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The Outer Limits

The St. Vincent, the giant ship for the occupancy of 500 crews, was a magnificent sight to behold. It was one of only two ships properly equipped for intergalactic travel, even if it was just a prototype and had not been properly tested yet. With the new possible threat around the corner, the St. Vincent, originally a hospital ship, had been upgraded with facilities and capabilities similar to Pineapple Express.

The ship’s facilities including a mess hall with three units of automated replicators, each contained data of over a million dishes with their own varieties, all with high level of nutrition on each of them. Federation species of different kinds used the replicators primarily for nourishment.

Throughout the ships, apartments, referred to as ‘quarters’ by the crew, took the most part of the ship, with the ship’s main engine room being located directly under the apartments. Those apartments were made so families of the crews could fill the required minimum quota of 300 passengers. Except for some of the bridge officers, most of them did not take families with them, knowing the risk involved in the mission. The lesser ranked crewmates could take families with them, however.

For now, the ship went through the galaxy’s end tail, a dark sector belonging to sector Z. Sector Z90, it was one of the sectors used for automated planetary mining, with only a small colony of miners living on some planets. The appearance of a giant ship like St. Vincent surprised the miners, but they did not feel like it was something new, given how the machines they operated were far bigger than the ship flying through the planet.

Despite of that, the ship’s bridge was very busy, as they knew navigating through a dark sector required them to be careful with space rocks. Asteroids were abundant in dark sectors, but most of them were not dangerous to smaller ships. With a Galatia-class ship flying through the sector, it would need considerable maneuver to be able to minimize shield energy and hull integrity.

The bridge, aside from the captain and first officer, also had a guest with them. Atho, one of the few Rendloks who went with the ship, was observing the asteroids beside the captain, who was standing near a holographic projector presenting the three-dimensional map of the surroundings, with the ship in the middle of a cluster of rocks.

“Turn 5 degrees, port side,” said the navigator, a cat-like Terran. Atho could feel the ship shifted to the left as Pritchard saw the map. The Rendlok, however, was more interested on the captain’s decision in maneuvering the edge of the galaxy while they still need to reach the center of it.

“Because we need more fuel that what we have right now. I thought it’s quite obvious,” replied Pritchard in his mind.

“So why are we going to a mining colony? I thought we can resupply in any stations.”

“While the Saint’s fuel cell can be replaced in any supply stations, it’s sheer size and its exploration cruiser upgrade means that it takes four times the fuel than a Scorpio-class ship, and ten times compared to a destroyer cruiser like the Wind of Change. Also, we are not planning on stopping in a space station for a predicted time of 3 months.”

“3 months?! How can you survive with a ship this big? You can’t just make this ship overweight, right?”

“Of course not! We don’t need food supplies like most smaller crafts, and with our ship being refitted to be an exploration cruiser, we mostly put planetary exploration vehicles in the hangar. But, well…those fuels might need some workaround.”

“Oh…right…. Here I am screaming inside your mind like a total freak…”

“Well, I can see that you Rendloks haven’t been in a Galatia-class ship before. But, I’m quite surprised on how your friends can actually operate this ship without prior knowledge on any ships.”

“You do realize that we are mind-readers, right?”

The Saint then reached a mining colony and stayed on orbit while negotiators went down to the colony to talk about the fuel. Atho wanted to follow, seeing how he was a Federation ambassador, but Pritchard refused.

“These guys have never seen an insectoid alien before. You may be an ambassador, but your appearance is menacing enough for them.”

“How menacing am I, anyway? Your crew seems to be very agitated with me around.”

“Have you ever seen a Terran ant under a magnifying glass? You look just like that, except that you have those four predator eyes and claws sharp enough to shred your opponents to pieces.”

“I have an ant farm in my room.”

“Yeah, and you got the general idea already,” said Pritchard through his mind. “You can just get into your room, Atho. We can take it from here.”

Atho reluctantly walked away from the console and through the door behind him, which was the elevator down to the rooms. Lunera looked at Pritchard from his console before walking towards him and said, “Did he talk to you, captain?”

“Yes he is. For an insectoid, he’s quite resourceful.”

“But are you sure he’s not probing your mind?”

