Ornaut's Review

“There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.” Ornaut said into the little recording device on his lapel. He cleared his throat, “They’d only arrived in the Valley 182 million phases ago. Before that, they traversed the dead space between galaxies for countless kilophases. It is impossible to know exactly where they came from. I’ve tried to retrace their trajectory multiple times.” Wiping sweat from his brow and ignoring the little blinking red light on his chair, Ornaut gazed past the glass dome beneath him at the purple-red orb that was Thasha.

Ornaut’s Review sat in calm open space approximately one light phase above and ahead of the planet. The Valley consisted of two dense asteroid belts filled with the jagged remains of unstable planets. Enclosed within the belts were the only hospitable planets in this system, Thasha, Enxha, and Nohga.

“This year is the Union,” Ornaut coughed feeling a tickle in his throat. “A time when all three planets in the Valley align in perfect synchronicity. As is natural in any planetary system, no two planets travel around their sun at the same rate. Such is true for Thasha, Enxha, and Nohga. There are times when two planets will align in the course of their solar phases, but true Unions only happen every 221 phases. And upon the Union, the dragons migrate.” He wiped a tear from his watering eyes.

“The dragons fly through the Valley in scattered groups between Unions. Tens of thousands of them even settle on some of the larger asteroids in Thasha’s Whip or Nohga’s Tail. Nevertheless, once the Union begins these ethereal creatures fall into rank and file behind the Three Sisters forming a sheet nearly spanning the distance between the planets.” From this position, Ornaut had a breathtaking view of the Union and the dragons as they glided into their blanket-like formation.

An alarm sounded from behind. The air vent above him dispensed thick black smoke and the smell of burning metal. Ornaut stood up and wiped away smoke residue that had gathered on the view panel. This is highly inconvenient, he thought, tasting burnt metal as it filtered into his mouth. A second alarm, louder and faster than the first shouted its warning in a cacophonous harmony with the first.

“The shape of the formation if viewed from between the planet and dragons is akin to a long triangle with a flat edge on top made by the larger creatures, and smaller dragons below creating layers that taper. Now, some of-“

A brief but violent tremor ran through the ship.

The lights above Ornaut flickered off, followed by the glow of emergency lights coming to life. They lined the edges of the small platform that held his chair. “Alright, well let’s just take a quick look at whatever that is.” Ornaut pressed a button on his recording device that muted the sound but continued recording in real time. He hated stopping his thoughts and then coming back to them hours or days later. Knowing the device was still recording would guarantee Ornaut completed his side task with all due swiftness.

At a brisk march he climbed the circular staircase that led to the control deck. A layer of smoke had already spread over the ceiling and flooded the upper observation lounge. Ornaut reached his control chair and pulled up the ship’s status from the main console. It projected a bright holographic screen before him packed with blue and green alert icons. “Hmm, the hydro-oxygenator is failing. Spacial refractor at negative twenty three percent? Oh, that’s not good. Alpha and beta hulls punctured. And reserve fuel is in danger of imminent combustion.” He sat back in the control chair silencing the alarms. All in all, it could be worse.

An explosion to the ship’s aft knocked Ornaut forward, disrupting the stabilizing repulsors and causing Ornaut’s Review to drift toward the Valley. The force and angle of the blast sent the ship falling in a slow backward roll. Ok, this is worse. Beyond the main view panel, Ornaut watched the Valley drop out of sight.

Taking another look at the ship’s status indicated that the reserve fuel had ignited, blowing one of the three primary engines free of the alpha hull. “Kallor’s Third Leg.” Ornaut said, contemplating an ancient Shichirian myth about the warrior-king Kallor’s battle against the tyrannical shorga beast.

Thousands of kilophases ago, the warrior-king’s homeland was threatened by the fierce beast. Kallor sought to destroy the monster himself, being a master of Shichirian martial combat. When he found its lair, the beast ambushed him, cleaving his leg from his body. Ancient Shichirians only had three legs and most couldn’t function with two. Kallor however, fought on. The battle was said to have lasted ten cycles. Kallor knew he couldn’t win, but nevertheless continued to engage the shorga beast hoping to draw out the fight, frustrate it, and stymie its conquest.

