Dimension

by Shay Zana

  This is where the study and development of cryo-plugs caused controversy within Serenity. Because the blood vessels that are connected to the placenta and umbilical cord eventually wither after birth, this process of using a cryo-plug would be ineffective, so soldiers or civilians willing to use this method of cryogenic freezing needed to undergo an operation to install new blood vessels that connected to the navel, with the help of bionic implants. Many within Serenity opposed this method, but this disagreement was eventually settled when the Ciphers sanctioned the cryo-plugs, stating that only permanent genetic alterations are forbidden, and that the use of bionic implants and non-permanent biological augmentations did not adversely alter the natural path of evolution.

  "Faith," Natheus says simply as he waits, prepared for the moment to enter his cryo-stasis and hibernate for over forty million years, though believing that the Zodiacs will bring them some luck and let their distress signal be found by a passing ikamanu before the stars die. What will humanity be like forty million years in the future?

  Deo attempts to stretch inside his SSP, waiting also with a furrowed brow, his tan skin slightly permeated with sweat.

  Mazayus' dark skin is also slightly shimmering with a light coat of sweat. The lithium hydroxide canisters do a fine job of reducing the build up of carbon dioxide, but the pods could also use air conditioning from the build up of body heat... "It has been an honour serving with the three finest of Paragons, and it has also been an honour to live in the presence of a Cipher, though I regret your possible fate. If only there was more we could do to repay your efforts over the years."

  Kitera listens with a heavy heart, though her expression remains cold and stern, a thick mask she has learned to use. "It has been a long journey, and although I did not expect it to end like this, I keep hope in my heart still for you all and this galaxy. Etami’na Asta alaf’i naatil."

  "Kiya..." Boone pleads gently, not wanting to accept this inevitability. It is cruel, unfair, unacceptable.

  "I have surrendered to death," she replies almost instantly, as if she knew he would object. "And you also need to. It was my task to protect you, not the opposite. If one of us is to die, then let it be the one who no longer has any use."

  "No use? We can't do this without your guidance."

  Kitera scowls as she listens to Boone. "You have to," she insists as firmly as she can, her voice sounding slightly weak from the thinning oxygen in her pod.

  Boone sighs and curses quietly, resting his head back into the doughy substance around the inside of his SSP. "We'll figure something out," he says determinedly, refusing to accept this inevitability.

  "Let’s get tucked in. If our bad luck continues like this, then I guess we'll be seeing each other again in a few million years on a dead planet," Deo says with mock brightness as he activates his cryo-plug and waits for the uncomfortable sensation.

  “Sweet dreams, guys,” Boone adds with less enthusiasm.

  Everyone activates their cryo-plugs in unison, taking a deep, final breath. For the Paragons, the process is automatic as the vitasuits already have a morphing opening to the navel, allowing for a seamless connection. But for Kitera, she must pull her garments aside to allow the cryo-plug access to her navel. She clutches for her pendent in a moment of peace.

  The cryo-plug is constructed of both organic flesh grown from human DNA, and nikita. They emerge from a small compartment on the top of the pod's interior like snaking arms, uncurling and scanning for their requested target. The tips of the cryo-plugs are as thin as a needle, which injects the cryo-protectants into the navel. To connect, the bionic implants and the cryo-plug stream trajectory data between one another, allowing the seamless connection to be made.

  Kitera takes a breath and now closes her eyes before the connection is made, the cryo-plug inserting itself in place with a sharp initial pain. This pulls a short grunt from her throat, but the pain is gone quickly and she soon feels nothing as her senses numb, now hibernating in cryo-stasis.

  The interior of each SSP is filled with the now expanded gel-like liquid that initially served as padding. Once the organic liquid fills the entire pod, it freezes like a coolant, used for regulating temperatures and protecting the occupant in case of a failed landing. The liquid is also a breathing mix, infused with oxygen to provide if something were to fail and the oxygen vents. Just like an infant in the womb, humanity has utilized the method of breathing oxygenated liquid, though the sensation is very uncomfortable. If nothing goes wrong, they will not have to breathe the liquid.

