Re: VLHC Dark Matter discovery

From: d.evans

To: s.gerkin.local7newsroom

Shauna,

We evolved to survive, not see the world as it truly is. That's the simplest explanation i can give you at this time. You may deduce more once you have finished reading my report, but for now it will suffice.

I was an engineer at the Very Large Hadron Collider, just outside of Chicago. Almost 150 miles of vacuum and magnets under my purview that need to be reasonably well-kept in order to peer deeper and deeper into the fabric of the cosmos.

I was on shift the day concern was raised over some of the findings. The raw data was fine enough, just what sensors spit out into their memory banks after every collision. The usual stuff. But once the data scientists took that data and constructed models out of it, looking at the shape and curvatures of the detritus left behind every colliding pinprick of mass and energy, I'm told a cold fear gripped the man who first laid eyes upon it, and he smashed his computer monitor against the ground. HDMI cables and power cords flailing around the room like whips flogging cattle, he didn't stop until every last screw was dislodged and sheared and scattered across the white tile floor

Clearly shocked at seeing what was normally a calm and well-adjusted man flying into a pure rage, the rest of the team were slow to get back to work, but once a replacement monitor was sourced from a storage room and the computer awoken from sleep mode, the second physicist to take a seat at the workstation processing the countless data captured like a fly in a spider's web froze stiff and refused to even respond to the concerned queries of her colleagues.

She just couldn't dare to move, to turn away, to even give herself away to whatever beastly thing had her gripped in its attention by muttering a single syllable.

Paramedics were called and shuffled rapidly down to the underground offices that operate this massive complex that sprawls under Kane and Du Page counties.

Atmospheric readings were taken to make sure there wasn't a gas leak, psychiatric tests were administered to the other colleagues to rule out the possibility of mass hysteria.

Nothing was definitively proven. The only sureity was that this one collision of many that occur every second in this collider had released some thing that activated fight, freeze, or flight.

The administrators at Fermilab called in what experts weren't already on site working. The data was doled out in parts, just to be sure, and the individual snapshots of this three dimensional web of decaying particles scattering in every possible direction, carrying with them the energy that for a single fraction of a fraction of a second made this one spot in the universe the most like the conditions of the Big Bang, were all individually deemed safe to look at. The problem came with the combination of the information. Two voxels of space were placed together in the software, then three. Eventually they had half the data filled in, the scrutineering eyes of the several scientists grew ever more skeptical as what appeared to be one of many collisions that run through the VLHC was forming from its constituent parts.

I was in the room for this part, sweeping up the shattered plastic shell of the former monitor and checking to make sure no other wiring was pulled from its sockets in the hardware's sudden excursion. That's when I glanced the screen, just out of the corner of my eye, and i felt something deep inside me churn, and i felt the overwhelming urge to turn away. I felt my muscles move on their own, like a whole-body reflex. I only stopped when i realized i was gasping for breath, sweat suddenly apparating on my forehead.

I was terrified. The most terrified I'd ever been in my life, and I suspect one of only three people that have ever felt that level of terror in the entirety of human history. The reflexive and primal nature of the reaction has led me to believe this is an ancient feeling, one shared not by our other hominid ancestors, but only experienced in the earliest life forms that were able to feel fear, compelled to use it as a means of survival.

Some psychiatric evaluations later, I was sent home ashamed. What could have let me fly off the handle that bad? Clearly it wasn't just in my head, but it clearly originated there.

That night, in my nightmares, I saw what can only be described as the ur-predator. It was formless and sly, black as night but it blended into the sunlit forest floor it chased me through. It was unlike any other creature I'd seen in biology books or in the most twisted of fiction. It lived in the gaps between light and dark, in the gaps between things. It was small, microscopic if it needed to be, and massive, dominating the landscape when it wanted to be. Its camouflage served to hide its description, but at the same time was noticeable in the uncanny ways. It patrolled in the unknown and prowled the margins of existence in whatever setting my subconscious made up to escape.

