Among Stars

Engage

Mizuni walked out of the elevator, into a very futuristic looking room. It was filled with dozens of transparent screens, holographic display, and people interacting with what seemed to be thin air. There was a large screen at one end of the screen, presumably functioning as a window to the front of the vehicle.

A stern-looking man with a bit of gray in his hair and ebony skin was in the middle of the room, looking towards the large screen. He was wearing a neat military-style uniform. He was a head taller than anyone else in the room and had a commanding presence. He had a black name tag on the left side of his chest, with "Cpt. Luis Perez" written on it in shiny silver letters.

Captain Perez turned around so sharply, you'd think that he was mechanical, and not a living being. He noticed the bright red hair of Mizuni, and his features melted into a softer smile. He looked at Mizuni not with a stern look, but almost like with the love of a father watching his daughter.

"Valera," Captain Perez said and stepped forward — which still looked sharp and mechanical. "I was expecting you," he added, then stepped aside and motioned Mizuni to go past him. He directed Mizuni towards a chair in the middle, grinned and gestured her to take a seat.

Mizuni looked at him with her eyes wide open, with a faint smile on her lips. "The captain's chair, Lu?" she said and raised her eyebrow slightly. Perez nodded and smiled at her. Mizuni shrugged slightly, smiled nervously, and sat down on the Captain's chair.

Perez walked beside the chair, slightly behind it, and turned to look at the screen. "On your word, Capitana," he said gently. He put his hands being his back and held his wrist with his other hand.

Mizuni glanced at him nervously, then took one deep breath, held it in for a second, and then let it out slowly. "Start the coils," she said. A low hum could be heard all over the ship that slowly rose up in pitch. Outside the ship, the inner walls of the "donuts" began spinning around. First slowly, then faster and faster, until they were a blur.

"Readings on screen," Mizuni said. Instantly, there was a horde of charts and diagrams and readouts on the screen. People around the bridge took a couple of looks at the display and then turned away once they realized they had absolutely no idea what they were looking at.

Mizuni read it like it was a child's first ABC book. She nodded and smiled at the rotating diagrams. "Increase secondary output to fifteen, hold power gain at two," she said and watched the data intensively. She was nervous, but a smile crept onto her lips when she noticed the data perfectly replicating her tests.

"Secondary output to forty-five, increase power to 8, increase flutter tolerance to five percent. When the power drain is stable, open the collectors," she said and almost squealed from delight. Perez glanced at her and smiled gently.

The hum increased in loudness, if not pitch anymore. After a moment, another hum joined the first, a much higher, but quieter hum. Together it created a weird sort of harmonic, sort of atonal sound. Then both the hums joined in as one. Outside of the ship, the inner walls of the donuts were glowing brightly.

Mizuni was openly grinning now, her eyes dancing all over the charts and readouts, her hands excitedly pointing at parts of the screen, then moving to the next. She was muttering happily under her breath.

"The collectors are stable!" she said and managed not to squeal like a toddler out of sheer joy. "Increase secondary to eighty, and bring the primary coils online," she said. A third, much louder, sound joined the harmony. It was less like a hum and more like a controlled primal scream, increasing in pitch until it matched the other sound, and then blended into it.

Oodles and oodles of numbers ran past Mizuni's eyes on the display, as she keenly watched them dance for her. "Bring primary coils to fifty, increase secondary to ninety-five, lower flutter to one," she said. The sound changed in tune, but instead of growing dissonant, the sound almost blended into the background, leaving behind something that you felt more than heard.

Outside, the coils were glowing brighter and brighter until they swallowed the ship's outline and it looked only like a small binary star. Tendrils of energy traveled across the ship like fingers caressing a lover.

"Primary coils to 85, keep secondary at 95. Lower flutter to point zero five," Mizuni said. The sounds momentarily became a scream, and then faded almost completely away. Mizuni grinned widely.

"It's working perfectly, Lu," she said entranced, without looking up. Perez smiled warmly at her. Mizuni took a deep breath, then glanced at Perez, who nodded at her almost imperceptibly.

"Bring the rails online," Mizuni said. If sounds could travel in space, the resulting scream could have been heard across the whole Pom system as Mizuni's creation cut space open like a skilled surgeon. Two beams of light shot forward from the ship, and they slowly begun to separate, leaving the ship in the middle.

Mizuni closed her eyes, counted to ten, and listened. Nothing out of ordinary. She smiled, looked around the bridge, and said, "Set a course to Gamma Cygnus. On my mark, latch the coils and direct the output to the rails. Let's hope this works."

"Ten... nine... eight... seven... six... five... four... three... two... one..." Mizuni said.

"For science," Mizuni said, "Do it."

There was a flash as bright as a dying star for just an instant, and then everything went dark. The glow, the lines, the ship. Everything had disappeared, and there just lingered a wavering mirage in space, like there should be something, but everything that there was, was just a lack of the thing.