by Michael Orr
Fortunately, Aerion’s AI was programmed with simulations she could practice on. They were Alliance sims, not Terran, but that was close enough. Whenever she wasn’t flying or dancing, she was in the cockpit working on sims.
It was a lot like her days at the conservatory. Her childhood had been an endless cycle of practice and performance, always aiming for the next level, the next accomplishment. Then, life after graduation became a loose, random drift from one gig to the next with no focus, no intensity, no goals. Just making a living — or trying to. But the demands of learning to be a pilot were rekindling the achiever in her. The grueling schedule actually brought her old self out of cold storage and she was feeling like Trish again.
ESS ASHERAH – ALLIANCE SPACE – NOV 3, 2371
“You. Are. NO. Fun.” Amber complained cheerfully. She was back from an excursion to the moon of Betelgeuse’s sixth planet — the Endriia of legend that she never passed up.
“Yeah...?” Trish didn’t look up from her studies. “Say that next year, when I can fly a two-seater ’n take you somewhere new.”
“You’re gonna get a two-seat?”
“Eventually.” She looked up at last. “Ya don’t think I’m gonna just stick with a runabout!”
“Tell ya the truth, I dunno what yer planning...or where Trish went.” Amber produced one brilliant blue bottle of yoetl as if by magic. “Taste?...whoever you are?”
Few things in life compared to the unique flavor and indescribable buzz of Yoetl, an elixir humans could only handle in tiny doses because of its overpowering effects. Brewed solely by the Endri, it was renowned throughout the Alliance as something to which nobody said ‘no’. Not even aspiring pilots.
40
* * *
EFS INCISOR – BELLATRIX SYSTEM – NOV 6, 2371
Commander Hallet Ohlins reached Incisor’s bridge barely a minute after being informed.
“Source?” he ordered.
“Coming from here, skipper...” Comm pinpointed the coordinates on Ohlins’s holo tree, all business-as-usual. “Two days t’reach us.”
Ohlins took his chair, instantly on guard. Distress calls were extraordinarily rare. And a human signal way out here near Bellatrix was rarer still. Not to mention that he was expecting Asherah’s arrival any time now. His frigate was assigned as her regional shadow.
“Don’t like it,” he told his XO.
“Agreed,” the exec head-shrugged. “But...”
“I know...” Ohlins exhaled. “Nav, get us over there.”
“Aye, sir.”
The view ahead hazed over for a moment as Incisor slipstreamed to the origin point and returned to slo-space.
“All possible scans,” Ohlins ordered. “Make this happen fast.” Then he leaned in to his XO: “I’d dispatch an interceptor back to our station, but if this’z real I don’t wanna weaken our airwing.”
His XO was nodding when Tactical interrupted.
“Got a trail, sir. Leads off to a fading slipstream.”
Ohlins studied the trail on his screen. Everything about it felt wrong, but distress calls were always first priority. He eyed his XO: “Leave a marker,” then turned to Nav: “Follow it.”
“Best we can do,” the XO leant his captain moral support, but Ohlins remained grim.
It was times like these when EarthFleet craved FTL communications the most. As it was, he could only send a comsat to the local task force’s last known position, but if they’d moved on by as little as half an hour it’d be useless. And a task force never sat still.
Protocol demanded that he abandon his station to answer a mayday, but it meant leaving Asherah defenseless as she jumped in from Betelgeuse. A quarter-million unsuspecting people would be relying on everyday status quo to keep them safe, and this distress call meant status quo was off the table.
ESS ASHERAH – ALLIANCE SPACE – NOV 6, 2371
“Ladies and gentlemen of Asherah, I’m extremely proud to announce the first licensed civilian starpilot on our staff — Miss Trisha Thierry!”
Trish stood uncomfortably beside Captain Istrid, Asherah’s senior captain, wishing she could be anywhere else. Why would anyone want to celebrate a spoiled brat who got a chance to do something they’d never do? At the same time, though, she understood this was PR. Goddess would be advertising the hell out of this no matter what.
