Its full of Stars, by Jordan stout
A cough came from the back of the transport; a homely vocal burst that broke the eerie silence of the dozens of refugees who sat cramped together in the cargo bay of the smuggler’s ship, seemingly unable to speak, even down to the youngest child. It was as if we all believed that if we never spoke again we could actually put our pasts behind us. It’s important to have something to believe in.
Was that a cough from an Earther or a Gongen, I wondered. I wanted to say that it had come from a human being, and that it didn’t matter who we were anymore, but I knew that wasn’t the case. It mattered more than ever now. With hands shaking in the cold I picked up my worn carry-all and began rummaging through its contents, quietly babbling something incoherent as I did. I didn’t know, nor did I care about what I had to say. I unwrapped the bent protein bar and aggressively took bite after bite, ignoring the pressure I could feel from the stare of the hungry child sitting behind me. I wanted to give her the last of my rations, I wanted to think that it would make a difference in her life, but I knew it wouldn’t. Statistically that little girl wouldn’t survive her first month on the rim; having to make the transition from a world where the law enforced civic duty and community service to one where there were no laws at all and the only people willing to “help you out” were selling something. Freedom can commit the worst atrocities that way. I wanted to be able to say “Well, that’s life.” But I couldn’t take that as an excuse. I’ve seen too many cultures rise and fall in bouts of blood and credits and fire to accept that as any justification for action, but god I wish I could. It would make life so much easier to live.
I looked out the window. The endless expanse of the universe seemed to jeer at humanity and its petty squabbles. We are not but insects skittering aimlessly atop the beautiful fabric of a reality we are far too under-evolved to comprehend. Staring out into the void I had to wonder if ours was the ugliest corner of existence. Everything else looked so lovely. Even though it was still over a hundred million kilometers away I could just make out the lights of iCom Installation 19 Alpha as it drifted across the starry background, it was just like the first time I had even been topside on Europa as a child and I got to see the lights of the star cruisers as they seemed to dance so high above the barren surface of the moon. I had long ago stopped seeing the wonder in those cheap, crudely manufactured bulbs, but the stars are still as beautiful as ever. An alarm went off, causing the passengers to stir, mumbling, wondering if something was wrong with the ship. A crew member emerged from the cabin hatch and shouted at the mass of refugees in the bay.
“Who’s the idiot who lit a cigarette back here?”
The alarm panged and echoed in my skull, behind it I could still hear the nervous prattling of people, but I wasn’t sure who it was anymore; if it was the passengers or the soldiers. I didn’t want to go back to that terrifying place, back to the slaughter, but I was already there, my mind had never really left, couldn’t forget it. I was back at the command post, alarm ringing, personnel running to stations.
“Who pulled that alarm?” It was the commander. I stood there at the switch, completely out of breath; I had no idea what to tell him, everything had happened so fast. I figured I’d try to tell him the truth.
“I did. Something just broke through our forth line!”
From the look on his face it was obvious that he didn’t believe me, there had been no reports of combat in days. “The Martians don’t have half the firepower they’d need to break that line, if you expect me to believe…”
“It’s not them I swear, their line hasn’t even mobilized yet! Sensors read only a single hostile, this is different!”
“Do you realize how far you’ve overstepped your authority you little gear-brained punk?”
“Court marshal me if you must but right now you have to listen to me, it will be here any second!”
“Court marshal? Justice is a human institution, only those of us from Earth get that privilege. He nodded to two guards who stepped towards me, guns at the ready, but before they could drag me off to wherever they “kept” the prisoners the roof of the command bunker was violently ripped off. Above us stood some kind of war bot, far bigger than anything I had ever seen.
The commander wheeled in disbelief. “What the hell is that?!”
Before he could draw his weapon a massive bolt of lightning shot down, engulfing the man in energy, incinerating him where he stood. Station guards sprang to action, firing bolts of green plasma into the air, which impacted harmlessly on the bot’s thick, yellow armor. Bolt after bolt of energy came down like the very wrath of god, vaporizing everyone at the command post. The bot made no distinction between frying one or a dozen men at once with its electrical attacks, and before long I was all that was left of the garrison. Then it simply moved on, over the horizon where I could hear the continued roar of carnage as it moved through the sixth line. I don’t know why it spared me. It must have seen me, everyone else at the station, whether they had tried to fight, flee or hide had all been disintegrated. I had been too terrified to even move, standing right in front of it, a perfect target. Was it that I wasn’t an Earther? Was it that I was still registered as a Gongen agent? Or was it simply the fact that I wasn’t a threat. Either way, the Cartel had hired me out to both factions in the Battle of Phobos, and I spent my service losing the war with both of them.
“You’d need superpowers to change this ‘verse.”
I slowly came to realize that I was still on the ship; breathing heavily and sweating as I returned to the present. The alarm had stopped. The starry expanse was still there in the window, and would be there forever, as far as I was concerned.
