Harry woke the next morning. He hadn’t slept all that well because his mind kept running through the million-and-one things that he needed to sign off on before his ship could depart. With a grumble Harry flopped his way to the edge of his oversized bed and slid off the edge to stand. He yawned and stripped off his pajamas, throwing them to the floor to join the other mounds of clothing strewn about his suite. He never was one for neatness, and he wasn’t about to start now even if he was richer than rich.
He padded into the shower room…and it was a full tiled room, clearly designed to hold a couple of Jornissian bathers. A few touches on the control pad next to the door was enough to send multiple sprays of pleasantly warm water at him from multiple directions.
Harry sang as he soaped up. “Oh! how I hate to get up in the morning…Oh! How I’d love to remain in beeeedd…” He didn’t take very long in spite of his decadently-sized shower. Within a few minutes he’d finished, dried off, and wrapped a towel around himself before walking back into his suite.
And as he entered he stopped dead. There was a distinct amount of floor now showing, something which hadn’t been the case before thanks to all of the dirty clothing. His pajamas were now neatly folded and laid upon the bed, which was itself immaculately made as opposed to the untidy sprawl of linen as Harry had left it.
The rest of his clothes were nowhere to be seen. But he had a pretty good idea of where they’d got to. He hunted in his wardrobe for some clean clothes, and after throwing them on Harry went in search of his new butler.
Or rather he started to go in search of Jevnar, only to turn around after a few minutes of walking to find the sought-after Dorarizin looming right behind him.
“GAH!” The human flattened himself against the nearest corridor wall in shock.
Jeeves took his surprised outburst in stride and merely bowed. “[My apologies, sir. Did Sir sleep well?]”
“Fine. Did you take my stuff?”
“[Of course, sir. Your clothing is presently being laundered, and will be returned to you as soon as possible.]”
“Why? They weren’t that dirty!”
Jeeves paused for an ever-so-brief moment before replying, a pause that said louder than words your sense of smell is not as good as mine. “[That is as may be, sir. Still, Sir should look smart in front of the crew.]”
Harry growled. “Eh, I suppose you’re right. I’m not used to dressing for effect, you know? By the way, you could give lessons to a ninja. I never heard you at all while I was in the shower.”
The butler grinned, making his mouth look like the aftermath of an explosion in a knife factory. “[Part of my duty is to be unobtrusive.]”
“There’s unobtrusive and then there’s being like a gods-be-damned ghost. Just don't appear like that behind me, okay? I nearly soiled myself.”
“[As you wish, sir.]”
----------------------------------------
“[Thunderbirds are go!]” said [Harry] in a proud and happy voice. He sat half-slouched in the command chair with a big grin on his face.
By now Jevnar had ceased trying to make sense of what came out of his employer’s mouth. Sometimes he knew what it meant and sometimes he didn’t, and that was just the way Things Were Going To Be. He stood next to Harry’s chair with his usual imperturbable air while on the other side crouched the lean, yellow-feathered Karnakian who was the ship’s chief medical officer. She kept nuzzling the side of [Harry’s] face as if he was some sickly fledgling which she was trying to nurse back to health.
Meanwhile Shnhsnrnan, seated at her workstation, spun her head completely around. It was a movement which would have snapped any Dorarizin’s spine. Her face looked calm for the first time since Jevnar’s arrival. “[The main reactors are now online, and running in stable condition.]”
[Harry] grinned. “[Excellent. Do the engines look [orange] on your end?]”
The engineer ducked her head back around to read her consoles. “[So far. I’m okay with trying a quarter-power burn.]”
Another Karnakian, this one colored a deep copper and much fluffier than Tr’tnan’til, turned from his workstation. “[The drydock has cleared us for departure, si…I mean [Harry].”
“[Thanks, [Kant’nat],]” replied the tiny-chomper. “[All right, Driver, take her out. Be gentle with the old girl, okay?]”
