Chapter 006: Coup d’etat

Hyperspace Drive is the method of FTL travel common to almost every known interstellar civilization. It works by creating a spatial distortion centered on the ship, which results in the ship being swallowed into the Hyperspace: an extremely alien dimension which is spatially compressed when compared to the Realspace

One light year within Hyperspace equals 3,5 to 5,5 thousand light years within Realspace. This property allows ships to travel on interstellar distances despite moving with a fraction of light speed (0,03c being the standard marching speed of ships not in a hurry).

The Hyperspace Drive was created by a spaceship engineer and self-taught theoretical physicist Gabriel Newman, and first used in 2160. Despite centuries passing, the exact mechanisms of its inner workings are unknown - Newman offered blueprints, but no conclusive explanation. The complete ban on hyperspace research following the Sedna, Halifax and Icarus disasters didn’t help.

Did Newman construct it on his own, based on some mysterious theory he never shared with the world? Did he find some abandoned alien starship in the Solar System and managed to reverse engineer its FTL drive? Was he a frontman of some unknown group responsible for the discovery? Or did he simply mash cables together until he accidentally made an exotech too complicated for Mankind (and its own creator) to understand? He took the answers to his grave.

Encyclopedia Galactica

Book 4, page 245

***

EGS Echo - Crew Deck

09:20 29.03.2610 STT

Cadet Christopher Hall

It was going to be Christopher’s hardest talk ever, but she was the closest he had to a medical practitioner at hand. He might as well ask her and be done with it. Hopefully this wouldn’t be his social death.

“Well, something minor, but unnerving.” He said. He would have preferred to not have to mention it. “I feel sort of… immature in some regards. While I believe that everyone from my times would be impressed by how handsome the men and how beautiful the women in the 27th Century are, I’m slightly bothered by my reaction to the latter.”

She stared at him for a few seconds without saying a thing. He responded in kind. Then she chuckled, which quickly turned into laughter. Christopher was busy doing everything he could to not humiliate himself even more by turning red like a beet.

“So...sorry.” She managed to quickly control herself again. “You said that in such a roundabout way and with such a serious expression…” It was nice to see someone being happy, but it was still one of the most embarrassing moments in Christopher’s life.

“I’m starting to regret my honesty.” Christopher said slowly.

“Once again, I apologize.” She was back to her official, prim and proper approach to the world. “That was uncalled for. As for your problem: there have been some changes to your body. While Athalia believes your current body to be a perfect if genetically sculpted copy of your old one, certain details are actually more in line with what you normally expect from someone significantly younger. For example, you have a hormonal balance of someone who is twenty years old. So, if you take into account how some genetic modifications slow down the process of aging, you are pretty much right past puberty.”

“So… it’s completely normal? And feeling like I’m a teenager again is simply a sign of my body being healthier and younger?” Christopher asked to make sure if he understood her answer correctly.

“Yes.” She nodded with a reassuring smile. “Everyone went through the same thing at some point. Though in your case it’s a slightly aggravated response due to already being past that stage and then being returned to it. In case you were wondering, I am thirty-five years old. But aside from having more life experience, I am mentally and physically closer to what you would consider twenty-five years old. And since it is mental and physical development years that count according to the law passed when the longevity treatments started, you are actually older than me.”

For a second it sounded like the ‘angel’ had made a mistake with the ‘hormonal’ age not being aligned with his physical age. It wasn’t a perfect copy of his body, and it didn’t feel like it was improved. However, Christopher understood that it wasn’t a problem. It was an inconvenience, and mostly a minor one.

The ‘angel’ must have copied his body well enough for Christopher to not have any weird ‘it’s not my body’ reaction, while also keeping him as healthy as possible and making sure that the further development wouldn’t be dissimilar to what normal people in the future went through. It was no mistake, it was a well balanced compromise.

“All two-zeros and variants went through the same experience.” Tiriel continued. “So unless you end up acting like a serious pervert, no one’s going to have a problem with it. Try not to openly salivate while staring at someone’s secondary sexual characteristics and everything will be fine.” She sighed. “To be completely frank with you, you might be the lesser pervert among yesterday's recruits.”

“Wait… really?” Christopher felt both extremely relieved and slightly afraid of what he was going to hear.

