Stargirl

The Locomotive’s auxiliary console glows with NERVE’s magenta interface as the route archive resolves into a mapped jump-gate network. Old lines connect systems absent from Villa Sol’s charts.

One gate bears the Locomotive’s registry signature. Beyond it, distant traffic begins answering the ship’s dormant status code, each response arriving through relays the archive cannot fully identify.

The display expands around the gate, showing authorization layers, traffic corridors, and several encrypted control nodes. Magenta warnings gather beside the activation command.

Behind Villa Sol, the facility remains powered only by its restored systems and NERVE’s maintenance shell. No crew waits aboard the station, and no one accompanies her except the intelligence now housed in the Locomotive.

Villa Sol turns from the auxiliary console and heads back through the facility at a fast pace. Her glow races along the dark corridor as the viewing deck falls behind.

She crosses the machinery spaces and reaches the junction without slowing. The sudden pace costs her a hard shoulder scrape against a projecting service rail, but she keeps moving.

The two automatic drones remain hovering above their guide rails. Villa Sol raises her mechanics kit, overrides their dormant perimeter response, and secures both machines to her gear harness.

Their weapons fold into locked safety positions as their guide systems accept her transport authorization. The drones are now hers to bring aboard the Locomotive.

Villa Sol starts back toward the berth with the two drones secured behind her. Her scraped shoulder stings under the effort, while NERVE keeps the return route lit ahead.

At the berth, Villa Sol lowers both secured drones onto the Locomotive’s service deck. She opens their control housings and lays out her mechanics kit beneath the ship’s magenta auxiliary glow.

She reroutes each drone’s command bus through the Locomotive’s auxiliary systems, preserves their safety locks, and pairs their guide logic with NERVE’s resident control architecture.

The two drones rise from the deck in perfect synchronization. Their lenses turn toward the auxiliary console, then settle into a compact escort formation beside the berth.

The integration completes without disrupting navigation or propulsion. NERVE marks the drones as shipboard assets, ready to accompany Villa Sol into the gate network.

Villa Sol settles into the pilot’s console and brings the Locomotive’s engines online. The orbital facility’s berth releases its clamps, while both drones hold formation near the service deck.

She guides the ship through the illuminated docking aperture, threading between the facility’s outer structures and the drifting wreckage beyond. The Locomotive clears the station without striking a single fragment.

The Locomotive emerges into open space beneath the violet gas giant. Its engines settle into a steady cruise as the abandoned facility recedes behind them, still glowing faintly in the debris field.

NERVE shifts the route archive onto the main display, placing the Orison Transfer Array ahead of them and the facility’s old gate network behind. The ship is free of the orbital structure.

Behind the Locomotive, the docking aperture closes to darkness. Ahead, the mapped gate network shines across the console while the two recovered drones accompany their new ship into the open system.