“Even if he does, it does not benefit him at all. It’s even better for me, anyway. If something happens, he can be my surrogate captain.”

Before Lunera could object, Pritchard just smiled towards him and said, “I’m just kidding, Lune. But to be honest, his race learns faster than us. If only they could speak, we won’t need to have an awkward conversation like that.”

Lunera sighed and returned to his post. Just as he sat, the receiver found the signal indicating that the miners agreed with the term and they requested the captain’s presence on the planet. Pritchard nodded and asked Lunera to follow him alongside another crewmember.

Meanwhile, in Atho’s room, he kept feeling as if his appearance actually made people uneasy. Aside from the bridge officers, no one knew that Rendloks were mind readers except those assigned in engineering, who required communications for things to work as they should. The Rendlok couldn’t even understand how his race was so terrifying. Pritchard said he looked like an ant, but…well, not really an ant, but clearly similar to an ant. It’s not like he was a jack jumper, right?

“I’ve taken the liberty of learning a wide range of these small Terran insects, and I can’t seem to understand why they don’t feel like I’m a friendly alien,” thought Atho. “I know Dairyu was not afraid of me because he travels, but surely these people knew any insectoids aside from me, right?”

The Rendlok knew that, due to his dealings with the Federation high council, he knew that Rendloks were the first visibly insectoid alien they considered not feral, but of course, the limitation of their speech pattern, syllables, and mostly feral-like clicking sound which seemed to not be patterned seemed to make the universal translator to not be able to catch on his language, forcing his race to rely on talking with minds to communicate. The other insectoid races that looked humanoid (but most were still pre-space civilizations), were clearly able to communicate, but not to the Federation, so they could not register them as a member of the Federation race. Also, there were some widespread rumor about Rendloks influencing the Federation with mind control, which was clearly something that they couldn’t done.

The people who knew him best like Alan and Dairyu did not mind if their mind were too open for the Rendloks to know their secrets, if Atho could keep a secret.

As he was pondering on the situation, he heard something in his mind. It was like a conversation. For a Rendlok like him, it was inevitable to accidentally hear things with his mind. For the most part, Atho ignored their conversations and moved on with his job, but the comments the crewmembers talked about made Atho concerned.

“Hey, I heard that the Wind of Change hit a snag somewhere in the Saurian domain,” said one of the crew.

“Are you talking about the same ship that lead the fight 15 years ago?”

“Do you know any other ship with that name? Anyway, the ship got hit by a natural EMP and got grounded on a nearby wild planet.”

“Wow, that’s a problem right there. Where did you heard this from anyway?”

“My Saurian friend told me about it. He said his friend is one of the researchers on that planet and their admirer. Ah…hearing how their crash even got mentioned really makes it cool, huh?”

“More like unnecessary.”

They passed his room to the nearby elevator. Atho quickly got out of the room and walked towards the middle part of that floor, which housed a communication room. The interior was a room with a single hologram projector in the middle, with the communication officers, led by a bridge officer, filtered the subspace messages and relayed some messages. The room was also the hub of a radio station which provided entertainment in their journey.

As Atho went in, an officer approached him. At first the officer was oblivious of the fact that Rendloks communicate with minds, but after being assured by Atho, he was genuinely surprised and said sorry to the ambassador, to which he directed him towards the projector.

“So, ambassador, what do you require from us?”

“Can you connect me to this frequency?”

After writing down the Wind of Change’s frequency, the officer nodded and started operating the machine. Atho heard what he was thinking about, which was wondering on how Atho would communicate with a sub-space hologram if he could only talk with minds.

Luckily, Atho knew a function in a hologram projector for aid to mute persons. He gave this knowledge to the officer and he nodded. A holographic keyboard came out in front of Atho and he waited for anyway to connect with Dairyu and the rest of the group.

Instead of meeting Dairyu, however, a young-looking Scylla was on the other end of the projector. Atho immediately knew the Scylla as Calventis since he looked like Let if he was still 14 years old. Of course, the Scylla recognized the Rendlok immediately, apparently because Calventis had only met one Rendlok before, and that was Atho.

“Greetings, Calventis,” wrote Atho. “I hope your travel does you well.”

