Beyond Light

Science, Engineering, and Chocolate.

The main laboratory’s crystal door spread, and John, Mike, and Admiral Frost crossed inside. 

It was a room of the size of at least four dorms conjoined with each other. A long, metallic table extended through the center, with its surface crammed by scientific tools and devices. The walls weren’t any clearer; they were all filled with lockers, terminals, strange substances, engineering tools, as well as lots of paper notes stuck all over. 

Two men that John didn’t know conversed in front of the entrance. He recognized one of them from Admiral Frost’s transmission. 

“As I was telling you, time was again not at our disposal, but we had already most of the work done. It was just a matter of adapting it to this ship. How’s my EPAL going now?”

Both men looked at the door when the three incoming figures entered. “Doctor Weiber, Engineering Chief Wallace,” said Admiral Frost.

“Ah, what a time to see you here, Admiral,” the white-haired man said. He and William gripped hands. “To what do I owe your visit?” 

“Doctor, this is Commander John Star, the commanding officer and captain of this ship. He will lead this operation.”

“Ah yes,” the scientist said. He stretched his hand to John. “I heard your brother was aboard the Eternity of Return. Sorry about that, son. Project Ad-Infinitum was a mess from start to finish,” he squeezed his lips and negated with the head.

“...I can guess so,” John gripped his hand. “It’s going to be a pleasure to work with you. I’ve heard you were the project lead of Ad-Infinitum.”

“Nothing that particularly makes me proud,” the old man cynically said. “This here is Engineering Chief Arthur Wallace. He worked closely in the development of EPAL.”

He presented the other man, who dressed in a tan overall with some tools on his belt, and various PDAs and holoprojectors on his forearms. His hair was light brown and exceptionally curly, and his eyes were covered by a pair of round glasses. John would have mistaken him for some retrodisco singer if he didn’t wear the Engineering Chief insignia on his chest.

“Commander John Star,” Chief Wallace extended his hand. His voice was fast and smooth. “it’s going to be nice to work under you, as long as you follow my tips and don’t try to overdrive my engine.”

“Eh… You can count on that,” responded John.

“No, I’m being serious. One of the main problems with Project Ad-Infinitum was that the EPAL installed on the Eternity of Return was not designed to handle the stress of such a long journey in such a short period of time. Didn’t anyone tell you that they almost collapsed on the other side?”

John contracted his eyebrows, looking down and then at Admiral Frost. “No. I was never told so. What’s it about?” he looked again at the Admiral with an accusing stare.

William took a deep breath. “It’s written in the project’s expedient. I am sure Doctor Weiber can explain it in better clarity than I can.”

“Hmm,” Mike grabbed his chin. “so, they skipped that detail to you, John. Hey, don’t look at me like that, I was just vaguely told about it.”

“Of course,” complained Doctor Weiber. “they kept it hidden from you so you would accept the mission right away. I see O’Donnell doesn’t drop his political game a little bit. I’ll resume it to you. As Wallace said, the engine could not handle such stress. They reached Hawking-616a with a hyper-heated engine full of decay wasted that needed to be vented ASAP or it would have collapsed."

"What happened next?" asked John. 

"They could not turn on all decay conducts and coolers because various generators of the engine died, and as result, they had to deviate the energy to put them to work from other systems. They took most of it from the energy shields. That got them unprotected. Of course, they weren’t expecting to find anyone there, but you already know what happened. Those ships penetrated the hull and killed more than one thousand of the crew.”

“And they could not flee away or the engine would have heated even more and kill them all,” said Chief Wallace. He swirled his eyes and looked down. “It was all a snowball of error after error.” 

John felt frustrated, although it was also his fault for not trying to give the expedient a more detailed glimpse. One thousand souls were one-third of the dreadnought’s crew. They died with a simple sweep! That made him more concerned. 

Overheated and damaged, what were the chances that the Eternity of Return was still going on? They managed to take most of those unidentified vessels down, but no one could guarantee that they wouldn’t bring reinforcements to finish the colossal human ship.

“I told you,” said Mike. “Something was going to go wrong with that operation. You owe me a month worth of my salary.”

“Screw you, Mike. This is serious,” John replied. “What about our leap? How big is our risk of going through the same?”

