Heavens of Glory

Chapter V

The third day would not have the after lunch classes due to Kaischew tryouts. Seedo and Maria both went to watch. Orion went to try out. After eating, they joined the crowd going to the gym.
         When he entered the gym, Orion gasped. The huge 200 by 400 meter gym had been turned into an arena, with stands at each side. The padded medal sticks rose up from the floor of the gym, creating the Kaischew playing field. Before Orion went off to join the rest of those intending to try out, Seedo gave him a bit of caution.
          “Orion, look, I know that you’ve been studying and training Kaischew for three days, but seriously. You’re still a novice. A good novice, mind you, but a novice nonetheless. Don’t be disappointed if you don’t make it.”
          “I won’t be. I actually don’t really hope to, in fact. I just want to try.” They waved goodbye and Seedo and Maria went to sit on the bleachers.
         Skirmishes of 18 players divided into two teams. The skirmishes would be forty minutes each, with each person playing each position of attacker, knocker, kaifey, and kaifoy for ten minutes total. Orion waited until it was his turn, then stepped up to receive a knocker stick. He glimpsed his friends out of the corner of his eye, waving, and waved back. He stepped up onto the arena of sticks…

         The Catapult was finished right on schedule. Following the Admiral’s orders from the day before, Orion took his ship out with the crew to inspect the massive contraption. It spanned over half a kilometer in its smallest dimension, and was over three kilometers long. The Neyna flew by the first stage, three massive acceleration rings which would speed any ship up to almost 9 LSU’s, or .9 the speed of light. The three rings were encapsulated by a massive temporal distortion device, which compensated for the relativistic effects of the rings. The second stage was the tachyon catapult, the true ingeniousness of the design. It alone was over two kilometers long.
         Orion contacted the control room mounted on the side of one of the rings. “This is Captain Orion of the Alliancic ship Neyna Have you confirmed completion of the other end?”
          “Affirmative,” came the reply.
          “Prepare to activate catapult,” Orion said.
         The officer in the control room seemed a little startled at first, but acknowledged and began the power up sequence while the Neyna lined up at the beginning of the apparatus. “Catapult is primed, sir. Commence when ready.”
          “Scarth, send us through.” Scarth nodded his head and powered thrusters to full. The Neyna reached the first acceleration ring and was launched to the second, and the third in less than a millionth of a second. After passing through the third ring, the catapult shot its tachyon tractor beams at the Neyna and threw it forward, hurling it away towards the Andromeda galaxy and into a new reality at over 5,000,000 LSU’s.
         Onboard the bridge, Orion felt the massive acceleration despite the inertial dampeners. The acceleration outside the dampeners’ effect was tens of billions of grasecs per second squared, and approached almost thirty G’s within the ship, forcing Orion back into his seat. It was over almost instantly, and the ship was on its way, still accelerating, but not nearly as much now. “Activate the main view screen,” Orion ordered. The screen turned on, displaying, instead of the usual blackness, massive white flashes every ten seconds or so. “Status?”
          “All systems are nominal, sir. Hull integrity and shields are holding,” Seedo reported.
          “Very good. Let’s hope to hell that it works as smoothly on the other side. I would like to see the entire crew in the mess hall in five minutes. There are some things we need to discuss.”
         Before heading to the mess hall for the meeting, Orion headed to the astrometrics lab and reviewed their status with his science officer, Spar. After a hurried conversation, Orion and Spar walked up to the mess hall together.
         When they arrived, the crew was already assembled throughout the room, which could barely seat all 26 of them, not including Orion and Spar. The crewmembers quieted down as Orion stepped into the room. Standing near the door where everyone could see him, he made his address.
          “My crew, my friends. As I am sure you are aware, we have just made the first true long-distance farshot jump. This is a momentous occasion, yet one which I think needs explaining. No doubt you are wondering why the Alliance is interested in the Andromeda. To that, there is no one reason. But first, I think it prudent to explain just how we will reach there.” Orion motioned for Spar to step up and say his speech.
