Executive Teal H. Harah

  It was 0500 System time. I was standing in the bridge of the Lead ship Nambien. The room was largely ceremonious. Every aspect of the ship was controlled by the ship’s AI; which could be communicated with and controlled remotely anywhere on the ship by use of implants, if you had the proper authority and training. What had constituted as a bridge since the dawn of interstellar travel consisted of a small quiet room with a comfortable chair where you could sit down and devote all of your focus to monitoring and manipulating the smallest and subtlest of the ship’s systems.

  I was alone on the bridge, looking out of a wall of transparent glass that curved outward to create a hemisphere bulging from the ship, another timeless relic from the past. For centuries, you could simply patch into the ship’s sensors and experience the world through her eyes. I watched the stark glare of the Gate station expanding into full view amongst the stars and clouds in the background. I walked across the narrow observation deck and laid my hand on the cool surface of the lens wall. Others would be coming to join me shortly.

  Now I could see the station in full detail. The entire 436th Expeditionary Fleet closing in on the station, waiting for the Bridge to come to life, and continuing mankind’s five-hundred-year-old tradition of settling outer space.

  And the tradition goes a little like this:

  First, you have two stations, called Gates. One Gate stays behind, while the second Gate is launched into outer space to travel the stars for a century or more and arrives at a predestined point in space. Once the Gate reaches its max speed, it all but shuts down. The Gate’s functions are all monitored and controlled by an AI. While the great automated ship hibernates, it gathers and stores massive amounts of energy by any means practical for the next century while its stationary sister does the same back home.

  Second, after a pre-calculated time has come to pass, both stations come to life once more and begin the process of creating an artificial wormhole. Mankind’s very own shortcut through spacetime.

  Both stations synthesize a large amount of materials from the Exotic Matter Table. Then, through Coulder’s Process, the two gates synonymously apply this matter to create a wormhole, known as a Bridge.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  After that, a fleet can be sent through to settle that sector of space and start the process over again. This time with more advanced technology than before. This is the entire purpose of each Colony. To settle a region of space for no other reason than to build its strength back up, and thrust deeper into the void. A Colony’s job is not complete until it has founded a sister Colony; until they spin just one more thread in humanity’s ever growing web across the stars. The methods and strategies and specifics vary wildly through the ages and from colony to colony. But the basics have always remained the same.

  Lost in my reflections, I hadn’t noticed the others entering the room. A well-known specialty of mine, the ability to block out the rest of the world for a time while my mind is occupied. They were waiting casually just outside the door. I motioned them in, regaining my authoritative, professional demeanor.

  Leading the pack of senior staff, as usual, was my primary secretary, Loriel Lorosa. Overdue to be promoted to my chief of staff. I had been planning for some time how to best maneuver my current chief of staff, Jol, out of the way so Lorosa could take his place. The man did his job quite well, and he’d been doing it a long time. He deserved a reward of his own.

  “What’s the time?” I asked.

  “Seven minutes, Ma’am.”

  Everyone spread out to make themselves comfortable on the bridge. Nobody spoke. Implant activity dulled to a hum. All the speeches had already been given, all the celebrating and congratulating was over with. Now was the time everyone broke off for patient anticipation and private reflection. We all studied the celestial ring.

  As if imagining it, the space inside the ring was slightly distorted. Slowly, barely perceptible at first, the inside of the ring stretched inwards on itself, coalescing around a swelling glass orb in the center. The orb showed itself in pronounced contrast to the backdrop of stars and dust clouds behind it. The realm of distorted space formed a sphere, with the Gate station wrapping around like a ring. The orb opened and expanded, the warped space now pulling and folding in on itself to reveal a clear view of what was on the other side. Which in this case was empty space, boring a hole through the clouded backdrop, set deep in the center of a massive glass orb.

  The Gate and Bridge now dominated the view from the bridge. Slowly, silently, space warped itself around the Nambiene. We were inside the Bridge now. Condensed stars and galaxies painted the inside of the Bridge, coming into full prominence, only for a moment, before flying backwards at inconceivable speeds. An illusion. We were moving at a consistent speed. Nowhere close to maximum. But every inch we moved here was stretched beyond comprehension outside the throat of the wormhole.

  This journey was made once before, almost one hundred and fifty years ago.

  We would be crossing that distance within days.