Therefore Ornaut, acknowledging his predicament, rose from his chair and headed aft to “draw out the fight,” as it were.

Having a solid plan in mind, he unmuted the recording. “Where was I? Ah yes, the formations. Some of my colleagues have theorized that the dragons congregate like this because a similar event occurred in their originating system.” Ornaut left the control deck and opened a storage closet, retrieving a pressure suit from a locker. “This theory however is moot as there are no possible methods to prove or disprove it.” The poly-silicon suit felt snug over Ornaut’s research attire.

As he went to lock his helmet to the neck of the suit, a glass pane in the storage closet shattered, having been cracked by the shock of the recent explosion. The opening sucked out all of the oxygen in the corridor, as well as the oxygen in Ornaut’s lungs. Quick reflexes enabled him to secure his helmet before his lungs imploded. A temporary force field covered the breach a second later. Ornaut took a moment to relax his nerves following his near-death experience.

He stumbled down the walkway taking long deep breaths from his suit’s hydro-oxygenator, using the guiding lights on the floor to stay focused. “The most popular theory… is that the… planets emit a heavy… concentration… of radiation during… the Union.” His shoulder hit the metal grate of the walkway as another tremor rocked the ship. He rolled onto his back, catching his breath as he stared up at smoke wafting toward the control deck. “From what we’ve seen, this radiation is crucial to the dragons’ ecosystem as it contributes greatly to the survival of newborns.”

Ornaut stood up and continued down the corridor on somewhat steady legs. He passed the port and starboard observation lounges noticing cracks in many of the glass panes lining the walls and roof. “Planetary anecdote number four. Terrestrially, Thasha, Enxha and Nohga have similar flora and fauna, native population size, and level of technological advancement. A curiosity as the planets began developing in different phases and have no current communication with one another.”

Sparks rained on him from a hole in the beta hull as he passed the intersection leading to his lodging and the lab. “Astronomically, when viewed up close all three planets are covered with deep blue-green oceans and brown-green land masses. Yet, as one moves away from the planets, these colors change. This is thanks to an enormous amount of cosmic dust in the region. As a multifaceted crystal reflects light in a spectrum, so too does this cosmic dust reflect the suns light onto the planet’s atmospheres in a spectrum. Hence why Thasha appears a dark crimson at this distance. End planetary anecdote.”

When he reached the reactor bay, Ornaut took it as a good sign that smoke seeped through the door. The hulls to this room haven’t been punctured, he thought, breathing with more confidence. The door opened at his approach, unleashing a wave of smoke. Once it had cleared enough to see, Ornaut spotted two major issues: accelerant leaked from all four reactor pods, and the spacial refractor’s tertiary lens was out of focus. Though smoke billowed from a destroyed access panel, it was the least of his worries.

“Hmm. The main problem here,” Ornaut said walking toward the spacial refractor and examining the tertiary lens, “is that the Union is quite brief. In addition, due to the rarity of its occurrence, it may take a dozen or more observations of this event before we truly understand the relationships between the planets, the dragons, and the Valley.” The lens maintained navigational accuracy while travelling in refracted space. The reactor pods were a lost cause at this point. He couldn’t attempt to fix them until they were shut down, and couldn’t shut them down because he needed main reactor power to use the spacial refractor.

Ornaut could hear the superheated reactor accelerant sizzle as it dripped on the floor. He gave himself a mental pat on the back for upgrading his reactor pods with non-combustible fluid. It was one less thing to worry about as he adjusted the lens. In an ideal situation, Ornaut would have used a machine designed specifically to correct the clarity. Given that his current task was time sensitive, he adjusted it by hand.

With a final twist of the lens, Ornaut stepped away from the tertiary lens satisfied with the clarity. He then rushed around the bay shutting down the hydro-oxygenator, the backup reactor, and other superfluous systems, redirecting power to the stabilizing repulsors. When he checked the display it showed the repulsors at idle. Perfect, he thought, feeling a strain on his typically sedentary muscles. Now he just had to get back to the console on the control deck and activate them to level out this tumble.

Smoke within the bay flowed toward the borders of the door. The temporary force field must have failed. Ornaut held on to a conduit near the door before opening it manually. He’d shut of its power as part of the systemic redirect. Oxygen, smoke and accelerant rushed out as the door slid open. Once the pressure, or lack thereof, normalized in the corridor Ornaut jogged toward the control deck.

