I've walked the hidden hallways, I've braved the bleakest cold (part XVIII)

(Roleplay entry. Continued from part XVII. Miss Justine wrote this one!)

Justine sat at the command terminal on Tannhäuser Station, staring into the middle distance, idly tapping the eraser end of an unsharpened No. 2 pencil on the surface of the workstation. "STAN, play that last received communication, again, please?"

Hiro's voice cut through the air, making her breath catch. "This is Gearhaven Actual, request confirmation."

"And when/where was that sent from?" she asked.

Sounding slightly bored, Stan's sullen voice replied, "Spatial: Andromeda Delta Quadrant sector 2, Temporal: 1000 BCE."

"How long ago was that picked up by the relay in Haven?"

"42 hours, 16 minutes ago."

"Stan, did Hiro leave any sort of...mission plan, or indication why he might be heading out that far?"

"No mission plan on record."

"Stan, dump Hiro’s last database access queries to my terminal. Everything." She grimaced as the data started scrolling past: mostly ancient pornography featuring someone called Jack Parsons. "Wait, stop." There, there it was.

=============================================

Justine double checked the seals on the quantum containment cube, then completed the connections between the quantum computer inside the cube and the mainframe in the fringe science section at Tannhäuser station.

"STAN, we're ready to download the last available imprint of Duke Hiro into the cube. Begin on my mark. Acknowledge."

"Confirmed."

"Mark."

Before she entered the final command to wake the virtual Duke she sent a comm out to the Duchess. It would probably be best if Emilly did the talking, considering the mess Justine had made with the replicant Duke.

Later...

Justine shivered in the cold of the necro-biology lab as the autodoc performed the autopsy, extracting and storing the sample tissues she’d requested. She watched the mechanical hands work, almost hypnotic, balletic in their precision, before her eyes were drawn back down to the corpse on the morgue table. She tried very hard not to think about the events of the previous night. There was no profit in rehashing the mistakes she had made and certainly no time to dwell on the attack that lead to the clone’s death.

Save everything worth living for first. Cry later.

"STAN, send the brain tissue samples to the quantum containment section in the fringe lab and let me know when they’re ready. I'm...going to go take a shower."

If she can use the clone brain tissue, and the quantum storage cube with the neural network containing the imprint of the Duke's consciousness, to amplify quantum entanglement between the neurons in Hiro Secundus' brain and Hiro Prime's brain...maybe, just maybe, they could solve this thing.

She hoped.

(Continued in part XVIX.)