The Mysteries of Hyperspace and Mit'teem
"The value is not in knowing. It is in understanding."
Ashha sat next to Mit'teem as they listened to the last few minutes of the lecture. It never ceased to amaze her that he could sit unmoving…like completely unmoving. When he did move, it was purposed and fluid, but when he did this, he barely even breathed. When most people thought, their eyes would actively dart to the side and reveal if they were remembering or if they were composing, but when Mit'teem was agile in thought, his eyes subtly moved if at all. He was very difficult to read. He had, however taught her many of the methods by which he read people. She had not figured it out yet, but she was beginning to see how Mit'teem saw other people.
Now, as they listened to a lecture about hyperspace dynamics, he was again sitting still and stoic with his hands clasped on the fold-out desk attached to his seat. His right leg out casually propped up between the two chairs ahead of him as he absorbed what was being said.
Instead of having his hair slicked back over his head like he normally did, he had worn a hat pushing it forward. It now stood up and out five inches off his forehead. The deep black contrasted his blue skin and red eyes.
One of the things that took her about Mit'teem was that he was so mysterious. There were few things he ever held back on or would not speak about in detail, and she appreciated that, but for as open as he was, he was still so mysterious. He rarely ever talked about his people, his family or his friends before the University. She knew he had been in the Grand Army of the Republic, but he never made more than a rye comment or more than a sentence here or there. What she did know was that he would shake in his sleep and sometimes wake up in a cold sweat. He refused to complain, but she knew he suffered nightmares quite frequently.
He held a consistently firm training regimen that she could effectively plan around. She had originally been a little jealous he was not willing to spend every hour outside of class with her, but he had explained that physical training was necessary to train the mind. She took his lead and had gotten into the functional fitness classes he occasionally attended. Following his schedule had been an incredible change in her daily life. Beginning the day with physical activity let her start her day refreshed and recharged. Recently, he had begun to teach her the basics of combat sports. Striking, blocking, and now kicking, she greatly appreciated how he was able to break down the techniques into technical steps making it far easier to learn.
Capable of such activity and motion, she was still surprised that he could sit so very still. She wondered what it would be like to live a day in his mind and body.
Ashha noticed the muscle around Mit'teem's mouth twitched. She saw him slightly narrow his eyes.
"What?" Ashha asked.
"That's not how it works," Mit'teem said.
"How what works?" she asked diverting her gaze back to the professor.
"The thing about hyperspace lanes," he said.
Ashha replaid what the professor had just said in her mind. The professor had just claimed that the law of mass-to-speed derived a requirement of two-hundred kilometers to safely enter or exit hyperspace. The professor had also claimed that one could only navigate through hyperspace lanes, because the risk of collision was too great.
"What's not true?" Ashha asked. He leaned in toward her slightly.
"An object in hyperspace can move through other objects just fine. The danger is in the period of entering or exiting hyperspace," he said. "Two hundred-K has nothing to do with it. In fact, if it's taking you two-hundred-K, it's an indicator of other problems," he said.
"What do you mean?" she asked no longer listening to the professor but now to him.
"What's dangerous is when you're transitioning, you're still in the four dimensions. Then you're no longer a star-fairer; you're now a very dangerous navigational hazard."
"How is that a hazard?" she asked
"You're flying at a radically fast sub-light speed," he responded. "As you accelerate in sub-light speed, your relative mass and gravity increase making you a huge kinetic danger. They looked down at the holo display in the center of the lecture stage. "And I'm confused," he said. "The values of the celestial bodies aren't right."
Before Ashha could respond, the bell toned over head signifying the end of the class.
"Prep your reading for next time," the professor said. As the students all rose and packed their belongings, but Mit'teem still sat unflinching as if still thinking. After many of the students had left, Ashha saw several students heading down to the stage to talk with the professor, but he and Ashha remained. As the students left and the doors closed, she again heard the professor speaking.
"Gravity has a similar effect on hyperspace which enables interstellar communications to be possible," he heard the professor say. After the students asked a few questions, she brought up another holomap showing a number of gravitational values and threw a course across the stage. While he sat still and unseen, Ashha moved next to him and caught the professor's eye. "You're welcome to join the discussion."
Mit'teem took another second before he took his foot down off the seat back in front of him and rose from his seat. He gathered his things, and Ashha descended the stairs behind him as they approached the stage. He set his backpack down at the base of the stage and stepped up onto it.
"What do you think, Mit'teem?" a student asked. The yellow light shown off his blue skin and shimmering hair as he stepped up onto the stage.
"Gravity affects hyperspace, yes, but not like you represent here," he said.
"What do you mean?" the professor asked. Mit'teem diverted his eyes back to the map.
"There is a window in a gravitational body that disrupts hyperspace badly enough to interfere with another's body placement in hyperspace."
"The event horizon," his professor added.
"Yes. You represent it as a constant. That's incorrect. Any body in hyperspace forms a rhombic dodechahedron field that is shaped in the direction of its vector," he said. "With a body that is not naturally in hyperspace, like a ship, you're always vulnerable to falling out of hyperspace one way or the other. Gravity is one of those ways. You can approach a gravitational mass, a mass shadow," he clarified, "but there is a point where it's value is so great you're thrown out of hyperspace. With a ship, that value is variable and swings upward at a magnitude proportionate with the mass of the ship times its change in velocity, divided by the the power of it hyperdrive. That is then multiplied by the relative gravitational value of the mass shadow you're approaching."
Ashha watched Mit'teem rattle through four more simultaneously integrated equations dense with nuanced variables they had not yet covered in class. What struck Ashha was that he listed them all without hesitation and with a confident ease. Everyone stood quiet as they paid close attention to what was now becoming a new lecture of its own.
Ashha noticed he was flowing through all these things as if he had known them for years! "This threshold, is the minimum approach proximity between the subject and the event horizon."
"What do you mean?" the professor asked. Mit'teem could tell they were now skirting the boundary of her knowledge.
"It's how close you can get to the gravitational body before being thrown out of hyperspace," he said. "For instance, a big, fast transport can get significantly closer to a gravitational mass then a starfighter." Mit'teem remained quiet and still as the professor examined the thought. She turned to the holodisplay and zoomed in on a star.
"Can you illustrate what you mean?" She asked. Mit'teem remain still for a moment seemingly to ponder something. Then, after the moment, he blinked and shifted his eyes to the display.
"Well, take a Trade Federation Lukurhulk cargo transport for example. It has a class one hyperdrive. With that combination of mass and power plant, it can get about here," he said pointing very close to the corona of the star. "But if you are in the far smaller ship with, say one-hundredth its mass in a far less powerful hyperdrive, you would have to stay way out here. These distances are graduated on the threshold graph." He shifted his eyes back to the professor "while it is typically unnecessary to navigate like this, These values can be used in navigating hyperspace as well as normal space," he said. The professor looked back to the map.
"Have you worked in the hyper lane plotting agency?" she asked.
"Something like that," he responded flatly.
Ashha took note that Mit'teem spoke to the professor as if they were equals. The other students hung onto his every word. Ashha wondered the nature of this confidence. Mit'teem continued.
"Hyperspace lanes are convenient but unnecessary. In order to navigate in hyperspace, you simply have to detect upcoming gravitational masses and calculate a course around them," he said as he pointed his finger close to one of the gravitational values and curved his finger around it, "or if you have skill, use the curve in space it creates to help you."
"Well that's interesting," the professor said. "Are you talking about special racetrack racing?" she asked.
"No, just navigation," Mit'teem said as he looked closely at the values representing the gravitational bodies. "Why are all your values wrong?" he asked. "Is correcting them part of the exercise?"
Ashha watched the two as if sparks were jumping between them. Ashha heard the crowd fall quiet, everyone silently watching.
"What is incorrect about them?" the professor asked. Mit'teem examined some of the different values and saw that they only went out to three decimal places.
"The values displayed here do not match the celestial bodies you have displayed," he said examining the chart. He then looked back to the professor, "and in order to make the best course, you need values out to a minimum of seven decimal places if not eleven if possible. Typically when you're making way at speed, you only have time to deduce to seven. Then you can clear obstacles or ride their event horizons."
"When would you have to do that?" She asked.
"When you are flying well outside of hyperspace lanes or if you're flying through the cosmically congested environment," he said casually.
"Why would you be in a cosmically conjested environment?" she asked quixotically.
"Sometimes it's unavoidable," he said. She visually searched her brain.
"Where?" she asked.
"The western part of the galaxy is full of anomalies and uncharted events. If you're going to be navigating out there, you need to be able to detect those variables and chart around them."
"Western part?" she asked. "The Unknown Regions?" He flicked the ends of his eye brows.
"They're called 'unknown' for a reason," he responded. She considered the idea for a moment.
"Why wouldn't you just drop out of hyperspace, set a new course and jump back in?" she asked. Mit'teem again paused reading the professor before he responded. Ashha realized that was precisely what the professor had only a few moments ago touched on as a huge danger. Ashha saw that Mit'teem did, too.
Strange, Ashha thought. It was as if their professor had made the earlier statement without understanding the breadth of its meaning. Mit'teem broke back into motion as he continued.
"You won't necessarily know what you would be emerging into. That's why you have to remain in hyperspace until you can get somewhere you know is clear," he said with a barely detectable not of disapproval. He returned is eyes to the display. "But," he said pointing to a celestial body on the chart, "this represents a J-type star. These values are not correct. As long as I am understanding the value system, which I am pretty sure I am, this represents an I-type star, and this value here," he said examining another, "represents a gas giant with a super dense core, possibly uranium or other hyper dense material, not a populated planet," he said.
The professor looked at him quizzically.
"I'll have to take a look at it," the professor said as she moved the current map way and entered commands into a console. Another list of maps came up.
"These are special road racing courses in the galaxy," she said. Mit'teem looked them over. She pulled up a set of five. "Pilots use these to race." Mit'teem looked closely at them and locked onto one. He recognized it as the Akkadese Maelstrom.
"Is this the approach plot to Correlia?" he asked. She moved her hands across the display selecting and expanding it.
"They call it the Kestle Run."
"Kestle? Like the planet?" Mit'teem shifted his eyes from her back to the screen. "Who calls it that?" he asked.
"The race organizers," the professor said.
"But it's the approach to Corellia," Mit'teem paused as he examined her. He finally shook his head "whatever," he said.
"It's one of the most challenging courses," she said. Mit'teem blinked as he seemed to process it.
"The Kestle Run," he finally said with a glance back to her. With a slight shake of his head, he looked back to the display. "That's cute." The students murmured a laugh at his subtle, off-the-cuff insult. "So, what's the big deal about the approach?" he asked, probing the professor's knowledge.
"It is known for its treacherous debris fields and narrow hyperspace lanes," she said with a note of challenge. Mit'teem nodded.
"Oh, it sounds terrible," he said as he examined the route. Ashha saw that the professor suspected Mit'teem was not just familiarizing himself with the map but instead was examining it for accuracy.
"You've studied it before?" The professor asked.
"In a sense, yes," Mit'teem said as he examined the chart.
"So far the fastest course has been fifteen parsecs from the outer delta to the entrance of the Corellian solar system." Mit'teem furrowed his brow.
"Fastest?" he asked. "A parsec is a measurement of distance not speed," he said. His eyes jumped around, and as Ashha saw the professor about to respond, he blurted out, "Oh! I understand. In order to reduce your time, you have to reduce your distance," he said quickly. "I can do that."
"How?" the professor asked.
"You straighten your course out," he said easily.
She wove her hand to the holo display.
"You can give it a try if you wish." Mit'teem's red eyes moved over her slightly before he shifted his gaze back to the map.
