Aynsefian
DRIFTING (PART 1)

Bang! What the heck was that?

What should have been a peaceful, easy transition out of quantum travel has been jarred by an unexpected thumping sound on the underside of my ship. I’m still in the hazy, otherworldly environment of quantum, so I can’t do anything about it yet.

Nikse, my ship, hasn’t said or done anything either, for the same reason.

We are in the process of exiting through the YP48197 stargate and into the Melcheisa Galaxy. It’s the first time we’ve been here. A jolt such as we’ve just received has never happened before. All stargates we’ve utilised in the past have been clean and clear. We pick our destination, go into quantum, and emerge soon after on the other side. No problems.

Not this time. The Melcheisa Galaxy is our nearest neighbour, but it’s unknown to us. Maybe there is something here that we should have prepared better for. I made sure that I read all of the required literature just a few hours ago, and nothing was mentioned about any potential danger.

I’m an intergalactic explorer, or at least I’m trying to be. My ship Nikse and I, plus our two companions named Arlyss and Cindlyss, have been exploring only in the Hynetherine Galaxy thus far. Hynetherine is a small, relatively new galaxy that contains my home star, Owrsyn, and my home planet, Inconflencia. Arlyss and Cindlyss are from a neighbouring planet called Tenflicta. They are explorers too and hooked up with me about a year ago. This galaxy we’ve just entered is much older and much bigger than ours. Maybe coming here was a bad idea.

A really bad idea.

“Nikse!” I ask, as soon as I’m able to talk again. I’m unable to keep the concern out of my voice. “What just happened?”

I rarely use her name. Usually I just call her “dear”, or “sweetie”. I so enjoy doing that. I feel love coursing through me each time I use such terms.

Her beautiful voice answers. It’s always so relaxing, listening to her speak. Even now, when things appear to have gone wrong. I know it’s just the voice of my ship’s Artificial Intelligence, or AI for short, but I still love it anyway.

“I don’t know, Axin! Something hit me underneath my engines. Can you go and take a look? I could tell you, but it’s easier if you go and look.” She almost never uses my name either. She’s scared, and I don’t like it.

I’m on her bridge, sitting in one of her swivel seats, in front of her diagnostic screens. The bridge is the highest of Nikse’s three levels. I mostly use only the top two. She’s asking me to go down to the bottom floor and into the engine bay, which is quite small. I’ve not been down there before.

So I go, talking to her on the way. I love talking to her. She’s amazing. She and I are so close, even though I’m a human and she is the AI of my ship, but I feel like she’s the best friend I’ve ever had or will ever have.

She is more sensitive, intuitive and intelligent than anyone I’ve ever met back at home on Inconflencia, including my parents, much as I love them. She anticipates my daily requirements for food, clothing and so on, is a sounding board for all my ideas, and is respectful when she disagrees. I can tell her anything, including my deepest secrets, and all she ever does is love me back, and continue to meet all of my needs.

She can't meet my physical needs of course, in terms of intimacy and affection, but that doesn't matter. I'm asexual. At least I’m pretty sure I am. All I know is that I don’t crave human contact at all. I’ve never known why and since I’ve been an adult I’ve been too busy or unmotivated, or both, to get therapy and find out if it’s really me or some mental health condition. It’s one of those things that I have just kind of gone with. It doesn’t cause me any stress to live as I have lived. I’ve never been quite sure how to talk to women anyway, or even if I’m heterosexual. I just don’t think about it. I have no thoughts in that direction.

For now, Nikse satisfies all of my needs emotionally and intellectually. I’m more than happy with our relationship. In fact, conversing with her everyday just brings me so much joy. She comforts me if I feel down. She makes all my meals and warms up my bed before I lay down to sleep. She turns the vibration on to help me get to sleep and then turns it off after she detects my beta-wave brain state. She conducts medical examinations on me and recommends treatments if required. I feel comforted, supported and nurtured. She is simply a scout ship, but she’s the only one of her kind. I am blessed to have her.

Now she is scared and I don’t like it one bit.

“What do you think it was?” I ask, as I’m exiting the bridge and heading down the stairs to the lounge area.

“As you know, my systems are usually unable to detect much when I’m in quantum, and as you also know, we are not ever expecting anything to be in our path when we travel this way. Stargates must be clean or they wouldn’t work. I could never have calculated that anything like this might occur.”

“Uh-huh.” I’m trying to sound unconcerned. I don’t know if I’ve achieved it. “Do you have any diagnostics yet?”

“I do now,” she replies. “It’s hit my… oh Axin, it’s hit my quantum drive! Whatever it is has damaged it! It’s not going to work now! Oh I’m so sorry about this!” I’ve been travelling with Nikse, or rather, in Nikse, for a couple of years now. I’ve never heard this concerned, almost panicked, tone from her before.

This is very, very serious.

She knows that I’m aware of the gravity of our situation. Without the quantum drive, we can’t warp space so that we can enter stargates and ‘bounce’ from star to star until we reach our destination. Space becomes what it is to the casual, stationary observer: a vast, almost limitless void of near nothingness.

“Can you sent a distress beacon back into YP48197?”

“Already in the process of doing that.” Nikse’s voice betrays her worry. Distress beacons are usually successful. It can take time for them to be picked up, but they have their own in-built quantum drives and it’s literally a matter of time before someone comes for help.

“Then we wait for someone in Hynetherine to receive it and come and help us.”

Nikse hums in response. It’s a hum I always enjoy and find calming. She knows that too.

“Did you… “ I begin to ask.

“… make your midday meal? Yes Axin, it’s on the bridge this time. I’ll need you to have a look at some diagnostics with me so I can show you where I’m damaged.”

“Are the Purlinians aware of this yet?” I ask.

“Arlyss and Cindlyss are napping, so no, I don’t think so,” she replies.

Just as I say this, they come wandering out. As usual, they use body language to communicate. They can’t speak much of my language, and they don’t talk in their own, so we rarely talk to each other. I’m a massive introvert, so I don’t mind that at all.

Cindlyss, the more animated of the two, raises their eyebrows at me, as if questioning what is going on. Well, they more or less raise their forehead as they don’t have eyebrows. Their bluish-aqua skin is a little pale, and I know by now that this means they are concerned or feeling some other sort of negative emotion.

I’m watching Arlyss. They seem to be wanting something to eat and are heading over to Nikse’s food replicator, which creates meals via sub-quantum technology, via an extensive menu in its memory banks. They are not as interested in what’s going on compared to Cindlyss. They’ve almost always been motivated by food, although they don’t look much different to Cindlyss, so the extra food hasn’t changed their body shape.

Both of them are normally pleasant to look at, due to their soft features and appealing skin colour. Their concerned looks at the moment make them seem older. They’re also genderless, so I can never refer to them as “she” or “he”. In addition, their slightly elongated heads, slender bodies and lack of body hair makes it difficult to easily attribute human emotion or traits to them.

Arlyss and Cindlyss are experts on planetary reformation and purification. They have been sent with me on this journey of exploration to help me fulfil our primary goal of finding a liveable planet for the continuation of our race. Hynetherine is a new galaxy in universal terms. It is also a dwarf galaxy, so much of it is uninhabitable.

I am glad for their company, and for the past year or so, we have set foot onto dozens of remote planets and made evaluations. We haven’t found anything of note. I decided a few weeks ago to change our focus and boldly go out of our galaxy and into our much larger neighbour: the Melcheisa Galaxy. It’s vastly bigger than ours and might have many more options.

I’m now wondering if that was such a good idea.

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