Mythic “sun-eater” responsible for dimming night sky, sources say
Colonists stationed on Vandy have built a reputation among the stars for tall tales, but this time they say the galaxy needs to listen. “Three cycles ago, Odeus Pillar went dark,” claimed local scientist January Carter. “That’s only 2500 light years away, practically next store. Five cycles ago, Odeus Plank also went dark.” Carter and a group of scientists stationed on the planet claim this is the work of a Sun-Eater, something galactic consensus agree is a myth. Asked to describe this creature, Carter said: “Just because we don’t see it, doesn’t mean it's not there.” More on this story as it develops.
-Colony News
Corina stood on the machine's bridge with her hands on her hips. She marveled at the stars that flew by like white streamers. The Urgineer had somehow made this ship travel in the real as easily as one would in the bleed. The machine surrounded itself with an energy-density field that bent space around them while shielding it from such a maneuver's relativistic effects. In essence, it contracted space ahead of them while expanding it behind them; it was the bubble traveling, not the machine within. The dry explanation offered by the Urgineer made her head hurt, so she just took everything he said at face value.
Sam joined her near the view screen; this was the longest she had seen him with his face not buried in a tablet or wearing a VR helmet. It was tough getting a read on him sometimes, and she imagined she was no picnic either. It could have been the death-defying acts they had to do together that erased the chasm of resentment but who could say? She tried hard not to think about the cure the Urgineer had supposedly built, although she wondered what form it could take. Was it something ingested? Or was it a machine?
Bet it’s a machine, she thought. The kid wanted it, and it was hard to do the whole I know what’s best for you routine in the face of that. Plus, she felt guilty.
She glanced over at him, “You sure about this?”
“What?”
She knew what she wanted to ask but pivoted to something else: “About going to this place,” She pointed forward with her chin as if their destination was right in front of them.
“Well, I kinda have to,” He said. Then after a beat, “Was that your roundabout way of asking if I really want to be cured?”
Corina looked forward and let a smirk form on her face despite her best efforts not to. “Am I so transparent?”
“Somewhat,” Sam chuckled at that and let silence fill up the spaces between them again. Eventually, he said, “I’m not sure.” The words surprised Corina, and she instantly wore that look on her face. She turned her head to look at Sam when:
We have arrived.
Corina looked out the main window again. Indeed the stars had stopped rushing towards them and now were still. Colorful molecular clouds spread across the backdrop, frozen in space like orange and blue snow-covered mountains. If you looked hard enough at it, however, a spot distorted everything around it. Little bright stars and blue molecular gas bent around this object, giving it a colorful halo. The entire scene tricked her mind and made her think of a flushed toilet or an emptying drain. It was a black hole and while she had seen many vids of one, nothing compared to being so close to one.
“I thought you said there was a planet here?” She inquired of the Urgineer.
His chair exhaled loudly as the two halves cracked open again. He stepped free of the fleshy insides, still attached to it via the thick, veiny cables that snapped off when the slack had become taut. Corina stared at his chest, the organic lungs no longer present. Instead, as he had promised, were synthetic facsimiles that moved and bulged like the real thing, except you could see the seams and valves that made up its construction.
“As I’ve said, it exists on two planes simultaneously.” He walked over to his console again and swiped his hands over the delicate glass.
“And that protects it from the black hole?”
The Urgineer chose not to answer as if it were evident. Corina turned her attention back to the view screen. The massive accretion disk that lensed around the object felt alive and angry to her. Who knows how long it had been here and how much matter it has crushed? She hoped so very much that the subsequent phases of this plan did not include her having to fly near it. The neutron star incident was reckless; this would be idiotic. Although the cocky part of her brain tickled at adding such a notch in her belt, she shook that off emphatically. She got lucky; no need to push it.