Calventis, on the other side of the line, saw the text in front of the hologram. He immediately realized that Rendlok’s verbal language was not registered in the translator yet (even after 15 years). He then said, “It is, Atho. Are you trying to find Dairyu? He’s currently doing a job for a Saurian outpost.”

“Which Saurian outpost?” wrote Atho.

“The coordinate told us we are somewhere in Sector J8, in an unnamed system one light year before the nearest Federation fueling depot. Our zero matter converter is busted and the Saurians agreed to help us.”

Atho was wondering if the Saurian’s converter could actually fit the Wind of Change’s system, given how their technology mostly utilized a special space-worthy brick common in the Saurian homeworld and some of their handpicked colony. But then, there would be no way the Saurians wanted to help them if they did not have any compatible converter.

“Do they actually have a converter?”

“A Saurian came to us and offered us an assistance to fix the ship. I think he told us that the converter they had come from a Federation ship.”

“Ah, so it seems. Anyway, how are you holding up?”

“I’m okay, I guess. The crew doesn’t mind my status and talk to me casually, like I’m just another guy. Dajar kind of like my mentor and assistant at the same time. I never thought he knows a lot of things.”

“And I never thought a 14 years old would be one of the royal engineers,” said Dajar’s voice from the background. Calventis looked back and said, “Dajar!” prompting Dajar’s voice to say, “Next time shut the comms room door.”

After Dajar left, Atho, wondering about it himself, wrote, “You have a comms room?”

“Yeah, apparently father thought that a hologram projector in the middle of the ship did not account for privacy, so he asked some of his engineers to move it to a vacant brig unit and convert it into a comms room.”

“Yes, I think I recall seeing the brig. Why aren’t you closing the door, then?”

“Uhmm…I’m too big to fit in the unit.”

“And I thought that place is big enough for some Scyllas. Oh, well…are you supposed to be doing your job fixing the ship instead of talking to me?”

“But, I thought you are trying to talk to Dairyu.”

“Whatever errand he is doing on that planet might be something that needs his full attention. He can call me back if he wants. Being an official representative on a giant space exploration vessel can be quite boring if nothing is going on. Anyway, thank you for talking to this Rendlok.”

Calventis read the message and smiled. He then said, “It is my pleasure. Calventis out.” Before closing the link. Atho, despite of not being able to smile, moved his mandibles in and out, creating a distinct clicking sound his kind always did. He then turned around out to the main mess area.

Just as he walked out of the room, however, a Rendlok came to him. He was wearing a modified engineer uniform fit for a six limbs alien like him and Atho. Atho himself mostly wore robes to fit four of his hands. Atho then looked at the Rendlok and sensed a distress in his thought pattern.

“What’s wrong, young one? You seemed distressed,” said Atho with his own voice. The Rendlok looked up towards him, eyes very agitated.

“Ambassador Atho, something’s going on in the hangar!” exclaimed the Rendlok. “The away team came back just now, but the captain, he’s requesting your immediate attention!”

“Is there something wrong?”

“One of the away team suddenly became catatonic and started brandishing his gun everywhere!”

Atho wanted to make sure if that wasn’t just a prank or something like an act, and the situation was worse than what the young Rendlok said, but the Rendlok shook his head and said, “I am not going to be this agitated if I’m acting!”

“Yes, I understand. Go back to your post, young one. Let me look at the situation.”

Atho walked towards the elevator and pushed the button indicating ‘hangar’. The elevator was fast enough to reach the lower part of the ship, where they put smaller crafts used for surveillance and first response to threats. As he walked out of the elevator, the situation suddenly became clear on the Rendlok’s eyes.

The crew, a Terran, was struggling around violently while waving a gun around, threatening to shoot everyone. His speech pattern was very jumbled, making the people around him not being able to understand what he was saying. Pritchard noticed Atho and walked towards him.

“He became like this the moment we went out of the ship. It looks like he’s possessed by something,” said Pritchard.

“Possessed?”

“Our culture also has something we called ‘supernatural’. It’s basically occult stuff involving things out of this world. We have abandoned most of the arts in favor of technology but some of us still practiced them. It is not illegal, but we don’t want to get to deal with weird things.”

“Let me look into his mind.”

