First two pieces of part 2 of the story... progressing only slowly. 
##################
Meeting the Cheshire Kittens
"Falling back to sublight speed in 30 seconds… please remain seated during the transfer!"
Darias voice was echoing through the Serenity Valley as the ship raced towards the the invisible border around the gas giant called Nostromo. Then, just fractions of a second before the ship hit the Limit, the engines of the ship forced it back into realspace.
"Engine field reconfigured for sublight propulsion, all markers green."
In the visitor room the light darkened and the wall screen began to show the starscape in front of the ship.
"Wow, thats a lot of stars" Ingo Bartels said, looking at the holographic image in front of him. "But I wonder where the gas giant is we were talking about."
"Oh, we asked for a virtual window out of the front of the screen, without any enhancements" Amanda replied and chuckled. "We are 15000 Astronomical Units away from our sun, that is nearly 400 times as far away as Pluto. Its just to dark to see the planet!"
"Not quite true Amanda, take a closer look" Dr. Miller said as she looked over the sea of stars, "in fact its quite easy to notice if you do not look for a bright shining planet."
"You are right, but fortunately we have some another option, lets see how this planet really looks like" Amanda said. "Daria, can you give us some enhancement so that we can see Nostromo more easily?"
Before the Astrophysics Professor could protest, the image on the screen brightened and the black circle without stars transformed into a planet with blue-green bands of clouds and a tiny ring around it.
"So this is Nostromo… a huge planet, much larger than even Jupiter" Dr. Miller said. "I wonder how it got here, there shouldn't be enough gas to create a large planet that far away. Most likely it was captured, a rogue planet captured by the Sun."
The group silently watched the monitor while Nostromo got larger and larger until they could see a small dot shining with a bright light. Within minutes the Little Big Bang Labs came into view.
----
The Serenity valley shivered slightly as the docking clamps made contact with the ship and pulled it tightly to the gangway on the outside of the Little Big Bang Labs.
"Do you think we got everything from our cabins" Susan Miller asked the students and all of them nodded. "Would be funny to have misplaced cargo to be found a few thousand astronomical units away."
"We looked through both cabins twice, we are confident we did not forget anything" her student Amanda replied, "its not that we have used much of our luggage during the trip."
"Oh, don't worry too much about it, the Serenity Valley will stay here for at least 24 hours! You will have enough time to unpack your hand luggage on the station and see if everything is there." Nina Ustinyavna replied as she approached the group from the cockpit. "come with me to the airlock, we have just connected to the station and can finally debark!"
The small group followed Nina through the corridor of the ship and into the the airlock. The door behind them closed and a sensor screen acknowledged that there was air on the other side of the outer door. The group left the ship through a small docking tube that led them into the space station.
A catgirl was already waiting for them at the end of the tunnel. When Nina left the docking tube the catgirl smiled and hugged Nina hard.
"So our travel agent finally manages to find her way home, its good to have you back here" the catgirl said and then looked to the six people behind Nina. "So you are our visitors from CERN? I am Jenny and I am happy to finally see you here. Welcome to the Little Big Bang Labs!"
"We have to thank you that you invited us… I am Professor Doctor Frank Steinberg, University of Heidelberg and this is my co worker at CERN, Professor Doctor Susan Miller, University of Cambridge." He smiled and then turned to the four students behind him. "And these four brave individuals are students from our universities which will do this journey as a practica for their studies."
"I think we will have a lot of fun together in the coming months, everyone is already curious about you. We have already organized a small tour through our science labs tomorrow" Jenny said and shook the hand of Dr. Steinberg and Dr. Miller. "But lets first show you your rooms. Unfortunately we had to redistribute the rooms over the last year, but we have four free rooms for you, each of them large enough for two people. They are all in the same area and you can split them among you as you wish."
"That should be no problem, we managed to do so with only two cabins on your ship" Dr. Steinberg replied. "We might just need a guide for the first few days to find our way on the station."
Jenny just looked to Nina for a moment.
"I will show them the canteen in one or two hours, I will send you a message" she said and turned back to the visitors. "Just follow me and I will show you your rooms."
Jenny led the group through a few corridors into the residential area of the Labs. A few catgirls waved to them as they passed the group from CERN. Finally Jenny stopped at a dead end of a corridor.
"Here we are… the two doors on the left and on the right are your rooms. We selected this dead end corridor so that you have a bit more peace while you live here" she said. "The other modules can become a little bit chaotic when the racers do an unannounced practice."
"Racing? What Racing" Dr. Steinberg asked with a puzzled look, "I haven't seen any vehicles on your station!"
