The reentry in 3D, the backfolding was abrupt and brutal. The sound assaulted her ears before she had even her eyes open. The master alert fred on all consoles, the fusion core scrammed, a total loss of power, just emergency live support running. Ripped out of 4D, a violent shutdown of the mains and most functions. At least, no leak and the backup batteries were fully charged and working. Some of the newest parts of the ship, her first repair. She acknowledged the arms and scrolled through the list to find the cause. It looked like the coil had overloaded the secondary (and st) power supply which had overloaded in 4D the fusion core and scrammed the core.

  She restarted the core cooling, dumping the accumuted heat and stopped their tumbling with the navigation thrusters, draining the batteries. Finally, they were drifting nearly stable. And the passive star sensor navigation was still running with battery power, just a computer and some cameras. And according to it, they had come out at the corner of their target system. With normal power, it would be just a short intrasystem jump and then half a day with the mains.

  She unbuckled and drifted over to Marik, peeled off the patches and hugged him. The human was as hot to the touch as on their departure and his smell was so wrong. She snuggled close to him, always drifting away whenever she twitched. His shallow breath hardly moved her fur. While enjoying his heat, her thoughts still circled about the emergency. She suddenly remembered when Bernie had lectured her about how the uneven phase distribution in 4D could result in a dey in triggering the fuses with the non-exponential dampening of the fields in 4D and that was why another seemingly random detour of the cables should be added. But they didn't have matching cables. And now, she was far away from Bernie. Or anybody else, who would know how to fix a coil power supply.

  Adding to this, Marik's breath was still very faint and shallow. Even though, the drug should have worn off by now. Stroking his cheeks, and still no reaction. "Marik," she whispered, and then louder, "Marik!"

  The answer came from elsewhere. "Huh, what a tight cockpit," said someone out of breath.

  Her sudden head movement rotated her body away from Marik towards the starboard panels. A human female stood portside, her side of the cockpit. "Hello. I am Jerka," said the green-haired woman, holding onto her seat-rest.

  She stared at the woman.

  The woman sighed, then smiled. "How about: 'Hello, I am Rerra.' Or: 'How did you come on the ship?'"

  "Yes, I, Rerra. But. How? Who?"

  The woman shook her head and her green hair flowed in all directions in the weightless drifting ship. "And I had higher expectations."

  "How do you know my name? And how?" She had finally recovered, moving quickly over to the woman and pushing her back at her shoulder until she hit the panel behind her. The woman was solid, no phantom, no ghost, no projection. Then she pushed back, harder than Marik, smming her backwards into her seat-rest, making clear that she was no weakling.

  "So real," it escaped her as she slowly retreated.

  Instead of an answer, the woman ughed.

  She slowly drifted, covering Marik.

  Then the woman quickly sailed to her and stopped just a whisker away. "Rerra, born from Samul, adopted by Petra. Modded by Avatar from the Koni. And the only crew in this sector who jumps without an ai, it seems." She looked past her at Marik. "But I came for him. He has never mentioned me?"

  She slowly shook her head.

  "You have noticed the bck cylinder on the chain around his neck?"

  "Eh? Yes."

  "It is a Si-Op. With this, I can find him when doing a transit as it taps into the 4D energy grid. And since there are so few Si-Ops around, the unfinished transit has left a clear signature. Hence, I came to check." She gestured again at him. "So, are you close?"

  "Eh, what."

  The woman raised her hand. "You have heard me. Partners?"

  She felt her fur rising. "We have a Fallerian business partner contract, still good for 54 days."

  "Soso," the woman looked her up. "Business contract, hmm."

  "What does this." She bit her tongue. "Marik will wake any time, I have removed the patch."

  The woman was more than a head smaller and rather lean. But the look drove her tail between her legs. "Already 0090 past transit and not awake? May I?" She did not wait for an answer and shoved her to the side, took a small device out of her backpack and put it on his abdomen. The disc turned dark orange on contact. "He is dying."

