It was shipping season in Gant. From the hemispherical hatch window at the tip top of the Conics, Ellipse watched as clouds of ships gathered above the Ring’s generators. Most fold crossings had predominantly earthling and specifus populations, but Ellipse could spot the turtle shell shapes of several massive barges from Un and constellations of brightly colored ships from Sauron. A hoard of bare metal ships from Nestor mingled in with a group of solar-sail-enhanced Tubai spacecraft, and even a fair number of tyran ships had joined the mix.
The Conics’s interior lights flashed red, and suddenly the fold generators sparked to life. All around the inside of the Ring, lights signalling safe power flow lit up, and then the stars inside the circle disappeared.
On the other side of the fold floated the gargantuan, green-blue surface of the Gant system’s only planet: Semihelos. It was a monstrosity of a planet, larger than Jupiter, which itself was something of a failed star, and with all the splendorous rings of ice, rocks, and debris that Saturn possessed. Within those rings were several lines of cleared space where moons rocketed about their planet, and in the empty ring closest to Semihelos’s atmosphere was the red-blue home moon of the tyran.
This was why it was shipping season. Every earth year or so, the fold monitor would pass into Semihelos’s pull and stall there for about a week, making the trip from the monitor to the moon less than two days long. Everyone wanted to capitalize on the reduced shipping time.
On some unseen signal, every ship in the vicinity burst into motion, and the Conics cruised through the fold, joining the river of ships that flowed towards the tyran moon. From her hatch, Ellipse watched in awe. Even the Triune fold monitor never saw traffic like this.
After a good hour spent watching ships pass the Conics (while she passed others in return), Ellipse turned herself around and pushed off the window to return to the pilot’s cabin. She dove past the third floor, and most of the second, and then popped her head down to the first floor to double check that she had pulled all the methane-producing plants from the wall garden.
When she was certain that she had scanned every inch of the garden for Mao’s deep teal moss and the bright red leaves of tyran climbing flora, she took a deep breath and nodded, satisfied. Then she propelled herself down the second floor hallway and drifted into the cockpit.
“Took you long enough,” Tejal muttered, right as Ellipse closed the door. He floated a few feet overhead, with a light strapped to his forehead and tiny tools suspended around him in a messy circle.
“At least I can appreciate a stunning panoramic view, unlike you.”
Tejal grumbled and snatched a magnifying glass from the air next to his ear. “Hurry up and take over for Focci. We want to finish putting this together before we reach Tertiary Station.”
As she slipped into the copilot’s chair, Ellipse reached up and snatched one of Tejal’s tools. “Magic word?” she asked.
“Ugh.” Tejal rolled his eyes and batted away his magnifying glass. “Please take over piloting for Focci.”
“That’s better.” In one smooth motion, Ellipse adjusted the ship’s trajectory to avoid clipping the back end of an earthling barge, scooted Focci out of the captain’s chair, and shoved him up to Tejal’s height. She got a smack in the head from Focci’s tail in retaliation, but at least she looked cool before that.
The Conics soared under the barge’s belly, and Ellipse resisted the urge to gun the engines. She probably was not a skilled enough pilot—and the Conics was definitely not a small enough ship—to go swerving and dodging through traffic. Plus, if she sped up now, she would have a whole lot of trouble slowing down for tighter maneuvers.
As she angled the ship upwards to curve around the barge’s front and cut in behind an itty bitty pastel pleasure ship, Ellipse leaned forward and took another look at the planet. Even though she had grown up on Titan, with Saturn’s yellow atmosphere overhead, she still found Semihelos strange. It was just so much larger than anything else Ellipse had ever seen up close, and she wondered if, despite the relative thinness of the tyran moon’s atmosphere, its sky was blue whenever Semihelos was in view.
“Hey Focci,” she sang. She nudged the joystick so that the Conics would spiral around the little pastel ship. “I noticed this before, because we sometimes hit debris, but why does the ship not have auto-adjust? Even earthling cars have it, you know, to prevent crashes.”
“Earthling cars do not need universal translators,” Focci replied, voice airy with disinterest.
“Did you disable safety software to make room for Mouthbot?” Ellipse wanted to turn around and give Focci an incredulous stare, but with all the ships around, now was probably a bad time. She swerved over the top of another barge, this one bulky, multicolored, and probably from Sauron. Thankfully the vacuum of space prevented the transmission of sounds. Otherwise the neon blue gato ship she just cut off would have honked at her.
