SWWAE Chapter 8: Eternity is Beautiful, isn't She?

After ending the last chronicle, she took a solid few minutes just to let herself cry. It was only the sound of crying and didn’t give her the same release as physically being able to cry would have. That was still better than nothing. Finally, she lifted her gaze from her curled-up metallic knees and looked at the two items floating before her. Last Resort patiently waited to be picked up again, while her heart’s glow dimmed with her depressing mood.

“This is it…” She looked back behind her at the sphere still attached to the table. The table was fixed now, so it rested at an appropriate height. It felt as if it was waiting for her, but she still hesitated to answer the call. This was going to happen, she was sure of that, but her body refused to move to make it happen. Her vision turned away from the sphere and landed on Heather in the other chair.

“Would you be disappointed in me? If I end it all, your death was for nothing…” Shame built up inside of her and once again her vision moved away. Now she looked past her heart and gun to the great eternity that lay before her. Her body did move now, but only to bring her up to the edge of the cockpit, to surround her entire vision with the starry black. “I see why you wanted to die next to the glass. Eternity is beautiful, isn’t she?”

Reaching out, she gently touched the glass. In her past life, she had been spiritual. In no way was she devoutly religious, but she had spiritual practices. She honored gods and spirits, worked with gods, dipped her toe into divination, and even had experiences she couldn’t explain with science. Since arriving in this universe, she had pushed all of that to the side. What place was there for magic in a science fiction setting?

“Well, some sci-fi stuff has magic. Maybe it’s worth a shot.” Turning off her eyes, she made the sound of taking a long deep breath before slowly releasing it. It was a paltry attempt to center herself, but it helped as she let herself feel open to the surrounding eternity. How did one describe the feeling of opening up her soul to whatever may be out there? Freeing? Empty? There were so many words that applied.

“To the eternities before me, will someone answer the call of a lost soul? I’m at the end of my rope, and my grip is slipping. I want to hold on, but I’ve lost my strength. I need help.”

For a solid minute she waited in silence with no answer. She felt nothing. With another sigh, she pushed away from the glass and turned her sight back on. Though no one had answered her call, she still felt a determination to finally commandeer the sphere. Turning, she pushed her way over to it. “It was a long shot anyw—”

Alarms suddenly flared to life. Her mind filled with messages of system powers being overloaded and pushed almost to the point of bursting. In a strange way, it was the closest thing she had ever felt to being high. Every single sensor on this ship started going off like a Geiger counter at Chernobyl. She was reading signs of matter that should only be theoretical.

“Are those tachyons[1]? What the hell is go—” she turned back to the front of the ship as proximity sensors warned of something large suddenly appearing,” —ing… on…” If there was ever an example of a heart-stopping moment, this was it.

Outside the ship, a person had appeared, but they were like no other person she had ever seen. They were a celestial if she had ever seen one. A giant beyond giant proportions made of golden amber light and stars. A nebula come to life as a feminine humanoid with large feathered wings on their back, four arms, each with only four fingers, and digitigrade legs covered in feathers. They wore a faceless mask with one ridge running down the center of the face.

She stared on in shock, but found her body pushing itself forward and closer to the glass. In response, the being lifted a hand and reached for her. Her being the ship. It should have been a terrifying experience, and it was, but she felt no malice coming from the celestial, if that was what they could be called. Their movements were slow, as a giant’s should be, and it made them appear so much grander.

Stargazer fit entirely in the celestial’s palm as the being brought her up for a closer look. Physics apparently didn’t want to act normal as they lifted her up, as she didn’t float down in the cockpit, nor did the ship continue to move upwards as they finally brought her up close to her face. The mask that once covered the being’s face disappeared in a cloud of shining dust, revealing their face. It was human-like but off enough that it triggered her uncanny valley feeling. Even so, they were beautiful.

A feeling not dissimilar to the instinct that told her how to commandeer came over her. One that forced a word out of her nonexistent mouth. A word of a language she had never heard but understood perfectly. “Eternity.” With the name came understanding of what was before her; Eternity, goddess of the endless and the lost.

