Then she noticed that she couldn’t hear her own breath or heartbeat. She wasn’t physically in space.
She was the Stellar Flash.
She moved her head and the Stellar Flash shifted slightly in the liquid. She bent forward and she could feel the ship redesigning itself, becoming thicker in the middle. She stopped.
What was she doing? She had to save Torus. How? Command it?
“Consciousness of Stellar Flash. Strengthen the EM field around the ship so that Torus can recombine.”
Nothing happened.
“Stellar Flash, how do I use the power of the Stellar Breeze to increase the EM field barrier?”
Nothing
“Stellar Breeze? Stellar Flash isn’t responding.”
“You are Stellar Flash.”
Heartness sighed. Great. Of course she was.
But, she’d forgotten what the Stellar Flash could do. Did she cough? No, that would release the waste disposal. What if she clenched a fist?
She felt herself move forward faster. Opening her fist slowed her down. She knew in the real world her body wasn’t actually doing that - these were the mental responses that were needed for particular functions.
“This is crazy. Help me!”
“Consciousness is not a doing. Not masculine energy. Consciousness is allowing. Female energy. Allow it to happen. I will help. Once reformed, Torus will not need the field again inside.”
Heartness stopped looking for a control or command, and simply relaxed, imagining Torus recombining. Imagining the field around the ship strengthening.
Then she felt it. The hairs were rising on the back of her arms. The command and the result were linked. She knew how to do it after she had done it.
A stabilizing energy rushed over the ship. Energy poured from the Stellar Breeze, combining with the field and strengthening it.
Her face felt warmer as though confirming the new command, and then the Center appeared around her again.
Still connected to the pilot’s station she could sense the fields within the room. A fluctuating energy wave was becoming stable, changing its configuration.
Torus was coming back together.
With a flash, Torus recombined next to his station as though nothing had happened. Heartness felt the strengthened EM field return to normal, and Torus flickered slightly as though adjusting to the new environment.
He was safe. She felt a wave of appreciation from the two ships, and released her hand from the pilot’s station.
And then, suddenly, everything was back to normal, so to speak.
#
Captain Hogart grabbed his console for support as the center of gravity suddenly changed again, an alarm sounded and red lights began flashing. "Report!"
All the screens were showing shifting images of a yellow wall full of bright hexagons rushing past them. It stretched away from them as far as the eye could see. Even though the ship was now falling, Hogart could see that their hole had already sealed over, the gas reverting back to solid matter. They were trapped inside.
"AI, stabilize the ship!"
"In progress," said the AI.
Hogart continued gripping his station but could feel the ship starting to become more controllable. "The star is hollow. I assume whatever we need to meet is near the center. Set a heading, and move slowly in, but don't get too close."
"Captain, I'm not sure that's wise," said Heartness, still reeling from her recent experience. She had to let time run its course until Torus could do whatever he had to do.
"Now who's being pessimistic!" He turned back to the block. "AI. Search for a safe orbit around the gravitational well."
"Confirmed."
Heartness looked appreciatively. "I'm glad you don't actually want to go to the center. I'm pretty sure that even the Stellar Flash wouldn't be able to withstand that much gravity."
"Well, now that we know this is an entire world disguised as a star, I'm guessing there really isn't anything at the center besides warped space. In any case, I'm not big on time dilation either."
"Analysis suggests, based on human theoretical constructs, that this may be a reverse Dyson sphere," said Geo.
"They built the sphere inside the star?" asked Hogart incredulously. "How is that even possible?"
Just then the ship stabilized and the images on the screen settled down. Hogart watched billions of hexagons speed past. “I had no idea when I woke up today that I’d end up inside a star that had been created by a Doctor Who fan.”
“You’re not still watching that series are you?” said Heartness, sounding pleased to have any kind of distraction.
“Celebrating 170 years this year!” said Hogart, “Though I wasn’t sure I’d keep watching when the main character turned into a genderless energy being last year. It was a big change.”
As the ship straightened, the screens revealed a tiny light that shone brightly in the center, millions of kilometers away. Even though the sphere was lit from outside and within, everything seemed washed out and unclear.
"So, there is something at the center," said Heartness.
"Captain, I think there are some statistics you really need to know," said Geo.
"Shoot!"
Geo stopped and looked at the Captain. "At what?"
"Sorry, that didn't translate well. Tell me please, Geo."
"I'm detecting a thick, high pressure atmosphere. Oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, methane and a number of other elements."
"Are there living things here? A civilization?"
Just then, Puppy and Amy reentered the Center, with the AI’s rock avatar floating behind.
A message also came from Spiney saying that, for safety, he should remain in his cabin. Hogart agreed.
Hogart suddenly realized that he was feeling a lot better, too. His mind view system wasn’t fighting to get out of his head. "I guess we're beyond the field that's been affecting everyone in the star system!" he said. "Welcome back team. Glad to have you back."
His crew took their places. "I've been monitoring everything from my cabin," said Amy. "There is definitely life here. But probably not what you're expecting."
