In the same universe, I had this idea and ran with it. Content warning: chapter 1 starts with a harsh scene that I may cut from any publication in the end. I still doubt it’s need sometimes, but it’s short and you get to see the young ship who is the focus of the tale
Aktarian Tales : The Lost Ship
by
Richard Griffiths & Katiya McKerry
Copyright 2018
July 3rd 2018 - Kindle Format and 1/3rd draft complete
No part of this publication may be replicated, redistributed, or given away in any form without the written consent of the author/publisher.
Latest edit 11/10/2018
Contents
Chapter 3 - Roderick & Yissindra
Chapter 4 - Roderick & Yissindra
Chapter 5 - Roderick & Yissindra
Chapter 6- Roderick & Yissindra
Chapter 8 - Roderick & Yissindra
Chapter 9 - Roderick & Yissindra
Chapter 11 - Roderick & Yissindra
Chapter 12 - Roderick & Yissindra
Chapter 13 - Roderick & Yissindra
Chapter 14 - Roderick & Yissindra
Chapter 15 - Roderick & Yissindra
Chapter 17 - Roderick and Yiss
Chapter 18 - Roderick & Yissindra
Chapter 20 - Roderick & Yissindra
Chapter 21 - Roderick & Yissindra
Chapter 23 - Roderick and Yissindra
Set several thousands or more years into the future, Aktarians are fabulously rare still, despite their being part of the reason we, as a race, have spaceflight at all.
The Lost Ship
Prologue
Yal-Sindra dove hard, fast and deep into Barnard’s star, covering tens of thousands of miles in a second. She had hundreds of thousands still to go to reach its core.
The monstrous black ship was still behind her, catching up gradually amidst the roaring nuclear maelstrom of the white dwarf whose heart she was aiming for.
Her tail was splitting open, her child was going to be born and there was nothing she could do except dive harder and harder and hope she can reach the core before the black destroyer reached them both.
Her child must pass through the star’s core, to fire up the tiny soul, the engine of her life.
The agony of her tail splitting, the birth pains, the only physical pain an Aktarian ship ever experienced, was dwarfed by the ice-fire of Thalresh’s claw slicing over her midsection.
He tried to grab on, missing as she flipped and spiralled away from him ducking and weaving, wracked by the pain of her wound and her ongoing fight to birth her child.
The gravity and heat grew denser, fiercer, the energy allowing her wound to close up, accelerating the pulses of birth pains until at last, with a final nova spark of agony, the pain abruptly vanished and tiny, thin high vibrations washed through her frame.
Her newborn daughter held within the fields generated by Yal-Sindra’s Ur-wings was uncoiling her tiny form, her wings unfolding, her eyes opening and her soul sparking to life as the pair of ships, mother and daughter, finally breached the raging heart of the white dwarf.
Another smash to her head, one eye slashed, half her fractal sight dimmed leaving her vibration senses on that side intact as Thalresh struck at her again. Desperate now, she folded space ahead of her, hard, knotted and brutal, her song discordant and ragged. Pulling her tiny daughter forwards, she threw her with all her remaining strength at the rip fold in space, a fold barely big enough for the infant to pass through.
Her aim was true, the little ship smacked through the portal at a tenth of light speed in the cold blackness of space, somewhere else, somewhere far away from the black ship.
The portal snapped shut barely missing the wingtips of the baby ship, Yal-Sindra dove on then turned to face her attacker.
Warty with self-grown weapons, he was an abomination of an Aktarian, the only male and one thought killed millennia ago. Would that this was true, but no, here she faced him and with all the strength she could muster, she charged back at him. She had to keep him away from where the fold had shut, just for a little while. Just long enough for the traces to vanish, to make her child untrackable.
She hit him with cataclysmic power, the force so great that the star itself began to destabilise as it’s core was ripped at by the shockwaves. The two ships were knocked cold, an impossibility, yet for several minutes neither ship moved until Thalresh woke, saw his opponent and began to methodically shred, stab and slash.
Yal-Sindra never woke.
Deep black tore open, a tiny winged form shot through followed by a tongue of nuclear fire stabbing through space-time. There was no-one to see it, no-one to notice it, no-one to witness the violent birth and entry of the newborn Aktarian ship. She was barely aware of her flight through the deep dark and the terrible velocity she possessed.
There are six moons round Taris, each with a precise orbit. Only today, one orbit altered forever when the tiny ship slammed into the thousand mile wide moon with the force of many nuclear bombs, her city sized crater caused a bloom of dust for hundreds of miles.
She lay, undamaged, curled up tight, energy low, her mind sleeping, unaware of her gigaton splashdown..
The men that found her, several days later, arrived in a creaking bucket of a shuttle with barely enough power to pull itself off the moon again. Taris was an independent trading world specialising in the exotic and unusual, from drugs to weapons, ships to slaves; its six moons meant unusual seasons, conditions and crops.
And the tiny infant Aktarian fitted their ideal trade bill when they discovered her lying at the very bottom of the ten mile deep crater.
She never stirred when suited hands picked her up, not a flutter or twitch of wing or claw.
“Jed, what the hell is this?” Balrin turned with his hands full of the tiny ship. “It’s heavy and I think it’s dead. “
Jed answered, “Sure is shiny, load it up, stick it in the cargo hold. I’m sure we can sell it.”
The tiny gravity of the moon aided Balrin as he carried the dead bundle of wings back to the shuttle cargo hold.
Balrin stood in the hold and lay the winged creature on top of the cargo crate that lay waiting for it. The thing had a whole heap of wings, he pulled at each one, they barely moved, and counted them–there were eighteen of them, three sets of three on each side. “I wonder what you are?” he mused to himself.
Turning it over, he noted the folded up claws, tiny detailed hands with six fingers on each, only two were opposed, like having a thumb at each end of the hand. The hand itself was divided almost into two halves.
The wings vibrate slightly at his touch, he jumped back but the movement stopped.
“Ain’t sure you are as dead as all that, whatever you are.” he whispered as he placed the creature inside the crate, sealed the lid and left the cargo hold.
They took their cargo to the only station in the system, the nexus point for all independent trade on Taris.
The infant Aktarian lay dormant for weeks as she was sold on from one peddlar to another. The third buyer tried to dissect her, but no tool he possessed could make a mark on her vulnerable looking form. He sold her on until she ended up with Jerediah Gordon.
Taris was a place of illicit trade, get rich quick schemes, shysters and con-men. And desperate ones: addicts and gamblers, fugitives, crooks and mad men.
Chapter 1 - Yissindra
Flaze: an extract from a Ktral plant harvested for its addictive, mind altering properties, its purpose was to assist the Ktral in forcing populations to become dependent, compliant and ultimately mindless slaves. However, in some species it had severe side effects in some of the population. In humans, an abreaction typically caused intense religious experiences combined with severe paranoia and psychosis so severe that sufferers never recovered.
Starship Whisperer, AD 2940
Thwack, thud, wet sounds punctuated by stuttered tiny scream and crack of tiny rib, breath whistling through punctured lung. The infant hit the wall, lay still, the alley silent save for dying wisps of breath.
The man, tortured and demented out of his mind seeing not an infant but a monster, staggered to where she lay—to him not a child but a demon.
She was barely old enough to crawl; he raised his hammer high, it’s head the size of her skull.
He could see only pain, not a child, feel only the Flaze, not the bloody flesh he hammered, the Flaze ripping his soul apart not yielding the wondrous pleasures he was promised.
The infant shimmered, bloody clothes becoming indistinct, the whistling faded as the hammer fell and hit the little ship in the eye as she finally transformed—the hammer bounced, flew out of her abuser’s hands and hit the wall with a clang.
He stumbled back, recovered and leapt at the foot long creature that replaced the nearly dead child—he missed but lashed out with a foot, connected and howled with pain as the ship didn’t move, didn’t react.
The little ship, fluting sadly, disappeared, carrying with her the sad, broken parts of her that Jeradiah and his own demons smashed apart.
***
My sister nearly gone, bad man again, he near killed her but I save her. Where we go? Where we go? Why he smash her? Why he bad?
Don’t knows, don’t knows.
Don’t knows who he is!
It dark now, Mommy not here, just bad man, bad man, what we do?
Can’t hear sister, she gone? I alone now? No Mommy, no sister self?
I go, I go now. Bad man hit me, can’t hurt me, fall down. Bad man kick, he hurt not me. He howl and howl. I go, quick, quick, slip air, fold sky, bad man can’t make us die.
Chapter 2 - Roderick
Station markets: most human dominated stations adopted a similar layout and philosophy; free trade, a ban on species discrimination or religious proselytising, ten percent of all profits. However, some stations also forbade slavery. Sadly this wasn’t universal.
Starship Whisperer, AD 2940
She’s following me again!
Brightly coloured wings humming, buzzing, fizzing along the crowded walkway behind me, knocking people’s hats off and spilling the odd drink. I can hear her fluting cries as she bounces and flies from wall to wall.
Turning, “Would you go away, please!” It was a command, but she acts as if it were a question and her answer is no.
She catches up, flies into me, I stagger and fall onto my back, a tiny bundle of wings on top. She looked at me, one large jewel of an eye looking down at me, fluting cries appealing for something. I didn’t know what she was, other than a nuisance.
I’d been here three days, seen her at a market stall just sat on a table—a foot long creature, reminiscent of a dragon but with more wings and other things. She’d been sitting making discordant, alien music, folks were putting money into the market stall owner’s jar and I’d wondered by, curious.
I reached out and touched her head, she nudged at it, her music changed and became harmonious as I stroked her. Her forelegs reached out to grip my own, six fingered each and divided with what appeared to be a thumb as the first and last finger on each hand. The vibrations from her body ran into my own hands and forearms.
I looked into her eyes and and within, amidst whirling fractal patterns, found intelligence.
I stepped back, her harmony disappeared back into discord. I left.
Later that day the harmony returned, I was in another part of the market hunting down some supplies for the ship I was working my passage on. I’d turned to find her following me, jostled by the many species of sentients that made up the market population. She was paying little attention to being knocked around, instead she was intent on following me. I didn’t want a dispute with one of the market folk and I was sure that the ship I was on wouldn’t be happy with pets.
I managed to lose her by ducking down and making my way quickly through a bewildering maze of turns and switchbacks. However, my shopping wasn’t done and the morning of the third day found me here, on my back with her on top of me this time.
“What do you want?” I’d assumed she was an alien pet of some kind, but her actions implied intellect.
Flutes rose and sang in response, her head nudged into my cheek, she pulled herself into me further, hugging me tightly. I struggled to my feet, as she wouldn’t let go and attempted to pick up my shopping.
“What on earth?” I didn’t know what to do, so in the end I headed back to the ship with my bags and errant companion.
At the boarding ramp the first mate stopped me, “What are you doing with that? You can’t bring it aboard.”
“She followed me from a market stall and won’t leave.” I said. “Let me aboard to load up your supplies and I’ll take her back.”
Grunting assent, he let me by. I’d shopped for rare herbs and spices, the chef was demanding but excellent, no-one gainsaid his requests, not even an illegal alien would be allowed to delay his goods.
After depositing my shopping with chef, I dropped my own packages to my cabin and headed out to keep my word. She climbed onto my back during my walk and was no longer in the way, though she was no lightweight.
The first mate nodded as I passed him, he was busy with a courier at the boarding ramp. Heading back to the market, I tried to recall where the jewelled creature that was riding my back came from. After several hours of walking and cursing, I found the stall owner.
“I think you lost this.” I said, “I’d not intended her to be with me.”
He laughed, “I don’t own her, no-one does, she goes where she wants.”
I looked at him, typical Taurian, heavy with scales and a head covered in horned crests, the Taurian home star was a vicious white blue dwarf as a result, their eyes had adapted to become very small and blind looking. As a race, they were found in every marketplace, usually selling a mix of junk and pawned off goods. Letting something go without payment—for a Taurian—unheard of.
“What is she?” I said
“I’ve seen something like it before, but only once, and it was a lot bigger.” He rasped back
“Where?”
“It was in space, it was flying from a nearby star and the creature was white hot in my scanner. I never found out what it was as it disappeared in front of me.” He said.
“They get bigger?”
“I guess so, I couldn’t really say. That one and your new friend are the only ones I’ve seen.” He said.
“Well, she—I’m guessing she’s a she—can’t come with me, my first mate won’t allow it.” I said.
“You can try and leave her—I don’t mind, she goes where she wants.” He repeated.
I reached round and grabbed at her, the wings folding against my skin as I got a firm grip on her body. It was hot to the touch, smooth, not scaly as the fractal patterns on it would suggest. Pulling her round, she let go of me and then let me leave her on the table.
She didn’t make any effort to fly back to me.
“There, that wasn’t so hard. She can sing for her supper again.”
“I never seen her eat fella.” He said.
I walked away, her jewel eyes in my mind but knowing I’d avoided being kicked off the ship that I’d taken such a long time to get aboard in the first place.
Cuddle man’s going but know I where now. He I like, I think we go there—he help me, I like he feel kind. Slip shift, slip space, I go, I go…
Man’s journey to the stars was a long history, shrouded in mystery. Tales of exotic alien species fighting over our world were alive in the population’s imagination, however there were hundreds of races with their own, similar, stories that simply became woven into the fabric of who they were.
We’d learnt to compress space, Alcubierre drive was the most well known though there were other techniques. This allowed for star travel within a quarter of our own galaxy and after several millennia of fighting and settling, free trade. Still, on each world, most people didn’t get to travel in space—only a few traders, the military and those that were willing to trade away their freedoms to serve in the Merchant Navy would see more than one world. The ultra rich could, but they were few in number.
Origin legends abounded, especially exotic alien ones, ships that could not be hurt and who were sentient were a common theme—I think popular with many planet bound folks as they could imagine meeting one of these creatures for themselves, to lift them out of the herd, elevate them into space. A soap opera dream, one I didn’t need to share, I’d found a place.
A chef’s assistant—a vital post I’ll have you know, the chef is very important; there was no technology that could make food more palatable from auto chef’s—only a real cook would do. A good chef could easily demand their own salary and perks, second only to the first mate and doctor.
Man’s experiments with AI led to a dead end—extremely refined specialised machines existed for many tasks, including piloting but our dream of sentience was stymied by reality and the simple bald fact, we just don’t know how sentience exists.
Therefore, no general AI and no cookery machines.
My job, well, maybe it’s not that important but every chef demanded at least one kitchen boy, if not two. We had one: me.
And I was heading, pet-less this time, to my nice safe, secure berth that I’d worked so hard to get.
I’d no special talent with food, but none with many other things either. Boring average with a top grade in wanting to be in space, this is where I’m meant to be, not stuck on a backwater half desert planet like Xoran—my home world.
Unchallenged this time, the first mate was on a good day, I headed to my cabin—a small joke on the size. I can lay in it, I can read in it,
but should I try to take female company there, we’d not squeeze in anywhere, not even atop each other.
Which is why when I reached my bunk and tried to lay on it, I hit the floor unbalanced as it was already full.
Full of wings and things.
“How the hell?”
Flutes squealed a little in response.
“How did you get in here?”
I just got more musical responses and a wide, jewel eyed look. She settled herself down, leaving me stood, nowhere to sleep.
It was late, I didn’t feel like tramping off the ship again with her and had a suspicion I’d be wasting my time anyway; I didn’t know how she did it, but she evaded first mate to beat me back aboard.
