Sitting back in the navigation seat, autopilot has the destination plugged in. Royce sat watching his little sister in a VR console. Having mastered multiple hand-to-hand arts before she was eight, And could pretty much whoop anyone else at the same level. In VR. Grasping the majority of technical knowledge available by the time she was nine, most solaren ships weapons biotech and medical knowledge. She was currently working on piloting and space combat. watching her now halfway through the level 5 test for combat piloting which required 45 minutes of survival in a war zone She was 15 minutes in and he expected she would be passing with a high ranking.
"She's going to be pissed when I still won't let her pilot."
The planet they are heading to is the singular life holding planet in a 14 body system. They would be arriving a year early for a 10-year orbit.
Why would somebody choose to orbit a planet outside the galactic treading in an observed but unexplored portion of the galaxy? First the assassins that killed their parents wouldn't come looking for her here. especially since they didn't know she was with her brother or that her brother is a smuggler/Pirate known only as Slade. Second was her choice. Royce had given her multiple options family, friends, they had to make her disappear their parents had made sure credits and currency weren't a problem. But she chose to stay with him. That choice came with conditions She had to uphold to a specific training and education. And third an almost 900-year-old prophecy of sorts causing a galactic treasure hunt and for some reason nobody considered the possibility of looking here.
for training wouldn't take the entire decade especially since they were a year early but it made for perfect hiding out and as long as she passed her psych eval she could be inducted into the agency and he could tell her the whole truth about himself. meanwhile he'd test his theory on the prophecy.
With the thought in mind he pulled down another screen and replayed the vid. On screen was a dozen people one of them a reincarnated among them only separated by one person from the reincarnated one of his ancestors. A general in the military at that time. they stood around a viewer showing parts of the visible galaxy rendered through exploration satellites that had long since exited that galaxy and moved on still mapping to this day. the reincarnated didn't look older than 25, his ancestor was 43 at the time. he wasn't aware of the details but they had a history and were friends apparently.
in that period the 12 races were expanding and inhabiting new planets looking for new life some peacefully some not so peacefully. the reincarnated only ever asked for the one message to be recorded and not lost zooming in slightly on the display map he pointed at a cluster of four solar systems near each other each holding multiple planets of life. That would be discovered later. But said "In 890 years for 10 years there will be a chance of a reincarnated someone must be there." seconds after the vid ended. No one in the solaren collective or any of the other galactic treaders would be able to reach his finger for over 850 years. not that any of them even needed to but for the chance to see the power of another reincarnated expansion in that direction went rapidly.
Since human beings like several of the other races had discovered their own life extension systems the life expectancy even then was 250 years. But no one from that era would see it nor would their children. though it all changed by the time Royce was old enough for advanced life expectancy options for a shitload of credits or a few pounds of gold or platinum. Just biologically you could add 400 years throw in some cybernetics get another 200 on top of that human beings had stept into the era of living for more than half a millennium. But biological was definitely the way to go there were better ways to die than reality slip and cellular liquefaction.
Royce leaned forward, tapping the screen bringing up a freeze frame of the finger over the galactic map. tapping the screen again, starting in animation he designed. considering that the galaxies in a constant state of motion somewhere around 210 km/s. not much of an animation but the space under the finger skipped forward and the finger then pointed to one solar system a little further out but with only one planet with life.
the possibility that someone else had considered this was only dashed by the fact that no one else was headed there. And thanks to several personal satellites that were only linked to his ships systems he was sure that no one was following him and no one was there waiting for him. also the planet was only just past the primordial stage there was likely some sort of animal life getting ready to develop into intelligent life hopefully.