The helmeted visor of the other tiny-chomper swiveled around to stare at [Harry] for a moment, and then without a single word he turned back and reached for his own console. His white-gloved fingers gripped the steering and power hand-grips on either side of his display and ever so carefully moved them forward.
Jevnar felt the slightest tug through his feet, the inertial dampeners kicking in as they allowed him to feel the ship accelerating but protecting him from the full force of that acceleration. He tilted his head as he realized that his translator hadn’t put a ‘close-enough’ name to the person piloting the ship. It had just put in the word ‘Driver’ and that was that.
He leaned over towards [Harry] and whispered as well as a nine-foot-tall murdermachine with a mouthful of clicking fangs could whisper. “{Forgive me, sir, but does the yonder gentleman have a name?}”
[Harry] shrugged. “[If I find out I’ll tell you. He’s one of those, whaddyacall, savants. He doesn’t mingle too much. But put him in any vehicle and he can drive or fly it like nobody’s business.]”
Like nobody’s business…another good phrase I shall have to remember. “{Ah, I see, sir.}” Jevnar paused as he chose the most diplomatic way of asking his next question. “{It may seem a bit rude to pry, but how did Mister...Driver obtain his experience in piloting dreadnaughts?}”
[Harry] chuckled. “[This is his first time. Like I said, he’s a savant. Stick him in a brick with wings and he’d be able to land it.]”
Jevnar swallowed the tiny bit of fear he allowed himself to feel. “{I hope that sir is not overconfident.}”
The tiny-chomper reached over and patted Jevnar’s forearm. “[Now [Jevnar], would you say that if someone needed protecting you would be the best choice around?]”
The butler tried his utmost to be objective as he pondered the question. Finally he was forced to say, “{Pardon my arrogance, but I am indeed the best option, sir.}”
“[It ain’t bragging if it’s true. A famous [tiny-chomper] once said that. Anyway, Driver is to piloting what you are to personal protection. Like I told you, I hired the best at everything.]”
The clutching arms of the drydock ever-so-slowly slid past the viewscreen and then disappeared, leaving only the endless black void of space.
“[Engines are running and nicely stable,]” said Shnhsnrnan. “[I think seventy-five percent power is doable.]”
“[Good job with the refurb, Chief Engineer,]” replied [Harry]. “[Driver, run her up to three-quarters power burn but be ready to shut her down if you see anything amiss.]”
The instruction made Jevnar relax a bit. His employer might be eccentric, but at least [Harry] wasn’t a reckless fool.
Driver made another black-tinted glance backward, then pushed his controls further forward. The ‘felt’ acceleration increased, but Jevnar knew it was only a fraction of the true power now coursing through the fabric of the refurbished dreadnaught. He watched Driver with the concentration of a scout searching for prey for their pack. The jump-suited tiny-chomper ignored any such scrutiny and instead attended to his controls with similar absolute intent.
“[Seventy-five percent and holding,]” said Shnhsnrnan. “[No issues thus far. I’d like to run them for a while before we proceed with testing our warp capability.]”
[Harry] stood. “[Sounds good. [Kant’nat], can you put me on a ship-wide broadcast?]”
The Karnakian touched a few controls on his panel and then turned back to the ship’s nominal captain. “[You’re connected, [Harry].]”
The tiny-chomper strode forth from his chair and stopped in front of the viewscreen. He then turned and fixed the bridge staff with a gimlet eye. He began to speak, his small and tinny voice reverberating in the loudspeakers situated throughout the giant spacecraft.
“[Attention, everyone. This is [Harry], your boss. I know it’s been a rough few months, and it seems like I’ve been asking for the moon and the stars. But today I want to assure you that there’s a method to my madness."
Jevnar's tail swished a bit against the deck as he took in that last statement.
Harry continued. "Most of you are privy to my secret, but for those few of you who aren’t aware…well, I’m the sole winner of the biggest lottery jackpot the galaxy has ever seen. Frankly, it’s more money than anyone could hope to spend in any single lifetime…unless they got creative.”
