Jack of Harts

The Branan sent their first colonization ships to a trinary star system outside the greater Betelgeuse system at one tenth of lightspeed. The six-lightyear trip took only six decades to complete, starting with a year of acceleration and ending with another year of deceleration down to the local system speed. That’s another way of saying they spent six decades drifting through the interstellar void, hoping they didn’t hit something large enough to destroy the entire ship. It was not a trip devoid of tension. But at least they knew what they were flying into. Earlier robotic probe swarms had explored the system and told them what planets were ready and waiting for them to come. They knew what the colonists would need to survive, and they knew what they needed to bring with them. The Branan were not flying out in the great unknown in hopes that something would be there. They knew their destination quite well. It was only the space between that destination and their home that was the hurdle they needed to cross.