed. “Useless to speculate,” she said wearily. “Rhuar, take us in.”

“Aye sir,” he sang out, coaxing the engines to life. The gigantic ship rumbled towards the station, although the two Valkyrie barely heard it.

“Heavy cruiser, continue to bay zero-three approach and hold for clearance. Maintain separation at two kilometers,” crackled a dry, emotionless voice.

“Control, acknowledged,” Rhuar replied crisply, his cool tones a poor match for the grin plastered across his face. He turned to Jesri, bouncing excitedly on his front paws. “Isn't this cool?”, he gushed, “It's like a real spaceport.”

Jesri grinned back. His enthusiasm was infectious, but she couldn't claim to be wholly immune herself. The station felt… right. It looked no different but any other station she had visited since the fall, but none of them still retained the sense of raw vitality that she felt now. For thousands of years every station she had boarded felt like an abandoned home, dark and still. Visiting Nicnevin was like stepping back in time - not just nostalgic, but a homecoming.

Qktk and Anja were absorbed in watching the station’s picket craft slide through the entrance to the station’s main capital ship docking bay. The gates stretched wide, dwarfing the two 150-meter corvettes as they slipped through. The blue glow from their engines sent harsh shadows dancing across the interior before they vanished to the side.

“Heavy cruiser, you are clear to proceed,” the controller said, “your berth is at slip zero one. Welcome to Redoubt.”

“Thank you Control, heading in,” Rhuar replied, practically vibrating in tune with the engines as he moved the ship forward. The bridge fell into the shadow of the station as they passed through the doors, the cavernous opening comfortably admitting the ship’s bulk.

The interior space stretched back nearly two kilometers, the far end lost in a light haze of shadow playing over the fading drive traces of the corvettes. The smaller ships were just finishing their approach, nestling into their slips along the side of the dock.

Their destination was the largest slip in the bay, half again as long as the Grand Design. Rhuar glided towards it, indulging himself for a moment in the full depth of the ship’s sensor feeds. His senses stretched through the metal walls of the bay, feeling the strength of the superstructure and the labyrinth of hallways nestled between the branching ribs. The bright pulse of the central core was blinding, making even their own reactor seem like a flickering candle in comparison.

He looked again in a different band, seeing the choking swirl of life surging through the corridors. A huge mass of people, more people than he had ever seen on a station and still only a fraction of what it could hold. They surged through the corridors around the docks, clustering and flowing through the corridors. Farther away, little groups sparkled like stars, huddled in tiny clumps along the endless halls. He marveled in disbelief at the milling crowds for a half second before grudgingly releasing the feed to guide the ship in.

The clamps sent a shudder through the ship as they engaged, softly locking them against the broad arc of the slip. Rhuar let the tremors reverberate through him and fade to a hum before removing the shipjack, stumbling at the numb shock that ripped through him as he shrank back to himself. Shaking his head, he looked around the bridge to see Anja and Jesri eagerly rising to debark.

Qktk slid out of his seat and shot a serious glance over at Rhuar, who returned the look for a moment before they both succumbed to laughter. “Mr. Rhuar,” he chittered, “just when I think I've adjusted to the strangeness of life…”

“Yep,” Rhuar chuckled. “Come on, Captain, let's go see the secret ancient spaceport.” He smacked Qktk lightly on the shell, and they both hurried to follow Anja and Jesri towards the lift.

Eleanor was waiting for them at the dock’s primary airlock, smiling joyfully at their appearance. She bounded towards Anja and Jesri as they approached, drawing them into a crushing hug that they returned with equal force.

“Ow, ow,” laughed Eleanor, wriggling free and rubbing her ribs. “No fair, two on one.” She moved back to beam at the two of them from arm’s length. “Damn, you're really here. I didn't believe it until just now, not really. And flying the Grand Design? You have to tell me everything.”

“You'll have to set aside some time,” Jesri grinned. “The last couple of months have been eventful.”

Eleanor gave her shoulder a squeeze, then turned her attention to Qktk and Rhuar. “Can I assume these two are somehow involved?”, she asked.

Anja nodded. “Essential crewmen, both of them. Colonel Eleanor Tam, it is my pleasure to introduce Ensigns Qktk and Rhuar. Ensign Qktk was instrumental in our escape from a hostile station shortly after we met and recently executed a holding action against a planetary defense force to cover a covert extraction.”

Qktk nervously rubbed his forelegs together at the praise, inclining his head to Eleanor. “It was more of a diversion gone wrong,” he stammered.

