I was invited to witness the hatching of the first avian woman's egg. I wasn't allowed to participate in the ritual, even though I was the father. They really were sticklers for only allowing Aviatoma to be present. I stood outside of the room and looked in through the window, along with the other witnesses, namely the other heads of families that wanted to get their first glimpse of their future ruler.
“It's happening!” One of the attendants inside the room exclaimed and the first avian woman moved up and out of the way to look at the now quite large egg herself. The egg seemed to shiver at the loss of her supreme warmth, then it remained still for several seconds.
I felt worry from everyone as the time passed, then suddenly they all exclaimed when four sets of claws poked through the shell at the same time and the egg was shattered. Shell pieces flew across the nest and scattered, and in the center was a pitch black mass of... something.
The first avian woman spoke in her native language as she warbled and chirped softly at it, and the mass seemed to unfold itself and stood up on thin limbs. It had black skin and black feathers all over, and it had a hard time blinking its eyes to clear the gunk out of them.
“Let me help.” The attendant said as she dampened a cloth with water and then tried to reach into the nest. The child let out a loud squawk that was enhanced with Presence and everyone winced, except for me.
“I'll take that.” I chirped and used a Presence Hand to take the cloth. The child stood there and let me wipe at its eyes. “Did you name him yet?”
“Yes.” The first avian woman said and let out a long series of chirps, tweets, and warbles.
I caught my own name mixed in there. “I'm not saying that every time I see him.” I said and gave the damp cloth back to the attendant. “Did you give him a common name?”
The other Aviatoma gasped at my question.
“Hunter...” The first avian woman started to tell me he couldn't have a normal name, until his skin pigment lightened and he lost his birthing feathers.
“I'm his father. You can't tell me that I don't have the right for my son to have a name I can speak.”
“I have to consult with...”
“No.” I said and that made the ones gathered around me chirp and squawk in surprise. “I caught one of my names while you spoke, so I'll call him that.”
The first avian woman had honored me by including my given birth name, now she thought she might regret it. “Since that part does have a common pronouncement, I cannot forbid you from using it.”
“I'm glad, because I was going to use it anyway.” I said to everyone's surprise. “I've taken being insulted by my exclusion from the side of the nest and giving him his Aviatoma name, because of your society's rules; but, I won't be left out of naming my son in common.”
The first avian woman picked up her son and cuddled him to her chest as if to protect him from me.
“Aaron, I'm sorry I can't be in there to hold you as well.” I said out loud and also mentally to him. “I can't promise I'll even be allowed to see you very much over the next couple of years, since you've been born into a very important family and they need to train you properly for your future duties.”
No one there disputed my words or assumptions.
“It's okay, though. You'll have a brother and a sister right there with you soon. They'll be born in a few days and you won't have to worry about ever being alone.” I said to the first avian woman's surprise, then I turned away from the window. “Excuse me.” I said to the avian people around me. They parted and I walked out.
Almost as if my words were prophetic, the next day, the second avian woman's egg hatched and I witnessed the birth. Once again, the baby boy was pitch black, both skin and feathers, and he had smashed out of his egg. I was met with the same coldness from his mother; but, she didn't object to me using one of the names she had given him. Ullir.
The next day, Val's birthing experience was completely different or her restrictions weren't as strict, because I was invited into the nest with her. There were a lot of other Aviatoma in the room as well, because she had a pretty large family and they didn't mind me being there. Val hugged and held me tenderly as we waited for the right moment, then she moved off the egg and we watched it together.
Just like with the other two births, the four sets of claws speared through the shell and shattered it. Unlike the other two times, everyone there applauded and gave praise to both Val and the child for being so strong that the baby didn't have to dig their way out or struggled at all.
“I told you.” Val beamed a smile at everyone, then she picked up the child and used a damp cloth to wipe the child's eyes. “False Tiercel or no, I knew his child would be powerful.”
“You mean beautiful.” I said with a smile and formed claws on my hand and did a quick grooming swipe on the baby's head. It warbled happily and everyone laughed.
“She's definitely going to be a charmer!” One of the older avian women exclaimed and leaned into the nest and took a groomed swipe at the baby's head as well and then cooed at her. The baby's warble became louder, then everyone was in the nest and were taking turns grooming her.
