by M. D. Cooper
Cary finished her stretching, and palmed her quarters’ door, ready to start at a slow jog. As the portal slid open, she stepped out and almost walked right into Saanvi, who wore a large grin and was almost bouncing with enthusiasm.
“Cary, Faleena! Good, you’re up! Come to the lab, come! We’ve figured it out.”
<’It’?> Faleena asked.
“Yeah, ‘it’. How to detect and contain any remnant and shard we find.”
“Seriously?” Cary asked. “Just like that?”
“Cary, we’ve been here for over seven weeks. No, not ‘just like that’.”
“Right,” Cary said as she walked out of her quarters and followed her sister down the hall. “I mean, when I went to bed, you were all banging your collective heads against the wall. Now you’ve just got it sorted?”
“Well, we think we have. We’re going to have to let the remnant out to test it.”
Cary swallowed. “Uh, kay.”
Saanvi glanced back at her. “You knew we’d have to do that eventually. We can’t be sure that we can capture and contain a remnant if we don’t try it on the one we have.”
“What if it fakes it?” Cary asked. “Tricks us into thinking we can capture it.”
“Possible,” Saanvi said with an exaggerated shrug as they turned the corner down the hall to Earnest’s lab. “But Trine will be watching, and maybe we’ll be able to see.”
“That’s weird to hear you refer to ‘us’ in the third person.”
“Language kinda fails to describe what we can do,” Saanvi replied as she pushed open the door to Earnest’s lab and held it for Cary.
“Damn, it’s cold in here,” Cary said, rubbing her arms.
“Well yeah, you’re dressed for exercising. Why’s that?”
Cary rolled her eyes at her sister. “Because I was going to exercise, before you appeared and dragged me here.”
Saanvi frowned. “Why didn’t you change?”
Cary gave an exasperated groan. “Because you acted like the world would end if I didn’t come with you right away, Sahn!”
“Hmm…I guess I did. Oh well, you’ll warm up.” Saanvi rubbed a hand up and down Cary’s arm. “This help?”
“Sahn, cut it out!” Cary jerked her arm away.
Saanvi grinned. “Maybe I should have let you get that run in, sister grumpy pants.”
“They’re running tights, not pants.”
“Tights are pants,” Saanvi countered.
Cary groaned. “We’re not having this argument again.”
Saanvi gave an all-too-chipper chuckle and the two women walked to the table where the remnant floated, the brane Cary had created floating in a magnetic field.
Leads were connected to the silver bands that wrapped around it, and several probes were situated next to the brane, providing real-time data on energy readings coming off the remnant.
Next to the table, their heads together in discussion, were Earnest and two of his top researchers, Harl and Kirsty. His wife Abby was also standing a few meters away, staring intently at the remnant.
Cary had never been entirely comfortable in Abby’s presence. The woman felt like a tightly-wound spring that was about to either snap, or break free of what held it and fly about, wreaking havoc.
There were also rumors that their mother and Abby had been at odds a number of times in the past. It made Cary wonder how much the woman really liked them.
“Ah!” Earnest proclaimed when he saw Cary and Saanvi approach. “Just the two transdimensionally powerful beings we’ve been waiting for.”
“We’re just one transdimensionally powerful being,” Saanvi corrected. “Separately, we’re just a couple of girls.”
Cary turned her head up and sniffed disdainfully. “I don’t know about you, Sahn, but I’m a woman.”
“Sure, Cary.” Saanvi laughed and bumped her hip against Cary’s. “You’re all woman.”
Cary blushed and wished she’d gotten changed all the more.
“Yes, well, we’re ready if you are,” Earnest said with a nod to Harl and Kirsty. He walked to the table and touched a boxy device that had seven long prongs sticking out of one end. “It’s not named but I’m leaning toward calling this the Slepton Captivator.”
“Really?” Harl asked. “That’s the name we’re going with? I think ‘Shadowtron’ was way better than that.”
“I think people will suspect that ‘Shadowtron’ is a joke,” Earnest replied. “At least ‘Slepton Captivator’ is better than ‘N-Space Field Stabilizer’.”
Abby snorted. “Except that’s exactly what it is, and what it does.”
“Yeah, but it also captures things in the field, so we need that word in the name,” Earnest countered.
“Right,” Kirsty nodded, speaking for the first time. “And the thing it captures are Sleptons.”
“Plus a host of other shadow particles,” Harl countered.
Kirsty nodded. “Yeah, but most shadow particles have stupid names. We can’t call it the Zino-Wino-Gluino Captivator. Sleptons are the only ones with a good name.”
“Do we have to choose before we test it?” Cary asked. “I’m all for a cool name, but if it doesn’t work, then it won’t matter.”
Earnest glanced at Harl and Kirsty. “She has a point.”
“OK, but in my notes, I’m calling it a Slepton Captivator,” Kirsty groused.
“What we sorted out last night,” Saanvi said to Cary as Earnest adjusted the positioning of the device, “is that even in its most dormant state, the remnant emits minute amounts of shadow particles. Barely detectable. But if you pass just the right eV wave through it, it spits out Sleptons like mad—”
“Hence the name,” Kirsty interrupted.
