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Rediscovery, Chapter Six: Edge of Oblivion
Posted By: Smackblasta<Natemeep@aol.com>
Date: 14 July 2006, 5:09 am
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Oblivion. Far outside the boundaries of Consolidation space, the collapsed star was nevertheless easy to locate because of the effect it had on the nebula it resided in. It had all but been drawn in by Oblivion's gravity on one side, leaving the nebula with a distinctive crescent moon shape. Detected by Consolidation astronomers over a thousand years ago, it was the first black hole to be found and sparked a great interest in filling in the gaps in the knowledge of the distant reaches of space. A fitting name, thought Arne' as he skimmed through the collected reports and files the shipboard computer had on the phenomenon, for Oblivion had quickly been forgotten in the excitement brought on by the constant discoveries being made in its wake.
Rediscovery hung motionless in realspace a light-month out from Oblivion, as her crew decided what course of action to take regarding the situation. The Tides of Knowledge had already rendezvoused with them and dropped off what excess supplies could be spared, to allow them to spend a few extra days researching. Arne' set down the latest set of reports and keyed the communicator on his desk. "Arne' to Bridge."
Bane's voice crackled over the comm after a short delay. "Yes, Supervisor?"
"Have our navigators determined how close we can get to Oblivion? I want to be underway as soon as possible."
"Yes, they believe they have a minimum safe distance determined, and we should be able to jump in within the day."
Arne' ground his mandibles together for a moment. He didn't want to delay anymore, but he understood the necessity for extreme caution. "Very well, Captain. Please inform me when we're ready to jump."
Arla' stood next to Tase', watching as the research team finished loading the discoveries onto the transports. Each of the bodies had been carefully encased in a padded plastic shell for transport to the surface, and the opaque blue coating was tinged purple in the light of the setting desert sun. It looks like blood, she thought as the last crate was loaded. I wonder what they were fighting for when they died.
She took a quick head count. Everyone was back except for Goro'tesh, still in the bowels of the installation. She had just raised her communicator to contact him when she heard a harsh grinding noise accompanied by the heavy footfalls associated with Lek'Golo. She turned back to the building and took a step back as Goro'tesh emerged into the light.
Gone were the brown robes and cloak. The Lek'Golo ambassador was encased head to toe in thick blue plate armor, blackened by fire and tarnished with age. Running down his left arm was an articulated shield larger than she was, and his right hand was wrapped around the barrel of an enormous gun. The four balance tentacles that ran in two rows down his back were encased in armored spikes two units long. He looked like a walking tank, prepared for war and waiting for instructions. He looked twice as frightening and ten times as lethal as he had before, and before Arla' had already been more scared of Lek'Golo than anything else she had ever seen.
All work had stopped. All eyes were watching the armored giant, waiting to see what he would do. No one noticed the other Lek'Golo until it was a bare ten strides from Goro'tesh, a few shouts of alarm announcing it's presence for everyone. The sand-covered goliath stopped five units away from Goro'tesh, and the two bowed to each other. Goro'tesh turned to Arla', holding up his translator. "Tono'fass would speak with you for a moment, Supervisor Arla' Selethas." He then dropped the device into the other Lek'Golo's hand.
Tono'fass turned to regard her. "I am glad to see that you have discovered what you were looking for. We have waited for thousands of years for ones such as you to come back and reclaim their heritage." He paused, seeming to sigh. "Make much use of the knowledge that you regain here, we believe that it will be needed soon."
Arla' nodded. She opened her mouth to speak, but the Lek'Golo interrupted her.
"Our long vigil is ended. Our brother is gone, and we tire of the sentience that this cohesiveness brings. We will go back to the desert and allow ourselves to dissociate and go our seperate ways, as our brother did millenia ago. Another pause, longer than the first one. "We wish you well, Supervisor Arla' Selethas. Never stray from the path that you choose." Tono'fass handed the translator back to Goro'tesh and turned, plodding his way back towards the sands outside the city.