Out of the corner of my eye, on the piercing white computer screen, i saw its tendrils choking the bosons as even they tried to flee its presence. How it escaped the notice of the three physicists humming and hawing at the screen, I don't know.

The following Tuesday, after the long weekend, I heard the beast in the hushed gossip of the other physicists, in the unsure and unbelieving table conversation in the cafeteria. I saw its fangs in the concerned glances i received, i felt its gaze in the invisible area directly behind my head.

Sitting down with my tray in that cafeteria, with multiple sets of eyes on me, I got an email from an astrophysicist in New Zealand that had heard the news. Gossip travels faster than light, it seems. They mentioned their research into the peculiarities of dark matter on the cosmic scale, to mirror the peculiarities of the substance in the atomic scale that Fermilab interrogates. I was about to forward it to the other member of staff here that shares my forename, assuming it was a mistake, before I saw the phrase, "ur-predator."

They asked if I saw this dark being in the data, choking and compressing anything it came into contact with. The anomalies discovered in the newest data from the James Webb Space Telescope mimic the behaviors of slime mold, of ant colonies, of severed cephalopod tentacles grasping blindly for an anchor. If this observation of anomalies--found concentrated in the regions of space where dark matter was predicted to be most abundant--could be correlated with subatomic behaviors, the astrophysicist believes they had discovered the solution to the question plaguing physics.

Dark matter was strangling galaxies, herding their component stars into tighter and tighter revolutions around the galactic core beyond what the conservation of momentum would allow. Dark matter was tying together entire galaxy clusters beyond the scope of gravity itself. From the strained, twisted, fleeing lines on the data i glimpsed on the monitor, it was doing the same to the very stuff of matter. It was herding. It was chasing. It was hunting.

Dark matter refused to be detected, or even refused to interact with matter, because it didn't want to.

It was remaining out of sight, intelligently and deliberately.

And it was at this thought that I took my tray of untouched food, tossed it onto the disposal rack, and walked out of the VLHC complex for the last time.

The very drive of evolution is to survive. There's no recourse. There's no points for good behavior, or being the smartest. The only way through is to avoid the threat. Fight, freeze, flee. I choose flee.

I'm now in a boring office job, handling paper files and analog systems. The only displays in the entire building are seven-segment displays on old retro watches. I choose to reply to this email now only to perhaps serve as a warning to the rest of the scientific community in the wake of this discovery.

It is a breakthrough that will change our understanding of the universe, for the worse.

I hope now you can see why.

Your fellow survivor,

Dominic

Terra's Wake - Chapter 4

 

CIC Gold Wing Special Standing Protocols

Re: Betelar Federal Colony

Council expects no issues from Betelar authorities, but the problems could arise unexpectedly given the length of time without significant contact. Fascist influence could be in place and we might not know it. Be smart about who official contact is made with when beginning negotiations.

Re: Skygaard Independent Fleet

Council believes Skygaard will be the most likely to cooperate given the ideological leanings. The only complication being the nature of any agreement and a perceived sense of being given the short end of the stick on the part of the more sensitive partisans in the Skygaard arbiters.

Re: Mantonian Planetary Authority

The Authority on Mantos will be the most difficult to approach, and war will not be an acceptable outcome, but Council reminds the flotillas that overly-generous concessions will not be accepted either.

Appeal to Terran unity as a core issue, but make it clear that we do not accept threats as a matter of course.

Director Andre Yakovich will be providing reports to the Council regularly, and will be expecting direct communication regarding new developments in the course of negotiations. Yakovich is given special authority by the Council to accept or deny terms on behalf of the Council and will be transmitting any agreements that may be reached to the Council for adoption. When Director Yakovich is off-duty, Assistant Director Prim Shackleton will take messages and send approved communiques.