“Yeah, hence Kirsty’s name,” Saanvi nodded. “The seemingly-unnamable thing Earnest has there emits the wave so that the remnant can be detected, and then it can create what we hope is a facsimile of the brane you made to hold the remnant.”
“Hope?” Cary asked.
“Well, we’ve never tested it,” Earnest replied. “We have our calculations, but honestly, we’ve been at this for weeks and we barely know what the hell we’re looking at. If we had Bob to help, it would be different…but as it sits….”
Cary nodded. “I understand. Let’s do this. If it works, I assume there will be more tests before we can finally call it done?”
Earnest nodded. “Yes. Ideally, we’d like to see if we could draw it out of a human, but…well, that would be a bit too much, I think.”
Cary reached out to Saanvi, then Faleena. A part of her wondered if Saanvi joining the deep-Link was necessary anymore, but now was not the time to add that variable to the experiment.
Agreed, Trine-Saanvi thought. Though I do feel a bit like a fifth wheel sometimes.
I think you are necessary, Trine-Faleena said. Something about how we join seems to require you. However, I agree that now is not the time for more changes.
“We am—are—ready,” Trine-Cary said.
“OK, do you think you can let it out without destroying the brane?” Earnest asked.
Trine observed the thing within the brane. It had grown dimmer over the weeks, as though the constant poking and prodding had sapped it of its energy. It also no longer spoke. The most accurate word Trine could think of was ‘listless’.
“I believe I can extract it, yes.”
“OK then,” Earnest said as he pointed at a five-meter-wide platform next to the table. “Stand on that. It has a magnetic shield that’s a bit like the brane…but won’t kill us to be inside of it. I doubt it can hold the remnant for long, but it should give us time to capture it.”
Trine-Cary wondered how man
y more caveats Earnest could have thrown into his statement. She lifted the brane, pulling the leads off the bands, and then stepped onto the platform. Saanvi joined her; both women had to be within the field to maintain their deep-Link.
Earnest stepped up beside them, and Trine saw a bead of sweat run down the side of his face. Not the best sign.
Trine drew a deep breath and nodded to Harl, who activated the field surrounding the pedestal. It snapped into place, the EM field producing a small hum as it shimmered faintly around them, visible only by the air it ionized.
Trine-Cary set her fingertips on the bands and pulled them apart, and then somehow—though she did not quite understand it herself—she split the brane open.
In a flash, the remnant was gone, flying out of the brane and streaking around the sphere.
“It’s working,” Kirsty crowed as Earnest swept the eV wave around the magnetic sphere.
“Yes, I can see it,” Earnest said. “It’s much larger…I’m trying to encapsulate it.”
Earnest activated the device’s emitters, and Trine could see the remnant, which had previously been trying to get out of the magnetic cage, shy away.
“It certainly doesn’t like it,” Trine-Cary said.
The remnant was drawn toward Earnest’s device, and Trine felt her pulses quicken at the thought that they’d finally secured the thing without relying on her abilities.
Then the remnant broke away from the field and smashed into the magnetic sphere. Trine saw the containment field waver, and then the remnant slipped through.
“Kill the field!” Trine-Saanvi shouted, and Cary spun, looking for the Remnant. It was nowhere to be seen.
“Dammit!” Earnest swore. “We were so close!”
“I found it,” Trine-Cary said calmly as she walked across the lab, staring into n-space as the remnant tried to hide from her. “Earnest, hit Abby with the wave.”
Earnest looked at his wife, who appeared more than a little terrified.
“I don’t know if this will hurt, Abs.”
Abby clenched her teeth. “Just do it.”
The moment Earnest directed the device’s eV wave at Abby, the holodisplay atop the emitter lit up, showing sleptons coming out of Abby’s midsection.
“It’s…masquerading as a part of her liver,” Harl said. “That must be how it anchors itself to a person.”
Earnest walked toward his wife. “Be still, Abby. I don’t think this will hurt. I think with a few adjustments…”
“I don’t care if it hurts, get it out,” Abby whispered hoarsely, her eyes darting to Trine-Cary. “You be ready. I’m not going to spend ten years with one of these things in my—oh shit, it’s talking to me! Hurry! Get it out!”
Earnest activated the device once more, and Trine could see the remnant writhe as it was pulled from Abby’s body, losing its corporeal aspects and flowing from her toward the device.
The entity was drawn into the space between the seven prongs and folded over and over until a sphere snapped into place around the remnant.
“Yes!” Earnest shouted. “Look at that. I made a black brane, and I stuck your remnant ass in it!”
He walked over to the magnetic field emitter where they’d previously held Trine’s brane and slid the new one into it.
“And there we have it, safe and sound.”
“Check me over again,” Abby said. “Make sure it’s gone.”
Earnest complied, and Trine confirmed, “There is no trace of the remnant within you, Abby.”
Earnest turned to Cary, who was now just Cary once more.
“You know what this means?”
“I can finally get some real sleep?”
“Well, yes. Then we can wake Nance.”
Cary’s eyes darted to Nance, still in her stasis pod, and then to Saanvi. “That would be nice. I’d like to meet Nance again for the first time.”