  "What?" She clenched her hold on the arm rest so hard that the veins on her arm protruded.

  "This is a scanner from the Koni, thanks to them, you are no longer colourblind, right? Red is dead, and orange." She threw her the disc. "Read it."

  She caught the disc and strained her eyes. Half of the text was medical jargon. "I think the transtion is still wrong," she sighed and threw it back.

  The woman squeezed the disc. An emotionless machine voice droned: "Status critical, urgent action needed. The human male has an allergic shock, resulting from two incompatible immune systems. Multiple organs have failed. A full modding is advised. Without access to modding, removing everything including the st lumbar vertebra, sacrum and coccyx will stabilise him. As a temporary measure, a full blood exchange would stabilise him for up to 8000. As an emergency measure, 6 ccm of Thaplecadein-2,3 codanitan can suppress all immune responses but will lead to death with 4000. No other recommended treatment option." She squeezed the triangle again. "Releasing of Thaplecadein-2,3 codanitan."

  "Marik is dying," she whispered.

  "He will die unless you can cut off his hips without killing him."

  "No, oh by Hopkins!"

  "Good, so no objections if I take him," and started to unbuckle him.

  "No!" She was next to her, beating her hand from the buckle.

  The woman held her wrist with inhuman force and turned her, staring into her snout. Her breath was moving her whispers and despite Jerka cking fangs, she felt like prey. Jerka snarled. "Do you want to kill him?"

  "No," she floated back until she hit her head. "But," she whispered, overwhelmed.

  The woman ignored her and unbuckled Marik while her backpack drifted away. She watched Jerka opening the st buckle. And then again, so fast, hugging Marik from behind pushing them a little up and then they vanished with a small plop.

  She shook her head again, and then started sobbing, clueless, helpless, a stupid small cat.

  * * *

  She was missing Marik badly. How could that Jerka woman take him? How, by Hopkins, she could come and go like that? And what history did they have together? She should be angry about him, having not mentioned Jerka even once. Although, if their encounter had been like that, she might not have believed him. But what would happen if he awoke and only Jerka was there? Would he choose that Jerka woman over her? She looked even human, not like this stupid misformed cat. But she was clearly not 16, so much older than him. Still ...

  She sighed and knew, deep inside: Should it come to it, should he choose Jerka over her, she would not hold him back. Not because she was a cat and she respected the choice of a male. No, because she really loved him. Even if it would break her heart.

  But, her face brightened, she trusted him. Hadn't he paid for the posh dinner to renew their contract at Fallerian? Hadn't he turned down any other cat? Not even tempted by the Ketcher hostesses, nor any other cat. While he did not behave as she thought a normal human male would behave, he stayed true to his non-human upbringing on Fallerian. They had a contract, right? So he would fulfil the contract, no Fallerian would back out. He had even searched for her back then to pay back the 650 from their first encounter.

  She frowned again. He had thrown himself at her, looking for a way off Fallerian. She remembered how badly he wanted to jump again. And that woman seemed to own the gaxy, jumping wherever she wanted. Even now with Marik. Not slow crawling, slow even when she was pulling several g's with the White Ocelot. Just going somewhere like eating out. How could she compete? So unfair.

  A navigation arm announced that the system beacon had just registered them, within 0002 of the expected communication dey. Another confirmation that their star sensors were working well. Moments ter, another arm, their dot on the beacon's map changed to red, reflecting the automatic change of their transponder into emergency transmission when they had lost their power. The nearest station would see this in 6371, given the current information dey.

  She downgraded their transponder status to emergency but no immediate danger. And drifted around, thinking of what to do next.

  Before long, the woman reappeared in the cockpit with a faint plop. But without Marik. She felt her fur rising all over. "Wherrre is Marrrik," she snarled, showing all her teeth.