"Let me guess," said Hogart. "The hexagons are the life. The whole sphere is one huge orgy of merged creatures, and we're now inside it. It’s going to want to make us part of it."
"Not exactly," said Amy. "Though it might have been like that millions of years ago. No, we are in a thin microbial soup. We are flying through a star-sized ball of bacteria. You could say we're diving through a metagenomicist’s dream."
Hogart looked surprised. "Are you sure? Can bacteria just live and float in an atmosphere?"
"We can't tell with our sensors, and the image won't show it, but I believe the environment is so thick with the bacteria that it is almost like we are underwater."
"And they're all living and surviving with only the energy of the star outside and in to sustain them?"
"It's completely symbiotic, self-repairing and with a level of sophistication far in advance of any bacteriological symbiotic relationship ever heard of in this or any other frequency," said Amy. "It would be like taking the ship through your blood stream."
Hogart stared out at the screens in amazement. Was the bacteria now a completely sentient star-sized organism, or was the star the organism and the bacteria was keeping it alive? Or both?
"Back to you, Cuddly." Hogart pointed at his communications officer who had just returned from another toilet visit.
"We are not directly in contact with one of the hexagons, but we are now part of the star’s biological soup,” said Cuddly. “Knowing that this is just one giant mushbug means I can try sending a message alert. We should be able to communicate directly."
Just then a booming voice echoed around the Center and across the entire ship.
"Finality," it said. "End."
"That doesn't sound good," said Puppy.
"The One is the All and the All are one," said the voice.
"Cuddly, will it u
nderstand? We don't need to flick antennae at it?"
"It's an advanced creature living across a number of densities. Though, it might not yet be aware we're individuals."
There was silence as they thought about this, then the voice boomed again.
"We know you."
The voice seemed to echo into other voices. The echoes reverberated around the ship as though coming from ghosts.
"We know you. We know you. Know you. Know you."
Neither feminine nor masculine the voices seemed to have an ethereal, almost angelic quality.
"I am Captain Jonathan Hogart of the Interdimensional Coalition starship the Stellar Flash. I and my crew of three hundred sentient aliens from around the galaxy come in peace."
"Pieces, pieces. We feel your pieces. Make us complete."
Hogart turned to Spiney. "Pieces?"
"The creature may be detecting the queen, sir."
"The queen! Of course. I had forgotten all about her. If they need her we need to get her back to them quickly before they pull us apart. Can we flash her into the center of the bacteria? I guess we'll need to flash a bubble of air first so as not to cause a problem for them."
"Well," said Torus. "I am not so sure about that, sir. We need to confirm what the star is actually saying."
Hogart turned to the AI. "Let’s get prepared, just in case. AI, release the Queen's pieces from quarantine. Make sure all her pieces are there, including the one stuck on the back of the flash band. When she recreates herself, hold her in this frequency until we're ready to release her. She's from this star system, she may even be able to help us."
"Confirmed."
#
In the quarantine area, the forcefields surrounding the vats of the queen turned off. A robot made of cables and clips with two tweezer-like appendages entered and stomped over to one of the tables where Hogart’s first flash sat. It carefully removed the final piece from the underside of it, and placed it on the pile of other tiny hexagons, then took the band with it as it left the room. It watched through the window as the queen's pieces began shifting and moving again, hexagons slowly clicking back into place.
#
In the Center, Hogart was pacing back and forth with way too much on his mind. Out there was a hyper-advanced pan-dimensional being with a consciousness made up of quadrillions to the nth pieces of mushbug. Was this where all the queens eventually ended up? Spiraling back to the center of the star system and being captured inside the star, or did the star just invite them in and they happily joined? But, if they were now inside a giant queen billions of kilometers in diameter, they were mere bugs in comparison, and really had no value to the voice. What could they possibly offer something so far advanced? How could they even have any commonality?
He sighed. He was futuring again rather than taking the opportunity in the ‘now’ moment. He should just do what he came to do. If it didn’t work out, he’d work something else out. He’d come this far.
He went to his stand again. “Might as well get on with it.” He rubbed his hands together and took a deep breath.
"Hello out there," he said. "We want to invite you into the Interdimensional Coalition as a full member. We are a group of aliens from across multiple space, time, frequencies and realities that have a passion for discovering new consciousnesses like you."
"Remember, remember," the voice echoed. "We remember you, Captain Jonathan Hogart. You came to our world twice."
Hogart looked around at everyone. "Is this an adventure that I haven't had yet, or don't remember?"
"Adjusting," said the echoing voice. "Must use lower consciousness expression. Activating interface."
On the screen, before the star, a faint image of a mushbug appeared. But this was an even more advanced version. The mushbug's mass seemed to have shrunk, its six legs had shifted around its body, and it now stood upright, almost humanoid. Then, its wings expanded and it looked like a ghostly humanoid butterfly with five antennae. Its mouth opened, but remained unmoving in the soup. It was an avatar to enable communication, but it didn't exist.
