It was cold and dark at the edge of the universe.

Naomi floated in that darkness, motionless relative to the ship. Her suit's tether pulled tight.She was now as far away as she could get from the claustrophobic interior of the Arkship she called home.

The Ganesha was not a small ship, but it was home to several hundred thousand people, spread out over twelve sprawling decks. And it was all that she had ever known. All that anyone, going back generations, had known.

It was an unavoidable part of life in the caravan fleet; you were never truly alone. Even floating outside the ship in the vast, empty reaches of interstellar space, the ship's Semi-Autonomous Network intruded into her consciousness. She had turned down the SAN filters to minimal levels, and it helped to some extent, but there was still a steady stream of numbers and messages flashing past, just outside her peripheral vision. Not visible, but still present and part of her awareness, as much as her sense of touch or smell.

What really galled Naomi, even moreso than its continual presence, was just how much she had come to depend on it. How much a part of everyone it had become. A member of the Bridge Crew, she had been required to complete a number of survival training sims, some of which included having her connection to the SAN suspended.

Those tests had proven to be an unforgiving mirror.

Naomi had always believed herself to be independent, calm and resilient. A confidence born from hours of relentless training, pushing herself to master every process and procedure required for her position. She had spent hours mentally rehearsing the steps over and over until they became second nature.

But in the moments after that connection was severed, she had panicked. Once its constant, reassuring presence vanished, Naomi found that, even with her rigorous training and hard-won knowledge, she couldn't help but second guess every action. Absent direct and immediate contact with her team, a luxury facilitated by the SAN, the exercise became more about trust, than her knowledge and expertise. Just like Naomi, everyone on the team deserved their position. But in an emergency scenario, with hundreds of thousands of lives at stake, working blind and relying solely on training to coordinate their efforts, the pressure was intense.

Those training exercises had been a hard lesson in humility.

For someone who had grown up connected to the SAN, losing access, even for a short period felt wrong, like one of her senses had just been turned off.

The feeling of loss she had experienced without the constant stream of data rolling past in her peripheral vision had almost paralysed her. By the time Naomi and her team completed the training sim, and their connections to the network were rebooted, she had gained a new appreciation for the importance of the training protocols.

In the case of an emergency, she could understand how the shock of losing SAN connection could affect a crew member. Everyone relied on the SAN as a quick reference for some of the more technical aspects of their jobs. But the sim had shown her just how much of a crutch it had really become. It was useful sure, but it was always there, scrolling past in the background. One was never truly alone.

~ 

Outside of the ship though, floating in the emptiness, she could at least find a small measure of solitude.

It was dark, just the cold hard light of the stars, and off to her right, the bright smear of the galactic core. The depth of the darkness between the stars was dizzying. The sheer immensity of the universe, especially for someone who had spent their entire life, whose ancestors for generations back had spent their entire lives, on board a ship was staggering. No sky, no horizon, no mountains, no plains, no oceans.

For her, there was no scale, no reference point. No mediating body between her, the ship and the terrifying depth of the night sky. She couldn't visualise a city, a mountain range, or a continent to add perspective to her sense of scale. There was just her, and then the vast span of the universe expanding off into infinity.

It was lonely, to feel so small, so insignificant. But Naomi couldn't help but feel free during her short trips outside the ship. There were so many possibilities out there. So many galaxies, stars, and worlds. The vanishing point of a terrestrial horizon wasn't her reference point. It was the stars themselves; a horizon of possibilities that stretched that was quite literally endless.

Where Naomi was currently floating, the bulk of her own ship hid the rest of the arkships in the convoy, a caravan stretching light years forward and backwards, to either side and above and below her own ship. Periodic pinpricks of light flashed in the darkness; a distant ship firing its manoeuvring thrusters, months or years distant. Everything else was darkness.

If she had wanted, her SAN filters could have overlaid galaxy and star maps on her vision, lighting up the darkness with long exposures of distant galaxies, tagging the nearest fleet ships and assigning names and coordinates to the sporadic flashes of thrusters. Turned down to the minimum levels as she had them though, they left the background empty.

Closing her eyes, she imagined herself expanding into the space around her. She rubbed her thumb and forefinger together, the thin material of her suit providing tactile feedback, feeling non-existent under the pressure. She felt a momentary twist in her stomach as she remembered just how close she was to the extreme vacuum and temperatures of the void. Then it passed and she closed her eyes again, imagining herself lying in an invisible sea as she floated in the emptiness.

They had lakes and rivers, and even something that resembled, at least from what they had been told, oceans, aboard the fleet ships. But she could only imagine what a real ocean was like; how their limited imitations paled in comparison to real terrestrial bodies of water.

She had grown up in the void, spent her whole life aboard the same ship. It had been thousands of years and countless generations since the nomads had last set foot on solid ground. She had spent half her life making trips outside the ship, floating in the vacuum, surrendering herself in the emptiness of interstellar space. But for all the hazards and extremes of the void, the idea of a real ocean, with it's vast weight and unobtainable depths, terrified and fascinated her in a way that the space between stars never would.

~

A red light started to flash in her peripheral vision interrupting her thoughts. She groaned. It was visible even with her eyes closed and the SAN filters turned down. Its blinking and intensity specially designed to get her attention, or as she liked to put it, to annoy her into paying attention. She took one last breath and accepted the transmission. Her supervisor's face appeared, projected a few meters in front of her. He looked displeased as usual.

'Ensign Carter, I expected you back from your unscheduled EVA ten minutes ago.'

'Just got a bit distracted by the scenery Chief.'

Her supervisor's expression was that of stern disapproval.

'I tolerate these little excursions of yours because of who your father is, but your behaviour is unbecoming of your station Ensign Carter.'

'I'm a fifth-year trainee, two years out from Reckoning. I have no station. It's almost expected of me to do this sort of thing.'

'Not in your family, Ensign. Enough people already think you have your commission because of your family. No matter how hard you work, how many 'problems' you solve, they won't believe it is on merit if you abuse the privilege.'

'Friendly advice?'

'Advice, Ensign. Whether or not you believe it to be friendly, is entirely up to you. Report to Deck Three, Primary Air Exchange Junction Five, immediately. One of the air exchangers has malfunctioned and I believe you are prepping for the life support training module next month.'

Her supervisor's image disappeared and she was once more left alone in the silence of the void. She rolled in the vacuum, imagining herself flipping onto her back and sighed. She was a navigator, an astronomer, not an engineer. But she needed the training. All bridge staff were expected to be able to make emergency repairs to all essential systems.

Besides, her father was never likely to let her disappear into the navigation archives with galaxy and star charts, and long-range sensor readings. She rolled back towards the ship, micro-thrusters on her suit directing her towards the hull.

As she crested the hull of the ship and moved towards the airlock, brief flashes between the stars indicated where the rest of the fleet was; thrusters firing minute course corrections and changes in velocity as telemetry reached those further back in the fleet from the ships up ahead.

It is beautiful, she thought with a momentary flash of pride. What her people had done, had accomplished. The scale of the caravan fleet, of the individual ships themselves. Someday she would even be responsible for those minute flashes of light.

'Not if I delay here any longer though', she muttered to herself again, sending the command to the airlock in front of her.

She turned her back on the ship one last time while the airlock cycled open to admit her back inside.

It was all beautiful; in every inch of its vast, unfathomable size.