Focci hummed for a moment. “No. I deleted the entire operating system to make room for Mouthbot.”
Ellipse choked. This time she did turn around and pin Focci with an incredulous stare. “You did what?”
“I deleted- you know, you should pay attention to where you are flying.”
Well duh, she had to pay attention to the flight path. Focci had deleted the hecking safety software. Not disabled. Deleted. Grumbling under her breath in Global Gliss, Ellipse turned back to the front window and swung the Conics around the starboard side of a cruise ship.
“Keep on singing, Focci,” she sang. “I promise not to crash the ship.”
From somewhere distinctly higher up than he had been before, Tejal let out a sigh. “Mouthbot,” he called, “what did Ellipse just say?”
“Ellipse. Said. I promise not to crash the ship. In Trade Siren.” Somehow, Mouthbot executed the translation in a perfect, if not stilted, imitation of Ellipse’s own voice.
Scrunching her nose, Ellipse rotated the engines one-hundred-and-eighty degrees and tapped the gas. “Wow that is creepy,” she muttered.
“What’s she saying now, Mouthbot?” Tejal asked again.
“Ellipse. Said. Wow that is creepy. In Global Gliss.”
It would be a stretch to claim that Mouthbot was useless, but a prototype translator was not worth taking out safety software. Ellipse switched back to singing. “Why did you delete the whole operating system?” she asked.
“Captain Maj wanted to bypass some information technology locks from the Spec Corp default system, so I did that.” A few pieces of metal clanked together from wherever Focci was floating, and he hummed a few notes of frustration. “Tejal, can I have the… the tweezers? No, the forceps.”
Without prompting, Mouthbot translated.
“Oh, they’re over by the back, top of the doors,” Tejal answered. He sounded rather close.
“I do not understand why a few IT locks are worth deleting an entire operating system,” Ellipse continued. “I know there are no intergalactic regulations, but surely you have to have some to get into the Triune stations at least.”
Focci did not answer; he gave a flippant little whistle and went back to making small clicking noises as he fiddled with the miniature fold generator.
“Besides, how good of a programmer do you have to be to create an entire operating system?” Ellipse switched to English and leaned into a spin as she forced the Conics through the space between two shiny, stainless steel Nestor ships. “Tejal, you would know. How good of a programmer is-” She felt a hand on her shoulder and nearly leapt out of her seat. When she turned to look, she found Tejal floating beside her, watching as she flew. “Heck, Tejal, what are you-
“Look where you’re flying,” he said, eyebrows raised in concern. “You go really fast.”
Ellipse had put on some backwards thrust only a minute ago. Everyone else just flew slow.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,027 Literary Works • 672,773 Reviews
Okay, I swear to god I'm going to catch up today
Nit-picks and nice moments:
I still think this ship is rather big for the crew, even when it had Wrecktrix and Min and Maj too.
Awww, I'm proud of Mouthbot ^.^
I don't really understand why you keep telling me how close Tejal is.
Overall:
The strength of this chapter is probably in its setting. You do a lot of worldbuilding at the start, and I really enjoy the detail. Some of the details are really random and don't have any bearing on plot, which makes the whole thing more realistic because some things don't exist for any particular reason. However, it was a lot at once and I think it would make more sense if it was spread out. She's piloting for a lot of this chapter, so there would be plenty of opportunity for her to tell us what she sees out the windscreen (or a more sci-fi sounding equivalent xD).
The problem that I have with this chapter is that I'm just not really left feeling like this has contributed to my understanding of the story or the characters. Obviously they needed to get somewhere and with the pace you've been going at so far it makes sense to not just skip ahead. As a result what I think would be best to do would be to have some characterisation here. Maybe catch up on the Elliott Bei stuff.
That being said, if Focci's reprogramming turns out to be important later on, that might work anyway.
Hope this helps,
Biscuits
Okay, I don't have much to say about this chapter. I enjoyed the play between Tejal and Ellipse (as usual, but I felt like it was particularly good here), as well as Ellipse's impressions of the planet and moon, plus her flying.
