The hum echoing through the spacecraft's bridge droned on and on somewhere between the sound of a whale's low call and the buzzing of a fly trapped between the panes of a window. It was as monotonous a sound as ever, yet a pitch Yuzuki Yukari could never perfectly identify. Reading further into the noise was like trying to figure out the size and shape of a drill being driven into your head.

And as its systems kept relentlessly buzzing, the hunk of reinforced steel that encased both her and the sound alike hovered practically motionless over a nearby asteroid field, all of them objects scattered over the most arbitrary of sectors within a great star-filled void.

Leaning back in her cushioned pilot's chair, Yukari glanced at the slowly rising percentage displayed in the corner of the one viewscreen in the tiny bridge that accounted for more than half the ship. The numbers glowed with an eerie incandescence, more like faint candles than neon lights, and always hovering in front of that reinforced screen at just far enough of a distance to remind her it wasn't part of the actual material, that it was instead another piece of data being fed in through her ocular implants. The viewscreen looked so close to an actual window that she had to remind herself sometimes of the trick it was pulling on her, of the combination ultra-grade monitors and external sensor arrays that were Galilei Corporation's take on smoke and mirrors.

Out beyond that illusion of transparency, the stars were staring at her, little pinpricks of light twinkling out of the vast field of black. She gazed back at them long and hard, wishing somehow that one might move, might grow beyond a meager speck of illumination and give some life to the emptiness that surrounded both them and her alike. She had no real reason for wishing for that, other than as a change, a diversion. She knew the stars only as far-off specks of glowing dust or as the thin beams of light that her ship and its state-of-the-art engine could turn them into within seconds. Only she was quickly finding that those two forms weren't enough to occupy her.

Out of dull curiosity, Yukari commanded a system program to tell her how far-off one of those glowing specks were. A moment after the command flashed through her mind, a small flashing line of text appeared over the star in question, telling her that it was approximately 24.378 light years away, or about 8 hours, 14 minutes of flight time with the main engine engaged. It also warned her that approaching that star would significantly divert the ship from the navigation system's pre-programmed course, and consequently put her in violation of her contract as an employee of Galilei Corporation, Ltd.

Yukari sighed and dismissed the text with a wave of her hand. She was becoming even more fed up with having the word "violation" crammed into her skull so often.

In the corner of the viewscreen, the little percentage line was still rising in number. Nearby, a projection of the asteroid belt the ship was hovering over was becoming more and more detailed. And still in the background that hum, that ceaseless buzzing. Yukari had been sure for some time that the company could have done something to shut off the noise if they wanted to. She had a working theory that they'd left the issue alone so they could keep the pilots awake when they would most want to sleep, that it was actually kept on to function as the closest thing to a manager peeping over your shoulder that the higher-ups could manage out here. She was even certain that if the company could figure out how, they'd have plugged a program in her neural systems that would make her focus on that growing percentage display and nothing else.

She was looking away when the display gave a soft chime of completion. It didn't matter that she hadn't seen the numbers actually finish at "100%" or that she heard the chime right inside her ear, fed into her auditory center through the programs in her head. The sound was identifiable enough on its own by this point.

And then she was actually looking at the glowing "100%" marker and the detailed projection of the asteroid belt when the synthesized voice sounded in her ear.

"Survey complete," the voice said with an artificial calm. "Please examine the results of the scan before making your observational log."

Lurching forward in her seat, Yukari glanced over the scroll of data that appeared as the voice faded. Mostly carbonaceous in composition, it said, some S-types mixed in. Not much to speak of in terms of metals, anything really useful.

She leaned back into the cushioned seat and rubbed her temples. She had expected as much, especially after the system had warned her against passing over this region without a scan. For whatever reason, it was always the sectors the system insisted on exploring that ended up lacking anything salvageable.

"It looks like a lot of junk, ADAN," Yukari said. "I told you this wasn't worth checking out."

"You are reminded that, while subjective analysis is useful, overly opinionated responses have little scientific purpose," came the voice again in her ear. "Please limit your statements to more accurate analytic terms."

Yukari sighed again. She had forgotten "junk" was part of the system's word filter files by now.