Anja grinned at him and motioned to Rhuar. “As for Ensign Rhuar, he is a talented pilot and engineer that has saved our lives on several occasions. He was the one that determined the location of your station.”

Eleanor smiled back at them both, acknowledging them with a nod. “Such accomplished Ensigns,” she said. “I should be very interested to talk with them further.” Her gaze turned to Rhuar and flashed with steely intent. “Especially concerning how you managed to locate us out here.” Rhuar’s pleased smile wilted a bit and he shot a concerned look at Jesri.

“Stop trying to scare them, sister,” teased Anja, jabbing Eleanor in the ribs and smirking at her annoyed scowl. “How about your crewmen?”, she inquired, gesturing behind her.

Rhuar started, surprised. He hadn't noticed the small, silent figures standing by the entrance to the room. They were thin and short, their light grey skin matching their darker uniforms. Their eyes were pale yellow and large for their narrow, noseless face, their mouths thin and lipless.

A brief flash of confusion crossed Eleanor’s face before she turned back to look at the two. “Oh, these two? Ensigns Drinni and, ah, Rulati.”

Neither reacted to being named. “Wow,” Jesri coughed. “Great discipline.”

“Irri are like that,” Eleanor laughed. “Their species,” she clarified, seeing Anja’s inquiring look.

“Huh, never met any before,” Jesri said. “Pleased to meet you,” she said politely.

“An honor, sir!”, they both barked in perfect unison. Jesri raised an eyebrow and Eleanor shook her head. “Like I said, they're like that. Amazing people.” She clapped both sisters on a shoulder and squeezed. “You hungry? We can chat and catch up in the officers’ mess. I know how much I look forward to some hydroponics after spending time underway.”

“Oh, yes,” moaned Anja. “Jesri may be able to survive on nutrient pellets but I have been dreaming of salad for weeks.”

“Great!”, she replied, “I’ll get you some quarters and we can talk over dinner.” Eleanor turned to Rhuar and Qktk with an apologetic smile. “Do you two mind if I catch up with my sisters for a bit? Drinni can get you food and quarters, show you around the station.”

Qktk gave an alarmed chirp as Rhuar hauled him towards the exit, smiling hungrily at Drinni. “Hi, I'm Rhuar!”, he said brightly, “can we look at the main reactors first?”

“You have to tell me where you found those two,” Eleanor chuckled, gesturing them to the right as they traversed the corridors of the station.

“It’s a long story,” replied Jesri, her eyes roving over the hallway in amazement. She was finding it hard to focus on the conversation as they walked because of all the people. Throngs of grey-skinned Irri crowded the station, each clad in crisp duty greys and moving with a purpose. They moved efficiently, quietly, stopping or speaking only when needed.

Anja poked Eleanor in the shoulder. “Sister, before we explain where we found our two crewmen, do me the favor of explaining where you found yours,” she said. “How many of them are there? Where did they all come from?”

Eleanor laughed and led them through a final doorway to a small, well-appointed mess with a table laid for a dozen crew. The room was empty save for an Irri steward who saluted smartly and left towards what Jesri presumed was the galley as they entered.

“They found me, really. I suppose I should explain a bit,” she said, taking a seat and motioning for her sisters to do the same. “When the attacks came I was in-between postings, traveling alone on the Cormorant en route to a new assignment. We were part of a convoy - three corvettes and ten cargo barges. When we got word of the attacks we dropped out of hyperspace to reroute to a new destination, but the damn traders panicked.” She shook her head, wincing as she remembered.

“They insisted on jumping back within the core perimeter, trying to hit the transit station at Gliese 433. They actually did - but they got there too early. It was one of the last systems to be attacked, and they got there just in time to have a front-row seat.” Eleanor leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes. “We had a ten-minute coordination call on whether to follow them or link back up with the fleet, and we couldn’t match their fully laden speed. By the time we jumped in after them, they were all dead.”

Jesri pursed her lips. “There was a lot of that kind of thing going on,” she muttered.

Eleanor nodded. “It was a bad day,” she said, quirking her lips at the understatement. “We decided to go to Nicnevin because it was off the beaten path. They had just built Redoubt that year and it hadn’t been added to most of the civilian nav charts yet. We figured it’d be quiet, safe.”

She was interrupted by the steward bringing in plates of lightly sauteed bok choi and a crispy green salad dressed with a vinaigrette. Anja made an odd sighing noise as the plates were set in front of her, barely pausing to send a grateful glance Eleanor’s way before tearing into the food.

Jesri grinned and speared some arugula with her fork. “So what happened after you got here?”, she asked around a mouthful of salad.

