Chapter 7

As history would say: “See you later!”

Watching the history unfold with your own eyes was, is and should be something incredibly gratifying.

Many centuries must have passed between past and present, between what Lucian thought was space ferrying civilization of this kind, the one that takes you through the stars as if taking a sailboat out on the ocean, and the one that Lucian left behind on Earth. He started reading few chapters detailing the process of several men bent on space exploration, he further found out that there was enormous passage of time between these two people and now.

As Lucian sat in his new chair of his new ship, surrounded by people whom he trusted deeply and without any reservation; Ericha, Liza and his own little sister Lindsay, wearing their pristine uniforms making them look extremely dignified. Lucian smiled inwardly knowing how much love was surrounding him, but he was busy reading several important paragraphs and occasionally watching a black screen that apparently showed them moving with their Drive. Of course he was no the captain, it was not the position that you take charge of when you know nothing of what it means to be one, the struggle to achieve something so important meant world to him and of course to people that were already taking the designated seats across the galaxy; no, that honor belonged to Ericha, she was seated in a chair and with her fingers ran over few things that needed to be done when they reach Grimova. She had her Pad primed and ready knowing how much work needed to be done once they arrived at their destination. This was a task that only few people could do and she was already accustomed to saving and helping people. It made her feel incredibly good. Everyone was expecting with anticipation the new upgrades the ship was going to get, truth be told Lucian was pretty inconsolable when he figured his request for torpedoes and laser beams was promptly denied. Desperate was the need to reenact his favorite shows. And he could not wait.

Transporting 2000 people was something that needed some extra care and the poor people that previously had a hangar bay to themselves, now were left the entire ship, except for the bridge, to have for their own needs. For most of them they did not have enough clothes, since “God of War was a warship and not a trapper keeper that had everything for one’s convenience” as Captain Al’Jafar reminded Lucian.

Request for “Replicating some clothes for the needy” left everyone in the ship staring at Lucian like he was a mad man off his medications. Quickly he learned that there were no such things as beaming someone into thin air or replicating something from matter around space. As their chief scientist said with wide eyes if would take enormous amounts of energy to produce even a speck of dust. Lucian was, again, destroyed. But as he sat there down heartened, he learned what he will be doing with his ‘new’ ship.

Transports, across Star Republic, were all busy ferrying in other crucial places, some war torn, some in desperate need of supplies and those few that could attend to them were days away, and God of War needed to go to more important places. Yet when it came to acquiring personnel, he was thinking to only bring people who volunteered for the task, most were not introduced to Lucian, while others just could not leave their posts.

He was promptly advised that Liza and Ericha were transferring to his ship as Medical officer and captain of the first grade.

Thinking that it was too much that such extremely capable people were ‘given’ to him he was promptly relaxed by Luca’s voice, “You need them and apparently they need you. It’s not easy to train people to be as good as Ericha but we’ll manage. Follow her instructions.”

A hand of God just kept stroking his back, as he was worried he would be going blue balls for few weeks, but very fast he was thinking how lucky he was to be included in their relationship, this alone relaxed him from his horny thoughts, he was also scared wondering what he would do if he would ever lose them. His sister was there looking like she was an expert in whatever she was doing with her console, apparently she had learned how to pilot and sat in the helmsman, or in this case helmswoman’s chair and helped move the ship around the sector for few hours while she learned the new controls.

He of course decided not to voice his concerns to any of his ladies, but instead chose to immerse himself in his reading.

Seven hours he spent reading important material about the history of space ferrying, spacers and their trials and tribulations. An interesting read, as Lucian thought, since Boteans and Humans shared something in common, exploration, and in this particular case a need to go to space. That’s where similarities, apart from the appearance, ended and everything else in their history was much mellower compared to the bloodied past of Earth. All but few war’s deep in their history, that they were often ashamed of for some reason as there were no causalities just few border disputes that were resolved in few weeks by talking.