"May I use the interface, please?" he asked. She stepped aside, and he reached for the holographic interface. He slid it over to himself and engaged it. As he looked at the chart, he drew a breath. "By the way, objects in hyperspace don't collide with objects in normal space," He shifted his eyes to the professor. "If they did, we would see collisions in hyperspace lanes and traffic separation schemes far more often."
"Of course they can. Two objects cannot occupy the same place at the same time," she said.
"When you're in hyperspace, they can," he said. "Well, for all intents and purposes," he said.
Ashha wasn't following what Mit'teem was saying, and she saw Mit'teem could tell the professor wasn't either.
"That fact is supported by statistical probability," he said. "For instance, ships cross hyperspace lanes all the time. It is virtually impossible to track a ship in hyperspace, and ships don't stop in the lanes to let others cross. If they happen to cross in the four dimensions, then they simply overlap and pass each other," he said effortlessly. "Also,
"Really?" she asked almost unbelieving. Mit'teem expanded the view slightly and examined it for a long moment.
"The closer you get to lightspeed in our four dimensional space, the heavier you get, which causes a lot of problems when transitioning into hyperspace," he said effortlessly as he examined the chart. "The longer it takes you to enter hyperspace, the heavier you get, making it more difficult to make the jump. If you're taking two-hundred-k to make the transition, there's something wrong with your hyperdrive," he said smoothly. "It also puts an incredible dynamic load on your ship's space frame," he said with his professor's full attention. "That's another reason why starships need inertial dampeners."
Ashha noticed everyone stood in silence as if watching a guest speaker giving a special lecture. They all stood attentive as if waiting for whatever else he might say, but he remained silent as he examined the chart.
"Three dimensional you mean," the professor finally said. He glanced at her briefly before going back to the chart.
"Length, width, depth, and time," he said with slight emphasis. He continued to examine the chart. "It would take some time to really analyze this chart, but off hand, I would be concerned about these points," he said as he began to plot bright points of light on the map with his fingers. "These are additional hard gravitational bodies that influence what you already have here." He zoomed in on a few existing points and read their composition. He added seven digits to each other known gravitational values taking them from three decimals out to ten and flat-out corrected others. The professor looked on with suspicious interest as Mit'teem effortlessly changed value to each of the points.
After plotting for an entire minute, he zoomed the picture out showing the entirety of the course.
"What kind of ship do I get?" he asked.
"What difference does that make?" the professor asked. Mit'teem again paused, and examined her.
"Speed and gravity," he said. As he read the professor over a quiet moment, his brow twitched once before he continued.
"Mass curves space and time. We refer to this as 'mass shadows'," he said predicating the statement. Ashha saw that he was explaining what he had already said without making it look like he was backtracking so the professor could understand. Slick, Ashha thought. "Then the mass of my craft and the speed at which I move changes the value of my gravity," he said in an interested tone. Her eyes shifted as she assimilated the information. "Any size ship can navigate this," he said. "Star fighter, freighter, or attack cruiser. Each adds its own value you have to include into your equasion."
Her reaction read that she clearly had not considered the values of a craft.
"Freighter," she said in an attempted tone of confidence. With Mit'teems tips he had taught Ashha over the months, she was picking up how to read peoples' reactions and the tones in their statements.
I can't guarantee you'll figure it out, Ashha again remembered, but at least you will begin to see how I see people.
She looked to him and saw he was clearly reading the professor, almost like an opponent. Mit'teem created a new object and added a minute value to it and labeled it "Blue Stallion" and moved it to the delta leading into the approach.
"If I were to navigate this course utilizing, say a freighter," he said as he looked back to the map, "I would do this." He spent fifteen seconds zooming into each value in the course. She noticed he would look to the side, appearing to count...or calculate...before he input the next data point. While there were still spots where he came out of hyperspace to make a hard turn, but he was one-by-one deleting the listed stops made and reduced the distance the course took more and more until he crossed the finish line. With his hands expanded in front of him, he moved the chart around, appearing to check his work. Once satisfied, he brought his hands together, zooming the chart out to a larger overview showing the entire course. He stepped back.
"Done," he said. "Engage to light speed." The professor stepped up and began examining the course he had laid. He had added an incredible amount of data to the chart.
"Nine parsecs?" the professor asked after a moment. She shook her head. "No, you would have to make your corrections far earlier in the your previous legs than you display here," she said. Mit'teem looked back to the display and zoomed in showing four of the legs.
"No," he said pointing to the fourth point, which was the first spot where he came out of hyperspace to make a sublight turn. "I set up for this turn here," he said pointing to the first leg, "here," he pointed to a point half way between the second and third leg, "and here," he said as he pointed to a curve in the hyperspace path caused by a powerful gravitational value outside of the course deep inside of what was labeled as the 'SiKlaata Cluster'. He pointed to it. "I used this value to arc me out so I could land here specifically," he said pointing to where his craft came out of hyperspace, "turn, and execute the next jump," he said matter-of-factly and with the confidence of someone who had done it before. He pointed at a large gravitational value he had inserted. "This is called the 'Maw'. I'm surprised it was not originally on the chart." He turned to look at the professor. "It's a massive gravity value."
"Is it a star?" she asked. Mit'teem furrowed his brow as he considered the question. He crossed his arms and looked at the chart.
"I'm not sure. It is within that nebula, but it does not illuminate the cloud. If this were a live chart we could map the vectors of the debris and particles of the nebula to see if they are in an orbit, but we can't, because this is not," he said as he thought out loud.
"A dwarf?" she asked.
"Or a micro singularity. If I were to guess, I'd call it a micro singularity, because it is extremely strong," he said fluidly. "It's this point that allowed me to swing in as close as I could to cut this turn," he said with confidence. The professor listened to him closely and examined the chart. "This is actually pretty basic stuff. You don't even have variable events in here."