“Her name is...” Val said and let out a short series of chirps and tweets. “Her common name is Aida and my common name is Val.”
I took in a sharp breath as she adopted the illegal name I had given her, then the baby's common name registered. “My birth mother's name.” I said, barely above a whisper.
“I honor you and your family by adding their names to mine.” Val said, her face flushed red. “I hope you can accept...”
“I do.” I said sincerely and kissed her. “Thank you for being so considerate.”
“None of us would be here if it wasn't for you.” Val said. “Most of my family would still be living at the bottom of an aerie and waiting for a chance to expand our living space.” She said and then chuckled. “Now just our living room is the size of our old living space!”
I used my hand to groom the feathers on her head. “I've got miles and miles of space to use up. Making only tiny apartments would have been short-sighted of me, especially since I knew we would all be on the ship for a very long time.”
“We've been here a while now and we haven't started the journey yet!” Her mother chirped loudly and everyone laughed.
*
The first ships from Simone's race started arriving just as Zoe had predicted, and Simone and I were out there with the baby so that we could feel their shock, awe, and relief that the ship was still there waiting for them. We docked with their ships and greeted them, showed off the baby and his healthy arms, then directed them to the colossal ship. We also requested that they not contact the others, just so they could experience the same emotions.
As a telepathic race, they heartily agreed to stay silent about us still being there while we waited for the others. In fact, some of them even came along when the next ship showed up and I flew Adona out to greet them. They enjoyed feeling it in a secondary capacity as much as Simone did, and our entourage of greeting the next ships in line grew, until Adona was full.
When last few ships showed up, that had been the farthest away and had to travel the longest, there were a dozen other ships nearby to greet them. The people onboard almost entered into a coma at the strength of relief the last members of their race felt when they saw the colossal ship had stayed and waited for them. It was almost too much for me to handle and I was the one that had expected it to be overwhelming and warned the others.
All of the ships moved at slow cruising speed as we floated towards the ship. Even the automatic drone warships kept pace with us like an honor guard and we all floated into the main shaft of the ship. Now that everyone that was coming was on board, we could begin our journey. The ship already had all the stealth armor and technology needed to keep it hidden, so a ship-wide announcement was made as soon as the last drone warship sidled into its launch bay.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
“Notice to all residents. This is the admiral speaking.” Shanifra said. “This is it. Today is the day you've all been waiting for.”
The feedback channel let the bridge crew hear the cheers and hollers.
“Ha ha, that's right. We're departing this scummy part of the universe and we're heading to parts unknown! Places where our society's horrible choices haven't wrecked everything already. We can all start over with new lives, new friends, and new adventures!”
The cheers and hollers increased and Shanifra laughed again.
“All right, settle down. We can get the real celebration going when we cross into hyperspace. Brace yourselves and prepare for acceleration. This big bitch is about to light off several miles of engines and we expect a huge kick in the ass!”
That made nearly everyone on the ship laugh, even the new arrivals and the bridge crew.
“Here we go.” Shanifra said and turned off the intercom, then nodded at the pilots. “Take us out.”
“Yes, ma'am.” The four pilots said as one. One was primary, one was secondary, and the other two were backups and extra eyes and hands, just in case. They all maintained their consoles and had extensive experience with large ships; but, this ship was bigger than a single pilot could fathom, so the others assisted as much as they could.
“All reactors at max output.” The co-pilot said. “Sending power to the first bank of engines.”
“Engineering.” Shanifra spoke.
“Everything's green across the board, Admiral. The deflector screens are all intact, fully powered, and integrated into the engine output.” The chief engineer said. “We even have someone monitoring the reactor powering the lifts, just to make sure the power drain doesn't affect it.”
Shanifra chuckled. “I appreciate your attention to detail, chief.” She said. “Keep going, people.”
“Second bank. Third. Fourth...” The co-pilot said until they all had power. “All engines powered, Ma'am.”
“Booster rockets ready for assistance.” The third pilot said.
“SAR teams standing by.” The fourth pilot said.