Eternity smiled, revealing teeth far more pointed than what humans would have. The feathers that blended in along her hairline lifted with her smile. The goddess watched the regent with nearly as much wonder as she was being given. Though there was more amusement on her face than the regent felt. With care, she used a free hand to gently stroke the length of Stargazer. “I’ve been looking for you, little one.” Her voice echoed through the ship, even though her mouth didn’t move. “Now I’ve finally found you.”

The outside of the ship, of course, had sensors that could detect contact. Not everywhere, but in enough places that she felt the gentle caress. This was the first physical contact she had since arriving in this universe, and she reveled in it. She wasn’t alone anymore. She had been found. It was both the greatest feeling she had ever experienced and also the most terrifying at the same time. How much could she mean for a goddess to search specifically for her?

Before she got a response, Eternity pulled her gaze from the regent and started looking around the stars as if searching for something. It took her a little while, but it was time she spent continuing to gently caress the ship in her hand. Finally, she appeared to find what she was looking for before turning back to the regent with a smile.

Sensors were already going haywire, but there was a notable spike in nearly everything she could read. Worry built inside of her, and only got worse as Eternity closed her hand protectively around the ship. An orange aurora like fire suddenly lit the entire sky, and that worry suddenly turned to fear. She had felt cold when she commandeered, but for the first time she felt heat. Her hull was rapidly warming, though not to dangerous levels since she was presumably built for reentry. It was still a scary experience when she still wasn’t sure what was going on.

It lasted two whole minutes before the fire faded and Eternity unclenched her hand. If she had still been human, she probably wouldn’t have noticed as immediately, but the stars were not in the right places anymore. Right was of course subjective, and it became very clear that she was no longer where she had been. Where had Eternity brought her? These new instincts told her who this goddess was, but it didn’t give her any insight into what sort of actions Eternity was known to take. She could be anywhere.

“It’s been a very long time since I’ve been part of this waking existence.” Almost reluctantly, Eternity gave the ship one last stroke before pulling away entirely. “Be careful among these fledgling peoples. They think they’re advanced, but no achievement of theirs comes close to you.”

Was she about to leave? “Wait!” Though she might have understood the language the goddess was speaking, it was hard for her mind to conjure up the words to speak it herself. “Don’t leave me alone, please.”

Eternity chuckled. “Oh, I will not be leaving you alone any time soon, little regent. Don’t you worry about that. But for now,” she looked up and past the ship, “I am not for him to see.”

“Who?” Looking up, she felt the ship tilt, not under her doing. It moved just enough so that she could get a clear look at where Eternity was looking at. There was nothing there. Maybe it was something in the stars? Just before she turned back to her goddess, a purple fireball suddenly spawned from nothing a few hundred meters from her. In the blink of an eye, a starship burst through the fire at terrifying speed only to suddenly stop. The fireball disappeared behind the new ship, but purple flame lingered along parts of its hull.

The ship was enormous, at least in her eyes, with a very kitbashed[2] look to its hull. Judging by the size and the large cargo bay doors on the side, she would guess this was a hauling ship of some kind. Whatever it was hauling, it must be massive because the Stargazer could easily fit through those doors and be stored a few times over. She couldn’t help but wonder what was inside.

Before she got too caught up in the new ship, she turned back to Eternity to find she was gone. If she had been paying attention to her sensors, she might have noticed them all die down, but a new ship was attention-drawing. She suddenly felt lonely, even with a new ship on the horizon. Eternity had said she wasn’t going to truly leave her, and though she believed that, it was still a little upsetting. There were more pressing matters at hand, though.

Turning back to the new ship, she found the cargo bay doors opening. Four little devices suddenly flew out of the open door and started heading right for her.

“I have a bad feeling about this[3].” Her engines flared to life as the RCS quickly rolled her right before those devices contacted her wings. A new and scary instinct came to life as the weapon systems of the ship turned on. Panels on her hull opened to let turrets raise out. Only two of the six were on gimbals large enough for them to target the objects without her having to maneuver the ship.

“Hey, buddy,” she said through the open hail frequency, “I did not appreciate that. Mind telling those things to back off before they get blasted out of the sky?” Was being aggressive the right move? She was rarely an aggressive person, but genuinely fearing for her life apparently brought it out of her.

