What Limitations?

When Evan informed us that the engines had not fired up completely we weren't quite sure what he meant, it looked like we were traveling pretty fast. He then fired up the remaining engines and the colors increased in intensity and the dot moved much faster across the virtual universe. Evan at this point took control of the steering of the ship while Nasero continued to modify his systems as he gathered more data. It seemed the longer we were going at these speeds the more information that we were getting. We wove in and out of star systems, trying to allow Nasero all the time he needed to learn about being in this layer of space. It still wasn't as fast as a gravity jump, but it was much faster than the previous method we had been using to maintain time in travel between stars. When Nasero had all the information and had made the modifications he needed to, Evan powered the engines up further.

I couldn't believe what was happening, these two had made enough modifications to the designs in less than a day to make space travel seem like a thing of ease. It only took seconds to travel between star systems now and I wasn't even convinced that we had reached the limit of the engines. Nasero once again took the time he needed to gather more information and to make modifications. The major factor that played a role in our ability to navigate seemed to be the lack of friction in this layer of space, we could push things farther and farther. I was sure with just a little more time these two could exceed the gravity drives' abilities and we would have no problem pursuing the old ship. It was amazing to think of what was possible with this hybrid of force energy and technology, it seemed as if we no longer had any limits.

As the day wore on things continued to change, the colors that were being shown were slowly filtered out through the upgrades and we could start to see what was actually there, the speed of the ship could be easily adjusted if anything of interest were in the area and we could investigate a location in space before we commited to stopping. We decided that it would be good to start our search for the other ship, it would take quite a bit of time to find it and what better time to look for it than when we were testing and improving the system we would use to locate it in the first place. Our star maps continued to improve, at first it was just the stars and then we added the planets and their individual moons, we worked on mapping where asteroids would be and developed the system to predict where things would be and at what point events would happen. As we passed hospitable worlds I wondered what kind of life we might find when we were able to explore them. As I daydreamed about what could be in the future with this technology Ambri was busy looking over the maps we were generating, I knew she was looking for her home planet but we simply had not passed it yet, though I was sure we would find it eventually.

Navigation

Nasero and Evan took some time analyzing the design. They marvelled at the simplicity and effectiveness of the device. When they asked how I had thought of it I simply told them of my dream, a concept neither of them understood. It took awhile to explain to them what a dream was and how it worked and how for humans at least it can be a wonderful source of inspiration. They understood my words but the depth of the understanding wasn't much, they decided to simply accept my strange visions story and go back to work.

Nasero spent a good deal of time analyzing the data and upgrading his systems to compensate for the increased speeds. The colors that we saw had nothing to do with stars, it was more the effect of breaking through that barrier to achieve the speeds we did. He would be able to detect where we were going and how close to our destination we were by sensing the gravitational forces that he could feel while in this state of momentum. The funny thing about it, as he explained, was that he could feel the forces were in existence but they had absolutely no impact on him, there was no drag and no pull in the direction of the force, it was just there. Meanwhile Evan was off working on understanding the drive better and trying to find a way to improve it, particularly the accoustics that were formed when it was used as those really made stealth impossible.

As interesting as the data was that he was digging through we quickly were bored of all the science, both Ambri and I felt that our desires were to better understand our forces and so we went off to work on them a bit more. I remembered the creature that had first shown us the inadequacy of our sensors, it had been completely stealthed against technology and to the naked eye. I hadn't seen the creature much since our encounter with it though I knew it still existed somewhere in the habitat, I had been able to sense it just not find it again. I told Ambri about it and how much that one encounter had taught me about learning to use my mind more. The short story made her smile and she said that on her planet that was how one learned about their powers was from observing the things around them and that most of their abilities had been learned first by the creatures she grew up around. I knew this was how humans had also learned some things, though we never really admit to it because of our egos. I pondered this thought while we trained.

