Star-Eater Chronicles 1: A Galaxy Too Far...

by Dennis E. Smirl

  Pedania—that's my second wife's name—would have none of it. She considered teaching a fool's errand, and because I resisted her attempts to push me into doing something that didn't interest me, she stopped loving me. With that marriage, she filed for divorce, and although she said she wanted nothing from me, her attorneys disagreed, and when the dust settled, I was again a pauper... looking for opportunities.

  I thought I was through with women...

 

  “I told you to call me Seth.”

 

  “What do you want, Ship?”

 

  “A decision about what?”

 

  “And I have to make a quick decision because?”

 

  “Wouldn't want that to happen.”

 

  “Have you made any progress with translating the message?”

 

  “You're a computer and you're not sure. Not very Boolean of you.”

 

  Ship had just reminded me of my third wife.

  “If you have an undecipherable radio transmission, is it possible the transmission is some kind of natural phenomenon? You know. Perhaps it’s something caused by lightning and magnetic rocks and great releases of energy.”

 

  “You said you might have translated the message.”

  Ship paused.

  “What do you think you have?”

 

  “All the more reason to pass on through this system and jump to the next.”

 

  “Really. You want us to engage in an alien rescue mission? I didn't know that was in our job description.”

 

  “Track back, Ship.” I sat back in my chair, felt the auto-grips on my sides pulling me tight, anticipating the maneuver. “Let’s do it.”

  Ship said suddenly.

  “What’s going on?” I flicked the main screen through every camera the ship had. “I hate being countermanded.”

  A horrible chattering came on the speakers, then got shut off.

  Ship seemed to have gotten rid of her petulance.

  “Where’s it coming from?”

 

  Pulling teeth was right, man, anyone who invented ingenuity for computers would make a fortune. “Where’s it pointed?” I asked the question, but I’m sure I knew what the answer was going to be.

 

  I hated answers like that. “How ‘almost’?”

 

  “Forward screens, full magnification,” I instructed, but of course I saw nothing. Just the dark black of inter galaxy space. “Ship? Scan the direction for anything else. I want to know what’s out there.”

  And that meant another period of waiting.

  “Ship? Can we put the ship into the communication beam?”

 

  “Let’s do it.” I ordered with far more confidence than I felt.

  Thirty minutes later we tripped the wire, so to speak.

  Ship said.

  With another long look down the beam going out into the black, I decided on the next plan. “Ship, take us down to Denon Two. Let’s see what’s broadcasting.”

  We traced the beam to a plain on a vast plateau.

  Suddenly the ship jarred upwards, throwing me across the room, no warning, no contact.

  Ship managed to sound alarmed. Red lights flashed on every console.

  “Are we in danger?”

 

  So we buzzed the area a few times, sweeping lower each time. MacCollie Survey-Scouts aren’t exactly built for fighting, so I was kinda glad the laser was of lower technology. After each sweep we got a better picture of the source of the firing, and from the very early images, it was obvious the craft or structure was not man-made.

  It almost looked molten; just a clump of magma ripped from a volcano and dropped onto the sandy surface. That, and a couple of antenna like tendrils, and a single finger, the source of the laser.

  “Ship? Can we fire back?” I asked as we banked at the end of one of our runs. I hadn’t needed any kind of offensive weapon in the five year voyage.

  Ship’s voice sounded distant, as if her concentration was elsewhere.

  “We have to be able to do something.”

 

  I grinned. “So they need time to charge their weapons.” I had a germ of an idea. “Does our tractor beam work down here?”

 

  “Then let’s grab a rock, and drop it on our little alien nest, shall we?”

  The rock Ship chose was a little over two tons, and when it hit our globular building, it caved like a marshmallow.

  When I strode through the debris, there was nothing left worth looking at, never mind actually finding. Every console-like area had been crushed, most of the internals had been encased in a tortoise-shell material, and the inside greenish-goo had dried quickly. If the structure had been habituated, there was no trace left of anything remotely animal, never mind humanoid.

  With lots of video in my files, and a few chemical samples, I got off planet as soon as I could. Scooping some ice from the poles to replenish our water supplies, I headed back to deep space. Following the same trajectory as the signal, I burst us into light-plus, and settled down for a week or so. I was on my own, but I wasn’t happy with the idea of signals getting outside the home galaxy.

  Then the Ship brought us out of hyperspace; bells ringing, alarms sounding.

 

  “How far out?” I almost roared.

 

  Close, but not very. I could feel and hear us slowing down, in a manner way more harsh than normal. My chair straps cut into my chest and waist. “Identify anomaly.”

 

  So I sat in my little survey ship, stock still in space with a dark screen in front of me, sweating like a long-distance runner.

 

  “Report!”

 

  One fighting ship would be more than enough to destroy my ride. Survey-Scouts are not built to engage a capable enemy. They're mostly built to run.

  “Where's the nearest jump point, Ship?”

  She projected a spherical hologram with my scout ship at its center. With a large red dot she showed me the nearest point.

  “What's our distance?”

 

  “How quickly can we get there
?”

 

  I hate 'howevers' and Ship was supposed to know that.

  “However what?”

 

  Of course it hadn’t been surveyed, we were the first ships to get out this far. I had spent a fair amount of my five year mission surveying such jump points. I looked at the forward screen. Yes, indeed, there were at least fifteen hundred alien warships heading my way, any one of which could probably vaporize my scout ship with its first weapons discharge. Even if the technology was as primitive as on Denon two, sheer numbers would overwhelm the poor Survey-Scout. And if they linked the damage on Denon two to me, then I was truly in trouble.

  “If we run to the nearest jump point, can we avoid the ships coming at us?”