“These will allow us to access Uzrath,” spoke the Urgineer. His deep mechanical voice snapped her out of her rambling thoughts. Corina and Sam turned around, and The Urgineer held three elongated objects in his hand. They resembled harnesses that went over your shoulders and back and attached to a belt. Corina walked over and grabbed hold of one; Sam grabbed the other. The outside of the straps looked like a circuit or microchip welded onto stretchable monofilament.
“Excuse the crude construction,” said the Urgineer, and Corina almost laughed. Care for aesthetics must cross-species and culture or something. The shoulder harnesses had a nob on each strap, while the belt had a big twisting dial that also served as a buckle. She slipped the restraints around her shoulders and clicked those into place via a strap that dangled beneath them. Next, she wrapped the belt around her waist and locked it into place. She placed her thumb and forefinger onto the dial and examined it. She made a note of the notches carved on the edges.
“Be careful.” The Urgineer chastised them both.
“So, how does it work?” She asked.
“Turn the two smaller nobs on your shoulders clockwise twice, then shift the dial on your waist completely counterclockwise. It will change the frequency at which your atoms vibrate to match that of Uzrath.”
“This in theory or…?” Sam asked.
The Urgineer stared at him for five seconds before finally saying, “…nothing I do is ‘in theory.’” The matter-of-factness of the statement had stopped them both from their fiddling. The Urgineer returned to his work and said, “I must finish my calculations to shift this machine as well.”
“I’m going to test this thing,” Corina said. “If that’s alright?” The Urgineer didn’t even deign that worth an answer. She looked over at Sam and shrugged her shoulder, “Whelp, here goes.”
“Don’t blow up?” Sam said, and Corina gave him a look. She reached for the knob on her right shoulder and did as previously instructed, then repeated the same motions on her left side. She grabbed either end of the big dial with her thumb and index finger and lifted it slightly so she could get a decent look at the face. It was translucent with oddly shaped circuits that brought muscle and sinew to mind more than electronics.
She turned the dial counter-clockwise; it made a satisfying clicking sound as each grove ground against the back plate. At first, she had little to no realization that something had happened. Truthfully, she was ready to decry the thing as broken. But when she looked up, she was alone. She wasn’t even on the ship. She stood in solitude, suspended within the vastness of space, the backdrop of which brought to mind a psychedelic nightmare.
Her skin moved like it were alive and buzzed with the weirdness of her suddenly being on some different plane. She was in the vacuum of space, but it was green, blue, and yellow instead of black. Corina tried to place where the black hole was and was surprised when she found it. It had a neon glow, but it sucked in matter all the same.
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Something else was there as well. Small and only noticeable by the black hole's gravitational effects on it. Corina squinted her eyes as if that would help, but they were still much too far out. Eventually, she’d had enough, reached down, turned the dial clockwise, and was back on the bridge just as quickly as she had left it. The look on Sam’s face told her all Corina needed to know. She had vanished from his sight; her being back had freaked him out.
“Greshing Hell!” Corina yelled. “I guess it worked?”
Sam stood there holding his hand against his chest and nodded. It had totally worked.
“What was it like?” He asked her, and she told him as best she could remember. In some ways, it felt less like a real place and more like a state of mind. The effect on her physically felt as intense as any mind altering substance, but that was probably the trick. Obviously, it was a natural place where you could touch, feel, walk, and go absolutely mad. How you reacted to that was up to you.
The Urgineer finally glanced up from his console.
“Satisfied?” He said. His tone was flat—artificial voice aside—but it kept staring at her, making her uncomfortable. Eventually, she nodded solemnly, her heart still beating inside her chest cavity. Sam pulled on her arm to get her attention.
“What was it like?” He asked again.
She felt dumbfounded for a moment; didn’t he just ask that? That was when she realized she had been standing there stunned for five minutes and was only brought out of it by the Urgineer’s voice. Everything she thought she had just said only occurred in her mind, and now it felt like she’d forgotten what words were and how they fit together in everyday conversation. She looked over at Sam and touched him on the shoulder to make sure he was there, and he was.