"All right, let me put it this way," she began again. "ADAN, how much time did we spend scanning this single belt?

"The previous scan took exactly four hours, thirty-two minutes, and twelve seconds," the voice in her ear answered.

"And how long has an average scan taken on this trip?"

"The average scanning period, as calculated from a total of forty-eight mapped celestial objects, is two hours, nine minutes, and thirty-seven seconds," the voice immediately responded.

"See, that's just it," Yukari said. "There was nothing here except for some fuel for scrap liners, and you made us take four and a half hours to figure that out. And not only that, there was so much nothing here, it took an extra two hours to know for sure that all that was here was big hunks of charcoal. You can't expect me to believe that was worth it."

"You are again advised to limit the statements in your report to more accurate analytic terms. Failure to comply with Galilei standards of subjective terminology will be considered a violation of your employee contract."

Yukari looked out at the stars again. The stars didn't offer any answers. But then again she should have known better than to argue with a data network in the first place. She knew first-hand the only way of getting through to them generally required root authorization, and digging that far into the ship's systems was very much considered a "violation" of company codes. And of national law, too, she was fairly sure. She'd never figured out the details, but she had always had a hunch that a botched attempt at overriding root privileges on a Nebula Industries database was what one of her old partners had been locked up for all those years ago.

"Fine," Yukari said. "In that case, let me start again." She cleared her throat, vaguely trying to speak with greater authority but actually only having her voice come out in a dull monotone.

"After finishing the routine scan of this belt, my conclusion is that any return expedition would be a waste of resources. The data show primarily carbon and silicon deposits, with maybe a few more complex compounds scattered here and there, but I don't see anything to suggest we'd find them in any profitable quantities. My best understanding of the compiled data is that this belt could only be mined as part of a scrapping run of the greater region, and even then it probably wouldn't be worth it to send a big freighter. Anything else worth noting is reflected visibly in the scan itself. End report."

The display of numbers and the asteroid belt finally disappeared from the viewscreen. Yukari hummed in pleasant surprise, the sound coming out oddly close in pitch to the ship's background noise. Her briefer reports usually didn't end up satisfying the system.

"Well, I guess that wraps that up, then," she mumbled to herself. "So, ADAN, how's the current schedule coming?"

"As of the current time, you are seven hours, fifty-four minutes ahead of the allotted schedule."

"Which translates to what in the way of pay, again?"

"You are reminded that the Galilei Corporation values efficiency in its employees and rewards them accordingly. Consequently, assuming your reports and scanning data are in acceptable order, completing your scouting run with your present lead on the allotted schedule will result in a twelve point oh-four-eight percent bonus."

"'Efficiency,'" Yukari echoed. The word sounded foreign as she repeated it, like the syllables had as little meaning out of her lips as when she heard them in her ear. "Right."

Gazing back out at the stars, she made the mental command to ready the engine for the next jump. In the background the hum grew louder and the pinpricks of light slowly became the thin, laser-straight veins running through the emptiness that was a god of networks.

Pawn. D7.

The pawn moved there. A moment later the computer took it, gave a little chime to show it was Yukari's turn.

She studied the board hovering in front of the viewscreen, another 3D projection routed through her optical systems. The contemplation was mostly just an act put on for the benefit of her own pride. The computer's taking her pawn with a bishop had thrown her plans into chaos, and she could think of very little means of rectifying the situation. Sighing, she finally moved her knight in to help defend the home front.

She swore under her breath as an unseen knight swooped in to take her own, the projection animating a short sequence of the enemy smashing her piece to bits just to rub the point in. The chime after the move only left her more frustrated. Frustrated with the game, frustrated with the fact that she was left playing it. If she had been given a bit more room on the system for personal files, she could have been occupying herself with something less masochistic–maybe a music playlist or a holodrama or the like. But sneaking anything more than what she was allotted into the official system wasn't worth the risk.

