"The vexations of man shall fall away under the watchful eyes of the stars.
Soon all shall turn to dust and nothing will remain.
When the watchful eyes draw near
So, too, shall nothing turn to dust.
Once will come the day when the watchful eyes of the stars shall shut
And all will cease:
The Vexations.
Man.
Nothing.
The Eyes.
All once having been.
All to be not."
- Tir Eozeo-Noarena, Alpha Centauri Monist and scribe of The Collected Revelations Of Zero Consequence, executed by The Zero for revealing Nothing.
"You were being careless, Coral. In the 5 years since we've begun our journey, I have reminded you again and again that this journey requires your mindfulness down a long, treacherous path,..." I'd failed to reorient Keystone off the center-line of a mapped celestial body and was pulled out of super cruise, damaging my hull and various internal modules, and my confidant was drilling down on me, "... hundreds, thousands of our pilots, agents, operatives, and command staff have made this voyage only to find themselves incapable of completing the task, their handlers doomed to the life-long silence of perpetual testimony. Orion and your father," I thought it was weird that he referred to dad as my father, "have invested years into your training. It is not their disappointment but their very matter of which you must remind yourself."
The journey had continued, in relative tranquility. I'd noticed that, for some odd reason, Keystone's communications were syncing up with the time dilation about which he'd informed me, at the outset of the journey. It had only felt like two, at most three, weeks since we'd left N.O.S., and Keystone's computer clock remained in-sync with my pre-launch calendars. I'd made a note to myself to have them resynchronized upon completion of The Run. It hadn't previously occurred to me that the near constant accelerated speed at which Keystone had been traveling would have resulted in such a massive degree of time dilation, but my confidant had assured me that the voyage would be a long one.
I wondered at what Cadence had come to make of herself in the five years that have passed since we'd left. Orion mentioned that in the event of an emergency, N.O.S. would be within a distance capable of easy extraction and I, in my more trying moments, took heart from the thought. Nonetheless, I found myself wondering at what may have become of them. I pictured Cadence's face, with a few more years on it, her brown eyes framed with crow's feet; her look of general happiness after having been relieved of command responsibilities replaced with the hardened steely glare of a fully-capable woman in command of her unit; her soft rosy cheeks cut from stone and scarred from myriad battles waged on behalf of the consortium.
I'd imagined dad had found a way to reenlist Captain Green in the consortium's fleet, and they'd taken to commandeering craft as had the consortium's early pilots. His training with Cadence completed, I envisioned his new task to be that of the consortium's corsairs units, raiding outposts in the outer reaches of Imperial and Federation space to secure resources and assets. I'd imagined that he'd have been tasked with the training of new pilots, far less green than I or Cadence had been for this, his special project commanded by The Zero.
Orion, who'd likely still be conducting operations with Cadence, would have been mapping my progress with every transmission. He'd have observed me in the cockpit, and in conversation with my confidant, recording note upon note to send to The Zero for analysis. The lectures on The Run made clear to us all that, more so than most, the command-staff assigned to Realignment would be working under the extreme pressures of the various needs and requirements of the consortium and the management of the Realignee. Ions would shuffle in and out during various lectures on the various stages of Realignment, sometimes approaching the dais with index cards before quickly exiting. Various students would arrive mid-lecture, with an accompanying set of Ions taking their places among the fray. The guest speakers, who'd sometimes reveal themselves in facial twitches, would rarely look toward the Ions, who remained expressionless and seemingly immobile under the curious gaze of us children. Orion had never mentioned whether or not he'd made The Run, himself, but I expected that his affability was a mask for whatever it was the Ions were made aware of. I'd wondered if that affability remained, five years since the initiation of his Realignee's final phase.
"Remember, Coral, we are only five years into a voyage that can last hundreds," I looked away from my confidant, having not anticipated the degree of time dilation that would render me a youth in the eyes of my former unit commanders, likely to be top-level command-staff on the K-double-N side, "and by the end you will be exhausted, and you will be a complete stranger even to those you've come to know, those that remain among the living. Only Novus Ordo Siderum and The Zero will remain as it was when you'd undertaken this final test: immortal, unchanging, resolved. Should we return you will rejoin those that remain among the living and I intend for you to rejoin them as one of the living."
The green shoots of my confidant, in the air-secured compartment of his enclosure, began shaking vigorously as his words filled me with pride in our consortium's vision.
inara.cz
Soon all shall turn to dust and nothing will remain.
