Ascending - James Alan Gardner [27]
I held my breath and listened in the hope I might hear such a song…but if there was any sound outside, Starbiter did not transmit it to me. No doubt, there should have been the crackling of flames and the gusting of wind, maybe the boom of solar storms sweeping overhead across the sun’s surface; but all I heard was silence as we soared through the fire and out the other side.
Solar Vision
We emerged from the sun surrounded by a fogbank of creamy smoke. Our FTL field had grown so fat on the banquet of solar energy, it was too thick to see through—there was only a great brightness at our backs and murky darkness everywhere else. If the stick-ship returned, the murk would blind me to its presence…so I projected my thoughts to Starbiter, asking if I might be connected to the special devices for perceiving long distances, particularly if they could see past the smog around us.
Within seconds, something went click inside my head; and suddenly, the milkiness occluding my eyes was gone. So was the color—the sun at my back had gone white with mottles of gray, and grainy too, as if the image were painted on sand. Apparently, the special devices for perceiving long distances did not experience color in the same way as real eyes…but then, there must be esoteric Science processes at work and I was not seeing real light at all. In a ship that travels FTL, you need a better-than-light way to see your surroundings; otherwise, you do not know when you are about to smash into something.
Also you do not know when you have company. The moment I turned my attention away from the sun, I saw four newcomer starships mustering in formation around me.
Out Of The Frying Pan, Into The Fliers
The newly arrived craft were not nearly so large as the stick-ship—not the size of a forest, but merely single trees. Or rather single towers, such as the eighty-story building where I supposedly died. These ships were long and thin with a bulb on one end, like the cattails one finds in a marsh. Each vessel was surrounded by its own smoky FTL field, but the fields were vapor-thin and extended far past the ships themselves, making long dangly tails that swished languidly through space. From descriptions given me by Explorers, I concluded these were baton-ships of the human Technocracy’s Outward Fleet.
This was a Ghastly Predicament, coming face-to-face with the very people Uclod wished to avoid. It made me wonder if perhaps the stick-ship had wished to avoid them as well. Perhaps the stick-folk, the Shaddills, had not broken off their pursuit because of my threats and persuasion, but because they perceived Earthling vessels entering the star system. The stick-ship had fled, leaving me to face the entire human navy on my own.
Those Shaddills were very great poop-heads indeed.
In the blink of an eye, the navy ships arranged themselves into a four-pointed pyramid with Starbiter in the middle. This was clearly a military tactic intended to intimidate me…and to place me in the middle of a crossfire if the navy chose to apply armed force. It made me angry, the way humans arrived in my home system and immediately began acting like bullies. Especially when I had done nothing wrong, and the stick-people were the true villains.
“Greetings,” I said aloud, assuming my words would still be broadcast to anyone listening. “I am a sentient citizen of the League of Peoples. It is most nonsensical to gang up on me when there is a genuinely hostile vessel nearby. Seek it out and ask why it fired on us.”
“You had a ship fire on you?” a voice asked. The voice was female and haughty…as if I were some vile creature who could not possibly be believed.
“Yes,” I replied. “It was a ship made of sticks.”
“What a shame—we must have missed the ship