Reality series future excerpt
Still stuck on the wedding, so world-building in other areas....
Did this world-building blip and just wanted to share. From some point in one of the future novels, not exactly sure. I just love writing, and making dialogue, and characters needling each other.
Caythey, a Human, floated absent-mindedly in the forward section of the observation halo attached to a ship whose name they’d already forgotten. Space outside buzzed with milky runners of stars stretching in horizontal and vertical directions, muted but visible. Caythey, adjusted the brightness on her potestream. The sheen calibrated itself to the more shadowy area of the observation halo, and Caythey pressed it against their chest, and watched out the window. Their heart had hopped over the more automatic parts of their assignment, and out to what they truly looked for, what they truly wanted to see and try and understand about this particular offshoot of the intelligence of the universe
The undertow of outer space had been stolen from nature eons ago, by invention and innovation, the minds of the universe’s own forms of evolution. So it had fought back, made the consequences of failure that much more dire on the frail bodies that attempted defiance, reinforced its dominion.
And had crafted space lightning. The one large unexplained phenomenon left, the one that shouldn’t be there. The golden bows of jolted energy striking across inconceivable light years, instantly then gone, so bright that space seemed to momentarily tum dark blue afterwards to the fooled. inadequate eyes of flesh-based lifeforms. It was an illusion, though; nothing could travel like that in an instant, not even hypervelocity stars. But an explanation was hard to come by, because the illusion was double; it neither stretched across light years nor ever seemed near to those viewing it, always in the same spot, appearing at the same distance, and seeming to stretch from star to faraway star. No one had ever seen it up close, or “been in the vicinity.” Sensors crumbled into nonsense when trying to ascertain its properties or gather information about it. They could pick up its distinction, that seemed easy to come by and could number and catalog their sightings; but the data got ruder after that, more gibberish, nothing discernible.
Even odder, space lightning appeared to be almost seasonal. For large swaths of time, months. and months, no sightings would be detected. Then activity would pick up and thousands of sightings would be recorded and reported over many, many months. Then nothing again for awhile. Space lightning, frustratingly simple, the fancy of thrill seekers and galactic sightseers; whole tourism routes had cropped up around the hope of spotting it. Certain religions had adopted its mysterious manna into their iconography, desperate to assign a purpose to its boon and magic. Its lore echoed down both the societal and radical channels of the Kabal, mythological vibrations humming across all the day-to-day public static.
Either mythological vibrations, or an annoying clicking for the deck above. Caythey, a quiet twinkle in their eye, kicked off the wall of the observation halo, letting the zero-G masscase, bubble guide their momentum back up to the conferencing deck. They pulled off their headset and shook their head animalistically. “Gainner, can you cut out that clicking? You’re going to make the lightning grouchy.”
Gainner, a male Fedrellon, looked up at them, his eyes always seeming feeble and waxy, and snorted. “I can’t get very fine data if I don’t warm up the field apertures. Nobody wanted you to start early in the observation halo.” He turned back to his screen.
“I wanted to,” Caythey said. “We’re never going to get perfectly straight data on it anyway. It wants to be seen, not analysed.”
“Make your living your way, and I will make mine mine,” said Gainner.
Caythey grinned, then turned her attention to the mission commander, “Talk is cheap, right L’hremde?”
L’hremde, a Bundan, twitched xis whiskers as xe sipped a nutrition pouch. “This is not entertainment. Caythey placed a hand on their masscase, bubble control panel, but waited. “Can we go on the float for a little bit?”
L’hremde directed xis neck and head to move, meticulously placing xis, face and eyes in positions that, to other Bundans, would be effective and efficient non-verbal communication. To Human perception though, even one as astutely trained and conditioned to Bundan social cues as Caythey, leftover loose ends abounded.
“You said we might if we stayed past the border too long, so I’m just asking,” said Caythey. “I can’t imagine this long at Gs is very fun for you either.”
L’hremde’s face jolted, mildly surprised that xis expression hadn’t been fully understood. Still fresh to conglomerated society. L’hremde’s skills in navigating cultural overlap had yet to been made the most of. “I didn’t say how long once we were past the border. I will decide that eventually.” Xe sipped xis nutrition pouch.
Caythey took their hand off the bubble controls. They got all set to turn back to the observation halo and tell L’hremde, that they would be remaining in the halo for the time being, but before that could happen, an alert sounded over the conference deck’s speakers.
Iccaropiden, the feline-like Nikite manning communications, said, “FTL distortions mark-132-001 through 059-002, configurations varied, still coming in.”
Caythey turned off the bubble and set down on the deck into the regular artificial gravity. There wouldn’t be much they could do to be helpful in an alert like this, but they remained very curious.
Outside, a dozen flashes permeated space for a split-second, and ships appeared at the coordinates indicated; a misfit little band of freighters, transports, and one or two relatively larger liners. None looked particularly threatening.
“Defensive stand-off posture,” said L’hremde. Xe turned to give orders to another person, a Human named Jerrak Hornburton, but she had already stepped up next to Iccaropiden, and thus did the job she looked forward to being paid for.