Surprisingly, though, the applause and whistles sounded pretty genuine. She scanned the crowd for shade knowing it had to be there, but found none.
“Congratulations.” Istrid handed her a commemorative hardcopy of a Class 1 license with a warm smile. “Quite an accomplishment.”
Trish thanked her and held out the license for the crowd, hoping that would be the end of it, but Goddess wanted this to be a major event. They’d arranged for an in-person interview with Annalee Tyler, shuttling the media maven out specifically for the occasion.
Neverending fun, she told herself. The good news was that they were at Bellatrix, their last stop before heading home. After the interview she’d have just enough time for some slo-space practice before Asherah’s final 48-hour slipstream, and then she’d be off the Goddess clock for two weeks. No obligatory parties, no interviews, nothing company-related; just mandatory downtime to glow over her new status as Spacegurl Deluxe.
Out logging star hours, Trish dropped into slo-space for maneuvers when the view overtook her.
“Is there a problem, Trish?” Aerion asked as they drifted forward on momentum.
“Oh.” The question knocked Trish out of her reverie. “It’s like the first time I left Earth. I feel so close t’the stars — just this thin little canopy between me ’n eternity. It just...” She doubted any of this mattered to an AI.
“There’s no need to worry about your safety. The canopy is one hundred percent structurally sound.”
“Yes, Aerion.”
She was reaching for the yoke when the heavens unveiled and light beckoned upward into endless ӕthers. She was gazing into the great, illumined beyond!
The stars descend and space rushes in...sweeps down on me. Into me.
The part of me that calls itself ‘I’ reaches forth; superimposes me across the sky. Not as a person...not in a body...but as a soul. This part of me embeds itself into the starry night as if I’m being tucked into bed.
My intellect struggles with the sensation. Space is alien. Hostile. Strange. But I force my intellect aside. Allow the gestalt to wash over me...
Suddenly, I’m home.
To the intellect, each star is a destination. But there’s a wider reality. All of the stars together are a place. A home. A realm. And there are other realms beyond it.
My vision changes and space becomes a looking glass. Through it, I glimpse light...worlds...homes to others.
One star captures my attention.
I follow as it withdraws, beckoning me to give chase. Its light is a current that I trace backward, upstream through the fabric of existence; watch it erupt from a beginning. All the light it’s ever given gushes forth; rains down on the worlds that orbit it; creates time; gives life; is sung about and played beneath.
Lifetimes come and go. Races. Species. Civilizations. All of them nourished by the star as it smiles on its children.
My god...they’re alive!
The stars... the planets... the galaxies... everything!
Aware. Sentient. Conscious. As invested in their neighbors and selves as I am in mine. We’re the same. My consciousness inhabits a temporary body just like theirs does. We’re kindred. Family.
A sense of belonging fills me. I’ve never been separate. Never been lost. Never forgotten. There’s nowhere I can go and not be home. I belong here. We all belong here.
We’re part of this...members of a universal body. This is our place. Not just Earth; not the solar system; not the galaxy — all of this. Everything. This is our place. We were made for here. It was made for us.
Something within me recognizes this as the meaning of Truth.
> The meaning of truth...but more. Truth as meaning; truth as something that matters. If you want to understand what it is about life that matters, you come here. This is where you find your answer. It doesn’t reside in the intellect. Can’t be quantified or worked out with logic. Doesn’t conform to thought and deduction. Transcends science.
It’s an instant of clarity. An experience that surpasses thought and knowledge. It goes beyond things like assessment and analysis and contemplation. It just is. Always here, waiting. Ever present and pervasive.
I see why the divine never etched a signature onto creation. There’s no need. Coming here, you can’t escape it — the authorship, the care, the intention and passion and vision.
You can’t sense this on a world. Any world. There’s too much distraction. Trees and plants and flowers and buildings and traffic and planes and people. You get caught up in the immediacy of it. Only out here, where you meet the All in its purest form and gaze into its eternal face, do you actually see. No stamp of possession was ever necessary. All of this could come from nothing else besides Truth.