“Shift over, I want to sleep.” I said, reaching in to nudge her. She didn’t move, she was immoveable and just looked at me.
“Would you move?”
Wings flared and vibrations ran through my skin as she deigned to lift out of my way. I lay down, she lay on top, a warm, solid mass of wings fixing herself firmly in place. The vibrations didn’t stop passing through my body, however I soon fell asleep, drifting away on the tides of her quiet singing.
Chapter 3 - Roderick & Yissindra {#chapter-3—roderick-&-yissindra}
AI Limits: Humanity found the same limitations that all species found with the promising technology of AI. Conscious beings couldn’t discover how to make other conscious beings and, supreme flexibility required consciousness, therefore none of our machines could operate with true creativity or flexibility.
Starship Whisperer, AD 2940
Waking, her weight still upon me, her eyes were closed, I tried to get up. I couldn’t move from under her, she was as immovable as she had been when I tried to evict her earlier. Lifting my hand, I stroked her tiny pointed nose feeling the transparent vanes lining her face give a little under my touch, miniscule vibration tickling my fingertips. One eye opened lit with an inner glow, shining in the dim light.
“I need to move.” I nudged her, she lifted a little and I was able to finally shift from under her.
On returning, she was on the floor rooting through the drawer under my bed. I kept little but clothes in there—right now most of these were round the cabin.
“What are you looking for?” She spun round, lifted and hovered at eye level, blinking slowly at me, her fluting vibes flickering over my skin. “I don’t speak flute and blink, do you speak at all?”
I fancied I heard a breathy voice amongst the flutes and violins of her noises. If I did, make out words I could not.
One hand reached out and touched my face as if investigating it. The touch was warm, smooth, delicate as if she worried about hurting me.
“I need to go to bed—and I guess you won’t be cleaning that up?” In answer she lay on top of me when I lay down—the clothes remained where she left them.
The following morning started with loud knocking on my door, I was late and Chef was looking for me. The door flew open, my eyes followed and l shot out of bed, forgetting about my companion—who didn’t get in my way this time. “You’re late—you been drinking?”
He was snippy, he couldn’t stand lateness—a good kitchen ran precisely, perfectly. A rake of a man with slim fake glasses perched on a small meticulous nose; nothing was out of place except for his tone.
And she was hovering a foot above his head, a little behind. If he was given to wild gesticulation he’d discover her but his hand movements chipped and chopped his sentences in neat, small movements, not a motion wasted lest he cut himself.
I scrambled to dress, from the mess she’d left of my clothes.
“It’s not good enough Rod..er..rick, when I agreed to your employment, didn’t I say: Method prevents Madness, Precision prevents Problems?” His favourite phrases sliced syllables into my tired brain, dicing up my concentration leaving me with mushy metaphors and little forward progress in getting dressed. I hate it when he chops up my name like that—it’s just Rick, that’s all, simple, easy why can’t such a methodical man stick with simple?
“Yes Chef, I’ll be quick, honest.” I said, stumbling once more.
A tightly restrained huff, just enough to indicate what he thought of my honest quickness, he left banging the door just hard enough but no more.
I looked up at her, “if he’d seen you, we’d both be off this ship.”
Vibrations and flutes, subtly changed and flowed but didn’t help me understand her any more than I did last night. “Stay here ok?”
Duty called and my morning was filled with peeling, chopping, mashing and cleaning. The work wasn’t so bad, I was used to it and often found a steady satisfaction in it. A good morning was where I anticipated Chef and everything was done as and when he needed it. The fireworks would start if I stumbled in doing my part, fumbled at some task or plain plumb forgot something vital.
This wasn’t a good morning and I thought I was finally off the ship when he stormed off after I’d mixed up the lunch vegetables with the evening ones. My mind was on a winged creature in my cabin and how I would keep her secret—so far I’d been lucky but would that last?
How will I tell him? He nice, I like, he cuddle don’t hurt. Can we find Mommy? Can’t feel her! We on a big ship now, mebbe find Mommy?
Cuddle man coming back, maybe he play now? He nice, he soft, don’t hurt.
I got to my cabin to change—once more I was off to find yet something else that Chef forgot. Through the door, my arms are filled with wings again, warm claws gripping at me, smooth head again my cheek, I stagger back into the door.
“Ok, nice to see you too.” It was too, vibrations rippling through my bones as she held on tightly her fluting song warbling off the tiny cabin walls.
“What are you playing in there?” A voice outside my door, first mate.
Damn, now what? “Oh just something from a local channel, I’ve no idea what.” I reach to my mini player and fiddle with it, struggling to work it with her in my arms. A loud yowling guitar was my reward as I fumble the volume.
“Ouch, keep it down! And get some proper music on the go.” He banged the door and stomped away. I fix the player, I’m left with her music now.
“Close, very close. Can you keep your singing down?” She blinked at me, her eye inches from my own, dancing patterns within her enigmatic gaze. The fluting did quiet down, maybe she does understand me.
I hold her out to look at her properly, just able to get my fingers between the wing sets. There were three sets, each of which had an upper, middle and lower wing, duplicated such that she was adorned with eighteen wings. I looked again at her limbs, she really was pentadactyl with two thumbs on each claw and hundreds of tiny transparent ribbons running in parallel and in patterns all over each finger. Her wings blurred as she pulled away from my examination and hovered in front of me, her side set eyes giving her a comical cross-eyed look. I snorted, “Don’t look at me like that, what on earth are you?”
An answer wasn’t forthcoming, unless another breeze of flutes across my face was her language—if it was, I couldn’t translate it.
I sat at the squashed in table, she landed on it, we looked at each other, she singing quietly in that multi toned fluting way and I just watched entranced. The longer I listened the more I could feel her trying to tell me things in those wavering, wandering tones—I could sadness and loss in the minor notes, tiny buzzsaws of anger even.
“What are you trying to tell me?” I said quietly, trying to understand more.
Edges and spikes of sharp notes assaulted my ears as her volume rose, I fancied in frustration, but the meaning became no clearer. I reached out but she backed off this time, a sharp whistle cutting through the air. “I get it, you’re pissed about something but I can’t understand you?”
She landed, the whistling cut out, the music became gentler again, I could feel the vibrations becoming a little more harmonious in my bones. Whatever was making her mad, it wasn’t me.
Grrr cuddle man can’t hear me right, I can’t talk right or he ears stuffed closed. How I make him know?
Find Mommy, that I want, find her fast but where? Canna slip and fold, know it not damn how do I make him know?
A thought occurred to me as I looked at her, “What do you eat?” I didn’t expect a real reply but a triplet of whistles told me she understood the question. I didn’t keep much in my cabin, just chocolate—hardly a balanced diet. However, I broke some of it up and offered it. My first surprise—from her nose, where I expected a mouth would be, a near transparent funnel like protuberance unfolded, petals fanning out wide brushing my fingers and pulling at them.
The chocolate lifted off my hand and was squashed into a tiny ball by the shimmering petals before being sucked inside of her. The petals grew longer and pulled at the chocolate bar I’d left on the table, it too—wrappings and all—was squashed and collapsed to the same fate, a little heat washed back over me.
“Wow, now that is amazing, space dragon I think?” A discordant fluting suggested my characterization was not to her liking.
Chapter 4 - Roderick & Yissindra {#chapter-4—roderick-&-yissindra}
My education on Xoran was limited, most backwater colonies kept their youngsters focussed on the needs of the growing colony—farming, construction, basic mechanics. Very few would gain specialised skills such as those needed on starships—this was how they controlled emigration, every hand was needed was the justification given. However, I’d learnt enough to talk my way as lowly kitchen assistant on the Kalandaru Swims.
Some captains never rename their ships—believing old superstitions and Kalandaru’s was no different. She was nearly a century old, refitted a dozen times but could still travel several hundred light years a day. A crew of fifty was required and she carried a thousand tonnes of mixed cargo.
Our routes mostly took us around the outer—Orion, Perseus and Cygnus—arms of the Milky way, close enough to core tech worlds to trade their goods to the various outer human colonies. Only a few of our stops were mixed alien—by the time most species reached space their big wars were done and contrary to popular pre star travel fiction, most post star travel history remained peaceful. Pirates were the biggest problem travellers would meet, however, space is vast and the chances of meeting them were low.
Which was why my total confusion when the alarms went off, the wailing tones unfamiliar to myself and—from the frantic yelling outside—most of the crew. A juddering crash and thump, a sense of weightlessness then heaviness, had we dropped from hyperspace?
I poked my head out my door, the hallway was deserted but in the distance, a hundred yards away the wall folded inwards—as I looked an armoured figure poked its head around the corner. Dark dull armour, oversized gun—pirates? That’s all they could be. It looked at me, it’s mirrored blank visor inhuman, menacing. It gestured with the gun—I ducked back into my room, slammed the door. I’d no weapons, no weapons training—pirates are supposed to be rare, the news never mentioned them nor did any of the starship crews I’d spoken with before leaving Xoran.
There was a bang against the door, it flew open, a black hole of a gun barrel pointed at me. I froze, she, however, did not. At her movement the gun barked—the light blinding me but only warmed me. The plasma itself, hung frozen in mid air and her petals,normally used for chocolate, now held white hot plasma—a small sun that shrank and shrank until it disappeared inside of her.
Stare was all I could do, eyes watering from fear and heat. The armoured figure fired again, once again she held a baby sun in her petals only this time it didn’t shrink—she spat it, that’s the only description I can offer, back into the figure’s face. The reflective visor didn’t reflect this ball of fire—it instantly melted, followed by whatever was behind it released the sick, sweet smell of pork into the air. The figure staggered back, hit the floor, lay still.
“How the hell…?” I said.
I got discordant, almost painful buzzsaws as answer. She held herself between me and the door, I dared not touch her. There was another heavy thump of armour in the corridor, thankfully not coming our way. They didn’t see their roasted comrade otherwise I might have joined him.
“Come on, we gotta move.” I didn’t know where, but I was certain there would be more than two of these guys. She flew out into the corridor, I rushed after without thinking. What on earth I was going to do?
We stopped at the hole in the corridor, attached to our ship was some kind of capsule—just enough space for a couple of these guys but it was empty now, it’s occupant clanking to the bridge. Was this the only one?
There was a sonic boom as she flew away from me, blurring into the distance. I ran trying to follow only to jump when her fluting voice sang in my ear and she nudged my shoulder. “How, how did you do that?” Chirping flutes but no answer I could follow. “Helpful as ever”
She flew ahead again, slower this time then disappeared round a corner. As I came to an alcove, she appeared again and nudged me hard into the alcove. Just in time, another walking pile of armour stomped past, this time with the first mate in front of him held at gunpoint.
“Can you do that again? That thing with his gun?” I asked, not having any better ideas.
***
Bad mens coming, bad man trying to get cuddle man? Bad man gonna eat fire!
Shoot shoot, eat eat do me—it taste good I share wid dat bad man!
Maybe cuddle man get me yet, maybe—I go eat more he want me to eat fire more. It sweet, I grow hah
***
She hovered at my face, looking at me still and silent—the first silence I’d heard and felt from her. I don’t know what she was saying but she was saying something.
She flew, quiet, quick after the armoured pirate. She flew faster and faster, then hit him with a bang, tiny head first—I couldn’t look, she was dead for sure, but I did look, the first mate had dropped to the floor, the armour left stood with a large hole through its middle and blood—red gloopy blood—dripping through the ragged tunnel she’d left. She hovered over the first mate—he looked up, eyes glazed but I could see he remembered her.
“WHATTHEFUCK!!” he yelled
She backed off, flew back to me, not a mark to be seen on her tiny, delicate looking head. Not a mark.
“What the fuck.” I whispered.
She nudged her head into my hand, it was dry, smooth and warm—and devoid of any blood.
“How?” I asked, I got more flutes, no buzzsaws this time.
I was getting nowhere finding answers, she couldn’t speak to me but clearly she wasn’t leaving me.
More gunshots, plasma whines, clankings and clatterings heralded the arrival of more pirates and our crew. Several were down but there were only two pirates remaining—they’d relied on the capture of the first mate and his access to the bridge and the captain.
More bad mens coming I get ‘em I get ‘em. No way they win I bash now, bash bash bad men gone rrrrr!
I know how, how bash bad mens and them guns!
A flash of light outside the alcove we were in, and she was gone. I looked round, the light was still there—held once more in her maw, that incredible delicate flower holding and moulding that awful power until she swallowed it. Oh yes, I had questions all right.
The first mate was still laying where he’d fell, further down the corridor behind him were several of the crew—even Chef was there with a rather large, if useless, cleaver in his hand. All staring at this tiny, shiny bundle of wings holding and eating megawatts of plasma for breakfast. A second blast came from the side, caught her body—I gasped in horror—but it merely sprayed around her melting bits of the walls, floor and ceiling. I saw it hit but do nothing to her body.
The first pirate fired again, from ahead of her this time—not knowing what had happened to his colleague, he wasn’t expecting his fire back—she caught it, held it, compressed it then once more spitting it back, caught him in the chest where the armour absorbed it yet the force knocked him flat.
She spun and dived at the shooter who’d tried to hit her from the side whilst the crew, amidst curses of disbelief raced up the corridor to the downed pirate. Chef got to the fallen pirate first and tried to chop him like a huge side of beef but the cleaver vs the armour was a losing battle. It was the first mate, picking up the pirate’s own weapon who decided things—unwittingly copying my new friend’s tactics by shooting the pirate right in the visor.
I raced after her following her buzzsaw edged flutings as she went after her shooter. What I was going to do, I’d no idea but she was tiny—lethal but tiny.
Catching up, the armoured pirate clubbed her with his rifle—a large unwieldy weapon that required the strength of his armour to carry it. He swung hard and fast, yet she didn’t move. She didn’t move before the rifle began it’s swing towards her head and she didn’t move as it swung—she hung there, watching him, staring him out even and as the heavy weapon smashed into her head, she still didn’t move—not an inch, not the slightest wobble, fixed like a planetary mass, unaffected by the puny efforts of man to shift it.
The rifle deformed then shattered, shards bouncing and clattering all round the passageway.
I’d watched a seven foot armoured man, so large he filled most of the passageway, swing a rifle nearly the length of my body into the head of a creature who was only a foot long, whose head was smaller than my hand and she just hung there, unaffected whilst the rifle was wrecked. I didn’t have any more suitable swearwords.
He dropped the shattered rifle, drew a black knife and went for her with fist and blade. She still didn’t move as the blade came down and the armoured fist flew round, slash and haymaker landing as one; first, the blade struck her tiny nose and snapped with a loud ping into two; second, the haymaker—thick steel wrapped tight around a large fist, a fist that dwarfed her head, struck and the steel bent and the armoured fist deformed, pieces of it dropped off to hit the floor. Yet, still she didn’t move.
The giant figure tried one last time, this time he stepped back and stamped at her. Only she wasn’t there as his foot landed and he overbalanced, fell forwards, then she reappeared through a ripple in the air and struck at his back—this time not as fast or hard as before, merely denting his armour and slamming him to the deck. He didn’t rise.
She flew away from him, the buzzsaw sounds stopped, the flutings came back as she came and hung still in front of me, regarding me with her absurd cross eyed expression. I couldn’t help it, amidst the gore, the violence and the chaos, I couldn’t help but laugh at her. She rushed at me, landing hard on my chest knocking me to the floor.
“Ok, ok, I give in.” I gasped struggling to sit back up. “I still want to know how you did that?”