“Giff, there’s someone on that thing?” a masculine voice replied. Was this the ‘he’ Eternity had talked about? The devices started rerouting themselves back to the new ship, and she sighed in relief. “Sorry, I’m not reading an active catalyst. I didn’t think that old thing had major power reserves.”

Old thing? She felt a little insulted. Also catalyst? Was that what they called the reactor? Maybe that was the missing component. Also, she couldn’t blame him for thinking there was no power. The way she powered things gave off no readable signals, at least none that she could detect. “My catalyst is down.” How much did she want to give away? “I have reserves, but…” Eternity wouldn’t have brought her here without putting a little thought into this guy, right? “…nearly all major systems are down beyond my repair. I, uh, could use a little help.”

“Can you get yourself into the bay?”

“Ye—” Could she? Yes, she was sure Stargazer was capable of it, but were her piloting skills good enough? In Elite, she always used docking assist. Sure, she learned to do it without in the tutorial, but… This was real life, not a game where the stakes didn’t actually matter. “Yes?”

A sigh could be heard over the com. “Don’t shoot down the guidance limpets[4]. Not that your weapons are actually up.” The last sentence came out as a whisper that was most likely not actually meant to be heard.

What did he mean her weapons weren’t actually up? They were up, previously tested, and ready to fire. Choosing to ignore that, she watched as the limpets left the bay again and targeted her. She retracted the turrets, but kept an active mental lock on all their positions. She could hear the thud of the limpets magnetically connecting to her hull through the ship. It didn’t hurt, but it was an uncomfortable feeling to have something stuck to her. Did she have defenses against things attaching to her? Well, if they were touching her, commandeering was an option. Finally, her ship started moving to the bay under the limpet thrusters.

“Shit,” she said, not through the com. She turned to her heart, which was still floating in the cockpit. With nothing more than a simple desire, her heart shot down to the floor before melding through it. It was still a mystery to her how it had propulsion, but she was thankful for it. Would that work in gravity, or would it just roll on the floor? That was something she could test out later. For now, she grabbed onto Last Resort and quickly pushed her way to the bedroom.

Once there, it took little rummaging around to find the holster for the gun. She felt much better about meeting this new person with a weapon on hand. While strapping it on, she looked at the sword but decided against it. Hopefully, one weapon would be enough. Pushing her way to the ceiling, she got a better look at the open bay. Now that she was closer, she could see a faint purple sheen over the entire opening with a darker concentration around the edges of the opening.

“Is that a shield? Maybe just something to keep the atmosphere? I don’t have those… yet.” Looking deeper into the bay, she noticed many ship parts scattered about. As she got even closer, she could see that there was a mesh lift above the open bay that appeared to have a small entire ship. Getting even closer, she could see another one above that on its own lift. “So, like a car carrier trailer. Either you’re a tow truck or a junker.”

Pushing back out into the hall, she looked through the cockpit door and watched as the front started passing through the purple barrier. Saying she could feel it was not entirely correct, but her sensors picked it up as it moved along the hull. She watched go overhead before suddenly falling and slamming into the floor.

“I forgot about gravity…” Thankfully there was no damage, and she picked herself up quickly. Feeling gravity again was a really strange sensation. Hopefully, she would get used to it again soon enough.

Now that she was entirely through the barrier, she deployed her landing gear for the very first time, which was a fun new feeling. She could even feel the weight of the ship through sensors in the landing gear to tell her the gravimetry reading. It was a nice 9.8 m/s². “Perfect.”

[1] Some would consider this a Star Trek reference but tachyons are real theoretical particles.

[2] This is the practice of making models out of parts from many different model kits.

[3] A line said in every Star Wars movie.

[4] This is a kind of snail that clings to objects. Elite Dangerous calls the drones in game limpets.

[I've been eagerly waiting for you guys to read this chapter. I feel like the story is finally starting now that I've gotten the beginning exposition out of the way and it only took 8 chapters... I have to learn to write faster stories. I'm curious as to what you think about Eternity and how the title of the story now has more meaning.]