Tyger Tyger
The Clinging Fire
The Edge of Infinity
Far exceeding the reaches of known space, the universe still continues to expand. It grows with every breath you breathe. With every new thing you learn, it broadens. It is where even the most savage of chaos will become predictable, bearing the promise that old nightmares will one day be new comforts… and while the center is that much smaller and seemingly impossible to define, if one really stops to think about it, it has always been and always will be in exactly the same place.
The Tarot cards were shuffled from one white glove to the other, divining a path from now into the future through the one story that speaks for all stories, but never really is.
One card was drawn, bearing the sacred images of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn, their features at harmony with the galaxy.
And that of Anakin Skywalker, his lava-charred vestige appearing anything but.
On the mall map of Life and the Cosmos, You Are Here. “Death.”
It…<Calibrating>…ends before…
The voice was that of metal-bending, like the walls of a submarine succumbing to high pressures as it journeyed well beyond its designed depth. Which was what was in fact occurring to the translator software as it struggled to interpret a language once unfathomable, now just out of reach.
<Calibrating>….<Calibrating>…<No known translation>.
Buckling steel, followed by the crash of static.
The dealer in white responded with condescension, the hidden features of his face shifting beneath his mask.
“You should be so lucky. ‘Death’ is not a boundary, but a door.”
But where does it go?
Kaas City, Dromund Kaas
“Welp, this is her.”
The large browned metal door opened reluctantly in a chorus of clinky-clank protest. On the other side was a hangar, stark and empty, save for an elder-model light-freighter, its paint-job of a darker variety and christened with a symbol so esoteric, it may as well have been offworlder graffiti.
The Far Star -- the hidden dream of a father once-thought content, even happy. Abandoned in this storage depot, in the bowels of Kaas City.
How long had it been down here? When did he ever plan to return?
“It’s a bit of a klunker – Not sure why yer old man would want to hang onto it.”
“It was an escape. He said he wished he’d raised us to be criminals; that everything else was just slavery.”
“That’s, uh…weird.”
“Maybe. Latched to their deathbed, I can see why anyone’d wanna get free.” Milo offered this noncommittally, taking his first steps into the hangar
The manager reconsidered his words, finding he regretted them. He’d been too candid with what could very well be a customer and sought to turn back time.
“Hey, it’s retro if nothing else, right? Classic. They don’t build ‘em like they useta.”
“Heh.” Even if he did agree, Milo had all but stopped listening, taken in by the bizarre painted eye which adorned his inheritance, an inverted star above it sharpening the intent like an eyebrow.
“You gonna need the space for anoth—“
“No. Go ahead and close the account.”
“Sure,” the manager deflated. “You’re covered until the end of the month – Feel free to take your time.”
With a subtle gesture of his hand, Milo indicated to the manager that he’d heard what was said, effectively waving him off as he stepped onto the entry platform and into the Far Star.
It was well-worn, without a doubt. A few of the cushions on the couch area had been torn, their foam-like padding tattered and straining through the slashes. Paint was missing from the edges of the table, the walls, having long flaked off from cargo or people or whatever bumping into it and chipping it away. Whole ceiling and floor panels lost, never to be found again. But besides this, it was completely clean, putting to rest any fears Milo may have had of having to scrub, exterminate, or detoxify.
From what he could tell, it was all here and then some. Each of the five cabins were furnished with the bare essentials and a little bit extra for the Captain’s Suite, and for a moment, he was glad to see that his family was not what his father was escaping from. Within the cargo hold, a number of dated crates stood waiting for him, clearly more than what would warrant basic supply. He made a note to go through it more fully at a later date, but not now.
It was all so ordinary. A house with engines already bought and paid for. The life of a rogue was no different than one of a soldier, no doorway made of human skulls or anything. This was not magic. You do jobs for money to buy food and fuel to do more jobs. Remember to do routine maintenance. Remember to sleep. Remember to breathe. It was a ship. And he was a pilot. With the proper mathematics, everything is illuminated.
Free from the constraints of chain-of-command, space was an open door.
This won’t be too hard.
But where does it go?
The leather creaked as Milo took his seat in the Captain’s Chair, pushing a button on his console to initialize the galaxy map. It hesitated a moment – a flick of static, a spike of lag – but one by one, the stars began to populate the blue, spherical holographic display. And then the asteroid belts, and the moons, and the planets, and the hyperspace trade routes. So many more than Milo could’ve imagined.