“Yes, because Ryan’s eyes wandered just as much as yours. But without any medical excuse for it.” Christopher was about to say something, but then he understood what he had just heard. This time he failed to bottle his embarrassment inside. “It was rather obvious, you know. It is flattering when done in moderation and not accompanied by acting like a jerk, so it is one point for you. For a good sense of aesthetics.” Their eyes met and she winked with a wry smile.

She rose up from her chair before he managed to conjure a response.

“I should be going.” She announced. “I need to wake up Ryan. Once you feel better, a light breakfast is waiting for you in the living room. Tendrik is also there, so you might start learning how to use your personal computer.”

Did she wake me first because of the staring part?

“Thank you, Tiriel.” Christopher said. The elf stopped right before the door, and turned her head to face him.

“Just doing my job, team leader.” He knew something bad was going to happen when he saw her smile. “If you decide to join us in the living room, be so kind and wear something proper, ok?”

Ah, shit. She knew.

***

EGS Echo - Crew Deck

10:13 29.03.2610 STT

Cadet Christopher Hall

The breakfast that Tiriel mentioned was composed of toast, no-fat yoghurt and some apple juice. It was scarce, but a good choice when you wanted to avoid aggravating your nausea.

Christopher ate it alone. Tendrik was in the living room, but he seemed to be in his own little world. Probably using some kick-ass VR Christopher couldn’t wait to learn about. Few minutes later Tiriel returned. She froze in the entrance, her eyes moving between Christopher and Tendrik for a few seconds. Then she disappeared into the kitchen.

She returned a while later with a cup of water in her hand. To Christopher's complete surprise she poured it over Tendrik’s head.

This woke the cyborg quite well.

“What… what are you doing?!” Tendrik shouted, still shocked after the treatment. Tiriel calmly pointed towards Christopher.

“You know he is suffering from a bad case of spacesickness.” The elf said with an irritation in her voice. “Noticing his existence when he enters the room is the basic level of common human decency. Especially after what happened to Kivanna during her first acceleration. Playing videogames in full VR does not count as having an eye on someone.”

“Wha…” Tendrik paused for a second. Christopher thought that the cyborg would just admit his mistake, but it was just a preparation for a counterattack. “I still had an eye on him, just from inside the game and through the security cameras! I don’t need to use my own eyes when I can use TECHNOLOGY!” This struck a nerve.

“You little…” Tiriel was obviously getting really into it. But it was enough for Christopher who slammed his hand onto the table’s surface with all the strength he could muster. The sound was loud enough to interrupt their squabble and focus their attention on him.

“First of all, get a room.” Christopher decided to try to use some humour to disarm the situation. Shouting probably wouldn’t help. And he never was a person to shout at other people. “Second of all: Tiriel, I’m still alive. Tendrik, work a bit on your social skills. And please let me eat my yoghurt without having to watch the two of you fight.”

His skills in disarming bombs were enough. Tiriel made a step back, both of his teammates mumbled some sort of apology.

There goes the ‘we are both adults about it’ words of Tendrik. Ugh. Let’s hope it’s just the spacesickness shortening everyone’s fuses.

The elf sat on the other side of the table and grabbed one of the toasts.

“What about Ryan?” Christopher asked her. She swallowed the mouthful of toast after carefully chewing it for seconds. Only then she finally answered.

“Knocked out cold.” Tiriel answered. “His spacesickness is worse than yours. I am beginning to understand why the captain kept him sedated in the shuttle. I look at him and see myself during my first flight. He connected his personal computer to the network, so you should be able to talk with him through the text message system if you want.”

“I think I’ll let him rest.” This wasn’t exactly a nice beginning for a space adventure, at least not to Christopher. “What happened to Kivanna, by the way?”

“She tried to move a bit too fast during the acceleration, lost her balance due to vertigo and landed on the floor in such an unlucky way that she spent the next day in medbay with a concussion.” Tiriel replied. “I overreacted a bit, but I really thought Tendrik would get the hint and stick close to you.”

Well, if this team was a family, then Tiriel would be either the mother or a very protective older sister. That’s for sure.

“Now that I think about it…” Christopher said. “... who was in charge of the team before I came? I’m almost sure it was you, but I want to make sure.” He was so focused on his role of supposed ‘leader’ he hadn’t thought about asking if he had relieved someone of their position. That could cause some disagreements later on.

