Ch 3 intro: Here we have a goodly chunk of original sci-fi from me, designed to introduce my OC and begin to reveal his powers and secrets. I'm big on foreshadowing in all these chapters, so keep your eyes open and you'll be rewarded later.
Chapter 3: Enter Skye
Somewhere in slipspace, far from Earth
In the vast swirling chaos of slipspace, a majestic craft plowed along at a steady clip. Its construction is best described as something like a swan, with a long thin forward cylinder flaring out to a larger body area and further to two huge swept forward wing fins. The ship was symmetrical along the middle, so that the top and bottom were indistinguishable, and it didn't seem to really matter which end was up. In all it was about as long as two city busses end to end, with a wing span of about two-thirds the length. It was sparkling silver all over, except for three black rings that traced horizontally all the way around the ship. One went around the upper portion of the ship, the next went all the way around the ship at its thickest point, and the last went around the ship's bottom area (which was identical to the top). The engine looked like a long, thin, elliptical nozzle from which an impressively bright fan of blue plasma constantly emitted. The paroxysm of swirling color and twisting perspective that made up the slipspace subdimension caused the immaculate silver of the spacecraft to flare brilliantly in a spectrum of colors and hues that would boggle the mind.
Aboard the ship's bridge, a young man sat in the command chair, surrounded by dozens of screens held up by thin jointed arms. Beyond the screens immediately surrounding his command seat was a 20' main view screen that took up the entire front wall. Behind him was a set of double doors that lead back to the living quarters and engine room. Everything was done over in a white, silver, and black motif, making it look like a poorly decorated but high tech bathroom.
The young man himself looked to be about 16. He was tall, thin, well muscled, and had a mop of short but unruly silver hair. His skin was pure pale white, a stark contrast from the completely black outfit he was wearing. A black long-sleeve button-down, black shirt, black pants, and black boots, as well as some stylish black sunglasses, made him look like a teenage version of a secret government agent (which wasn't far from the truth, nor why he was actually dressed that way). He sat in silence, reclining far back in the comfortable white chair, seemingly miles away from the entirely routine looking readouts on all of the screens around him.
Suddenly, he jerked slightly where he lay. Without moving further, he said, "Vera, activate the shields immediately."
"Done," spoke a completely natural sounding female voice from the walls around him. "May I ask why?"
"We will be under attack shortly," was his clipped and matter-of-fact reply.
"Oh, well if you're sure then. I really don't detect anything at all on any band of the scanners."
"Vera, when will you learn that just because you're an impressively advanced artificial intelligence in control of one of the multiverse's most sophisticated spacecraft, doesn't mean you're always right?"
"Yes Skye, always being right would be you're department."
"Now Vera, lets not get testy. Only my ability to sense danger coming is infallible. So far. What we need to do now is determine what the exact nature of this threat is. I think I sense some kind of faint thought signatures in the area. I had considered them mere echoes in the vagrancy of slipspace, but now—
Red lights and a siren going off cut off Skye in mid sentence. The lights flashed from the previously white sides of the paneling and view screens, even as Vera began to report the disturbance.
"Multiple subspace missiles inbound!" came the disembodied voice.
"ETA?"
"Between T-11 (T minus 11) and T-26 (even very accurate scanners have trouble in subspace)."
"Put the Aurora into a plasma scattering maneuver, then plot me an attack course toward the enemy."
Outside the ship, the swanlike figure swung around with surprising grace, flipping it's flaming tail toward the incoming projectiles. The missiles, which had been weaving back and forth to avoid the many destructive energy eddies that exist naturally in subspace (Big ships shrug them off, small ones get toasted), suddenly had an unavoidable wall of distorted and energized space before them, and wasted no time in disintegrating. The spontaneous destruction of their warheads sent shock waves though subspace that Skye felt strait through the shields and inertial stabilizing field. As the Aurora flipped around in a spectacularly tight turn, more projectiles suddenly appeared in subspace.
"Skye, I'm unable to locate the enemy's position. They seem to be using some kind of cloaking device," spoke a gravely concerned Vera.
"I'll locate them, just keep those missiles away from the shields. Plot as many energy diffusion paths as you have to."