  The woman smiled at her, undeterred. "In the Koni modder. It only looks fast for the one inside for such severe cases. Please, let me introduce myself properly. I am Jerka, Jump Rider." Then she bowed in a way that would even earn praise from the manner teacher at Crice.

  Her education took over but her bow was pitiful in free fall, and her fur had not settled. Her tail was totally inappropriately bushy. "Petra of Codeson from Petra," she still half-hissed. "You will return Marik."

  "Of course. I want him to live as well."

  "Who are you?"

  She bowed again, even more perfect. "Jerka, Jerka Jump Rider" and smiled at her expectantly.

  "Cut that, Miss Jerka Jumprider. No one appears and disappears in space like that. I mean, we would not have ships, if." She shook her head. "This is just a weird 4D dream," she sighed. "And when I wake up, we are nice and safe in the entry window."

  Jerka sighed. "Stage 2, denial. No, you are awake. And your ship is broken." She rubbed her arms. "It is already quite cold."

  She just started sobbing, her mind bnk.

  Jerka floated over to her, stroked her head fur and waited. "Feeling better?" she asked when she stopped sobbing.

  "No," she shook her head, "and, yes, the White Ocelot's broken."

  "A unique name. I like it."

  That was distracting enough to look at her. She took a deep breath and finally realised the missing scent. No Marik, and, well the woman had no scent. She sniffed again.

  "You can sniff out the problem?"

  She stopped embarrassed. "No, but, eh, forget it. I know the problem, both coil power supplies are broken. The second time broke during 4D, and likely different power cable lengths in 4D deyed the coil shutdown for too long and triggered a core overload which scrammed the core."

  The woman nodded, her green hair unduting in the low gravity. "That is a very detailed guess."

  "Just quoting the ai's compints when I had to shorten the coil supply cables. And I am most worried about the core. The batteries are refurbished and at 92% right now, we can do one restart even from warm. With a working fusion core, we can push inwards in 3D. Arriving dehydrated and half starved, but."

  "I assure you, no one starved on a ship with me. But continue."

  She looked at her but failed to process her words, then went on. "But if the core is damaged, it would avail to nothing. Empty batteries, failing life support."

  The green-haired woman stood using her hold on the seat-rest as if she had gravity over there. Then she turned and looked outside through the narrow cockpit windows, as the 4D shutter had opened automatically at the power failure. Only her hair showed that she was weightless too.

  She followed her look. But there were just faint stars, nothing remarkable. Looking nearly the same as the stars near Hopkins station, expected, given the small distance they had travelled. Just their faint K type sun and Fallerian's rge sun would be out of pce. But it would take some time for them to rotate into their view. So she focussed on Jerka. She was a little taller than Marik and much older. Ok, the age was difficult, she had never met a human female, her references were a few actors from dramas. And these might have been all CGI. Jerka was better endowed than her, but so was almost everyone. Overall, she appeared like a typical adult human female other than her green hair. Her clothing, a bck and white belly-free jacket and bck wide trousers, certainly not cat-fashion. But why should she wear such? And despite her chippy remarks and agile movement, she looked a little sad. Then Jerka turned her head and looked directly at her.

  She looked past Jerka at the fusion core control panel, dark like most panels, just rambling to break the silence. "I guess, out of other options, I should risk a fusion core restart. I have seen some badly damaged fusion cores in the shipyard that were still generating some power as long as all the confinement fields were working, hmm. And the fields we can check before starting up." She turned to the first panel on Marik's side. "I should have come up with that myself," and started to flip the switches, preparing the build-up of the confinement field.

  "You came up with it. So how is it looking?"

  "Confinement field coils are at 63 K. We can sacrifice some liquid deuterium to precool them faster. At 25 K, we switch to the battery-powered cryopumps, start to build up the containment fields at 20 K. Then we decide." She just gnced back at Jerka who hovered over the seat at an arm's length away and followed her actions.

  "Can I help?"

  "Do you know something about coil power supplies?"