[Harry] met Jevnar’s eyes and gave his butler a wink. “[So I went and got creative, for the sake of the galactic economy. This ship is part of my plan, namely a vessel so formidable that any pirate out there will give it a wide berth no matter how far we are from civilized space. Hell, the only way the Senate and the [UTF] allowed me to own it was on the condition that I register her as a Terran Combat Ship. I kept telling them that was ridiculous, but well…you all must have had your own run-ins with bureaucrats and know how hard it is to get them to relent once they get an idea in their heads. Anyways, congrats to everyone on board. You’re now officially part of the [tiny-chomper] navy, so that’s something you can tell yer grandkids.]”
Jevnar felt another slight vibration in his feet as the ship reverberated with the cheering of its crew. That cheering cut off as [Harry] continued.
“[So you might be wondering, what’s the overall plan? Well, now I can tell you. I’m the first [tiny-chomper] to ever get a full sensory-recording implant.]” He tapped at a point under his left ear. “[With the appropriate storage media attached, I can faithfully capture what I’m seeing and feeling with perfect fidelity. Then anyone with the appropriate sensory-feedback headset can experience it just as I do.]”
[Harry] turned and pointed into the vast black beyond the viewport. At the moment only a scattering of stars were visible in its velvet expanse. “[Out there are wonders that only a select few have ever seen. That goes for most everyone in the galaxy, but it applies in particular for us [tiny-chompers]. What I want to do is bring those sights to everyone, so that they can see those sights just as I see them.]”
The [tiny-chomper] turned back to his bridge crew and grinned. “[And as far as what we’re gonna see…well, I’ve made a fucking list.]”
----------------------------------------
After three hours at seventy-five percent, the Thunderbird One’s refurbished engines still purred along with no issues. Harry gave the order to go into warp, but that turned into another tedious multi-hour process of powering up the FTL drive’s massive capacitors, testing for any problems, then powering them down again and repeating the process. Finally Shnhsnrnan announced she was satisfied, and after a bit of finagling the giant dreadnaught disappeared from normal spacetime.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Now that they were properly underway, Harry decided it was a good time to take a swim in the ship’s special pool. There was multi-acre-sized ‘normal’ pool of course, which seemed almost big enough to hold a major naval exercise. At the moment many of the off-duty crew occupied that pool. Most of them were Jornissians, and their long streamlined bodies sped through the water with a casual sinuous grace. A few Dorarizin here and there paddled with serene calm among the darting snakelike aliens.
The special pool, on the other hand, was a lot smaller and ‘only’ about the size of your standard Olympic swimming pool. At the moment it held a single Jornissian. His snout broke the multicolored surface just as Harry strolled up with Jevnar in tow. “[Sorry, sir!...I mean, [Harry]. I didn’t know you were going to…]”
Harry waved a casual hand. “Hey, it’s alright. You’re…Persimmon, right?” Silently Harry thanked the unsung heroes of long ago who’d come up with the name substitution protocols in the translator matrix.
The Jornissian nodded, his eyes downcast. He perked up as Harry continued.
“Cool, my brain hasn’t gone to mush yet. Anyways, there’s plenty of room for all of us. I’m glad to see someone else using it, to be honest.”
The Jornissian emerged further from the special pool and glanced down at the colorful orbs which took the place of water. “[These beads feel strange, but I’m in the middle of my last shed and they work great to get all those stubborn bits of skin to come off.]” Then he looked up in horror as he realized the implications of that statement. “[Oh. I can try to get my skin out of here, I’m sure you don’t want that…]”
The human laughed. “Don’t worry, I thought of that. There’s a whole recycling system that takes out the beads, hydrates and cleans them, then puts them back in. Otherwise it would get kinda disgusting pretty quickly.”
Harry heard a discreet cough-click from Jevnar behind him. “[Out of curiosity, sir, what is this pool…filled with?]”
