I had to make a run for it. A huge fleet showed up, with massive ships the size of asteroids, maybe just built from them, if the reading are right. Huge things, and big enough that only the worst of the gravitational knots in that system was any danger to them, and those are easily avoidable as they tended to collect debris.
Kotth, Lurr, and I were just finishing up dinner when the fleet leapt in. It isn't like the old Jump system, which I still have, and not like the ARC Drive. What it is, if the readings are to be believed, is something similar to the old jump system, but faster. It accesses a different space than the old Jump system. CT has some postulations on it, but doesn't go into it much as they came across their ARC theories and threw themselves into that.
Anyway. Those ships starting working their way into the system. Not fast, but fast enough I knew I couldn't hang around long. I found a larger safe spot, and well..., I really had no choice, I ran for it and made the jump. The Viteză Furie straining as I pushed her harder than I have ever even thought to. Kotth and Lurr were not happy, clinging to the couch in the lounge. I actually did this from the cockpit. I pushed the ship so hard, the systems were only able to keep the felt acceleration down to 5 G's. I'm very glad Kotth and Lurr are hardier than they look and could handle that.
I don't think that those beings expected the Viteză Furie to be capable of what we did. We accelerated to .753 and jumped within a 250 mile safe zone just inside the firing zone of one of those big ships. They did try and shoot, but missed as we were in jump by the time the shot got to where we were.
I went outside and confirmed that we made it into Jump safely and without damage. Still, it was a rough jump. That safe zone was not so safe. It was smooth enough, but..., sadly the Viteză Furie wasn't able to compensate for all of the gravity field weirdness due to the confined space of the zone, and even though the jump program was done with the estimates, I had to do the calculations myself, so they were not perfect.
What does that mean? By the time I was able to drop us back out of jump, Home had experienced more than 2500 years of time, and that was only after a day in Jump. Only a Day. The deflection was accelerating almost too fast to measure, and even then... My measurements are estimates. I'm now back out in the void, refueling from a gas giant flung off from a nearby small universe about the size of Trost. You can actually see that universe in the distance, any other direction is just the blackness of the void.
Got some really close up views of the Dark Life while am here. A small one, about the size of the gas giant I was refueling from passed between me and this nearby universe, and very close. Only a light-year or so away.
There are clearly structures inside it, possibly organs, a brain? I don't know what to make of things. My resolution is down to only about 100 miles across, which is pretty good for something so large, yet even then, I couldn't see it. There was some light distortion, almost like gravitational lensing, as it passed. The lensing matched with changes in density I detected as it moved. It moved almost like a microbe, as if it was able to grip space itself. Pushing and pulling itself along. Sections of it's body contracting to pull other parts towards the direction of travel.
Thinking of it like a microbe actually makes some of it's appearance and movement, almost, make sense. Though, if this one was a microbe, than what are the really big ones? Are they perhaps multi-cellular versions of these beings, these Dark Life creatures. Is this one I was so close to made up of smaller ones still? I just don't know. Yet they fascinate me so.
2500 years lost, just to escape a people that might have even been related to me, distantly. They were so hostile. 2500 years and Home is still there and functioning, even if the garden is fully out of control and becoming much more than that. Home is becoming a living world because of me. I just hope that it is still there when I make it back.
I'm still moving towards the signal, despite the detour and life threatening thrills. It is still there, and only a few more jumps away. I've confirmed it is coming from a small universe about 6 to 8 months in jump from here. Not going to make it all in one go. I already lost so much time on Home because of the whole escaping death thing, I don't want to, if I don't have to, push my luck.