Return to Devorandum Aqua, Part 2 (yet another collaboration with @justclickindiva)!

Writing and supplementary art by me, the BIG IMPORTANT ART by @justclickindiva!

Sometimes I sit down and talk with my husband's Cousin J.T., now a fellow admiral, about the impression people have about life in the consortium starfleet.

The Kirks are an exceptionally gifted family, but in real terms, even they are not discovering new life forms and civilizations every week, despite the impression fleet reality TV gives to encourage young people to join up. The fleet knows that the average viewer cannot account for the galaxy's actual size.

The Solar System's size is rarely properly accounted for – it took until the first quarter of the 21st century for Voyager 1 to just get beyond Pluto, and about that long for humanity to realize that there was not only a Kuiper Belt but an Oort Cloud of comets that extends the entire group of stellar objects orbiting the Sun to a light-year or more.

But how much is a light-year? Depending on what system of measurement you use – still not quite settled in the 23rd century – light zips along and covers approximately 5.9 trillion miles or 9.5 trillion kilometers.

But how much is a trillion? Take a million of anything. Put them in a box. Get a million such boxes. That's a trillion. A million times a million is a trillion. So, to stay with the scientific use of kilometers, get 9.5 million million kilometers lined up, and light will pass them in a year, going from the Sun to the approximate edge of the Oort Cloud.

To put this in warp speed travel terms, although it is not supposed to ever be done, there is enough room in the Solar System to go to Warp 9 -- many, many, MANY times the speed of light -- and cruise for a day or so IF your starship is in exceptional condition. That's what it would take to get from the Sun to the edge of the Solar System in a day or so -- that much travel, at Warp 9.

Line up 100,000 Solar Systems in a row, and that's the diameter of the Milky Way. Flying straight across at Warp 9 would take about 100,000 days in a row – about 273 Earth-years. Never mind that a day at Warp 9 means the next day a starship will not have a warp engine worth speaking of even if the whole thing doesn't blow up. Never mind navigating around obstacles like stars, black holes, and hot nebulae. Never mind stopping to look at anything interesting on the way. Never mind the circumference of the Milky Way and the volume. With all my attempt to explain, space just in terms of our galaxy is still much bigger and spread out than people can ever think.

My husband, Captain Marcus Aurelius Kirk Jr., has made 31 years shipping to the frontier, and most days and weeks and months and years, even shipping to the frontier, there is nothing of interest to report. His famous cousin, now an admiral, has put in a few more years on the exploratory track in the fleet – and is an exceptionally gifted discoverer – but even for him, only 2.5 years of logs out of a 37-year career thus far contain the discoveries that have made him famous.

I have been in the fleet 60 years. Even as an exceptionally gifted science officer, the first to ever attain full fleet admiral status from the science track, my every day career has not been full of amazing new discoveries. Space is just too big, and life spread too far apart.

Which is why, for all my 41 years of angst over the existence of Devorandum Aqua by the 54th year of my career, I shed tears of wonder and gratitude to still be in a position along with my younger protege and my friend of the same age – all admirals – to witness with our fleet the discovery of a new life form the likes of which humanity and humanoids had never seen before.

When I was a science officer for the fleet ship assigned to Devorandum Aqua and the Voracir system as lieutenant commander, I had discovered that the constant ravenous cycle of life on Devorandum Aqua exported itself to all the Voracir worlds through a migration of gem-jellies. The cycle was approximately 500 years, and we had arrived in year 478.

As time passed, other officers had discovered larger cycles at work – every third gem-jelly migration cycle, the Thuttons from the nearby Thutmose system came to feast on the gem-jellies and cut down their numbers. It so happened that the cycle I discovered was a Thutton cycle, and that made it easier for me to coordinate the evacuation of all the human and humanoid settlers in the Voracir system.

Yet we knew by the time the Thutton cycle was 19 years on that still-larger cycles were taking place – and when the Devorandum web ticks webbed up the ionosphere of the entire planet, a mystery was solved that showed a 3,000-year cycle. The planet was normally tropical in climate, but we knew there had been ice there within 3,000 years of the fleet's first study of the planet at the poles – the planet's rocks showed glacial development, and sure enough, that pattern was recurring at the poles as we watched.

