Catalyst by Fletcher DeLancey

Author:Fletcher DeLancey [DeLancey, Fletcher]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Ylva-Publishing
Published: 2016-12-04T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 26:

Transition out

“Full stop,” Ekatya said.

“Full stop,” Lieutenant Scarp repeated, fingers dancing over his control panel.

The deep throb of the surf engines slowed, the alteration in frequency only now bringing the sound out of the background. Ekatya was so accustomed to the faint rumble of surf engines at normal power levels that she didn’t hear it anymore—until it changed. Then she could hardly hear anything else.

“Activating upper display.” She tapped the display control embedded in her armrest, then the ship’s all-call. “All personnel, prepare to exit base space.”

Most of the bridge crew looked up as the ivory ceiling and walls seemed to vanish, replaced by the ghostly mists of base space crowding in on them. In this layer beneath normal space, where distances were compressed by a factor of ten thousand, the expansive openness of space was replaced by a suffocating, pressing murk that glowed in baleful reds and oranges.

Though the undulation of the layers and streamers was too slow to be detected in normal time, Ekatya had the eerie sense that she could see them moving out of the corner of her eye. On her first trip through base space, her captain had kept the display on for the duration of the trip. She had spent two days jumping at shadows, always trying to turn her head quickly enough to catch the movement that she felt sure was there. It was a common reaction, and they had all been warned ahead of time, but intellectual understanding could not overcome instinct. Eventually, her brain adapted and stopped wasting energy on a startle response, but the sense of something just out of sight remained.

What unsettled newbies the most, however, was not the false movement but the light. Unlike normal space, where light had detectable sources and traveled in predictable ways, base space glowed in every direction. The staggering levels of radiation, ten thousand times higher than that of normal space, were most likely responsible due to their interaction with base space matter. But no one had ever been able to prove it. Base space matter defied all attempts at capture and containment, and too many lives had been lost in the effort. It could only be studied through passive observation, which yielded nominal results since most traditional physics did not apply outside of normal space.

There were no stars in base space, no planets or asteroids or even gases that they could detect. There was no means of establishing navigational routes other than the network of relay stations with quantum locator beacons. The Phoenix was stopped in front of one now, a silver cylinder half a kilometer tall, narrowed at one end while the other sat at the center of a two-layer ring bristling with instruments and antennae. On the bridge display, its position at the bow of the ship translated to a location directly above the engineering stations.

“Section chiefs, check in,” Ekatya said. She watched the virtual screen hovering above her chair as the data came in. Medical was ready, so

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