Chapter 5 - Roderick & Yissindra {#chapter-5—roderick-&-yissindra}
I could hear the crew coming, dragging the bodies of the pirates between them. They rounded the corner, stopped and looked at the two of us sat—me with my arms full of lethal but cute flying creature who as yet, didn’t have a name.
“What the FUCK is that?” The first mate sounded less frightened now the bad guys had been scrapped.
“I don’t know, she followed ME and wouldn’t stay left behind.” I said
“She is dangerous, if it’s even a she, and I want her off my ship.” He said.
Over the intercom, the captain’s voice interrupted the first mate’s tirade “I believe it’s MY ship and whatever the hell that thing is, it just saved YOUR asses, so I get to say who goes, who stays.”
“We don’t know why it attacked the pirates, Sir.” The protest sounded feeble now.
“Right now, I’m grateful it attacked the pirates and we are still here to jaw about it.” the captain replied, “Now, is that thing going to cause us a problem kitchen boy?”
“No, no sir, I don’t think so.” I said looking down at the tiny lethal creature who stared back at me, flute noises for once, muted right down.
“Ok, bring it up to the bridge, I want to see our saviour for myself.” He said.
Scrambling to my feet, I followed the first mate to undiscovered country, the sacred space of the bridge—our captain’s domain entered only by him, the first mate, the navigator and the pilot. And now by me, the kitchen boy and whatever this deadly bundle of wings in my arms actually is.
Kalandaru Swims is an old ship, refitted several times according to others in the crew, but to me she was techno heaven in worn leather and shiny plastics, translucent screens floating around detailing many aspects of space flight I didn’t really understand. The captain was sat, pride of place in the oversized control chair in the middle of the space, just like any of the fiction flics I’d seen. He stood as we entered, his eyes only for the creature in my arms.
“How the hell did you find one of those?” His eyes wide, I saw only awe in his face.
“Sir, I think it was more like she found me?” I said.
“She’s too young for that, too young. Where is her Mother?”
“She was alone when I found her and well, she won’t stay away from me.” I said.
“No, no, perhaps best that you don’t try to leave her at all. That young man, is an Aktarian ship and she’s attached herself to you.” He said.
“A ship?” I looked at her again “Er, she’s a bit on the small side?”
“That, young man, is a baby and I don’t think she’s terribly old at all. Can she even speak?” He said.
“She makes music a lot, sometimes it’s painful. But no words.” I said, “But, sorry Sir, what do you mean—a ship? How is that possible?”
“I only know a bit, but what I do know is they grow, they don’t die and they go where they want. And each ship has one child.” He said.
“Sir, did you see what happened to the pirates when she fought them? She was eating their plasma and, well, she didn’t move at all when that one guy hit her. How come?” Breathless, I wanted to know more.
“Son, they eat from stars, I know that much. A plasma gun is free food. Your pirate just accelerated her growth rate.” He said.
“So she’s going to grow up and be a real ship?” I said
“She will, I don’t know how long that will be. But I did hear one thing, these ships, they have two halves—an organic half and the ship. Have you not seen this yet?” he asked
“What do you mean?” I said.
“I don’t know how it works but your ship being so young should be two beings, not one.” He said, “Will she come to me?”
He held out his hands, I lifted her but she took off herself and landed delicately balanced a claw on each of his hands. Her fluting noises rose a little as she looked at him.
“Where is your Mommy little one?” He said quietly.
The transparents vanes on her head lifted, her fluting rose in reply, I fancied a note of sadness in there too.
“She is very young, weeks old at most and, well I can’t translate any more than you can but to me, she’s lost. I think she latched onto you because she liked you and come from a starship.” He said, then he looked at the first mate “And before you ask, we can’t space her and we won’t—she would merely come back. I don’t know how they do it but they can usually fly instantly between places.”
“Captain, I know she saved our lives, but do we know why? Do we know she won’t just attack us again?” He said, calmer now but wary of my little ship.
“Look at her—if she wanted to, she would have done it already. The pirates shot at her first. I suggest, don’t shoot her?” He said.
Turning back to me, “I don’t know any more than what I’ve told you except that these ships are survivors. Continue with your duties, if we happen to catch up to her family she will probably go of her own accord.” He said.
She flew back to me, fluting something that didn’t sound like agreement with his words. “Yes Sir.”
We exited the bridge, headed back to my cabin passing the the crew working on the hull breach. They looked up at us, those that weren’t welding that is, thumbs up and uncertain smiles. We’d saved them—well, she did—but they didn’t know what she was and the violence with which she defended herself was alien to their lives.
In my, no our cabin now, I looked at her again. “You need a name.”
She fluted agreement, sibilant tones hanging in the air. I could almost hear some syllables within it—Yiss..in..dra.
“Is that who your name? Yissindra? I like it. Yissindra it is.” She flew up, whistles and flutes bouncing off the walls, her wings blurring as she flew around my head, hitting the wall and bouncing off, hitting the door, bouncing off and finally landing with a thump back into my arms.
“I guess that IS your name then.” I said, laughing.
Cuddle man got it, hah, he heard me. Gotta tell him now, gotta tell him, find Mommy and find Daddy, fix other me, fix her, fix her, she hurt bad still. She hurt bad still.
Her fluting took a minor key, her joy stilling back to a sadness I’d heard from her before as she stared at me again, telling me something new but I still couldn’t get her meaning. No new syllables danced amongst the sombre tones and I could feel her frustration jarring in my bones.
“The captain said you have two sides, where is your other half?”
More sad flutings, despondent trills hanging in the air as she landed and let her wings drop. As she looked at me, I could sense her sudden sadness.
“Something happened to her?”
She blurred and shifted, I saw a ghostly form in her place, a baby maybe weeks old lying unconscious, still. It disappeared and Yissindra’s winged form reappeared.
“She is ill?” I asked, her reply was discordant faint buzzsaws. She turned, the air filled with more flutes and music, the cabin rippled and I could see stars. She dived out through it, the portal or whatever it was disappeared leaving a tiny chill of space behind.
That answers the other question—she could do some kind of portal trick to get places. What had happened to her? And would she come back?
Cuddle man don’t know, not geddit. Gotta fly, fly outside now, thinks how to fix other me? Where Mommy is? She not dead, she NOT DEAD!!
Chapter 6- Roderick & Yissindra {#chapter-6–roderick-&-yissindra}
Feeling the folds of power, life and energy twisting and turning into my bones igniting electrified sparks of fire in my blood, bones and soul, the phantom wings of my ship half - my twin in mind, unfold from my flesh, her ventrali ghosting through my skin.
My eyes are morphing, shifting, reshaping, my vision distorting and the world becomes deeper the colours gaining depth and clarity, contrasts deepen yet I can see through and through and through everything, everything is folds, layers, dimensions deep; insubstantial reality is now, it’s getting hard to settle as the world does not; as my form changes so does my mind; the world shakes, wobbles and becomes— as my wings— phantasmagoric in aspect—insubstantial, misty, is it even there?
I can see tiny hard points of reality right the way through the earth’s crust, is stars.
I can see the stars, they stand out alone to my starship senses,
I can see the stars as hard points of knotty chewy gravity and density ,
I can see the stars and they are glorious nuggets of food.
Shifting, turning, folding, my ventrali vibrate and sing into existence a portal to the nearest chewy star—time for a snack.
Katiya McKerry the First Human-Aktarian Hybrid, AD 2015
After watching her fight the pirates, I knew it was stupid to worry about her but I couldn’t help it. Working the kitchen that evening was hard, I was distracted and kept missing instructions. Chef sent me away in the end, but omitted the usual sarcasm—I’d done nothing but Yissindra’s actions somehow gave me a pass too.
I headed to the observation blister—a small space that seated only a few crew at once but gave a clear view of the space outside. We couldn’t warp away yet until the repairs to the hull were full reintegrated—the welding would eventually disappear as the ship’s own nanites sealed the wound. They couldn’t seal large holes, so repairs were required for anything more than a few centimetres wide.
I hoped Yissindra would come back before then.
Against the blackness punctuated by tiny balls of fire, I saw little flashes all in a cluster, sparkles of colour where there ought be none. As I watched I saw a great flare of colour and a large boulder shaped shadow being drawn into it. I stood closer to the window, trying to see details. There, just there, I can see scintillating wings flexing and shifting as if swimming in space. Yes, it’s her and she’s eating an asteroid?
The rock she’d chosen was several metre wide, much larger than her but there was a deep blue white glow near her nose where the rock was being drawn into her. That’s a ram scoop!
My little alien IS a starship—I’d only ever seen ram scoops on huge ancient planet skimmers, they would skip across a gas giant’s atmosphere drawing in hydrogen for fusion before slingshotting off and heading to the next star system.
Her scoop wasn’t after hydrogen though, it was handling much more. That explained the plasma bolt business. The captain was right, she is a baby starship.
What a strange thought.
Mankind built ships, it took monumental effort to build all but the smallest, our ships were kept in service for centuries for this reason—even the scrappiest old ship was immensely valuable. However, it looked like someone worked out a way to grow them.
How was she lost though? And why were there two halves the way Captain described? How big would she get?
And would she fly me somewhere someday?
The rock disappeared amidst a final nucleonic violet flash.
She flew back to me, as if she could see me and hung outside the observation blister where it was clear she could see me. Through the thick transparent steel I could feel faint flutings. A distortion rippled in front of her nose, a coldness from behind made me shiver as the little ship in front of me disappeared and the flutings grew loud, I turned and sat down suddenly, arms full of wings and ship. She was hot to the touch, not cold from space as I’d expected.
“Is that your favourite way to say hello? Landing on me?” She pulled herself up and rested her head against my cheek, I lay back against the bulkhead and held her. She was larger, I’m sure of it. Maybe it wouldn’t take her too long to grow up at all?
The starfield around us turned blue, the stars became elongated streams of light, then I felt space compressing with a heavy thump through my body.
Except I shouldn’t.
A defining feature of Alcubierre compression is that we are all in the same reference frame and wouldn’t notice any distortion at all. No matter how elongated or foreshortened our space appeared to an external observer, it was absolute from our viewpoint.
So how?
I looked down at her, her wings and whole body was vibration and shivering, the flutings a little wild and discordant. It was her, she could feel the Alcubierre drive working. It didn’t explain why I could—unless her vibrations were what I was feeling?
Space squashing? What is happening? Squishy squashy space ugh is odd is weird and cuddle man can feel it now heh—I see him wobble in squishy space. Cuddle more he.
The universe twisted and bent, I could feel it in my bones and brain, nerves and muscles wobbling at the perturbation of reality. I wanted to throw up.
“Is that you?” I asked her, not expecting an answer I could understand. Her azure eyes looked into mine, confirming my suspicion. “Any chance you could stop it? It’s a long enough journey without this.” She merely pulled herself higher into my arms, her head resting against my cheek.
For a moment I felt and saw something different to the little winged creature in my arms, smaller yet, a human infant—lying still, silent, overlaid onto the body in my arms. It vanished as the nausea passed however and though reality didn’t get any more solid.
The twisting stopped, reality settled down and I no longer had a violent urge to puke.
I looked down at her, “Yissindra, who is that baby I keep seeing?”
Muted sad flutings overlaid with violin like sounds, her wings drooped as she looked at me. She knew what I meant and it was important to her.
Her inability to talk properly to me was frustrating, something about that baby upset her, I knew it. How could I find a way to understand her?
In the shower that evening, where there is little room to move, I noticed faint lines on my skin, very faded tattoo like lines running over my arms and legs, subtle dark blues, purples and reds. Tracing one, touching it send a small tingle through me, a pleasant tingle. Was it some disease? The patterns were more and more detailed the closer I looked, fractal and curling, they had the look of deliberate design, of artifice, not the random patterns of nature. I felt normal otherwise.
Were they to do with Yissindra? The colours were similar. I checked my face, it was clear of the subtle patterning though I fancied I saw purple patterns in my irises but couldn’t be sure.
I stood naked in the tiny space of my cabin, Yissindra sat on my fold down table watching me, her wings shivering in time to her fluting.
“Are you laughing at me?” I said.
She dived across the space and landed flat against my chest, I was ready this time and didn’t hit the floor. “Excuse me, I am trying to get dry here.”
Lifting away from me, she hung in the air and watched me, blinking slowly. “Like that’s not at all creepy?”
Her wings flared as she fluted loudly at me, then backed off to sit back on my table.
“So you know summat about these tattoos?” I held out my arm where the blue and purple filigree tracery was most prominent.
She looked closely at it, then at me, whistled once—a shrug I think—then settled down onto the table and closed her eyes.
“So helpful. Really.” I said
I climbed into bed only to grunt as she landed on me once more. “We got to work on your personal space issues y’know.” I said, expecting no response and getting only the weight settling more securely on me. A warm, tiny head rested against my cheek, the vibrations from it oddly soothing as I drifted to sleep.
I dreamt of stars and black, twisted space, agoraphobia inducing vast spaces, spaces I could not comprehend and blackness beyond any blackness I’ve ever experience. Then in the midst of this confusing ultra cosmic dreamspace, Yissindra appeared except it wasn’t, it was much larger, the head was the size of my body as she came close to me in my dream. I looked deep into the jewel eye that was easily as big as my face and became lost once more in the patterns of stars and night, galaxies and novae I saw within.
Chapter 7 - Daniel
Shuffle, rustle, shuffle, the paper thin ur-wings hung from his waist, the thicker primaries and secondaries from his shoulders. At last five on each side, ten in each set, maybe more, he couldn’t count; each were her colours, her expression and each still echoed her fluting sounds and rhythms from the thousands of ventrali layered over the surface.
Each joint hurt, even his ventrali—part extended in his human form—felt brittle, delicate yet they were anything but.
He fell forwards tripping over a stray shoe, his wings flared open briefly and held his frail form up, slicing through the wall as they caught on gravity webs, the webs of force that run through reality.
“Goddammit, another fucking repair job” He rasped “At least these fuckers are in good order.” this last as he looked at the offending wings.
His wings and ventrali ghosted away leaving nothing but a thin wasted figure of a man easing himself down into the only comfy seat in the house.
The fireplace fell into two, it’s clunk and crash the only other sound in the high ceilinged old room.
“Fucking fuckit fuckit fuckit, why the fuck am I still here yer old bitch you.” He yelled pathetically into the empty space, his voice lost in the dimly lit room “Jus wanna fucking die…fuckit.”
He looked up at hook in the ceiling, the remaining rope trailing a wispy thread where he’d cut neatly through with one wing. “That was another fucking failure. Bastard.”
A mass of pill bottles, all emptied lay in a hopeless heap next to a pile of bottles - cheap whisky and rum, vodka, even absinthe: overdosing— another useless gesture.
Every time he died, he woke up. The noose was cut, the pills didn’t kill, the gun didn’t blow his brains out, nothing seemed to work.
Yet his joints hurt, his body ached, some fucking immortal.
Picking up his notebook, it was filled with notes:
Day 1 - gunshot to the head, gun discharged, sudden pain, blackness. Woke up, bullet was flat, skull intact.
Day 10 - 500 flaze crystal, 50 gram of synthheroin, 5 litres of mixed alcohol. Went to sleep, woke up in a wet bed. No headache.
Day 20 - Hung from a hook, passed out whilst choking, woke up on the floor with the damned noose loose around the neck.
The list went on, failed attempt after failed attempt.
His mind was empty, there was just him stuck with his dead mate’ wings, ventrali and entire body. And his aching joints.