Then something happened. The entirety of space itself seemed to give way and tear itself open. I had studied theories about wormholes before, but seeing this happen before my eyes was something completely, and in no way had studying theories prepared me for what it would be like to behold such a wonder; literally a hole in space, a void within nothingness. From the rip in the universe slowly emerged an orb, which as it moved into the light of the sun turned a bright, beautiful blue; a new world. Around the planet I could make out the lights, so different from the crude lights I had seen so many times before; new lights, millions of them; radiating from orbital stations and dry docks; hallmarks of a different, advanced species. In the depth of the moment I could only manage to produce three words in dedication of the inconceivable event I had just beheld:
“Huh, that’s new.”
My mind began to reel. Had this really just happened? Could anyone else see this? Then I thought of something that I had heard once; according to Einstein’s theory of relativity wouldn’t the spontaneous creation of an object with sufficient mass cause a massive gravity flux? Not a second later the theory was proven. Like a paper plane picked up by a gale force wind our transport was cast helplessly out into space, rolling over and over as we careened off course.
The surge of gravitational force threw the dampeners off and for a moment everyone and everything went flying; the people tumbling around inside the hold. As a reflex I quickly reached down and activated my magboots, another trait that one tends to pick up out on the rim. The girl behind me cried out as she slid down the floor, likely to be crushed in the chaos. I reached out and pulled her in, holding on to her ankle until the artificial gravity managed to adjust to the shift, and everybody fell back down to the floor.
“You alright, kid?”
“I think so.” She said, a few crumbs of protein falling out of her mouth when she spoke. I saw that she had swiped a bite of my food while I had been distracted with the selfless act of catching her. I handed her the rest of the bar.
“Keep it. You’re gonna go far out on the rim.”
She paused to take another bit of food; she looked as confused as she did hungry. “ What’s going on?”
“Well, I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure that everything we’ve ever known and believed has just changed forever. Best hold fast.”
The child looked at me with, face filled with fear. As soon as I saw her face I realized what was wrong. The child had not actually asked “What’s going on.” She had thought it. I could see her thoughts. I couldn’t explain how or why but I could. “This guys a weirdo.” She thought, and inched away back to her family taking with her the last of my food.
“Huh. Also new. This has been quite a day.”
There was no more trouble before the transport righted itself again, and gunned its engine, full speed for home. When I looked out the window and saw the Europan space port, I couldn’t help but feel like those crude lights down there were the most beautiful I had ever seen, shining like gems on the desolate surface of the moon.
Was that a cough from an Earther or a Gongen, I wondered. I wanted to say that it had come from a human being, and that it didn’t matter who we were anymore, but I knew that wasn’t the case. It mattered more than ever now. With hands shaking in the cold I picked up my worn carry-all and began rummaging through its contents, quietly babbling something incoherent as I did. I didn’t know, nor did I care about what I had to say. I unwrapped the bent protein bar and aggressively took bite after bite, ignoring the pressure I could feel from the stare of the hungry child sitting behind me. I wanted to give her the last of my rations, I wanted to think that it would make a difference in her life, but I knew it wouldn’t. Statistically that little girl wouldn’t survive her first month on the rim; having to make the transition from a world where the law enforced civic duty and community service to one where there were no laws at all and the only people willing to “help you out” were selling something. Freedom can commit the worst atrocities that way. I wanted to be able to say “Well, that’s life.” But I couldn’t take that as an excuse. I’ve seen too many cultures rise and fall in bouts of blood and credits and fire to accept that as any justification for action, but god I wish I could. It would make life so much easier to live.
I looked out the window. The endless expanse of the universe seemed to jeer at humanity and its petty squabbles. We are not but insects skittering aimlessly atop the beautiful fabric of a reality we are far too under-evolved to comprehend. Staring out into the void I had to wonder if ours was the ugliest corner of existence. Everything else looked so lovely. Even though it was still over a hundred million kilometers away I could just make out the lights of iCom Installation 19 Alpha as it drifted across the starry background, it was just like the first time I had even been topside on Europa as a child and I got to see the lights of the star cruisers as they seemed to dance so high above the barren surface of the moon. I had long ago stopped seeing the wonder in those cheap, crudely manufactured bulbs, but the stars are still as beautiful as ever. An alarm went off, causing the passengers to stir, mumbling, wondering if something was wrong with the ship. A crew member emerged from the cabin hatch and shouted at the mass of refugees in the bay.
“Who’s the idiot who lit a cigarette back here?”
The alarm panged and echoed in my skull, behind it I could still hear the nervous prattling of people, but I wasn’t sure who it was anymore; if it was the passengers or the soldiers. I didn’t want to go back to that terrifying place, back to the slaughter, but I was already there, my mind had never really left, couldn’t forget it. I was back at the command post, alarm ringing, personnel running to stations.