For a moment the human thought about asking Jevnar to take a break. Having someone hovering over him all the time just seemed wrong. But then again he’d hired the guy in part to be his bodyguard, and it would be silly to not allow him to do his job.
He knelt and picked up one of the orbs, squeezing it in between his thumb and forefinger. “They’re polymer balls that absorb water and get much bigger. Plus they get soft. See?” He gave the selected ball a few more squishes to demonstrate.
Jevnar’s ear twitched, the only sign of his internal wonderment. “[And sir does not use water because…?]”
“Oh, I don’t mind swimming normally. But this just seemed like fun, yanno?” Harry started stripping off his clothes and setting them aside, stopping his disrobing at his underwear. “Plus it doesn’t get your clothes as wet.” He crouched and dove forward into the rainbow-colored mass, feeling the soft surface give way before the mass of jelly-like beads buoyed up his weight.
Harry rolled over and grinned at Jevnar. The Dorarizin stood in his species’ usual hunched position, looking at his boss swimming through beads with a detached air that Harry was coming to know very well.
“Wanna go for a swim?” asked the human.
Jevnar tilted his head. “[I don’t think that would be a good idea.]”
“Aw, c’mon! At least try it out.”
The butler gave a clicking-sigh, and after another moment of introspection he began to disrobe. He folded his clothes much more neatly than Harry, his gestures looked almost like a moving meditation. Harry also saw that the Dorarizin females at the ‘normal’ pool were now looking in Jevnar’s direction. They might be alien, but Harry didn’t miss the hunger behind that staring. He realized that his newest employee was going to have to deal with being very…popular among the Dorarizin women in his crew. Not to mention the male Dorarizin who swung that way.
Oh well. As long as it didn’t interfere with Jevnar's duties, he couldn’t care less how the butler spent his downtime. Harry did find it hilarious to imagine his Oh So very Proper Dorarizin butler trotting off to have a sweaty quickie in some out-of-the-way nook. It was really really really unlikely, but still funny to think about.
Jevnar now stood only clad in briefs, but from his bearing he still appeared as if fully dressed. After a brief glance to make sure his intended landing point was clear, he leapt forward faster than the human eye could track. Harry caught just a glimpse of a perfect, blue-gray blurring arc before the beads erupted around Jevnar’s impact.
The resulting ‘ripple’ pushed Harry away, and he ‘paddled’ as best he could amongst the beads to regain his position. Two triangular ears emerged from the multicolored surface, followed by Jevnar’s stoic face.
“[This feels…interesting.]” said Jevnar. “[It’s much more, ah, tactile than water.]”
Harry laughed. “I know, right? Initially I tried gummy bears but those were way too sticky and didn’t allow you to ‘sink’ into them. Plus it was a real mess, especially for the Karnakians and you guys. They stick to fur and feathers like you wouldn’t believe.”
“[I can imagine, sir. But I must confess I am still trying to see the point of such a pool.]”
“Why can the Karnakians see the souls of sapient creatures? Why do Dorarizin have such a good sense of smell? And why are Jornissians so damn cuddly?”
The Jornissian still occupying the ‘pool’ blushed at that last statement.
“Not everything has to have a reason,” continued Harry. “This pool is just one of those things. Just like how two years ago I was a welder in a orbital shipyard. I bought a couple of tickets for the galactic lottery, just for shits and giggles of course. Never in a million years did I think I’d win.”
Harry stretched out, spread-eagled on the rainbow pool of beads. “But now here I am. A former welder, trying like hell to make sure the galactic economy doesn’t implode while showing humanity the wonders of the universe.”
“[So your sensory recordings are primarily intended for [humans]?]” asked Jevnar.
Harry wasn’t an idiot; he knew his butler’s past and knew that the guy was a master at worming secrets out of anyone. Even so, the guy deserved to be dealt with straight-on. He rolled over onto his stomach and looked up at Jevnar. The butler ‘bobbed’ in the pool of beads, higher than he would have in a corresponding water-filled pool.
