A Luminal Event

Before our starships perform a luminal sprint the destination is predetermined, with calculations for both acceleration and deceleration made by computer. Our starships don't move through some sort of slip space, nor do they burrow through to some alternate dimension, or bend space to bring two locations closer together. They simply move in a straight line from point to point. This means it can take several sprints to reach a desired destination as we navigate around celestial bodies due to a lack of computational power to make course adjustments at luminal speeds.

I know what you're thinking because I thought it too when it was being explained to me. If ships are unable to manoeuvre at such speeds in real space, wouldn't they crash into something, or have friction burn the ship away? Well, there are two reasons why this doesn't happen.

Firstly, there's virtually no friction in space, so the only things we have to contend with are objects that might hit a ship's hull. At luminal speeds, anything that does hit a ship or drift into its path would most likely pass straight through the vessel creating pockmarks that would leak the ships atmosphere. Or the impact would destroy both the object and the ship. There has also never been a luminal sprint made where there weren't some kind of computational error that would leave a ship either short of its destination or flung too far, which could result in the ships destruction. This meant that the safest way to luminally travel was to drop out of a sprint to allow the computers to recalculate and make adjustments for any potential hazards. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, that problem was solved using something we call an Absence Shield.

When you're inside a vehicle travelling at a constant velocity, there's an absence of force acting against you due to inertia, so you don't really feel the vehicles movement. You are moving, you're just inside the travelling vessel. At least, that's how I understand it.

Hundreds of years ago, scientists figured out a way to expand that absent force when a ship is in motion, like bottling an energy's opposite. Anything outside of that inertial space that impacts the Absence Shield simply deflects off. A welcome side effect of this is that an Absence Shield becomes more powerful the faster a ship is travelling, essentially making ships near invincible when travelling at luminal speeds. But when they slow down all manner of disasters can occur.

The planet we'd adopted was far from ideal. It had an odd rotation that kept us bathed in almost perpetual night. And cold. It was always bitterly cold, which affected the speed of production of our sky canons as frostbite set in to worker's fingers. The goal was to have a minimum of four canons that sat in the four corners of our massive settlement. As the settlement expanded more would be built. In your time, it would take approximately two months to erect each sky canon. In that time we'd be lucky to get two of your earth days of sunlight. It was so infrequent here that when blessed with the opportunity to enjoy daylight, work stopped almost completely as we partook in festivities and celebrated the rising of the sun. Long tails would drink themselves into a stupor in the warmth, and it would take two, sometimes three lunar rotations for them to completely recover and get back to work. By the seventh sunning, only two sky canons had been erected and tested, with the scaffolding of the third just coming down.

Other than the sky canons, which you could always see no matter which way you turned as their massive barrels loomed over the settlement, the skies were clear, and I was often caught stargazing. Even when we were on the move with mother dragging me through crowds as I held onto her tail and struggled to keep up, I watched the stars saunter across the sky. I was constantly confounded by the planet's small moon travelling on its wonky trajectory. The rare sight of streaking asteroids left me imagining how far they had travelled and how much further they might travel along unknown paths. And I counted the ships that left and returned from supply runs. Constantly having my head craned upward was why I was the first to notice.

Our ships would never do it. The pilots knew better. It was drilled into everyone that held pilot credentials. You never exit a luminal sprint in atmosphere because the heat could ignite the air and turn the planet into a raging inferno.

We'd only recently had the seventh sun when I first saw the boom of starships exiting their luminal sprint in atmosphere above our adopted world. Mother was always wary of danger and had always insisted that I never release her tail. Yet, as I gawked at the ships in the sky, I remember stopping in the street and letting go. I'll never forget the last feel of her leathery appendage slipping through my fingers as I lost her amongst the crowd. Mother had also warned the council many times during their meetings that we hadn't fled far enough, but her objections to our chosen settlement fell on deaf ears. Yet there she was being proved right as our former oppressors found us again, this time before we'd even had time to name the new world. It was the fastest they'd ever found us to that point.

It was all just so sudden. The sky was clear as stars flickered against the black canvass. Then, in the blink of an eye, the sky was filled with ships of war, with white hot light shimmering off of their dissipating Absence Shields. That heat burned the air around them and rolled over those of us on the ground, burning our skins and sending the crowds into a frenzy. The pain-filled howls of my people will stay with me, as I'm sure they do for everyone that has experienced it, but the warships weren't there to destroy us. This was an act of callousness.

While those of us in the streets panicked, the sky canons slowly turned upwards. As they took aim, the first crack thundered through the air shaking our entire colony and hitting one of the warships centre mass. It exploded into a ball of flames sending debris falling out of the sky. The ships turned and fired on the too few canons that never had a chance to fire again. Our primary defence had been blown away before we were ready.

Almost two-hundred years ago, mothers grabbed their children as security personnel directed frightened mobs towards escape vessels to avoid the fifth reclamation. The fifth time they'd found us. Almost two-hundred years ago I lost my family in the madness, eventually scooped up by a stranger that recognised me as my mother's child. He had a ship nearby and we later met up with the convoy to settle on yet another world. But almost two-hundred years ago, like today, I froze, and I feel as small now as I was then as hundreds of ships carpet the sky for what will be the ninth reclamation of my lifetime. I never imagined this could happen again and we would be this unprepared. It's not just fear that stays my feet. These old bones have lost the strength to flee.

Thank you for taking the time to read this short piece. If you have an interest in what happens next, please let me know. While I've had the full scene and larger story in my head for a long time, I've struggled to focus to put the full story together. I think a little interaction helps drive my writing forward, so if you want more definitely say so.

I've already posted parts of the larger story here on Vocal (You'll find the link below), and I'm grateful for the over 400 readers I've had so far.

The Lion's Hunt Part 1