The Urgineer was studying her silently; it had hoped she would do what she did. The biggest unknown was the effects such vibrational shifting would have on a primate mind; now he had his answer; it was within acceptable parameters. Corina then touched herself to ensure she was still here; satisfied, she finally said to Sam:
“You need to see it yourself; don’t even get me started.”
Sam accepted that, although the wide-eyed look she sported gave him a touch of concern. The Urgineer looked at them both and waited for them to stop talking before he said, “The machine is ready.”
Corina nodded. “I imagine my friend won’t be hard to find,” she told him.
“No, I imagine not; if she truly wields the mantle.”
She ignored that, “Is it ready?”’
The Urgineer tapped spaces on his console expertly, and it was good that Corina tested the harnesses. The feeling she had felt during the test now hit her tenfold. It made her arms' hair stand up and tingle up and down her skin. Vaguely prepared for this trip, the sensation felt far less intense. The ship was still there but bathed in a hazy green and orange.
In front of her was The Urgineer, his aura shimmering and unsteady. Sam was next to her, looking similar. Immediately he collapsed to the floor and started puking. The shifting seemed to have messed with his equilibrium. The ship’s foundation floor came alive upon contact with the bile and absorbed the matter as if it were eating it. Sam felt forced to scurry backward on his butt; he wasn’t handling this well. Corina couldn’t help but ignore all that and stared down at her hands. The green tinting had polluted her vision and made her feel just as uneasy. She turned around and looked out the view window.
The backdrop spun around the black hole and merged into a solid 3-inch thick disc of gas, dust, and radiation that shimmered to indicate movement. Dangerously close to that was a planet, and in any other circumstance, that planet wouldn’t exist. The accretion disk passed through it as if it wasn’t even there and warped the tinted green and blue world so much that it looked sickly and diseased. However, from where they were, they could see the ocean, continents, and weather patterns through a distorted lens.
That had to be it, her thoughts screamed. Uzrath, the planet she’d been searching for, was finally right in front of her face. Once, it was just a single stray word told to her in a panic. But now? She wanted to cry. The trip between the two extremes could be measured in light years, but she didn’t want to think about it.
She looked at Sam, and he was still on the floor, staring at the spot where his puke had been. He noticed that she was looking at him and nodded at her in answer to an unasked question. She smirked at him with the hope it made him feel at ease. If Lady Steel were cool as a cucumber, everything would be okay.
The only thing left was to keep her heart in her chest.
The Machine slithered closer to the planet. Its body bucked up and down rhythmically while it drifted closer. On approach, the world, and thus the black hole, became increasingly distorted as the machine crossed into the gravitational lensing. The serpent groaned; even on this shifted plane, gravity’s pull could not be ignored.
But that was it; it was just a pull. Somehow it couldn’t crush the machine serpent into nothingness. Corina wondered if the black hole was angry. The machine came to a stop, coiled upon itself, and rested. Sam had gotten up and wiped the excess vomit from his lip, and he stared out the view screen, mesmerized by all the colors and shapes of the disk.
“Is this the closest you’ve ever been to one?” He asked her.
She eyed him incredulously and answered, “Yes, of course.”
“Had to ask, ya know?” And she did know. She stared down at the planet and wondered if Roxanne was okay. Corina wasn’t sure how long they’d been traveling in relativistic terms, but it had been a long journey—the longest she had ever done. And right now, she could only hope she wasn’t too late.
“We’re coming, Rox.” She whispered.
***
They took Enehva first and didn’t say what for, but she assured Roxanne that she would be fine. However, the change in body language when the guards saw she no longer wore the restraints was hilarious to Roxanne. Both reached for their weapons immediately, took aim, and clicked gibberish at her. Poor things, they did their best to sound intimidating, but aside from their size, Roxanne found them lacking.
