7 The Golden Nori

The Nori leapt into the hyperlane with the grace of an elderly lady trying to cross a street at rush hour, slowly, deliberately and without a care. Had there been an audience (apart from Mr. Boyuku) they had certainly been just as annoyed as the crew, which were tasked with double-checking all hyperflight related systems twice, which in the case of a modern spaceship that was build for interconnectivity, meant pretty much everything, down to the reactor core binary code.

Captain Blomar was not concerned, besides the issue would be addressed soon, he had his eyes set on their next stop. They were heading towards Haradhere shipyard on the far end of the Perseus spiral arm, in a region widely unpopular for many reasons one of the foremost being the relative dimness of stars and the abundance of asteroids that made keeping hyperlanes open a hassle no one really wanted to be bothered with, for a retrofit and supply top up.

They were already close by, but it would take them the better part of a week to get there.

So he did what any good captain did with a new vessel, he studied its manual.

On its cover, yes it was a physical copy of a book, not one of the super old fashion ones made out of dried plants but nonetheless possessed the peculiar quality that it could be opened like one.

It said, in large friendly letters:

Don't Panic

It was a common quirk of these types of official documents, it dated back to an old unremarkable Author from a distinctly boring and underdeveloped part of the galaxy that had proven it to be an effective introduction to text that, over the years it took civilisations to develop spacefaring traditions, had accumulated law speech to an extent that it had become utterly unreadable to any but the sternest of characters. Luckily for Blomar, it was not that type of document. Instead, it continued on in a nice, clear and friendly but expertly way to explain the Nori's inner workings.

On the subject of hyperlanes it had this to say:

The hyperlane network has a great deal of history. As every up and coming galactic civilization had to contend with the sheer enormity of space, many different and interesting solutions to the travel problem had been found. They included but were not limited to hyperlane travel.

Most spacefarers started out with conventional mass thrusters that allowed them to eject some sort of fuel at high speeds from their ships and push themselves forward. Such devices worked well for most star systems and most shuttles were still only equipped with them. The interstellar drives were a different matter.

The crudest of the deep space worthy ones were just upscaled versions of the basic mass thrusters that relied on ejection masses to de- and accelerate to speeds usually measured in single digits of light speed percentages. It wasn't that they couldn't be build bigger and faster it just turned into a very uneconomical endeavour as it was subject to the classic rocket equation. The next best thing were usually ships that relied on a combination of solar sails and classic thrusters to propel them from star to star. A single jump to even the closest star could take years and years to complete.

The vast majority of ships in the current universe relied on some form of gravitational space warping. This had the major benefit compared to regular thrust that the ships wouldn't be accumulating velocity but instead just shortened the relative distance they had to cross by compressing it in the direction they moved. This kind of drive still needed acceleration and velocity but far less of it and was a much more comfortable ride overall when you didn't have to pull five G for years on end to get somewhere. Most ships didn't even carry enough fuel to do so for extended periods of time, it just wasn't really needed.

These were the types of ships that enjoyed the benefits of the Hyperlane network the most. Who initially build the network was controversial to say the least. One of the more prominent jokes among historians was that, at some point in time, every spacefaring race claimed credit coming up with the idea. Not when they first found out about it, but after, when they used it and came across some poor monkeys that could be awed by its amazing power.

The workings of the hyperlanes were simple and elegant in design. They basically do what the warp drives of older ships did, compress space in an advantageous manner, and throw massive amounts of almost light speed particles in the direction of travel. A ship entering the Lane could use its own drive, regardless of technology and race through the drastically shortened space while enjoying a nice tailwind pushing it along, once the exit gate had been reached , usually somewhere around the outer belt of a star system, the traveller only had to shed his accumulated velocity and be on their way. Of course travelling on a stream of compressed space came with its very own limitations and complications but overall it was the most widely used method of travel.

The stupid, unprepared or downright unlucky, could suffer from many curious malfunctions and accidents on a trip. One of the more common ones was exiting the lane space. As the first couple of molecules exited lane space, they experienced a sensation that had a remarkable likeness to being fired by a ridiculously large gun. Molecule by molecule, they would suddenly realize that their friends on the other side of the weird space barrier were suddenly going several orders of magnitude faster, or slower depending on your point of view, intense efforts were undertaken to keep its atoms together but all that resulted in was a sucking effect that swallowed the rest of the unlucky traveller. What was left of them was a very long smear on the space barrier, that would otherwise not have a visible property, sometimes to be seen by passing ships that , could, at times, it was said, maybe, hear the long-drawn-out screams of the poor souls that experienced spacetime awkwardness at its finest.

There were other more advanced methods of travel, the most notorious of them the infamous improbability drive, but they were for twerps. Or so Commodore Anicetus thought.

He was a real man. Yes he had started this whole race thing because he was a proud and stubborn asshole that lost a bet that the other side had covered with a vintage leather jacket, but that would not detract from the glory he stood to gain. He would see this through, and by the space born spaghetti monster, it would be him holding the big trophy one day and die a heroes' death of sexual exhaustion.

The Nori had better things to do than daydream, she was currently occupied with conducting her work forces efforts. Those bathrooms were in dire need of cleaning, and she felt like no one had oiled her various door hinges for what felt like, and had quite possibly been, decades.