That said, Skye leaned back into his chair once more. Allowing himself to relax by dint of long training, Skye extended tendrils of questing and probing thought energy out of the ship and into the swirling vortices of subspace beyond his ship's hull. Even as he did this, Vera put her enormous processing ability to the task of solving real time attack solutions that would guide energy beams though subspace distortion to hit small moving targets. A lesser computer would have been spitting error messages at the word 'go,' but Vera had the necessary data out in a few moments.
Outside the ship, the purpose of those black bands on the Aurora became readily apparent. A pair of glowing points started a few feet apart in multiple areas on each band, then moved together. When they touched, blasts of searing multicolored energy arced out from each contact point and projected into the swirling chaos. Instantly subject to the warping effect of subspace, each of the dozens of beams flashed out in a swirling knot of brilliant energy, traveling in seemingly random twists and loops. The vast majority of the beams were not even near the mark, but Vera's spectacularly complicated subspace relativity equations panned out, and the very first volley pierced each of the missiles simultaneously with death-light. This continued as more missiles appeared, and the ongoing combat exchange filled space with the convoluted flicker of stray beams and the blossoming energy disruptions of dozens of prematurely exploded warheads.
As the ship rocked with further shock waves, Skye had managed to sniff out the enemy's location by the thoughts leaking from his ship. When he tried to contact the mind and make it sorry for even attempting to attack him, he was rebuffed by a zapper—a device designed to protect one's mind by shocking attackers with psychic distortion waves.
"Vera, I'm entering his location into the computer now. Take him out, but try for disabling shots. I want him alive for interrogation," he said as he rubbed his slightly aching head.
"You know I can't promise anything. In any case, it's time to show this guy why not to mess with the IDP."
Their location locked into the computer by the ultimately precise coordinates Skye had provided her (telepathic scrying doesn't have the problem scanners face in subspace), Vera had an attack solution and two pulses of death energy off in the blink of an eye. The twirling streamers of destruction impacted with a hunk of space that was to all appearances empty, leaving behind a smoking wreck floating in the twisting ether.
"We've disabled their ship, and it's cloaking device. Scanners show life signs aboard still."
"Beautiful work Vera. Close with their ship and charge the teleporter," said a fully calm and quite pleased Skye. A moment later, Vera confirmed the teleporter ready.
"Put me on their ship, then continue to close," he told her curtly.
"You'll be out of contact with me while the subspace distortions are still as bad as they are," she warned him, but he dismissed that with a wave. "Alright then, I'll secure the wreck. Be careful."
"My safety really needn't concern you Vera," he said as he stood up. She made a small sound of uncertainty, but went ahead and energized the teleporter as soon as he signaled ready. A ring of light appeared at his waste, then split and proceeded to rise up and fall down simultaneously. Where the rings passed, Skye vanished, and when they had enveloped him completely, they vanished too.
At the same instant on the dead hulk, two rings appeared, one on the ground and one at about 6'10" above that. They moved to meat each other halfway, and where they passed Skye reappeared. As he took a moment to orient himself to the new surroundings, a strongly swung angular blade most unscrupulously came at him from behind. Sensing the attack coming even as he was rematerializing, Skye dogged easily with a precision lean to his left, then turned on his heel and launched a smart snap kick directly into the head of the being so crass as to attack a person while he or she is recovering from port-in.
A quick glance at the staggering but still dangerous foe indicated that it was a Virgelian eblimal (assassin), and Skye knew immediately that this guy was either being extremely well paid, or had some kind of a death wish. It was well know that the punishment for taking up a hit on the IDP was stasis freeze with no chance of parole. As he finished this observation, the great red gorilla of a killer let out a roar from his ape like jaw that shook his whole body right down to the thick patches of purple fur all over him.
With a leap it threw itself at Skye, attempting to cleave him in half with the forward curving axe it sported. Dodging left and right with blur-fast movements, Skye avoided each and every one of the eblimal's life ending strikes, then ducked under a kick that would have beheaded him and back flipped over the immediately following slash at his legs. Seeing his opening, Skye let loose with a strait split kick instantly as he landed after the flip, extending his right leg all the way up to his chest as he stood, catching the red ape on the side of the head. Moving too fast to see now, he took his leg strait from extension into a full roundhouse kick that smashed into the ape's stomach, pressing in deep, and knocking him out cold.