I'm curious, and maybe I just forgot because it's been so long since the rest of the crew was hauled off to space jail. Why exactly are Ellipse & Friends headed to this planet in particular? Are they carrying out whatever deliveries Conics was trying to make? Is this where Tejal and Focci are going to demonstrate/show off their miniature fold generator? Is this where the red specifus' information has led them? I'm not sure if I don't remember because I haven't read previous chapters in a while or if it's because there's actually not really much of a plan for why they're here right now. Like Tejal and Focci are working on this miniature fold generator, but Ellipse is just kind of...there. Chauffeuring.
So if I just don't remember, please remind me. If it is actually that there's no particular reason for them to be here just now, that's something that should be addressed in future drafts (if not shortly in this draft).
I probably should clear up the whys of all the places they go. I thought it was implied that the kids are just following a shipping schedule that had already been made by the rest of the crew, but you're right that I never made that super clear.
Maybe I'll slip some kind of order negotiation scene in somewhere to make that more concrete.
Thanks!
Okay, first things first:
1. asdfghjkl I forgot to review this sooner sorry sorry sorry, I got distracted by my schoolwork and ended up forgetting about everything else.
2. Did you know you placed this chapter in some folder called "Quantum Mind," rather than the Conics Unfortunately one?
3.
He's backseat driving now, duh.
...
Okay, now that that's taken care of, onto the review!
I think this has to be one of my favorite chapters. The description of Semihelos is so vivid and colorful, and something about the grandness of the setting captivates me. I dunno if it's the variety of colors exhibited by the planet, or the clever use of shepherd moons, or the sheer wave of ships heading to the tyran moon, or a combination of all of the above. Still, accompanied with the music I've been listening to, the end result is fantastic and rewarding. The rest of the chapter lives up to the opening, being fun and relaxed. At the least, all the methane plants have been removed, so they won't have to worry about suffocating. Of course, they'll need to replace those plants when the rest of the crew eventually returns, though I imagine that won't be an arduous task (though that said rest of the crew might not be happy about the money they'll have to spend to replace the plants). Then again, that depends on if the plants were destroyed (which might require heading back to the tyran homeworld to get new ones), or placed into storage, or something else entirely. Aaand now I've been talking too long about plants, so I'm going to move on.
Otherwise, Ellipse's relatively reckless driving skills are amusing to read, and are definitely in a sharp contrast to my own. Fortunately, she seems to have plenty of skill, despite what Tejal suggests. Well, admittedly, she's likely irritating her fellow drivers with her speed and aggression, but at least she hasn't run into anything yet, which has to count for something (though, this is space; it's not hard to not run into anything). I'm also happy to see that Mouthbot is now far more effective than it used to be, even if that means I can't pick on it anymore. Of course, Focci had to delete the operating system to incorporate it, demonstrating skill, creativity, and a complete justification of Ellipse's surprise and dismay. But hey, despite all the trouble that could get them into with the authorities, I'm almost certain that Spec. Corp's locks were major restrictions, and part of me wouldn't be surprised if Spec. Corp could've used them to monitor the crew. That corporation just doesn't seem like a very nice group.
I don't have much else to say. I find the whole, "...despite the relative thinness of the tyran moon’s atmosphere, its sky was blue whenever Semihelos was in view" line confusing, but I can't exactly state why. Perhaps my reasoning is that, no matter how thin or thick the moon's atmosphere is, a planet of that size and closeness should always appear blue when in view, if those are its natural colors. It might be more apt for Ellipse to ponder how much of the sky could be colored blue during its appearances. Regardless, this is fantastic chapter; it was wonderful to read from start to finish, and I look forward to the next one!
Okay, so our sky is blue during the day because of how the atmosphere refracts light. If you have a thinner atmosphere (or one with a different enough composition), the light refraction will be different, and thus the sky might not be blue. Except, in the case of the tyran moon, they have a giant blue planet nearby that sometimes overrides the atmospheric light refraction.
Does that make sense? I definitely skipped over the optical physics, because I didn't have a reason to explain it all in-story, but if that's a thing I need to slip in, let me know.
Thanks again!
My knowledge on optics is rather old, and that makes sense to me, so I'll defer to your explanation. Thanks!
I just figured you meant that the plant is SO BIG and SO CLOSE that the sky would look blue anyway because the planet is blue and is what you see when you look up anyway.
But science works, too.