“You are correct.” Tiriel answered with a nod. “It all started with just Nekia, me and Patches, as we are from outside of the subsector. During the past few months we visited all four countries in the subsector. We had picked Rukh on Numena, then Kivanna on Plesja and finally Tendrik on Techtria. You and Ryan were the last ones to join.”

“You don't feel.. bad or anything, right?” Christopher asked. She looked at him strangely. “About me taking the seat from you.” From his perspective, this was something that could breed malice and envy. If knowledge from his brief time as an MMORPG’s guildmaster could be translated into the real world, that is.

“No, I am actually relieved.” She replied. Honestly, as far as he could tell. “Thus far we were only working aboard the ship as we were not a fully active recovery team. We were pretty much floating in an organizational limbo. If any other recovery team suffered any casualties, we could have gotten dismantled and reshuffled around the crew. But with you two we are finally an official team. Besides...” She shook her head. “I do not feel competent as a team leader. I prefer to stick to medicine, cooking, gardening and occasional shooting.”

She doesn’t feel competent? What am I supposed to say then?

“Then again, I am sure you were taken off-guard by the sudden promotion.” Tiriel continued. “So if you need, feel free to treat me as your second in command until you get the hang of it.” This could be understood in more ways than one. But unless Tiriel was an accomplished fraud, it was just a purely innocent ‘I’ll help you if you need it’ offer.

He thanked her. Then they chatted about random things until Christopher had finished eating. He wasn’t satiated, but at the very least he was no longer starving. Then the time came for him to discover the miracles of VR.

***

EGS Echo - Crew Deck

17:20 29.03.2610 STT

Cadet Christopher Hall

The cave’s air was stale and damp. Drops of water were occasionally dropping from the stalactites, each sound reverberating through the place quite loudly. The light produced by the lamps on their helmets occasionally illuminated veins of hematite and bituminous coal on the walls.

Something moved in the darkness, diving behind a stalagmite. Christopher pulled up his rifle, but stopped himself from firing - the sound could draw something in. He kept aiming at the stalagmite but his eyes moved away for a second. He signalled to his companion to get closer.

A few seconds later a catgirl wearing a rogue outfit from some black leather appeared from nowhere right next to the stalagmite. He could see her stabbing something. Soon she made an ‘ok’ gesture towards him. That’s when something large emerged from the darkness behind her.

Christopher’s rifle thundered. The flash of light was almost blinding. Whatever tried to sneak behind his companion got hit, and fell back, probably dead. The catgirl jumped away and tripped over the uneven terrain.

Christopher reloaded his rifle and approached her.

“Nekia, everything all right?” He whispered. If something was alerted by the fire, he wasn’t planning to make finding himself any easier.

“Ye...yeah.” He heard her answer. “Give me a second, I need to untangle myself.”

Christopher wasn’t sure who had had the idea to somehow merge Terraria, Minecraft, Starbound and Dwarf Fortress and then put it in full VR. Whatever madlad took such a blatant advantage of copyright laws probably expiring centuries ago deserved a medal.

Together with Nekia he departed from the fortified compound constructed by a large group of players from the Echo’s crew. It wasn’t deep, merely two kilometers underground, but large enough to fit thirty players and an assortment of NPCs.

The goal was to gather resources, but Christopher didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to that. He was too busy marvelling at the wonders of modern VR. It was a matter of finding an hour or two to play and clicking the correct button. And suddenly, you were in another world.

Tendrik explained that the personal computer was connected to his cranial nerves and the spine at the level of the first vertebrae. The same system which displayed the UI atop of what he saw could also overwrite his entire eyesight. The part of the implant located in the first vertebrae read the order he sent to his body and instead translated them into a movement of his body in the game.

It was wonderful. It was incredible. It was… potentially addictive.

He could still see his normal UI in the corner of his eyes. The button from one of the programs that Athalia marked as ‘mandatory’ in his message flashed, counting down to the maximum available time spent in the VR. The list of physical exercises he was supposed to do today to keep himself healthy was there too, slowly growing with every passing minute. It seemed like he wasn’t the only person to discover the addicting part.

Nekia had finally untangled herself from whatever mess she put herself into and waved her hand towards Christopher. They could proceed.

***

EGS Echo - Crew Deck

17:47 29.03.2610 STT

Cadet Christopher Hall

They finally reached their goal. The Hole. Whoever picked the name lacked imagination - it was almost insulting to call such a breathtaking place with such a pathetic name.