Max

“We’re ready,” Parker shouted from down the central corridor, his voice reverberating off the metal bulkheads. “She’s good as new!”

“Awesome, thank you, Mr. Burnham,” I shout back.

Turning around to face the twin viewscreens at the fore of the ship, showing the three other ships in our Betel-bound flotilla, alongside the brown and patchy-green world of Carina below.

I pull the tiny, metallic microphone on my headset closer to my mouth. “This is Captain Max Gomez-Velasco calling the Betel Flotilla, Gold Wing. Come in.”

A few moments pass and the calls of captains and officers of the other ships filter in, taking care not to step on each other’s transmissions. The Mozambique, the Ceres, and the Endeavor float silently, berths attached to their docks, in a neat row next to the Verdant.

On the transponder screen, the signals of eight other ships, four of each to both Skygaard and Mantos, share the station.

I look to my right, Sophie sits right next to me on a similar chair, her screens tuned to engineering and communications information. “Only waiting on Rosa and we can go early,” I say.

“Where is she?”

“Gathering her luggage.”

Sophie chuckles. “Rookie mistake.”

“Heh, yeah,” I laugh. “I’ve done it before.”

“Of course you have.”

“It’s not that bad,” Parker yells from down the corridor, walking up to the bridge. “She could’ve forgotten until after we left.”

“Okay, I’ve done that before,” Sophie says.

“She’ll be back before long,” I say.

Rosa

The rail-shuttle ride from my apartment back to the spaceport was longer than my first trip. It felt like time dilated physically in the car I was riding in. Two rows in front of me sat an elderly man, looking at something on his commpad. Four or five rows behind me were two teenagers leaning on one another, half asleep. In my mind sat Captain Gomez-Velasco and Vice-Captain Paradiso, staring at me accusingly. They are right to do so. I shouldn’t be here, I should be wherever Earth is, whatever the void after nonexistence is.

Living here, seeing the people, watching the star Carina rise and fall every day, bright red over the newly-terraformed sky, changed something. The Enemy weren’t dangerous. The Enemy wasn’t the cause of the Scream.

As I remember every fact about my situation, I feel my stomach drop into free fall. The only thing suspending it is some hidden conviction in the deepest recesses of my mind. Some part I can’t access, some part screaming to complete the mission. It understands that I’d get attached to a place I’ve lived in for over two decades. It understands that being a part of the community was always a risk to morale. That’s what they drilled into me at training. Deep cover requires impeccable mental fortitude, a strong sense of detachment, a deep dedication to the mission.

The mission.

Climb CIC ranks. Become indispensable. Remain committed.

The final briefing still rings in my head, the round conference room and the blinding florescent lights, the shape of the Jovian clouds out the window, seeing Jovia hanging by a thread over the infinitely deep cloud ocean of a gas giant; its emergency thrusters at full power while evac shuttles scatter into orbit like birds fleeing a falling tree.

The first step was a long fall.

That’s what she always said, our mission would begin with an attack on the floating city of Jovia. Tens of thousands of people scattered into that gusty wind were tens of thousands of people that couldn’t oppose the Militia.

The Terran government is weak and they don’t even know it, but the opposition is aware of us and still dangerous, she said.

The shuttle chimes. The old man stands up and slowly shuffles off the rail-shuttle into a park, greener than any I’ve ever seen, even on Earth. Acceleration pushes me back into my seat as it disappears behind buildings overtaking one another in the parallax.

The nations of Old Earth never expected their own downfall, but they did walk blindly into it. That’s when Earth became Terra, when The Sun became Sol.

Andromeda was her name. Her parents were always poetic and obsessed with old schlocky science fiction, when humanity dreamed of what we have now. Obsessed with the time when, even after having its spirits broken by the Ten Minute War, killing hundreds of millions in the course of a day while still only dipping its toe tentatively into the murky black of the galaxy, Humanity dreamed of something large, something beautiful.