“Manners,” Eleanor chuckled, wagging a finger at her. “It’s all that keeps us civilized, out here.” She ate a bite of her own food, then set her fork down. “Ah, we were here for a few years just turning the place into a home. It was a new station, pretty bare, and it was set up for mining support where it was built out at all. By the end of it we had a pretty good picture of what had happened. We clamped down on signals, communication, we wanted the station to be invisible.”

“After we lost the Albatross to a panicked defense fleet - our other corvette, besides the Skua,” she clarified, “we stopped going out of system entirely. We kept our heads down, kept the hatches closed, tried to gather information. There were only about three hundred of us left, not enough to do anything aggressive, so we just waited and listened.”

Her face went flat and she shook her head again. “We waited and waited. Three hundred wasn’t enough, though, not for a long-term colony. Besides that, everyone had been on longevity treatments and a lot of the Navy personnel were older. Without a fertility clinic... There were a few dozen children born, and a handful more from there.”

She stopped talking again, and Jesri saw a little tremor run through her face. The three of them sat quietly for a few long moments. “The last one, a woman named Kiera, it was just me and her for twelve years.” She ate a bite of salad, chewing slowly. “Then it was just me.”

Jesri fought to keep her face neutral, knowing how her sister would react to her pity. “The Irri?”, she managed.

Eleanor nodded. “A long… long time later. A colony ship from a distant part of the galaxy, well outside our space. They had a malfunction with their life support and docked at the station, thinking it was abandoned. They found me, and after we figured out how to communicate they asked if they could stay here.”

Anja raised an eyebrow. “They wanted to enlist?”, she asked incredulously, speaking for the first time since the food came. Jesri saw that her plates were pristine and empty.

“They wanted to survive,” Eleanor said, shrugging. “Afterwards they didn’t know what to do with themselves, so I offered a structure. Turns out they’re well-suited for a military environment, they thrive on it. So we’ve been running a quiet little base ever since, biding our time until an opportunity presented itself.” She looked at her sisters with a grin. “Bringing us to the present day, when my dear sisters showed up with humanity’s secret weapon against the Gestalt.”

It hurt Jesri to see the hope in Eleanor’s eyes. “Um,” she winced, “maybe we should tell you our side of the story now.”

She relayed the events that had transpired since she and Anja had left Indomitable. Eleanor’s face went blank when Jesri recounted what Trelir had said about the weapon, staying expressionless until her sister had finished speaking. The three sat quietly again, Jesri sitting awkwardly under Eleanor’s detached gaze while Anja still basked in the vegetal afterglow from their appetizers.

The steward came in again with a passable risotto, leaving like a ghost as soon as the last plate hit the table. Anja broke the silence to dig into her dinner, shaking Eleanor out of her contemplative funk.

She sighed. “I suppose I was being too optimistic hoping that you two would have all the galaxy’s problems solved before you got here,” she said, the hint of a smile creeping back onto her face. “It’s okay. You need rest, we can share intel, see if anything shakes loose. And…” Her face darkened, traces of the formidable commander Jesri remembered asserting themselves in her scowl, “we will investigate how your friend knew this station was here. I’m glad they sent you, but if they can find us so can the Gestalt.”

Anja scraped the last of her risotto into her mouth and nodded. “A good plan of action, sister,” she agreed. “We will have Rhuar assist you in reviewing our ship’s logs.”

Eleanor chuckled, her face melting back to sisterly affection. “I’ll enjoy that. He’s a nice change of pace from dealing with the Irri. Don’t get me wrong,” she said, wagging a finger, “I love the little grey guys, but they’re not the most emotive people in the galaxy.”

“Oh, poor Drinni,” Jesri said. She was only half-joking. “I can’t imagine the sort of day he’s having right now.”

“Wow, the station reactors are tetraphasic? I grew up on a station and I never even knew! How do you address resonant buildup in a multiphase system this big? Man, that has to be a pain…”

Qktk sighed. Rhuar had asked their taciturn guide over fifty questions at this point, but he never paused long enough to permit an answer and Drinni didn’t seem to be the interrupting sort. The three of them stood on a narrow gantry overlooking the giant, twisted torus of the station’s B reactor. Huge injection stacks towered to either side of the reactor, ascending into darkness.

Rhuar’s enthusiastic rambling came to a stop and he stood on his hind legs to get a better view of the reactor. “Man, that’s really something,” he said longingly. “We’re right here in the reactor of a station. Nobody has seen one for thousands of years, you know. You guys are really lucky.”

