Throughout the Night Sky Ch.1

The void of space.  The weightless existence and silence that permeates most of the universe.  Oh it's beauty, a somber blackness perforated by the glow of innumerable stars.  Each it's own and not it's own; each home to those who inhabit it, but also a thread in the fabric of the blanket of space-time, which stretches infinitely in all horizons.

Tehrag had always appreciated that spance, that gasless humble spance which noiselessly had extended itself till it consumed most of the universe.  Even now, it pressed to consume, not driven by some force within, but driven by the lack of force to stop it's slow but unstoppable progress.  The energy within resisted, but like all energy before, it too would eventually shimmer and flicker before finally being put out by the incoming night.  The darkness was weak but enduring, and it would always deliver its final promise.  Neither death nor destruction, though it could do those also, but simply an end, turning any place that was not it's own into a replica of itself.

Tehrag liked to believe it was this that had let them to space.  He liked to believe that it was his species undying respect of space and it's relentlessness that led them to explore the heavens.  He put his webbed appendages to the glass, and through the thin membrane that glossed across his hand, from joint to joint, he could see the void, and the pinpoints of light that speckled in the distance.  It was all there - separated by a thin layer of cilica that protected those in the observation platform from the vacuum of space.  As he looked down, he saw the rest of the I.S. Dawn, the sluize that he had lived on for the last 3 years.  The sluize effortlessly cut through the darkness, leaving no trace upon the endless darkness behind it save a faint trail of light, which would disperse over time until it too finally disappeared.

The imperial sluize in and of itself was a wonder of engineering.  It was home to 3300 citizens, yet only a staff a hundredth the size was require to serve the ship.  Apart from the staff, the ship was ran by a legion of macturans, mechanical denizens that were used to perform everyday tasks that were of little importance to the race.  They traveled upon charged circuits, which honeycombed the ship, buried in tunnels that no ordinary citizen saw.  The macturans allowed the organic residents of the sluize to abandon the mundane, and live their lives in luxury.

One of the many macturans that inhabited the ship approached Tehrag from behind.  "Sir, we must ask that for your own safety, please leave the observation deck, the ship will shortly be passing through a solar field."

The Solar fields were remnants of energy fields from the old war.  In the shield, the plasma from a star was directed off the star into a field perpendicular to the stars surface.  Though the solar fields had long since lost their power to melt the hulls of ships like the Dawn, they still contained an amount of rouge energy, which was brilliant enough to blind pilots as well as observers who were unwise enough to be next to an unprotected window.  Following the war, a plan was put forward to remove all the shields, but as time went on, it became less and less of a priority, until both the technology used in the shields as well as the location of the fields were lost.  So pilots of ships, such as the Dawn, had to be cautious not to be caught off guard by an unexpected field.

Tehrag nodded to the macturan, letting it know that he had heard of it's warning, before heading towards the chute that would transport him to the lower levels of the ship.  It would do no good to be caught in the observation deck when the ship hit the field - the blindness would be so complete that there would be little the healers could do but to watch as the 10 minutes ticked by and the total blindness set in.  No, Tehrag had better things to do then let his eyeballs fry.  The transparent lens slid over his eye as Tehrag blinked, stepped in the chute, and was sucked down to the main deck.  By the time he had stopped for a small snack at the Snetra, the field would be long gone, and he would be free to go where he pleased.

-----

A red flash blinked in the holographic display in the pilot's room.  The assistant stared at the display, and shook his head.  He pressed his webbed hand on the refresh button several times, but nothing changed.  The assistant sighed, and said in his voice command outlet, "Would Captain Tosey please come to Station 3."

The red-faced captain was there in two clicks, still rubbing his eyes and yawning.  "Horles, WHAT was so important that you had to wake me up at this time of day?"

"Oh sorry Tosey Sir, I didn't mean to wake you up at this time, I know it's your nap time.  I will do my best never to do this in the future.  I know how it gets you so grumpy and irrita..."

"Horles, GET TO THE POINT!"

"Oh.  Well, um, it seems that we have this weird red dot on the holographic screen, normally I wouldn't bother you about it, but it has an unusual signature, and so according to policy, I was supposed to report it to you."

"And it's not rouge energy from the solar field?"

"No."

Tosey rubs his forehead "Horles, can't you forget that policy, just this once?"

"Well Sir, you were the one who gave the order in the first place, I'm sure we could change it, I would just have to have you submit it into the record book."

"No, I am not going to submit anything saying that I was wrong."  Captain Tosey groans.  The macturan was immediately behind him "Sir may I help you with something."

Tosey lets out a sigh.  "Can you please fetch Dr. Filba immediately?".

"Dr Filba?" says the macturan.  "Are you sure you want Dr. Filba?"

"No, I'm not sure I want to get him, there is SO many other Professors of Holography onboard this blasted sluize!"

The macturan pauses for a moment.  "Sorry sir, humor is not in my programming."

"Just go get him…." Tosey lets out another long groan.  He turns to Horles.  "Don't those robots have anything better to do than stalk their captain?"

Horles snickers and shows a faint smile.  "No sir, it's not in their programming."

Captain Tosey rubs his eyes.  "And remind me again why they don't have humor programmed in?"

Horles smile becomes almost Cheshire.  "Sir, you were the one who gave the order in the first place….  I'm sure we could change it, I would just have to have you submit it into the record book."

Tosey took one look at Horles face and swerved around towards the exit and chute, grumbling something about subordinate assistants and unintelligent robots.  Horles lounges back in his chair as he watches the captain storm off, a grin spread across his face from ear to ear.  As he drums his webbed fingers on the controls in front of him, he takes a glance back at the hologram.  The red dot is still clearly flashing, showing no signs of disappearing anytime soon.