He found that intriguing, using their mind to find words that were strong or mellow enough to appease the other’s rage. He thought of Earth and how people would deal with this, a certain dispute that would span decades, until one country just decided enough is enough and started a war. Thousands upon thousands would die just for one person’s preconceived agenda of few more inches this or that way. Pathetic.

200 years ago Boteans found that exploring the stars was something achievable if they all banded together as brothers and sisters under one flag, easily achievable by just 1 week of talking amongst different nations. A noble goal that was successfully achieved by a person which name presented series of numbers, and Lucian thought that was something strange.

“Why are there numbers instead of names?!” He asked when he was finished reading a particularly large paragraph about their history.

“Which one?” Ericha asked raising from her chair and moving where he sat just to the side.

Already thinking that it did nothing but showing him folders upon folders of text files about their history, art, music, in short everything he needed to know about their society and how they operated in space. After he pointed to a text he said, “This one here.”

Ericha leaned in, brushing her extremely desirable figure along his shoulders, making him feel her pointed breasts and her beautiful muscles. She wore her dark blue uniform with white stripes with poise and grace. Never once thinking that anyone would look this charming, another lady, Liza, entered few moments and he was left reeling in shock. Her figure looked breathless in her own matching uniform. So many things to be thankful for, he wiped his eye, moved beyond belief.

“What is the matter?” Ericha asked.

“Both of you look radiant, two goddesses of beauty.” Lucian said sniffling.

Both women smiled gently, happy at his genuine appreciation of their beauty. “Now focus what you were asking for.” Ericha gently scolded.

“Every time there should be name associated with someone that did something essential in your history, there are these weird numbers instead of their names. Why is that?” Lucian asked.

Lucian continued by pointing, “See here. ‘The man known as 126665 helped motivate people to form their own opinions and tried to guide them through many of their intellectual obstacles, devoid of moral corruption... ‘ I do not get why every time you are supposed to see a name there are just line of numbers and symbols.”

“Usually it’s to prevent the people to attach a great value to figures that were brought to their positions by everyone’s hard work: as many, many centuries ago we started this practice of not naming any name that was attached to a changing point in history. Normally it’s prevented mass cults from forming. An effective method.” Ericha explained while looking at the line of numbers and symbols.

Lucian thought for few seconds, “But what about honoring people that did the impossible; stopped wars with peace. Stuff like that.”

“You have to understand all of these people got there by the collective help from others. Each one of their achievements were possible by pooling the strength of community. So why name one individual? The only notable difference is when a person’s achievement was not involved in any conflict. And there were quite few of those.” Ericha explained.

“Ahhh I give up.” Lucian exclaimed while stretching his arms above his head.

Standing up from his chair he noticed that he could not feel his derriere, looking back at Ericha he said “My ass is numb from all that sitting.”

Erich slowly started rubbing it over his clothes, “Should I kiss it and make it better?” She smiled revealing her perfect white teeth.

Lucian too smiled after seeing how much she enjoyed playing her role of a foxy seductress, a perfect synch of love and mischief, leaning in he took her lips and started a kiss. After what it seemed a blissful eternity finally both parties peeled off one another and smiled, “Wow. Ericha, my love, if this is all it takes to make THAT kind of kiss I will ask you to do more.”

She winked, she smiled, and Lucian started saying, “As much as I would love to continue our quality time doing, things, and I really, really love doing things with you. I want to spend some time exploring this ship.”

Again for a brief moment he kissed Ericha and moved towards the door which in moments were open letting him quietly pass through. Humming a tune that was unfamiliar even to him, made echoes through the corridor that he was walking. He had to find a record player back on Earth with enough batteries, CD’s and other paraphernalia that should allow him a faster pass of time. He could not spend all of his day reading about history. Even if it was alien.

He heard a voice behind him, “Wait for me Lucian.”

He turned and saw his baby sister running toward him with a giant smile on her face, “I thought you were busy flying this ship.”