“Sort of,” said Harry. “The way they explained it to me was the sensory suite captures everything. The visual, auditory, and touch data translates well to all races but stuff like adrenaline spikes and internal hormonal changes are human-specific. So let’s say you played back one of my recordings…you’d get most of the experience, but not all of it. Only another human would feel like they were really there.”
A rare, small smile creased Jevnar’s snout. “[That’s a pity. I would greatly appreciate being able to see the world through your eyes.]”
“Really?” Harry wondered if he’d given off the wrong cues and if Jevnar was about to proposition him. Then he discarded that notion as nonsense. Even if his majordomo swung that way (not that there was anything wrong with that, of course) Jevnar was way too professional to make a pass at his boss.
Jevnar pointed his snout at the ship around them. “[This is a very…unique craft. None of my previous employers have ever tried to create such a thing. I’d like to understand the mind-set that could come up with this idea.]”
Harry relaxed back against the beads. “To be honest, I kinda…well, panicked is a little too dramatic of a term. If I’d just won a standard-sized heap of fuck-you money then I’d have gone out and bought a yacht and lounged around like your standard ‘nouveau-riche’ jerk. But then they said I had to start spending like crazy just to keep ahead of a galaxy-wide depression. So I had to get creative.”
He wriggled to submerge himself a little more amongst the beads, then turned his head up towards Persimmon who still occupied the bead-pool. The big alien was doing his best to appear as part of the scenery, and flinched when he met Harry’s eyes.
“Hey, speaking of creative…how well does this pool work at getting rid of shedding skin?”
The Jornissian’s hood scrunched in a bit in panic, then as he processed Harry’s question it spread back out again. “[Honestly? It works great. It’s also a lot more pleasant than using a brush or some such implement.]”
“Hmm. Tell you what, I’ll put you in touch with my on-board lawyers. Go ahead and put in a patent for it, under your name of course.”
Persimmon’s eyes took on a panicked look. “[But si…[Harry], it isn’t my idea…]”
“Nah, you discovered the application. Besides, it’s not like I need the money, amirite?” Harry laughed, and after a bit Persimmon joined in with a hissing laugh of his own.
After a bit, Persimmon’s laugh subsided. “[Seriously, do you think I could really get a patent?]”
Harry lay back and closed his eyes. “Without a doubt. Trust me, I have some really good lawyers.”
----------------------------------------
The next weeks settled into a routine, and Jevnar found himself fitting quite well into the role of ‘unofficial XO’. A few discreet suggestions here and there was enough to get the various ‘cogs’ of the crew to start meshing together into a well-oiled machine. After a while the crew also realized that when Jevnar suggested a particular course of action it was a really good idea to implement it. Thus, after a few days of normalcy the outlandish size of their craft faded into the background and it became just ‘the ship’.
[Harry], on the other hand, didn’t fade into the background. He seemed determined that his entire crew be just as laid-back and pleasure-seeking as he was, which might be commendable in theory but in practice could be a recipe for disaster. Jevnar had his paws full as he was forever gently suggesting to his employer that there was some value in discipline, particularly when it came to the power and FTL systems.
So the ship didn’t devolve into a pleasure cruise, but it was still a very relaxed atmosphere on board when compared with any similar military vessel. [Harry] introduced the crew to a game from Dirt called [gin rummy] which proceeded to spread through the crew like a pandemic. Whenever a few people had downtime it was guaranteed that they’d be found clustered together with some fabricated cards. The latter were sized for larger hands, of course.
Jevnar didn’t participate in the impromptu games. At first he’d told himself that it was because his duties extended around the clock. But then after a while he had to admit that it was mostly due to his inability to just switch off. He had His Sir to protect and serve, and that was the sum total of what he could do.
For the most part, that realization didn’t bother him.
For the most part.
----------------------------------------
The bridge crew stared at the viewscreen, which right now showed a holographic starfield which was the computer system’s approximation to what they might see if they were in normal space.