  Jerka ughed. "A good one. Yes, I could hotwire a manual control on any coil. Should I try it?"

  She stopped. "You can control coils manually?"

  "I can, you probably not. But I could teach you how to ignite your coil for one more time. Might cause some damage and you will need a new coil after that. And you may not get very far."

  She sighed. "A lot of ifs. And the pn was to sell my White Ocelot and buy a bigger ship. Well, so much for that."

  Jerka smiled. "Heads up. Still a good pn. Maybe the power supply is not broken. Can you point me at it?"

  "The field coils will still need some time for cooling." She quickly jumped five panels to the aft and two down, stopped her momentum with one hand and opened the panel cover. "The secondary power supply is here." She floated to the other side, easy in zero g. "And here is the primary. But I have no specs and I have never worked on the coils."

  Jerka looked inside the panel which she had opened first and then got to her backpack and took some tools out.

  "Jerka, er." She took a deep breath, "sorry for having been so aggressive."

  Jerka looked at her, smiling. "For a cat? No, you are a softy. Marik must have been a good influence."

  She gulped. "Will Marik?"

  "Hush, do not doubt the Koni. They will take care of Marik and we will take care of your ship."

  She looked at her. "Jerka Jumprider, who are you? I mean, you are chatting about some of the bigger secrets of the gaxy and then you help me fix our ship while you can come and go without."

  Now Jerka looked at her surprised. "Huh, that has not happened for a long time. Jump rider is not a name, I am a Jump Rider, or in Fallerian, a Kibanderi."

  She shook her head. "I never heard of either."

  "I have to work on my reputation then." Jerka turned around, facing her fully. "I may look human, but with the Koni modder, you know that means nothing. Here, this cylinder, same as Marik's?" She had lifted a bck finger-long cylinder from the chain around her neck. "With this Si-Op, I can tap into the ancient 4D energy grid and can go anywhere I like, well almost."

  "So Marik is a Jump Rider too? You are siblings? Or"

  "Stop!" Jerka was ughing, taking some time to get serious. "Huh, no, Marik is a nearly 16 year old human from Fallerian who has no idea what to do with it. Or what to do with me back then." She still chuckled. "I just gave it to him. He has to awaken his Si-Op, as we call it. On his own. If he can make it, yes, welcome new jump rider."

  There must be a catch. "But what is in for you?"

  "Eh?"

  "You just gave it to Marik. And then came to help him, now me. Why?" And as an afterthought, "And surely not only us.

  "Well, in the past, we demanded your firstborn," she grinned and then got serious. "But you are right, we take care of more than you can imagine. But eternity is really long and space really too rge." She looked again outside into the stars and suddenly looked very sad again. "I could tell you more. But then, you would need to keep it a secret from everyone, even Marik. Like Marik did for me. Not bming him please for not telling." Jerka turned at her, still with a sad face. "But I can tell you this which you can share with him. When I first heard of Marik, the youngest human pilot in a century or two, I immediately thought of recruiting him. So about half a year ago, frame dependent, I boarded his flight. There, he showed real talent in figuring out 4D courses even without ai tools and cking advanced visualisation. Not a test, but enough to give him a Si-Op. Now, he has a long time to awaken it."

  Jerka smiled again. "But let's see if we can fix your ship. So back to your diagnosis: Why did you not use a longer cable, if you knew about the problem?"

  "You are joking? Gold core wires, 400 A insuted for 34567 V? With that power rating, I couldn't use copper, there was just not enough room in the ducts. Apart from that, our copper cables were rated at maximum 12400 V."

  Jerka nodded. "Is the gold core wire until the coil?"

  She shrugged. "Likely. Never worked on coils so far."

  "And the coil is in vacuum?"

  She took her pad, called up the blueprint from the maintenance manual of the prototype and showed it to Jerka. "They are not exactly the same, though. But the yout is simir."

  Jerka sighed. "Of course, vacuum."