“Who pulled that alarm?” It was the commander. I stood there at the switch, completely out of breath; I had no idea what to tell him, everything had happened so fast. I figured I’d try to tell him the truth.
“I did. Something just broke through our forth line!”
From the look on his face it was obvious that he didn’t believe me, there had been no reports of combat in days. “The Martians don’t have half the firepower they’d need to break that line, if you expect me to believe…”
“It’s not them I swear, their line hasn’t even mobilized yet! Sensors read only a single hostile, this is different!”
“Do you realize how far you’ve overstepped your authority you little gear-brained punk?”
“Court marshal me if you must but right now you have to listen to me, it will be here any second!”
“Court marshal? Justice is a human institution, only those of us from Earth get that privilege. He nodded to two guards who stepped towards me, guns at the ready, but before they could drag me off to wherever they “kept” the prisoners the roof of the command bunker was violently ripped off. Above us stood some kind of war bot, far bigger than anything I had ever seen.
The commander wheeled in disbelief. “What the hell is that?!”
Before he could draw his weapon a massive bolt of lightning shot down, engulfing the man in energy, incinerating him where he stood. Station guards sprang to action, firing bolts of green plasma into the air, which impacted harmlessly on the bot’s thick, yellow armor. Bolt after bolt of energy came down like the very wrath of god, vaporizing everyone at the command post. The bot made no distinction between frying one or a dozen men at once with its electrical attacks, and before long I was all that was left of the garrison. Then it simply moved on, over the horizon where I could hear the continued roar of carnage as it moved through the sixth line. I don’t know why it spared me. It must have seen me, everyone else at the station, whether they had tried to fight, flee or hide had all been disintegrated. I had been too terrified to even move, standing right in front of it, a perfect target. Was it that I wasn’t an Earther? Was it that I was still registered as a Gongen agent? Or was it simply the fact that I wasn’t a threat. Either way, the Cartel had hired me out to both factions in the Battle of Phobos, and I spent my service losing the war with both of them.
“You’d need superpowers to change this ‘verse.”
I slowly came to realize that I was still on the ship; breathing heavily and sweating as I returned to the present. The alarm had stopped. The starry expanse was still there in the window, and would be there forever, as far as I was concerned.
Then something happened. The entirety of space itself seemed to give way and tear itself open. I had studied theories about wormholes before, but seeing this happen before my eyes was something completely, and in no way had studying theories prepared me for what it would be like to behold such a wonder; literally a hole in space, a void within nothingness. From the rip in the universe slowly emerged an orb, which as it moved into the light of the sun turned a bright, beautiful blue; a new world. Around the planet I could make out the lights, so different from the crude lights I had seen so many times before; new lights, millions of them; radiating from orbital stations and dry docks; hallmarks of a different, advanced species. In the depth of the moment I could only manage to produce three words in dedication of the inconceivable event I had just beheld:
“Huh, that’s new.”
My mind began to reel. Had this really just happened? Could anyone else see this? Then I thought of something that I had heard once; according to Einstein’s theory of relativity wouldn’t the spontaneous creation of an object with sufficient mass cause a massive gravity flux? Not a second later the theory was proven. Like a paper plane picked up by a gale force wind our transport was cast helplessly out into space, rolling over and over as we careened off course.
The surge of gravitational force threw the dampeners off and for a moment everyone and everything went flying; the people tumbling around inside the hold. As a reflex I quickly reached down and activated my magboots, another trait that one tends to pick up out on the rim. The girl behind me cried out as she slid down the floor, likely to be crushed in the chaos. I reached out and pulled her in, holding on to her ankle until the artificial gravity managed to adjust to the shift, and everybody fell back down to the floor.
“You alright, kid?”
“I think so.” She said, a few crumbs of protein falling out of her mouth when she spoke. I saw that she had swiped a bite of my food while I had been distracted with the selfless act of catching her. I handed her the rest of the bar.
“Keep it. You’re gonna go far out on the rim.”
She paused to take another bit of food; she looked as confused as she did hungry. “ What’s going on?”
“Well, I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure that everything we’ve ever known and believed has just changed forever. Best hold fast.”
The child looked at me with, face filled with fear. As soon as I saw her face I realized what was wrong. The child had not actually asked “What’s going on.” She had thought it. I could see her thoughts. I couldn’t explain how or why but I could. “This guys a weirdo.” She thought, and inched away back to her family taking with her the last of my food.
“Huh. Also new. This has been quite a day.”
There was no more trouble before the transport righted itself again, and gunned its engine, full speed for home. When I looked out the window and saw the Europan space port, I couldn’t help but feel like those crude lights down there were the most beautiful I had ever seen, shining like gems on the desolate surface of the moon.