When the Virgelian was safely unconscious, Skye pulled a small device out from behind his back. It looked like a PDA, but when Skye activated it, it released a low humming sound and began to glow. Skye wasted no time in holding it up to the alien's head, and after a moment, it made a beeping sound and deactivated. On it's small screen it read "Zapper removed" in the angular IDP code language.
That little annoyance gone, Skye began the interrogation by placing his hand on the being's head. Quickly infiltrating the Virgelian's mind with his powers, he searched through every nook and cranny for who had sent this assassin after him. Slowly but surely bypassing several very good mental shields that the killer had probably bought on the black market, Skye arrived at the center of long-term memory and began to sift. Soon he found an image of him and his ship in the visual memory, grabbed on, and tracked the connections to a host of other memories that interested him. Knowing he lacked time now before Vera arrived and wanting to be finished before then, he took copies of all the relevant memories into his mind, then withdrew from the Virgelian.
The hull-shaking clang that emanated though the ship told him that Vera had maneuvered the Aurora into position to stasis freeze the drifting hulk. Satisfied that he would get to the bottom of the assassination attempt from these few memories alone, he walked over to the ship's control mechanism and began the process of figuring out where he could pug in his handheld infiltration computer (the 'PDA' from before) so it could take control of the ship's systems. As he found it and began the up-link process, he was struck by a sense of foreboding that he had learned to never ignore. Knowing then that there was more to this than met the eye, he decided it would be prudent to take extensive extra precautions. As soon as his computer had control, he began the process.
"Vera," he spoke into the ship's communicator, "cancel that stasis command. Instead I want you to run a full scan on everything in this ship."
"A full scan?" she responded with clear incredulity, "you must be kidding. We really don't have the spare power for a full scan in subspace you know."
"Vera," and now his voice held anger, "I know you're in charge of oversight on my decisions, but if you continue to question my orders, I will have you replaced."
"Chill out Skye! I was just making an observation. Sheesh...." As she spoke, there was a distinct note of nervousness in her voice. It had taken her years of AI evolution and field experience before she had gotten the honor of serving as the Aurora's AI. The position had only opened when Aurora's previous AI had been damaged beyond recovery by a system scrambler (type of Electronic Counter Measure projectile) in an epic space conflict two months back. "I'll have the scan completed in about an hour Skye."
"Good, in the meantime, I'll do my own 'scans.' Oh, and send over a brain recorder and data compilation kit (clue finding machine) as well, I don't want to take a chance of missing anything."
Some hours later, on the Aurora
After completing the full scan, the telepathic scrying, and the total data sweep, Skye had Vera put the assassin and his ship into stasis, freezing it inside a crystal with special morphic properties. It could not be released except by a beam with the proper code and waveform from an IDP 'paddy wagon,' the ships that went around collecting criminals that agents and fleet ships had captured and returning them to central processing. There criminals stand trial and perhaps face imprisonment in the Central Holding Prison (the icebox, or the can, are the more common names, due to it's stasis-frozen inmates and cylindrical shape).
Extensive analysis of the data had resulted in little, until finally Skye made a sudden and fateful breakthrough.
"AH HA!" came his excited exclamation.
"Good news I take it?" was Vera's way of asking him to spill whatever he had finally learned from all that unnecessary-seeming data.
"As I told you earlier, the memories relating to that assassin's hiring were expertly faked. I didn't even notice at my first pass, and if I hadn't stopped to get the rest of them out of his head, I would be screwed right now with nothing but false leads. Anyway, going over his brain tape revealed some extremely well-hidden gaps in his memories indicating selective mind wipe, and that job was so perfect that no one, not even me, even has a chance of recovering them. Going from there, I traced his computer's memory and the data discovered on his ship looking for some other lead. The job done on making his ship's memory match his own altered one was also A-1, but there at least there is hope of recovery. The real pay dirt though, came from the ship's communication hardware. When they were altering the ship's memory, they missed the separate communication signal log, and it has some very interesting data. Apparently one of the ship's recent communiqués was scrambled badly by time-space distortion and had had to be boosted to get through. I want you to analyze the pattern of that distortion and tell me where it had trouble."