It was when the personal notes of the freighter’s prior ownership appeared that Milo realized that much of this data, these worlds, these paths, these opportunites, had been lost in the 400 Year Darkness. The sheer depth of it all layed out like this before him was quite overwhelming. A Player’s Guide to some Roleplaying Game, dense with dungeons to explore, and people to meet, and treasure to find, and countless, ENDLESS features so much more interesting than reality. An entire universe of possibility. A brand new life. “Wow…”
…Calibrating…
The words circled the sphere as the cosmos froze in place.
…Syncing with provider…
“What? No…No! No! Stop!”
Milo saw what was happening, frantically searching the base of the projector for some means to deactivate the software. He firmly pressed the on/off switch, over and over, only to be barred with an additional message.
…Please wait…
“STOP! ,” he slapped the panel. He kicked it. “Flacking piece of…!”
…Updating current maps…
…Calibrating…
“Damn it.” A curse. “…no…” A plea. Hands balled into fists, eager to hit something…but what? He looked around in vain, only to find himself helpless but to watch the percentage count up as the key to the universe drained out through the cracks between his fingers. It was only when it reached 100 that the hardware finally powered down. Inconsolable, Milo stood there for a moment, fury-visions of tearing the device from its mantle and smashing it through the viewpoint flashing before his eyes. He would simmer, however, smoothing back his hair and powering the map back on to assess the damage.
It was all gone.
Every shortcut. Every secret. All that remained was a ship and a pilot divided against himself. Dreadful Mathematics plunging the light into darkness.
He rubbed his eyes tiredly, exhausted by the boiling of blood. Sliding his hand over his mouth as if to keep the profanities from spilling out in a constant, unstoppable stream, his glassy, rage-wet eyes peered out over the ridge of his thumb, narrowing as they honed in on something.
Something had survived. A little satellite, a space station, quite a journey from here. Milo stared for a moment.
He shrugged, shaking his head with exasperation.
“Whatever.”
Tapping the satellite’s image with his index finger, the Far Star charted the course. No hyperspace lanes, no nothing. Old school.
With a heavy sigh, Milo took his seat in the Captain’s chair and guided the freighter out of the hangar, out of the city, out of the atmosphere, and into space, completely oblivious that, in the second he started the engine, he had alerted the galaxy’s underworld to the Far Star’s continued existence and renewed an ancient bounty, now worth a fortune with years of compounded interest.
Far exceeding the reaches of known space, the universe still continues to expand. It grows with every breath you breathe. With every new thing you learn, it broadens. It is where even the most savage of chaos will become predictable, bearing the promise that old nightmares will one day be new comforts… and while the center is that much smaller and seemingly impossible to define, if one really stops to think about it, it has always been and always will be in exactly the same place.
The Tarot cards were shuffled from one white glove to the other, divining a path from now into the future through the one story that speaks for all stories, but never really is.
One card was drawn, bearing the sacred images of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn, their features at harmony with the galaxy.
And that of Anakin Skywalker, his lava-charred vestige appearing anything but.
On the mall map of Life and the Cosmos, You Are Here. “Death.”
It…<Calibrating>…ends before…
The voice was that of metal-bending, like the walls of a submarine succumbing to high pressures as it journeyed well beyond its designed depth. Which was what was in fact occurring to the translator software as it struggled to interpret a language once unfathomable, now just out of reach.
<Calibrating>….<Calibrating>…<No known translation>.
Buckling steel, followed by the crash of static.
The dealer in white responded with condescension, the hidden features of his face shifting beneath his mask.
“You should be so lucky. ‘Death’ is not a boundary, but a door.”
But where does it go?
Kaas City, Dromund Kaas
“Welp, this is her.”
The large browned metal door opened reluctantly in a chorus of clinky-clank protest. On the other side was a hangar, stark and empty, save for an elder-model light-freighter, its paint-job of a darker variety and christened with a symbol so esoteric, it may as well have been offworlder graffiti.
The Far Star -- the hidden dream of a father once-thought content, even happy. Abandoned in this storage depot, in the bowels of Kaas City.
How long had it been down here? When did he ever plan to return?
“It’s a bit of a klunker – Not sure why yer old man would want to hang onto it.”
“It was an escape. He said he wished he’d raised us to be criminals; that everything else was just slavery.”
“That’s, uh…weird.”
“Maybe. Latched to their deathbed, I can see why anyone’d wanna get free.” Milo offered this noncommittally, taking his first steps into the hangar
The manager reconsidered his words, finding he regretted them. He’d been too candid with what could very well be a customer and sought to turn back time.
