Zeta Exchange

Ranger James Medart was standing beside Captain Jean Willis' control chair aboard the Empress Lindner, enjoying the peaceful trip back to Terra after a surprisingly uneventful cruise. He'd kept busy enough to avoid boredom, but there'd been no emergency calls, which made the cruise almost a vacation. Pleasant as it had been, he found himself almost wishing for the challenge of an emergency. Not quite, since an emergency serious enough to require a Ranger's attention meant the Empire was in trouble, and that part he didn't like—but the challenge he did. Maybe he'd ask for a tour in one of the alternate universes with an Empire just getting started, one that didn't have a full quota of home-grown Rangers to cope with the many problems of a brand-new Empire. He wouldn't mind visiting Sierra again; he'd had a hand in selecting both its Sovereign and her Successor, so he had a personal interest in its well-being. He'd barely completed that thought when his surroundings disappeared. He was nowhere, in some sort of timeless sensory deprivation— —then he was standing in the middle of a pentagram surrounded by other symbols he didn't recognize, facing a woman in a uniform identical to his own. Since he didn't know the woman herself, it seemed pretty clear he'd been brought to an alternate-universe Empire—and that had to mean it needed help, badly. It looked like he was getting the challenge he wanted, though not in any way he could've expected.