She smiled, “Nah not at the moment I’m free for few hours before I need to recheck the Nav Marks.”

“Yeah you’ll do that.” He smiled not getting what she was saying. “By the way, how in the hell are you able to pilot a ship.”

By now both of them were walking down a crowded corridor that was filled with people scantily dressed, their bodies malnourished, dirty and weak, but still they offered a genuine smile to two people that strode past them.

Lindsay was thinking about how to answer his question for few moments, “Well mom and dad wanted to shield me from everything for few months after you disappeared. They did not want me involved in anything and actually wanted to rent a, what they called, ‘safe house’ for me to stay off world. They were probably doing what they thought was best, knowing how big and bad our part of galaxy is, they let me do some reading while we were still searching around our sector.”

She took a deep breath, Lucian could see various emotions on her face, “I had no idea what we were dealing with, the numbers involved in a simple search and rescue was something I did not get for many months. While we were collecting some crew I met someone. He thought me how to pilot and navigate, he was a helmsman on a barge before our parents took him and few of their old friends. All of them were involved and gave 100% when searching for you, but recently when we got separated we got involved, romantically.”

“Whoa, TMI.” Lucian said crossing his fingers into an ‘X’.

Lindsay laughed joyfully. “Listen Lucian I am a grown woman.” She sounded angry but Lucian knew better.

She was never angry or mad at him. “Sorry Lin, I am just worried about you. You know that, right?” He paused and went to hug her.

His sister, his own flesh and blood was here safe and sound. Both of them enjoyed a quiet moment to themselves until a cough interrupted their intimate sibling bonding. A man, a bearded man stood near them, looking intently, with kind eyes, he glanced at both of them, thinking how close they were and how happy they looked, as if it was something unusual.

“Sorry. We’ll get going.” Lucian apologized feeling his cheeks burning slightly.

Lucian never liked showing his emotion in front of people, it was not in him to do that, but this man was something out of a novel. Tall, stoic, amazingly built, in short everything that he was not, yet he could not hate the man. No matter how much he wanted to hate ‘his kind’ this was something that he could not bring himself to do, for some odd reason the man before him reminded Lucian of comic book heroes. Before you were even introduced to their character the reader knew that character was an unmoving force of justice. And this man had the same kind of feeling. Although his eyes were telling a different story.

Radiant smile appeared on the man’s face, he said as he was looking at both Lucian and Lindsay, “No reason to apologize to me, it’s amazing to see such love in a faraway place. Space can be a ... cruel place.”

His face showed a pained expression yet he quickly recovered and showed again a smile that lit up the room, Lucian thought for few moments, he wanted to say something, but decided to keep his mouth closed and just gaze at the man. He wanted to know the source of his pain yet was unable to vocalize his question. Part due to the man’s radiant aura. If there was such a thing, Lucian thought, this man possessed it, it was not threatening, but still oozed out of his pores and made him mute. Lucian wondered how heroic the man looked just standing there.

Lucian finally recovered enough to introduce himself in a squeaky voice at first, but managed to rapidly recover from his unintentional blunder. He took a deep breath and started again, “It’s very nice to meet you, my name is Lucian Deca and this is my baby sister Lindsay or Lin for short.”

Both Lucian and Lindsay shook the man’s hand, “Pleasure to meet you dear friends, the name is Momoa Oman. A trader by heart. If you need to buy or sell anything I’m your man.”

Lucian was pleasantly surprised, even though the man’s callused hands hurt Lucian’s, Momoa’s grip was gentle enough to take the entirety of Lucian’s and softly shake it, an action that Lucian thought it would hurt him. He could also see a strange letter tattoo on his forearm. It seemed to strike something deep in Lucian’s memory, a long lost fond memory, but as fast as the tattoo disappeared the feeling itself disappeared with it and Lucian was left none the wiser about what triggered the strange sense of deja vu. Thinking nothing of it and shrugging his shoulders he decided not to ask anything, Lucian felt sudden fear if he asked anything about the tattoo. Fear from knowing anything.