Ashha looked from Mit'teem to the chart. The professor seemed to examine the extra values he added to the gravitational bodies, the arc of the loops in his course, the specificity of his exits and entrances into hyperspace, and after a moment, back to him. It seemed like Mit'teem was settled in a skill.
"You would need to detect all of these bodies while in hyperspace," she said, "and that's not possible."
"Sure, it is," he said flatly. "I know an entire group of people who can." Ashha watched the professor look at him for a moment longer before examining the additional values he added to the various bodies. Ashha could tell their professor was skeptical but also very interested.
"Nine parsecs?" she whispered to herself. "It's not possible. How do you reduce the distance so much?" she asked.
"Well, you use the gravitational curve formula and straighten your course out as much as possible. You do that by getting closer to some bodies and further away from others. This allows you to achieve the best course."
Ashha was again surprised how he spoke it with such ease and authority. Ashha saw Mit'teem watch the professor examine the course and values out of the corner of his eye as he spun the cap off his water bottle and took a small sip. His eyes didn't leave her as if he were casually interrogating her reactions. "It's not possible," she whispered as she continued to look at the chart. She examined the accuracy in the loops of his arcs with the accuracy of deduced calculus. "Are these arcs accurate to the equations?" she asked.
"Yes," he said flatly. She turned and looked his five foot eight inch stature over. His blue skin and shimmering blue black hair standing still as he responded. She returned to his red eyes looking at her with a strangely deep note of confidence. "How did you calculate this?" she asked.
"On the fly," he said. After a moment, she straightened up and looked at Mit'teem as he stood there. "How do you know these things?"
"Experience," he said without note or emphasis.
"But the equations," she continued, "these would take time to work." He shifted his eyes back to the map and shook his head slightly in the negative.
"The mathematics expressed in the standard model are long and cumbersome. There are faster ways to deduce."
"There is no other way to solve the problems," the professor responded.
"Deduce, not solve," he corrected. With a confused expression, she looked back to the display and ran her fingers across the legs of the course again before slightly shaking her head in the negative. She zoomed in on one of the points showing the values Mit'teem had input and plugged them into the equations. After a long moment of work, she produced the solution. It matched Mit'teem's exactly. She then scrolled to the next point, zoomed in on it, and put its values into the equations. After another long moment, she produced the answer, and it too matched perfectly.
"This is graduate level navigation," she whispered and looked to Mit'teem. "It shouldn't be possible. How did you do this so quickly?"
"There are other ways to calculate the results, think of it as another type of mathematics," he said in short explanation. She again looked at him quizzically.
"There is only one form of mathematics," she said. Mit'teem raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders.
Does Mit'teem know an entirely different form of math? Ashha asked herself.
"Can you illustrate it?" the professor asked. Mit'teem shook his head.
"Not really," he said. She examined it further clearly confused.
"Show me how you did this," she said.
"I can't," Mit'teem said, "it's a trade secret," he said. She smiled and laughed once.
"No, really, show me how you did this," she said with an expectant tone. The silence grew long as Mit'teem stood stone still. A strange tension began to build.
"No," he finally said.
"I want to see how you did this," she said with a little force behind her statement.
"You don't always get what you want, ma'am," he said with an unyielding tone. The tension filled the room as Mit'teem did not shrink away but instead stood his ground against the professor. "That's the thing about 'trade secrets'. They're secrets," Mit'teem responded. After another moment, Mit'teem broke the tension with a smile and continued. "The 'standard form of mathematics,'" he said quoting with his fingers, "is kind of backwards," he said as he looked at the display. Then he shifted his eyes back to the professor. "I also don't like it when people demand me to show my work," he said. Ashha watched him move his red eyed gaze locked on the professor as if he were examining an opponent, waiting for her next move. The professor turned back and continued to study his work. "This is all very advanced," she murmured to herself. He shrugged and grunted as if he were saying I guess through closed lips.
"Your methods are highly unorthodox, but," she hesitated, "but your information has accuracy," she whispered as they examined his corrections further, "a lot of accuracy." He continued to watch her. She moved from leg to leg and calculated out three more of the values and distances he illustrated. She finally shifted her gaze from the holodisplay to Mit'teem. "But there is no way," she said. "There is no way this can be right," she said as she trailed off. After another moment, he spun the cap back on the water bottle and slid it into his pocket. He shifted his red eyes from the professor to the control panel.
"You're right. Fifteen parsecs it is," he said as he reached to the holographic control panel and hit the "clear all" tab. She physically recoiled as she watched the corrections Mit'teem had made and values he had input return to their original numbers. All the deleted points re-emerged, and all course modifications returned to their original lines. All the work...simply disappeared.
"No, no, no, bring it back!" she said. Mit'teem waved a dismissive hand fluidly, picked his backpack up, and swung his arms through the straps.
"Eh, don't worry about it," Mit'teem said as he tightened the straps down around his shoulders and slid his thumbs under the straps flaring his blue forearms out to his sides. "What do I know?" he asked rhetorically as the professor looked to him with an exasperated expression. Mit'teem turned to Ashha. "So, what do you think they're serving for dinner?"
The professor was astounded. After a moment, Mit'teem began climbing the stairs out of the auditorium, and Ashha walked quickly after him.
Ashha pushed the door open to see Mit'teem' standing at the edge of the staircase. She rushed up behind him.
"Mit'teem," she said softly as she approached. He dipped his head and looked over his shoulder with a smile.
"Yeah?" he asked.
"What did you do back there?" she asked. He grumbled out a few laughs.
"Oh, you saw." Mit'teem shot her a look and began down the stairs.
"Why did you delete all that work?" she asked.
"She clearly didn't want to learn beyond her perview ," he said matter-of-factly. He smiled and leaned in toward her and whispered. "Fuck 'em if they don't want to learn."
"What?" she asked. He turned more toward her.
"She does not want to learn anything beyond what she already knows," he said as he punched the center of his billed cap out. He sighed and pulled it onto his head, "And she knows the information. She doesn't understand it," he said and sighed. "That is not good."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"It's her job to know as much as possible and to not have gaps in her knowledge." He shot Ashha a quick glance. "Clearly she has gaps."