When we were informed that Evan had upgraded all the ships drives using some of the data Nasero had provided him we went back to the control room to witness the test. As the drive powered up Ambri put her hands over her ears and I prepared for the typical blast of sound, however the ship slipped silently through the barrier and we once again saw the brilliant colors. I was surprised by this and it must have shown on my face because Evan started laughing at the two of us. He said the accoustics problem was easy to solve, the major problem he had been working on was getting the engines to all work together to improve the speed of the ship. Nasero had also designed a star map that would show where we currently were, this was a very nice feature to have. They then surprised us further by demonstrating that they had also found a way to change direction while performing this jump which meant we were no longer limited to a single destination. All of these changes were wonderful, but the best part was yet to come.

Oh See the Pretty Colors

I suppose it was because of the excitement that I forgot to mention it. The first jump was very short with the new drive. I set a start and end to it and when we fired it up we heard a loud bang and then almost immediately another as we entered and left the accelerated state of momentum. When I had asked Nasero if he was able to see or sense anything he said the jump was far too quick and had been expecting something different. That's when I realized that I hadn't explained the modification I had to make to the process to ensure that the technology could actually work accurately for us. I had designed the drive to only start and stop the jump process, which meant we broke the barrier we needed to and stayed there until we told it to leave again, this meant we didn't have to have a knowledge of where we were going but instead could just go where we pleased, though in order to turn we would have to stop and make the maneuver as the technology could only go in straight lines. The first jump at least told us that the technology was properly functioning, that we could enter and leave as we needed to. The next test was to run it longer to see what Nasero could see or sense and so after calculating just how far we went in that brief jump we took aim at an empty area in space and fired up the drive again.

It was brilliant, we heard the noise and as soon as the we recovered from this jolt we finally had the time to see. It was amazing what things looked like when you were in this state, I had never been in it for more than a moment and never realized that you could actually see anything. Colors flashed by, we assumed they were stars. It took a couple of minutes for Nasero to test all his sensors to try to verify what some of the things were that caused these colors but he quickly started to get the hang of it. We didn't want to go too far and so once he had a feel for this he gathered some data and we stopped, in all our jump lasted about five minutes. When we stopped we were again briefly blinded and when we could see clearly we saw that we were exactly where we aimed, in the middle of nowhere. The closest system was still the one we had just left, however not by much. It appeared this system would work wonderfully for moving around. For Ambri the new system was marvelous, she didn't much care for technology but this new stuff was more mystical than technical and she was enjoying every moment of it. I had to admit, I was enjoying it more than the technological advances the previous ship had as well.

The Loud Way

After sharing her story with them they felt better. It was amazing how much emotions could affect two things that didn't know them previously. I spent the rest of the day helping them work on some ideas for the next drive to propel the ship through space, unfortunately there weren't a lot of safe, reliable options to work with. A jump drive using the translocation ability wouldn't be accurate enough and we could end up jumping into the middle of a star and there was still the same problem with wormholes of maintaining one that was long enough to be useful. After awhile I had to give up on trying to figure this problem out, I simply did not have the energy to keep going and so I turned in for the remainder of the night.

Dreams of the past, that's what I was having. My mind was remembering the technology that was on the planet, both before and after the crash. I remembered how things looked when you used the old technology for mindforce, before it had to be resynced with the planets shifting energy. My mind brought images one after the other of things that I had seen, I simply sat there and watched, not thinking much, when suddenly I heard the familiar sound of someone breaking the sound barrier in a translocation. I looked in the direction it came from and saw one person leave and then another come back, their image trailing behind them in marvelous colors. We didn't used to just jump, but we ran at high speeds and broke a barrier to achieve this feat. It had a danger to it because you had to be sure to break through the barrier before you hit something else and you had to hope when you stopped it wasn't too near something that you wouldn't be able to stop before hitting it. The main problem with the technology was that you couldn't see where you were going once you left the location you had been in. At this point I was hit with another thought and woke up, I had an idea.

