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[color=7e5e7f]"Oh."[/color]

Artemie blinked and her smile faltered, the topic she'd been unconsciously evading pinned down. There wasn't any reason not to explain but to explain brought it into sharp focus; most of the people sitting around the table hadn't even been old enough to enlist the first time she went under. 

[color=7e5e7f]"Technician, actually,"[/color] She answered absently to the newest arrival, noting his appearance (and his appearance) while she tried to decide what to say. He had the look of a Martian, as funny as that was. She was probably better suited for life on his home and he on hers, but she knew that was a distraction from the topic at hand. [color=7e5e7f]"Sorry, I don't mean to be evasive. There's nothing secret about it."

"I went under in 234 SA. Middle of the year. CAPEI was supposed to have received the probe's data back by that year. It hadn't been. I don't know if anyone is up to date on how the probe was supposed to work but it dropped a signal booster halfway here to make sure the data could make it back. They figured out the booster wasn't working."[/color] The Lunite shrugged and toyed with the wrapper for her MRE absentmindedly. She had finished the meal itself already but the packaging kept her hands busy. Keeping them busy hadn't occurred to her consciously but a little voice said she wouldn't know what to do with them otherwise. [color=7e5e7f]"And at that range you can't use a remote controlled platform, and you can't program a robot with enough diagnostic knowledge and intuition to go out there and fix it. Or just ship out a replacement, because there'd be no way to troubleshoot signal relay."

"Not a lot of pilots are cross certified as Orbital pilots [i]and[/i] engineers. As repair technicians for Orbitals, sure, that happens a lot. But not the sort of skills you'd need to fix a specialized piece of hardware like this. I am, so I volunteered. I worked with CAPEI and Isurugi on the rapid development of the [i]Voyager[/i], I launched from a ship near Pluto, and..."[/color] 

Artemie made a coasting gesture.

[color=7e5e7f]"Out into interstellar space. I reached the relay in late 240, early 241. I was awake for ten hours fixing it and running diagnostics. And then I went under again to wait for orders. In 244 they sent me back an option to start burning for Sol again, orrrr settle in and wait for the expedition to collect me in twelve years."[/color]