Chapter 8 - Roderick & Yissindra {#chapter-8—roderick-&-yissindra}
I woke and Yissindra’s head was still there, resting, vibrating in time to my own breath. I touched her wings, each one vibrated a little differently as I did so. She shuffled them as I stroked them.
Looking at the clock, I had five minutes before my shift started.
“Wake up, shift, I gotta go work.” I said to her. “Sleepy head.”
Her flutings changed this time, I definitely heard words..me…sleepyhead..
“Oh you copying me?”
Is me…copying..
I was right. She was finally learning how to make words, maybe I could get some answers soon.
Maybe.
He hear me now?
Yissindra kept me awake until the small hours as she tried musical words more and more, each getting a tiny bit easier to hear, more recognisable. In the process I discovered that she knew only a few words but she was learning quickly and she really was an infant—I based that purely on how few words she knew and her behaviour especially demanding cuddles and landing on me as her main way to greet me.
Over the coming days and weeks she learnt more words and became easier to understand; yet, I learnt little new about her, except she missed her Mom and didn’t know her Dad.
Three weeks after she began to speak we were once again in the observation lounge. She’d been outside the ship between jumps and eaten, again with witnesses as several of the crew were keen on watching her feed now. These sessions were mini scale stellar events: asteroids became violent bursts of violet energy coruscating around her otherwise invisible flowerlike ram scoop as matter became the pure energy she absorbed.
Yissindra had grown and was twice the size from when she first found me and her cuddling on top of me at night in my cabin was impossible, soon she wouldn’t fit at all. She hung in mid-air looking at me, fluting and whistling, I was picking out one word in three now, helped by her having learn far more words. Not all of them good ones, thanks to an ever helpful crew.
When I was working, she would wander round the ship, though she was banned from the kitchen after investigating cake mix with one six fingered hand. It took me several hours to clear up the cake mix spray from the walls, floor and cupboard doors. The vibrations she made also made for effective mix and spray tools when her six fingered, ventrali bewhiskered hand was inserted into liquid.
Chef forgot her lifesaving role in prior weeks when the sanctity of his kitchen was threatened—not that I blamed him.
Her favourite place was engineering, where she would sit and examine the drive for hours. Considering her performance in the kitchen I’m amazed we haven’t had an engine disaster yet, however, she seemed content to watch.
After my shift, she would find me and demonstrate colourful new vocabulary, in several languages—we had an eclectic crew—I’d try to explain that these were bad words, but betraying her infanthood, she found them fascinating. Why are swear words so attractive to youngsters?
I sat back against the bulkhead and looked at her. “Yissindra, what is that infant I keep seeing?”
Is sister me...part flutewhistle…me…
“Wait, is that what Captain meant? When he said you had an organic half?” I said
Is what org…whistle..half? Is me too
She had trouble with some words still, the syllables were harder to vibrate I think. “Can you show me again?” I said
Dropping to the deck, she looked at me, then my own eyes felt twisted as her body shimmered, shifted and folded away, leaving a sleeping toddler on the deck. It didn’t stir at all, yet looking closely, it was breathing though there were deep bruises on her face, torso and legs. The shimmer covered her over as Yissindra folded herself back, the sleeping toddler disappeared.
Is sister me…broken
“What happened?” I asked, touching her face, wanting to hold her again now.
Bad man, hurt her, can’t hurt me…I fly, fly slipped space…got away. I take her safe…she get better think I
“Why did he hurt her?” I said, trying not to get angry at her unknown assailant—he wasn’t here, good job for him.
Don’t know…don’t care…he bad
Another mystery. “Will she wake up?” I said
Don’t know…she not speaking…but she not dead so
At this she flew up and into me, slowly this time, gently demanding her usual dose of cuddling. I think I understood more why she was like this, though why she trusted a stranger— me—I didn’t know.
The next morning I woke with one thought in my mind, could Yissindra’s organic half be treated in our sick bay? “Hey, wakey wakey” I said, feeling Yissindra’s tiny head resting warm against my cheek. One beady eye popped open just centimetres from mine and I felt her ventrali tickling my skin as she shifted. Is morning already?
“It is and I’ve had an idea, I think the Captain would let us use the sickbay for your organic half.” I said.
How? What is this thing?
“When we get sick, it’s where go to get fixed up. I don’t see why we can’t use it for you too.” I said, “Come on, lemme up, lets go and see the Captain.” I was counting on his good will here, ships doctors hold a position similar to chefs, yet another profession that AI was not as useful as all that for.
Can fix her? True?
“I think so.” I was guessing, I didn’t know much about medicine.
Chapter 9 - Roderick & Yissindra {#chapter-9—roderick-&-yissindra}
We headed to the bridge, the Captain was heading back the other way. “Ah good.” He said, “I was on my way to find you two, walk with me would you?”
I fell in alongside as we headed along the corridor, the soft amber lighting giving way to the brighter yellow of the day cycle. “What can I do fo you Captain?” I figured it better to wait a moment on our question.
“Have you made any progress in understanding your little Aktarian friend?” He asked, “I ask because I would very much like to ask for her help.”
“We are able to talk now yes and, well, I have a favour to ask you on her behalf, if possible.” I said, hope rising, perhaps this might be easier than I expected.
“What does she need from us?”
“Remember you asked about her organic half?” I said, struggling to contain my excitement “She’s human, but she was badly hurt, still injured even now.”
“Human? I’d heard there were a few pairings, centuries ago but none since. Are you sure?”
“I’ve seen the baby—its unconscious, quite badly bruised and in some sort of coma.” I said
He stopped and looked at Yissindra, she halted and stared back, her wings gently opening and closing as they regarded each other silently. “I’m guessing the favour is use of our medical facilities then?” He said finally.
She fluted loudly.
“That’s a yes, Captain” I translated.
“Let us do it now then, I’ll talk to the doctor myself. As for my favour, it can wait.” He said, turning briskly, expecting us to follow. We did.
I’d not met the ship’s Doctor yet, just knew that most had a reputation for being very particular about who they let in their domains, just like Chef really. Dr Ann Schzau read her name tag, and though she was small she took over the large airy clean space of the sick bay with every quick motion.
“So this is the alien ship I’ve heard about? You really are tiny aren’t you?” She said looking Yissindra over. “Oh”
Yissinder flew nose to nose with her and fluted quickly causing the doctor to back up against her desk.
“Yissindra, slow down.” I could hear what she was fluting at the doctor. “She’s trying to explain what happened but she’s well, it’s upsetting for her to explain” I said.
“I can see, well, please translate for me as I really can’t make anything of her music, pretty as it is.” She replied.
“Her organic half, well, human half really, she was hurt by some guy who was flipping out on some drug on the world I picked her up from.”I said,”He’d tried to bash her skull in, believing her to be possessed or something. Yissindra wasn’t quick enough to switch forms and he’d managed to hit her human side once.”
Softly Dr Schzau said “How long ago was this?”.
“She’s not sure, she doesn’t have a strong sense of time, sorry.”
“That’s ok, best thing we can do is have a look at the child.” She looked at Yissindra, “Can you show me?”
Yissindra turned to look at me and the Captain, she was nervous, her human half was deeply vulnerable. I could feel her worry.
“It’s ok Yiss, honestly, this is the only way.” I said, reaching out and stroking her tiny head. She nudged against my hand then flew back to Dr Schzau.
“Come over here, let me have a look.” She said, gesturing at a bed, “Can you switch here for me?”
Loud buzzing flutes accompanied Yissindra’s slow transformation. Captain and I watched, fascinated and appalled as the change flowed, the wings and ventrali disappearing in directions our eyes could not follow, the human form slow appearing, pale, blotchy, dimpled and naked. And still as death.
Dr Schzau flew into action, attaching devices and readouts, calling for her assistant to bring additional equipment. We backed off, not wanting to be in her way as the sight of what I thought was a dead child galvanised her motions, cutting us out of her mind whilst she worked.
“There’s a pulse, it’s slow, way too slow even for an adult but it’s there. She must have been in stasis the whole time.” She spoke aloud as she worked. “The skull is fractured, there is fluid build-up in the brain, several vertebrae look misaligned—fortunately very young babies are all also very bendy, fortunate for her—and there is some malnutrition here too.”
She paused as she pulled a bone knitter over the bruised and battered little scalp. I saw a foot twitch as she worked and my heart leapt—movement was good right?
“What on earth could have possessed any man to treat such a young child so?” She was speaking aloud as she continued treating the pale white baby laying limp on the bed.
“Roderick, how will you look after her once she’s recovered?” The question caught me off guard. “Sir, honestly I haven’t thought about it, I just wanted to see her made better again.”
“Normally a child like this would be taken into care, put up for adoption, however given what we know, Yissindra would likely reappear with you again with hours if we tried.” The captain looked at me, “We’ll have to make provision here for you to do so.”
“How will you do that Sir?” I didn’t know how to look after a baby and I was nervous about the idea.
“Well, truth is, an Aktarian ship is a treasure beyond measure, they are so rare that the only reason people don’t fight over them is because no-one could hope to control one. Many tried in the early years of Man’s relationship with them. All failed. You’ve seen her eat right?” He said.
“Yes, I saw her collapse an asteroid, it was a hell of a light show!” I said.
“They eat from stars, they even eat the singularities at the heart of black holes, though no physicist I’ve ever heard of can explain how that can even work. Somehow they bypass time dilation, ignore gravity and go exactly where they wish.” He said, “If she can help us from time to time, then we can help you. Scouting ahead, looking out for danger and stuff like that. That’s all I was hoping to ask for.”
“What about pirates, what if they tried to catch or hurt her.” I said, concerned despite having seen her eat plasma bolts for snacks.
“That tiny little ship is the nearest thing to indestructible anything in our known universe could be. One Aktarian held off the entire Ktral slaver fleet centuries ago, blew a star into a nova and finished off the remaining ships, each a few miles long, with one blow. Yissindra will outlive everyone and everything on this ship, including the ship itself.” He said.
I stared at him. “How is this even possible?”
“Do they not teach anything on the planet you hail from?”
“Not this, no.”
“Well, ask her when she’s recovered her human half, can she assist us?” He said, “And come and see me once she’s recovered.”
Dr Schzau walked over to me. “She’s stable now, yet I estimate her to be less than two months old. How her Aktarian half could do what she did, I don’t know.” She said, “The bay is empty now, so, unless I get very busy, you are welcome to stay with her tonight.”
“Thank you.” I said.
“As for care, well, you do have a small dilemma here. If Yissindra doesn’t switch forms, her human side will not grow and develop, it will also slow her ship form growth down too. Up till now, this has been no problem—in fact it saved a life. However, you are going to have to get used to twelve hours a day of Yissindra as a human child.” She said looking at me, “It means you’ll have to be her carer.”
“I never learnt how to look after a child.” I said, it was true, I didn’t have siblings or experience.
“There’s not that much to it: nappies, feeding, waking up to crying, not enough sleep, more nappies, more feeding and occasionally some smiling.” She said.
“Not exactly selling this concept here Doc.” I said
“Just being realistic. That’s the work, for the first couple of years. I don’t know how long Aktarian hybrids take to grow, so I’m guessing really.”
Yissindra as a human lay on the bed, breathing normally, peacefully now, all the marks faded. Where did you come from, I wondered.
Pulling a bed next to her, I lay down and, whilst sleep was slow in coming, eventually come it did.
Chapter 10 - Daniel
“Another fucking day, where can we fly today eh Alyzia-li, what galaxy can we fly to today?” He rasped, chuckling grimly to himself. The silence hissed in his mind. There was nothing else in his mind, nothing else but him and the wings. The thrice damned wings.
She was gone. “When folks fucking die they’re meant to fucking take their fucking selves away, not leaving stuff, specially not their whole self behind.” He grumbled as he shuffled down the road. A grim joke, he knew the truth. He couldn’t really control the wings, the ventrali or any other part of the ship that he still was. He wasn’t meant to be. She was.
“Nothing can kill an Aktarian eh? Well they sure tried hard enough!” He hadn’t a clue why he survived and she didn’t, he barely remembered much of anything after that day. She was his soul and she was gone.
And he was stuck on this god forsaken world with no idea how to move on and no reason to live on but no choice but to do just that.
The memories came back again: that great dark demonic ship killed her though she fought and fought, all alone against that darkest night; shimmering shifting wings and ventrali screaming and straining against her much more massive foe—a maleficent marauder of murderous mein, a timeless evil who existed before our universe was even born.
Diving and slashing, thrusting, grabbing and twisting, her immortal form, her great strength, a strength that easily stood the gravity tides of black holes, a strength that allowed her easy passage to the core of the densest stars, that strength was as nothing as the overwhelming vastness of Thalresh’s grossly distorted and gargantuan Aktarian form easily outweighed her.
He finally trapped her head between his huge claws, enveloped her head with his own ramscoop and crushed the soul out of her.
As she expired a great shock rippled through the reality around her, and ripped through me, through the glyphr layered and engraved on my skin, burning into me and freezing me firmly in place, locking me into one fixed point in reality.
Thalresh reached for me, but his claws passed through me, try as he might he could not touch my body. I could feel I’d changed, the shock rippled on and on, weaving through me. It was only later I realised what was woven through me.
Her soul was gone. I was alone.
She’d found a way to gift me her body in her stead.
She was gone, and I could fly: I’d die to reverse the exchange.
He could fly, at least once, when the space fold opened and he fell through and landed here. A world that hadn’t seen any of the violence of the renegade Aktarian and who hadn’t encountered his followers, his own created race, the Ktral.
It was three hundred days since Alyzia-li died when Daniel’s bequeathed ventrali vibrated to the sound of a space fold opening outside. He was sat with another useless bottle of Altairian fire whisky, the fifth of the day, not succeeding in getting drunk. Shuffling to the window, his wings flexed uncontrollably, causing him to stumble and bump hard into the window, cracking the glass. “Fuck it.” He muttered.
Shambling through the back door, the wings sliced through the frame as he ventured into the garden to find another Aktarian ship sat quietly on the lawn. Her great emerald eye regarded him as she fluted at him, her tones subdued.
I’m sorry Daniel, I’m sorry you lost her.
“I didn’t leave her on a transport somewhere, I didn’t gamble her away, didn’t lose her like a package sent to the wrong address: she was murdered, murdered by that insane fucker that should have been put down before he was even able to fly.” He yelled back.
I know, I know, he’s nearly killed all of my sisters, but Daniel, humanity has helped us the most—your race is the reason there are any of us left—and right now, I need your help. There is another ship in dire need of help and, well, I think you can help her.
“Amay-Lia, who was there for Alyizia-Li? Where were her sisters?” He said bitterly, sitting down hard on the dried, bare lawn. “Where were you all?”
She backed up, her wings dropping in sorry. There is nothing I can tell you that will make you feel better, nothing. All there is, is now. And, I’m sorry we couldn’t know, couldn’t help her. But, we can help Yal-Sindra, we do know where she is, and we felt what happened to you.
It can’t bring Alyisa-Li back. It can’t cure your pain. But, all I can offer you is a choice and you don’t have to accept either of them.
He sat quietly, his pain gnawing at his heart, weighing down his soul, he couldn’t even die to release his torture.
“Will you end me?” He said, “That’s all I want. Will you make sure I can’t come back?”
The choice is yours and yours alone. If you want me to do that, will you at least let your life help another Aktarian?
When my sisters were killed, that is all I wanted too.