Pritchard moved away, letting the Rendlok to touch the lizard-looking Terran and linked Atho into his mind. As soon as he came in, however, he saw two minds battling for control within the lizard’s mind.

“What the hell?” Atho then looked around, while the real reason was to check whether there was any telepath who was trying to take control of this poor Terran’s mind. He knew his kind would somehow be involved since Rendloks were known to be strong telepaths themselves. Yet, only a select few, like Atho, could actually attack someone from within their minds, causing brain-dead. It was an effective way to end a fight before it begun, but in the time of peace, it would be considered a breach of privacy. That was why Atho was trying not to expose the fact that he was probing the minds of the crew around him, knowing very well that this could hurt the early relationship between the Rendloks and the rest of the crew. Despite of knowing some of them suspecting the Rendloks for breaching their privacy (also the fact on how they could become a professional despite of not being trained as such), none were too scared to the point they would attack his kind.

The other mind did not seem to come from any of the crewmembers, and he did not find the mental link to any part of the ship. He then concluded that another mind was hijacking the crew’s mind individually. The fact that it was independent and somehow came from within his mind strengthened Atho’s hypothesis.

“Pritchard, I think an independent mind is trying to take over his mind.”

“Can you take that thing out of him?”

“I can try.”

Atho tried to link himself to the afflicted crew, but as soon as he established a mental link, something got in touch with his mind. It was as if the thing that found him knew that he was a telepath, and was trying to communicate.

“Ah, it seems that you have somehow found me, unlike most members of your race,” said the thoughts inside the crew. “I’ve never thought anyone in this place can actually communicate with me.”

“Would you mind telling me the reason why you are ‘possessing’ this man?” said the Rendlok through the link.

“Straight to the question, eh? I’m starting to like you already. Okay, since you are straight, I’m going to be blunt. I’m one of those fifth dimension ‘ghosts’ you third dimensionals are having problems with.”

While they were talking, Atho was trying to find a way to see this person’s new pattern. He was surprised by the fact that the invader’s pattern was entirely different and unrecognizable.

“Oh, don’t bother, Rendlok. You won’t be able to handle the strain, anyway. I’m a collective of some sort, sorting dead and my people, if that’s how you consider your own dimensional race.”

“So the fifth dimension has races just like our dimension?” asked Atho.

“That’s the easiest way to say that, and something that your race can understand, too. We don’t use ‘races’. Native fifth dimension ‘creatures’ are collectives, consisting of multiple minds. Me? I just like to think that my collective is one single individual.”

“Then why the leak? What happened there that caused the dimensional tear?”

“Oh, that? Uh…it’s sort of our fault, really. But, well…it’s hard to explain, but we got leaks in three different universes right now.”

“Three different universes? What are you talking about?”

“Like I said earlier, it’s really hard for your 3Ds to understand. Basically, your universe is one of an unlimited numbers of universes. We called that multiverse, okay? You may exist in another universe, just maybe you are different. Just imagine a world where you, a Rendlok, did not cause a dangerous experiment 5000 years ago that reduced your civilization into rubbles and scattering your races throughout the galaxy. Your race may have stayed in your home planet, trying to develop space travel, or maybe became a tyrannical galactic empire. Either possibility happened because there is a multiverse. You may be the dictator in one possibility, or maybe you’re a criminal. Possibilities are limitless.

“Now, one of our kind, thinking that chaos is such a bright idea, rip apart the wall separating our dimension in three different universes that are closer to each other. This universe caused those moved on from this dimension to pour back and mix with the living, another universe gives their version of Terra individuals with superpowers, and the last universe caused a tear deep within the pit of hell itself. You understand? I bet you don’t. It’s too much to take in, anyway.”

“How can I understand if you are talking like you’re high on drugs?”

“Do I sound like that? How can you insectoids have any knowledge on drugs, anyway?”

“We have our own knowledge, and you have yours. Now, would you kindly get out of this lizard’s mind? Your interference is starting to short his brain. Also, a Terran’s brain can’t hold three minds in one.”

“Yeah, well…okay, then,” said the thought with a sigh. “At least I’ve sent the message. Remember, Atho of the Rendloks. This leak will cause a bigger problem if you can’t close it. Adieu!”

