Her co-pilot, Kael, leaned over. “Gibberish. Cosmic ray hit the buffer. Purge it.”
And on Lena’s screen, the string changed to:
When the shudder stopped, they were no longer in their galaxy. Outside the viewport, a seventh star – not a star at all, but a skeletal hand the size of a gas giant – slowly uncurled its fingers. Each digit was a ringed space station. Billions of lights flickered in the knuckles.
“Welcome to the Seventh Star Hardening Ingress. You have typed the name of the archive. Do not move. The archivists are hungry for new species to… index.”
Lena stared at the terminal. The diagnostic readout was clean. The fuel cells were full. The cryo-pods were green across the board.
Kael reached for the emergency purge.
Kael snorted. “Seven star hard ing? That’s nonsense.”
She traced the keystrokes on her armrest. 7. S. T. T. A. R. H. D.