Starship Odyssey | ONC 2021

Chapter One - The Eye of the Sun God

Phuldross resembled the eye of some forgotten sun god taking one last look at the universe before sleep claimed it at last.

The ancient star, whose light had given birth to countless species, whose proudest children had taken their place among the cosmos when the Earth had not yet formed, was dying.

As it burnt through the last of its helium and its core began to shrink all that remained of this life-giving sun was a bubble of gas more than a million degrees hot and surrounded by a glowing aura of cooling nitrogen, oxygen and of course hydrogen expanding ever outward.

The jewel-shaped Odyssey slid back down from the higher dimensions of hyperspace and into the line of sight of slowly dying Phuldross. The Ambassador-class starship maintained a safe distance, although its many redundant layers of defense fields would have allowed it to fly straight through Puldross's core if the need arose.

The gestalt entity that had commanded the ship through hyperspace separated itself back into two distinct individuals. One of them the artificial intelligence Odysseus Centillion.1.1.4, and the other an organic human woman known as Lulu Lovelace.

Lulu stretched in her command throne; it always felt weird for a few seconds when you stopped being one of the most advanced spaceships in the galaxy and went back to just your limited human body. Stifling almost. Like trying to run underwater.

Soon the feeling of loss slipped away, like a forgotten dream, and Lulu felt like herself again.

As she stood up Lulu noticed the Think Tank was already on the bridge, waiting. She would never accuse those three of being overly patient.

Dr. Eisenstein was a hypergeometry savant and one of the leading 6d hypertheorist. She took the form of a floating metallic sphere bisected by a slight indentation along which a single glowing sensor eye slid back and forth.

Dr. Fido was considered the foremost expect on the unprecedented in all of Consensus Space. Although technically an uplifted Jack Russel Terrier Dr. Fido much preferred the opposable thumbs and upright posture of the human form, and so that's the body he wore. Only the color pattern of his hair hinted at his canine ancestry.  He often gave the appearance of having slept in his clothes and forgotten to change them. That was because he often did.

Dr. Birdwhistle was the former head of the Xenology Department at Ylem University and an expert on alien equivtech capabilities. Rumor had it that he was also an Exigency asset. His long, albeit perfectly groomed, facial hair made him look downright barbaric. 

All three were already examining a projection of Phuldross in their minds eyes.

"This is it? This is what the Drelnoch were so worked up about?" asked Dr. Birdwhistle. "I mean, fine, it's sad when your home star burns out and everything but their civilization is entirely digital. It's not like they need it. This is just the life cycle of a star of this size. I fail to see how this demanded our personal attention."

"Take a look at the shadow it's casting in hyperspace," said Lulu.

The others expanded the image in their minds eye out into the 5th and then 6th dimension. There was a visible dark patch in hyperspace the precise shape of the dying star.

"Oh my," said Dr. Eisenstein.

"Now we're talking," said Dr. Fido.

"Are we sure the star is generating this?" asked Dr. Eisenstein.

"We don't know anything about what's generating it," replied Lulu. "What you see is what we know."

"I withdraw my objection. This is perfectly worthy of my attention," said Dr. Birdwhistle. "I can scarcely believe what I'm seeing. It's like the star equivalent of a tesseract."