Reality: The Struggle for Sternessence

by Daniel A. Liut

  Clara was pondering the day’s operation, the war, and some personal matters. She had picked a lonely spot.

  Stepping out from the woods, Duncan walked up, holding a silver arrow in a hesitant hand. Clara noticed his presence, but her instincts kept her eyes focused on the stars above the horizon.

  “I hope I’m not intruding,” Duncan said, holding the arrow with both hands.

  Clara was sitting on a tree trunk that lay on the ground. She was still wearing her combat suit, her long blond hair falling delicately over her shoulders.

  “I . . . I just came to return this,” Duncan added, holding the gleaming needle-like weapon which had saved his life earlier that day.

  “You are not intruding.” Clara gazed at some flowers alongside the tree trunk where she was sitting. “Not at all.”

  “Would you like to walk a little bit?” Duncan asked.

  “I’d like that.”

  Clara and Duncan started strolling across the dappled field. It was a peaceful evening, filled with the twilight calls of local animals.

  “How beautiful,” Duncan said gently, pointing at the sky.

  “Yes,” Clara muttered, raising her eyes to the magnificent rings of light. “They call her Irisia.”

  “Yes . . . so beautiful.” Duncan found himself somewhat at a loss for words that evening. The attractive presence of the woman walking beside him was making him feel tense. It was the first time Duncan became aware of Clara’s personal beauty. Indeed, it was the first time he noticed her womanhood.

  Plucking a long grass-like reed, Duncan started peeling off its thin, soft layers. “You looked absorbed a moment ago.”

  “Irisia, the stars, the little flying lights here and there.” Clara shrugged. “Everything is so beautiful.”

  “I haven’t seen lightning bugs in a long time.”

  “So you also have glowworms on Earth?”

  “Uh-huh. I remember, when I was a kid, we liked to play who’d catch more.”

  “That must’ve been fun.”

  “A silly game.”

  “I wish I could remember any childhood game.” Clara sighed.

  “We can play it now.”

  “Do you really mean it?”

  Duncan tossed away what was left of his reed. “If we only had a couple of jars for the bugs we catch.”

  Smiling, Clara produced a small vial from a pocket. She emptied out the nutrition tablets it contained and put them back inside the same pocket.

  “We still have only one vial,” Duncan pointed out with a smirk.

  “I’ll keep the vial,” Clara said, “and you keep the count, for each of us.”

  “Fair enough.”

  With that, they split up. Soon the vial started to glow vividly, and Clara’s bug-catching score was way below her opponent’s. Then Duncan laughed softly. She was trying to trap a bright flying light with one hand above and the other below it.

  Clara smiled broadly, shaking the vial full of lights.

  “It’s not fair,” Clara objected. “I’m competing against an expert.”

  “I don’t intend to be very helpful, you know? But you’ll hardly catch any bugs while they are flying.”

  Clara smiled as a glowworm slipped through her fingers.

  “Come on, over here,” Duncan added, taking her by the hand. Surprised, Clara followed him to a bush full of tiny lights.

  “Look, the secret to this business is that you catch ‘em when they are crawling.” Duncan extended one arm slowly towards a bush. “You see?” he added, a whirling little creature struggling to get off his fingers.

  Clara nodded and touched her hand, the one Duncan had just reached for.

  “So, now show me you’ve learned something, Captain.”

  Clara slipped quietly towards the same bush, capturing her prey easily.

  “You learn fast,” said Duncan. “But don’t expect any further help for the night.” Spotting a large blinking light on top of a tree, he climbed up to catch the insect. Back on the ground, he stood in front of Clara and looked at her hesitantly. “I think I should’ve said this before.”

  Clara smiled broadly, shaking the vial full of lights.

  “I mean . . . I’m sorry, Clara.”

  “Why?” she asked, with a faint smile. The apology did not seem to fit the statement she expected.

  “The Sagacious. I didn’t mean the things I said that day.”

  Clara shook her head gently. “Never mind. We were dealing with a very complicated situation that day.”

