Five Days Later...

Hylli system, RSC-2W-0063 “Dara Tonn” at Steinhull's L4 Lagrange point

Sinn'Are'Sen breathes out slowly, opens his eyes and cracks his neck.

“Dara Tonn?”

“Still here. Not like I can go anywhere without you.”

“Obviously. Ready for another Exploration Log entry?”

“You know I hate the formal speech we still have to use while recording these but... Ready.”

“Entry begins : Arrival at Hylli system's L4 Lagrange point. Warpjump completed without incident. No military ships present in system. Five Republic civilian cargo carriers resent in system. Evaluation of courses for said ships indicate routine through-system traffic. World of Steinhull present in expected orbit. Estimated time until entering Steinhull parking orbit is twelve days. Given lack of orbital facilities, and that RSC-2W-0063 lacks an assigned personnel transport shuttle, I expect to have to land RSC-2W-0063 on the surface of Steinhull near to the so-called Steinhull ruins. Proceeding with automated scan of Steinhull planetary features in the relevant regions with respect to this expectation. Considerations include ease of landing and distance to Steinhull ruins entrance. Will update Exploration log with relevant data as it becomes available. End entry.”

“Log recorded. Do you want to review it?”

“No point, you'd tell me if I made too large of an error.”

“True enough. Engaging autopilot subsystem. Destination: Steinhull parking orbit over the Ovaettr ruins. ETA twelve days.”

Sinn starts in his seat as the blinking winged eye icon reappears at the corner of his vision.

“Sinn?”

“Get that medical observation suite spun up. The icon is back.”

“Confirmed. Head on back to your bed and lay down.”

Sinn unbuckles from the pilot chair, stands, and walks calmly for the hatch.

“Little tricky walking like this. I need to specifically not look at one corner of my vision and not blink. Which, of course, makes me keep glancing in that direction.”

“I do not understand.”

“Tell a human to 'not think about a purple dog' and the first thing they will think about is a purple dog. I don't know why that's the case, but it is.”

“A mystery of the organic brain. Door to your quarters is open.”

“Thanks. Let me know when I can 'click' on this icon.”

“Gathering baseline data now. Do you want to know what is happening as it happens?”

“No, too likely I'll miss something. Let me go through the whole process and then we can go over the results.”

“OK, I've got a baseline for the new activity of your cerebral implant. Trigger the icon when you are ready.”

“Triggering now.”

Sinn stared directly at the icon and blinked.

Successful transit of the Astral Veil Completed. Logged Local name: Warpspace.

No corruption detected.

Degree of insanity: 1%. Insanity degree is within standard human bounds and below average Psion level.

Unlocking: Imperial Lore - The Astral Veil (Basic). Imparting knowledge...

Sinn breaths in a meditative pattern and falls into his personal quiet place as scroll after scroll appears and burns its way into his vision and mind. One of his bookshelves fills with a honeycomb rack into which scroll after scroll appears. The process comes to an end and Sinn 'steps' closer to the shelf. Trailing a finger along the end caps of the scrolls he can feel the weight of knowledge each contains. Sinn decided to conduct an experiment and pulls the first scroll to appear from the shelf. It promptly hovers in place, then gently rotates until it appears to be atop a lectern and unfurls. The words on the vellum seem to crawl for a moment before resolving into the looping other language. Sinn starts to read and realizes that he already knows the contents of the scroll. It is a catalog of the other scrolls and a brief summary of what each contains. Theories on a space – the astral veil or warpspace - only reachable by the efforts of psions and only traversal through the efforts of specialist psions. Effects of that space upon unprotected flesh, human and otherwise. Legends and myths of beings that live in that space, akin to great predators living in an ocean. Sinn re-rolls the scroll and places it back on the shelf.

With a breath Sinn exits his quiet place and stares at the overhead bulkhead of his personal quarters.

“That was different from previous times.”

“How so?”

“The previous times this happened I received only a small bit of knowledge, essentially a capstone or keystone to complete a psionic incantation: Luck Bender, Healer, and Psyniscience. This time I apparently unlocked 'Imperial Lore - The Astral Veil (Basic)' and a large amount of information.”

“But not a Psionic incantation?”

“Correct. What did it look like from the outside?”

“Like a data crystal loading a large volume of data in a very short time span. Before you activated the device by blinking at the icon it was clearly in a heightened standby state. It was difficult, but not impossible, to isolate activity along the strands buried in your brain. They were acting like regular neurons, but all the information was flowing back to the central device.”

“So it was taking in information prior to making a decision?”