Her eyebrows furrowed at the readouts. “I’m not sure what those are, or who they’re aligned to.”
“Who could they be aligned to?” said L’hremde.
Hornburton had been hired for one pure job: information and knowledge of the Cadevoras sector, the expansive region of the Rim that L’hremde’s ship now operated in; and, like all Rim regions, one which brimmed and boiled with all sorts of above ground and under-the-radar activity. “It’s just a convoy,” said Hornburton. “A number of different lower-level organizations use misaligns like this. Could be a broker, pawners, some of the Emirates. Could be even possibly Kistofron, though I don’t think so. Doesn’t look threatening whatever it is.”
“They’ve plotted a course to another jump point,” said Iccaropiden, “Ignoring us.”
“You look perplexed,” said L’hremde to Hornburton.
She seemed to be perplexed. “This area would be considered part of the Unsafe. No transport routes would be recommended, or trade lines established, out here. So I don’t understand what they’d even be doing out here.”
“We could ask them,” said Caythey, only half-serious.
Which L’hremde did not pick up on. “We’re not asking strangers for their attention.”
“What if they start thinking we’re out here for the same reason they are?” said Caythey
“Incoming broadcast,” said Iccaropiden. She perked her head about for a few moments, then handed the signal box to Hornburton. “Do you know what this is?” Hornburton, listened for a few seconds, then looked visible confused, then distraught, then handed the box back to Iccaropiden.
“It’s the witchhunt,” Hornburton said.
“I don’t know what that is,” said Libremde.
“Alliance mania. Over a piece of intelligence linking the Empirium to a bunch of third party weapons manufacturing, some possibly in the Alliance itself.”
“Those are Alliance ships. It’s the war,” said L’hremde. “Take us out of the sector,” he said to Iccaropiden.
“No, it’s not the war,” said Hornburton. “The Alliance is involved in many things, including the war. This is a side concern for them. An important one. Those aren’t Alliance ships. They’re ships hired by the Alliance. To ‘search the stars for where the two rings chain’. It’s thought to be a code of some kind. It’s based off a stupid myth started by the Crystal Star, called ‘The Bride of Cornal.’”
Caythey jerked. “Cornal? Vito Cornal?”
Horaburton turned incredulously to Caythey.
But L’hremde spoke, xis voice flowing darkly across the room. “How would you know Vito Cornal?”
“I don’t. I crossed paths with him once, before war broke out.” Caythey smirked at Hornburton. “What’s he’s doing these days? Besides fucking up the Crystal Star apparently?”
“He’s head of the Crystal Star,” said Hornburton.
Caythey’s face seized up, and they quickly covered with a forced laugh. “What? And it’s still around?”
“Turn yourself over to me,” said L’hremde, voice rising as xe slapped xis pouch onto a console. “Crystal Star could destroy us. Submit all the information you know about him to me.”
“I met him in passing, he wouldn’t even remember me. He just,” they paused, “leaves a good 30-second impression.”
“I don’t believe you knew him for only 30 seconds,” said L’hremde.
Caythey struggled to respond. Bundans had a hard time with Human social norms and idioms. “I was in the same vicinity of him for a few hours. Years ago. Before he became they stopped and pondered for a moment. Cornal had never really become anything different than himself. “Before he became well-known. Nothing criminal. He won’t remember me. I know nothing about him, and all I remember is how often he stroked his own ego.” Caythey grinned at Hornburton. “The Crystal Star started that myth? Cornal started a myth about himself?” Caythey laughed. “Reason be damned with him, all the time. Who, dare I ask, is the ‘Bride of Cornal”?
“If I knew that, do you think I’d be safe here? I have no idea, nor do I want to have any idea, about any of Cornal’s little schemes. Like I said, it’s a code, one that Cornal is very up-to-something with.”
“’Search the stars for two rings chain’,” said Caythey, to no one in particular. “What in the moons is he talking about?”
“It’s a quantum liminal broadcast they send out,” said Hornburton. “A treasure hunt. The ships that find the reciprocal signal from the place where ‘two rings chain’ get significant privileges and rewards extended by the Alliance. Same goes by the Empirium and some interested third parties.”
Another alert sounded, and Iccaropiden said something.
Caythey, ignored it. “Like what?” they asked Hornburton, curiously.
“See for yourself,” said Hornburton, nodding out the window.
Caythey looked and saw another ship jumping in, this one slightly larger than the largest of the previous group. And it looked much nicer and well-kept. It had a boxy appearance, asymmetrical, the starboard side being the lopsided part, covered in some kind of extensive patterned grid.
The most surprising thing; a prominent, fiery-blue emblem on the side of the ship. A shiny, forced-perspective diamond-looking icon inside the outline of a sun.
Crystal Star. The ship belonged to the Crystal Star.
“I hope you and Cornal worked everything out and parted ways amicably,” said Hornburton to Caythey, “because that’s his ship.”
And as the Crystal Star ship started to turn and face their ship. Hornburton, added, “and he takes an interest in everything.”
(C) Bryan Ritchey 4/17/2026