Philip Palmer - Debatable Space

I lose myself in the long soaring arc of the plunging bucking near-light-speed stellar-wind-battered flight, my eyes drinking in the spectral glows and searing sunlight while my sensors calibrate velocity, acceleration, heat and cosmic radiation, I surf from visuals to instruments and back and forth until I feel the bucking of stellar wind, no, thats repetitious, delete the words stellar and wind, its now the bucking of pulsing photons on my fins and sail and feel the burning of the hot yellow dwarf sun on my cheeks Lena, we have company. and bare acceleration-pinned arms. Ah!!!! Gorgeous yellow-red glow gash of lit matter and quantum frenzy! D43X is a giant yellow sun approximately 4,000 light-years away from the galactic centre with eleven orbital planets together with asteroidal debris, the gravitational pull is 4.11 millidysons, its a big yellow fucker and, like the planet Saturn in the original Earth system, it has a ring, its a sun with a ring, a fully formed cluster of trapped asteroids that sparkle in the relentless yellow glare and Im on my way there Time to come out Lena. into the asteroid ring, risking my vessel, my own life, for that indescribable rush of asteroid rafting at high velocity while sucked in the grip of a voracious gravitational Im cutting the connection. pull, you are fucking not doing anything of the fucking Hey, Im kidding, Im not allowed or indeed able to cut the connection, thats entirely your prerogative, lighten up, Lena I need you.

Deal with it, I want no company, youre interrupting the flow of my thought diary. Ill edit it.

Its not the same, this is me, my vision, my poetry, my ineluctable Lena, I think this ship is unregistered, it may be a rogue, were in trouble, Lena, please help me I cant cope on my own, Lena, please, Im begging you, cut the connection, return to the bridge, Lena Im scared.

Just fucking deal with it, tinbrain, okay?

Watch her go.

Rimming the sun.

Yobaby, lickety, lickety.

Shes ours.

Fire a plasma pulse, I say.

Too far.

Oh go on, says Jamie. Take out a rock. Light the sky, man.

Okay. Take out a rock, I order.

I got it. Baboom. Thats Harry.

The black void shines, as the asteroid blows. I steer the ship straight through the flames, pure sleight of flight. I come through the other side and the stellar yacht is still tacking gently, curving its way through iridescent sunrocks.

Shes not running?

Shes not running, says Brandon.

Then, lets play it safe. Stealth, I say.

We got no stealth capacity, Capn.

I know, I know, just look, just try to be discreet. Dont talk so loud.

Aye aye Capn.

Dont blow up any more rocks.

The rock was blown up on your order, Capn.

My eyes are fixed firmly on the star monitor, I know my crew from their voices. Brandon, baritone, fast-syllabled, Rob with his East Galaxy patois, Alliea with a hint of a Celtic lilt, Jamie with his childlike babble. Kalen in the engine room, communicating by voicelink. And Alby.

Shessss daydreaming Capn, says Alby.

I know, I say.

If we get closssse

Incoming missiles!

Shes shooting at us. Baboom, baboom. Hands fly on joysticks, antimissile photon pulses strike, the missiles flare around us as we kink and weave out of the way. Pish, pish, pish, pish, pish, pish, pish, each light marks the explosive demise of a death bomb. She cant beat us in a straight fight, shes a sleek yacht, with enough firepower to take out a battleship, but were bigger than a battleship. Were a Mark IV megawarship, were a bulldozer, shes a rapier, no contest. We keep dodging and throwing out chaff and her bombs keep exploding harmlessly. But the space yacht keeps hurling missiles at us, my guess is were fighting against an autopilot. And autopilots cant fight.

Why dont she flee?

We might just catch her, maybe, if our fuel holds out and if we throw out fusion bombs to augment our space drive. But that yacht is state of the art. Its sails are as vast as a small planet but virtually weightless, no more than a few nanometres thick. It has an ion-drive engine, its bound to have a computer navigator brain that dwarfs ours, all it needs is a human being to give the order: Flee! But it doesnt. Fleeing does not occur.

Maybe shes died. Maybe its a ghost ship, I say.

I like that idea, says Brandon.

Doomed to sail the empyrean, forevermore.

Whats an empyrean? asks Rob.

You in one, mf, says Jamie.

Space. Space is the empyrean, I explain.

Say space then, snaps Rob. Dont waste brain cells, using words you dont fucking need!

The yacht slowly arcs, it is turning into the stellar wind. Finally, its fleeing. Jets flare, its sails shimmer. Photons from the star are caught up in the fine mesh of the sail, each one gives a little push. Particles of light shove like infinitesimal gusts of wind. But at the same time the particles are trapped by the sails dark-state technology, compressed into one of the sails curled-up dimensions. Then, as the sail buckles and wobbles under the pressure, the particles are spat out again into our familiar three uncurled dimensions with a pinpoint ejaculation of energy that hurls the ship even faster, to. 99 of light speed for a few brief seconds. And, of course, because of quantum uncertainty effects, there is a moment when the yacht is moving at two speeds slower and faster both at the same time.

Under the intense pressure of two simultaneous speeds, the solar yacht starts to hop. To the naked eye, it seems to dematerialise, then rematerialise, covering kilometres of space in what is only marginally more than no time at all.

Firing chaff, one two three.

Four five six.

Seven eight nine.

Ten eleven twelve.

We shower the space ahead of her with cluster bombs, all with a finely calibrated time-delay explosion. The yacht shimmers, hops, rematerialises. Then a bomb explodes ahead of it, rocking its sails, jostling the fine balance of its nanotechnology.

Shimmer, vanish, hop, boom.

Shimmer, vanish, hop, BABOOM.

And again.

And again.

We throw hundreds of missiles into space. The yacht is like a firefly thats taken mind-altering drugs, hopping through the gaps in reality, buffeted by the recoil from our endless bombs.

Then we watch, in wonder, as the sail is shredded and vanishes. The ship is trapped.

A photon stream which has been spat out from the curled-up dimensions, rich in unused energy, rushes from the stranded yacht. It swirls like a host of angry bees, and is sucked into the gravitational pull of the yellow-ringed star. The swarm hops and skips, and enters the star, and the star swells.

We are engulfed in flame as the star flares. Pillars of red and yellow light balloon into space. The stars asteroidal ring sizzles and fries. Rock burn up with a rapid hiss. Our force fields throb under the heat of the raging sun. Alby sighs contentedly.

Remindsss me of home, he murmurs, his flame-essence flickering with pleasure.

I am defeated. Confounded. All hope is lost. Do not despair, we

Quiet. There may be a way out of

Quiet!

I cannot hear your thoughts.

Think to me please. Lena, please! I beg you! Dont do this!

Ah, my pain is infinite. Thats better. I would rather hear you complaining, than not hear you at

My soul is a desert. all. You suffer so very much, Lena.

Yes! I do!

So what now? We fight. Or rather, the ship fights.

And if we lose? We surrender. Theyre unlikely to kill you Lena, youre too valuable for them. Youre the prize. Theyll want to ransom you.

That was my guess too. Because theyll be aware, of course, that the ship is registered to the Cheos daughter.