  Now, the cluster of pods warp into SSII, generating an envelope of artificial dimension between normal space. This increases the rate of star shift; the speed of light, and allows the pods to travel inside a wave of particles with infinite mass, bending through the spacetime continuum.

  The pods blueshift, vanishing into the dark night with their occupants in deep hibernation, waiting for the day when they can once again, walk the shadows.

  SURRENDER TO HOPE

  Lights, flashing lights. A droning alarm. Nausea. Pain.

  His hands rise to his eyelids, and his gloved fingers rub at them sluggishly, trying to push away the drowsiness. Mazayus grimaces silently as his senses begin to flood back to him. He can see flashing through his still closed eyelids, and a repeating feminine voice through his still muted eardrums. The exposed skin on his face, head and upper neck is cold, the air still chilled and thawing from the cryonic process.

  At first, his memory evades him. Who is he? Where is he? When is he? But now his brain kicks into action and he remembers their dire situation, their last desperate attempt at saving Scattered Planet. He knows he is still in his SSP, his body is still weightless with zero gravity, and if they had been found and were aboard an ikamanu, there would be gravity. This means that their last stand has failed, and they are still in space, floating in a now dead galaxy, soon to join with the ghosts of those who they failed to protect. It does not feel as though it has been over forty million years since he was last awake, more like a few months. By the gods, does humanity still exist? Has an alien species revealed itself and eradicated the human race? A universal epidemic? Self destruction from war? Have all other galaxies perished the way Scattered Planet did? Space zombies, perhaps? No, that is something only Boone would think up. Answers will come in due time. Survival must be the focus for now.

  Of course the Paragons still have a chance of survival if they can find their way in the dark to a military facility once they land, but the chance of there still being reserved light energy after so long is low. And Kitera... He has failed her.

  Serenity nearly only relies on light energy to power their technology, being the cleanest means of power and now the most efficient and plentiful since technology to harness it has improved. Datakeys, holograms, solidgrams and kinetic shields and barriers are all powered by light energy. Star shards are used to harness the light energy of stars, connected to light relays. An entire city can survive without direct light for over three months, and when the planet’s star is giving more than enough light, the light energy can be captured and stored for backup use in case of a long winter. Of course on space stations or on planets with low climates and dense cloud cover, light energy is either shipped in large generator cargos, or the process of light energy is replaced with hydro or wind energy.

  “Collision imminent. Collision imminent. Collision imminent.”

  Mazayus’ eyes spring open to the alarming warning of his SSP, and now he blinks rapidly, trying to clear his blurred vision and weary retinas. Veils of grogginess seem to evaporate before him, exposing the holographic readings riding along his pod’s interior. A dizzying cascade of symbols and calculations that he is unable to decipher right at this waking hour, but the alert of an imminent collision is enough to wake his mind and thrust him into full action.

  Mazayus flicks through the feeds hastily to find out what exactly they are on a collision course with. His question is however not answered by his pod’s ext
ernal readings, but by the view out his SSP window as the pod rotates around enough to show a looming black wall of glossy nikita.

  Olympus, and all other Serenity military strong points like it, are surrounded by guardian stations that sit in wide, artificial orbit around the planets, outside of the exosphere. The stations are constructed of mostly nikita, and serve as protection against any invading force, mounted with heavy shard orbital cannons that span the entire ring.

  The first thought that invades Mazayus’ mind is not of the danger he is in, but the fact that the material of the nikita is shiny. Where is the reflection coming from if Scattered Planet’s stars are already dead?

  As his SSP rotates around more, the blaring parent star of Olympus fills his vision. Messiah, the K-type main sequence star of the Messiah System, is very much alive and beaming with brightness, heat and orange beauty. Its burning brilliance sets a warm glow to Olympus and its guardian station, the blue nebulous gas that surrounds the planet seeming to be enhanced with iridescent shades of purple. The stunning mixture of colour is vibrant, almost ethereal. This orange dwarf star’s very existence has the Paragon frozen in surprise.