"Oh no, not vehicles, I was talking about Exocomp Racing… you know, the small floating robots you have seen all over the station" Jenny explained with a smile and within moments an Exocomp rushed around the corner, beginning to jump up and down in front of Jenny. "Sorry my little friend, I still have to show our guests their rooms and bring them to the canteen."
The Exocomp instantly stopped hopping and rubbed himself against Jennys leg, whimpering quietly.
"Maybe later, its not that my timetable is completely full today" she replied and petted the drone a bit, which made the Exocomp to purr for a moment. Then it raced away again and was out of sight within moments. "They are really nice friends and always helpful when you have to carry, repair or build something… but at the moment we are a little bit busy because we have the first offspring on the station."
"Oh, I didn't know you had children on your station" Dr. Miller said and smiled. "I hope you don't have too much trouble with them."
"Oh no, they are absolutely beautiful and cute, its just incredible to have them" Jerry said with a big smile, "unfortunately there are a few more of them than we expected… we are just eighty adult catgirls on the station, but having 25 children here is quite a lot of work."
'25 children? What the hell has happened here?' Dr. Miller wondered. 'I have to ask them later about it.'
"Good, but back to your rooms… I don't think you need much explanation, especially because you already know the shower controls from the Serenity Valley. But if you ever need some help or advice, be it here in your room or somewhere in the station, just ask one of us or call Cortana."
"And where do we find this Miss Cortana?" Dr. Steinberg asked, which made Jenny stare at him for a few moments.
"Oh dear, I am really sorry… that was stupid by me, but we are all accustomed that everyone knows Cortona" she said and facepalmed. "Cortana, can you…"
Before she finished the sentence a small holoprojector at the ceiling activated and Cortanas translucent Avatar appeared.
"I see you are talking about me, maybe its a good idea to introduce myself. I am Cortana and I am the cybernetic intelligence of the station" she said, looking at the six visitors. "If you ever need advice or help, just call for me. I am present practically everywhere in the station."
"Everywhere on the station?" Dr. Miller asked, "even in our rooms?"
"Oh, I am not directly present in private areas. But I have non-sentient subroutines which can detect someone calling for me or certain emergency conditions that would contact me." Cortana quickly explained. "Don't worry, I will knock at the door before entering, everything else would be a bad violation of privacy… oh, if you use a Third Eye like your two students over there you can contact me with it too. I will project my avatar on your internal display so we can have a private conversation."
Dr. Steinberg still looked skeptical.
##################
Meeting the Cheshire Kittens
"Falling back to sublight speed in 30 seconds… please remain seated during the transfer!"
Darias voice was echoing through the Serenity Valley as the ship raced towards the the invisible border around the gas giant called Nostromo. Then, just fractions of a second before the ship hit the Limit, the engines of the ship forced it back into realspace.
"Engine field reconfigured for sublight propulsion, all markers green."
In the visitor room the light darkened and the wall screen began to show the starscape in front of the ship.
"Wow, thats a lot of stars" Ingo Bartels said, looking at the holographic image in front of him. "But I wonder where the gas giant is we were talking about."
"Oh, we asked for a virtual window out of the front of the screen, without any enhancements" Amanda replied and chuckled. "We are 15000 Astronomical Units away from our sun, that is nearly 400 times as far away as Pluto. Its just to dark to see the planet!"
"Not quite true Amanda, take a closer look" Dr. Miller said as she looked over the sea of stars, "in fact its quite easy to notice if you do not look for a bright shining planet."
"You are right, but fortunately we have some another option, lets see how this planet really looks like" Amanda said. "Daria, can you give us some enhancement so that we can see Nostromo more easily?"
Before the Astrophysics Professor could protest, the image on the screen brightened and the black circle without stars transformed into a planet with blue-green bands of clouds and a tiny ring around it.
"So this is Nostromo… a huge planet, much larger than even Jupiter" Dr. Miller said. "I wonder how it got here, there shouldn't be enough gas to create a large planet that far away. Most likely it was captured, a rogue planet captured by the Sun."
The group silently watched the monitor while Nostromo got larger and larger until they could see a small dot shining with a bright light. Within minutes the Little Big Bang Labs came into view.
----
The Serenity valley shivered slightly as the docking clamps made contact with the ship and pulled it tightly to the gangway on the outside of the Little Big Bang Labs.
"Do you think we got everything from our cabins" Susan Miller asked the students and all of them nodded. "Would be funny to have misplaced cargo to be found a few thousand astronomical units away."
"We looked through both cabins twice, we are confident we did not forget anything" her student Amanda replied, "its not that we have used much of our luggage during the trip."