The rail-shuttle pulled to a stop in front of a university, and the two lovers quickly sauntered onto the awaiting platform. And just like that, I was left alone. I breathe a sigh of relief.

I expect nothing of Terra, I expect everything from myself. I expect the same of you.

Andromeda espoused the idea that the most important thing in the world was devotion to Terra. We could have a family, in service of Terra. We could have a hobby, in the service of bettering Terra. Anything else was wasteful extravagance, wasteful energy, wasteful devotion. Nothing meant anything unless it was meant exclusively for Terra.

Is that why she ordered its destruction? I ask myself. Some invisible force in my head self-polices my thoughts. It was necessary. It was right. It was for Terra.

Our allies on Mantos maintain devotion to Terra. The other colonies abandon their birthplace. They abandon their birthmother. They don’t deserve her.

The rail-shuttle approaches a junction. Clanking, clattering, thumping, the chassis of the vehicle rotates onto a vertical rail shooting straight up, and begins to accelerate upwards. Through the window over my head, the spaceport grows closer, built on skeleton-like scaffolding two kilometers above the rolling hills that shape New Luksemburg.

Their departure from Sol is not the problem. We must expand or die, but their devotion fails when they build new experiments of society among alien stars, on alien worlds. Abandoning the lessons millions of years of evolution has ingrained into our minds will lead them down the road of hubris, and like it or not, we have a duty to our fellow Man to guide them down the right path.

We must save them.

We’re saving them from themselves, from their hubris, from the destruction that their cosmic hubris will enact.

It’s the only way to secure the future.

The Thing (writing exercise)

 Elaine woke up suddenly and quietly, ensuring her muted departure from the realms of sleep didn't startle to wakefulness her love beside her. Elaine's nightmare wasn't something she particularly remembered in the moment, the feeling of fear, the sensation of suspense lingered in her heart but everything beyond that escaped her attempts to survey her mood.

Across the room, stained midnight-blue by the full moon hanging quietly in the window, a mirror on a dresser showed her what she looked like in that moment. The white sheets waved, furled, flowed, and spilled out over the side of the bed, the ocean of cotton and silk splayed out over the milk-white mattress which supported her up away from the dark chocolate-black floor. Something crawled there.

Despite the moon's best efforts to illuminate the scene, the dark thing slinking across the hardwood attracted no highlights of silver that every other textured thing in the room had adorned on it, like millions of tiny crescents spangling across the scattered jewelry on the nightstand, the harsh geometries of the crystalline light fixture above her, the streaks in the hair of Elaine's love, they all caught and held onto light like a gentle caress. The thing did not. Its darkness and formlessness betrayed itself against the detail of everything around it. Its silence betrayed itself against the gentle rustling of the sheets as Elaine's love rolled over in her sleep. Elaine tensed and heard the bed frame creak beneath her to accommodate the new load. The trees outside shimmered in the wind. The thing did not make a sound of any kind as it sprawled out across the inky black floor.

Elaine tried to suppress a scream, it emerged a whimper. As far as she was concerned, she may as well have demonstrated to the thing exactly what to do to make her a prey. The crocodilian nature of the thing made itself clear, rising up to eye-level with her. She was shaking in bed, hardly moving a muscle but the fear that lived in her bones and in her eyes leaked out as juttering and jittering. It stared at her and she stared at it for a while before soon enough, Elaine woke up suddenly and loudly. The sun burst orange through the curtains, crystalline lighting fixture overhead scattering yellow-white beams across the walls. The grain of the chocolate-brown wood floor spiraled and swayed below the bed of Elaine and her love. Out in the kitchen, Elaine heard a clattering in the kitchen.

"El? Are you alright?"

Elaine didn't answer. She didn't know how to answer. She didn't know if she was alright.

Terra's Wake - Chapter 3

Rosa Huang

The bench at the space dock is hurting my back. Captain Gomez-Velasco isn’t here yet, nor is the Vice-captain or the Chief Engineer. Should I just go to the bar or something? Should I stay he-

“Hello, Ms. Huang, I assume?”

