Pause

Sky. They were outside. They felt heavier, as though someone had weighed down their shoes. The town around them looked like a typical American town, stuck in the nineteen sixties. Everything around them, the buildings, the roads, the white picket fences, gave them the impression that they were somewhere on the east coast but that illusion was broken when they looked up. “Ah.” Lore’s head was about as far back as it would go. Above them, an unexpected sight. “That’s beautiful.”
The Hologram appeared. “Welcome to Rigel Three. Last free,‘Civilised’, bastion of alien society, this side of the Milky Way.” The Hologram pointed at the moon, proudly visible in the daylight, hanging above them. “This is the Scilla System, one of the few that humanity could never conquer. They tried but it never quite took and it’s all because of that.” Its hand lowered slightly to point at the sun. “That there is the reason. An active Tempora star. At its core, elements heavy enough and temperatures hot enough to form minute quantities of Tempora with even smaller half lifes but even then, its long enough to bathe this entire system in its radiation, thus making ships and most forms of transport effectively useless.”
“But we Breached here, so it must be possible.” Lore saw the flash of the past Lore’s Breacher, frozen in time. It was much fainter than it had been in the past, a far cry from the blinding white they were expecting.
The Hologram sighed. “Possible yes, but incredibly hard.”
“But why?” Lore asked.
“The Tempora radiation that fills this system essentially feeds back to most temporal manipulators, like Breachers, that any given planet, take Rigel Three for example, is in every possible position in its orbit, all at once. To successfully Breach here, one would have to know the exact orbital position of the planet at the exact time they want to Breach to. The radiation field also scatters any additional radiation so Breacher’s can’t be traced here.” The Hologram paused. “As for warships, what do they all have at their core?”
“Tempora.” Lore sighed.
“And there’s your answer!” The Hologram chuckled. “Any time a ship with an active Tempora core enters this system, it either attracts so much background radiation that it overloads or it’s torn out of the ship because it’s flown too close to the sun and the crew have mistimed a coronal ejection.”
Lore shook their head smiling. “And no, pre-Tempora ship has the range or firepower to make it here, let alone challenge the locals I’m guessing. That means that this place is probably the only place that’s safe from The Guild.”
“With the exception of The Johned Nebula but we’ll talk about that later.” The Hologram played the memory.

Lore appeared in the middle of the street, Breaching directly into traffic. The cars that drove past honked and buzzed as they sprinted to the path and started walking. They had no idea where they were going or what they were going to do but they knew they had time to decide all of that now. Their trick and their plan had gone off without a hitch; next phase of the plan: finding something to eat. They walked through the town as though they knew it inside and out, before coming to a diner. A bell rang as they entered, triggering a waitress to hover over to them. She started as a squat unit, shaped like a small pink bin, before arms, legs and a head sprouted, giving her a more humanoid appearance. Her metal approximation of a face had a few points of articulation; her eyes had eyelids that cleaned her lenses every now and then, and her eyebrows helped her face emote; the mouth was a dot matrix display, currently showing a smile.
“Follow me sugar, I’ll grab you a fresh cup of Joe.” She sat them down at a table by the window then hovered off. She returned with a glass jug of a brown fluid that appeared to be rather hot. “Want room for cream and sugar, sugar?”
“Fill it thanks.” Lore forced a smile. She poured the viscous, brown liquid into the cup and set it down.
“Now then, what’ll it be?” She took a notebook from her apron. “I’m Delores by the way.”
“Thank you Delores.” Their tone was flat. “I’ll have the steak and chips… Fries please.”
“Have that right to you!” She floated away.
Lore looked out of the window. They wondered what they were going to do next. Their plan had covered them escaping and eating but nothing much further. From where they were sat, they couldn’t see any buildings taller than two stories and the telegraph wires made no sense so they assumed following them to a source point would be useless too. They chose to focus on the inside of the diner. Most of the patrons were elderly looking by human standards with only a few looking younger than fifty. Lore took a sip of their Joe. It had the same effect as coffee but none of the other traits. Instantly, they felt a surge of energy and focus but it soon faded. They took their drink with them as they approached the counter and sidled to within a respectful distance of another patron.
They gave the patron a respectful nod. “You lived here long?”
“All my life.” She replied. “You’re new in town aren’t you?”
“That obvious?” They scoffed. “Why does this place look so…”
“Human?” She smiled, shaking her head. “While we’re not the biggest fans of them, we can separate the art from the artist. All of their broadcasts made this sort of place look amazing. Like it was the best way to build a happy and prosperous city; so one person did. The First Mayor of Parabalia took all of his money and, with a lot of help from his friends and family, created… Here. He built the First Hall and a few houses and people started to realise that it was a nicer way to live. Parabalia expanded and soon, its the third largest city on this continent.”
Lore nodded. “Thank you.” They went back to their table and started to eat.
Halfway through their steak, something out of the window caught their eye, something that, like them, wasn’t supposed to be there. Off white robes and golden skin. They left payment for their meal on the table and sprinted after them. Bonding.