The mental link was abruptly cut, causing a slight ‘blanking’ until Atho could hear the voice of the original owner of the mind. The lizard Terran was clearly confused his struggle was abruptly over.

“H-huh? What happened to that thing possessing me?”

“You are safe now, lizard,” said Atho consoling him. “Rest well. Your ordeal is over.”

Atho closed his link and returned both himself and the lizard Terran back to the real world. He looked around the group gathering around him, puzzled as to why he was staying still all the time. Atho made some clicking noise and turned towards Pritchard, saying, “How long was I gone?” in his mind.

“Around 30 minutes,” replied Pritchard. “And…your presence is required in my quarters.”

Atho knew that if he was called into Pritchard’s personal quarters and office meant that something was very important and he needed to know. Being a Federation representative in that journey, Atho felt the responsibility of knowing the details of the ship’s status and report it to the Federation. While this seemed to be a captain’s job, since he was the one keeping the log, Pritchard wanted to make sure that it was official, and to make sure some parts were ‘exempted’ from the official reports, including this one incident.

When he came into the room, followed by Lunera, Pritchard quickly locked the door. He sat behind his table, sipping a hot coffee beside him, and said, “That wasn’t some ghost possessing him, was it?”

“How can you tell?”

“Because if it was supernatural and magical in nature, our more magically-inclined crew would be affected and could sense that thing. When you were fighting that thing, Lunera tried to sense if the lizardman actually had any traces of magic or even any soul. There was no other soul inhibiting him, but you and whatever inside him had some kind of a power struggle.”

“Is there any relevance to any of this? I mean, mind and soul are different topics.”

“Yes, but let me ask you something. Your race are telepaths, right? Can they actually do what you did? I’ve meet a Rendlok crewmember. He seemed incapable of dealing with this sort of thing. Just how strong are you?”

“I guess I need to tell you some facts, then,” said Atho. “I was chosen to be an ambassador because I have stronger mental capabilities than most of my race. My race may be able to look into a mind and copied whatever knowledge they had, but they could not break through what we call the ‘lock’, which contained private memories. The elders and me…could bypass that lock. The worse thing I can do is to burn your brain from the inside, causing brain-dead and making you a vegetable. Of course, that is one in a thousand that can actually do that. It’s something you are born into, not from training. Even if you trained hard to increased your telepathy power, it is only a small fraction of what my ability can do.”

“Will you be a threat?”

“I won’t. I am a Federation ambassador and I won’t abuse that power. It’s extremely dangerous, even to fellow Rendloks. But, we are not talking about that, aren’t we?”

“It seems you’ve noticed,” said Lunera in his mind. “I think it’s time for you to tell us what the hell you’ve encountered in his mind.”

Atho then gave a lengthy explanation about the thing. He did not spare any details and proceeded to tell the two of them everything he could understand from the short time they were conversing. The details he gave them and the fact that he was talking to them mentally put a considerable strain to both Pritchard and Lunera, and so after an hour or so, Pritchard said, “I think I can understand it pretty well, Atho. Thank you.”

“So, what is our plan, Pritchard?”

“It stays the same,” replied the human captain. “We’ll set our course to the center of the galaxy and meet with the Wind of Change at a mutual meeting space. Atho, will you man the comm station and relay our plan? I’ll give you real-time input as you go through the Wind of Change. You can use the interface on my desk.”

“Well…better than doing nothing, I guess,” thought Atho while closing his link. “Got it,” he replied.

“Appreciate it, ambassador.”

“Do not worry, my friend. I do not intend to exclusively observe.”

Pritchard then proceed to tell Atho which part was which, something that the Rendlok had already known by reading the human’s mind. He followed through due to courtesy and also because Pritchard did not think about it. He did not want to be rude.

Lunera knew that the insectoid alien was trying to be courteous, and smiled, knowing that the prodigal telepath would know that he was satisfied. But even after what Atho had said to them about the first contact with the fifth dimension creature, the draconian still had reservations on it. It did not mean that he did not trust Atho, but the explanation he gave to them was not as detailed as he should be for a telepath. It could only mean two things.

Either Atho withheld sensitive information from the two of them, or he genuinely didn’t know….