“The key observation I’ve made during this, the fourth recorded observation of the Union, pertains to the largest and most ancient dragons.” When Ornaut walked onto the control deck, the ship was positioned in such a way as to give him an incredible view for the engine that had blown free. Surrounded by a cloud of debris, it drifted away from Ornaut’s Review in a languid spiral. “Most interesting.” Ornaut said, briefly distracted by the sight of the destruction.

He rounded the control chair and input commands instructing the ship to correct its drift and angle toward Thasha. “It appears that the older dragons need to be encouraged into their positions at the head of the formations.” The console beeped when the ship had aligned with the planet. Ornaut typed coordinates into the spacial refractor and had it analyze: 17.4389%. Not great. Specifications for the mechanism warned that any percentage below 99.9990 could result in ‘a catastrophic mishap.’

Ornaut engaged the device anyway. Nothing more could be done to improve its efficiency so he tried to relax in the chair. “Previous observations portrayed the ancient dragons as shepherds, guiding the smaller, younger dragons into their respective places along the ribbon. What I have found is that the youngest, most inexperienced dragons take the role of the shepherd, prompting their much older relatives into motion. The young rally the ancient, the ancient then herd the mature and adolescent, and then the mature manage the young. A simply astounding social structure.”

A polyhedral dome of mirror-like panes coalesced behind the ship. The panes absorbed light from all surrounding sources and reflected the energy it created at refracting plates installed on the alpha hull of the ship. The process warped space and allowed the ship to travel at remarkable speeds while ignoring sub-space drag.

Ornaut’s Review did not shake as it accelerated into refracted space. Shake was far too calm a term. It felt to Ornaut like he was being launched in every direction with increasing fervor. He gripped his seat, straining to stay in place. He felt his left shoulder pop out of the socket and muscles in his arms tearing. The ship came to an unexpected stop seconds before slamming into Thasha’s upper atmosphere. The jolt tossed Ornaut out of his chair, throwing him against the main view panel cracking several ribs. Fiery light flared beneath him.

“I find I will be unable to complete my assignment in the Valley.” he said, using his right arm to push himself into a sitting position. The movement shot pain through his body. “My spacial refractor overshot the orbital coordinates and my ship is now heading to Thasha’s surface.” He stood up despite the turbulence of reentry endeavoring to knock him down.

Using preset controls on the wrist of his pressure suit, he simultaneously activated a homing beacon and sent a distress call to his colleagues. “As is protocol, I have jettisoned my notes and observational recordings with a homing beacon. I hope my colleagues find it well and in orbit.” Ornaut pressed another set of buttons on his wrist. A feed from a camera mounted on the alpha hull appeared in his helmet.

The interior of the control deck lit up, transitioning between bright yellows, oranges and reds. Ornaut’s helmet display cautioned an increase in the internal temperature of the ship. He wouldn’t feel it for some time as his suit could withstand extreme environments. Planetary impacts however, were not something it had been tested on.

Ornaut struggled back into the control chair, securing himself in the seat. “As the likelihood of this being my last recording rises exponentially, I find I have no regrets.” Thasha’s gravity overpowered the ship’s gravity regulator causing Ornaut to be pulled forward against the restraints. Pain wracked his body with every jostle and heave.

“As they say on Thasha’s Tonac region, ‘Nish nugakk ahk touan dah lahn.’ At least I think it is Thashan. It might originate from Nohga’s Tdenik people. I wish I’d spent more time on the linguistics in this system. So, I guess I have one regret. 28:46 laccan time, 23rd cycle, 3684th phase. End recording.”

Another shockwave struck Ornaut’s Review as it penetrated the next layer of atmosphere. Ornaut coughed blood on the glass of his helmet. He sat with eyes wide, watching, observing. In the display he’d pulled up earlier he could see a group of dragons floating near Thasha in a high orbit. The serenity of their flight impressed upon Ornaut a surreal sense of tranquility.

He regarded the main view panel feeling the intense heat overwhelm his suit’s limits. His ship groaned as pieces broke away, compromising its structure. “Kallor’s Third Leg,” Ornaut said with a smirk.