It was just another one of the job's petty annoyances, Yukari tried to console herself, just one more challenge that she signed up for and would have to fight through. Nobody ever said that mapping out scrap millions of miles away from the nearest living thing would be all that pleasant, no matter how glamorous those 3D movies always made it look. She could still remember the elation of seeing those vid streams of Ace Pilot Kaito and his trusty computer guidance system back when she was a little girl, before she'd heard through the Black Hat Underground that Starsweep Productions was actually an unregistered arm of Galilei's corporate colossus. By the time she took the plunge to apply for Galilei Corporation's Star Scouting branch she knew better, but she still figured that even though being light-years away from home was dull and lonely, it was the best cover possible for a girl facing multiple counts of hacking and cybercrime.

Behind the illuminated chessboard, the numbers on the eerily lit display were still steadily rising. And on the chessboard itself, Yukari was quickly getting herself pinned into a corner. Like a fly caught between window panes.

She had no idea what her next move would be, and in all honesty, she'd grown bored out of her skull with the game anyway, but she feigned concentration nonetheless. Not that there was any real point in keeping up that kind of facade. Being bored by a chess game would have been rude around most people, but thankfully showing that kind of feeling in front of a computer was one of the few things for which she wouldn't be warned of committing a violation against company codes.

A few moves later a chime of defeat played in her ear alongside a bolded line of "CHECKMATE" that appeared above the board.

"Thank you for a very enjoyable game," came the calm voice, its tone identical to every other time it had said the phrase.

"No problem," Yukari muttered.

She swiped at the space in front of her and the chessboard disappeared. As it faded into nothingness, Yukari suddenly realized how long it had been since she'd played any kind of game with someone who was mostly flesh and blood. Or had even talked to someone fitting that description. Not too long before take-off, she decided. Only she couldn't remember off-hand just how many weeks ago that had been.

The thought made her wonder if there were any new messages the system might have filed away as unimportant. She prompted a still-blank inbox to appear in front of her face, but waved it away almost as quickly as it popped up. A dumb thought, she decided, to wonder if there was going to be anything new, anything aside from the standard parade of formal company status update requests. Even taking into account the transmission delay this many light-years away from Earth, it was more than a little naive to imagine anyone could or even would be checking up on her way the hell out here.

Another wave of her hand and a list of videos Yukari had on file popped up in front of her face. She wasn't sure which one to bother watching again. Preferably one of the ones she hadn't memorized, she figured. She decided against just allowing the system to randomly select one and finally settled on an old recording of an idol's concert she'd encrypted into the database. Encrypted through a basic key, but then again it was the encryption itself that was important. Even though her obtaining the file through underground channels technically made it pirated, the Galilei inspectors wouldn't go to the trouble of decrypting the thing just to look for that sort of signature.

She pulled the file into her neural system and played it. Inches from her eyes she saw the stage appear just as she'd seen it before, the array of lasers playing their pre-show lights the same way it had before, when it'd made her mother worry standing too close to them would leave her blind. She was right to fret that, Yukari supposed as she looked back on it. Even on the salary she was making now, Yukari couldn't afford optical augmentations. Mom certainly never could have.

And the concert played right through her eyes, like she was there again, like she was hearing the pounding, repetitive J-pop all over, only this time with ears used to silence and that low, penetrating hum instead of the humming of prototype shinkansen running past the slums and the nightly gunfire of drug gangs or whatever new form of the mob that had moved in. She enveloped herself in the music, made herself believe she really was hearing it out of that idol's mouth again, because letting herself remember even for a moment that the whole experience was just a series of numbers running through the nanochips in her head would make her remember how every other real noise imaginable was lifetimes upon lifetimes away.

She willed herself to believe she was really standing in front of the stage, surrounded by the cheering crowd, because it was the only way she could remind herself of what it felt like to look into the eyes and hear the voice of another human being.

So Yukari lost herself in the music, forgot that she was the only thing for millions upon millions of miles that could so much as breathe, that she was floating through the greatest emptiness imaginable surrounded only by the eggshell of steel that was the world's most advanced single-user vehicle. She lost herself for she didn't know how long, and when she emerged from that other life blinking in the artificial light of the craft she found the little percentage in the corner of the viewscreen still slowly ticking higher toward its patiently awaited destination.

She groaned at the disappointment of that sight. The computer didn't so much as scold her for that. Groaning wasn't a breach of protocol, after all. And it could neither agree nor disagree personally, but only follow protocol.

The perfect employee, Yukari supposed.

