"Arduch to Zorg. Can you hear us?" Zing says into the communicator, making me roll my eye.

"What?" he asks me.

"Zing, they know it's us!! We're the only ones having the exact same communicator at the exact same frequency they do!!" I mumble, exasperated.

"But-" Zing's reply is cut off by a burst of static from the communicator followed by a voice, "Zorg to Arduch. Are you doing good?"

"Yes, we are. That was a perfect takeoff!!" Zing says.

"Yes, we all saw. Beautiful, Fila, beautiful!!"

That's gotta be Wick Zippin, who actually insisted I call him Wick when I called him Zippin.

I can imagine him applauding (and maybe even hooting!!) back in Zorg...

 I say, "Who said I couldn't fly, Wick??"

"Not me!!" Wick responds.

"I did. Sorry, Fila!!" Zing tells me.

"About time!!" I hear Ulso's voice and smile. I can imagine them all back in Zorg, just standing by the communicator in the DSR cabin and watching us until they can't anymore and probably even after that, wondering about us. I smile at this.

"We just wanted to make sure you're doing good?" Wick says.

"Completely. Thank you." I say. That thank you is so much more than for just checking up on us.

Wick seems to understand. "You don't have to, Fila."

"I'm not joking, Wick. I need to."

"We need to." Zing joins in.

"Yes, we." I add.

"So do good. Communicate with us regularly." Wick says.

"We will." says Zing.

Another burst of static, and the voice goes silent.

Zing and I talk about the most random things for some time until an idea flashes in my head.

"Zing, why don't we share all knowledge we have so we can mana..." I trail off when I realize what I implied.

"Manage without the other?" says Zing.

I nod my head in response, not trusting my voice not to give into my rising feelings of hysteria.

"Yes, we probably ought to." Zing agrees. I peek a look at him to see his face is crestfallen.

"Zing..."

"No, you're right, Fi, we need to. I bet you have more to teach me!!"

I smile. It's only Zing who can lighten my mood even in the face of such a potentially terrible situation.

"Aww, I'll miss you whif you're gone." I say.

"What's whif?"

"WHen and IF!!"

"A great term to coin, Fi!!"

"Sarcastic much?"

"You know me."

"Right." I say.

"Besides, if anyone's dying, you're probably going to be first." Zing says nonchalantly and then smacks his forehead, adding, "Fi, I-"

I cut him off, "Zing, you may just be right. Who knows?"

We transition into more light- hearted banter now and keep it going. After a couple of hours, we exchange shifts. Zing can fly too, but I'm better at handling the risky stuff...

Besides, it would be unbelievably foolish to send only two people, among whom only one flies on a detail like this!!

We keep going at this, on the way keeping a lookout for other potential habitats, but nothing much shows up.

One time, during Zing's shift, and when we're using the communicator, I notice something and immediately ask Zing to slow down to near zero. He complies and sits looking at me, asking for an answer.

"Is something wrong?" Wick asks through the communicator.

"Zing, hold on for a minute." I say, now on high alert for the unlikely scene far ahead of us to our left.

A few planets orbiting around nothing? How is tha- that's not nothing!!

"Zing?" Wick asks.

"Zing, look." I point and Zing follows my direction, only to look back at me, confused.

"Look properly. What are they orbiting around?"

"Nothing."

"Planets don't orbit around nothing." I snap.

Zing still stares at me quizzically, so I expand my answer, "Planets orbit something that has a gravitational pull stronger than theirs, usually much stronger. There's clearly something stronger than all these planets that's putting them on these orbits, Zing."

"So, that's an invisible star?"

"No, because invisible stars don't exist, to my knowledge. If they do, I don't know. But look at those areas giving off light there. An invisible star wouldn't have a ring of light like that if they are, in fact, actually invisible."

"So..." Zing trails off.

"No." Wick says.

"Zing, they're the type that ring black holes, the event horizon."

"That's a black hole?" Zing asks, his eyes immediately filling up with fear.

"Yes." I say in a measured voice.

"What- what do we do?"

"We aren't anywhere near the event horizon, which, if you remember, is the point beyond which return is not possible. Let's not get too close to it, because even though it is possible to escape, we need to shed mass, or have superior power, which we can't, not even with the spacecraft we have, so fly there."

We're flying a hybrid spacecraft that works on fuel as well as our input. They also charge on starlight. I remember drafting this idea to the DSR a few years ago. Once the blueprint was finalised and the craft were trial flown, these became the norm. It works especially well for us seeing that the planets we usually get our materials from are part of a binary star system nearby ours, so we get so much more starlight there...

"You take over." Zing hands me the controls.

I take over and, in seemingly no time at all, we're at a point where we can't even see the farthest planet orbiting the black hole.

Zing still seems shaken, so I fly us ahead, dodging a stream of asteroid debris while I look out for other stars, potential habitats and keep an eye on possible damage causes. It's a lot of work for one person but I manage to multitask well.

The closer we get to the system we were supposed to look into, the more anxious I get.

"Yes, there it is!!" I shout, bringing Zing out to the front.

"I just saw the star [1], not the planets." I tell Zing.

"That's okay." he replies.

I guide us through and almost immediately locate a blue giant planet [2].

"Is that a..." Zing trails off, searching for the right term.

"An ice giant." I finish for him. That's what it does look like.

"Yeah that..."

"There. A gas giant??" I say pointing to another huge planet [3] nearly concealed by the star. It's in that part of its orbit...

The closer we get to the star, the smaller the planets become.

Then comes a red planet [4], seemingly terrestrial, and quite small compared to the huge giant in the orbit before it.

"Let's check it out?" Zing says.

Landing on the planet, I suit up and explore the planet, not wanting to leave the spacecraft unattended. Zing objects but I still wind up here.

Using the gas detector, I relay to Zing that the atmosphere here contains carbon dioxide, nitrogen and argon. We can make up for the lack of oxygen but we can only relocate to here if there's enough hydrogen oxide. There is some present here, but it's frozen deep.

"Low eccentricity..." I make a mental note to myself.

"Not much we can do." I tell Zing when I get back inside our spacecraft.

"What now?" he asks me.

"Well, maybe we can get closer to the star, see if there are any other planets..."

"Let's." Zing says as I take off.

I spot a planet [5] ahead, much smaller than everything else here, but too close to the star to possibly host life.

I'm about to suggest giving the huge gas giant a go when I notice it. Zing gasps, also having seen it.

Another planet [6], definitely bigger than the red one, but blue. Not ice giant blue. But hydrogen oxide blue.

"We're home." says Zing.

"Home?" I ask.

"Well..." he trails off.

"It looks like it could be." I fill in.

"Let's check it out." I say and we make our way to the blue planet.

- - - - - - -

[1] Sun

[2] Neptune

[3] Jupiter

[4] Mars

[5] Mercury

[6] Earth

Dedicated to Boochie25 for the awesome cover she made (at the top)!!

The next and final chapter is coming out soon!!

This chapter, so far, took the longest time to write, but it's finally here!!

- - - - - - -