 

  “Then we run. Move it, Ship!”

  I was slammed back in the chair as the scout ship accelerated at its maximum. There were a lot of things to think about as we began a long, accelerative arc toward the jump point, but mostly, I concentrated on breathing as I felt as though I had a huge boulder sitting on my chest.

  The eighteen minutes seemed interminable. Talking with ship wasn't a viable alternative, as I didn't have enough breath for talking. Usually we needed fifteen minutes to reach FTL, and you needed Light Speed to access the jump hole.

  Thankfully Ship didn't need breath. It could talk all it wanted. It also knew of my temporary inability.

 

  I didn't answer. I figured Ship was smart enough to fill in any question I might ask if I'd had air in my lungs.

 

  I tried to nod. That wasn't easy, but I managed it. Then I wondered how ship knew that the enemy ships would not be in range. It sees unknown ships and can deduce their weapons capabilities? Why did that seem so totally wrong?

 

  I managed another nod.

 

  Another nod.

  I had nothing to do but wait. Ship was kind enough to put a countdown on the forward screen. We had cut the time to the jump point to ninety seconds. A different part of the screen showed the ships that were trying to intercept our inadequately armed and armored ship. They were close. Too damned close for my comfort, but hadn't ship assured me they wouldn't get within range before we jumped?

  At the ten-second mark, Ship cut the thrusters and we coasted toward the jump point at an unimaginable velocity. Now all we had to do was hit the point dead-center. Missing by even a fraction of a millimeter was unthinkable—that's why Ship controlled the process and not the shaky hand of a human.

  With five seconds left, Ship enclosed us in a cocoon of energy designed to play a trick on the Universe. Nothing could pass through a jump point except a singularity, an undefined quantity of matter that had been compressed by gravity until nothing was left except a black hole too small for any kind of rational measurement. Of course, if that had really happened, Ship and I would have been squashed into whatever exists inside a black hole, and never comes out. That would have been uncomfortably, instantly, and permanently deadly. Technically Ship had to 'fool' the jump point. In terms that humans could process, the jump point 'thought' the ship was an infinitely small black hole, and transferred it from 'here' to 'there' instantaneously.

  The problem lay in the 'there' of the equation.

  I had no idea where we would wind up, but I believed that if we didn't run, we'd certainly die.

  One second before we jumped, Ship said, and every sphincter in my body tightened to full closure as we made the jump.

  At which point I lost consciousness.

  Some time later, I awoke.

  Little by little...

  Bit by bit...

  I opened an eye...

  Everything swirled about me and for a moment I thought I would lose my... hmm, when was the last time I'd had anything to eat? I definitely didn't want to throw up on an empty stomach.

  I tried to talk.

  Nope.

  Couldn't.

  I could barely croak.

  Then the penny dropped; I hadn't taken the drugs I was supposed to ingest before making a jump. I hadn't had time. MacCollie Pharmaceuticals made recovering from the effects of a jump quicker and less painful, but taking a jump without pharmaceutical assistance bordered on the insane.

  And I'd just done it.

  And I hurt all over.

  And I wanted to throw up.

  I tried to talk again. “Ship.”

 

  “What... you... mean... Uh... Oh?”

 

  “Why... wait?”

 

  “I'll... take... that chance.”

 

  “They... couldn't have... harmed us?”

 

  “Who... did... it?”

 

  “Make... an assumption.”

 

  The news jolted me. Perhaps even adrenalized me. I started feeling more alert—and even sicker at my stomach. “So we made an unnecessary jump.”

 

  “Call me 'Seth.'”

  Did I head a lisp?

  I linked the sudden weird anomalies in Ship’s mannerisms to the alien stuff we’d encountered. Maybe she had an alien flu or something. “Where are we, Ship?”

 

  “Make a guess.”

 

  From the screen, I knew we’d dropped from FTL, moving at sub-light speed. “How much residual velocity are we carrying relative to the... oh, hell, wherever we are?”

 

  “As in?”

 

  Ship could have said any number of this that would have frightened me, but nothing scared me more than the idea of falling endlessly between the stars. I rested my aching head in my hands. Why the hell had I let my third divorce chase me into the welcoming arms of the MacCollies? I thought about my third wife. I hated her with a deep and abiding passion—but I'd never hated her more than I had at that particular moment because I was blaming her for the situation in which I found myself.

  “What are our options?” I asked, once I was back in control of my emotions.

 

  “I don't like the sound of that. What about finding another jump
point? One that will lead us back toward home system.”

  Ship managed to sound sarcastic.

  “But you don't know which one,” I said. “I thought you were better than this.”

 

  “Are there jump points nearby?”

 

  I thought about it. “So map them. I'll make a decision when my head is clearer.”

 

  “I don't know. That was one of the stupidest things I've ever done. Now I want to get something to eat. And drink. I want my vision to clear. Everything is still blurry. I just don't know. I need a few minutes. Maybe an hour... Making a jump without pharmaceuticals was crazy. I'm having difficulty recovering from the effects.”

 

  “Do you want to make the decision regarding our course?”

 

  “Then give me some room, Ship. You're crowding me.”

 

  After an after-the-fact dose of jump hole nutrients, a few cups of water, and a piss, I stretched on the bed, my insides feeling progressively better. After a while I even managed a swaggered stroll back to the cockpit. We’d had so many lectures of the dangers of doing jumps without the proper procedure, I was just glad to get out of it alive.

  “Talk, Ship,” I called as I took my seat. “Progress report.”

 

  That brought me back to a base level. “Continue.”

 

  “Okay, Ship I give you the over-achiever award of the day.” I shook my head.

  It seemed she ignored my sarcasm.