While he was talking animatedly about his various trade deals, his eyes occasionally glanced to Lucian’s as if trying to confirm something.

Momoa was left behind them and Lucian finally breathed a sigh of relief. At the end Momoa kept thanking Lucian when he found out how he was freed and how close the pirates got to actually killing the slaves on board. They were extremely lucky and he kept expressing his gratitude as a grim expression was painted on his face.

“That was nice.” Lindsay said.

Lucian said nothing he could not say anything about the strange encounter with a man that raised bunch of questionable emotions.

They were moving through a large corridor containing many rooms that crews could use, 10 bedrooms fit with everything a crewman or woman might need during their work on board this ship.

Rooms were not big, but everything fit snugly into them. A single bed, a shower and a desk that was now bare from all necessities usually found on it. Every room was furnished the same, same floor model, same colors of the linens. The area was again filled with people using beds, chairs and floors to accommodate their ever growing needs. There was at least 50 people in this corridor, but Lucian and Lindsay thought there were many more faces in the crowd.

They spent quite a time walking among the people and reassuring them about their new accommodation, apologizing for any discomfort, but every response was the same; this was heaven compared to the treatment the pirates gave them.

They were alive. And as one woman said, “Tomorrow is a brighter day.”

Lucian was pleasantly surprised that most of the people were still hanging around in hangar bays, waiting for their eventual bonding with their family members back home. Counting the hours and minutes. Lindsay saw few women doing their best to look calm, but she could understand how they felt, uneasy and alone. Approaching them Lindsay took her time calming them down. Lucian patiently waited and silently marveled how his sister was taking their pain away. He saw Lindsay looking back and forth to the series of rooms that had chains on the floor, along the wall and hanging bellow the ceiling. Flash of rage appeared on his face making one of the women gasp, soon he was his old self and smiling making both women relax and calm down.

Pungent smell of the surrounding area told any observer what these poor people went through. Officers that boarded this ship found series of torture rooms along the corridors that they safely removed. In their place now were normal bedrooms that did not say anything of their horrific background.

Lucian knew there were torture rooms, but thought every one of those was found and removed. Before him were series of compartments, essentially storage containers refurnished to be of use to pirate’s evil intentions.

Finally arriving at the door which prohibited entry to the majority of the people in the ship. Thick metal doors were laid in front of him, keypad to the left of the door waiting input from its crew. But he disappointedly had to turn away since he did not know the code to proceed further. Few doors to the side remained unopened as it probably contained rooms for the crew. Lucian had to ask; where did the rest of the passengers hide.

“Time to go back, need to recheck the Nav marks.” She giggled when Lindsay saw Lucian’s odd face.

All that scientific talk and he was clueless what it meant. “I guess it’s time to sit down and read. Again.”

They laughed as they moved back through the ship.

“I hope you are right.” Al’Jafar had a troubled face while speaking to Luca in his personal room.

“Certainly I had my own reservations, I assure you he is ready to do what needs to be done. While we were treating him, I found that he has unbelievable sense of justice. The test showed he would die to save innocent people.” Luca then smile leaning back on his chair reminiscing back to those days when he was helping Lucian.

“You saw this yourself.” Luca reminded his companion.

Al’Jafar’s cup was getting cold. He did not finish his warm beverage that now sat in his hands getting colder by the minute. This conversation took longer than he originally thought it would take. However Al’Jafar showed his approval of the young man’s integration to the space, he was still unsure about the strange reward that the Radiant One gave Lucian. “I understand the meaning behind it, but the boy is not ready.”

He took a sip of his cold drink, then added “I wonder if we’ll ever need to use the safety measures we’ve put in place.”

Luca smiled. “It is safe in his hands, I assure you.”

The look on his face told everything Al’Jafar had to know, easing some of the worries he had about the ordeal. A long silence washed over the men when a silent chime interrupted them, making Al’Jafar swipe his hand over the table and answer the call.