“I doubt it an implant of that size could house a full powered Artificial intelligence. It certainly has plenty of data storage media, but not enough to house myself. Much less any of the more modern and complex Republic AIs. More likely it was collecting data and comparing it to an established threshold. Once that threshold had been crossed, it triggered the next step in the program.”

“That makes sense. What did you see when I 'clicked' on the icon?”

“Your implant stopped taking in data and started outputting data. How it managed or was programmed to be compatible with your brain is far outside of any data available to me. Can you relate what information it gave you on this 'Astral Veil'?”

“The Astral Veil is apparently the Imperial name for what we call warpspace. They have very different theories on how it operates though.”

“ETA to Steinhull parking orbit is just under twelve days and we have nothing better the do ten keep watch and mind the autopilot subroutine. Let's start comparing notes.”

“Alright. How do you get us into and out of warpspace Dara Tonn?”

“The calculations are... Illogical, both in that thy combine irrational numbers and that they conform only to warpspace theory. Attempting to derive, prove, or disprove them quickly eats processing cycles until I have to abort or suffer a fatal error. But the formulas and outputs work every time. I effectively accelerate via the warp drive at an irrational velocity along an irrational vector which puts us into warpspace. Once there we 'coast' at a velocity that neither increases nor decreases despite the particle density and gravitational forces. Maneuvering thrusters work, after a fashion, which is how we can dodge if we need to. Sensors are,as previously stated, near useless, so I am forced back onto the old calculations of dead reckoning. A given amount of time at a given velocity along a given vector from a known starting point. Add that up until you calculate that you have reached your destination or your margin of error becomes to great and then re-engage the warp drive on the exact opposite vector and velocity that you entered warpspace with and you get dumped back out into real space with the vector and velocity you had prior to entering warpspace.”

“And the warp drive is...? I notice you didn't cover that in the ship tour.”

“You would not have been able to see it in the tour, but you could from the exterior of the ship. Of the three exhaust nozzles on my stern, only the outer two are for the ion drives. The central one is for the warp drive. Aside from a power tap to the reactor and a data shut it is totally isolated in it's own reinforced compartment mounted on the exterior armored pressure hull. In an emergency involving a system malfunction with it, the standing instructions are to revert to real space if necessary and then eject the entire warp drive. How does, or did, this other culture access warpspace?”

“According to the Imperial Lore I now have access to, it is an entirely psionic plane of existence, requiring a psion to access and a specialized psion to navigate at all. Other texts - I have fifty six separate 'scrolls' on the subject, including an index of the other scrolls – describe navigating the Astral Veil like sailing a ship or submarine in a planetary ocean of unimaginable scale, complete with flotsam, jetsam, reefs, and predators. Is it possible that Republic ships merely skim across the surface of warpspace and Imperial ships traversed a deeper layer of the same dimension?”

“It seems possible given the limited data available to me. It also explains in part why RPC psions can effect the speed of a warpjump.”

“And why the effect of doing so is so variable. It would be like tapping into a current or setting a sail for an 'astral wind' and using it to propel the ship along. You could get a fact wind headed in just the right direction, or you could find yourself having to fight the current the whole way there.”

“You mentioned 'predators' Sinn? My data indicates that warpspace should be utterly devoid of life. Nothing could survive given the lack of a planet or similar, the particle density, radiation, gravitational flux...”

Sin rubs his pals into his eyes.

“If we, the Republic that is, are simply skimming the surface of warpspace then we are utterly blind to what is deeper in. Recall those particles that were passing right through everything? The ones that started clumping up after passing through me?”

“The ones that showed up to your psionic senses but not on my physical ones?”

“Yeas, those particles. What if they were an early, super simple form of life? Protozoa or the equivalent. Upon passing through and interaction with a more complex form of life...”

“You.”

“Yeah, or any other psion for that matter. They were clumping up, taking on a more complex form, as they exited my range.”

“And how large is the detection range of...?”

“Psyniscience. About four meters in radius usually. I can push it for more distance at the cost of a bad headache in short order.”

“So you were not able to see what happened to a given clump of particles?”

“No.”

“So all we have is speculation and an unknown source of information indicating danger.”

“Correct.”

“I'd like to compare notes further, but it sounds as if you are hitting the limit of what you know on the subject.”

“The (Basic) notation does indicate that there is more information available in my implant, but I can't access it yet.”

“Then the next time you 'unlock' more information we can go over our understanding of the subject again.”

“Agreed. Thanks Dara Tonn.”

“Thank you Sinn.”