Rediscovery orbited a healthy distance from the black hole, and was still fighting a constant one gee pull as she held position 'above' it. To conserve some energy, the ship was aligned belly down towards the collapsed star, letting the crew turn off the artificial gravity systems and use Oblivion's own pull to keep everyones feet on the deck. The ship was letting loose a constant stream of sensor sweeps and signals as she kept her altitude.
Arne' stood on the bridge, reading the information as it came in. Bane' walked quickly from station to station, looking over shoulders and making sure the ship was handling the stress, minor though it was. Finally satisfied, he stopped behind Arne' to look over his shoulder. Arne' glanced back at him, twitching a mandible in amusement. "Yes?"
"I'm just wondering if the scanners have found anything yet."
Arne' shook his head. "Nothing yet, but there's a lot of space to go over. How's she holding up?"
Bane' laughed, stepping back. "Rediscovery's handling fine. At this distance it's the same thing as if we were hovering over a planet surface, which she is perfectly capable of doing. Still," he gestured to the main holodisplay, "It's a damn fool thing for us to do, hovering right over a black hole like this." The humor in his voice took all the sting out of the comment. "It does have some style, though."
Arne' spread his mandibles in a grin, swept along by Bane's good humor. Despite the possible dangers of the maneuver, the Rediscovery's crew was stepping more lively than it had in weeks. Morale had improved simply because they were doing something. "Yes, this'll be a story to tell back home." He looked back to the sensor data, but the grin didn't leave his face. "We haven't found it yet, but we will."
Two days later, it was still being very elusive. All the science crew had worked double shifts poring over the data the scanners brought in, and the engineering crew was on constant call to make sure the ship wasn't suffering from the strain of holding position. Arne' was staring at the holodisplay while the science officer gave his report. It was everything that he had expected, yet nothing that he'd hoped for.
"So, final scanner concludes that there are no sizeable masses, anomalies, or energy sources within one AU of the black hole. The system is empty, as one would expect."
He sighed, nodding and waving the officer away. He turned to Bane', who was standing nearby. "Captain Danazee, pull us out of our holding position and make ready to enter slipspace." Bane' saluted, and gave out the necessary orders to get the ship moving.
The bridge was completely silent during the acceleration burn out of orbit. Everyone had been hopeful about finding something during their last stop before heading back home, and the disappointment in the air was almost tangible. After several hours, the engine technicians reported that Oblivion's gravitic influence was weak enough to allow a slipspace transition.
Arne's gaze bored into the scanner terminal during the entire flight. He knew they were missing something, and he kept hoping that he'd see it during the flight out. The Rediscovery aligned herself toward Sangheilus Secundus, and he felt the slight shifting in the artificial gravity field that signified their entering slipspace. He sighed and dropped his head, and felt Bane's hand on his shoulder in a comforting gesture. He looked back up and shook his head ruefully. "I'm a fool, Bane'."
The captain snorted, releasing his shoulder only to clout him on the arm. "It was a good guess, Arne'. Everyone makes mistakes." He looked back at the forward display, smirking. "Look at it this way, you got to put the ship through a test her designers would never have thought up." At that, Arne' had to chuckle. He was about to respond when an Unggoy broke into their conversation, hopping up and down in her excitement. "Supervisor!!"
The diminutive Unggoy was holding out a datapad and gibbering so quickly that Arne' couldn't even understand her. He missed the pad twice before he was finally able to grab it out of her hand, as she was nearly vibrating. It took him several moments to calm her down enough to be able to even catch what she was saying. "Settle down, I can't understand you when you... slow down..." Finally, he grabbed her by her shoulders and forced her feet back on the floor. "What?!"
She shook her head, taking a moment to catch her breath. "Supervisor, the slipspace scanners detected a ship in orbit around the black hole, but we didn't notice it because whilewewere in normalspace weweren't using the slipspacescanners but now that we're backinslipspacethe scanners... heeeep... detected thatthereisashipinslipspace inorbitaroundtheblackhole!!!!"
Arne' stared blankly at her, trying to catch up to what she had just said. "There is a ship? In slipspace? Orbiting Oblivion?"
She beamed at him from behind her mask. "YES! ...heeeiiizz..." Her eyes crossed as she fought for breath.