“Course plotted and set.” The navigation officer said. “We have a clear line out to the Lagrange point.”
“All departments report ready, Admiral.” The head of the communications section said.
Shanifra nodded at the pilot and the man grinned.
“Ignition!” The pilot said and hit the button to light all of the engines at once. The whole ship seemed to vibrate for a second, then to everyone's surprise, it moved as if it was a normal ship and not something with a volume of almost sixty-three thousand cubic miles. The pilot was a professional though, so he didn't whoop in happiness like he wanted to, because he had expected the ship's massive size to cause them to travel at a snail's pace.
Even though they had been briefed extensively about the engine modifications and the addition of the barrier technology into the deflector screens to harmonize with the engine output, they still didn't grasp that it would reduce the ship's mass to barely a fraction of what it was supposed to be. The over-engineered propulsion system was ridiculously overpowered for the ship with the new deflector screens active, so the ship crossed the distance to the Lagrange point fairly quickly.
With a final farewell sent to the dryads on the third planet, where Hunter had left an extensive planetary defensive grid to protect them, the ship passed the point of no return and jumped into hyperspace. The dryads had gifted him with a batch of seedlings that he was only allowed to plant when they reached their destination, assuming there was somewhere for them to be planted. He had agreed to that stipulation, since he knew they wouldn't want to be planted until then anyway, and put them into stasis.
Their long journey had finally begun.
*
Zoe's estimation of calculating the location of the source, or the center of the new versions of the brown dwarf stars, was completed three months later when the ship popped out of hyperspace to gather some asteroids for smelting and to reload the warships that were coming back to meet them and continue their mission to go to all the systems that The Order was in and eradicate them.
She received data from them and it was just enough for her to triangulate the proper path. There was only one problem with the result. It was in the middle of nowhere. No galaxy, no star system, and no planet. She triple-checked it and then had all of her sisters check her calculations. They all came back the same. The source was pointing right at a spot where there was nothing and the family had all gathered together in the large hologram room to look at the model of the universe.
“Well, we're going there anyway.” I said and pointed to the spot. “We're heading close by there and it'll only divert us by ten years or so.”
Gleas chuckled. “Only ten years, he says!”
“It's almost like he doesn't care if we get older at all.” Deborah said and grinned at Jelly, who laughed.
“Ah! The poor only human cousins to long lived races!” Jelly said and covered her face and everyone started laughing, even the teenagers.
I laughed, too. “Hey, if I actually thought that, I wouldn't have invited everyone along.”
“You wanted to watch us grow old?” Sheph asked jokingly from the end of the table.
“Yes.” I said and the laughter died out as they all looked at me.
“Really?” Daniel, Deborah's husband asked.
“Well, it's not like I'll enjoy watching you all get wrinkly and decrepit.” I said with a grin.
Simone held Markus up and he pummelled my face for her and laughed uproariously.
“Ow. Ow. Ow.” I said and leaned back. “I was joking.”
“Uh huh. That's why the Presence didn't waver.” Noma said and leaned in for a kiss.
I have her a kiss and some Presence, then formed another Presence Hand for our daughter to suckle on. “Okay. I think it's time Hen and I let you in on a little secret.”
“You have the secret for immortality!” Monica exclaimed and everyone laughed.
“Ha ha, no.” I said. “Hen?”
“Hunter, we discussed this. No one but us was supposed to know.” Hen said.
“It's the family.” I said. “We can't initiate it until we get to this point of the journey anyway.” I pointed to a long stretch of nothing that was a month away.”
“What is it?” Beatrice asked.
“It's a very long stretch of nothing and there's nowhere to stop safely.” I said and Sandy hugged her from behind. “Hen and I knew there would be lots of those spaces, especially when we're travelling between galaxies, so we came up with an ingenious solution.”
Everyone stood there and waited for me to say what it was. I stayed quiet and the silence stretched out.
“Just say it, for god's sake.” Simone said to break the tension.
“This ship is a giant stasis pod.” I said and they all stared at me and didn't know what to say. I let it sink in for several moments, then nodded. “When we initiate certain jumps, we can put everyone into stasis and no discernible time will have passed for anyone on the ship.”