  “Collision imminent. Collision imminent. Collision imminent.”

  Shaking his head, Mazayus sets his confusion aside and activates manual navigation of his SSP. “Everybody, wake up! We gotta move!” he barks into the communications channel, hoping to get them moving in time to dodge the guardian station, which is growing larger every second they draw nearer.

  The others begin to awaken, but too slowly for Mazayus’ liking as he takes advantage of the sync between the cluster of pods. As he navigates his SSP, the other four pods mimic the actions, moving as one as their propulsion thrusters blast them through space. The others catch a glimpse of Messiah in their slumber, all equally as confused as Mazayus as they watch the star just continue existing, filling their SSP’s with pleasant light.

  Mazayus continues to navigate the cluster of pods, ducking them underneath the glossy black guardian station.

  “Detection! Impact in three…” comes the complaining voice of the SSP, programmed to be alarming as it warns of danger.

  Mazayus struggles to keep the pods in a consecutive burn without losing momentum. If he pushes their trajectory at too steep of an angle, they could veer too far off course, but if he pulls too close to the station, its artificial gravity could pull them in.

  “…two…”

  The cluster of pods are mere metres away from grazing the underside of the station, and the other four in their pods are now fully awake, watching in anticipation at the approaching wall of nikita. Why have the personnel aboard the station not reprogrammed the pods to auto navigate into the station’s docks?

  “…one.”

  Mazayus groans, grimaces, and pulls the pods under the station and increases burn at the very last second to escape its gravity field, succeeding in dodging the guardian station and continuing towards Olympus’ exosphere.

  A million questions buzz around their heads as the earth-like planet slowly enlarges, wonder catapulting through them. Its star seems to have cheated death. The space surrounding them is still littered with distant stars, twinkling innocently as they either reflect light or burn it radiantly. Scattered Planet is alive.

  The cluster of pods; like specks of dust in a tornado of light, drift towards Olympus as they enter the planet’s exosphere, curving between the two moons, Mara, and Phila, as are displaying on their feeds. For the five occupants, the drift is all too fast, not giving them the opportunity to savour the light and heat on their bare skin.

  “Am I in the Underworld?” Boone speaks first to break apart the chilling silence that has formulated.

  “If we are, then Hades has outdone himself.” A croaky reply from an awaken Deo.

  They all break from their reveries and flick up what info they can within their datakeys regarding Olympus. At approximately 1.2 AU from Messiah, Olympus’ surface temperature is fairly similar to Earth, with an axial tilt that enables four seasons throughout one Olympus year. With a surface gravity of 1.03 g, this celestial body is often referred to as ‘Earth’s tougher sister.’

  The planet owns forty one natural satellites which are tidally locked in a close orbit, making the construction of the guardian station possible without interference from colliding moons. Luckily for Olympus, the tidal influence is something of a phenomenon and only slightly stronger than Earth’s. Most of the moons are inside Olympus’ roche radius, and no explanation has yet been given as to why the presence of forty one close orbiting moons has not had a much larger affect on the planet’s tides, or even destroyed the moons completely. Some scientists have speculated that this may be because of the tidal locking. If the planet’s moons were not all tidally locked in the same direction, the tidal effect could be chaotic with devastating tectonic activity, rough ocean currents, and ravaging weather patterns.

  All Serenity military centres are carefully selected for safe environments, especially conditions that are necessary for guardian stations to orbit securely. The difference between Serenity and the UEU when colonizing military planets is that Serenity builds around the planet’s natural ways, where as the UEU manipulates and engineers the planet’s environments, terraforming them to their liking.

  How much has Olympus changed in forty million years? Has it thrived, or floundered in some sort of apocalyptic event? In geological terms, forty million years is a minor timescale. Landmasses will have changed, terrain risen or deepened, oceans drying up or shifting currents, entire landscapes altered, but these cycle of events are as common as the skin of the human body exfoliating and renewing in layers.