She must have nodded off sometime before the scan had finished. When she woke up she saw the floating numbers sitting at "100%" and the image of the rock she was orbiting as detailed as the real thing.

"Survey complete," came the voice in her ear. "Please examine the results of the scan before making your observational log."

Yukari yawned, took her time stretching and making herself comfortable in her seat. Somehow she found herself taking a certain pleasure in keeping the system waiting.

When she was good and ready, she took a look at the scan logs. They looked as dull as ever. Ton upon metric ton of carbon, patches of silicon, more frozen methane than she had ever cared to have seen in her life. Just another coagulation of matter floating around in space with nothing to claim but the sum of its parts.

"Yeah, okay, great find here, ADAN," Yukari muttered. "I'm sure this was well worth everyone's time."

"You are reminded that, while subjective analysis is useful..."

"Yes, all right, I get it," she cut in. "I was kidding, okay? Look, I get that I'm supposed to be the one finding the gold needle in the haystack out here, but it's just a little frustrating to always see heaping tons of scrap and asphalt instead of any actual gold. You get that, right?"

"Please continue with your observational log," the voice said.

Yukari sighed. She wasn't sure why she'd even bothered asking.

"All right, then." She cleared her throat, glanced over the logs again. Anything to keep the damn machine a tad more inconvenienced.

"Well, I have to say this one isn't much of a winner, either. It's mostly frozen, but the gases this rock has trapped inside it are plentiful enough back home anyhow, so beyond trying to sabotage someone else's tax cuts I can't say there's gonna be much use for them. The rock itself isn't much different from what you'd find in your average asteroid belt, so I'd say that, all in all, this one's worth skipping. Of course, if you're in desperate need of scrap, I guess you could..."

Yukari stopped herself, found herself staring at a bit of text she hadn't noticed before. Something listed under "Extra-Planetary Substances."

"ADAN, run by me what these metals are doing on this log?" she asked.

"Non-carbonic and non-siliconic materials detected within this planet's vicinity."

Yukari ran over the compounds listed, mouthing the items as she read each. "Yeah, I got that. But, these are compounds, ADAN—you know, like manufactured materials. This isn't just some meteorite that's caught in this rock's orbit." She stared at the totality of the list once she was through with it, let the low hum keep pounding into the back of her head. "Say, have we got permission to look into this whatever-it-is?"

"You are advised to integrate first-hand accounts of any substances found during surveillance missions into your personnel logs. Should this require slight deviation from your charted course, investigation is permitted in moderation."

"So there really are silver linings," she muttered, smiling to herself.

She swept her hand over the unused side of the viewscreen, tapped out commands on the holographic controls that appeared. The ship lurched to life with a slow build of thrust and a crescendo in its whale call of a hum.

"Well, looks like the two of us finally hit our wild card, huh?" Yukari chirped. "What do you think, ADAN? Suppose we might've hit on something alien?"

"All employees are advised that, in the unlikely event of the discovery of extraterrestrial life and/or technology, the investigation of such matters is strictly against company policy."

"Yeah, yeah," Yukari groaned. "Well, just because finding an alien or two might cut into profits doesn't mean I can't be excited about them, all right?"

The scarred, frozen surface of the rock below slowly twisted with the ship's forward thrust. Outside, the stars were spinning in tandem with that wounded surface, unblinking at it. Steadily, Yukari began to see a growing gray dot just past the viewscreen.

"Hey, ADAN, that our fellow satellite?" she asked.

"Confirmed."

She swept the control menus aside, magnified the image as the ship carried on catching up with the object caught in orbit. A pale, metallic thing, shaped like some kind of slug, or maybe a coffin. Portions of it almost looked transparent and seemed to reflect the far-off starlight.

Yukari frowned, straining to get a closer look at the thing. As it turned over in its orbit, she finally noticed the writing on the side.

"'Daedalus,'" she murmured to herself. "Wait—ADAN, that wouldn't be a ship's name, would it?"

"Unknown. No crafts with the designation 'Daedalus' were found in the Interstellar Vessel Registry."

"Well, it sure sounds like a ship's name," Yukari said. "Then, what would that make that thing? A scout bot of some kind?"