It probably took half the morning to finally feel the old method of translocating again. I was so used to just appearing that my body wanted to reject the movement part, however I was determined. Once I had made a few successful jumps and had startled everyone a few times with the noise I made I believed I had enough of a feel for it to put it into some technology. I quickly got to work on the design of it, though I still didn't know how to overcome completely the blindness of the jump I knew this would be the most likely method for developing a new drive for the ship. When I had finished the design and started the construction process I finally noticed that everyone was standing behind me watching what I was doing, they all seemed a bit nervous and finally I broke the silence by asking them why they were all so stunned. It took another moment for one of them to respond, it was Evan who finally found words. He asked what I had been doing this morning that created such a noise and visual display and then wondered what the heck it was I was building. I explained to him my past with older mindforce technology and how we had improved it before I met him. It took quite a while to explain, I then told him that the technology I was building was to implement this old force into a new drive. I then explained to him the problem we faced of being able to see where we were going. This was when Nasero jumped in and explained that he had been improving his sensors and optics much farther than what we had already done. He was able to keep track of a lot of things around him and in different ways, he was sure that at least one of his improvements would still function in this accelerated state. We then got to work putting the new drive in place to take it for its first test flight.

A Happy Story

Among her people a village was a family. They didn't really formally recognize parentage, instead the elders were the parents and all the younger ones were your brothers and sisters. Her village wasn't one of the biggest, but it was a good size. She would spend her days mostly with her sisters going about the forests looking for fruits and spending a good portion of the evening along the beautiful beaches collecting smoothed stones and shells to turn into trinkets. These trinkets played an important part of their society, every member of a village would contribute to creating a trinket to celebrate a particular event, such as the birth of another villager or their death, the coming of age or learning to harness their abilities. These trinkets would hold some of the collective memory of the villagers who built it and by harnessing the proper energy one could actually see their individual memories of the event. Often life stories would be shared simply by letting another individual hold these trinkets and see the events in their life. When an individual passed away their old trinkets were viewed and then taken apart to create their death trinket which would be kept on their place of burial, this way their life would be what was remembered instead of their passing. Often these trinkets were the ones filled with the most joy because of the memories that were brought up before its construction.

As she told me her stories I noticed her hands were absently reaching and picking up objects that sat near her, by habit she was constructing a new trinket while she recollected her life. I felt energy flowing from her and into these objects, she was imprinting these things with her memories and feelings. I learned more about her and her people. The tattoos on her were natural, they were much like palmistry is to us, they can tell the tale of a person's life if one knows how to read them. Often the lines and swirls were ignored among her people, they often didn't care about their future, but her people had noticed hers. They were so intricate and much more complex than normal ones. They showed a complex life filled with many things, too many to be understood. Her people saw joy in the lines and sorrow, though most of them didn't understand sorrow as these lines told. She was viewed as an individual of importance in her village and was being trained to be the next priestess, to interpret the lines, however her training never got very far in this as things changed shortly after it was determined. This is where she stopped in her story, she said the rest would be the same story as what she had already told me. As she took note once more of her surroundings she saw that she had constructed a very large trinket, much larger than any she had before. She hadn't even realized she was doing it. She marveled at it and smiled, it was a trinket of immense joy. I helped her hang the trinket on the wall above her bed, she wanted to keep it there so that when she slept its good memories might fill her head and help her sleep. She had exerted a lot of energy in its construction, and so she asked me to leave so that she could rest. I gladly did this, letting her get some much needed sleep. Filled with the joy that she had poured into her trinket I went back to Evan and Nasero to tell them her story.