Captain’s here.

I stand up straight, stop myself from doing a salute. It’s trained too deeply into my mind. “Hello, sir.”

“Glad to see you here, I actually wanted to run down some ship-related things with you,” He smiles, extending his right arm for a handshake and hefting his luggage with his left.

I didn’t bring any luggage.

I shake his hand, “I, uh, I’m willing to talk with you… but I have to go back planet-side really quick.”

“Why?”

“I got too… excited… and left my luggage in my apartment.” God he’s going to request another pilot, this is stupi-

He chuckles, “I’ve done that before on my first mission, too. Don’t beat yourself up too much.”

What.

“Ri- uh, right,” I stammer.

“I’ll meet you on the bridge when you get back,” he says and goes to the airlock door.

That would never happen in the Militia, I think to myself before spinning on my heels.

***

My apartment is simple, on the hundred-and-fiftieth floor, overlooking a small park where I can see street vendors and their customers lining around the block, in between trees. I pick up a little bag out of the closet and pull open my squat, cheap, little wooden dresser. Three red uniforms, some underwear, an extra set of shoes.

As I lift my shoes out of the drawer, the navy blue-black of my old uniform reveals itself. The silver emblem on the lapel reflects the red sunlight that’s drifting in through the window: a pointed chevron holding up a bright blue sphere. Terra on the precipice, Terra in balance. The two ideas had to coexist: perpetual danger and perpetual greatness. Else, there would be no Terra left.

That was the idea, anyways. The Militia destroyed Sol because they couldn’t stand not being in charge. I don’t know how I didn’t see the illogical nature of the Militia sooner. It took the apocalypse for me to finally work up the courage to leave.

I catch myself staring at this little lapel pin and put it down, burying it under some socks and spare shirts, and slide the drawer shut. I look around the small, simple room. Even this small accommodation is better than anything that would be provided by the Militia, even if I was the best pilot they’ve ever seen.

Pling.

I freeze. The notification sound is partly muted, soft, and distant. I know exactly what it is. Slowly, I turn back to the dresser and open the bottom drawer, move aside the blue fabric of my old uniforms, and lift a square and chunky commpad out. The top left corner, the Militia emblem was embossed. A single notification flag showed on the black screen.

_STATUS?

I let out a shaky sigh and swipe up on the screen. A round keyboard appears under my palm and I instinctively begin typing out a reply.

_{MISSION IS GO. PLACED ON VERDANT. DESTINATION IS BETEL.}

A moment passes while I hold the awkwardly-shaped pad in my lap. I see a rail-shuttle slide by the window, its tinted windows refracting golden-red light around my room like an animated stained glass window.

Pling.

_{NEGATIVE. DO NOT ENGAGE PLAN ON VERDANT. AGENTS IN PLACE ON BETEL.}

Oh thank god, I sigh hard. The commpad slides off my legs onto the hardwood floor with a plastic clatter. I rub my eyes and stand back up.

* * *

Parker Burnham

Fszzzhf.
Fszzzhf.
Fszzzhf.
Clink.

Fuck.

The little screw bounces around oddly in the low gravity, defying any attempt I make at grasping at it. Finally I am able to corral it into my chest, bluntly and awkwardly using both my arms. Carefully reaching into the safe little nest it made itself, I pick out the escapist screw and softly place it onto the magnetic screwdriver tip.

Fszzzhf.

There. Final panel put back in place, I’m able to mark off checking the engine control unit circuitry on the pre-flight.

Clang.

Clang.

Clang.

What’s that?

I poke my head up from behind the engine control console. A short, dark man with long, slick, black hair stands in the middle of the bridge, looking out the viewscreens.

“Can I help you?” I ask.

He jumps, startled, clutching his commpad to his chest, and he’s frozen like a statue for a moment before chuckling to himself and shaking his head.