"Unknown. Cannot be determined without engaging a deeper scan."

"Well, it'd have to be a scout of some kind, I'm sure. Why else would it be all the way out here?"

The ship was nearing on the metal coffin now, slowing to run alongside it. Yukari peered closer at the image magnified over her viewscreen.

She swore under her breath.

An escape pod.

"ADAN, you sure what's in this log is all we have on that thing?" Yukari said. She scrolled through menus as she spoke, brought up other windows with more bits of moving text.

"Confirmed. Surveillance scan ascertained only material compounds within proximity."

"Well, you mind telling me if there are any life signs in there?"

"Investigating escape pods, distress signals, or other civilian emergencies during your surveillance voyage will be considered a violation of your employee contract. Please record all such instances in your surveillance logs and report them to the proper company authorities."

"Look, just tell me if there's someone alive in there, all right?" Yukari shouted.

The system was quiet a moment, giving only a high whirring sound of processing.

"Organic matter detected. Life signs are probable."

"'Probable?'" Yukari repeated. An odd answer for what tended to be such a binary system. "Is there some kind of interference getting in the way of a clearer scan, or what?"

"Negative. Scans suggest an ongoing production of carbon dioxide. However, scans were unable to track a noticeable pulse."

Yukari traced an outline of the pod, getting a better sense of its size as she brought the ship closer to it. "Well, I guess the only way to tell for sure is to crack the thing open, then."

"You are again advised that investigating escape pods, distress signals, or other civilian emergencies during your surveillance voyage—"

"Look, violation or not, someone could be alive in that thing, and if they are, we can't expect help to find its way out here in what you'd call a 'timely manner,' okay?" She slid her hands over the screens popping up in front of her, felt the ship lurch under her touch. "I'm out here to actually find things. Now that I have, I'm not about to pass it up. All right?"

The system didn't respond to that. Apparently it wasn't that serious a violation.

"All right," Yukari murmured to herself. "Well, let's do it, then."

More swipes, more translucent displays to run her fingers across as the ship danced closer and closer to the steel coffin in perpetual orbit around the frozen hunk of rock. Alerts of an imminent collision blared inside Yukari's ears and she began to extend the docking gear from the craft's cramped cargo bay. A new display showed magnetic arms reaching out to snatch the pod out from its orbit, following it as it slowly inched inside and eventually ground to a stop, the door to the void outside shutting behind it.

Yukari kept her gaze fixed on the screens in front of her, watching the pressurization meters rising back up to normal levels and the docking feed disappear as it realized its brief task was complete. New screens showed up soon after others were dismissed, analyzing the visitor under Yukari's command. She trained her eyes on the text filing by like schools of pixelated fish fleeing sharks. Pod composition as expected, source still unknown, previous trajectory calculable, life signs inside stable. She filed it all away in the back of her head and brushed the windows of flying text away.

"So, whoever's in there doesn't need medical assistance, huh, ADAN?" Yukari mused.

"Confirmed. Subject is in deep cryosleep and displays no noticeable signs of injury."

"Well, that's a plus. But cryosleep?" Yukari flicked through a few extra screens, breath rates and pulse and body heat levels all rushing by as fast as she could read them. "That's not exactly standard procedure. It's almost like whoever's in there was meant more like a message in a bottle than a simple refugee." Still more data filing by, still straining to take it all in.

"So, would that mean you could tell me what the hell another person is doing all the way out here?" she murmured as she looked again at the feed of the pod quietly resting in the cargo bay.

"You are advised that further interaction with the acquired escape pod will be considered a violation of standard protocol."

Yukari chuckled to herself. "Read my mind, didn't you?" Stretching the fatigue out of her arms and back, she finally rose from her seat. "Look, I know I'm not exactly meant to be a rescue worker out here, but whoever's in that pod was supposed to be found, ADAN. Who knows? Maybe there's some bigger accident at play this was all meant to lead back to. Aren't we somewhat obligated to find that much out, at least?"

More whirring in further processing, the machine around her taking in the logic through its recognized keywords. "You are advised not to fall behind schedule."