“Captain. We have arrived at the anomaly.” Voice over the intercom said.

“I’m coming.” Al’Jafar said.

While walking to the bridge, he and Luca shared several worried glances, as if both men knew something that the other could not, both soon stood in the middle of the bridge waiting for the crew’s full report.

“Sir, we think we have something.” One of the crewmen said.

“Full stop. Maintain this distance.” Al’Jafar slowly said.

“Aye, Captain.” A man behind one console said.

“Report.” Al’Jafar said taking a sit in his captain’s chair.

“The readings are strange. But it’s the definite source of the anomaly.” Science officer said.

She had a troubled look on her face as she read her console screen, white background accented what she was observing, “Sir, we may need a conformation but I think there was a star system here.”

“What?!” Al’Jafar yelled.

“Captain, entire dark patch is filled with elements that we usually find in a Sun. Radiation is of the scale.” Science officer said.

“Do we know what happened here?” Al’Jafar asked.

A man in his pristine dark uniform with gold stripes pushed few buttons and waited for the results of his query. “We’ve sent out a space probe and will get results in a few moments sir, but we found something else. Vast quantities of metal. Residue in the field shows bits and pieces of ketracyil.”

HUD map zeroed in on the edge of the dark zone showing metallic fragments that reminded most of the people on the bridge of space craft fields of death. A red flash of light soon appeared on everybody’s screen jilting them awake from their daydreams. “Sir we have lost our probe.”

“How? Is radiation the cause of its disappearance?” Al’Jafar moved his trained body on the edge of the seat.

“Unknown! We’ve been tracking it but it just vanished approximately 400 GU inside. We’ve kept receiving its data for entire time while the probe was traveling to its destination.” The man said working frantically on his console.

As Al’Jafar sat more comfortably in his chair he swiped his fingers across his chairs arm, a trickle of light went up and right in front of him, level with his chest, appeared a dark white crystal screen showing what everyone saw, moving his dexterous fingers he finally showed the probes last moments before it had vanished.

“It would appear that the probe was sucked in by something.” Al’Jafar pointed.

Few strokes of his fingers sent what he had discovered to other people in the room, “I want to know what caused that.”

What appeared on everyone’s screen was a device that was glowing one second, hurling through space at dizzying speeds and next it just vanished in front of their eyes. People worked in silence. Everyone had their own thoughts on what happened, but everyone depended on their training, everyone wanted cold hard evidence before their imaginations could run amok.

Luca silently worked on his own device that rested in his palm, controlling the picture and taking several scans with the ships built in scanners. Tearing up his theories as time went on, as his palm device was busy working on his postulations, he could not calmly sit while he saw that picture. An idea sprung up immediately. Bits and pieces of the image and its surrounding evidence substantially gave his idea more merit every time he got more and more results.

Silently he approached a science console and her officer stationed behind it, with low commanding voice he said, “I want you to start scanning for gravitational waves.”

All science officer could do was nod and input her new instructions, while they were waiting Luca saw the woman’s uneasiness and tried to make her feel more comfortable. He sent a smile and in moments she relaxed.

Soon her screen sent her data that confirmed what Luca originally thought. The entire Dark Patch of space was filled with gravitational waves. Suddenly he was on edge. He knew what these did to ships caught in them and getting trapped in one could mean a battle for their life that he was not about to chance.

“Captain, I suggest we move our ship out of the area and at least 2 LYS away from this point. I think we have a black hole in front of us.” Luca’s voice was on edge, he could yell to move faster but he wanted his voice calm and young officers on the bridge collected.

Contrary to his beliefs, everyone moved with extraordinary purpose and in seconds the ship was moving forward and back apparently moments away from getting caught in the gravitational pull of the black hole. Tense moments passed as everyone waited for their revved up engines to move them to where they wanted to be, after a while everyone breathed a sigh of relief as they were exactly 2LYS away from the presumed black hole. Looking back at their previous spot inches away from getting into an everlasting prison.

