43. Photogenes

He could not feel the hot water pouring down on him anymore. John was sitting under the shower for half an hour, running yesterday again and again. Rewinding it like a tape, rewatching, the charred and shot body of that person perished long before they arrived. Hannen’s look and words, totally convinced the dead was threatening him. A well trained, however green marine commando under pressure.

Alarm ringed John back into the now. He used to put more than one for the morning, not the first time lagging in thoughts. The proceedings will start in an hour and he needs to drop by his team before that. Nothing gonna stop him from paying his respect though.

As he entered their working room, Hanah closed the door behind him, practically pushing him away and into the room. Ben and Mark standing on the other side, their look fixated on him. Months passed while Ben was always looking at his monitor.

• “What happened? You all seem so serious.” — John walked up to them, forming a small intimate circle. Nobody seemed to talk at first, time passing in silence, John releasing a nervous smile — “Hm, anything? Team? Found any reason for the deceleration of the Giant?”
• “I think, we did.” — Hanah’s soft voice with the slow articulation earned all the other’s look on her, while she seemed more interested in the others’ shoes. As John looked around, could not meet Ben or Mark’s eyes either, one looking to far away lands, another interested in the ceiling metal cracks. — “But it is… insane.”
• “Come on, what are you talking about?”
• “It… the Giant was still accelerating with the ion drives to produce gravity. The sensors aimed to scan for debris failed.” — Mark started to build up into a lecture, even talking with his hands, gesturing as he paced on — “Large meteors entered their space. And punctured Ring 1, crossed the particle accelerator and annihilated with tremendous force.”
• “So far following and checks out.”
• “What does not check out is what happened after the Ring blow out. The ship immediately decelerated to zero speed. I did not believe the first black box, thought it was damaged.” — Ben continued instead, biting down the end of each word just to reach the end of his sentences faster.
• “Hm, I see, it should have flown forward due to its impulse built up while accelerating. But are you sure?”
• “Checked the structural scans taken by the Perseus Train’s drones, the workers over the months. The structure, though survived, its weakening and damage is consistent with a lateral sudden deceleration.” — Ben nodded along his own words, getting the uninitiated dizzy just looking at him.
• “Any idea what caused the deceleration? I don’t recall any cases before. Was the detonation strong enough to stop the ship?”
• “No, the detonation barely affected the speed. It throw the Giant a bit off course, mostly it just launched the shrapnels found everywhere. However… there is a theory…”
• “Come on, spit it out.” — John nearing the end of his ropes.
• “We think the Ring detonation interacted with a dark matter field, causing a localized pushback.” — Hanah took back the mic — “Like if you ran your vehicle into a wall, but with each part of it into its own smaller walls.”
• “Wait, what, how…” — John muttered — “Dark matter was never proved, even after we colonized a thousand world, only theorized.”
• “Hundreds of years of faster than light travel, and no sign of it.” — Mark whispered.
• “I think we have our first proof.” — it was Hanah’s turn to nod, just to reinforce herself in her own thoughts.
• “Wait, you mean, an Alcubierre Ring uncontrolled blow out during faster than light speed is what we need to even detect dark matter?”
• “We may have other variables, but honestly, no-one did practical experiments on this. Simply too expensive to just blow up those rings. Though I found some papers on this.”
• “Link them to me please, want to read them.”
• “Would not be… wise. All are on the dark net only.”
• “Ben, you say… Get them to a separate machine, safely, untraceably. If you are all right, we going to get teared up by every academics in known space. Then maybe all lawyers and politicians will pile in too, we can’t spew nonsense with so many casualties down there.”
• “Understood, John. Where are you going?”
• “Marines sacrificed themselves for us to continue our investigation.”

With that, John left behind the silent team frozen in their place, realizing they must have been out of loop how he got the data for the second black box.

He made it to the forward decks just with a few minutes to spare. Only asking for directions four times, he could have navigated the Giant without a hitch and only now he realized he knew nothing about the carrier serving as his home for the past few months.

As he pulled up to the final stretch, a crowd of people pushing toward the same entry blocked his way. All facing the door, quick chit chatter in perfect pronounciation, all wearing augmented glasses. John could recognize them from a mile away. Journalists.

Before he could turn around in search of a backdoor, one of the journalist turned to him asking for comment on the case. They recognized each other, not by name, face only, one of the more pushy streamer specializing in catastrophe content was a regular visitor at his accident scenes.

• “You know I can’t comment an in-progress investigation.”

The follow up question was drowned out as the hungry hyenas all rushed around the single prey barking their own questions or comments at the face most of them did not even care to recognize.

• “How does the colonies feel when federalists just invade their territory?” — one shouted into his right ear.

John had no way back as more so called modern journalists, couch-scientists and streamers piled on him. For most it is just an entertainment, figure out real crime or engineering problems without a foundation, for others it is just another platform for spewing their politics.

• “Attention, disperse immediately.” — Michael’s amplified voice filled their corridor to John’s pleasure.

A show of force, a line of fully armed commando and their leader slowly marching out of the sieged door made even the sturdiest nuisance streamer to run without looking back.

Finally John stood among the serving man and woman, waiting for their captain’s eulogy speech. Various departments visibly wearing their dress uniforms. A whirlwind of colors, modern draped, dark matte officer dresses mixed with camouflage patterned uniforms. Concentric circles originating from a central altar, first line are Michael and his team kneeling.

• “Today we return our fellow comrades’ bodies where we all came from.” — Victoria walked in from the far side — “We are thankful and rejoice in their sacrifice just as much we miss our friends and family. They honored us with their lives, and in their death. We honor you now as you take your last journey. Salute!”

The simultaneous steps causing a deep hum through the ship.

• “Launch.” — a large screen showing as small dark pods leaving the Irondome, the pale sun of this system hanging in the background.

Victoria lists the names out loud as each pod crosses the camera midline but John loses focus, trying to take in the view, the saluting crowd, the trembling of the flight commander, the dark stones Michael and team resembles.

• “And fire!” — the pods accompanied by fireworks, bright white light burning ahead of the dotted line, leading them into the darkness past the star onto a decaying orbit.

Read the story leading up to now:

Giant of the Stars

Fictional story of a luxury starliner’s catastrophy