It was a monstrous, vertical cavern. A few kilometers wide, but probably several times deeper. The cave the two of them walked through pierced the wall near its ceiling. Through months of hard work, the Echo’s crew carved or constructed a road down. It was a complicated maze of stairs, stone platforms and occasionally ladders.

Glowing lines dotted the walls of the cavern. They were magical torches, lighting the path and keeping the creatures (mostly) away. It was the only light source in the cavern. Without them, the sheer epicness of the place wouldn’t be visible.

Nekia approached the edge of the platform and leaned on the metal railings. Christopher decided to join her and admire the view for a bit.

“They still haven’t reached the bottom yet.” Nekia said. They hadn’t spent a lot of time earlier, so she was still an unknown person to him. All he knew about her was that she had a cat, was herself a catgirl, tended to be clumsy, handled explosives in the team, and was Tiaa’s daughter. “They think there is some super epic dungeon or boss, but we’re barely halfway down.”

It could be the torches, but to Christopher she sort of looked like her eyes were on fire.

“You want to find out what’s down there?” Christopher asked. It certainly sounded like it.

“Yes!” She replied with enthusiasm, her eyes still fixated on the abyss in front of her. “I’m not playing this game to build or craft. I just love the exploration part! When you dig through a wall you can often find and explore some smaller side-caverns. It’s great. But I don’t have equipment to try to fight on the frontline down there. Lots of mean things flying around.”

As if to highlight what she said, a series of gunshots and explosions were briefly seen far beneath them. Some more people swung their swords probably, though darkness covered that from the two observers at the top. Nekia and Christopher weren’t the only people killing time in the game to forget about the spacesickness.

“Is that why you’re part of the Guild?” She shook her head but didn’t elaborate. He had jumped to that question too quickly. “Do you want to rest for a while? I think there’s a save point not far away from here.”

She agreed. And so, a few minutes later they were sitting next to the campfire. For a while Christopher considered adding Dark Souls to the list of inspirations for the game, but it could be an independent creation. There was no sword stuck into the campfire.

“So...” Nekia initiated the talk. Christopher was doing his best to ignore the fact that she just casually sat right next to him. She was slightly too close for his comfort. “... you didn’t say a lot about yourself back then.”

“Was that a question?” He asked playfully. This startled her. She was cute when surprised.

“Well, uhm, I just wanted to know if…” She paused and looked away. Christopher decided to have mercy. He had too much fun messing with people recently and this was slowly making him feel bad about himself.

“I never did anything important.” Christopher said. “My parents are both scientists, though neither of them have ever achieved anything significant. Father’s a physicist, mother’s a geneticist. I have an older brother, who’s following father’s footsteps. And a younger sister, who’s extremely handy with numbers and might pursue a career in mathematics once she finishes college. That’s all.” He honestly believed that all of them would do better than him in the 27th Century. Maybe save for his sister, they all had some appropriate career skills.

“Uhm…” Nekia went silent for a while. “And you?”

“STEM never appealed to me.” Christopher replied. “I studied history. I was planning to perhaps worm my way into some university as a part of the cadre, but I was yet to achieve that.” It wasn’t technically a lie. But he really didn’t like talking about it.

Nekia was looking up to him, her face really close to his own. The situation was getting slightly awkward in more ways than one.

“Uhm… something’s happening in another game.” She suddenly said, looking away from him. “I need to go. Bye.” Then she vanished, leaving Christopher completely dumbfounded.

What the actual…

“My, my.” He was still trying to comprehend what had happened when suddenly a human voice came from the darkness beyond the light of the campfire. Christopher looked towards the source, which turned out to be Ryan in a black robe. “That was unexpected.”

“You were tailing us?” The VR was pretty awesome. Ryan didn’t look like the wreck of a man he was right now. Christopher actually went to visit him earlier. And it was pretty horrible. Though when one gazed at him and was attentive to details it wasn’t hard to see him swaying a bit. His balance was slightly out of whack.

“I planned to join you.” Ryan said. “But I didn’t want to interrupt your date.” Christopher rolled his eyes with a sigh.

