where you think you're going | Glowfic Constellation

from_scratch

Okay, then Cam can be less precise with his speakers! He can just pepper the entire area of Enemy ships with them and have them YELL.

"I AM FRIGHTENINGLY POWERFUL. SPEAK TO ME."

The ships fire wildly at everywhere the sound seems like it might potentially be coming from. There is some friendly fire, but fewer self-destructions.

from_scratch

Well, the sound's coming from the speakers.

Cam makes little transponder cameras and plants more mics in ships with them. All the ships he can find.

He repeats himself.

By far the commonest reaction is to destroy themselves in a panic. