Mizi's screen flickers like a dying candle, then snaps to a startled "O.O".
"Beep-"
No alarms. No red flashes. Only the soft, almost embarrassed hum of a ship that finished screaming and now pretends nothing happened.
"Beep… beep?"
The little robot rises with its propeller and pats itself down. No cracks, no dents, not even a scorch mark on its purple shell. The teleport gamble worked… technically.
Then it remembers. Stilthrovene was alone at the console.
A spill of moon-pale hair lies across the deck tiles. She is curled on her side, one hand still twitching as if trying to pilot invisible controls.
Mizi dives. "Beep-beep! Beeeeep!" It bumps its plastic forehead against her temple, gentle yet insistent, like a cat demanding breakfast.
A faint blue lash of light flickers across her irises—hologram language for system rebooting. She blinks, focus wavering.
"H-huh… Mizi…?"
Mizi flickers to a sad, worried expression.
"Beep…"
Stilthrovene pushes herself up. The world tilts; she presses her palm to her temple to keep it from spinning off her shoulders.
"Where… what… what happened…?"
"Beep beep…"
"Oh, right… teleport. Must have knocked my head when we jumped."
Mizi floats closer and offers its round purple hands. Stilthrovene grips them like handlebars and hauls herself upright.
"Beep beep beep beep…"
"We're really okay? No hull breach, no fried circuits?"
"Beep."
She steadies her breath, then faces the forward window. Indeed, beyond the glass waits nothing but occasional stars here and there. The colossal plasma storm is gone. No crimson arcs, no crackling webs of lightning. Just silence.
Stilthrovene's shoulders drop. She sighs in relief.
"Wait."
The sigh catches in her throat. Her eyes narrow. The stars feel wrong, thinner, colder, as if someone swapped the sky while she blinked.
She whips her gaze left, right, up, hunting for any remembered pattern. Mizi mirrors the motion, screen flicking to a puzzled little "o_o". Nothing matches the star map in Stilthrovene's programmed memory. Every constellation has been erased, replaced with patterns she has never seen. The stars sit too far apart from each other and there are far too few of them.
"Mizi, where are we?"
Mizi's processors hum while it tries to fix their position. Mizi takes a while which has never happened before. Stilthrovene stands frozen, eyes locked on the little robot.
Mizi's screen flickers, then settles on a drooping, sorrowful face.
"Beep beep…"
Stilthrovene couldn't believe it. Her voice cracks. "You… don't know?"
"Beep…"
She forces her gaze away, scanning the cabin for anything useful, and pulls her shoulders straight.
"Okay. Find our home signal, Mizi. Can you do that?"
"Beep beep."
Mizi buffers once more for the second time now.
"Beep!"
"You found it?"
"Beep beep!"
Mizi thrusts its tiny hand toward the ceiling and projects a wavering star map. Stilthrovene studies the translucent spiral, then sees the distance counter ticking upward millions, tens of millions, until it locks at twenty-two million light-years.
Her knees fold. She lands on the deck with a soft thud and lets out one cracked, incredulous laugh. "Aha… ah… different galaxy. No wonder the stars looked wrong…"
Another hollow laugh escapes as she slumps against the wall. Her head droops until blue bangs hide her eyes, and the light inside those eyes dims to ash.
Mizi sinks down beside her and settles on the cold floor. It lifts one round hand, pats her hand in slow rhythm, and keeps quiet except for a tiny worried beep.
Stilthrovene stares at the dark between her knees. "We don't have enough fuel to get back, Mizi. And even if we did, it will take us forever to get back. Our ship is not designed for light speed traveling."
She rolls onto her side until the world becomes a sideways corridor of blinking panels. She rests her soft blush cheeks on the hard, pearl floor. The ship keeps breathing. Soft coolant hiss, heartbeat-like status pings, a lonely navigation LED winking every three seconds, indicating that it doesn't know where they are. A small hologram pulses on the center of it all that says the same thing: [waiting for captain].
Stilthrovene doesn't answer.
She lets the rhythm blur, counting the beeps one by one.
Mizi hovers closer, propeller pitched low. Its screen tilts, quivering "ˊᴖˋ", showing worry for its fellow partner.
Stilthrovene loses hope in herself. Her voice cracks like thin ice.
"Nothing ever goes right for me, Mizi. I can't even help myself. Why was I programmed to be so different from others?"
"Beep beep?"
"I'm the only one who doesn't use drones to scan. I go scan it myself. Like real expeditioners… like our commander."
Her fingers curl against the floor.
"The moment my dream finally comes true… I drove us straight to death."
"Beep…"
The beep is soft and mournful.
"I am the odd one out, Mizi. Always was."
She exhales, and whispers in a raspy, shaky voice as if she was about to tear up. "They'll do better without me."
Stilthrovene finally glances at Mizi in front of her. She lays her hand on Mizi's shell, pets the cool metal, and tries to smile but her lips tremble the moment she attempts to widen it.
"Let's just hope they won't forget me. Right, Mizi?"
"Beep…"
Mizi emits a sad expression. However, it doesn't want to give up. With a soft whir, it slips from beneath her hand, rises, and glides towards the command center.
Stilthrovene stays folded on her side, cheek to the floor, pupils still dark.
She doesn't flinch when the holographic map blooms above her head, painting her pearl blue hair in the cybernetic light.
✮⋆˙
After a short while, Mizi finally finds something interesting, something it needs to show Stilthrovene, hoping to cheer her up.
Mizi's screen flashes a tiny "^v^" as the hologram zooms in, casting a fresh constellation of stars across the ceiling. It hovers back to Stilthrovene, nudging her shoulder with its small hands.
"Beep beep!"
A quiet, exciting invitation.
Stilthrovene reluctantly pushes herself upright. Pearl blue strands tumble in sleep disarray, and a single tear skids sideways across her cheek before dripping off her jaw.
Her pupils flicker like tiny lanterns re-igniting as the holographic constellations swirl around her like fireflies. Mizi's screen bursts into a sparkly, glimmering "°v°", mirroring the faint spark it just caught in its partner's eyes.
"Pretty…" Stilthrovene breathes, voice still dusted with tears.
"Beep!" Mizi answers, puffing up like a cat, acting proud of itself.
Stilthrovene stands, wipes a stray tear with her knuckles, then hooks two fingers through the hologram and swipes.
The star map glides like silk until it hovers against her chest, close enough for constellations to mirror themselves in her widened eyes.
But this isn't the star field she has within her programmed memory.
Every sun arrives with its own little family of planets, moons, and glittering asteroid belts swirling in perfect spirals. Some larger stars carry around hundreds of stray worlds. The rocky worlds outnumber the gas giants three to one, a ratio her home charts never showed.
They shine like cosmic glitter, spinning slowly, peacefully. No supernova fireworks, no ion storms punching neon holes into the dark. Only orderly orbits and soft sapphire flares. Almost as if this galaxy were much more mature than her childish one.
The feeling of awe fills both Stilthrovene and Mizi.
This is new. Brand new. Never catalogued. Never existed in their memories.
No drone has seen what they are viewing. No expeditions have been made where they stand. This is the first light, first sight, first discovery.
Stilthrovene's lips part in a tiny, involuntary sigh.
Something inside her flickers.
Is this what explorers used to call wonder?
The raw, exhilarating instant of stepping onto untouched ground, of seeing light no eye has ever caught.
For once, the universe has handed her an empty page to fill. A page that Stilthrovene is eager to write on.
"Beep beep."
Mizi darts to the rim of the hologram, paws at empty air, and yanks a thumbnail star into center stage. The map obeys the command, ballooning until the chosen world hangs between them like a Christmas ornament.
Stilthrovene leans in.
Blue oceans, green continents, white cloud veils. Yet the nightside glitters with countless yellow sparkles that pulse along coasts and rivers like scattered atoms.
Her scanner labels them in soft hologram orb, in their language:
Artificial luminescence. Probable unknown civilization.
The planet wears a thin veil of metal. Scattered satellites and glinting stations circle it, making the world look as if an expedition already came and left by some other team. Stilthrovene couldn't help but notice that the structures of them were very impractical and inefficient.
"Huh," she thinks to herself.
And that pale moon, cratered and oversized in the zoom, orbits closer than any satellite she has logged, its face lit like a silent guardian.
Stilthrovene's breath catches.
A living, lit up world, already explored, already home to someone else.
"Mizi. There might be a recovery team that could help us get back home. I… I am not sure but I feel hopeful."
"Beep beep?"
"Yes, Mizi. Hopeful. Thank you, Mizi. What can I do without you?"
"Beeep~"
Mizi jolts forward and burrows into her chest. Stilthrovene laughs, returns the hug, and lifts the little robot until they are eye to eye. Mizi's screen glows with a proud "°v°" while its spherical limbs swing like excited pendulums. She touches her forehead to the cool glass.
"Mizi, could you take us to that planet?"
"Beep beep!"
She releases her friend. Mizi zips to the navigation deck and slaps the hologram control. The unknown world blossoms in front of them once more, city lights twinkling like captured stars.
Stilthrovene keeps her gaze on the image. "Did you check the route?"
"Be- beep."
"No supernovas, no storms. Just void."
Stilthrovene smirks.
"What a kind galaxy."
✮⋆˙
The ship slips in close to the yellow star, hull plating dimming to midnight under stealth coating.
"I'm turning stealth mode on," Stilthrovene murmurs, finger dancing over crystal holographic keys. "We are sensing radars. We need to stay cautious. We don't want to be detected by a hostile being."
The vessel glides through a scattered field of stone and ice. It passes a charcoal dwarf planet, then a deep cobalt sphere wrapped in hazy twilight, then an obscure pastel world of pale blue. Ahead looms a giant yellow planet wearing a colossal ring of hundreds of moonlets sparkling along the band like raindrops. Mizi steers wide, avoiding the dazzling halo.
Normally, she would pause, palms on the viewport, breath fogging the glass while she admires the swirling gas giants.
Today she keeps her eyes forward, heart thumping, locked on the brighter world still waiting beyond them.
The next world dwarfs everything they have seen. Cream and rust bands swirl around a giant so storm lashes that thunderclaps rattle the hull. Lightning forks the size of continents flash white and violet, yet Stilthrovene does not even blink.
Beyond the tempest they glide, in brilliant speed. A smaller marble appears ahead, the first rocky planet on their approach list. It wears a coat of honey colored sand, and atop the dunes sit tiny glaciers that glitter like sugar cubes under the light from the star.
At last, they reach their destination, a world painted in richer hues than any before. Oceans glow sapphire, continents shine emerald and amber, cloud tops swirl like fresh cream stirred into turquoise tea.
Stilthrovene drifts toward the viewport, palms settling against the glass, breath forming a tiny circle of fog. She watches the living jewel turn beneath them, slow and silent, the way a child studies a shark swimming through an aquarium.
"Wow… it is so beautiful."
"Beep beep…"
Mizi hovers beside her, screen soft with starlight, equally admiring the view and the wonder with her.
"We should drone out the area first," Stilthrovene whispers.
"Beep?"
Mizi's eyes round in surprise.
"I will not make another mistake. Not now. Not when we are this close. A true expeditioner plans for every possibility."
"Beep!"
Mizi darts across the navigation deck and opens the underbelly hatch. A suitcase sized drone drops into vacuum, then streaks toward the planet at supersonic speed.
"Alright."
Stilthrovene turns around the control center, glances over Mizi as she passes, and settles into the pilot seat.
"Turning on the drone camera."