"It irritates you, doesn't it?" she asked. Instead of sliding the glasses over his eyes, he rested them on top of the cap's bill.
"Yes," he said. "It is slightly annoying when academics want to challenge the practical. If their job is to teach the facts of the universe, they must have a clear thought process and wield logic wisely," he said quite conclusively.
"How specifically?" Ashha asked. "What is unclear about her thought process or logic?"
Mit'teem took a deep breath.
"No matter what species it is, or what world you come from, logic and the pursuit of fact remain the same. It's a question of how accurate ones' pursuit of that is. In this case, it is the method by which a theory is established and proven or disproven by means of test."
"The 'scientific method'," she completed.
"Exactly," he affirmed.
"Then how is her thought process flawed?" Ashha asked.
"Follow the Scientific Method," he said. "Clearly she has the theory." Ashha nodded as she understood.
"Your experience was a test."
"Indeed and a conclusive one, too," he said.
"How is it conclusive?" she asked.
"I have navigated hundreds of thousands of lightyears," he said and flared his arms out to the sides and let a smile stretch across his face, "and I'm not dead yet," he said in an almost celebratory tone. She laughed at him, and he looped his right arm to his side in a romantic gesture. She stuck her arm through his and they continued walking. "I don't care if someone wants to question me or my knowledge. That's how we have discussions and learn. What irritates me is when people want to discount me or my information out of hand," he said.
Ashha understood. It made perfect sense, but she wondered if she would have ever made that connection.
"Do you really know all that stuff?" she asked as they began walking. "Or did you just make it all up?"
"Yes, I do know all that," he said as he looked into her eyes, "and no, I didn't make it up."
"How do you know all of that about hyperspace? From how the prof looked, that was all really advanced stuff," she asked. He kept the smile and shrugged his shoulders slightly.
"I guess to these standards it is advanced but, I used to work navigation a lot," he said. "I was surprised to see that she does not know that movement of a body through space creates gravity or that mass shadows add additional variables to your equation." He paused and spoke again in a low voice. "I am disappointed." After a long moment of Ashha assimilating what he had said, she altered the conversation.
"Is that what you meant when you said she knows the information but does not understand it?" Ashha asked.
"Yes. I have noticed that it's more common than I expected. People just 'know' things. They can memorize or learn, but they do not understand most of what they are talking about," he said in an almost disappointed tone. "The value of having knowledge is being able to apply it. In order to do that, you have to understand it and not just 'know' it." She furrowed her brow at his observation.
"I had never understood that before," she said "I guess most of us just absorb the information so we can regurgitate it on tests and move to the next thing." Mit'teem waited as he could tell she was still formulating the thought, "but I think I know what you were talking about. This semester I have been understanding things more than my first year."
"I credit the combat grappling to keeping my understanding-mind sharp," he said.
"How?" Ashha asked.
"Combat grappling is like it's own language. It's like a debate or a move-counter-move game. All of the moves you perform or like words making a sentence. As you read your opponent, you are literally reading his actions. Your opponent is communicating to you, and you're communicating to your opponent," he said smoothly.
"I saw you doing it with the professor. You were closely reading her," she said. Mit'teem again pulled a slight smile.
"Good. You're beginning to see it," he said. She smiled back at the slight victory.
"You are all about communication aren't you? The spoken word, body language, fighting. All of it," she observed. Mit'teem nodded as they walked.
"Communication is one of the most important things. It's the only way to understand someone. Academics, relationships of all kinds," he said pointing between the two of them, "romantic relationship like us, a kinship like Bri'ardy and myself, brotherhood like between Dramin and myself, and combat."
"How with combat?" she asked.
"Oh, well," Mit'teem said raising his eyebrows, "If you don't effectively communicate to your team, no one knows what is going on, and you run the risk of everyone running off in different directions. If there is not clear guidance, circumstances will develop that will likely get everyone killed."
"Oh!" she said as she understood. He laughed and loosened his expression as he returned his gaze to her.
"It's okay," he said. "I don't do that stuff anymore." Another moment passed as Ashha contemplated the concept. Mit'teem stood quiet as she thought.
"So how do you do it?" she asked as they set course for the cafeteria.
"Navigate past the gravitational fields like that?" Mit'teem asked in clarification.
"Yes, she said."
"Well, if you can go around them, it's the best, but sometimes for whatever reason, you might have to get close to some. In that case you can surf the warped space," he explained.
Ashha considered it before she spoke.
"Isn't the big deal that gravity fields will pull you out of hyperspace?" she asked. He wobbled his open palm back and forth in a "kind of" gesture.
"That's how it's generally understood, but it's actually the opposite. Gravity does not 'pull' you out of hyperspace. It 'throws' you like you're being thrown by a sling." She pondered the counter intuitive thought.
"Like centripetal force ?" she asked.
"Pretty much," he said. "In that case," he continued with a thumb thrown over his shoulder, "the trick is to get close enough to use the dished space to your advantage without getting thrown out."
"Is that what the eleven decimal places were about," she asked. He smiled and nodded.
"Yes," he said with a quick look and raised brows. "Those values can reliably represent everything. The more decimal places you can deduce to, the more accurate course you can lay. If you're going to be in the business of navigation, you'd better be able to build values, classify gravitational bodies, and visa versa."
"Can't you just reference a table for that? Why memorize it?" she asked. She watched his reaction. He wasn't frustrated, but she could tell if he struggled at anything, he struggled at quantifying what he wanted to say. It was as if he knew these truths without question, but in any conversation, he was still willing to reexamine and question those beliefs. She had noticed, however that whatever beliefs he held were usually very well considered and typically defeated any challenges thrown their way. His eyes returned to her, and he continued.
"If you want to be able to do it on the fly you need that kind of knowledge at your immediate disposal," he said.
