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The was an unJodly squawk of static, then a period of comms silence as the circuits cut out, and then a return to the normal background hiss of space and a new voice crackling with static
"Dominicus control, this is Nu Reformed Atomic Priesthood craft Nuclides, logging flight path. Come in Dominicus control."
A ten seconds pause, because the lieutenant on duty has, entirely reasonably, never heard of NRAP, or their craft
"Message repeats: Dominicus control, this is Nu Reformed Atomic Priesthood craft Nuclides, logging flight path. Come in Dominicus control."
"Dominicus control to Nuclides. We do not recognise you. Please stand by."
"Nuclides here. No can-do Dom-Con, Orion drive engaged. Impulse one in t minus 14 minutes on my mark."
There was a pause.
"Mark."
Then a data burst came though. It give a flight plan in a coordinate system that neither the automatic systems or the lieutenant recognised. If time or distance units made any sense, it consisted of some brief implausible accelerations with drift between them, and just kept going. No rendezvous in-system, no locking on to a distant obelisk, just bursts of acceleration at fifteen minute intervals for the two hundred million kilometres until it was well outside Nine and no longer Control's concern.
"This is Dominicus control. Received. We don't recognise your the co-ordinate system." The duty lieutenant gestured urgently for help. "Can we intercept? What is protocol?"
"Nuclides. We may be a bit out of date. It's called M50 in our records."
...
Aboard the "And you shall know us by the trail of our nuclides..."*, Lithium released her transmit button and giggled. "I told them the coordinate system is M50."
"Mean." said Fluorine. M50 was based on the position of Earth's centre of mass at 12:00 on 1 Jan, 1950, about seventy years before the resurrection. If you weren't part of a system for preserving institutional knowledge over ten thousand years "12:00", "1 Jan", "1950" and "Earth" were all millennia-lost concepts.
...
"Control to Nuclides, we have you on sensors." And that didn't make any sense either. The signal was diffuse and huge and in low orbit around First. The histories showed that it was over the location of the earlier radio squawk.
"Nuclides to Control. Recommend not watching impulse events."
"Dominicus to Nuclides. Flight path refused. Stand by." The lieutenant was sounding very professional despite not knowing who these jokers were, where they'd come from and knowing she'd have to stall them for five hours before she could get even an automated transport shuttle in the area.
"Nuclides. Received."
That was ominous. "Acknowledged" was "sure I'll do the thing". "Received" was just "I heard you". The lieutenant tried rasing them every minute but didn't get a reply.
Aboard the Nuclides, Lithium went through pre-impulse checks. "Nuke to blast plate; check trajectory". "Log flight plan". "Disdain authority of the Houses". "Ignore House comms". "Strap down everything". "Clear blast zone of civilians". "Point ablation shield towards nuke". "disengage anything that could work as a power antenna".
Fourteen minutes later, right on schedule, the impulse package detonated, some of Control's sensors burnt out, and, as the static faded, Nuclides' voice came over comms again.
"Impulse one successful. Impulse two in fifteen minutes on my mark."
"Mark."
*There had been an internal engagement initiative, which lead to the first Orion-drive craft being called "And you shall know us by the trail of our nuclides..." but fortunately they were limited to an eight-character name for traffic control purposes. The NRAP was barely five years old, but it was the successor non-state state-like entity of the Atomic Priesthood which was ancient, regulation-bound and intensely bureaucratic. Its flight-control regulations were untouched and unused since its founding by the long-dead USA.