Chapter 11 - Roderick & Yissindra {#chapter-11—roderick-&-yissindra}
The following morning I was woken by a very tiny, very human hand investigating my nostrils. “Oh morning.” I said, bleary eyed, expecting flutes and getting gurgles as a very blue, very human eye looked into my own.
I lay looking at her as she waved her arms and legs aimlessly, her eyes roving round the room drinking in the unfamiliar sights. It was quiet in sickbay, just us here, the doctor nor her assistants were about.
“I see you are awake then.” The captain’s voice came from behind, Yissindra jumping a little at the unexpected sound.
I got up and dressed in a hurry, I still had duties after all. “morning Sir, sorry I slept in.” I said, realising that Chef was likely to be annoyed at my tardiness.
“Don’t worry about duties today, I’ve spoken with Chef, and he assures me today he doesn’t need you. In fact, this is why I’m here. “
I’d forgotten I was to go see him once Yissindra was treated. “Sorry, I fell asleep Sir.” I said.
He waved my apology away. “This was more important, and I’m here now. However, I do have a question about your duties. Have you ever thought about doing something other than working in the kitchens? “
“Well, no not really, I wasn’t well educated on my home world and just glad to get into space Sir. “ it was true, on Xoran there was little need for most people to learn more than the basic necessities of an agricultural life. Xoran was a food producer, no famous pilots, fighters or engineers came from Xoran, though we were known for chefs.
“I’d like you to take some tests, there are other positions on board that you may be suited for.” He said.
Why? I thought to myself, why would he offer this? Yissindra saved the ship, not me. “sir, I’m grateful for the opportunity but why? “
“Something about you drew Yissindra. She saved the ship as a result. So, whatever drew her may be something you’ve overlooked and to be Frank, we could use.” He said, raising one eyebrow. “it’s self interest on my part too. If you happen to have a talent we can use, I can pay you for, why would you leave?”
He had a point. Yissindra was an amazing protector and, if she stayed with me, would go where I went.
“I don’t know if I have anything you can use but I’m willing to try.” The only things that changed had been my seeing reality warp when we jumped and the still faint markings on my skin, markings no-one else had seen yet.
Yissindra chose that moment to make her presence felt, crying quietly. The doctor appeared, “I think it’s feeding time, Roderick, and since you need to learn, let me show you.”
“I’ll take my leave, but come and see me once she is settled. Doctor won’t mind looking after her for a couple of hours I’m sure.” This last was said pointedly.
Dr Schzau narrowed her eyes at the captain, “For now, Sir, but there is a reason I don’t have children… “
“Yes, yes I know, it just for this morning.” He turned and left.
“Typical” she muttered, then as Yissindra increased her volume, she forgot the captain and busied herself with sorting out feeding. First, she gathered up milk, found a bottle and, after measuring out a cup full then heated it. Handing it to me she said, “Take note, she’s going to need this much, three times a day for the next year. I’ve given you extra, but you’ll need to come back regularly for more.”
Once she’d shown me the fundamentals of caring for Yissindra in her human form, she left me to my thoughts. A few moment of peace as Yissindra fed gave me time to reflect.
How had this vulnerable creature survived what her Aktarian half showed me?
Why would someone hurt a child like this?
What was I going to do now? I didn’t hold a lot of hope in getting a different job on board. No-one had discussed paying for Yissindra’s food or even care-what about work? The captain seemed accommodating but running a starship wasn’t a charity.
We had a few dozen extremely wealthy travellers, many were semi permanent residents who simply never settled on one world, instead traded and networked on a galactic scale and paid handsomely for the Kalandaru’s services.
Still, Yissindra’s the Aktarian had cemented her welcome with her violent demonstration, so maybe I was just worrying without reason.
She fell asleep in my arms, yet as I watched, fine gossamer threads ghosted over her face, her hands and body, then her form became indistinct, lifted out of my arms as her ship form took over. Hovering in the air now, in front of me, giving me her usual cross eyed look, she fluted musically. She is alive.. You fix her?
“Well, Dr Schzau actually… “ I was cut off as once more I was assaulted by the tiny starship as she landed heavily on my chest, cuddles demanded once more. How she was able to talk and operate in this way when her human half was barely grown I didn’t know.
Dr Schzau came out at the noise of my landing heavily on the bed. “Ah, the little one fell asleep, right? “
“Is she always going to do this?” I said, “Switching when her human side sleeps. “
“That is difficult to say, everything we know comes from just a handful of Aktarian and neither they or their partners were known for recording much about themselves. However, what little we know, I can give you access to. And I think it likely that, yes, her sleep cycles may well be in sync to her changing forms.” she said.
“There goes some peace and quiet I guess.” I said as I made ready to leave.
“Before you go, the captain asked me to tell you that he’s had your stuff moved to a new cabin. It should be more suitable for the two of you.” she handed me a note with the number and location scribbled down.
“Thank you for your help and the stuff.” I smiled at her then left, carrying the bottles, milk and other baby paraphernalia. Yissindra flew alongside, fluting aimlessly and happily as we made our way to the new cabin.
It was further from the kitchens, nearer to the bridge and, once we got in there, much larger and had a second bed—a small cot in fact, plus some compact, neat kitchen facilities.
“You came with perks, Yiss.” I said as she landed delicately on the table. She looked at me, so what we doing now?
It was a rare moment in my life where that was a reasonable question. “Well, we have to see the captain, he wants a favour from you and wants me to do tests for a new job.”
A favour? She fluted.
“yep, let’s go and see him now, he can tell you.” I said.
We went to the bridge, I walked, she flew, along corridors still quiet in the early morning. The ship was peaceful, calm, though I could still need some burns and scars from the recent battle, not yet repaired in walls, floor and ceiling.
The XO was on duty this time when we reached the bridge, he pointed us to the captain’s ready room. “He left instruction for you to meet him there if you came by. “ He said.
Another room I’d never seen, luxurious yet spare, a model of Kalandaru on the back wall, seats for ten people round a dark wood oval table, it was a space suited for its job. The captain sat at his own desk at the far corner, reading something on a terminal. “Ah good, I was hoping to see you both sooner rather than later.” he said, “take a seat. “
I pulled one of the black leather chairs round to face his desk, Yissindra settled on his desk and watched him closely.
“I’ll get to it: in the last few months I’ve received reports of increased pirate activity in the regions we travel through. It used to be very rare but lately, this has changed.” He said, “And we are unable to detect the pirates before they attack.”
He looked at Yissindera, “I know about your kind, how you fold space and how no known weapon can hurt you. Can you help us with this?”
She fluted, but by his expression, he couldn’t make out the words hidden in her music.
You helped us. I help you, how?
I translated for him. “She’s grateful for your help, how can she help you? For that matter, she’s a only a baby according to you and the doctor. How can she? “
“Quite simply, she can fold space and patrol rapidly in a pattern along our route. We only need a few light years of warning, we can alter course enough to confound any pursuer.” He touched a control on the desk, a hologram of the space around us appeared, a few scant stars and the direction of our travel were highlighted.
“If she can fold through these points in a loop, she should be able to pick up any drive signatures within a light year or so.”
I didn’t know how but I didn’t know much about Aktarians either. “Can you do that Yiss?”
The captain interrupted, “How curious, you call her Yiss. Did you know that is the name we have for the race that created them? “
“No, Sir, I just shorten her name. Maybe it’s ancestral.”
Yiss span round to look at me I don’t know, is just name I have. And, yes, I can do this thing, I think.
I passed this on and the captain smiled and nodded, “thank you, you may just save our lives again. “
“As for you, “ He turned to me, “have you ever been tested for navigation sense or engineering potential? I’m guessing not.”
“No, Sir, we didn’t have any testing on Xoran.” I said.
“Well I’ve arranged for both Ensign Lau and Engineer Tchang to interview and test your aptitude. I can’t promise anything but your important to this young Aktarian, I’d like to see you stay with us “ He said
“What about my job with Chef?”
“There are any number of youngsters like yourself, wanting that position and none of them have an young Aktarian as a partner.” He said.
“Well she chose to follow me that’s true.” I didn’t know if partner was the right term, and truth be known, I hadn’t a clue why she chose to follow me.
Chapter 12 - Roderick & Yissindra {#chapter-12—roderick-&-yissindra}
That afternoon I was introduced to the chief engineer, Tchang who took me to a side room, next to engineering.
“Captain says you didn’t go through any standard testing for engineering on your home world?” He started briskly.
“That’s right, we are mostly agriculture, little need for exotic engineering skills on a farm.”
“Ok well, we can test for potential instead. Just follow the directions on screen. Call me when you are done.” He said, leaving me with my electronic holographic tutor.
I don’t know what I expected really, most of the exercises were alien to me, except for the one with the pretty three dimensional curves. All I had to do there was try to predict where they ended up, or what patterns they made when they collided. They reminded me of the faint tattoos on my own skin.
I felt drained by the time I was done, pretty sure I didn’t pass any of it, even Yissindra was quiet, she seemed to know not to disturb me.
“Those are some funny results.” Tchang said scratching his bald pate. “it’s like you didn’t know anything about any of it, except for the hyper dimensional force simulations.”
“What are those?”
“The pretty patterns, wait did that creature do these? “
Yiss buzz sawed indignantly. “No! I did it myself all of it.”
“Sorry, I know, I can see… Just your scores are impossible. We use this test to get a feel for engineers who can tune the exotic matter manifolds. Look here. “ He point to one particularly pretty spiral dancing form on the holograms. “You integrated the optimal point for these forces to be tuned in an operation that we cannot get our computers to solve. The answer is one we have had supplied by a specialist institute, who claim their solution is the only one.”
He tapped a few keys, sending my answer to another console where another, much more detailed three dimensional diagram began dancing in the air. “Ok this device will simulate what happens when we use your tuning solution. Normally space is compressed to a ratio of one hundred to one - a density ratio. This ship only travels a quarter of lightspeed but through compressed space, she will make way at twenty five times light speed.”
I was just about following this. “What is different about my answer then?”
“The highest ratio a human ship can routinely achieve is about five hundred to one, this is down to the complexity of the manifold tuning. We use various forms of exotic matter and the shape of the energy fields used to suspend it dictates the efficiency.” He paused, “The record to date was six hundred and fifty to one. Your solution could easily be ten times that.”
I barely understood what I’d done, except for one thing. “Does this mean a ship could go ten times faster?”
“If your solution is solid, because it was based on our simulation for this ship, in theory it could make THIS ship fifty times faster. You provided a possible five thousand to one solution. How?” Tchang sat staring at me uncomprehending. I stared back, equally uncomprehending.
“I don’t know. I just did the test and, like you said, I barely knew what I was doing. All I did was line the patterns up the way the instructions told me to. It looked and felt right.”
He muttered to himself, “It ain’t possible. Has to be a fluke.”, Looking back at me, “Ok, I’ve another surface proposal to let you look at. Those were standard tests - given certain masses what would the best form be.”
“The question didn’t tell me that.” I said - it was true, it merely showed me shapes, all curved, shiny in places, faint in others, with notation I didn’t understand. What I did understand was the idea of making the shapes fit together in better ways, though it seemed a matter of opinion, not like a jigsaw but more like what is the prettiest pattern you can make.
“No, you’re right. It sets out to see if part of your mind can simply find answers amongst the patterns without using language.” He said, “Ok, try this one then.”
On my console came a much more convoluted set of three d spirals, manifolds, curves and segments. Again, I simply moved them around until I could feel where I wanted them. This time Yiss came and looked into my eyes, distracting me a little.
“Wait is she helping you?” He said.
“I don’t think so.” She was silent, just watching me then fluted at me. I just seeing what you thinking, is you feeling into all that, that is all.
“What is she saying?”
“I’m not sure if it translates, she seems to think she can see me feeling this. She is right, I can feel what should go where Mr Tchang. That’s all I can tell you. Is this one right?”
“Dammit, this one is special, us engineers have a competition on this stuff. We send out manifold and mass setups, trying to stump the other guys on other ships, trying to find the best answers and perhaps a universal one. This one, no one has got past three hundred to one. It’s for a colony class trawler, masses over ten times what Kalanduru does.” He took a closer look, “What the hell? That solution is further out than your others, nearly ten thousand to one. If it pans out at even a quarter of that, you’ve outdone every single engineer in the guild.”
“Does this mean I can be an engineer?” I didn’t know how I felt about that: it’s better than running around after chef, probably, yet I didn’t understand most of the stuff I saw on the screen.
“That is the second problem: you score little better than chance on everything else. No, I can’t train you to be an engineer. However, you don’t need to be.”
“What do you mean?”
“Aside from that little lady you have with you there? The first answer you gave me, well, if you give me the right to use it, let’s just say,I’ll make it worthwhile.”
I didn’t know much about it really, I did get it made starships faster, so I nodded. “Of course, it was your test. And if I can’t really be an engineer, what use will I have for it?”
“Well, there is that.” He bustled about and then shooed us out. “I have to talk to the captain, I don’t know exactly what will happen next but I’ll be sure to let you know if your solution works.”
He seemed in a sudden rush to move us out of his territory. We left to report to Ensign Lau. Maybe I’d have better luck with navigation and become a pilot—there’s never enough of those to go around.
Chapter 13 - Roderick & Yissindra {#chapter-13—roderick-&-yissindra}
Ensign Lau had messaged me on the cabin comm to meet her at a simulator room near the bridge. She appeared a little old than me, trim and fit.
“Have you ever been in a simulator before?” She asked.
“No, never been a need for it.”
“Well, I’d like to try you with some basic pilot tests, the simulator will explain the controls. All I’m looking for is what do you do naturally in different situations.” She went on, “The first few minutes are just orientation, real space manoeuvres to give you time to find the controls. After that you’ll be asked to find the best paths between different places. Compressing space is not uniform and we rely a lot on gravimetric density charts but the data does shift a lot, so the pilot has to feel for what is happening from the sensor data. In case you didn’t realise, that will be you.”
“Ok, sounds straightforward.” It sounded anything but, however I didn’t want to confess this to her.
I climbed into the small pod, Yiss tried to follow but there really wasn’t space. “You’ll have to wait out here.”
She buzzed and fluted, No, want to see.
“There isn’t room.” I said as I shut the pod door. Next thing I knew, a small pointy head rested against my cheek, the rest of her eerily hidden by the fold in space she’d poke through. I wanna see.
“So I see.” I couldn’t stop laughing, “I’m not going to be able to concentrate!”
The simulator started, the AI voice filled the small space as it began to detail the work to come.
The first minutes were taken up with trying to follow the directions as each maneuver became more and more complicated, until we were docking with spinning stations, lining up with liners and cruisers, landing on the rear bays of fast moving transporters and more.
“Now it is time to plot a course between Altair and Sirius X - this is the first compressed space move, so please take your time to plot wisely.” Further instructions followed, but again, just like the engineering test, I could see and feel an obvious way to do it even when it kept changing.
And changing.
Was it meant to do this?
The first course kept me going for several hours as the computer through problem after problem at me: binary stars, binary stars round a black hole, nebula covering brown dwarfs, mass anomalies and more.
I didn’t know a lot, but this seemed like a suspiciously large number of hazards and I said so when the simulator finally let me go, three hours later. I was dripping with sweat, exhausted and somewhat unsure of being a pilot.
Ensign Lau walked back into the simulator room. “What took the time?”
“The simulator kept going, I didn’t get past the first plot-the Sirius one.”
“Strange, you should have attempted three, and the first, less than half an hour.”