"On the fly?" she asked. "Like off the top of your head?" She watched him, and he nodded. "What advantage does that give you?" she asked. He took a moment to respond.
"It saves time, and overall, it gives you a greater understanding of what is happening," he said. She furrowed her brow.
"So, deducing the math, how did you do that?" She asked he took a breath and thought for a second.
"Well, it is a different representation of the 'standard model' of mathematics," he said quoting with his free hand, "but it is steeped differently. It was the first kind of calculation I learned. It was irritating to learn the standard model," he said.
"How long did it take you to learn the standard model?" Ashha asked. Mit'teem shrugged.
"Oh, I don't know. Not long," he said. "A few months?" She shot him a confused look.
"A few months? You're kidding, right?" she asked. He smiled again and shot her a glance. "You're so weird," she said. "Why don't you minor in Mathematics?"
He considered the idea.
"I guess I could but my time is already fully occupied." He looked to her with a broad smile, "plus I'd rather spend that time with you," he said. She returned the smile and blushed slightly.
"So tell me about this other math you know," she said. She watched his eyes subtly dart as he composed his answer.
"It is like thinking in another language. Think of the process like syntax and grammar in a sentence. You can either be wordy and verbose like the standard model, or you can be brief and concise like my way," he said. Ashha was intrigued.
"How does it work?" she asked. Mit'teem smiled again.
"Like I told the professor, it's a trade secret," he said glancing at her again. "Can't tell."
She smiled and punched his side.
"Jerk," she said. "Okay, smart guy," she submitted and began again. "So, what did you used to do where you need to know all that extra stuff about hyperspace and the effects of gravity?" she asked. "Because clearly you didn't learn it here."
She watched him hesitate as he ran through a number of thoughts. "I mean you don't have to tell me if you don't want," she said in a considerate voice. The sunlight reflected off his red eyes as he glanced at her with a smile.
"I used to navigate through busy," he paused as he looked for a word, "chaotic space, and navigating like that requires you to know a lot of those values off the top of your head," he said with a tap to his temple. She furrowed her brow as she considered the other factors she had just seen.
"So what about the planning ahead, like when you showed you planned an exit from hyperspace."
"The slalom beginning at leg two and dropping out of hyperspace between legs four and five?" he clarified.
"Yes," she said. He frowned and tipped his head.
"You have to plan that far ahead so you don't get thrown out of hyperspace. Otherwise you get too close to an event horizon and you're either thrown out or worse, you fall in, and once you cross the event horizon, you have a whole other set of problems," he said with confident ease.
"Do you normally use dished space when navigating?" she asked.
"Oh, no," he said with a quick shake of his head. "Typically you want to stay well away from anything like that. Your job is to make the safest course possible, but there," he said gesturing back toward the classroom, "the challenge was to make the shortest route," he said. "It was an uncommon problem utilizing a whole host of extremes. Understand?" he asked. She nodded.
"I think so," she said as she fought to keep up.
"That approach on the chart was no challenge," Mit'teem said, "but the real thing is a lot more dangerous than what was represented there. What did they call it?" Mit'teem asked.
"The Kestle Run I think," Ashha responded. He sucked air through a toothed smile.
"Ooooo," he said with emphasis. "the Kestle Run! It sounds so exciting," he mocked with a shiver of his body. He smiled and waved a dismissive hand. "Eh, it's no big deal."
"So, how do you navigate in hyperspace with no sensors without hitting anything?" she asked him.
"When you're in hyperspace, you can't collide with something in normal space," he said. "Hyperspace is another dimension where objects slip past each other. They never collide," he said.
"How?" she asked. "I've never understood that part." Mit'teem stopped them and looked around. When he found what he was looking for, he got behind Ashha and pointed her in a direction with his hands on her shoulders. He pointed his arm over her shoulder, down her line of vision, and toward a tree.
"Do you see that tree?" he asked.
"Yes," she said.
"Okay, watch for the relativity as someone passes between us and it."
The relativity? she asked herself. They both did and saw multiple people pass between them. "Do you see it?" he asked. She nodded her head. "Now look at the people sitting beyond the tree," he said with a slight shift of the arm. She nodded. The people behind it were obscured by the tree as well. "Do you see the relativity?" he asked. She watched closely. The tree obscured the people beyond it, and the people in front of the tree obscured both them and the tree.
Dimensions, she thought. Then she understood!
"They all appear to be in the same place at the same time, right?" she asked.
"Exactly," he said with enthusiasm, "but they're not, because there is depth between those objects and us," he said.
"It's a three-dimensional distance between us," she said. Mit'teem stepped out from behind her.
"Exactly," he confirmed.
"They look like they would collide on the second dimension, but they don't, because they're actually in the third dimension of depth," she connected. He smiled broadly.
"Yes. Hyperspace is similar."
She noticed the shape of his eyes changed as he shared something he was truly passionate about. They were arched up, no longer rectangular but instead the tall expression of child-like wonder. His features were no longer intimidating but instead sung a rare excitement as he explained the abstract concept.
"So, you're saying there is a dimension where hyperspace exists, and objects don't collide?" she asked in confirmation.
"Yes," he said conclusively. "Hyperspace is the fifth dimension," he said with all five of his fingers splayed open.
They continued to walk for several more steps as Ashha absorbed the concepts.
"So what was the professor talking about the risks of hyperspace?"
"From what I could tell, she was talking about how long it takes you to enter or exit hyperspace, and that can be tricky. As your engines begin to create the hyperspace jump, you accelerate in sublight speed very quickly. The only danger is if something else is in hyperspace with you at the point in space. Only then might you collide," he said, "but that is very unlikely."
"So, depending on your hyperdrive, you can either take a long time to enter hyperspace," he said with a set of stretched out hands, "or you can flash right into it," he said with a snap of his fingers. She let a moment pass as she watched the rare expression across his face.
"You're really passionate about this aren't you?" Ashha asked. Mit'teem slowly lowered his arms and let the smile close around his teeth as he watched her. After a second, he shrugged.