We also knew that every 1,500 years or so, a comet did a half-orbit through the Voracir system, but no orbit had ever been completed.

I knew why as a lieutenant commander, but my fellow officer of the same rank had convinced me not to write that up even as a theory without proof.

“No, Vlarian, no, that can't be possible,” my friend and fellow Lt. Cmdr E.W. Lee had said to me. “I mean, don't even think about it – too much learning will make you mad.”

41 years later, as a full admiral serving with me and just under me in rank, my old friend called me from the assignment he had running decontamination from web ticks from all ships going in and out of the Voracir system.

“Madame Admiral, I think you had better get out here in person.”

I called on one of my proteges, Admiral Kandace Amanirenas, to join me because she had extended my research in the 19 years since I had last dealt with the Voracir system, and had done a great deal of the in-person work as a captain when the restrictions on manned flights to the system had been lifted. She had joined my working group on the subject, and privately we had reached the same conclusion although even she did not not have sufficient evidence to prove it either.

“It is the only explanation that fits the facts, ma'am,” she had said to me, “but it will hardly be believed even if, in this very cycle, we record it occurring.”

Just for reference: large comets and dwarf planets can be comparable in size. It was one thing, therefore, to comprehend that Devorandum Aqua had web ticks that were eating its ozone and could kill the planet. It was another thing to comprehend that Devorandum Aqua had a life form powerful enough to eat an entire comet.

Admiral E.W. Lee, having told me I could not have been right 41 years earlier, was the first to say to me, “I could have been wrong, Admiral – look at these readings.”

Something was moving under the sea floor of Devorandum Aqua – had it been volcanic, we would have been looking at an eruption that could easily destroy the planet in terms of life. But no: all evidence was saying that source of growing energy was alive.

“We know now it has been there for a good while,” Admiral Lee said, “but its growth is rapidly increasing in the cooler water temperatures the web ticks are creating across the planet.”

“Something is hatching,” Admiral Amanirenas said. “There are indications of this possibility back to when you first researched the planet, Admiral Triefield.”

“There are,” I said, “but it was not a major concern at that time. But for now, Admirals, pull the fleet back, and order all ships to come through decontamination and come to the edge of the system with us. No one else gets into the system without my express authorization, because anything that big hatching could take out any ship or any dozen.”

“Yes, ma'am,” the two admirals junior in rank said to me, and then got my orders done.

Two weeks of waiting – punctuated by me taking all the heat from every press and private scientific organization that wanted to get a close view of what was happening on Devorandum Aqua for themselves – the fleet feed was insufficient because all of them wanted an edge. Fielding protests was punctuated by me having ships who broke the boundaries hauled out of the system all the way to Star Base 2.

All this was so that all of us could safely witness the hatching of Devorandum Aqua's mightiest eater known thus far, from beginning to end.

Art by @justclickindiva

“Imagine birthing a rocket ship the size of the Americas,” Admiral Amanirenas said about that final moment. “That's what that thing is, just alive.”

At this point, all the frustration from everyone had ceased; for four days we all watched this process in awe, and there was a moment in which we three admirals, each of us with at least 40 years of experience, stood in the Odabella's ready room with an arm around each other, tears streaming down our faces.

Two more weeks passed, in which the being literally filtered the seas of every being that had died because of the cooler temperatures, and put off enough gas to counteract any further drop in temperature in its locale.

Then, the comet passed through at last, a comet the size of Pluto even it was melting slowly on its inbound journey. It passed so close to Devorandum Aqua that the planet passed through its tail on its orbit.

The tail of the comet contained substances toxic to the web ticks –.

“Well, God be praised, there is natural bug spray for web ticks,” Admiral Lee said in his deep Virginian drawl about it, and smiled as I had to try not to break up laughing on the bridge of the Odabella.

“Admiral Lee,” I said, “Go sit down somewhere and be quiet.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he said meekly, but smiled fully before cutting communication.

The web ticks died and the combination of stellar radiation hitting Devorandum Aqua's ionosphere tore their webs apart. The moment full daylight hit the planet, the being who had been waited launched itself into space.