          “I will begin at the basics, as this is where all good things start. As you know, we call our continuum of space/time Alpha space. We classify this as ‘normal’ space. Next, is Beta space, which is infinitely small, and is somehow redundant, existing everywhere at once. Because anything that happens to any part of this Beta space is echoed elsewhere, and energy, unlike matter, can travel through and into it, we can use it to instantly communicate anywhere in the universe, and even direct these communications to a certain location. Gamma space also can carry energy, and even matter, but time does not exist in it. So although we can send probes into that space, they cannot move, and will pop back out instantly, but centuries old.
          “Delta space we are more familiar with. We use it whenever traveling with tachyon bursts, and commonly call it ‘hyperspace.’ Somehow it connects all parts of the universe in a massive web, but it takes time to traverse this web, and thus is comparatively slow to what we are now doing.
          “Epsilon space, what we are now in, remains largely a mystery. We know that all of the other spaces are ‘curved,’ so to speak, into the fourth dimension, and Epsilon space seems to bypass that curve, as well as many other basic laws of physics. Light travels instantly here, and is not dulled over a distance. Thus we believe that those flashes of light are other ships entering and exiting epsilon space galsecs, maybe even hundreds of galsecs, from here. Similarly, matter seems to have no speed limits here, and the absence of friction makes acceleration easy, leaving us free to move to unheard of speeds.
          “Even though we had the technology to access this space almost a decade ago, it was not until recently that we could actually create enough accelerational forces to make use of it. But now we have perfected the technique, providing this mission goes according to plans.” Spar finished speaking, bowed his head quickly and sat down. Orion stood back up.
          “Now that we know the background of this new continuum, it is time to inform you of just what we are doing here. The short story, is that the Alliance wants a foothold where the Union cannot reach us if our primary planets fail. The Andromeda was ideal, seeing as how we had the perfect opportunity with the Federation, and its abundance of species and resources. We believe that once we have established a colony there, it could grow vastly in just a few generations, even if the catapults were shut down, as they may have to be in order to prevent Union invasion progressing into the Andromeda.
          “There are many other reasons why we want a foothold in Andromeda, although they are more side thought than anything. First, we can appeal directly to the Central Federation, giving us excellent trading rights and a new abundance of resources. Furthermore, we believe we may be able to find new and powerful allies among the many species in the Carter sector, where the other catapult has been placed.
          “Our mission here is to make first contact with as many new species as possible, and get as much telemetry as we can, then return to the Milky Way. We will stay here for one and a half outer months. After one outer month, the Alliance shall send three more ships through, one of which will carry an ambassador who will, among other things, appeal to the Central Federation Government. When he comes through, we are to protect and escort him.” Orion paused, looking around at the faces he knew so well, and loved so well. “Are there any questions?” Heads shook. “Very well. Dismissed.” Orion got up and was about to leave when Seedo came up to him.
          “Well, I guess we’re in for a long ride.”
         Orion smiled a little ironically. “We’ve had longer ones together, my friend. Much longer ones.”
          “Perhaps, but none like this.” Orion noticed Seedo was shifting agitatedly from side to side.
          “Is there anything wrong?”
          “No, it’s just, well, those flashes…”
          “Ah, yes. You don’t really like that sort of thing, do you.” Orion thought of the massive Union attack on Seedo’s homeworld, Terea, which had occurred when he was only 3 standard years old. The Union ships had used tachyon torpedoes, launching them from over a parsec away to reemerge in bright flashes, which illuminated the sky for days, quickly followed by orange streaks as the torpedoes streamed down through the atmosphere to explode atop of ancient buildings. He understood why Seedo was agitated now. “Would you like me to help you install some curtains?”
          “Thanks. I’d appreciate it.” Orion nodded and stepped through the door, leaving the rest of the crew to talk amongst themselves. He knew that although he did his best to be their friend, he was too much of a captain to be a social magnet for his crew.