  “Maybe, but I know I hurt you, and I didn’t mean to do that.”

  Clara grinned. There was a steady trace of sadness in her expression, associated with her tragic past and her lack of contact with human beings. But being with the man she was in love with—her first love—gifted her eyes with a special joy. “I don’t recall your saying anything wrong.”

  Duncan shook his head. “You’re too good to me.”

  “Watch out.” Clara turned around. “I’m gonna beat ya after all. What’s the score?”

  Duncan shrugged.

  “You were supposed to keep count, mister.”

  “Perhaps we have already disturbed enough glowworms for the night,” Duncan said, looking into her eyes.

  Removing the lid of the vial, Clara proceeded to empty it out on the spot.

  “Why don’t we just . . . walk a bit more?” Duncan added.

  Clara nodded.

  After a short hike, they were back to the spot where Clara had been resting before sunset. They sat down side by side, on the tree trunk that lay on the grass. Clara gazed towards the horizon, Irisia’s light shining mildly upon her gleaming blue eyes. A wandering glowworm landed by her right ear. That gave Duncan the perfect excuse to brush softly at her hair. The twinkling light was sent away into the night to resume his loving call, somewhere else, not far away from that very spot.

  38.

  Duncan opened his eyes, disoriented. Even though there were still more than three hours left in the resting period, everybody was up, working hectically.

  “Get up, boy, we have no time.”

  Duncan turned around and found Captain Foxso’l standing in front of him. “No time?” Duncan said from inside his sleeping bag. “No time for what?”

  “We are gettin’ outta here.”

  “Wha—Where?”

  “I don’t know about the others, but you’re coming with us.” Foxso’l tilted his head towards a shuttle, in which he had landed less than an hour before.

  Duncan sat up. “What are you talking about?”

  “New royal orders. You are coming along with us to the Aquarius quadrant. You’ll meet O’sihn and the others later on, on Aquaelight—some planet up there,” Foxso’l said, casually waving up a hand.

  At that point, O’sihn stepped in. “Flash orders from headquarters, Dahncion. Captain Foxso’l will explain everything. Follow his instructions.”

  Duncan stood up right away.

  “Captain,” somebody called out.

  “Coming.” O’sihn turned to Duncan. “I really need to go.”

  “Where is Clara?”

  “She’s already been picked up. Don’t worry.” O’sihn put a hand on Duncan’s right shoulder. “We’ll all meet again in a few days. Good luck.”

  Duncan kept staring at O’sihn as he disappeared into the busy crowd.

  “Don’t try to understand the military.” Foxso’l rolled his eyes. “It’s the stupidest thing there is.”

  “But . . .”

  Foxso’l’s communicator started to beep. “Cruise engines energized and standing-by, Captain.” That was Witts, the Angel Spark’s first officer. The ship was orbiting the planet, waiting for Foxso’l and Duncan.

  “Copied,” Foxso’l acknowledged.

  “May I—” Duncan said, but broke his questions off. Foxso’l was looking at him with impatience.

  A couple of minutes later, Foxso’l’s shuttle restarted her engines. She lifted off in a rather unconvent
ional manner, leaving a trail of light. The glare of her engines swiftly waned, merging in the majestic disk of a rising Irisiom.

  _______________

  68 After many days of navigating an uncharted area, a starfall was the procedure of identifying charted nearby stars and establishing the ship’s position using them as a reference.

  69 Light-hours (equivalent inter-universal units): equivalent distance an Earth-universe-like photon would travel during an Earth-like hour in the Realitic universe. Between universes, there are large differences in light speed, and in what we would understand as Relativist and Quantum physics, in general. We will not address these subjects in this book.

  70 A landhead was the first objective of a military force after landing on an enemy planet, consisting of securing an initial position that could be used for subsequent landings. That position would function as the preliminary headquarters of the operation.

  71 Duncan had been trained for the operation on board the Intrepid, using a simulated terminal very much like the one they found there. He was familiar with the basic instructions to operate the system. He had also learned how to initialize the required procedures to complete the mission. O’sihn was much more familiar with these types of systems, which were pretty standard in Establishment usage.

