Chapter written by Bob Frank
"Never ever moving forward
Rising upward,
Falling downward,
Follow with us ever onward
Free at last"The Forming of a Nation,
The Administrator
Archivists note to the reader: It seems you are viewing this item in the human language English. For this reason names have been transliterated, units have been converted, and the content has been ontologically translated. Apologies for any inconsistencies.
Proles is perfect. Like all terraformed worlds, it is the ideal host for life, carbon based life, in this case. As one descends from orbit there is of course the usual white-orange of re-entry , and then an expanse of vivid and colourful plant life. If one's arrival happens at night one can observe a vast network of twinkling lights. Proles’ space ports were built into the planet, a fact one might hear during the remote-operated landing sequence as trained professionals guide your craft in.
As one descends through the opening in the lush canopy the first glimpses of civilization appear. Someday, some day
Ziet is a volatus. In the larger stage of the GA, volati are common. In fact, they are one of the founding species, and are held in favour. On Proles, however, they are far fewer.
Ziet works as a logistics-technician for Space Port #3.It is dull work for most. There are not many people in the logistics wing, and the few there are do not tend to be very social. Even the word “logistics” is boring, not as boring as “math”, but far less interesting than “Repair Expert”, ”Biologist”, “Guard” , “Direction”, “Analyst”, ”Translator”, or "Thaumaturgist". She likes her job, however. Of course she does, logistics, ickVolati are voracious learners. Their brains absorb knowledge like a sponge, and they retain knowledge like the Gome horde shiny trinkets. While volatus love learning, what they love far above everything else is flying.
All flight works through the action-reaction principle. A bird's wing beats the air, pushing the bird up, and the air down. In fact, of all flight in the universe, almost all of it functions this way, pushing against a “reaction medium”.
Not volati, however. The entire universe is permeated with a thaumaturgic field, it is this field that a volati’s wings beat against
Perhaps the word wing is a misnomer. Volati don’t have wings. If you were to meet a volatus, possibly in the street, or in a dwelling, your first impression would be of several dozen fuzzy tendrils. What a stranger would never guess is that it is these tendrils that link together to form their wings for flight. I would guess.Ziet was flying. She loved flying. Flying was freedom. Earlier that evening she had arrived on site and received permission for a diagnostic fly-over. Now, with the air flowing across her face, and the full night ahead of her, the paperwork and bureaucracy felt worth her effort.
She hung in the air, watching, milk-white eyes carefully analysing each path and system. She retrieved a lens, and peered through it. Below the canopy, blobs of heat moved back and forth. She turned her gaze towards the launch mechanism. System 30-06 was a little too warm. The fact easily slid into her photographic memory. The system would need a checkup before the launch in a quarter cycle.She slipped the lens back into its holder and relaxed. Planetary launch systems were old tech. They had been perfected millenia before this planet was even conceived as a homeworld. It had failed only once since she was born, and that failure would have almost certainly been trivial to avoid. Her diagnostic flight was a safety net among a cloud of safety nets. Hardly old tech. They were only made a little while ago
The sun touched the horizon, and for a beautiful minute the world glowed. Sunset in the sky is the very best way to start the day, Ziet decided, sunset, and an early evening flight. Night shifts paid well in this part of Proles, too few nocturnal races.
There would be more volati, but the Administrators didn’t like new volati. They were always reminding Prolesian about the war, and new volati could disturb the narrative.
Ziet grimmaced. There was a time when she was a firm supporter of the Administrators, and their choices. Her family fled Cyclum when she was barely able to speak, and at the time the Administrators had taken them in.
As time progressed, she became less and less confident with their choices, and now there was this attack on an infant race, to keep them from joining the enemy, in the name of the greater good…
She shut her eyes, feeling the thousands of people stretching hundreds of kilometres all around her, life thrumming… Ziet forced her eyes open, and let the anger trickle away. A warm night, a deep red sunset, a clear night. Im salivating
Ziet slowly drifted down toward the canopy. Of the imported vegetation on-world, nearly 500 species were chosen from the Volati homeworld, including their national favourite, the domus, known for its amorphous canopy, and tufted stalks.