"Oh, don't worry too much about it, the Serenity Valley will stay here for at least 24 hours! You will have enough time to unpack your hand luggage on the station and see if everything is there." Nina Ustinyavna replied as she approached the group from the cockpit. "come with me to the airlock, we have just connected to the station and can finally debark!"
The small group followed Nina through the corridor of the ship and into the the airlock. The door behind them closed and a sensor screen acknowledged that there was air on the other side of the outer door. The group left the ship through a small docking tube that led them into the space station.
A catgirl was already waiting for them at the end of the tunnel. When Nina left the docking tube the catgirl smiled and hugged Nina hard.
"So our travel agent finally manages to find her way home, its good to have you back here" the catgirl said and then looked to the six people behind Nina. "So you are our visitors from CERN? I am Jenny and I am happy to finally see you here. Welcome to the Little Big Bang Labs!"
"We have to thank you that you invited us… I am Professor Doctor Frank Steinberg, University of Heidelberg and this is my co worker at CERN, Professor Doctor Susan Miller, University of Cambridge." He smiled and then turned to the four students behind him. "And these four brave individuals are students from our universities which will do this journey as a practica for their studies."
"I think we will have a lot of fun together in the coming months, everyone is already curious about you. We have already organized a small tour through our science labs tomorrow" Jenny said and shook the hand of Dr. Steinberg and Dr. Miller. "But lets first show you your rooms. Unfortunately we had to redistribute the rooms over the last year, but we have four free rooms for you, each of them large enough for two people. They are all in the same area and you can split them among you as you wish."
"That should be no problem, we managed to do so with only two cabins on your ship" Dr. Steinberg replied. "We might just need a guide for the first few days to find our way on the station."
Jenny just looked to Nina for a moment.
"I will show them the canteen in one or two hours, I will send you a message" she said and turned back to the visitors. "Just follow me and I will show you your rooms."
Jenny led the group through a few corridors into the residential area of the Labs. A few catgirls waved to them as they passed the group from CERN. Finally Jenny stopped at a dead end of a corridor.
"Here we are… the two doors on the left and on the right are your rooms. We selected this dead end corridor so that you have a bit more peace while you live here" she said. "The other modules can become a little bit chaotic when the racers do an unannounced practice."
"Racing? What Racing" Dr. Steinberg asked with a puzzled look, "I haven't seen any vehicles on your station!"
"Oh no, not vehicles, I was talking about Exocomp Racing… you know, the small floating robots you have seen all over the station" Jenny explained with a smile and within moments an Exocomp rushed around the corner, beginning to jump up and down in front of Jenny. "Sorry my little friend, I still have to show our guests their rooms and bring them to the canteen."
The Exocomp instantly stopped hopping and rubbed himself against Jennys leg, whimpering quietly.
"Maybe later, its not that my timetable is completely full today" she replied and petted the drone a bit, which made the Exocomp to purr for a moment. Then it raced away again and was out of sight within moments. "They are really nice friends and always helpful when you have to carry, repair or build something… but at the moment we are a little bit busy because we have the first offspring on the station."
"Oh, I didn't know you had children on your station" Dr. Miller said and smiled. "I hope you don't have too much trouble with them."
"Oh no, they are absolutely beautiful and cute, its just incredible to have them" Jerry said with a big smile, "unfortunately there are a few more of them than we expected… we are just eighty adult catgirls on the station, but having 25 children here is quite a lot of work."
'25 children? What the hell has happened here?' Dr. Miller wondered. 'I have to ask them later about it.'
"Good, but back to your rooms… I don't think you need much explanation, especially because you already know the shower controls from the Serenity Valley. But if you ever need some help or advice, be it here in your room or somewhere in the station, just ask one of us or call Cortana."
"And where do we find this Miss Cortana?" Dr. Steinberg asked, which made Jenny stare at him for a few moments.
"Oh dear, I am really sorry… that was stupid by me, but we are all accustomed that everyone knows Cortona" she said and facepalmed. "Cortana, can you…"
Before she finished the sentence a small holoprojector at the ceiling activated and Cortanas translucent Avatar appeared.
"I see you are talking about me, maybe its a good idea to introduce myself. I am Cortana and I am the cybernetic intelligence of the station" she said, looking at the six visitors. "If you ever need advice or help, just call for me. I am present practically everywhere in the station."
"Everywhere on the station?" Dr. Miller asked, "even in our rooms?"
"Oh, I am not directly present in private areas. But I have non-sentient subroutines which can detect someone calling for me or certain emergency conditions that would contact me." Cortana quickly explained. "Don't worry, I will knock at the door before entering, everything else would be a bad violation of privacy… oh, if you use a Third Eye like your two students over there you can contact me with it too. I will project my avatar on your internal display so we can have a private conversation."
Dr. Steinberg still looked skeptical.