“Luckily, it’s much, much easier to make leap a reduced vessel like the Beyond Light, compared to the colossal that the Eternity of Return is. Or was. We don’t know that,” responded Wallace.

“Believe it or not,” Doctor Weiber continued. “we were able to make lots of improvements in the last six months. Cosmic Lynx, as we call our EPAL, was specifically designed for this operation. If we strictly follow the scheduled protocol, we’ll safely arrive at the Vita Nova system with only moderate heat and non-threatening decay waste levels.”

“...that’s good to hear,” John felt relief on his chest, but he knew that they could not lower their backs. “I’m going to trust you. Please don’t let us down.”

“Ask that to the random variables, not us, Commander,” said Engineering Chief Wallace. “we’ve made all the precise calculations. We know what we’re doing,” both men looked at each other and nodded to John.

“Very well,” John nodded back. “let’s cross our fingers. Should we continue, Admiral?” 

“Let’s keep going,” responded William. “Doctor Weiber, Chief Wallace, I wish you the best of lucks,” they traded hand grips.

“I conform myself with everything not going one quarter as bad as it was with Ad-Infinitum, admiral. Good luck to you too,” said Doctor Weiber. 

The two men turned around to keep on their work. Being done with the laboratory, John, Mike, and the admiral returned to the entrance, but as the door spread, a small figure of some 152cm, black hair with bangs, and slanted eyes impeded their ways. 

“Hey, look at who we’ve got here,” said Mike. “Oh, and she is bringing nothing more and nothing less than…” 

He extended his hand to the pocket on her lab coat, but her hands were faster; she grabbed his jacket and rolled it down. Three chocolate bars fell to the ground. 

“Aha!” she picked them all. “you were planning to keep them all to you, right, you traitor?”

“W-what? No! I swear these are all of the Commander. Right, John?” 

John looked at him and rolled his eyes up with a tired smile. “Mike, I missed that from you. Sometimes, you don’t behave like someone of your age.”

“He’s immature, right? That’s what I’ve said ever since I met him!” the girl's eyes turned to John. She looked to be too young to be there. How old was she? She could have not been more than 20 years old. 

“Heh, says the one who chased me all over the cargo bay and the deposit for a glowing lollipop,” mocked Mike. She blushed and stared at him with annoyed eyes. 

“Eh… May I have the honor?” asked John, looking awkwardly at both, not knowing who to support. 

“Yeah,” said Mike. “this thing before our eyes is what we like to call Yuki—”

“It’s Yui, dumbo!” she pouted and playfully slapped her hand against Mike’s chest. “I’m Nanoka Yui. Laboratory Assistant of Doctor Weiber. Nice to meet you, John,” she smiled and stretched her hand to him. “you are handsome.”

“...Thanks,” John traded looks with Mike and William before gripping her hand. Compared to the greasy, raspy, and gigantic hands of Derek Williams, hers were small, although he could not say they were soft. They felt like the hands of someone who manipulated cleaning products all day. “Nice to meet you, too, Yui. How did you get selected for Project: BLACKCAT? you look too—”

“Young?” she interrupted him. “everyone says that, but I’m as much as an adult as you three gentlemen.”

“Oh, c’mon,” chuckled Mike. “You just turned 18 last month. You’re still a kid,” he put his hand on her head and rubbed her hair like a toddler. She pushed it back. 

“Commander,” spoke Admiral Frost. “the Lab Assistant is a young genius. She has a Ph.D. in astrophysics and got selected by the INIS to work with you for her contributions with Project: Ad-Infinitum.”

“Wow, that’s admirable, Yui,” said John. “I hope that with your help our ship doesn’t explode on the other side.”

“Don’t even remind me,” the girl swirled her eyes. “we all knew things were prone to fail, but the President never cared! you know how awful is that?”

What a particular personality, John thought. He understood what Mike meant when he mentioned her for the first time. They continued. Yui only returned one chocolate bar to Mike, saying that he owed her one and that she only would give him his back if he gifted the other one to John. She tried to give half of hers to Admiral Frost, but he declined. 

Their next stop was the bridge. It was time for John to meet its members, and to execute the Beyond Light’s first leap and discover what happened to the Eternity of Return. The Presidents were getting impatient.