Which Space - Part 2
24 Aug 2018Andrew Linton
The newly formed hyperspace conduit envelops me and the Diamondback hurtles towards its destination at thousands of times the speed of light. It's fascinating to watch the walls of the tunnel as you race through. Stars, bright white and dull yellow, speed past amid foggy nebulae; it's some kind of gravitational lensing of the stellar backdrop, I assume, though the physicists are still working on their theories.Fascinating, that is, for the first few thousand jumps you make. Then it becomes a little sickening and I feel a weight of weariness. Nowadays, I mostly close my eyes, maybe counting the seconds until it's over, and I can explore what I came to see.
This time though, on account of the uncertainty I feel over the performance of the Guardian FSD booster, I'm watching progress - monitoring the jump for anomalies.
The first thing I notice is that it's taking longer than usual - a lot longer. I would expect a hyperspace jump to last about twelve seconds. After a minute, I'm starting to be mildly concerned; after two minutes, I'm anxious; after three I'm seriously wondering when, and if, the jump is going to end.
I perform a full systems check and see that all modules are reported to be at 100%. I look at the instruments.
THERE'S A CONTACT ON THE SCANNER.
That's not supposed to happen in witch-space. There shouldn't be anything in the conduit - this is my jump and nobody else's. Thargoids know how to pull you out of witch-space - a process called hyperdiction - but I didn't think they could jump into it.
The symbol isn't amber, red, green, or blue, which are the usual colours, and it's not rectangular or triangular; instead it's a pink hexagon.
I look out on the port bow and there's a large, elongated light moving through the conduit at the same pace as my ship. Again...not supposed to happen.
My first thoughts are that it's a comet or an asteroid that's become entangled by the frame shift compression, or maybe the wall of the conduit has released a flake of matter. I'm only guessing; I don't have the faintest idea what I'm seeing.
As I watch, the light drifts closer, increasing in size and brightness. It's almost too bright to look at. I want to take evasive action but my controls are dead, of course; I feel vulnerable and impotent.
Gradually, the contours of a ship begin to take shape. It looks rather like a Fer-de-Lance but it's much, much bigger. It's trailing a fierce blue light, reminiscent of a class O star, which speaks of power and technology far in advance of what's pushing my DBX through space.
I hear a familiar ding and glance across the HUD. The mass-lock indicator has turned blue - another unprecedented state in witch-space.
It seems that the pilot of the ship is able to manoeuvre his vessel, which begs the question, why is he/she/it coming closer? Am I so insignificant that the pilot hasn't even noticed me, or are they coming to get a closer look?
I try to contact the ship, to warn it to keep clear, but get a message saying there is no valid communication target.
The alien ship is now only a few hundred metres away and its true scale becomes apparent. The bow stretches far out ahead of me while, craning my head to look backwards, I cannot see the stern, only the glow of its mighty thrusters lighting up the surroundings.
I feel the DBX suddenly lurch. The other ship starts to roll and I am dragged around in some kind of gravitational dance, travelling now in a spiral path. I have no control over what happens, and can only sit and watch. Completely helpless, I wait for the end of the nightmare ride. I'm dizzy and disoriented - worse than in any centrifuge used for astronaut training. Closing my eyes doesn't help, because my ears still sense the wild gyrations.
The spin rate increases and I realise, after taking a breath, that I've been screaming at the top of my voice. An alarm sounds and I see the dreaded Thargoid hyperdiction warning:
...not that I think that's what's happening here; this is something else.
The DBX is complaining loudly; the superstructure is being significantly stressed. I hear disconcerting clunks and clangs that make me think the ship is about to break up.
After another dozen or so seconds of agony, there's an explosion. Fortunately, it's not on board the DBX; no, it's the other ship; it's disappeared, dropping out of witch-space. Not that my troubles are over. The buffeting of the explosion sends me skittering off at a tangent and I see the conduit collapsing all around me. The violence of the g-force is enough to render me unconscious.
*
When I come round, I'm in normal space. It takes me half a minute to remember what happened. I see that, while I was out of it, the automatic extinguishers had put out two small fires: one in the engine compartment, and the other near the power distributor. I go to the module panel to survey the damage. It's surprisingly mild; all modules are at 98%, with the exceptions of the power plant, at 94%, and the distributor, at 95%. I feel lucky to have escaped so lightly.
I can't begin to analyse what happened in witch-space; every familiar aspect and supposed rule of behaviour in that environment seemed to have been violated: sharing the hyperspace conduit with another ship, not to mention a ship unlike any I've seen; that ship could manoeuvre in witch-space and was able to mass-lock my little DBX.
It's a lot to process and, thinking that I should show other people - people cleverer than me - what had happened, I make sure my data logs are backed up.
So, back to the business of freeing up bookmarks by travelling to the collection of black holes, supergiants, and neutron stars I'd saved previously. I bring up the galaxy map to resume my route.
It takes me five seconds to realise that I'm not looking at your everyday galaxy map. As I move around it, zooming in and out, I see that it's showing not stars but galaxies. The scale rings go out to eight million lightyears, so I reckon this is what they call the Local Group - the cluster of galaxies closest to the Milky Way.
But how can this be? Well, like boxers roll with the punches and rafters go with the flow, explorers deal with what's in front of them. The galaxy, and now the universe it seems, has many surprises and the seasoned explorer, whose key strength is resourcefulness, will adapt and learn from what each situation has to offer.
I don't know what's happened, but I'm determined to find a way to move on. Somehow I've been knocked way off course and my first tasks are to assess my status and plan for either deeper exploration or a way to get back to my original route.
There's no turquoise Current Location icon on the map. I look outside. It's black...I mean totally black. I can see distant galaxies, but not stars. I turn to the navigation panel to see my options.
Now, there's a surprise. My ship seems to have the ability to make intergalactic jumps. I'm thinking this must be a hidden feature of the Guardian FSD booster that, somehow, has become activated. I push back in my seat and take some deep breaths, my brain racing to examine the possibilities.
What to do? Jump to Andromeda and begin the exploration of a lifetime, or jump to the Milky Way, just to make sure I can get home? Or how about a shorter jump to the Large Magellanic Cloud - and snap some pictures of the Milky Way from that perspective?
There's no rush. I'll fill my Hutton mug with a fresh brew of tea and ponder which space I will go to.
Author's Note
The Local Group Map was adapted from an image with this attribution