we got close enough, I could see that the anomaly was not as perfect a black spot as I had first thought. I noticed thousands of minuscule lines of multicolored lights streaking toward the middle of the circle, their pattern suggesting the walls of a tubular shape within the collapsor point. Then we went in.
The walls of the wormhole, if they could be described as such, exploded with color, stretching the limits of my visual light sensors. The streaks of light became beams of color, the light of the stars we passed stretched out over light-years in the wormhole. While we hit the collapsor point head-on, we didn’t keep our heading for long. The wormhole was happy to pull us along toward the other end but did nothing to keep us straight. I wondered if Skinfaxi simply couldn’t correct our angle or simply did not care to. With the lack of gravity or inertial forces tugging at us, I guess it didn’t matter. The whole trip lasted a little more than an hour, and all of it in perfect silence and calm, the images blurring past the monitor tilting as we slowly listed to port.
The journey ended as suddenly as it began. One moment the universe was a parade of racing colors and lights, the next we were back in the blackness of space.
A soft chime repeating three times in rapid succession— accompanied by the ambient light within the bridge, changing to a dramatic red—served as a warning. I scoured the projection of the outside, looking for the cause of alarm. To the lower right of the monitor, I noticed a speckled cloud of sparkling material. Skinfaxi must have noticed it at the same time, as the monitor zoomed in to the cloud, revealing it to be a cluster of asteroids and floating debris—perhaps the remnants of a shattered world.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing at a strange object nestled within the agglomeration.
The image enlarged further, bringing into focus an artificial structure. By all reasoning it was another spaceship, one of immense proportion. I estimated its length at four kilometers, 90 percent of it an elongated frame constructed of gigantic latticed girders. The entire structure looked inert, with no lights blinking or portions moving. At first glance it looked as if it might be abandoned. Careful inspection revealed, however, that at regular intervals the ship would fire minuscule maneuvering thrusters, adjusting its position to avoid collision with any of the larger free-floating rocks that moved by. Infrared imaging also showed signs of many active systems, some moving at a furious pace within the ship.
“Is that another Capek?” I inquired, trying not to sound too naive.
“No,” Skinfaxi replied, also straining to identify the vessel. “It’s not sentient, but it has a transponder. It’s called the Spear of Athena, and it’s identified as construction equipment. A mining ship.”
“Mining ship?” I figured the vessel was meant for asteroid mining, but at the same time it seemed rather awkward and large for even that function.
“Actually, it’s a mass driver. It picks up rocks and shoots them at larger rocks until it finds one with a rich enough content of whatever material it’s looking for, then shoots it toward a refinery.”
“It’s a giant, asteroid-shooting space gun?” My implication must have been obvious, as I immediately noticed us moving toward the Spear of Athena.
“Yup,” was all Skinfaxi could add.
We approached the titanic ship carefully. Skinfaxi flooded the surface of the vessel in light, and I managed to get a better view of the monster. It had an ominous quality to it—dark and evidently old. Every surface was pockmarked from the impact of a million micrometeors, giving it a rough texture reminiscent of rust. Hints of markings long erased by radiation could still be seen despite the ship’s age and wear, though they could barely be read.
“Should we be getting this close? It destroyed Yggdrassil, it could probably destroy us.”
“Nah,” my
The walls of the wormhole, if they could be described as such, exploded with color, stretching the limits of my visual light sensors. The streaks of light became beams of color, the light of the stars we passed stretched out over light-years in the wormhole. While we hit the collapsor point head-on, we didn’t keep our heading for long. The wormhole was happy to pull us along toward the other end but did nothing to keep us straight. I wondered if Skinfaxi simply couldn’t correct our angle or simply did not care to. With the lack of gravity or inertial forces tugging at us, I guess it didn’t matter. The whole trip lasted a little more than an hour, and all of it in perfect silence and calm, the images blurring past the monitor tilting as we slowly listed to port.
The journey ended as suddenly as it began. One moment the universe was a parade of racing colors and lights, the next we were back in the blackness of space.
A soft chime repeating three times in rapid succession— accompanied by the ambient light within the bridge, changing to a dramatic red—served as a warning. I scoured the projection of the outside, looking for the cause of alarm. To the lower right of the monitor, I noticed a speckled cloud of sparkling material. Skinfaxi must have noticed it at the same time, as the monitor zoomed in to the cloud, revealing it to be a cluster of asteroids and floating debris—perhaps the remnants of a shattered world.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing at a strange object nestled within the agglomeration.
The image enlarged further, bringing into focus an artificial structure. By all reasoning it was another spaceship, one of immense proportion. I estimated its length at four kilometers, 90 percent of it an elongated frame constructed of gigantic latticed girders. The entire structure looked inert, with no lights blinking or portions moving. At first glance it looked as if it might be abandoned. Careful inspection revealed, however, that at regular intervals the ship would fire minuscule maneuvering thrusters, adjusting its position to avoid collision with any of the larger free-floating rocks that moved by. Infrared imaging also showed signs of many active systems, some moving at a furious pace within the ship.
“Is that another Capek?” I inquired, trying not to sound too naive.
“No,” Skinfaxi replied, also straining to identify the vessel. “It’s not sentient, but it has a transponder. It’s called the Spear of Athena, and it’s identified as construction equipment. A mining ship.”
“Mining ship?” I figured the vessel was meant for asteroid mining, but at the same time it seemed rather awkward and large for even that function.
“Actually, it’s a mass driver. It picks up rocks and shoots them at larger rocks until it finds one with a rich enough content of whatever material it’s looking for, then shoots it toward a refinery.”
“It’s a giant, asteroid-shooting space gun?” My implication must have been obvious, as I immediately noticed us moving toward the Spear of Athena.
“Yup,” was all Skinfaxi could add.
We approached the titanic ship carefully. Skinfaxi flooded the surface of the vessel in light, and I managed to get a better view of the monster. It had an ominous quality to it—dark and evidently old. Every surface was pockmarked from the impact of a million micrometeors, giving it a rough texture reminiscent of rust. Hints of markings long erased by radiation could still be seen despite the ship’s age and wear, though they could barely be read.
“Should we be getting this close? It destroyed Yggdrassil, it could probably destroy us.”
“Nah,” my
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