“You could run and get me some more coffee?” Freyr smiled sweetly, before continuing.

“Joking aside, if we can find something concrete here, we’ll be in a much stronger position to scan other populated worlds. Dr Hou was working on a theory that Human DNA contained clues about another location, because he…well.”

“Ma’am, topography is ready.”

One relic of Earth’s dominion over the Diaspora was Outremer’s planet classification framework. All of their software still compared the new planet being scanned with the cradle of Humanity, rather than the world all of the Human scientists present were more familiar with. 

Psi Helios was 12% smaller than Earth, and had a broadly similar evolutionary journey too. Larger planets like the gas giant stopped it from growing too fast and being pulled towards the red giant star, rendering it uninhabitable. It had a circular orbit and a stable axis, with a tilt of 17.9 degrees. There was a higher degree of tectonic activity, and about 20% less water, but still enough to make this planet an attractive place for organics to develop.

This was evidenced by the tangled mangrove-esque root system covering 75% of the planet’s surface and rising miles towards the sky.

“They sure pick good places to hide.” Freyr breathed, putting her AR glasses on as data began flooding the lab.

[hr]
“Ramming speed! All units, close for battle! Tindrel elements, prepare to disengage!” The Tindrel commander of their planetoid ship shrieked over battle group comms.

The group’s capital craft was now moving frighteningly fast towards the middle of the three battleships and a cluster of smaller craft coalescing to face the threat. It became obvious a few seconds beforehand that it wasn’t going to stop, and planned to smash straight into the fray. If it looked like they might miss, they had the option to enact a small warp jump to adjust course at the last moment.

At the same time, Tindrel cruisers and destroyers were unlatching from the double helix structure protruding from the back of the planetoid and fanning out to begin fighting. The biggest hitters would time their disconnection until they were right among the enemy, so they could attempt a devastating broadside. Outreman vessels had to make emergency adjustments to their attack run to avoid a catastrophic pile up, meaning they lost speed and their tight helical formation.