  72 One side effect of the biotransformation was that it made the vegetation much more susceptible to catching fires. There was a system of drones designed to control such events. At that particular moment, half a dozen drones had made it to the scene, not enough to control the fire.

  73 L-solver: logum-solver.

  74 That planet was close to the center of its galaxy, where the star density was very high. Many of the neighboring stars were just a few light-weeks away, measured in the speed of light of our universe.

  CHAPTER 7

  The Encounter

  39.

  “Confirmed, Captain.” Witts lifted his head from the aft scanner visor. “It’s an Ultoris class frigate, and it seems to be chasing the first contact.”

  “And unless we change course, we’ll pass way too close by her,” added Tora.

  Foxso’l nodded. “Changing our course would make us look more suspicious.”

  “What’s going on out there?” Duncan asked.

  Nothing good, you can bet,” Tora responded.

  “They are opening fire on the unidentified vessel,” Witts called, and smacked the long-range passive scanner, seemingly the only way to have it work properly.

  “Any signal from the attacked vessel?”

  “No, Captain. It’s following a complex evasive trajectory.”

  “They might be unarmed,” Duncan suggested.

  “Uh-huh,” Foxso’l muttered, his eyes glued to the navigational display.

  “And we aren’t gonna do anything?”

  “This ain’t the Intrepid, son.”

  “What? We oughta help those guys.” Duncan fixed his eyes on Foxso’l. The skipper’s expression remained unchanged, constantly reassessing the situation.

  “The chased vessel is veering to port,” Witts said. “Present mean course: three-three-zero dash two-eight-five. Nebula Gabot ahead vessel’s mean trajectory, Captain.”

  “Contact time?” that meant, for the vessel to enter the nebula.

  “Approximately one minute, Captain.”

  “Maybe we can still please Dahncion, skipper,” Tora said. “The moment the Establishees get inside the nebula, their scanners will lose our position.”75

  Foxso’l listened, watching the main scanner.

  “Inside that thing they will have to travel T.L.S.,”76 Tora continued.

  “And it’s a long, narrow, nebula, skipper.”

  Foxso’l turned back to a virtual monitor located on the port side of the bridge, where a chart of the quadrant was displayed with some additional data. “All right. Plot a parabolic course to the other side of the nebula. Final incidence angle: three degrees tangent to nebula’s maximum curvature coordinates.”

  “Aye-aye, skipper.”

  “We’re gonna be waiting on the Blishees’77 ship to come out,” Foxso’l added, turning to Duncan. “Then we’ll kick its a—”

  “Blips penetrating nebula, sir,” Witts interrupted.

  Foxso’l turned to Tora. “Is our trajectory computed yet?”

  “Affirmative, skipper. I’ve already passed it to the navigational computer.”

  “Full ahead along computed trajectory.”

  “Full ahead aye, skipper.”

  “Effect full stop when reaching ten thousand kilometers from the nebula.”

  “Got it.”

  The Angel Spark began to accelerate. A large, starless dark blotch—the dark nebula—appeared on the main display. The ship started going around the self-constrained ocean of gas, leaving it off the upper starboard side. Gradually, the nebula’s outline became more rounded, until acquiring a nearly perfect circular shape. At that point, the ship stopped.

  “Ten thousand kilometers to the gas-nebula’s max. curvature azimuth, and standing by, Captain,” Witts added.

  “Good. Download the attacking routine78 from the bow cargo-bay computer,” Foxso’l said, addressing Tora. “Set parameters for one missile to lock on the second target that comes out of the nebula. We’ll launch the missile right after the first ship emerges.”

  “Got ya, skipper.”

  “What if the only ship to come out is the Establishment’s?” Duncan asked. “I mean, what if it has destroyed the ship it’s chasing inside the nebula?”

  Foxso’l shrugged. “We would hide ourselves inside the cloud.”

  “Yeah, we do this sort of thing all the time,” Tora said. “Never mind about that.”

  Duncan did not show any reassurance.