Drinni’s face twitched. “Please follow me,” he said in a clipped, neutral tone. “Colonel Tam requested that you be shown all primary systems. We must still visit hydroponics, fabrication and environmental support.” He hurried them out of the room, practically shoving Rhuar through the door to the hallway as he tried to sneak one last look at the reactor.

The Irri tilted his head and the door slid shut behind them. Qktk turned to proceed, but Rhuar stopped in his tracks to stare at Drinni.

“Wow, do you all have implanted comms like Anja and Jesri?”, he asked excitedly. “That’s so cool. I always thought they would only work if you were some sort of ancient supersoldier like they are.”

Drinni hesitated, then walked down the corridor slowly. “Colonel Tam developed a modified version for our use,” he said, his voice still admirably level despite Rhuar’s incessant questioning. “Thanks to her, we all enjoy an increased level of interaction with the station.”

“Neat!”, Rhuar said. “Do you think it would work on me?”

Drinni’s face twitched again and Qktk gave Rhuar a smack on the head. “That’s enough, Mr. Rhuar,” he chided. “Let the poor man walk in peace for a bit. Wait a while before you try and schedule any brain surgery on yourself.”

Rhuar sulked, but walked without speaking. Drinni glanced at Qktk gratefully - well, Qktk was reasonably certain it was gratitude, given the context. He found the Irri to be quite inscrutable, even for humanoids. Drinni held the look for a strangely long moment before turning back to lead them towards the hydroponics bay.

Qktk shook his head. Humanoids. Htt emoted with antennae and limb positioning, like sensible species. They passed an intersection teeming with short grey crewmen and Qktk marveled how the streams of traffic simply passed through each other without appreciably slowing or diverging from their course. It was almost like watching a hive of insects, although Qktk had to laugh at the irony in that thought. His own people were insectile in appearance but surprisingly “human” in behavior - whether from their own nature or their rude uplifting at the hands of a stray human, he couldn’t say.

After a few more minutes Drinni ushered them through a door to the primary hydroponics lab for this ring segment. It was a surprisingly cramped room, with every inch of space given over to racks and racks of enclosed plants and softly burbling pipes of nutrient solution. At the far end of the room sat two gigantic tanks of algae, softly churning as a harvesting arm swept through them to agitate the solution and lift out glistening green mats of plant matter.

Qktk watched as individual plants were harvested by lightning-fast servos darting between the racks, coming away with their bounty to be stored in the galley’s holds. “Quite impressive,” he muttered, trying to calculate the sheer value of the food being produced by this one room.

It hurt him to remember the poverty and famine he had seen on some stations, food being ransomed to starving parents with emaciated children clinging to them - while perhaps only meters away, a locked room just like this hummed away, steadily producing food for thousands only to have it rot in some long-forgotten storage. Perhaps many of them had fallen to disrepair after millenia of disuse, but he knew some of them still functioned. From what Rhuar shared of Harsi, the plants survived despite the abysmal state of the station. People ate each other on Harsi.

He turned to Drinni, not wanting to add to the poor man’s misery but unable to resist asking a question. “Ensign Drinni, do you know the total population the station’s hydroponics can-”

Qktk froze, spotting a strange figure lurking just to the left of Drinni’s inscrutably irritated face. It was another Irri, even shorter than the others he had seen and dressed in a loose cloak of grey fabric that seemed to melt into the walls. He almost didn’t recognize it as Irri simply because he had never seen one wearing anything but their down-sized Terran Navy uniforms.

It stood still, staring at Qktk with wide golden eyes, a bundle of potatoes and greens clutched in its thin arms. He realized with a shock that the Irri was terrified - how could he have thought they were hard to read? The mortal fear etched into its face was easy to see even from across the hydroponics bay. Having been seen, the Irri thought that it was going to die. His mind began to whirl, implications and inferences piling on each other.

Drinni frowned slightly and turned to see what had startled him, but Qktk reached an arm out to touch the ensign lightly on the shoulder. The Irri thought it would die if discovered and he would not risk proving it right. “Apologies, lost my train of thought,” Qktk said smoothly, for once thankful that that humanoids found him hard to read as well. “I meant to ask how many people this station can support at full capacity. Do you happen to know?”

Drinni didn’t precisely recoil at his touch, but he did make an immediate and precise movement to remove himself from Qktk’s reach, forgetting for the moment about the odd lapse in conversation. Keeping his primary eyes fixed on the Irri ensign and barely hearing his brusque response, Qktk flicked a minor eye back towards where the figure had been. It had vanished, leaving no trace.