Just like biologists say life only comes from life, I can see how truth only comes from truth. Nothing else could’ve done this. What besides Truth could have made existence? Not just placing stars in space and creating planets to circle them, but actually giving all of them life. Awareness. Being. What besides Truth could’ve accomplished such a thing?
This is what’s meant by ‘god’, but the ancients never came out here to understand what they were naming. It isn’t ‘god’. It’s so much more. So much larger. Vaster. Realer. ‘God’ has always been the word for weather back on my world. Out here, such trivial things are as empty as a lie.
“My propulsion is no longer effective,” Aerion interrupted. “We may be caught in a tractor beam.”
Disoriented from her reverie, Trish could barely form words...
“Tractor beam? Whaddo I–?”
A massive ship emerged from slipstream and cut her off, coming close alongside with its port landing bay open. Trish gaped at the immense vessel eclipsing her sky.
“I’m sorry Trish. I have no options.”
“Whaaa...what is it? What race?”
“There’s no match in my library. I cannot tell.”
“Ohhhh FUCKEDDY!”
Whoever they were, she was in their grip. The only markings were patches of yellow here and there on the shadowy hull. Its narrow bow, broad stern and vertical fins reminded her of a tropical beetle she’d seen on some nature show. There was nothing friendly about it.
“You’re hyperventilating, Trish. Slow your breath.”
She gulped air, bringing on violent hiccups. “I...can’t he^lp it.”
“They haven’t destroyed us. That, at least, is a good sign.”
“F-For you^ou,” Trish whined. “God knows what they wa^ant with me!”
“I can activate my shields. They won’t be able to approach.”
“Yeah, but we^e can’t leave. They’ll just starve me out.”
Mind still fresh with flight procedures, Trish reached for the comm and blasted off a mayday. Then, drawn in by an invisible hand, her runabout came to rest in the middle of an otherwise empty bay. Empty of ships, anyway.
A crowd of white-robed figures filled the far side of the bay like a sea of silent witnesses.
“Hu^mans?” she asked Aerion.
“My scanners do indicate Terran physiology.”
“Ohhh Go^d!” Trish flushed. “Crusa^derzzz...”
41
* * *
CRUSADER NINE – ALLIANCE SPACE – NOV 6, 2371
“The whore of Heaven.”
Nine’s captain studied Trish with contempt, his tall, gaunt frame exuding the chill of conviction.
“Behold, the child of our nemesis!” he called to the gathered crowd. “The daughter of Nazanin Sukho!”
Trish gawked at him as the group leaned in, teeth bared like a pack of rabid dogs. Their growls and grimaces shook her to the bone and she pleaded into Captain Harlowe’s cold gray eyes.
“Nazanin Su^kho?!” She shook her head helplessly. “My parents were the Thier^rys. Bastien ’n Re^ah. Th-They died when I was tw^o!”
“So the State would have you and all of us believe,” he said with authority. “Even though you bear none of Reah Thierry’s traits. Not her stature, not the color of her skin or the structure of her face and form. Nothing. And then there’s your middle name.”
“There’s lotsa Nazanins these days,” she mumbled. “It’s popular.”
“Not from two years before her speech it wasn’t.”
Trish stood swamped in doubt and Harlowe attacked.
“You might forget your roots, but we forget nothing. God knows his enemies better than they know themselves, and Nazanin Sukho’s harlot daughter you are. The last remnant of our adversary’s presence in God’s green garden — the paradise she stole from us.”
Could it be true? Trish had always wondered about the lack of resemblance, but her birth records...
She kept shaking her head. “I-I...”
Harlowe nodded to the guards bruising her arms in the vice of their hateful grip. “Take her to the quorum. Make ’er ready.”
Down through a maze of corridors and lifts they dragged her, hauling her at last into a huge chamber dominated by a central pillar.
“You have a lot ta answer for, slut.” The guard with thick, fishy lips braced her up against the pillar. The guy bracketing her limbs in place looked just like the bust of Hannibal in SoCal’s classical museum.