“Admiral,” Captain Tehama said to me, “the lifeform has achieved orbital velocity … escape velocity … still accelerating.”

I finally said aloud what I had realized 41 years ago.

“It's going to chase down and eat that comet, Captain.”

I came out onto the bridge, and in my mind went back to the young lieutenant commander I had been, seeing in my mind's eye what was now happening before my eyes as an old admiral.

My old friend sent me a communication on a secure line.

“You were right all long, Vlarian, and I was wrong. I didn't want you to endanger your career then, but you were right.”

A comet is mostly ice, and can be cleaved like any block of ice if you have sufficient force and angle to do it. The being from Devorandum Aqua indeed caught up with and passed the comet, and waited to hit it head on at a crucial moment –

Art by Deeann D. Mathews, the author

comet cleaving.png

– and then spent two weeks eating up the comet remnants and growing to half the size of the comet itself, after which it burst open and released its own children to slowly fly back to Devorandum Aqua.

Meanwhile, the gem-jellies that had eaten Voracir 12 down to the soil level by then rose hungrily from that planet to eat the remains of the comet eater and its children. All the gem-jellies from all the other Voracir worlds did exactly the same thing, and thus all began chasing the comet eater's children back to Devorandum Aqua.

“And so that's how they all get back home to Devorandum Aqua – now, Admiral Triefield, we know the complete long cycle that you began to flesh out for us 41 years ago,” Admiral Amarirenas said to me.

“Remember that you fleshed out quite a bit of it yourself, Admiral,” I said.

“I built on your foundation, Admiral, ma'am,” she said. “You're just going to have to take this credit!”

Admiral Amarirenas would remain in the Voracir system to chart the completion of the cycle for the fleet, and Admiral John Steinbeck would replace Admiral Lee in maintaining the system perimeter for another year, leaving us two senior admirals to return to semi-retirement.

Chivalry and noblesse oblige were not dead in the 23rd century – old E.W. Lee had retained those values of his family all the way down, 1,200 years since Richard the Lionhearted, and knew I would be facing an unfriendly press barrage.

“I'm asking as your friend, Vlarian – do you want to be bothered?” he said as the Odabella began its journey through the Oort Cloud and into the Solar System.

“No,” I said. “I need to go process all of this – but so do you, E.W.”

“Yes, indeed – yet no one is going to be lining up at my house or at the Academy looking for me,” he said. “If you will permit me, I will deal with all of that while you just get to Ohio, get your kids, and get on out of here.”

When you think you are meeting me, but you end up meeting Lee – in any century, that's a rough day's work, especially if that Lee enjoys ferocious defense and is a brilliant entertainer in his off time. Contrary people could find themselves part of the E.W. Lee Show in a heartbeat, and it was showtime when he strode into the press room at the Academy and just started in on folks.

“Everybody who wasn't even born 42 years ago, just leave the room – OUT!” he thundered, and was obeyed because in such a moment, nobody would think to disobey the infuriated old commander.

After he had a third of the press on the run, he laid into the rest.

“This has been a burden for Admiral Triefield – a concern for life around Devorandum Aqua – for almost 42 years. As far as the Voracir system is concerned, there were 250 million sentient lives at stake. Not one has been lost. Not a settler, not a fleet officer, not a scientist, not a thrill seeker – not one. Have all of y'all talking ever done anything successfully for 42 months, much less 42 years? Methods and approaches change, but when you have saved 250 million lives over 42 years, you come back and say anything but that about Vlarian Triefield!”

With E.W. Lee as my rearguard, I picked up my children from my husband's parents and went to rest with my husband on the frontier at his business post on Ventana 5. We all had a good laugh at my old friend's press performances – and it was in the refuge of my family that I was able to let 41 years of work and worry go and transition into tapping into the joy and wonder of it all that had been discovered, especially with my still-young children.

Marcus Aurelius Kirk Jr., who had been with me on 19 years of that 41-year period of my life, had his own reasons to celebrate. As it was on the day that I met him, Mark is always going to find a way to bump the party up!

“Hey,” he said, “I was trying to figure out how to get you out here, so after 41 years, Devorandum Aqua's beings did something right!”