"First, we captured you and your crew members. We wanted your technology."
Hogart was surprised at this. The star had been monitoring them.
"Then you visited us again when we were more advanced. But we didn't want your contact. We were too proud. Too bigoted. And we were due for metamorphosis."
"Wait, we visited two of your worlds. Perhaps this is not translating correctly."
"There is only one world," said the voice, more softly.
“Err, no, sorry,” said Hogart, not quite understanding. Did it mean that the entire system was linked in some way? The system was the world. “There are thirty worlds. Lots of your relatives on them.”
“There is only one world,” the voice repeated. “We know you from our history.”
Hogart turned to his crew, his face a mixture of confusion, and then the hair began to rise on the back of his neck as the pieces began to fall into place.
All his crew looked at him. Even across the many alien cultures and species, he could tell they were all reaching the same conclusion as him.
Heartness was shaking her head in wonder. “No way.”
“It is impossible,” said Geo.
The worlds they had visited. They weren't other worlds in the star system, they were the same world, moving closer and closer to the center.
The entire star system of thirty planets and two stars was actually just one planet and one star across billions of years. The Stellar Flash had not only been travelling across space, they had been travelling across time as well. Somehow time had overlapped in space. The entire history of the star system had been happening for them all at once.
No wonder they hadn’t been feeling themselves. The temporal anomalies had been bringing parts of their pasts and futures to them.
But how had this happened? Had the effect of the creation of the joined world itself at the end of time, somehow dissolved the timelines?
"There aren't thirty planets, are there?" asked Hogart. "There was only ever one, slowly moving closer to its star, to its eventual evolution. But the creation of that new sentience split the timelines! You're now fighting amongst each other, flying to your own future and past, creating a massive paradox in space / time."
"No paradox. Infinite pasts and futures. The result is the result. All paths lead here," said the voice. "But you are the anachronism. Your existence created us."
Hogart hit his head. "Of course. Without us appearing in your past, you couldn't have discovered frequency development so early."
"I guess it was our first appearance that started it," said Heartness. "I'm as much at fault as you."
"There is no point in apportioning blame at this time," said Geo. "We must continue our mission."
Suddenly the ship spun, and the crew gripped their stations to stop from falling over.
"What's happening?" yelled Hogart.
The image of the butterfly mushbug enlarged to monstrous proportions, then disappeared as the ship plummeted through it, being dragged forward at high speed.
"The Stellar Flash is being attracted towards the center."
"Activate flash drive. Get us out of here," said Hogart.
"Negative. Flash drive cannot operate in this environment," said the AI.
"But we're not..." Hogart groaned. "How long until we reach the center?"
"One hour," said the AI. "But gravitational forces closer to the core will begin pulling us apart in a few minutes."
Hogart placed his hands on his console and sent a ship wide red alert. "All crew, we are heading towards a strong gravitational point. Please return to your cabins and lie perpendicular to the expected event horizon." Then more quietly to himself “…as soon as we can work out which side the ship will be facing.”
"AI, can you stabilize the spin?" asked Heartness.
"Gravitational and bacteriological currents are hampering stabilization, admiral," replied the AI. "Ad
justing outer surface shape for more streamlined navigation."
As the triangular shape of the ship shook and turned, moving faster through the sphere of bacteria fluid, molecules shifted and changed, shaping the corners, building out fins and slightly flattening the sphere in the center.
A screeching metal sound shook the Center and Hogart looked up to see the ceiling shift and lower.
"Streamlining complete," said the AI. The images on the screen stopped spinning and shuddering, and began to return to a slight blur, with a focus on the star in the middle. It was now much closer and had a flickering flame at the center.
Hogart lifted his hand to the console and felt his fingers being pulled towards the front screen. He placed his hands down quickly and sent another message. "All crew, activate nanite suits. Program for fluctuating gravity. At this stage, if you dislocate anything, I'm sorry but there's nothing we can do for now. We'll get to you as soon as possible."
He looked about his crew. The closer they got to the star in the middle, the more stretched they were going to feel. Amy had already collapsed across her console and was sliding across the floor, her translator warping as he watched. "Sorry, Captain. I can't help for now."
He looked across at Geo but he had already passed out. Being ball shape, there wasn't any position he could be in without being affected by the pull of the gravity. His suit had put him into a coma to protect him.
Cuddly had already laid himself down perpendicular to the force of gravity.
There was a loud crash as Puppy could no longer support his own weight. Hogart hoped he hadn't broken anything.
He knew Heartness would be suffering as much as he was right now. He could feel every muscle stretching and many of his past sporting injuries had come back to haunt him. Just then he felt his jaw beginning to dislocate.
"Torus," Hogart groaned, trying to hold his head up, as the gravity began to pull harder. "You're in charge. Get us out of here, if you can.”
With that, both Hogart and Heartness fell to the ground, unconscious.
#
Torus sensed the crew on the floor around him.
What could he do?
Stellar Flash: Alien Frequency Page 14