"It's a good thing I'm so far ahead already, then," Yukari muttered. Dismissing the lingering tranquil voice in her ear, she strode the dozen steps out of the bridge and up to the massive door at the ship's rear.

The steel gate ground shut behind Yukari, sounding even louder than it had when it'd opened, sealing the few square meters of cargo bay back off from the bridge. It was the first time she'd heard the noise since launch, the first time she'd been inside that tiny holding area now that she was off of Earth. Every other time she'd tried the computer warned her against wasting the time and battery power inside a part of the ship normally only used by transport personnel at take-off.

In the center of the room sat the bullet-shaped case of dented steel, barely as wide as the makeshift bed Yukari used on the bridge, barely long enough to fit anyone not jacked up on growth augments. Yukari stared at it long and hard, all the data cycling in front of her face through her optical implant repeating what she'd read sitting at the cockpit. She needed the confirmation to make herself believe someone alive was actually in there.

The surface of the thing was smooth as glass yet seemed to bear no reflection now that it was hidden from the starlight, even along the cracks that showed through from the countless bits of material it must have collided with during its journey. Yukari searched across it for a hinge, some mechanism to open it. Not finding one, she called up some reference files to at the sides of her face as she continued looking. Along the sides of the case were minuscule indents the files told her were meant to be accessed by a specific code of laser cutters.

Sighing, Yukari called up the inventory of on-board tools. Though really it was only natural that an escape pod wouldn't open easily.

She brought up a scanning program and went over the lock on the side of the pod as best she could, given how unsophisticated the device was. The results transferred into the laser knife on file and Yukari picked the device up, started tearing into the air-tight lock of the unreflective steel coffin. Sparks flew and flew and still the lid didn't seem to yield, but she knew that was to be expected from such a makeshift recovery job she was pulling.

It didn't bother her. She had rarely ever had the advantage of top-grade gear. Returning to basics like this was vaguely nostalgic.

A few minutes of forcing it and she could feel the top of the case starting to give. She suddenly remembered that inside that pod was an actual human being, someone living and breathing and escaping from something, shook her like the bombs she could remember going off on the floors above mom's old apartment. She figured that cryosleep was probably the best thing to happen to whoever was stuck in that steel coffin. There had always been and always would be a million things that could go wrong in space. The last thing she would wish upon anyone was to be aware of a windowless sarcophagus all around you after getting away from whatever disaster this survivor had escaped. Yukari winced as she recalled her childhood, the basements she'd spent huddled inside with the rest of the building's exhausted residents for hours in terror of the gangs kicking up dust in each other's faces again, until National Security would finally get off their asses and run the thugs off the streets. She decided that whoever was in the pod right now had probably had it just as bad.

She felt the laser finally hit the end of the groove at the side of the steel case, felt tremors of the lid coming loose climbing up her arm. Thawing gasses rose up in thick clouds out from the newly-opened outlets in the pod, clouding everything in Yukari's eyes but the display from her ocular implant.

Stashing the laser knife away, she shoved the heavy lid off the top of the pod. It slid to the floor on the other side with the sonorous clang of steel crashing against steel. More and more gas came spewing out from the inside of the pod in waves pale and thick as she tried peering inside, her hands firmly clenched at the sides of the pod, the data from her ocular interface further obscuring her view of whoever was beneath those gasses with loading icons and empty percentage meters.

The gases began to dissipate. Yukari caught flashes of silver hair over shoulders, of skin pale and unscarred. More vapor cleared away, allowing her a closer look. Plain clothes, a slender body curled into an easy rest, a delicate face locked into the most peaceful sleep imaginable.

Yukari felt her breath yanked out from under her as her vision was finally left unobstructed.

She was staring down at the most beautiful woman she could ever remember seeing.

A/N: First, as always, a big thank you to Genki Collective for her tremendous help with this chapter as well as the fleshing out of this story as a whole.

This is a fic I've had rolling around in my head in some form or another for quite some time now, and it finally seemed the right point to get around to putting it out there. As I'm a huge sci-fi junky, it was more or less inevitable that I would put out a story under that genre at some point or another, so here's my addition. I heartily encourage any other such fans to look out for any and all references to/obvious influences from/blatant plagiarism of other major works in that field across the mediums.