My skin itched a little, as I scratched I noticed that the fractal tattoo markings were a little clearer, more defined than last time I looked.
Yiss flew over and landed on my lap can you feel see it all now?
Not quite understanding, I simply held her whilst Ensign Lau worked the console. “The test is adaptive, you are meant to fail before the next plot is presented, it’s at what level you fail determines how well you’ve done.” She said. “Problem is, you didn’t fail, you got an all time record. Professional pilots don’t do this well. ”
That was the second thing I’d done well in without knowing. And, was it chance that I didn’t actually know what I was doing, that I was just guessing and feeling? Staring at Yissindera, I had a thought. “Is this something to do with you?
She fluted I don’t know
Neither did I, just seemed strange.
“So, what next? Do I get to be a pilot?”
Ensign Lau looked at me, head tilted, “if that’s what you want, you score highly enough to do so. But, you have a ship, why pilot an ordinary starship when you are Partnered with her? “ she gestured at Yissindra. “Do you realise how few Aktarians there are? “
“Well, no, I didn’t know they existed. But it was the captains though that I do this” I said, “Besides she is too small, still growing up, and I do need work”
Actually, it never occurred to me that the cuddling creature of many wings was actually a starship herself. Ok so I knew it intellectually, enough had been said, but to relate this personality to the same category as a manufactured thing like the Kalandaru, emotionally I didn’t truly get it.
“I followed the stories of Katiya and her Mother, though they were dramatised I’m sure. And, unless they lied, the ship you are cuddling is not going to take long growing up and well, they don’t settle down in one place and, “ She focused her attention on me, staring hard at me, “They mate for life. They choose a partner and that’s it.”
“I don’t understand, choose a partner? Are there male ships out there? Will I be woken by interstellar mating rituals during the night one day”
“Are you that ignorant? There are no males. The ships choose partners from other species.”she said.
I sat processing what she said.
Slowly.
“uh huh… “ was all I could manage.
“Well, I guess that answers that. Really is a backwoods planet you are from right?” She got up to leave.”Look, I’m going to recommend you as pilot trainee, the work, for you is easy, the pay is good and since the captain wants her help in detecting pirates, it makes sense that you are in the bridge a lot more. But, please, do some research, I think you may need to understand a lot more about your new friend.”
“Wait, Yissindra is a baby, she is half human, and that half is barely weeks old. “ I said, disturbed by the implications.
“Alien cultures I guess, and theirs is the oldest we know of. Anyway, I doubt it will be a problem to handle for a long time yet.” she said.
Yissindra looked up at me fluted and as I held her, chose that moment to shift forms. I was left with a rather squirmy, somewhat noisier human infant.
“Speak of the devil, I think you have your hands full now.” Ensign Lau laughed as I struggled up to leave, Yissindra as human needed a little tending to.
Chapter 14 - Roderick & Yissindra {#chapter-14—roderick-&-yissindra}
The following week my time was divided between learning how to be Dad, attending to the basics course that the captain decided I needed, working with Ensign Lau and Engineer Tchang: the conclusion being that my education skewed my results too much and that it would be better to let me have another chance at engineering once I’d done some prep work.
I didn’t object, I was excused from my precious role, secure for now on Kalandaru, life was good.
Every day Yiss flew a patrol pattern around the Kalandaru. At first she couldn’t fold out as far as needed, barely a light year, but the repeated effort caused growth in her ventrali, wings and form; her daily feedings were spectacular as she used patrol time to also catch asteroids, where possible and would bring them back, knowing the crew would watch her compress them in a glorious light show. That never got old, a mini nova storm hanging a few miles out in the compressed space of our passage, the weird properties of such space lending the light show a spooky, ghostly aura.
She never seemed to be affected by the change in space density, as if it didn’t exist for her.
Day by day my own peculiar markings grew more detailed, yet they didn’t hurt, never gave me no trouble.
At the start of my second week of training, Yissindra was on her patrol pattern so I was alone when the first mate, Boscombe, confronted me.
“So you found yourself an alien girl then?” His tone was hostile, I stopped dead-we’d had little conversation since the boarding attempt by the pirates. “You think you’re better than anyone else now?”
He was a superior officer, I couldn’t see what the issue really was. “Sir, I don’t know what you are talking about.” I backed up, he’d chosen his spot well, out of the way, not many crew pass by.
“Leave this ship at the next port, we don’t need your kind here. If you don’t, well, your girl, she ain’t always that starship is she? Who looks after her when you are training hmm? “ At this, he turned and walked off.
Xoran was not a violent place, in fact the steady industry and little to attract the wider human race, other than food, it was a downright peaceful, innocent place. And, well, I never met anyone who acted like the first mate. What was he thinking? My heart racing, I worried at it: could he hurt Yiss? Her human half had been hurt already. Maybe he could. Would the captain believe me if I told him? I didn’t think I could explain it to Yiss either. Patrolling through space folds, for an indestructible young Aktarian was easy; dealing with yet another human who wanted to harm her human half, I had not idea if she would understand the threat or what she would if she did.
Why threaten us?
As far as I knew we’d never really had any cause for argument.
That evening I lay holding and feeding Yiss, in her human form—she was getting noticeably heavier in the few weeks since Dr Schzau treated her—and puzzling over Boscombe’s behaviour. I couldn’t explain it to Yiss, not really.
But it was suspicious.
I had a brainwave, how did the pirates track us? Was it chance?
Could I keep Yiss safe if I tried to find out?
It turned out the next stop would answer that.
Chapter 15 - Roderick & Yissindra {#chapter-15—roderick-&-yissindra}
Our next stop was a metropolitan world, Ayan B, and one where we took on new passengers. I was shadowed Ensign Lau as she brought us into dock.
“How long are we staying Sir?” I turned to face the captain.
“Just a couple of days, we are on a tight schedule.” He said.
I had two days to either leave or risk Boscombe finding a way to hurt Yiss.
Yiss and I went aboard Ayan trade station with several other crew; me for inspiration, her for exploration. It was a bustling, noisy, crowded place, just like most stations we visit: a riotous mix of species using the common language of currency and barter to get along, communicating in a cacophony of tongues, whistles, even hoots and cat calls on one particularly lively stand.
We wandered over to take a look, but backed away quickly when we saw the collared and manacles merchandise. Some trades were still legal, trades that needed shutting down. Anxiously I hurried away, Yiss buzzing angrily, as if hearing my feelings.
As we walked away from the dock the noise slowly grew quieter, the crowds thinner and more proper shop fronts became evident. One caught my eye, the twins guns and blade logo betraying their speciality: I came for inspiration, maybe, just maybe I could get a small edge over Boscombe. Under no illusions, I wasn’t a warrior of any kind, however he wasn’t to know that.
We entered the shop. The noise outside cut off, it was cool and quiet in here. The seller was human, a short woman who sat quietly at the back of the shop, watching everything at once.
I shuffled in under her intense gaze and started to ask my question, stumbling in my embarrassment. I felt a bit ridiculous, I’d never held a gun before never mind used one.
“Don’t tell me, you want something to protect yourself, right? Gambling debt is it? “ She spoke sharply, as if impatient to be done with me.
“No, nothing like that, I just need something because of a possible problem with another crew member. I don’t want kill anyone. “ I said in a rush, I didn’t want her to see me as some kind of hung ho have a go hero. “A stunner or something.” I knew I wouldn’t be able to fire if it was lethal.
“Hmm… All first timers say that, or they admit they do want something lethal. Never mind, I can probably help. Something discreet I’m guessing right?”
“Yes please.” I said.
“Well, if you’ve got the cash, I’ve two suggestions for you. You want both really. A stun bracelet, can look like any of a dozen varieties of traditional pieces; and a more conventional charge gun, adjustable. At the high setting, it might kill depending on your aim.” She pulled out two packages.
The box price was a little over my budget, however, these were goods and I hadn’t spent months as a kitchen boy for nothing. Haggling with fruit and veg or meat sellers was harder than this and we soon settled on a good deal.
“It’s refreshing to meet someone with the manners to buy properly. For that, I’ll throw in the back holster. “She said.
This item was nifty, allowing me to securely hide the gun in the small of my back.
“Thank you.” I said.
As if noticing Yiss for the first time, “Well look at you, you are a pretty one ain’t you? I bet your Mommy is one hell of a looker.”
Yiss fluted sadly, I started to translate but the seller stopped me. “I have ears and she is perfectly clear to me. And, hell, I didn’t know that was possible. She’s an orphan?
“As far as I can tell yes.”
“How did you find her?
“Well, she found me really, at a market at the last system, I thought she was a pet for sale on a stall, she was singing.”
The seller laughed at this, “a pet, hahaha, that’s hilarious, I guess you know better now?”
“Yes, our captain knows about Aktarians. Anyway, she followed me, I was ordered to take her back by our first mate, but, I got back to my cabin and there she was.”
“Folded space no doubt, once she knew where you were. Yep, tis highly likely she’s decided on you for sure.” she said.
“Decided on me for what?” Not the first time someone had alluded to this now.
“Right now, a protector, in the future, a partner. Do you have glyphr yet? Markings on your skin?” she pulled back my sleeve. “Ah yes, I’d heard of these, thats what I’d heard them called. Seems to be a side effect of close, intimate association with these ships.””
“True, but lots about her still puzzle me.” I said
“That is true for anyone that knows these ships. They never grow all that large, yet somehow they can do an awful lot. You should read up on them if you get a chance.” She said.
“There is little on the ship I’m with on them, is there anywhere on station likely to be useful?”
“Sure, the terminals here connect to a larger central library. For a couple of credits, I can let you use mind; how about I throw in a drink, gratis?”
It didn’t sound terribly cheap but it was quiet, private and she was friendly enough.
“Tell, you what, make it a single credit and you’re on.” I said. She smiled broadly, “A credit and a half.”
We settled on a credit and quarter, she took me through to her terminal and, after leaving me with a cold drink, left us to it.
“Ok Yiss, let’s see what the fuss is about.”
She fluted quietly, staring intently at the screen as I began my searches. The first thing that hit me was just how rare Aktarians were—man first met them nearly a millenia ago, just a single ship who bore a child shortly after coming into contact with our race.
A handwritten account of this relationship vivid and revealing in its detail and answered my own question: what kind of partnership these ships sought?
It was haunting to read of Amay-Lia, nearly dying, reaching out to Allen McKerry, who somehow saw past her form and, in helping her heal, fell in love with her and through his actions saved her race from total extinction.
I held Yiss tightly as I read on, first through the childhood life of Katiya the daughter and how in fact she came to be known as Kat and Tiya for the first few decades of her life. Some of the tales made me snort my drink however, it seemed that if there was mischief a young ship could get into, she and her human half found it. Though writing her name on the moon in craters caused by rocks thrown from Balnakeil in Scotland surely was an exaggeration. Wasn’t it?
During Katiya’s third decade of life, the cause of her Mother’s near demise reared its head and, this was where things became esoteric, the text discussed the only male Aktarian to exist. He was nothing like the beautiful, peaceful Aktarians I knew, he was a creature of war and hate, enslavement and resentment, provoking and aiding another race in their own xenophobic takeover of several galaxies.
There was an image of Katiya and Amay-Lia taking apart the Ktral fleet—this was a dramatisation, both ships were barely twice the size of an ancient car—yet here they were shown sucking down beams of raw power miles wide, taking missiles and other weapons fire and simply swallowing them down, sometimes firing it back but not always.
One recording showed both ships flipping, folding and shifting hundreds of miles in an instance, time after time, leaving behind holed Ktral ships, ships that were miles in length and width, ships with armour measure in hundreds of meters, shields layered on shields, each a meter thick, each able to stop a nuclear explosion and yet, these two tiny Aktarian starships where smashing through these like diving through layers of tissue.
This battle went on for hours until there were no Ktral, just a vast ragged wrecked nebula of broken ships and dead Ktral. The two Aktarians hung silently in space, on the terminal, nothing else lived.
Until a black shape folded through, that is the only word I can use to describe it, a tortured ripple in space, right in front of both ships. Yet the ship that started to emerge barely got his head out when both females became streaks of solid light, and struck his eyes, pointy heads first, at a sizeable fraction of the speed of light, and as they struck immense shockwaves of violent violet lightning blew away from them in great rings of light, the force distorting the star they were fighting above.
Thalresh fled the scene as the lightning storm cleared, the two Aktarians left hung in space, both held a single twisted eye.
Thalresh wasn’t heard from for several centuries.
The weapon seller came back, “Have you learnt what you needed?”
“There’s a lot more to go.” I said.
“I’m willing to sell you a datastick, let you download the rest, there’s a lot of material here.”
It was the final haggle of the day and I really did need to get going. After reading what the early Aktarians were like, I felt less and less disposed towards obeying Boscombe’s demand I leave. Something nasty about his threat made me think again—it wasn’t about me. It was suspicious and the captain needed to know.
After fitting my weapons to my arm and spine sheath respectively, we set off back to the ship.
Yiss climbed into place in my arms, though I struggled as she was getting too big now, but proceeded to change to her human form. I’d lost track of time and that strange cycle of ship to human and back again had come back round.
Fortunately her human side was still small enough to be easily held, she lay peacefully awake in my arms as we jogged back to the Kalandaru.
Next thing I knew, deep blackness, pain and restriction. Voices, “don’t let that kid sleep, dose it, now. She changes, you die.”
I passed out again.
Chapter 16 - Daniel
“Ok, fine, yes. I don’t know what use I can be but I’ll help.” He said sadly, standing up slowly. “I’m sorry for what I said, but well, she left me like this, unable to follow her, unable to end and it’s too much.”
I know. We’ve never seen this happen before. And we are hoping that somehow you can help Yal-Sindra.
She opened a foldspace portal into her interior chamber and he ducked through, entering into a space far larger than her exterior form. At the far side sat an older man, well built, silver haired, dressed in black; Amay-Lia’s life partner, Allan McKerry—the oldest living human. He got up and hugged Daniel close, “I’m sorry for Alysia-Li, man, I’m sorry.”
Daniel said nothing, his tears flowed quietly.
We need to get going, Yal-Sindra has little time left. Daniel, I believe the key to saving her lies within your own body. When we meet her, she is in the centre of Barnard’s Star and it’s the only thing keeping her alive. Thalresh made a mistake in trying to kill her there, but we think that she led him there so she could give birth and free her child.
“How can I do anything?” He said.
You need to focus your consciousness onto every wing, ventrali and part of her within you. Feel her memories, feel her feelings, feel everything.
I’m sorry, it’s going to hurt, hurt your mind, your body and your soul. But, you need to focus deeper and deeper. And when we get there, you have to push with all of who you are and become the ship that Alyzia-Li was, then connect with Yal-Sindra, find any way you can, with the instincts Alyzia-Li left you, connect—we believe that the connection, done in the heart of the star, will reignite her own soul.
“Why do you think we can do this? Could Alyzia-Li be reignited this way?” He was frantically pacing now, pushing past the fine furnishings littering the open space.
I’m sorry, we can feel the spark of Yal-Sindra, her soul is there but dim, flat. Alyzia-Li is gone, gone like most of my sisters. But I’d do anything for the slightest hope of saving one sister.
“Come on, let’s do it. I just want this all to end.” He said gruffly, tears flowing freely now.
We are already here.
She opened a fold into the glaring whiteness of the star. You must focus now, focus your consciousness onto every wing, ventrali and part of her within you. Feel her memories, feel her feelings, feel everything.