“Wh-What’re you talking about?” her voice cracked. “I’m just a dancer!”
Fishy gripped her roughly by the hair, coming close enough to kiss. “You’re everything God despises.”
“I-I-I...” She stopped short as they began cutting away her flightsuit.
“NoNoNoNoNo!” She squirmed. “Please don’t rape me! Not that!!”
“RRRRAPE you?!” Hannibal’s indignation was hot enough to scald.
WHAAACK!!!
Fishy’s backhand buckled her knees and she tasted blood before her vision returned.
“Once we’ve got you ready for burning,” he snarled, “we’ll hafta purify ourselves with baths an’ prayer ’n fasting.”
Hannibal’s hatred was just as harsh: “You are disease.”
“Hey, leave that...” somebody howled from the doorway. “We’re attacking!”
Her jailers rushed out, leaving Trish limp in her brackets and drooling blood.
EFS INCISOR – BELLATRIX SYSTEM – NOV 6, 2371
The slipstream trail had turned into exactly the snipe hunt Ohlins feared. They’d followed it to the aging debris field of a corvette lost weeks ago, finding hints of a missing lifepod that never materialized. But it had taken them two hours to sort it out.
Now, Incisor was hightailing it back to station and Ohlins hoped to hell Asherah was fine and dandy.
“I’m getting a new mayday, sir!” Comm broke out. “Human again. And fresh.”
“Patch it.” Ohlins shifted nervously in his chair, knowing he couldn’t have done anything differently. And yet...
#Mayday! Mayday! Th-This’z Trisha Thierry flying Aerion One!# The girl’s voice came frantic and panting over the Omnicom. All faces on the bridge turned to their skipper.
#I’m under at^tack. Repeat...I’m under attack an’ it’s huge! I can’t get away! Please he^lp me! Pl–#
“s’All I get, sir,” Comm reported. “Time-stamp says fourteen-twenty-four t’day.”
“God DAMMIT! Slo-space NOW! Maintain general quarters!” He touched off the claxon for lack of any better way to vent his anger. “Tac, scan the area for signs’a slipstream...propulsion residue...weapons...any slo-space disturbances whatsoever.”
He turned to the rest of the bridge: “Meantime, I want us dead center’a that origin. And now we know Asherah’s here. Send ’em our sitrep.”
“Bogey!” Tac jolted. “Matches the Hwarak’mogk config
uration!”
“We’re hailing. No response,” the XO warned.
Ohlins sat with blank emotions, studying the target’s movements on his personal navscreen. The Hwarak’mogk was still beyond real-time scanning, forcing him to calculate based on movements made almost ten seconds earlier. His heart shouted “Charge!” but his mind whispered “duty.”
“Weapons?” he demanded coldly.
“Scans show multiple turrets, sir. Prob’ly plasma cannons. Shields are the inertial type. Nothin’ too advanced, but the hull’s heavily armored.”
In person, the ship was more impressive than Ohlins had imagined: larger than his own frigate, magnificently armored, and wearing a predator’s profile. If his own ship patrolled, theirs prowled.
“Plan, Skipper?”
“Dunno what we’re dealin’ with yet. Are they the enemy? Yep. Did they attack Trisha Thierry?” He offered a bewildered shrug. If she was elsewhere, this would be the wrongest possible course of action.
“They’re angling for advantage,” Tactical advised.
Ohlins noted the other ship’s vector. It was toeing a fine line between indifference and aggression, and that stood his hair on end. He couldn’t be sure the Thierry girl was here, but the only other possibility was that she’d come under Voth attack, and Incisor would’ve long since registered such a disturbance.
“Alright. Light the fuse.”
The call to ready all weapons went out with the familiar alarm, and within seconds Incisor transformed into an engine of war — shields on full, weapons charged and sighted. As a living fortress, she was the second most lethal weapons platform in Humanity’s arsenal, trumped only by a cruiser.