When the watchful eyes draw near
So, too, shall nothing turn to dust.
Once will come the day when the watchful eyes of the stars shall shut
And all will cease:
The Vexations.
Man.
Nothing.
The Eyes.
All once having been.
All to be not."
- Tir Eozeo-Noarena, Alpha Centauri Monist and scribe of The Collected Revelations Of Zero Consequence, executed by The Zero for revealing Nothing.
"You were being careless, Coral. In the 5 years since we've begun our journey, I have reminded you again and again that this journey requires your mindfulness down a long, treacherous path,..." I'd failed to reorient Keystone off the center-line of a mapped celestial body and was pulled out of super cruise, damaging my hull and various internal modules, and my confidant was drilling down on me, "... hundreds, thousands of our pilots, agents, operatives, and command staff have made this voyage only to find themselves incapable of completing the task, their handlers doomed to the life-long silence of perpetual testimony. Orion and your father," I thought it was weird that he referred to dad as my father, "have invested years into your training. It is not their disappointment but their very matter of which you must remind yourself."
The journey had continued, in relative tranquility. I'd noticed that, for some odd reason, Keystone's communications were syncing up with the time dilation about which he'd informed me, at the outset of the journey. It had only felt like two, at most three, weeks since we'd left N.O.S., and Keystone's computer clock remained in-sync with my pre-launch calendars. I'd made a note to myself to have them resynchronized upon completion of The Run. It hadn't previously occurred to me that the near constant accelerated speed at which Keystone had been traveling would have resulted in such a massive degree of time dilation, but my confidant had assured me that the voyage would be a long one.
I wondered at what Cadence had come to make of herself in the five years that have passed since we'd left. Orion mentioned that in the event of an emergency, N.O.S. would be within a distance capable of easy extraction and I, in my more trying moments, took heart from the thought. Nonetheless, I found myself wondering at what may have become of them. I pictured Cadence's face, with a few more years on it, her brown eyes framed with crow's feet; her look of general happiness after having been relieved of command responsibilities replaced with the hardened steely glare of a fully-capable woman in command of her unit; her soft rosy cheeks cut from stone and scarred from myriad battles waged on behalf of the consortium.
I'd imagined dad had found a way to reenlist Captain Green in the consortium's fleet, and they'd taken to commandeering craft as had the consortium's early pilots. His training with Cadence completed, I envisioned his new task to be that of the consortium's corsairs units, raiding outposts in the outer reaches of Imperial and Federation space to secure resources and assets. I'd imagined that he'd have been tasked with the training of new pilots, far less green than I or Cadence had been for this, his special project commanded by The Zero.
Orion, who'd likely still be conducting operations with Cadence, would have been mapping my progress with every transmission. He'd have observed me in the cockpit, and in conversation with my confidant, recording note upon note to send to The Zero for analysis. The lectures on The Run made clear to us all that, more so than most, the command-staff assigned to Realignment would be working under the extreme pressures of the various needs and requirements of the consortium and the management of the Realignee. Ions would shuffle in and out during various lectures on the various stages of Realignment, sometimes approaching the dais with index cards before quickly exiting. Various students would arrive mid-lecture, with an accompanying set of Ions taking their places among the fray. The guest speakers, who'd sometimes reveal themselves in facial twitches, would rarely look toward the Ions, who remained expressionless and seemingly immobile under the curious gaze of us children. Orion had never mentioned whether or not he'd made The Run, himself, but I expected that his affability was a mask for whatever it was the Ions were made aware of. I'd wondered if that affability remained, five years since the initiation of his Realignee's final phase.
"Remember, Coral, we are only five years into a voyage that can last hundreds," I looked away from my confidant, having not anticipated the degree of time dilation that would render me a youth in the eyes of my former unit commanders, likely to be top-level command-staff on the K-double-N side, "and by the end you will be exhausted, and you will be a complete stranger even to those you've come to know, those that remain among the living. Only Novus Ordo Siderum and The Zero will remain as it was when you'd undertaken this final test: immortal, unchanging, resolved. Should we return you will rejoin those that remain among the living and I intend for you to rejoin them as one of the living."
The green shoots of my confidant, in the air-secured compartment of his enclosure, began shaking vigorously as his words filled me with pride in our consortium's vision.
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