"It used to be my thing," he said.
"You really like it, don't you?" she asked. He put his hands in his pant pockets and looked to the ground as they began walking again.
"Yeah, well, not a lot of people can talk about it like I want to," he said.
"Not even the professor can keep up," Ashha said. She felt him shrug.
"I guess not," he said quietly.
"When did you learn all of this?" she asked.
"When I was a kid," he said. She shook her head.
"I don't understand you, Mit'teem," she said through a smile.
"That's alright," he said, "I don't understand myself half the time, either."
"What do you mean? she asked. They walked for several more paces as Mit'teem seemed to think.
"I'm just different," he said. She furrowed her brow.
"Is that why you're friends with Dramin?" she asked. "He's and odd bird, too."
"Odd bird?" Mit'teem asked.
"You've never heard the expression 'odd bird' before?" she asked.
"No," he responded.
"What do you think it means?" she asked. A moment passed as she watched him solve the problem.
"Are you calling him a strange animal?" he asked. She giggled.
"Yes, how did you come to that?" she asked.
"Well, it was the most likely solution. Numerically, 'odd' means ones, threes, fives, sevens, or nines, and it means 'strange' in some cultures. A bird is an animal that can fly. You probably didn't mean he's a number, and he clearly cannot fly. So, deductively, he is a strange animal." She laughed.
"You got it, Pantoran," she said. She heard him grunt a laugh.
"Alright, Twilek," he said. She looked to him.
"I'm not a Twilek," she said.
"Oh, you're not?" he said in a surprised manner.
"No," she said forcefully. "Do you see two head tails coming off my head?" she asked. He laughed again.
"Do you see yellow finger paint on my face?" he asked. She furrowed her brow and looked at him.
"What?" she asked confused.
"As for being an odd animal, yeah," he said. "Dramin and I both have interests that a lot of people don't have," he said.
"Do you know why he's as wierd as he is?" she asked.
"No, why?" he responded.
"No, I'm asking. You've spent a lot of time with him," she clarified. She saw him crinkle his nose and sniff in another expression she had not seen on him before. She saw his eyes move more than normal as he searched his mind.
"I have my ideas," he said.
"He was a soldier, too, right?"
"He was," Mit'teem confirmed.
"So why is he so weird?"
"What makes you say he's weird?" Mit'teem asked.
"He makes unexpected comments like you do," she said. "I don't know where he comes up with that stuff."
"I would suggest he doesn't 'come up with it'. Instead, he 'lived' it."
She recoiled her head slightly in the different view point. She shook her head in the negative.
"I don't know how you can say stuff like that. Where does it come from?" she asked.
"Well," he said taking a deep breath, "he views the world through a different lens."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"He sees things differently than most people," he said. "We all have our points of view. Yours is different than mine, and mine is different than his."
"But yours and his are close, aren't they?" she asked.
"They are," Mit'teem said, "we see a lot of things eye to eye, but he has seen and experienced very intense things that put him in a class of his own," he said.
What in the world did he mean by that? she asked herself.
"What has he seen?" she asked.
"Bad things," he said. "War stuff."
"Bad things?" She asked. "Bad things like what?"
"Ask him sometime," Mit'teem said. She looked at thin with a furrowed brow and tugged on his arm.
"Oh, come on. Just tell me," Ashha said. "I can tell you know. You're eyes were looking around like you know a lot about him," she said.
"Good," he said with a half smile. "You're beginning to really see."
"Come on, what's the story with him? I can tell you know," she said.
"Why do you want to know?" he asked.
"Because, both of you are really mysterious, and I don't like that," she said. "I don't like not knowing."
A silence drew as they walked.
"I would like for you to analyze that," he said. "Why do you want to know?"
"I don't know. I know you and he talk about things you won't talk to Saleem'a and me about. I mean we're your girl friends. We have a right to know.," she said quickly. It was a moment before he responded.
"Then, I want you to think about why you think you have a right to know," he said plainly.
She felt as if she had just been hit with a one-two punch. Mit'teem seemed to peel away motives that she didn't even know she had. He broke her thought as he continued. "Unless otherwise stated, I treat every conversation as if someone is speaking to me in confidence, and it would be the greatest insult to break that confidence," he said. "I won't disrespect him in such a way."
Her head swirled again this time in realization of herself, nuanced understanding, and confusion.
"I don't understand," she said.
"His experiences are his. It is his story to tell. I believe his past haunts him like mine haunts me."
"What do you mean?" she asked. "I mean, you're just a college kid." A long moment passed before Mit'teem responded.
"I'm a college kid now, but when I was in the Grand Army, I had command. That means I was responsible for other people's lives," he said, "and I had to see some of them die." She was struck again.
"Wait, what?" she asked quickly. "You've seen people die?"
"Yes, and I made decisions that led me here. I was in a unique position where I could protect them and lead them better than most, but instead I failed, and now I can't even help them muchless protect them," he said, "and that is a weight that I carry."
Ashha was stunned. Protect people? she asked herself. Command? He had to see people die? She looked into the pavement as they walked. This was all too much.
"But you're just a college kid," she unconsciously said. Another long moment passed as she was caught in a tangle of confusion. She thought she knew enough about Mit'teem, but she was coming to the realization she actually didn't know much at all.
"It was another life but I want you to understand," he said. "On the regular, I was usually responsible for between twelve and sixty lives. When I had to navigate the approach plot to Corellia, I was navigating for several ships. So all of their crews lives were in my hands. It was extremely dangerous. Solar ejections, debris, a huge gravitational eddies, all kinds of stuff. Anything that went wrong was my responsibility. That's a heavy weight," he said as they walked. "Dramin has his own weight that he carries, and I think his weight is heavier than mine. Unless he wishes, his story is only his to tell."
She was still in a stunned state of confusion. She didn't know what to say. Mit'teem spoke again.