“It wasn’t a date.” Nekia reminded Christopher of his younger sister. Sure, cat ears and the tail were out of place. And Anna was slightly less clumsy. But there was something vaguely similar in their general behaviour. Dating Nekia would be extremely awkward. “More like an adventure.”

Ryan relocated himself closer to the fire and saved his game.

“Right.” Ryan said while sitting next to Christopher. This time at a sensible distance. “Adventure with two people of opposite sex sneaking away from the others. With at least one of them being clearly smitten by another. How romantic.”

“Hmmm?” Christopher didn’t bother answering with words at first. But then Ryan sighed, which made him change his mind. “I must admit the thought did pass my mind. She seemed strangely intent on going to the Hole with me. But it’s a hundred times more likely that she is just super enthusiastic about getting a new teammate. And it’s not like you were an option for companionship, due to being knocked out by spacesickness. And then being awfully sneaky.”

“Maybe, maybe.” Ryan didn’t look particularly attached to his earlier statement. “Still, being showered with attention of the opposite gender is a staple thing for heroes… unless all the video games that I played have lied to me.” Some things haven’t changed, it seemed.

“Well, I'm not the protagonist of some manga.” Christopher replied. “And I don’t plan to build myself a harem. Actually, I’m completely uninterested in getting a girlfriend, either singular or plural.” His body might have disagreed, but he was a human. Being able to say no to the body was a bit of a racial power.

“Really?” Ryan looked at him, surprised. “Why?”

“Because I want to get back to my family.” Christopher replied, without looking back. For some reason the fire in front of him felt more appealing. “And I don’t think I can take anyone with me. Very few people I saw thus far could pretend to be one-zeroes, and even then I don’t think anyone could easily adapt to living in 2020. No personal computers in your head, completely different… well, a lot.” Less than he expected. But still.

It would suck beyond imagination to take someone back to his times only for said person to feel completely out of place. And grow to hate him. “Happily ever after” is something you encounter in stories more often than in real life. Here it was a good idea to be realistic.

There was also the issue of time travel. It was, naturally, the first thing that Christopher ‘googled’ when he started exploring the ship’s network. To his undying pain, every single article he ran into was adamant in their belief that this world was one of the hard sci-fi (not really a ‘fi’ anymore, but it was the term that kept coming to his mind) genre. Time travel was impossible. Slowing down or accelerating it regionally was possible with some really rare exotechs, but that was all. And Mankind had no idea how those even worked.

Was the whole ‘giving your life back’ talk a lie?

“Hmm…” Ryan was deep in thoughts for a while. “Makes sense. So… you’re leaving everyone to me?” When he saw Christopher’s face, he burst into laughter. “You are much too serious right now, you know?”

“True.” He dropped into a bit of a mood. Being depressed about things wasn’t the most constructive thing to do. “Get yourself a girlfriend, wife, or a hundred of those, I don’t care. Just no one from the team, if possible. I’m not yet sure what the Guild’s regulations are, but I believe it’s a great way to change the group of people into enemies.”

He had seen that happening already, though with an MMORPG clan. Then again, this clan was the one and only occasion for Christopher to be in charge of anyone. The 100% casualties rate sounded more grim and serious than ‘that one time it happened’.

“Unless you get mysteriously stranded on some exotic world with someone from the team.” Christopher decided to add. “Once it’s obvious that no help is coming, do whatever you want.” Not like it was something that could happen.

“Can I get that on paper?” Ryan did his best to look innocent while saying it. The result was the two of them laughing for a while.

“I’m going to answer that when I figure out what the Guild’s opinion on relationships is” Christopher was adamant in the matter, even in a joking mood. “Seriously though, why so talkative about the subject?”

“Well, it’s just… Triana thing.” This time it was Ryan who suddenly ran into a corner. There was unease on his face. Not a strong one, though “Very few nice things for us, the lower class, to do. It’s just my hobby, sort of.”

It wasn’t exactly an answer to Christopher’s question. And while it sounded like it was true, it was obviously an attempt to avoid answering for real. There was a mystery hidden there… unless Christopher misunderstood him completely.

Then again, not like he cared about it at all. If Ryan wanted to talk, he would. And if he wanted to date or have sex with anyone aboard the ship, it wasn’t Christopher’s problem unless it started to mess with his duties.

“The acceleration phase ends in a few hours.” Ryan added. “I believe they’ll send us to work tomorrow.”

Christopher couldn’t wait.