*           *           *

         When Orion stepped into the mess hall early the next day, he was instantly greeted by unfamiliar smells wafting in from the kitchen. Walking over to the counter, he leaned across and looked at Lect, an engineer who doubled as the Neyna’s cook.
          “What are you making?” he asked.
         Lect turned around from the wok heating on the open flame. “Oh, hello captain. This is a dish I discovered while on the Federation Outpost. I thought we might as well try it, seeing as how we’re heading into their space and all. Get a feel for their culture and what not, right?”
          “Umm, well, if you say so. Just so long as you still have some normal food around.”
          “Sorry, just this Xarxican here. And some coffee of course,” he added, seeing Orion’s sour face. “Try it, I think you’ll like it.”
         Orion tentatively took the morsel Lect held out to him. He took a bite, chewing slowly and carefully. Lect looked on hopefully. “Well, it is good, I’ll give you that.” Lect sighed with relief. “But…”
          “But what?”
          “Do we have the stores to be able to afford something like this?”
          “Well, if you recall, I purchased a lot of food at the Outpost. So, we have plenty of food for at least, oh, five weeks of gorging ourselves.”
         Orion gave a slight chuckle. “Well, don’t fatten us up too much.”
          “I’ll keep that in mind, captain.” Orion took a plate of the Xarxican and a cup of coffee to a table and sat down as three crewmembers walked in.
          “Hey, what’s cooking?” called one whom Orion recognized as Ensign Eguria.
          “Hello ensign,” Lect said, nodding to Eguria, then nodded to others, “Ensign, Lieutenant. Something quite exotic today. Wanna try it?” The three got their plates as well and moved off towards another table, nodding towards Orion respectfully as they passed.
         Spar and his assistant were the next to arrive, shortly followed by others. The two science officers got their plates and headed towards Orion’s table.
          “Captain,” Spar said. “I have something you might want to see.” He handed Orion a logger. “Sarah here discovered it by accident, actually, while we were running some basic tests.” Orion turned on the logger and began reading. He looked up after only a second, his face full of puzzlement.
          “I don’t understand. How is this possible?”
          “Well, we are in another space-time continuum.”
          “Yes, but Newton’s laws applied to all the others.”
          “Well apparently this continuum is special. Somehow. And furthermore, it means that we’re probably not traveling at the speed we originally predicted, since in Alpha space half of the energy spent goes to action, and the other half to reaction, while here it all goes to action. Not to mention that here we believe that what would normally be pushing ‘forward’, is now propelling us backward. So our rear thrusters are actually slowing us down.”
         Orion looked up and immediately tapped his com log. “Scarth, full reverse thrusters now!”
          “Captain?” came the reply.
          “I’ll explain later, just do it now!” Orion got up and headed to the bridge, leaving his breakfast half eaten.

*          *          *

         The Neyna managed to recover the time it had lost, estimated at about a day. The crew puzzled over the lack of actions causing equally opposite reactions, but thankfully the containment field stopped this from happening within the ship itself, and otherwise the flight passed uneventfully. On the sixth day, the Neyna turned on its rear thrusters, those that normally pushed it forward, to slow it back down, and on the tenth day they arrived at the Federation-side catapult.
          “All hands, brace for deceleration,” Orion said over the intercom. He sat down in his chair, and gave the signal for Scarth to cut all engines. From here on in, they just coasted backwards towards the far catapult.
          “Fifteen light years normal space to re-emergence point,” Seedo said. “Five light years. Three…two…brace yourselves.”
         Orion was thrown again against the back of his seat as the ship hurled back into normal space, and as the acceleration rings, now facing backwards relative to the ship’s movement, slowed them forcefully down. On the bridge, Orion only felt a small percent of the acceleration, but was still found off his guard. Then, a split second later, the deceleration stopped.
          “Main view screen on,” Orion ordered. The screen flashed on, revealing a bright sky, illuminated by four suns less than one AU away. A massive station floated a couple of grasecs from the catapult, and eight massive warcruisers stood stationary facing the Neyna.
          “We’re receiving a hail,” Tano reported from his station. “It’s from one of the cruisers.”
          “On screen,” Orion said. A powerful Carlex head filled the view screen.
          “This is Lourdu Samy, Samy of the Carter region. Welcome, Bonscouts.”
         Orion hesitated only a second before responding. “Lourdu Samy, it is with great pleasure that I appear before you, representing the Alliance of Five, and all that it stands for, and beholding the glory of the Federation. We are pleased to receive your welcome, and even more pleased to be here, at long last.”
         Lourdu gave the Carlexi equivalent of a smile, bending his head slightly to the right. “In that case, I hope that you will join me in person in the grand Teler Station. The Head Ambassador of the Federation will be most glad to meet you.”
         Orion glanced at Seedo briefly. He was surprised that the Head Ambassador, who rarely actually handled first contacts but rather let one of the other resident Ambassadors take care of it, would bother with the trip to meet with him. He looked quickly back at the Samy. “We’d be honored to join you.”