I stand up fully, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s no big deal, I thought I was the first one on board.” He extends a hand out to me, over the console. “I’m Captain Max.”

Oh shit.

I shake his hand quickly.

Probably too quick. Oh, don’t worry about this now.

“I’m Parker, the chief engineer,” I stammer out.

“Oh good! I was wondering when I’d meet you,” he smiles. “How’s the Verdant?”

I put both hands on my hips, following the captain’s gaze around the bridge. “She’s in top shape, if I didn’t know better I’d think she came out of the shipyard yesterday.”

“Wonderful.”

“Yes, wonderful,” I agree.

We both stand in the muted white LED light for a moment longer before I continue speaking.

“I hope you don’t mind, I’m going to the engine room to finish my pre-flight.”

“Please!” He says, “Don’t let me keep you.”

I tap my chest and he nods. Putting my head down, I walk through the open bulkhead at the rear of the bridge and down the narrow corridor that runs the length of the ship, from bridge to the closet at the rear of engineering. All one hundred and nine feet, eleven and-a-half inches. Crews four, umbragenic drive rated for seven hundred and fifty light years before the risk of overheating becomes significant. Deployable emergency radiators and a solar sail should the drive be pushed beyond its limits and fail. But the problem with umbragenic propulsion is that, when it fails, it doesn’t just stop working. The drive keeps warping space, keeps pushing the ship along, until the space around the ship gains enough energy to become a black hole.

But that’s only if you push it.

Einstein stays happy because you’re not pushing the ship, you’re pushing the space around the ship. Standard relativity stuff, but it’s what lets us fly among the stars. Captain stays happy because he gets to where he wants to go.

Pling.

A new flag shows up on my commpad, strapped to my arm with velcro, airlock door opens and closes.

That’s three of four.

it doesn’t take long to reach the back of the ship. It’s short. It’s compact. It’s efficient.

The last thing on the pre-flight checklist is the umbragenic drive diagnostic. Three simple button presses on the console and that should be done within the hour.

Pre-flight done ten hours early.

 

 

Terra's Wake - Chapter 2

 

Chapter 2 - Sophie Paradiso

Five years ago.

Edgar isn’t coming. His last communication denounced us as a family of cowards. He says we’re disappointments to Sol, to Terra, to the entire human race. All that militia bullshit. But when the Scream happened, and he didn’t run away to us, and when I knew he was dead—when I knew he and the Militia killed Elli, was when I finally let myself cry.

Oh, hell, did I cry.

I wanted to sink into the floor where I stood, my mother held me in her arms, comforting me even though I didn’t want her comfort. I tried and tried to escape her embrace but she held on to me, grabbed a chair from behind her, and slid it underneath me. She made me sit.

It felt like she stopped my free fall with that chair, she denied me the time to wallow and allowed me time to think. She knelt down on her bad knees to get face to face with me, tears navigating the creases and folds of her own face, and spoke to me. I couldn’t hear it between my own chokes and sobs and the whining tone that screamed from the inside of my head, like my brain was thrashing around in its own sorrow, but I certainly could feel the words she said.

“Cry now, cry hard,” she said. “But tomorrow we’ll remember. Tomorrow we’ll remember Elli and Edgar.

I didn’t want to remember Edgar. I wanted Elli back in my arms, I wanted to rip her from whatever disaster befell Mars and the Sol system, and hold her and never let go.

For years, I watched the star that hung silently over the mountain range to the northwest, where I knew she was. That light is from when Elli and I were together. That light washed over Jupiter as we hugged for the last time on Jovia. That light emitted from the sun when Elli was on Mars, doing whatever she was doing. Maybe she was at work when it happened. Maybe she was at home watching the TV. Maybe she was on her balcony looking up at Carina.

I had blinked.

I had looked away for a second.

I had looked down to pet my cat.

My neighbors gasped.