“Hey, it’s retro if nothing else, right? Classic. They don’t build ‘em like they useta.”
“Heh.” Even if he did agree, Milo had all but stopped listening, taken in by the bizarre painted eye which adorned his inheritance, an inverted star above it sharpening the intent like an eyebrow.
“You gonna need the space for anoth—“
“No. Go ahead and close the account.”
“Sure,” the manager deflated. “You’re covered until the end of the month – Feel free to take your time.”
With a subtle gesture of his hand, Milo indicated to the manager that he’d heard what was said, effectively waving him off as he stepped onto the entry platform and into the Far Star.
It was well-worn, without a doubt. A few of the cushions on the couch area had been torn, their foam-like padding tattered and straining through the slashes. Paint was missing from the edges of the table, the walls, having long flaked off from cargo or people or whatever bumping into it and chipping it away. Whole ceiling and floor panels lost, never to be found again. But besides this, it was completely clean, putting to rest any fears Milo may have had of having to scrub, exterminate, or detoxify.
From what he could tell, it was all here and then some. Each of the five cabins were furnished with the bare essentials and a little bit extra for the Captain’s Suite, and for a moment, he was glad to see that his family was not what his father was escaping from. Within the cargo hold, a number of dated crates stood waiting for him, clearly more than what would warrant basic supply. He made a note to go through it more fully at a later date, but not now.
It was all so ordinary. A house with engines already bought and paid for. The life of a rogue was no different than one of a soldier, no doorway made of human skulls or anything. This was not magic. You do jobs for money to buy food and fuel to do more jobs. Remember to do routine maintenance. Remember to sleep. Remember to breathe. It was a ship. And he was a pilot. With the proper mathematics, everything is illuminated.
Free from the constraints of chain-of-command, space was an open door.
This won’t be too hard.
But where does it go?
The leather creaked as Milo took his seat in the Captain’s Chair, pushing a button on his console to initialize the galaxy map. It hesitated a moment – a flick of static, a spike of lag – but one by one, the stars began to populate the blue, spherical holographic display. And then the asteroid belts, and the moons, and the planets, and the hyperspace trade routes. So many more than Milo could’ve imagined.
It was when the personal notes of the freighter’s prior ownership appeared that Milo realized that much of this data, these worlds, these paths, these opportunites, had been lost in the 400 Year Darkness. The sheer depth of it all layed out like this before him was quite overwhelming. A Player’s Guide to some Roleplaying Game, dense with dungeons to explore, and people to meet, and treasure to find, and countless, ENDLESS features so much more interesting than reality. An entire universe of possibility. A brand new life. “Wow…”
…Calibrating…
The words circled the sphere as the cosmos froze in place.
…Syncing with provider…
“What? No…No! No! Stop!”
Milo saw what was happening, frantically searching the base of the projector for some means to deactivate the software. He firmly pressed the on/off switch, over and over, only to be barred with an additional message.
…Please wait…
“STOP! ,” he slapped the panel. He kicked it. “Flacking piece of…!”
…Updating current maps…
…Calibrating…
“Damn it.” A curse. “…no…” A plea. Hands balled into fists, eager to hit something…but what? He looked around in vain, only to find himself helpless but to watch the percentage count up as the key to the universe drained out through the cracks between his fingers. It was only when it reached 100 that the hardware finally powered down. Inconsolable, Milo stood there for a moment, fury-visions of tearing the device from its mantle and smashing it through the viewpoint flashing before his eyes. He would simmer, however, smoothing back his hair and powering the map back on to assess the damage.
It was all gone.
Every shortcut. Every secret. All that remained was a ship and a pilot divided against himself. Dreadful Mathematics plunging the light into darkness.
He rubbed his eyes tiredly, exhausted by the boiling of blood. Sliding his hand over his mouth as if to keep the profanities from spilling out in a constant, unstoppable stream, his glassy, rage-wet eyes peered out over the ridge of his thumb, narrowing as they honed in on something.
Something had survived. A little satellite, a space station, quite a journey from here. Milo stared for a moment.
He shrugged, shaking his head with exasperation.
“Whatever.”
Tapping the satellite’s image with his index finger, the Far Star charted the course. No hyperspace lanes, no nothing. Old school.
With a heavy sigh, Milo took his seat in the Captain’s chair and guided the freighter out of the hangar, out of the city, out of the atmosphere, and into space, completely oblivious that, in the second he started the engine, he had alerted the galaxy’s underworld to the Far Star’s continued existence and renewed an ancient bounty, now worth a fortune with years of compounded interest.