Once she was less than a foot above the canopy, she allowed herself to drop into a tuft, latching onto the branched stalk inside, and settling down to watch the launch. Something inside her cloak vibrated. She shut her eyes, and located the glowing dot, before selecting accept. The voice she heard is largely reported as hard to describe or remember. Tonight it was cheery. I hate these people, they make my metaphorical head hurt.
“Hello Ziet”
“Hello… hello… oh. Hello Duister, very funny. My race doesn’t do humour, you know that.” Liar.
“I know, just thought I would try. You know we have a launch in a moment, right?”
“I am aware, in fact, I am watching it right now.”
Her communicator vibrated, and an image appeared. In it the whole launch site was visible, brilliantly lit up by a ring of floodlights. Above their angle the entire canopy of the surrounding vegetation was shrouded in shadow, merging with the sky in darkness. Something caught Ziet’s attention. In the image one of the domus stalks was drooping, and just above the tuft there was a pair of glowing white eyes.
Ziet squeaked and ducked. ha
“Rude! Delete it!”
“Already did, you reaction was hilarious”
“Why did you even choose to call me in the first place?”
“I knew you were flying for diagnostics, and wanted to double check before I pressed the button.”
“It is not a button, it is an icon, on a display”
“It’s a button”
“Then press it then.”
“Is it a button?”
“PRESS IT!”
“Ok, ok, I pressed it.”
There was a dull groan, and a slight rumble, and then four deafening siren squawks, before the entire launch site became very quiet.”It started gradually at first, a barely perceptible whine. The whine grew louder and louder, and higher and higher, climbing through the octaves, climbing out of the hearing ranges of the races on site, leaving them behind, one by one.
Ziet perched and listened, following the climbing pitch. Deep below the earth an RPM sensor watched a massive flywheel. It passed its threshold, engaging a kinetic-thaumaturgic converter, and pumping tens of millions of enriched volts into a thaumaturgic laser.
The entire site lit up as a brilliant pillar of light pierced into the sky. Suspended in the beam a tiny speck of steel and titanium was whisked up into the night. Any air that strayed too close to the pillar was carried up with it, creating a deafening whistle.
Moments after it appeared, the beam disappeared. Far above the atmosphere a little dot left the plume of gas it was shrouded in, and sped off into the night.
The entire site was suddenly quiet. Aside from a faint hiss of coolant, and the even fainter hum of machinery, it was as if there had never been any spacecraft. As if there had never been any space craft? You should talk to my people.The system was winding down, that was wrong, were there not several spacecraft landing today?
“Duister, why is the machinery not winding up to receive the drop pods?”
“Haven’t you heard. It’s delayed by nearly fourteen cycles.”
“‘Haven’t you heard’ is a question, Duister, not a statement.”
“If you say so. Anyways, they managed to capture two people from the attack, dragged them up into our ship, and had them secured onboard in a supply room, cause of course they didn’t have any proper rooms for prisoners.”
“That does not sound plausible. If they were not prepared for prisoners, why did they capture them and bring them up?”
“How am I supposed to know, they must know what they are doing”
“That is also a question”
“A rhetorical question, which is basically a statement. Anyways, they can’t use the OK drives with prisoners on board, so they will have to take the slow way back and they especially can’t use the drives with these particular prisoners, because the planet they just attacked is populated by deathworlders, AND the crazy thing is that these deathworlders aren’t even the same species, in fact they didn’t even find another one of the unique deathworlder on the planet, SO they think they may have swiped the ambassador for the only other recent deathworlder race within several trillion lightyears.” Youre here now to? What do you want? This document barely mentions humans.
“Nice grammar”
“Whatever. This entire situation is so cool.”
“Wait, you said they captured deathworlders?”
“Yep”
“You also said they are bringing them here?”
“Yep”
“That is good to know. I need to start my post-launch check, goodbye.”
“Bye”Ziet terminated the call, and catapulted herself from the domus stalk, soaring high into the air. Far below her a fog welled up from the launch site as nearly twenty tons of water started to condense. Above her the beautiful blue moon had just left its hiding below the horizon, and was making its way across the sky.
Deathworlders! What were they thinking, bringing deathworlders to Proles? They were violent, they were dangerous. They couldn’t be reasoned with or talked to. Common knowledge said that deathworlders would kill you as soon as look at you. Why would anybody bring such dangerous monsters here? Not exactly monsters, they have minds.Why? Dumb unluck, mostly