Shnhsnrnan’s voice was dry and composed while her hands flew over her console. “[Driver’s trajectory is nominal. Exiting warp in three…two…one…]”
The rather bland diamond-studded starfield was suddenly replaced with a sphere of ultimate blackness wearing a glowing skirt. The crew let out a collective ‘Oooh!’ at the sight…except for Driver, of course, who just stared at the screen with his usual lack of response.
“[Have a gander, people,]” said [Harry] with a grin. “[This is [Nranath-Six], the largest known black hole in the galaxy. Apart from the supermassive black hole at our galaxy's center, of course.]”
“{I thought sir wanted the best of everything,}” remarked Jevnar, who’d stationed himself at [Harry’s] elbow as usual. “{Why not go there instead?}”
The tiny-chomper laughed. “[Well, the biggest issue with trying to look at that large of a black hole is the radiation. Even with the best of shielding it’s still too big of a risk.]” He crossed his arms and looked at the pulsing glow from the viewscreen. “[This still looks damn cool, though. But now we’ve gotta really look at it.]”
Jevnar quirked one curious ear. “{I thought we were doing that already, sir…}”
“[Nah, this is still just a video image. Not the same thing at all. Hey [Kant’nat], please send a ship wide instruction for all hands to meet in the observation lounge.]”
----------------------------------------
The observation lounge was more properly described as an ‘observation amphitheater’. It was large enough to hold the ship’s entire crew, and at the moment the concentric seating areas were packed with a sea of aliens. Harry tried not to feel self-conscious as all of them stared at him. Behind Harry stretched a big expanse of metal shutters at least a hundred yards wide.
“All right, party people,” said Harry. “Thanks for coming. I know you’ve already seen images of this black hole on your various screens, but this lounge will give you a different experience. It’s something I had added to the Thunderbird One during her refit. Behind these shutters is a transparent window made out of the toughest material ever developed by the Senate races. It’s not quite as good as armor plating, but it’ll hold up to anything short of throwing an entire asteroid into it. It also blocks harmful radiation and only allows through visible wavelengths…including more infrared than I can see, in deference to our Jornissian crewmembers.”
He gave a little bow to the nearest snakelike alien, who blushed and dipped her hood in response.
“Anyways, here’s Nranath-Six.” Harry stepped to the side and tapped at a control on one end of the viewport. The metal shutters accordioned together as they slid smoothly up into the ceiling, and the entire audience let out an even louder collective “[Oooh!]” than had been let out on the bridge.
The black hole was a study in black and gold; the glowing accretion disc around the hole was warped by the singularity’s hideous gravitational gradient into a golden halo which surrounded the utter sphere of negation which indicated the start of the event horizon.
As Harry walked around towards the back of the lounge, he noted that for once nobody was looking at him. All eyes were fixed on the spectacle floating outside the ultra-tough transparency. The human joined Jevnar, who stood at the back of the lounge in his usual ‘upright’ posture…or at least as upright as a Dorarizin could get.
His butler, for once, didn’t give a bow or acknowledge Harry’s existence. Instead he stared out with the same fascination as the rest of the crew.
The glowing gold of the accretion disk pulsed and swirled in an endless dance, its currents almost hypnotic in their never-repeating patterns. It somehow gave the impression that there was some sort of message or meaning in that dance, if one could only watch long enough to interpret it.
“It’s different, isn’t it?” said Harry. His voice cut through the utter silence in the lounge. “Viewing an image on a screen is one thing. But at this moment we’re seeing this. There are photons entering your eyeballs right now which were emitted by matter getting crushed out of existence. It’s the last hurrah for that little bit of the universe, and ordinarily those photons would just go speeding off into the deep black and never hit anything. They’d be forgotten by the cosmos.
“But now we’re here. More importantly, you’re here. Those photons are being seen and not wasted. They’ve been seen by you. So watch and remember. Tell your kids or your grandkids about it. Write an article on it. Hell, go write some sonnets or epic verse. I only have one request for you all. Don’t ever let the universe forget this moment.”