I’m sorry, it’s going to hurt, hurt your mind, your body and your soul. But, you need to focus deeper and deeper. This is the only way you’ll survive. And this is the only way you can help my last sister.
She nudged him gently to the fold, the symmetrical perfect tear in space, a tear that let through the awful searing power of Barnard’s Star, a ten million degree furnace that should have vaporised him in less than a second. But couldn’t.
He barely felt the heat as he focussed on following Amay-Lia’s instructions, as he did so he could feel the ventrali becoming more distinct, the wings more real, her ship form folding in and through him, weaving ever more strongly within him.
“Amay-Lia - will I be free of this when I help her? Will she take this form from me?” He said, “That’s what I want. I can’t fly, I can’t die, what is the use for me?”
Please Daniel, please help my sister. And no matter what happens, I will help you. I promise.
He stepped through into searing catastrophic heat and light.
Chapter 17 - Roderick and Yiss
Woke to slaps, cold water, “Wake the fuck up alien lover.” Harsh voices. “This skinny kid didn’t take our men did he?”
A familiar voice, “No, he hid behind that alien creature. THAT is the problem.”
“Wait, that’s a baby!” Another accented tone cut in.
Boscombe yelled back “Ignorant idiot, I’ve seen what this so called baby can do. Do NOT let her sleep, I’m sure that the alien can’t appear whilst her human half is awake.”
“Talking about awake, I think he’s back with us. Let’s do him now, one less problem.”
“No, that’s not what we were paid for, and maybe you don’t care but I like money. Lots of money. And these two, alive, baby unchanged are worth every last penny.”
I could see little from the floor where I lay, but I heard Yissindra’s cry. “For God’s sake, can you shut her up.”
“You want her awake? She’s going to cry. You want her silent, let her sleep but it’s your life.” Said Boscombe.
He leaned over to me. “Bet you wish you’d listened me you little creep.”
I couldn’t do anything other than stare daggers at him, glaring wishing that I could rip his head off with my glare. Some hope, his ugly mug just hung there, foul breath in my face as he gloated down at me. “You just lay there quiet, wait to be collected. You won’t be interfering with another perfectly good boarding again.”
“Can we hold her if she changes?” Said another of our kidnappers.
“She caught our last crew by surprise, but this time, we know she’s an alien and well, we’ve got some alien weapons of our own. If we have to test them that is.” Boscombe said, sounding regretful at the lost opportunity.
“I ain’t so sure, we best off load these two, get them as far from here as we can, don’t fuck around with the alien.” voice number three. “I heard that no-one has ever offed one of these aliens.”
“Exaggeration, they’re just so rare, hell that’s why we gettin paid.” back to voice number two.
Why would someone pay for me to be taken? As for Yiss, I don’t know why she hadn’t switched but when she does… , they are going to know all about it.
As I lay struggling quietly against the rope binding my wrists, I could feel the knots, in great detail, in my head—I could feel them the way I felt answers to the simulator questions when I did the engineering test, there was right places for each surface, each contour and right now, in addition to the tension on my wrists and the roughness of the rope against my skin, I could feel differences in tension on difference parts of the knots binding me.
Flexing my wrist a little, there, I could feel where one part tightened, holding another in place. It was the opposite move I needed, not the one I would guess. Pull here, push there, twist a little—was that some give?— it was and suddenly, in that phantom place in my mind, that place where I sensed how to navigate, the odd intuition that occurred before, I could feel again how to pull, twist and push. The knots were good, expertly done yet gradually as I rubbed my wrists raw, each knot worked a little looser, a little easier.
Nobody noticed. They were busy with baby Yissindra, huddled around her, trying to keep her awake. I could just about see when one of them produced a syringe, “This should keep her awake for a while.” Boscombe said.
“What is that?” Voice number three belonged to a scruffy, thin man dressed in worn out mercenary style leathers.
“A harmless upper, better than I’d give her after what she did to Cratos and his crew. If you saw the hole she left in his chest, through his custom armour, well, you’d understand.”
Yissindra cried out a little as they injected her.
“That should keep her from shifting for a couple of hours at least. We’ll go and scout out a ride, you hold onto her, if we are more than a couple of hours, give her another shot.” On saying that, scruffy and voice number two left, leaving us with our traitorous first mate.
“Told you to leave. Didn’t listen, I saw you coming back, didn’t think I’d notice your friend changing did you?” He seemed to want to talk.
I said nothing, just focussed on hiding the small movements of my arms and wrists as my intuition guided me as how to get free. Finally, I struggled to hide the sudden jerk as my left arm pulled clear. My feet were still tied, however, in my struggling I realised my bracelet was still in place.
Whispering quietly, “Boscombe”.
“What’s that? Are you trying to get sympathy, whispering all quiet like. I know how hard I hit you.” He laughed.
I kept on whispering. I’d seen a holofiction, where a man got his ear bitten off by someone whispering. Hoping against hope he hadn’t seen the same one, I kept on whispering but quieter.
“Speak up boy.”
I didn’t.
He stomped over, drew his leg back—dammit he’d seen the same movie—and kicked me in the stomach, but he was too slow to pull back. I wrapped my arms around his leg, holding on for dear life as my stomach burned and ribs protested, and, finally, managed to bring the stun band into solid contact with his leg—it worked right through the material of his leg and I just held on and on as he convulsed and jerk, fitting as the shock ripped through him. He fell back, hard, smashing his head against the table, whacking his elbows off the floors, slumping as if dead, his head dribbling blood across the dusty floor.
Ignoring my pain and the cramps in my limbs, I hurriedly untangled my legs, the intuition for the knots making it even easier to undo their handiwork now. Yissindra gave a small cry as I grabbed her, cuddled her close to me, snatched my gun from the table and rushed out the door.
No-one was in sight, they’d taken me to a remote part of the station but most station layouts were similar. I raced through quiet gloomy corridors and passageways, listening for voices of the others, not wanting to tangle with them again—gun or no gun.
I raced round a corner, two men in worn leathers turned to see who was running, tried to grab us, I dodged, stumbled and bounced off the wall. They charged after me, pushed me against the wall as I held Yiss close.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” It was Voice number 2, he drew back his fist, yet as he did I could feel where it would go, as if I could see ahead, just a little bit. I had time to notice every detail of his scarred knuckles, faint pale markings, the remains of a tattoo. As he swung, I moved just a little bit, outside of where I could see in my mind his blow would fall.
The knuckles crunched into the wall behind me, snapping loudly.
“SHIT!”
Voice Number 3, a smaller, heavier set merc, drew his gun, not to shoot but to pistol whip; again, that feel in my mind, as if there were three dimensional predictions in the air, faintly predicting his move. I ducked as he swung, ducked again, each time I had just a little more time.
They tried rushing me together, yet, in between them, in the air, was a clear, faint path to freedom and I know exactly when to take it. They collided as I shimmied through this tiny space and ran and ran, missing obstacles, dodging bins and other things; following the mental graphics that now kept appearing whenever there was something to avoid.
We made it to the market, I found some of the crew still wondering about, clearly I’d been out for a short time. I had to get back to the ship, the captain needed to hear what happened.
Chapter 18 - Roderick & Yissindra {#chapter-18—roderick-&-yissindra}
I avoided the rest of the crew and headed straight back aboard Kalandaru and hurried to find the captain. He called me in when I knocked on his door, I was lucky he wasn’t aboard the station himself.
“Sir, we have a bit of a problem. Yiss and I, we were just kidnapped by Boscombe and some other guys.” I said in a rush.
“What? Why would he…? Ah shit, the baby.” He said, “Is she ok?” He came over and examined Yiss.
“They injected with something to keep her awake, they wanted to stop her switching forms on them.”
“I’m not surprised, they wouldn’t have any way to handle her in her natural form.” He said, “ No-one does. But, get her to Dr Schzau, whatever they used has to be flushed out.”
“I’ll deal with Boscombe.” He said.
“Sir, I’m sorry, I think I may have already done that. He hit his head pretty hard when I shocked him.” I showed him the shock bracelet.
“Damned clever, but how did you get out of the ropes? Actually, tell me on the way to the doc.” He ushered me out the door.
As we walked I explained what happened. “I could feel how to move the ropes, a little at a time, as if there was a correct sequence to untie the rope in the shortest time. It felt just like doing those tests you had me take.”
“That IS fascinating. I’d heard that Aktarians themselves are immortal and yet, somehow, mated for life.” He said looking at me sideways. “I’d hate to presume, but you may have a very difficult dilemma to come.”
“How so?”
“That infant you are carrying? You know her as a child, both as a ship, and an even younger human right?”
“Sure.”
“The ship half of her has already made up her own mind about you. Has to be.” He pulled back the sleeve of my top, revealing the faint tattoos that whirled and twisted in intricate patterns over my skin. They were more distinctive now.
“You have glyphr. That pretty much confirms it.” He said
“This isn’t the first hint I’ve had of this. What is the mystery here?” I said.
“Quite simply, you’ll have quite a tricky problem: you’ll have to decide what your relationship to Yissindra should be as she gets older. However, you are at a disadvantage.”
“She already decided.”
I stared at him, “She’s a baby. A baby ship, and a baby.”
“They are the same person in the end, this is what I understand. And, well, her ship half knows enough. It’s a few years away yet.” He said as we entered the sick bay.
“You’re back again so soon. What do you need? More food?” Dr Schzau said.
“No.” I explained the kidnap and escape to her, the telling was easier now.
“So, possibly she’s had some uppers, I hope to hell they knew what they were doing.” She said as she gently drew a little blood from Yiss, who lay silent but alert, watching all of us as the doctor worked around her.
Inserted the drop of blood into one of her machines, she breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s a common stimulant, not even a street drug—that was my biggest fear—and we can counter it.”
“They were hoping to gain some kind of reward from someone for our capture.” I said.
“I imagine they thought if they could keep her in human form, they would be able to handle her. Boneheads, no-one has managed to hurt one of these creatures as far as I know. Until they merge, they really are two people.” She said.
“What exactly does that mean?”
“As far as I can tell, until they reach a certain age, Aktarians switch between their client species form and their own. Then, eventually, both sides become one: the ship.”
“Oh, that’s not at all creepy.”I was having a hard time with that idea. Imagine being aware of yourself as a singular person, only to be absorbed by another one day. I shivered.
“From what I understand, it is not exactly what you are imagining but that is for Yiss and you to work out.” She said as she finished injecting Yiss with the counter agent, she then handed the suddenly sleepy baby back to me. “She will be fine now, but likely to have some questions I’ve no doubt.”
“How much would she know?”
“You’re about to find out…” She said pointing at Yiss, where I could already see ventrali lining her face, wings ghosting into place, her human form slowly fading out as the ship made her presence felt. Buzzsaws and flutings soon filled the air as she leapt out of my arms and faced me head on, looking deep into my eyes. Is you be ok? I saw them bad mens takin us all. And me did see you slip them by and that one, he die?
“Yes, yes he did, I think.” I turned to the captain, “I think you need a new first mate, sorry, it was an accident.”
“It were no accident that he decided to betray us and try to take you. No matter, we’ll be undocking soon. I guess we’ll have to inform the passengers we’ll be taking a new route and altering the itinerary as I bet the pirate group know exactly where we are meant to be heading.” he said.
Yiss fluted loudly I’ll be beating them bad mens all over again!
“Ah I’m sure, but it’s far better to avoid the trouble in the first place right?”
She fluted but I couldn’t make out whether she was agreeing or giving the equivalent of a shrug.
Chapter 19 Daniel
Ahead, he could barely see the faintest flicker of something, something dimmer than the raging fusion boiling in front of him. A wing, several wings. More became clear as he floated forwards, disobeying gravity with an ease that should have terrified him yet didn’t.
The heart of the star strengthened the ship form flowing through him, and his perception of reality changed, becoming clearer, deeper and sharply defined, and at last he could see the twisted fire that was not the star at all but another ship, the dying Aktarian. He whispered, “I’ll freely give you my life, live so I may die.”
His instincts were those of the ship, the only species known to live on the densest hottest materials found in the raging hearts of stars, and his instincts told him exactly how to move to Yal-Sindra now.
As he approached her, his grief forgotten as he took in the great rents in her sides, the rips in her wings, her ventrali hanging in tatters, torn to shreds, and even as he looked deeper into her, it was as though her very soul had been ripped open.
He held her head, it was larger even than Alyzia-Li’s, one great jewel eye missing, half the ventrali simply gone. She didn’t respond to his touch.
“Amay-Lia, what do I do?” He yelled, feeling his own ventrali flickering hard, causing ripples in the local gravity. As he spoke, Yal-Sindra’s soul flickered slightly, making him jump.
With great excitement, Amay-Lia fluted back, vibrations hitting his ventrali again That’s it, that’s the key. You have to start with the singing and the talking, and don’t stop. This is how we travel and explore, it’s what allows us to travel universes.
“What do I sing about?” He didn’t sing, but somehow that wasn’t important.
Just tell her about your life, Alyzia’s life, what you did and where you went. Just speak and sing it to her.
Haltingly he began to sing, his self doubt clamming him up for just a moment, then the import of what he was doing took over. He yelled, chanted, spoke and finally, finding his voice amidst the roaring thunder of the star, sang, sang with his human voice, sang with his ventrali, sang with his soul, and didn’t stop, letting the words flow, repeating himself, making mistakes, singing nonsense even, singing anything to let the vibrations flow and flow. And as he did so, at first little happened, a few small flutterings in the faded brightness at the centre of her ragged being.
As he watched and felt his song take effect, power flowed through him from the tumultuous storm of fire and fusion surrounding them both. As the power of star flowed into him, his song grew in power, his soul swelled with ecstasy as he felt and saw her own soul become brighter and brighter; the ragged tears shrinking and knitting themselves slowly yet getting faster and faster, until the soul itself was whole and simply grew in strength.
A second voice joined his, deeper, quieter, thinner; it wove its way through his tune, guiding his song and as it did so, Yal-Sindra’s wings flexed a little, the remaining ventrali flickered up and began to vibrate in sympathy to the gravity waves caressing them.
One hand pulled forwards, flexed and the breaks in the limb mended themselves, the ventrali fitting themselves into place. The second voice gained high notes of harmony that layered themselves on top of the original deep thin voice, a voice that gained strength more and more, the more he sang, the deeper and stronger this new voice became.
Finally the head lifted itself out of his hands, the single eye rolling forwards to look deep into his own. A shiver and shock ran through his soul as Yal-Sindra looked within him and her real voices rang out, wrapped around his ventrali, strengthening his song. Now like this human, now you REALLY sing!
His notes became stronger and deeper again and again, joining hers as the gravity waves rippled around them, pushing the very material of the star around, material with a thousand times the density of any planet, and their voice stirred it like the lightest of liquids.
Daniel felt his own body shifting, changing as his song grew stronger, his resonance deeper. He held up his hands, the ventrali flickering across his hands as they become more and more defined; the palms dividing painlessly as the second thumb faded into being. The view surrounding him grew translucent and his sight shifted until he could see and feel everywhere, all at once: the hot dense core of the star they sang within, the lighter mantle, and the emptiness of space.
And with a shock, he could feel the wings, primaries, secondaries and the ur-wings of the Aktarian form woven through his own. The change was complete, solid, each ventrali flexing as easily as his own fingers, the wings lifting, opening and closing as he focussed on them.
