Again, a little long, two pieces of art ... but I think you'll enjoy the story
Having the same name as a famous cousin leads to certain advantages and disadvantages. Maybe there isn't a family gift after all, but just a following in big footsteps.
Cousin J.T. is famous for his explorations across the galaxy – humans are still getting together weekly and now even daily to review his exploits.
I look at the matter this way: he opens up a new section of the galaxy, and then there is lag time before the rest of the humans in the galaxy know about it and start running out there.
That gives me time to stock up on things those humans will need at a nice wholesale price, and get my routes worked out to be the first to get supplies in there.
And, because I am also Captain Kirk – though not J.T. – I never have problems getting crews to go with me even now. The problems all start because they really want to go with Cousin J.T., but don't want to go through the discipline necessary to get into his fleet – I am the shortcut to boldly go, and because we are still really early in many sections of the galaxy, we see some amazing things also.
The challenge has always been that I'm not Cousin J.T. and I certainly have never had his kind of ship, which led to problems in the early years with crews that forgot themselves when I had my back turned.
I did have a master engineer from the beginning – Dixon, or Dix as I've called my best friend since childhood – and boy did he save our bacon a lot of times.
Such as the incident in the photograph. Everything was quiet the night before, so I went on to bed, but something told me to get up early and head to the bridge. I saw what you see when I got there – two super-massive plasma-based aliens, just caressing each other as you saw in the first picture and then collecting energy between them and building a nest as you see in the second.
Yet the two space lovebirds were building said nest around the biggest “Do Not Disturb” sign ever created for beings of their type, right there between them.
“Isn't it beautiful, Captain?” my night navigator said.
“This is why we came all this way,” my night co-navigator said. “If you tell your cousin about it, Captain, maybe we can get a spot on his show – and if that happened, I wouldn't even worry about the pay from our run!”
“Oh, none of us are about to have to worry about that,” I said calmly after looking over our course and calculating the matter. “It is beautiful, but that's a whole black hole out there, and we're at sublight speed approaching it because you changed the course even that little bit.”
They didn't even turn from the mesmerizing sight on the screen at that, and I made a note to myself to add a science requirement to my next interview for a crew roster.
For those who need the refresher: a black hole is a massive star having collapsed on itself to the point that it is just a massive sink of gravity such that even light, going at light speed, cannot escape it.
If you had the kind of ship Cousin J.T. always gets to fly around in, maybe you could get through one and find new regions of the galaxy on the other side – a black hole doubles as a wormhole, because even a gravity sink has to drain to somewhere.
But like I keep saying: every Captain Kirk wasn't Kirking like Cousin J.T. Me? I was in an old freighter and in those days I was just starting out and had gotten a crew of high-school kids who didn't know a black hole from a hole in the wall and were sailing right toward it at sublight speed.
“Reverse course,” I ordered.
“Aw, come on, Cap,” my night navigator said. “Can't we get just a little bit closer?”
I don't argue with crews. Dix and I settled that before we ever started. I just smiled, popped my earplugs in, and counted backwards … 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Every proximity detector Dix ever put into the ship went off – think every fire alarm you have ever heard, blaring into a microphone. That got the idea of danger across, and then my navigator followed my orders... but, about a minute too late for sublight speed.
Dix's face replaced the beautiful scene on the screen, in all his rugged, craggy, frustrated mahogany glory.
“What are y'all doing now?” he said after he turned the proximity detectors off so we could hear.
“We seem to have steered too near to a black hole – put it up on your screen for a minute.”
Dix turned his head to view his screen for a few seconds – “Fuss and botheration – what in the whole galaxy are we doing this close to that thing?”
“The kids wanted to get a closer look,” I said.
“You send that whole night crew down here for a science class before they go to bed!” he thundered.
My more experienced day crew, alerted by the proximity detectors that they needed to get to the bridge an hour early, showed up in their pajamas, and once Dix went off the screen they grasped the situation.
“That's a whole black hole out there – what are you people doing!”
“Now, now,” I said. “No real harm done yet, and no time to waste fussing at each other. Everybody who has a station, resume it, and the rest of you find a spot to stand and stay out of the way. Dix … .”
“It's a good thing both of us rolled out of bed an hour early – 30 more minutes and we would have had to try out that experimental anti-gravity shield we got on Spica IV,” he said. “But, we can do this with a quick flip to Warp 1 with a course off at an angle.”
A true reversal of course at warp speed might tear the ship apart, so I showed my night navigator and co-navigator the kind of courses they would need to lay in with their now-trembling hands and then told them which one I wanted out of the seven options available. They followed orders, and with a little shudder in half a second, we were clear.
“All of you finish out your shift and then report to Co-Captain Dix for your science class. I'm docking your pay ten percent for getting us into this mess, and only ten percent because in the end, no harm done. But none of us might have survived if the Lord hadn't awakened me early – so, night crew, just follow what Co-Captain Dix and I lay out for you. Day crew: go get dressed for work.”
Like yesterday's post, this is two slightly different end stages of the same fractal I rendered in Apophysis this week
this is a beautiful art work dear... i love art..looking forward to seeing more of you on listnerds
Thank you! Definitely more art coming!
And don't forget to watch out for my posts on LISTNERDS 💯
I tend to work my way through my whole inbox, but I'll keep a special eye out for you...
❤️❤️❤️
"Maybe get a spot J.T.'s show". Hilarious. However, it goes to show you that not all love in the galaxy is good love! I like the quick thinking and steady hands of this Captain Kirk (not the famous one) and his best friend, Dix. I can see they know their science stuff.
And that's why there's a 1st and second team...
Thanks for sharing.
They do know their science ... in a galaxy like ours in which people are more steered by their wants and aspirations... and then Kirk and Dixon themselves are only 24 and 25 years old ... so they get it, but they have to grow up QUICK!