"No problem Skye, I'll just cross reference it with my database and we'll have our location in no time. Wait please..." and Skye waited, taking a sudden interest in his pale white fingernails as the search was initiated. A few moments later, Vera came back with, "discovered: the communication was distorted around the space-time event nexus at G-11039... hey, isn't that..."
"It's Earth!" exclaimed a suddenly anxious Skye. "I don't know what the hell's going on, but there shouldn't be anyone anywhere near earth capable of sending a Virgelian eblimal after me. I have a bad feeling about this..."
"What I was going to say was, isn't Earth your homeworld?" broke in Vera at last.
"Huh? Well..." there was real chagrin in his voice, "yes. I suppose I'd be lying if I said I wasn't concerned about that more than some paltry assassination attempt. No one, and I mean NO ONE, messes with my home and gets away with it."
"So what do you want to do?"
"Set course for earth. Full speed, redline the engines if you have to, but I don't want to waste one moment."
"Uh, I hate to break it to you Skye, but after that full scan, we're just a tad low on power."
"Ah...yes. So what's the bad news?"
"I can have us there in about one day of real time, but when we get there, we'll no longer have power enough to run any but the most minor of ship's systems. Also, there are no recharging stations anywhere near Earth, and it could take weeks for the plasma cell to regenerate itself enough to send a resupply call the enormous distance to the nearest station."
"So what you're telling me is that if we want to get over there in any decent kind of time, we'll have to arrive stranded and cut off from reinforcements, as well as without any support from the Aurora during operations there?"
"That's the gist of it," and there was none of her usual playfulness in her voice now.
"Very well, make it so."
"I agree, I'll set a more sedate course and well get there in—WHAT?"
"I said proceed, speed is our greatest ally now. I don't care if we have to crash land when we get there, I want us there yesterday. Do you understand?" His voice was deadly serious and left no room for her to misunderstand at all.
"Yes sir, setting course now," was her resigned response.
Skye hated the thought of being stranded without support just as much as Vera, but he knew that nothing less than immediate response would satisfy the nagging foreboding he felt. Somehow, he knew that the encounter at Earth would carry multiverse-shaking importance, and that dallying would be the greatest threat of all.
"Can we at least drop out of subspace and send a communication to Operations about all this?" asked a still very concerned Vera.
"What, and loose even more power we could be using to get to earth when we create the dimension rift? I think not. Drop a subspace beacon near the wreck and let it deliver the signal to the collector drone," was Skye's somewhat annoyed answer.
"That could take months to get through!" she snapped back.
"That is a chance I'm willing to take, now get us there, no more arguments."
Knowing that she wasn't going to make anymore progress here, Vera completed the course settings and set the Aurora to max overdrive, forcing the tail out to fully twice it's previous burn length and jumping the ship smartly through slipspace.
Behind them was the stasis-frozen wreck, the subspace beacon with its incredibly important message, and an observant little robotic watcher that had so far remained undetected by Skye or Vera. Knowing where the Aurora's heading would take it, it began the process of dropping out of subspace to send a direct communication to White back on earth. Before it could pass though the rift it created in the dimensional fabric however, a final beam arced out of the Aurora and blew it to bits.
"Contact vaporized. It looked to me like an observer drone, though now there isn't enough to analyze anymore," said Vera, with pride in her tone at the power of her own scanning equipment and weapons. "There is definitely something to be said for earning a posting on these special agent corvettes," she thought with satisfaction, even as she considered the difficult navigational and logistic challenges that lay ahead. It was one thing for Skye to order her to plot a course to Earth and redline the engines all the way there, it was another thing entirely to pull it off.
"Good job, it would seem that someone wanted to know the outcome of this conflict. That just makes me more anxious to get to Earth. Full speed ahead."
As they passed though slipspace's swirling chaos of color and energy, the dimensional rift closed of it's own volition, and the smoking wreck of the drone was ripped into its constituent particles by the storm of disturbed energy that had still not calmed after the battle.
Preview: Up next comes a chapter of transition from my exposition to my first plot set up, building up to some truly spectacular action and drama later on. Expect some more villain and OC characterization. It's the calm before the storm as clouds of battle gather in: Prelude.
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