They were only a quarter of a year from the Dragon Empire when they received the Emperor's reply to their response. It felt strange to have waited over three years to receive the first message, and yet receive the next less than a year later. The following exchanges would happen over mere weeks, which would soon turn into days and hours.
A feeling of excitement began to tint Rafaela's days, and she soon transmitted it to Brendan. They were arriving. They had crossed the space between solar systems in less than a single generation.
"How long would it take a ship with a gravitational impeller to reach the Solar System that Eks Corp brought us from?" Rafaela asked.
Sys20si startled her by responding before Brendan did, "Approximately 12 years, though it would only feel like about 9 and a half to the travelers, assuming you mean from the edge of your solar system. From here it would take about 17 years."
Another fragmentary feeling episode, written over days. And if you're not paying coins to read it, if everything has gone well, I'll be having/have just had my next Neurosurgery when this one unlocks. I'm not doing well building up a chapter buffer, so I can't guess if it will continue to progress at 2 chapters a week, but I'll keep trying.