No one spoke for almost a full minute, then Tish raised her hand.
“Won't everyone know something happened if we pop right back out of hyperspace?” Tish asked.
“That's a very smart question.” I said and she blushed a little. “What's the answer?”
“Wh-what?” Tish looked at me with surprise.
“Tell me how to explain it.” I said and waited for her to answer.
“But... well...” Tish stopped talking and a few of us felt her mind racing to come up with something. “A... a hick-up in the hyperspace generator... um... a miscalculation... no! It was a spacial anomaly!”
I chuckled. “That's my girl.” I said and her blush returned. “Thanks to all the drone warships we've been sending out, we've been getting a more accurate map of everything, including some odd phenomenon like black holes and rogue planets.”
“Wait, those things are real?” Jelly's husband asked. “Rogue planets, I mean.”
“Surprisingly, yes.” I said. “They are easily taken care of, though.”
“What?” A few of them asked.
“A dozen black barrier machines chained together can eat the things right up.” I said and they all stared at me with wide eyes. “Yes, we've already taken care of rogue planets, asteroids, and even dangerous comets the same way.”
“Wow.” Tish said. “You're cleaning up the universe.”
I chuckled. “In more ways than one.”
“What about black holes?” Daniel asked. “Those things are scary.”
“What happens when two black holes meet?” I asked.
“Hm, well... if I wanted to do the math... they could cause a massive spacial anomaly to form as they clashed and merged, which could suck in an exponential amount more stellar material.”
“Or?” I asked and smiled.
“They might just... cancel each other out!” Daniel said.
I nodded. “It depends on the size of the black hole about how many black barrier machines are needed. The largest one we've encountered was about ten miles wide and needed a hundred barriers to disrupt the event horizon enough to get one down into its gullet.”
“Are... are you kidding? How the hell did that work?” Daniel asked, shocked. “It should have been crushed as soon as it was close enough!”
“We have no idea.” I said and waved to the universe model as Zoe replaced it with a replay of the event. “Either the symmetry of the barriers around it allowed the approach vector to work, or its own gravitational effect didn't work against the black barrier.”
“We have never tested it in an atmosphere or on anything like a planet, unless it was already absorbing it.” Zoe said. “We honestly don't know if one of the properties or effects that the barrier can absorb is gravity.”
“Considering the gravitational shear that ships experience when exiting hyperspace too close to a planet's gravity well, the best way to test it is to have a properly equipped drone jump through hyperspace, intentionally set the coordinates too close to a planet, then observe the reaction of both the barrier and the ship after it turns off the barrier.” I said. “But, pretty much every planetary system we've been to has precluded any kind of experiment on that scale, without potentially damaging the planet in question.”
“Which is why you're not pursuing this.” Daniel said and I nodded.
“We just mark the spots where we find the big ones and leave warning beacons in the nearby systems.” I said. “It's not worth playing around with, even if the ships are just drones.”
Everyone nodded, because even pilots sitting at home would start getting depressed if they lost ships only for an experiment's sake.
“So, about telling people they're being put into stasis...” Sheph started to say.
“Do they need to know?” Deborah asked. “If no time passes, even for plants, animals, and food, is there a point to tell them?”
“Um, just to be honest?” Tish asked, and a few people chuckled. “What?”
“You do realize they had to test the system, right?” Gleas, her mother asked.
Tish's mouth fell open and everyone laughed. “How... how long?”
“Exactly a week.” Hen said, proudly. “Absolutely no one noticed any difference.”
“When did you...” Tish caught her breath. “You did it during the power down test!”
“I told you she was smart, Daniel.” I said. “Are you convinced she can be your apprentice yet?”
Daniel looked at Tish and nodded. “I'd be happy to have her on my team.”
“D-dad!” Tish exclaimed and looked at Daniel. “Uncle Daniel!”
“Welcome to the Heavy Maintenance Corps.” Daniel said and put a hand on her shoulder. “I hope you don't mind spending most of the day inside maintenance tunnels.”
Tish looked at me in surprise, because that was where she always went to be alone. Thanks, Dad.
You're welcome, Portishiastis. I thought to her and let her feel how proud I was.