"You've never been part of an organization that requires security of information, have you?" he asked. She really didn't know what to say.
"No," she said softly.
Mit'teem shrugged his shoulders disarming the situation slightly.
"Well, he and I have," he paused and seemed to think, "it's not just gossip. It's his life and his history. If you want to know about it, you should ask him." He again paused before continuing. "I guess it boils down to if someone is going to trust me with a secret, then I'll keep it. Dramin is trusting me."
They walked for several long moments. She felt a little exposed, as if he had figured her out and accused her of not being able to keep secrets. But then again she considered that maybe she couldn't. She pulled his arm into her and tightened herself against him.
"That's a lot Mit'teem," she said as she put her head against the left side of his chest. "I'm sorry if I offended you," she said. She felt him nodd his head.
"It's alright, just food for thought," she heard him say, his words reverberating through his chest. She looked up to him and scanned his blue features. His pointed nose, his lean face, sharp cheek bones, pinned back ears, and overall angular features. She saw him a little differently now, like there was a sadness behind his red eyes, but he still looked at her with warmth in his smile. After a moment, he took a deep breath. "So, you never answered me," he said. She looked up to see him smiling. "What do you think they're serving for dinner?" She answered his smile with her own and looked his features over. She finally pushed her finger onto his chest.
"You're so mysterious." He laughed a few quiet laughs.
"It's got to be the blue skin," he said. He looked to her from the corner of his eye. "I'll tell you a secret if you promise not to tell anyone," he said.
"Do you think you can trust me with it?" she asked in a challenging tone.
"I'll give it a shot," he said. "You ready?" he asked.
"Yes," she said as she pushed into his chest. He leaned in toward her ear and whispered.
"I'm not Pantoran."
She recoiled her head and looked him over.
"What? Then what are you?" she asked. He laughed again.
"For all intents and purposes, Pantoran works just fine, but if you really want to know," he said, "ask Bri'guy." She looked at him with a cocked, confused eyebrow.
"Are all your people like you?" she asked. He walked a few more paces before he responded.
"No, there are not very many people like me. I was an 'odd-bird' even amongst my own people, but we all do look the same. Just different shades of blue," he said with a smile. "Just imagine a whole starship full of people like me." Ashha laughed to herself.
"Oh, that is horrifying."
Hours later, Ashha laid in bed next to Mit'teem with her arm across his chest. After they had finished, he had fallen straight to sleep. She now lay against him In her lucid state between consciousness and sleep. She listened to his heart slowly beat and felt the tiny rise and fall of his chest with his shallow breaths. After a long while as she drifted further and further to sleep, she began to notice his heart beat a little faster. The pace of his breathing began to increase, and he began to let out little purrs. She smiled slightly as she wondered what his dreams were like.
After a moment, she heard his heart beat accelerate and beat louder. He began to exhale small, sharp breaths that turned from purrs to growls. She opened her eyes to feel his chest expand with a deep breath, and he exhaled the deep, intimidating growl of an alert jungle cat. She came to quickly and looked to his face. She saw the low, red light of his eyes broke his eyelids once again. He furrowed his brow and exhaled deeply as his entire body twitched once. She propped herself up on her elbow as she looked to his face and saw his eyes fluttering, the low red began to flash white and blue light from between his eyelids.
"What the," she whispered to herself.
He let out several struggled breaths as he moved. She supported herself higher on her elbow and looked at his face with concern. He opened his eyes as he moved but clearly he was still asleep. She looked into his eyes and saw that behind his dialated pupils was a white swirling light. She had never seen this before!
"No," he said. His eyes fluttered and shifted rapidly. She watched the light swirl in his eyes. What in the galaxy is this?! Ashha asked herself. What was happening to him? She hovered her hand over his abdomen hesitant to touch him. "Master Kenobi he whispered. "Master Plo," he said a little louder this time. "Behind you."
What is he saying, she asked herself, she didn't know what to do!
Suddenly, his eyes opened wide, and he sat up on his forearms. He shouted something in a language she didn't recognize. It was sharp and pronounced in a hard, clipped accent. It was unlike anything she had heard.. Then he shifted to Basic as he gasped in staggered breaths.
"What's happening?!" he said as he breathed in a panic. She leaned away from him and saw the light still flew from his eyes. His jaw chattered as if he were shivering. "Ashha?" he asked, "what's going on? I can't feel my balance," he said in a desperate voice.
"It's okay," she said. "You're safe," she reassured him.
"I'm cold," he said and tried to grab the sheets but failed, "I'm so cold." His eyes danced around the room as if he were searching for something. "Horrible things are coming," Mit'teem said. He took several heavy breaths. "They're going to die!" he said in a strained voice, "all of them!" He panted several more heavy breaths as he looked around the dorm room as if blind.
"Who?" she asked.
"The Force users," he said with a graveled voice. He turned his head to her and looked at her. She now directly saw his eyes.
She recognized what was the swirl of hyperspace behind his irises, inside of his eyes?! "The Jedi," he said, "they're all going to die." Then without warning, his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed back to the bed, falling unconscious. She watched him lay breathing rapidly. His eyes remained open but unfocused and unseeing; the white light swirling behind his irises. She remembered what he had said about hyperspace, it used to be my thing, he had said.
"What in the stars?" she asked quietly. She had no idea what to do. She dared not wake him. She knew he had bad dreams from the war, but nothing like this. Whatever was going on was beyond them, beyond their relationship. She laid next to him and gently put her arm across his chest feeling him breathe. She tucked herself into his chest and felt his heart racing as he moved slightly. She just wanted to help him, but this was all she could think of. She slowly pulled into him. After a moment feeling him take struggled breaths, she felt his left hand come up and across her forearm that laid across his chest. Mit'teem's hand gripped hers and squeezed. She felt his honest, unconscious desperation and didn't know what to do. All of this talk about understanding today, this was something she did not understand at all. So, she said the only thing she thought she could.
"I'm sorry."