“How do we know about this black hole?” Al’Jafar wanted to make sure their findings were correct.

Taking a deep breath, Luca finally took a moment to relax and started explaining, “We took a scan of the Dark Patch and found gravity waves, I’ll make few adjustments to our probe and we’ll send another one in few hours. But before that I want a Photon Sphere. That could confirm our suspicions sooner before we get any deep scans of the area.”

“Where do you want Photon Sphere to be detonated?” Al’Jafar asked.

“10 GU from the anomaly should do it.” Luca responded taking few notes on his personal palm Pad.

Al’Jafar was still sitting down in his pristine white uniform, bright yellow stripes across his chest shimmered in the light as he breathed heavily, knowing how close they were from losing the crew and ship.

He took his cap off wiping the sweat from his forehead and standing up from his chair. Approaching a console to his left he said, “Tactical I want you to prepare Photon Sphere.”

Tactical officer was working. His fingers were preparing something that was not vital for a military warship. A Photon Sphere was essentially a bomb that would explode and send photon particles that would move in tangents around its area of detonation. Meaning a glowing bright ball would be formed around where the black hole was, if there was any. If not the light would dissipate in all directions as it would lack any gravitational pull, since after all, they were in space.

“The Sphere is ready sir.” Officer said.

“Fire.” Al’Jafar booming voice commanded.

The man pressed on his console and in seconds the light left their ship and was on a fast paced way across space to its final destination.

Unintentional observer would see a bright ball of light moving across space with alarming speed.

Tense moments passed and the ball detonated. A shimmer of light moved across time and space, a liquid bubble in vacuum of space slowly started to form, after few moments disappearing in all directions leaving only darkness behind it like nothing happened.

A single point in time started to dynamically change its shape. Like a ripple in a water, space around it started to move and bend, sucking any remaining light that was near its vicinity.

Those on the bridge could only gawk in awe at this magnificent phenomena. Everyone was riveted to their seats as next few minutes passed in observation, the anomaly moving and undulating leaving everyone marveling and gasping at its beauty.

“What do you think that was?” One of the officers asked.

Science officer started to slide her fingers across her glass surface and in moments her shaky voice said, “I do not know. The Photon Sphere left traces for few microns, our computers are still processing the data that we recorded with our on board sensors. It’s too early to say anything conclusive.”

Al’Jafar waited, thinking his options, he eventually came to a conclusion “Everybody, it’s clear that our ship is limiting our own research. Coms I want you to send a message to Command, we need a science boat here that will have resources that we lack.”

“Aye, Sir. This is Knarr Class Starship God of War requesting backup at these coordinates. Be advised...” A voice started.

Over the voice Al’Jafar continued to give his orders his voice calm and collected, “Meanwhile, I want to re-engineer few probes and set them around the perimeter of this anomaly so people would not get caught in its gravitational pull.”

“Until we get some Nav markers we might want to improvise, there’s no telling who’s using Underspace while we are here. Let’s begin work. I want reports on when this will be done. And work on the estimation on how big that anomaly is going to get.” Al’Jafar’s requests ended with him sitting down on his chair and starting to read the Photon Sphere’s area of effect.

“That wreckage of ketracyil. Do you think we could get few probes to investigate that area?” Luca asked over the working men and women.

“I completely forgot about that, Sir, I’ve sent few probes there without your permission. I thought it was prudent to get as much scans as we could get during our stay there.” An officer started.

“It’s all right ensign, good thinking on your feet. What did you find out?” Al’Jafar said.

In few moments the young officer shared her screen on the big HUD screen that was pinned on a wall, a viewing screen, everyone could see what she saw on her console. “Well this was a remnant of a huge fleet, 50 ships, possibly more. Everything from Behemoth Class to, what I think were, Scadz class ships.”

“Scadz? Aren’t those patrol boats of Lizards?” Tactical officer asked.