THE LONG NIGHT
STELLAR DATE: 10.25.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: ISS I2, Forward Lounge
REGION: Orbiting Silstrand, Silstrand System, Silstrand Alliance
Tanis stood in the forward observation lounge, alone with Sera, President Charles, and Admiral Manda.
“I’m sure you hear this a lot,” President Charles said, as a servitor brought them the drinks they’d requested. “But this is not like any other warship I’ve ever seen—or heard of.”
“I think it’s been mentioned,” Tanis replied. “Honestly, it would have been more work to remove things like this lounge than keep them. Plus…it’s home, you know?”
Tanis could tell from the look on the president’s face that he did not really understand what she meant, despite the fact that he nodded in agreement. Admiral Manda, on the other hand, pressed her lips together and inclined her head.
“I never had anything like this on any of my ships, but I do know what it’s like to consider a warship home. It’s nice to have sections that are made for form over function. Helps ground you.”
“A lot of grounding here in the Intre—I2,” Sera said, shaking her head. “I still mess the name up sometimes.”
Manda glanced at Tanis. “Why did you rename your ship, Admiral? Surely you know it’s bad luck.”
“We wanted a clear division,” Tanis replied. “Sure, we fought two major engagements with the Intrepid, but those were brief. Flashes in the pan. For two centuries, the Intrepid was home. We wanted to always remember it as such, our people’s ark. The I2, on the other hand. She’s a ship made for battle, and when we speak of her, she is that first, and home second.”
“Two hundred years…” President Charles mused. “That’s a lifetime, just to spend on one ship.”
“Not anymore, it’s not,” Sera replied. “A lifetime, that is. The nanotech that you’ve received will double—at least—how long you can expect to live.”
“That still feels surreal,” President Charles said. “It’s going to change so much for us.”
“Yes, it will.” Tanis wondered how well these people would really do with what she had given them. Would they hoard it, keeping it to the rich only? Would they dole it out slowly, or release it to all?
Tanis nodded silently as they looked out the window at the space beyond Silstrand’s largest moon, a dull blue orb named Kora. The group was observing the moon’s L2 point, which had recently been cleared out for what was to come.
“I—” Admiral Manda began to say, and then it happened.
Where there had been nothing but empty space, a ship now drifted in the dark.
“The Long Night,” Tanis announced, gesturing at the vessel that had just appeared.
“That certainly is something to see,” Manda said, her voice filled with sincere awe. “And that ship was just where?”
“Khardine,” Tanis replied. “Which is in an undisclosed location. Suffice it to say that it’s over three-thousand light years from here. Six years’ travel by dark layer FTL.”
The Long Night was a new design of dreadnought modelled after the AST ships the ISF had fought in Bollam’s World. Its hull was five thousand and two hundred meters long, with engines mounted at both ends.
The Silstrand System orbited the galactic core more slowly than Khardine, and the Long Night’s engines flared as it boosted to match the velocity of the celestial bodies that surrounded it.
“That’s mind-boggling,” President Charles replied. “What’s the range on these ‘jump gates’, as you call them?”
“Theoretically, there isn’t one,” Tanis replied. “Some very long jumps have occurred, but if there is no return gate, getting home can take some t
ime.”
“I can only imagine,” Admiral Manda replied in a soft voice. “Can you…we could eventually go anywhere.”
“Remember,” Tanis cautioned. “This is not a technology that we’re sharing. We will be bringing in mirror tugs to facilitate any jumps that are necessary for your ships. If jump gates get in the wrong hands…”
“I thought the Orion Freedom Alliance already had this technology,” Admiral Manda said.
“Well, additional wrong hands,” Tanis clarified.
“Like the Hegemony, or the Nietzscheans,” Sera offered.
President Charles face paled. “What if they have it? You said that the Nietzscheans are possibly allies of the OFA. Could they not jump here?”
“It’s possible,” Sera said, nodding slowly. “We’ll be helping your people establish interdictor systems. They disrupt the jump-bubble and will make deep insystem arrivals like what the Long Night just performed very unlikely.”
“That’s not terribly comforting,” Admiral Manda replied.
Tanis turned and looked at the Silstrand president and his admiral. “Don’t forget. This technology did not just spring into existence. It has been a reality for well over a century now. The enemy is just as worried—we believe—about it coming into general use.”
Sera leaned against the window. “Regarding the stasis shields, it will take a bit to get them to you, and we won’t have enough for all your ships. Even though they might be able to jump in here, stasis shield tech is something that none of our enemies have.”
“You said you’d be leaving a ship. Will it be the Long Night?” President Charles asked.
Tanis shook her head. “No. The ‘Night is just here to deliver the gate. It has other places to be. You’ll be getting one of our destroyers. The Cobalt Flame.”
“A destroyer? Admiral—”
Tanis held up her hand. “A destroyer with stasis shields and ten atom beams. It has firepower equal to half your fleet, and its shields cannot be breached. I’m sure you’ve watched the vids of the Bollam’s World battles. You saw what our ships were able to weather there.”
Admiral Manda gave a rueful laugh and looked up at the overhead. “If I recall, this ship weathered the relativistic jet from a black hole.”