The little Unggoy sat down on the deck to adjust her rebreather as Arne' snapped his attention back to Bane'. "Captain, take us back. We've found it!"
Arla' tried to relax into her seat as the shuttle prepped for takeoff. In the seat next to her, Tase' had already closed his eyes, but she didn't think he was asleep already. She threw a glance over her shoulder at the back of the cabin at the two seats designed for Lek'Golo, and at the bond pair occupying them. Raso'tesh was leaning over in his seat to examine the armor Goro'tesh had brought up, the speed of the telepathic conversation they were having evident in the rapid flow of their body language. Raso'tesh was... excited, and Goro'tesh wasn't exactly being calm and reserved. It was some of the strangest behavior she'd ever seen in the somewhat aloof Lek'Golo.
She faced forward again and sighed. At least the armor wasn't screeching as much anymore, maybe Goro'tesh wearing it was helping to work out the dirt in the hinges. Or it was getting lubricated by his mucus coating. She shuddered and tried to find something else to think about, disgusted at that line of thought. She was about to poke Tase' to see if he really was asleep when she felt the shuttle lurch slightly and then smoothly accelerate. A small cheer broke out from some of the dig crew as they took off.
After a moment, she pulled out her PDA and linked to the external visual sensors, watching the land pass by underneath them. The pilots were taking the ship in a quick orbit around the ruins, for a last look before they rejoined the Looking Glass. Movement on the screen caught her eye, and she zoomed in to find the massive figure of Tono'fass plodding through the desert. Even as she focused in on him the Lek'Golo glanced up at the shuttle passing overhead, and she could almost see the air of satisfaction and completion around him. He shuddered, the ripple passing through his body from head to foot, and then seemed to collapse onto the ground. She watched as his body broke apart, individual Golo squirming free of their enmeshment and burrowing into the ground. Soon, all that was left were his footprints and a shallow depression in the sand, waiting for the winds to erase all traces of his passing.
Arne' stared into the main viewscreen, at the strange blue space that encompassed Rediscovery. Centered in the view was a black sphere, roiling forth tendrils of darkness that seemed eager to snatch away at the azure surroundings, but unable to grasp it. He tore his gaze away from the spectacle and turned to address the Unggoy technician next to him. "You're sure about this, Vinliy?"
She nodded back to him, pressing a few icons on her datapad. "Slipspace is more spatially compressed than realspace, so mass and gravity affect slipspace more than realspace, and a massive object will stretch, or smooth it back out as it passes through it. Our ships do it whenever they travel in slipspace." She pointed to the screen. "What we have here is Oblivion, clearly being a very massive object, has smoothed out slipspace for a very wide radius around it. As far as the sensors can tell, slipspace in this area is starting to take on some of the properties of normal space, including allowing the passage of electromagnetic radiation. Which is why we're able to see anything at all on the viewscreen." She held the datapad to up, and Arne' took it and read over it himself. "Still, this is very theoretical," she continued, "as I don't believe anyone's ever been stupid enough to get this close to a black hole, regardless of being in slip or realspace."
He chuckled, nodding. Vinliy was very good at her field, and spoke a lot of sense when she wasn't bouncing off the walls. He looked back at the viewscreen, taking in the grandeur of Oblivion again, and lost some of his humor. "Have we located the ship?"
She nodded, and hopped up to snatch the datapad out of his hand. She pressed a few more keys, and a red orbit line appeared on the display, with a small yellow circle travelling along it. It was dangerously close to the black hole, almost within reach of the grabbing wisps of blackness.
"What are those... tendrils... coming off of it?"
Vinliy shrugged, then scratched at the top of her head. "Like I said before, no one's ever been this close before. If I had to guess, I would say that because of the compressed nature of slipspace, even after being flattened out there are still uneven areas in the fabric, and so the black hole's event horizon would fluctuate."
"Final question... can our engines handle that?"
"Definately maybe." The pad beeped in her hand, and she glanced down at it. "However, I think something just came up that might force your decision."
He looked back down at her. "And that is?"
Vinliy held the datapad back up. "We just received an omnidirectional broadcast from the ship. It was weak, but it shows that something on that ship still works."
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