When I looked up, the soft fur pushing itself against my leg in the cold night air, the quiet star was gone.

I thought I had lost it, I thought I’d misplaced it momentarily

The warm light was gone, and this time I had nothing to stop my crying.

I ran into a sheer cliff of logic. There’s no logical response to seeing a star just blink out of existence. But it wasn’t there. She wasn’t there.

Terra's Wake - Chapter 1

 

1. Max Gomez-Velasco

“Twenty years ago, Terra screamed,” the director said.

“Every light-radio channel lit up with as many desperate voices speaking in as many desperate languages as could fit in the nigh-unregulated electromagnetic radio spectrum. The quantum telegraphs flipped out of control, spitting out message after message. The New Solar Militia had unleashed something terrible, something beyond scientific understanding, and then they were gone.

“A few more warpships faded in on the outer edges of the Carina system, packed full to the brim with desperate people fleeing the cradle of humanity, but then they stopped coming.

“Over a decade later, with very little understanding of what happened back in the ancestral home of our species, the authorities of Carina ordered everything that could pick up a radio signal point at the dim little star named Sol. As the photons finished their fifteen light-year journey to Carina, they stopped coming too.

“Sol winked into darkness.” He let the weight of those words rest on the heads of everyone in attendance for a moment before continuing, “Any expedition there to examine what might remain has reported the exact same thing: nothing.”

The auditorium was silent. The stinging void in space where Sol and Earth used to be was also stinging the minds of every human that sat in the arched rows, silently twiddling pens and styluses in the shared remembrance of the event. Some here were children on the warpships that fled.

“So, that leaves the children of Terra scattered,” Director Yakovich announced finally. He let the room stew in the mock funeral for Earth as long as he could bear. “We’ve had infrequent contact with the other three colonies, very little trade, and definitely not any academic or scientific exchange.

“So that’s where you come in.” He clicked the remote in his hand, and the lights fade up on the simple auditorium. The black walls behind him were lined with screens that duplicated his image and banners for the Carinaean Republic, waving lightly in the recirculated air. “You captains and vice-captains assembled here are to dispatch on a mission of good-will diplomacy, to reconnect humanity and rebuild the infrastructure that Sol was maintaining.”

My commpad beeped, one in a small and quiet chorus of other devices alerting their owners.

“Each of you is receiving a ship to command, a small crew, and as many resources as you may need. Your command is hereby reorganized, by authority of the Carinaean Council of Ministers, into Special Detachment Gold Wing, under the Carinaean Interstellar Corps.” The director paused, adjusted his uniform, and continued, “I am your fleet commander and therefore your point-of-contact with Carina. If you run into unforeseen difficulties that are not outlined in the mission briefs you’ve been sent, you are to q-telegraph me at once.”

The director set down the remote on a desk in the center of the room. “You depart in twenty-two hours. Dismissed.”

There was a rumble of personal items being collected, chairs being pushed in and out, commpads waking up, and voices of people in several languages as they all collectively spread out towards the exits.

Sophie looked at me, “Well, Captain Max,” she said lightheartedly. “I have to go hire a cat-sitter. I’ll meet you at the docks?”

“Agreed, Vice-captain,” I said. “Twenty-two hours.”

She smiled and picked up her heavy faux-leather coat. A rainbow of patches from various ships and missions were arranged on its back, and as she draped it over her arm it appeared as if she was wearing the patches more than the coat.

Terra's Wake

Twenty years ago, Terra screamed.

Every radio channel lit up with as many desperate voices speaking in as many desperate languages in as many radio bands could hold them. The quantum telegraphs flipped out of control, spitting out message after message. The Solar Militia had done something terrible, something beyond scientific understanding, and then they were gone. A few more ships warped in, fleeing the cradle of humanity, but then they stopped coming.

A few years later, as the photons finished their three light year journey here to Carina, they stopped coming too.

Sol winked into darkness.