  Eventually, the SSP’s hit the troposphere of Olympus, their pods protected by the ikamanu skin on the outer layer, which is acting as a durable ablative coat against the build-up of heat. The occupants now have gravity inside their pods, and have buckled themselves against the gel-like inner padding, which has set itself back into place and reformed after the cryonic process.

  The cluster of pods dives vertically, heading for the planet’s surface at a rushing speed. The pods automatically dive at a sharp angle, defeating the risk of atmospheric thrust due to perfect symmetrical design. The forward sections of the SSP’s are blunt, helping to keep the hot air further away from the pods by creating a shockwave. The particles in the atmosphere hit the pods and generate friction, slowing the rate of descent by creating drag. The ikamanu skin exceeds temperatures of over 1500 degrees Celsius during re-entry, and can withstand temperatures of roughly up to 3000 degrees Celsius before breaking down and disintegrating.

  Deo grits his teeth against the intense pressure of the g-force as he dives feet first toward the planet’s surface. Although the Paragon loves the thrill of re-entry, he also knows the danger and the high possibility of something going wrong. His body is trained to withstand high level g-force pressure and prevent G-LOC, or g-induced loss of consciousness, and the vitasuits are designed to mitigate this and keep the body’s blood flow stimulated and evenly distributed. The vitasuits internally inflate around the abdomen and legs to prevent the blood circulation from rushing to these areas. When the blood circulation is impaired, the heart cannot pump blood to the brain fast enough, causing a multitude of problems.

  Re-entry in SSP’s is always harrowing. The pods were designed to drop troops in the thick of battle, escaping from a ruined naval vessel, so to avoid falling targets to prying orbital guns, re-entry speeds have increased. The SSP’s increase the rate of descent by powering through the atmosphere with the extra aid of thrusters. This pulls severe g-force levels.

  The SSP’s reach an altitude of 3000 feet, and deploy their braking thrusters to create further air resistance. The five occupants are thumped around inside their pods during the unsubtle drag, but now are relieved of the pressure slowly as their steep descent decreases.

  Natheus can make out a long mountainous range below, stretching for many miles, though with the pressure inside
his pod, he can barely move his head. A vast blue jungle lies beneath them, with a biome of lush vegetation and native fern lands, thick with laces of vines and towering trees. In amongst the forestry, the lands are littered with gigantic boulders the size of ikamanu. The native flora and fauna of Olympus typically ranges from blues to greys, seeming to match the cosmic dust that surrounds the planet. Below, grazing herds of canterpaws scatter and flee within the foliage from the falling pods in the sky, their sensitive hearing detecting and pinpointing the exact location of the objects. Natheus watches them nonchalantly, though his mind is rattled by questions, possibilities and regrets. His wife would have lived a full life, but he cannot help but feel saddened. She never would have known what happened to him, forty million years ago... but at least she would have lived, for whatever reason Scattered Planet had too. A miracle, perhaps?

  Olympus is a beautiful world, but it is one of many in this galaxy. Scattered Planet is thriving with legendary attractions and exotic lifeforms that bring scientists of all genres to study and learn all they can. Olympus is well known for its similarity to Earth and its almost identical atmosphere. The planet’s top land predator, the bezun, is also fairly similar to a lion, though more canine in appearance than feline. All in all, Olympus would have been a perfect place for migrating Earthlings, if Serenity had not colonized it as a military planet due to its ideal location in the outer edges of the galaxy.

  As the SSP’s slow, the land below them can be seen more clearly, highlighted by the orange starlight of Messiah as it dips and fills the lands. Blue foliage is visible for kilometres upon kilometres, with vibrant flecks of golden veins through the leaves which meld warmly with Messiah’s light.

  Subtly, the pods come to a vertical standstill and hover one metre above the ground, the thrusters spurting heated blue flames and blowing a hot wind in a five metre radius. Now the SSP’s evenly turn flat as the thrusters reposition around centre mass, and the pods begin to float downwards until they settle on the flat ground, the thrusters ceasing.