  “One vessel emerging from Gabot’s nebula,” Witts said, and marked a pin in his electronic chart.

  Foxso’l glanced at the data on screen and tapped twice with a forefinger in the air.

  Tora nodded. “Missile away and in searching mode, skipper.”

  The missile was not intended for the first vessel, whose signature did not correspond with an enemy ship, but for the Establishment battleship that was expected to come out after it.

  “Vessel one exhibits signs of severe damage,” said Witts, adjusting his ear-speaker. “And . . . yes, it’s transmitting an emergency distress signal. All readings confirm it’s definitely not the enemy battleship, Captain.”

  Foxso’l listened to Witts while keeping his attention on the main display.

  “Our missile is five thousand kilometers from the nebula, skipper, and still no contact with any emerging ship.” Tora paused for a moment. “Forty-five hundred klicks, forty hundred, thirty-five hundred . . .”

  The missile suddenly began accelerating at an extreme rate.

  “A second blip is emerging now . . .”

  “—pact on target,” Witts’ composed voice confirmed simultaneously.

  “Woohaaaa!” Tora yelled, clapping hands with Duncan.

  “Estimated damage?” Foxso’l inquired.

  “Enemy ship destroyed, Captain,” Witts confirmed.

  Foxso’l’s tension slackened. “Any distress signal?”

  “No communications detected from any source, Captain.”

  “I’m not one hundred percent sure, skipper,” Tora added, “but I don’t detect any engine activity from the first vessel. It seems to be following an inertial trajectory.”

  “Tie us in with it, Witts.”

  “I’m trying, Captain, yet . . . picking up some form of communications, sir. It’s coming low and with distortion.”

  “Let’s listen to it.”

  “It’s not a conference message, Captain. It’s some code. I’ve engaged the cryptosystem to attempt to decode it.”

  “Code? What kind of a code?”

  Witts was very focused, trying to make sense of the strange signal. “Aha. It’s a K43 Karindian code, Captain: Five thousand kilometers. Ejecting escape capsules. Imminent p
ropulsion plant collapse. Lethal area: five thousand kilometers. It starts all over again.”

  “What’s our distance?”

  “One hundred thousand klicks, skipper,” Tora said.

  Foxso’l nodded, and as he did, an energy surge flashed white on the main display.

  “Wow!” Tora quickly gauged the extent of the electromagnetic discharge now registering in his sensors. “That thing has blown up like a meganova,” he added, referring to the ship that had first emerged from the nebula.

  “Distress signal interrupted, Captain,” Witts added.

  “Picking up some weird, old fashioned radio signal,” Tora continued. “Bearing one-six-three dash one-five-zero relative. This sure is a funny signal, in a funny frequency, skipper.”

  “Confirmed, Captain,” Witts said, looking up from his station. “Its point of origin seems to be a small metallic object. Range ninety-four thousand kilometers.”

  Foxso’l rubbed his chin. “Let’s start closing distances, but really carefully. Ahead point zero, zero, one relative; interception course factor three.”

  “Ahead point zero, zero, one relative; interception course factor three, Captain,” Witts acknowledged.

  “Go take care of the port battery,79 and stand by there for instructions.”

  “Aye-aye, skipper.” Tora left the bridge.

  Foxso’l turned to Witts. “Give me some ranges.”

  “Eighty thousand kilometers . . . seventy thousand . . . sixty thousand . . .”

  “Cannons activated and in stand-by, skipper,” Tora’s voice sounded through the captain’s console.

  “Good. Keep the target tracked, but don’t open fire unless I tell you.”

  “You’ve got it, skipper.”

  “Forty thousand kilometers . . . thirty thousand . . .”

  “Slow down,” Foxso’l instructed.

  “Picking up a life form inside the object,” Witts reported.

  “Estimated size of the object?”

  “Three meters average, Captain,” Witts answered. “It looks like an escape capsule of some sort, but I’m not detecting any others in the area.”

  “And it doesn’t look like any conventional escape capsule, does it?” added Foxso’l. “Any sign of activity?”