Dust Disk II

This was a system of utter chaos. It had an excuse, it was a newborn after all. Tean said the star would be a lovely bright white F-type star one day, but at the moment it was a cooler temperature, a warmer shade of pale yellow light bathing the objects in this disk, still figuring out whether or not it wants to be hot or large. The disk was still bright, a dull blue-orange color stretching across the plane of the orbits of so many planetary embryos. Mostly hydrogen and helium gas, though a fainter segmented white disk assured Tean that there was still a substantial amount of dust.

"James, this is going to be a huge navigational problem," Tean said.

"I had considered that," I said.

"Have you ever flown in a dust disk?" Tean asked.

"Closest thing would be the rescue mission I flew when I was in the Outer Planets Guard, we had to navigate Saturn's rings to rescue a freighter that was plowing through the rings at speed," I said.

"How did it work out?"

"We nearly wrecked the ship--and that's with armor that the *Belief* doesn't have! When we reached the mining ship we found it was swiss cheese at every scale. Eventually the freighter was shredded into bits, now Saturn has another metal ring."

"Do you think you can get us through this disk?" Asked Tean. I hesitated. I thought about the terrifying sound of ice particles travelling faster than a bullet rattling on the hull, ablating it away. I thought about my yelling Commander, demanding we get out of the rings before it was too late. I thought of Tean, who had never even been in a *real* combat situation, who didn't know the absolute terror you feel when you know that projectiles are coming at you at orbital speeds and there is nothing you can do about it. I guess she caught me staring at her.

"What?" Tean asked.

"Yeah, yeah I can get us through this disk," and I wasn't sure if I was lying just yet.

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Tean glared at her computer monitor.

"Show me the projected orbits of all of the planetecimals, planets, and embryos in the system," Tean said.

WARNING: UNABLE TO COMPLY.

"Explain," Tean said, getting increasingly frustrated.

NO DATA ON "HIP 3302"

"HIP? What? I didn't ask for anything on an ancient catalog, I want to know the orbits of this system!"

NO DATA ON THIS SYSTEM.

"But I installed the data chip!"

PROCESSING.

"OK, now please show me the projected orbits of all bodies in this system."

GELFLAG BIN TRANDANDOR.

"I didn't ask for Traddin language."

GELFLAG BIN TRANDANDOR.

"What does that even MEAN?"

GELFLAG BIN TRANDANDOR.

"EUGH!" Said Tean, throwing up her hands. "Just show me the damn orbits!"

GELFL--

Tean had just punched the computer terminal, and the force pushed her back to the far wall. The computer terminal on that wall lit up.

WARNING: UNABLE TO COMPLY, MEMORY OVERFLOW ERROR.