She kept a neutral posture and let them shout. Enehva spoke up for her and said they had nothing to fear, that Roxanne had intended to honor the challenge, and that seemed to do the trick. However, when they reached for Enehva, Roxanne almost jumped them both and almost turned a tense situation deadly, but a raised hand in her direction from Enehva kept her calm.
The guards escorted her away, and Roxanne has been sitting here ever since, in the center of her cell, cross-legged and deep in thought. The complete reconnection of her abilities took some time regarding re-acclimation. Her synaptic reflexes needed rebuilding thanks to the sudden severed connection. Roxanne found herself flooded with memories of Enehva’s own, back when she was the ring-bearer. Her predecessor's skills and memories, recorded and stored in a pocket of the Bleed for the next successor to call on, often didn’t come so easy. Some could be recalled instinctively, sure, like breathing or walking. Others required a trigger. Something as simple and mundane as déjà vu could do the trick, but those were fleeting.
With her reconnection, Roxanne did something she rarely did: seek out the memories. She needed to see the whole story, and being told of it could only carry one so far. And Roxanne saw it all: the battles that led to Enehva claiming the mantle, her first contacts with the other three original civilizations, Ordlach’s “conception,” orchestrated by the light. As a reward of some sort—a “thank you for your service”—Roxanne found it oddly sweet if not ultimately bizarre. Was that the only such instance in the entire lineage? And did she want to know? She’d have to table that for later.
Her cell door slammed again, bringing her out of the trance with a jolt. Heavy footfalls joined the door opening, the same two guards as last time. They were jittery and still wary of her, but she raised her hands nonchalantly and allowed them to escort her down the hallway once more. The din from the crowd was seeping through the walls more forcefully this time; they may have been legitimately excited for once.
This was unlike any previous battle, or perhaps Ordlach’s oral skills were better than she thought, and he had successfully whipped them all in a frenzy. Regardless, their energy was palpable and seeped through the stone walls.
As they got closer, a horn became prevalent, it had a stutter start quality that felt rhythmless on the surface, but upon closer inspection, it had an excellent steady beat. It became more prominent once they reached the final archway. It was relatively dark where they were, and once they stepped out, Roxanne’s eyes needed time to adjust to the change in lighting conditions. When done, she met with the whole face and force of the gathered spectators. Everyone gesticulated with their arms wildly, and it felt less performative this time. They were ready and frothing at the mouth for whatever carnage awaited them.
The guards stepped away from her and flanked her on either side. Roxanne looked up at the luxury box seats, and Ordlach motioned to the crowd with wild gestures. Behind him and to his left was Enehva. Shackled to the pole that stabilized the structure, she looked like she got beaten some more.
Upon noticing this, Roxanne closed her fist and felt her eyes grow hot. Her aura crystalized around her instantly, almost on instinct. The bright flash pulsing in its wake caught Ordlach’s attention as he felt compelled to stop showing off. He jumped from the box and landed 10 feet in front of Roxanne effortlessly; it kicked up a massive cloud of dust that whipped and whirled around them with reckless abandon.
The crowd noise died down as they stared across at each other. Ordlach’s expressions hid behind the armor of his mask, but Roxanne’s feelings were plain on her face. Even to an alien species, some looks were universal. She was ready to fight. Ordlach stepped toward her and dismissively swept the cape off his shoulder.
“You look prepared to die,” he said, completely misreading her. “Good.”
Roxanne let that slide and took a fighting stance. Her arms hung loosely at her sides, her elbows bent at slight variations of 90-degree angles, while her fingers stayed loose and ready to strike. She lightly bounced on the balls of her feet. Roxanne had been working on this for a while. A style of all styles that took bits from all her predecessors. Ordlach noticed this and laughed before he turned his attention back to the crowd.
“The pretender thinks she has a chance!” The crowd jeered and held their claws down to indicate their disapproval. He turned back to Roxanne and pointed at her, “This is to the death, pretender! Do you understand?”
“Shut up and fight.”