Their song continued, Yal-Sindra’s body gained colour and ventrali; her wings snapped out straight, her tail flexed whole and at last, her missing eye rebuilt itself as her own body took the patterns of ancestral memory from Daniel’s bequeathment.
She reached out to him. Her singing stopped. His singing stopped.
How?
How is this possible?
I heard your song, felt your loss, but how are you here? How do you have this mantle? How do you wear my sister woven through your soul?
“Yal-Sindra, I don’t know.” He looked down, the glaring furnace was equally bright everywhere but he could see through it all, he could even feel the planets billions of miles away. “I thought you was going to take it away, take it from me to live, it is yours, I offered it.”
I know. Amay-Lia didn’t know, none of us could know. What has happened to you has never, ever happened before. We can’t take Alyzia-Li’s gift from you.
And, I would not wish to.
He turned to Amay-Lia. “Is this true?”
Yes, we don’t know. I’m sorry, I don’t know if we can keep our promise to you now. To attempt to kill another of our kind, and make no mistake—you ARE an Aktarian hybrid now, is anathema to us even if we could.
He felt inside himself. It still hurt but not the same. And there was something new now, he could feel another ship, Yal-Sindra, inside of him. He looked at his hand, amongst the ventrali there were new patterns. Patterns of another ship.
“Oh Yal-Sindra.” He said softly, “What has happened?”
Her glyphr lay intertwined around his original and layered between the patterns of Alysia-Li.
There is an exchange for a life I guess. It wasn’t deliberate, I promise.
“What do you mean? Am I connected to you now?”
I don’t know for sure, but I think so. But, Daniel, if you don’t want it, if you want what you asked Amay-Lia for, I will not stand in your way. However, I want to ask you one question: before you decide, will you help me find my daughter?
“I cannot ask you to do a thing that Alyzia-Li herself would not want for me.” He said, hearing his voice fluting its way from his own ventrali. “And, I was alone, all alone without her. I don’t feel alone now. I’ll help.”
He flexed his wings, feeling them press against the hot, dense core material of the star. “I’ll never understand how you ships can simply move through this stuff. My brain knows I should have vaporised a million miles away from here, but here, it’s a bath?”
Some universes have such different rules of physics, in fundement, that we couldn’t survive if our race hadn’t been conceived to traverse any possible reality. Amay-Lia turned to face Yal-Sindra, Sister mine, are you recovered enough to move?
Yes.
Then, Daniel, you need to feel how we fold space. We go now.
Chapter 20 - Roderick & Yissindra {#chapter-20—roderick-&-yissindra}
We headed back to our cabin, Yissindra was noticeably bigger now, her wings took up half the passage way and at times she would startle oncomers by folding through space in front of them, disappearing and continuing on down the corridor. This made walking round the ship together easier, if a little surprising for everyone else.
I could feel exactly when she was about to do it, an odd tingle over my skin would alert me now.
The captain caught up with us, “I think we need to discuss protection for you two. We’re not a military vessel but, at the least, you could do with some hand to hand training, Roderick.”
I couldn’t disagree, Boscombe and his men did take us rather easily. All anyone had to do was wait until Yiss was in her human cycle and we were easy to handle.
“Who would teach us?” I said.
“Kate, my head of security has asked me if she could. She is interested in working with you anyway after hearing how you escaped.”
“Oh?”
“Your intuition of escaping the rope and getting away from the kidnappers when they tried to reacquire you again is intriguing. My theory is quite simply, it’s a side effect of the bond growing between you and Yiss here.” He said.
At her name, she turned back from where she’d drifted ahead and fluted at us Is me you think?
“Quite possibly, our records regarding human and Aktarian relations are quite sparse, you are very rare.” He said.
She said nothing more, just stared at me before turned tail and floating ahead of us again.
“I wonder if she has any more idea than you do about this?” He mused.
“It’s not something we’ve had chance to talk about to be honest, Sir, and also, I’ve heard now from several people, that Yiss has likely chosen me as a future partner—not sure why, if that’s true. How do they choose?” I said.
“I couldn’t tell you, you’ll have to do some digging for yourself on that.” He said.
I remembered the data stick, patted my trousers and found it was still lodged in the corner of the back pocket. “Ah, I may have something here, from the lady who sold me my weapons.”
“Good hunting then.” He left me at the cabin door. “Please meet Kate in the morning, she should have messaged you by now with directions.”
She had, her mail was waiting for me when I sat down to work the terminal. I was to meet her at the crew gym; we had one each for crew and passengers.
Slotting the data stick into the terminal, and with Yissindra hovering silent and still by my left ear, I settled down to trawl through the data we caught this morning.
Extract from Aktarian notes:
It was Katiya who initiated the advance of man’s own space travel however, she and her partner Jack Hawthorn. They knew full well that space folding wouldn’t be within man’s grasp for several hundred years and even then would be limited. However, another kind of drive, the very drive in use now, that was possible. Jack has a talent for high dimensional integrations, structural shift predictions in spatial compression and other mathematical realms.
End of extract
So there is some connection to my own altered intuition after all, Jack has a gift too. As I read on, the material revealed another startling fact: Jack and Katiya were still alive.
That’s nearly a thousand years.
I looked up at Yissindra as this fact plopped into place. I felt giddy. The implication was clear enough, Jack was already many times longer lived than any other human. The extract continued, Jack was not the only one, as Katiya’s parents are presumed still alive too.
“Yissindra, why do people keep saying you’ve chosen me? Why do I have these tattoos over my skin?” I wanted her to tell me, if she could.
Is me likes you, cuddle man you be, and together is us be so that is all that is. Is them is glyphr, they be from me, me in you that be. That is all, be with me always yes? You want to be with me?
Honestly, the idea of saying no, that actually hurt and whilst I wasn’t sure about how things could be in the future, I wanted to help her now. The other stuff, well, I’d deal with it when I had to.
“Yes I do….erk.” The chair went over, I landed on my back and on top lay Yissindra as she let me know her feelings on my answer.
Chapter 21 - Roderick & Yissindra {#chapter-21—roderick-&-yissindra}
Yiss was up before me, I woke to her emerald-in-azure eye staring deep into mine.
“Hey, what’s up?” She didn’t answer, just lay closer before flipping off me and straight into a hole in the air she made and appearing the other side of the cabin.
“Ok, I get it, I gotta get up.” Her air holes, that’s what they looked like, were a regular pattern, she’d often not fly between points, just flip through the gap in space and instantly be elsewhere. Or, much to the shock of many a crew member, some part of her would.
She appeared to find it hilarious to leave her body in one place, her head in another, or perhaps some other limb, usually in the path of an unsuspecting innocent crewperson. The reactions ranged from hysterical laughter, to shock even to the sudden inhalation of coffee—thankfully lukewarm—that erupted out of the victim’s nostrils at a truly prodigious rate. For an infant she had a remarkably sophisticated sense of prank and comic timing.
I got up, dressed in loose clothing and, alternately trailed then led by my space folding companion, headed to our appointment with the head of security.
We met as arranged in the small crew gym. There was a central mat area with adjustable gravity for sparring and wrestling. Arranged round the outside were the usual resistance machines, bikes, running machines and a myriad of heavy discs that masochists like to move from one place to another.
“Do you have any experience with combat?” Kate asked. She was a trim, fit woman, as tall as me but with considerably more defined muscle tone.
“No, none at all, well, outside of wrestling as a kid I guess.” I said.
“Ok, that’s good, means you’ve not learn bad habits, those are very tough to unlearn.” She said. “The best thing to do is learn a small number of techniques, learn them very very well. That should be enough to get you out of most situations.”
We spent the next hour going through basic blocks, strikes and kicks before moving onto simple throws, takedowns and grappling. Her style was a fusion of some ancient forms from Earth and later styles developed for use on spacecraft. However, things switched up a little when she challenged me to simple sparring.
“Just concentrate one two things, don’t let me hit you, and try to hit me.” She said.
I watched as she lunged forwards, her fist rotating as it thrust towards my face, her own expression focussed, concentrating on her movement, her body lined up behind the jab.
It happened again, I felt/saw where to move, just a little to the left, tilt my head back, I had all the time in the world.
She missed, stepped back, frowning at me. “That was very quick.”
Again, she took up her stance, left foot forwards, arms raised, body set more seriously now. This time, in the air I could see vague shapes of color, showing paths of motion, and every detail of her body, her muscles, the light and shadows that shifted in her motion as she stepped in, thrusting her left arm in a jabbing motion, the hook from the right not quite launching yet, her hips swivelling to power first the jab then, as I shifted slightly to dodge the jab, stepped to the left just out of range of the right hand as her hips powered it round to meet nothing but air.
Once more she stepped back and her motion and body seemed no more detailed than usual.
“You said you had no experience?” I nodded.
“How are you dodging so fast then? I’ve done this twenty five years and you are dodging far faster than anyone else I’ve known.” She said, “Is this anything to do with your Aktarian?”
“I don’t know but I’ve experienced this before.” I explained what happened with the kidnappers when they tried to grab me.
“Wait, you can see the future?”
“If I can, it’s mere seconds. I don’t know it’s that exactly, more like time becomes more detailed and well I know where the fist is going.” I said.
“Ok, look I tell you what, let me try one more time, however, this time you have to hit me back too.” She said, “But be warned, I’m going to try now. You clearly have an advantage so no more Mrs Nice Girl.”
“Ok.” I was nervous, what if it didn’t work so well?
She came at me in a blur but, once again, her movements became slower and slower, this time a mass of paths surrounded her and my sense of her details became stronger, more definite, there were more branches to each path.
She threw jab after hook after kick; roundhouse after sidekick, even jumping and spinning before lashing out again with her lightning foot—I had time to admire each motion, each expert economic motion as I ducked, dodged and dived out of the way.
However, when I tried to strike, this was not so easy, I’m just not used to hitting anything or anyone. My first punch hurt me far more than her, she grabbed my arm and started to throw me, yet deep in my mind I could feel the twist, turn and flex I had to do and oddly, I had the time to do it. It hurt muscles I’d never used before, but I managed to pull out of the throw and land on my feet.
She stopped.
“That is awesome. I’ve never seen anyone move like that.”
“Thanks, I think.” I groaned as the pulled muscles made their presence felt.
“Well, obviously you need to train your fitness, and learn how to hit back, but if I can’t touch you, very few people can—if you saw them first that is.” She said.
The next week our routine was the same, however each day I landed a few more strikes, the odd kick and my muscles stopped complaining. Training on the bag and with weights convinced me that I was unlikely to become a muscle bound type but I didn’t really need to be.
Chapter 22 - Daniel
As Yal-Sindra sang to the fabric of reality running through the heart of the star, Daniel’s skin danced with frisson and joy, even a depth of knowing previously denied his senses. Reality responded, folding delicately revealing a patch of utter blackness in the dense, hot heart of the star.
Yal-Sindra dived through, followed by Amay-Lia. Daniel felt his expansive multi-winged form take over his thinking, his senses and his whole perception of reality; and, as he gazed upon the fold in space hanging in front of him, felt the structure of the pinched reality in front of him. His ventrali vibrated in sympathy with the fissure, expanding to meet its edges—like the antennae of an exotic alien insect: they transmitted it’s feeling, shape and structure even as his ship’s instinct responded to the structure of the fold itself, pulling him through.
The fold shut behind him as Yal-Sindra let go, her vibrations fading into the dark vacuum.
Nothing surrounding them. Hugging blackness, empty save for small specks of distant suns flecked throughout the darkness. And one, much larger, much closer. A solar system that looked completely different to his new ship senses, he felt under, through, inside and out of everything within range—a range that expanded even as he concentrated any one plane of attention.
“How can I see so far?”
You have made history now Daniel, a history older than the universe you know.
“What do you mean?”
Your universe is at least a thirteen billion years old, it is filled with trillions of galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars, and it is over ninety billion light years across. That is how long light takes to traverse it.
And our history is many times older than this, too many to give meaningful count. Yet, one such as you, a male hybrid Aktarian, has never existed.
I do not know how you exist.
Yet, here you are, and my life is now because of you.
In the cold, dark loneliness, with the distant sun reflecting from her wings, her eyes glowed with the light of her soul as she gazed upon him.
His own ventrali flexed and shivered under her regard as he shifted to pay attention to the system laying ahead of them. A hard searing white pearl lay in the centre of the tiny looking solar system, only a few planets, a single large dusky brown and orange banded gas giant guarded the outer orbit, a molten yellow nugget of of a planet hugged close to the white star, in between a rich blue world orbited peacefully between the two.
“Where are we now?”
The start of the trail, Taris, a tangled tawdry trading tarpit of a place and the direction I threw my daughter, away from that abomination.
“How? What happened?”
Thalresh attacked me, made to murder me as I was birthing her. I had to send her before she could wake, as fast, as hard as I could.
Now, look, I have something.
Haunting waves of music, gravity waves and more, thrummed through Daniel’s winged form as Yal-Sindra folded her way across the system again. Amay-Lia quickly followed, Daniel caught up, once again entranced by the sensation of the fold on his ventrali.
The scene before them was a crater of massive proportions, immense walls, and a pit, miles deep, a gigantum bite out of the moon, a bite so immense the moon was lopsided.
This is where she hit. This is where I threw her.
“You did this? She survived this? Damn, I know Aktarians are tough but this? She was a baby.”
We feed from stars, hearts of black holes and supernovae for power: a force such as this is nothing. You’ll see for yourself.
“Eating a singularity? Righty ho. Maybe I’ll put that on the reserve judgement list.”
All in time, and you have plenty of that.
He didn’t want to think about that right now. “Let’s go find your daughter.”
Chapter 23 - Roderick and Yissindra
I ducked as Yissindra shot over my head and disappeared through yet another fold, then jumped as she tried to trip me. She banked, flipped headed back to my head but I sidestepped her charge. Once again, I knew before she did it what she was about to do.
She was fast, wicked fast—without my new sense I stood no chance. Her paths were shorter, I had less warning but I still had it and it was enough.
“Ok, ok, that’ll do.” I called time.
“That is impressive. I can see with training she’ll be lethal.” Kate said. “Let’s try one more exercise, it’ll be the last for today.”
Three of her security crew stepped forward. “I want to see how far you can push your ability Roderick. We will try to drop you to the mat, three falls and we win. Fair?”
“Um, I guess?” I’d trained with Kate for a week now and could punch and kick without breaking my bones, mostly.
All four rushed me, the paths were complex, yet each fighter’s movements became slower and slower as they got closer. I stepped around the outside of the guy on the right, the biggest opponent, and stamped on the back of his knee—enough to fold the leg, not injure it. The multi-coloured paths shifted, slowly pointing to my new position.
Kate was first to complete her turn, her leg slowly rising in a reverse roundhouse, I dove headfirst into the space between her legs, rolled, stood and face them again. Stepping quickly behind Kate, I pulled her shoulder, whilst stepping on the back of her knee. It was enough to begin her glacial fall to the floor.
The remaining opponents turned then converged on my position. I had time to side step, hook the leading leg of the woman on the left, a quick push in the direction of her partner, and set in motion a graceful ballet of tumbling, tangled limbs.
I stepped backwards off the mat and sat down. Their movements became human again and they completed their falls to the mat.
“That was three falls wasn’t it?” I said
With a rueful smile, Kate said, “Do you want a new job?”
Yissindra settled beside me, I rested my hand on her. “I think I have one, right here.” She fluted at me I’m not a job!
“I know, I’m sorry, you are full time though?” She didn’t answer that.
TCB 11/01/2025