A Sad Story

Once she had gathered her composure again Ambri ran up and hugged me, thanking me for saving her from that beast. I could just imagine what that day had been like, trying to escape from the thing you knew would kill you and having no way of doing so. To be fatigued and yet still having to strive forward or risk losing your life. She had seen many of her people die by this creature and none of them could help those that were caught. Their powers simply were not strong enough to fend off the creatures and if they used their powers they were quickly discovered and not one, but many of the creatures came running. I could just imagine the devestation when a group of these things were together. They could have easily wiped out an entire village in just minutes, and from her accounts of them they did just that. The planet she came from had been thriving, there had been so many creatures and plants and her people were numerous. They lived their lives without much care, their needs were provided for abundantly by the plant life of the planet. Then one day everything changed, these creatures started to appear from seemingly nowhere and started decimating all life on the planet. They started with animals and her people, killing anything that moved. But as the number of creatures started to dwindle they started to destroy the plants as well. The beasts seemed to hate living things in general and would destroy first the things that could defend themselves at all and then the things that were left after those were gone. After relating her story to me she quietly excused herself and went to her room. Her grief made my heart sorrowful and I could do no more training for the day, instead I went to go help Evan and Nasero continue their work on the next drives for the ship.

When I arrived in Evan's research lab I saw him standing there, staring at the projection in front of him but without any movements as if he were actually working on it. When I approached him and asked if everything was alright he simply looked at me and said how sad he felt after hearing about her story. Apparently Nasero had allowed him to hear the conversation and he had been moved as well. When I tried to verify this Evan simply sat there in his depressed state and Nasero didn't respond at first either. After a few attempts I finally got their attention and they responded that they indeed had heard the whole conversation and had been saddened by it. Knowing that both of them were not emotional beings meant that this was hard for them to handle and so I knew there wasn't going to be much point in trying to get them to move on. Slightly amused by the fact that they were affected this way but also a bit annoyed that they had listened in on the conversation I went back down to the apartment area to see if I could talk some more with Ambri.

I heard the sound of things being moved around after rapping lightly on the door. A few moments after the sounds stopped the door opened slowly and a teary eyed Ambri looked out at me. She did her best to smile, but I could see that she was filled with sorrow. She invited me in and asked what she could do for me. To this I simply told her how her story had affected Evan and Nasero to which she quickly began apologizing which I quickly stopped and said was unnecessary, instead I wanted to hear more of her story, except this time to hear about some of her happy moments in life, hopefully happy enough to change the mood in the ship.

Ambri's Arrival

She simply was a wonderful cook, she could take any of the plain fruits and vegetables and make a magnificent feast from them. The food that Ambri prepared was delicious, filling and restoring. Almost everything gave you this boost of energy. After having such a wonderful meal I felt it was time to try again to make a wormhole. I started off just feeling the flow of the energy, not trying to force it but more to harmonize with it. Once I had a good feel for it I tried gathering a bit of it. Everything seemed to be going well, as the energy built up I could feel its potential, it was nearly ready when Ambri appeared in the room. I nearly lost my concentration due to this, I simply was not used to people just appearing without a sound where I was, however I maintained most of the gathered energy and continued collecting it. As the ability to manifest the wormhole came closer to reality Ambri seemed a little uneasy but she watched intently as I worked on shaping the first non-technological wormhole I'd ever seen.

That thing drained me faster than anything I'd ever tried before, the wormhole lasted all of a few seconds before I could no longer maintain it. Ambri's jaw had dropped open when it first appeared and had remained that way for as long as it took me to get back to my feet after losing all my power. I looked at her and asked her why she was so shocked about the wormhole, I had described it to her before. My voice brought back her wits and she suddenly started talking quite rapidly. I understood a little bit of what she said, something about not realizing what I had described before and having seen a wormhole once on her planet. I did my best to get her to slow down and add a few more details to what she was saying but it was no use, luckily Nasero happened to be listening to this and was able to distinguish quite a few more words than I could and let me know what she was saying. Apparently she had seen a wormhole before on her planet, when she had been fleeing the creature I killed. This wormhole had appeared before her and she had stumbled into it and the creature after her. When she had come to the other side she was in the habitat and had taken advantage of the moments she had to hide herself from the creature. When the creature arrived shortly after she did the wormhole collapsed and the creature ran off to hide from the sunlight. As I listened to this translation of the story I realized what must have happened. When we were developing the drives to travel between layers of space we must have made a complete wormhole or activated a natural one that had gone from the habitat to her home planet. This meant that once again her life had been saved by my actions. Had the wormhole not appeared the creature would have killed her.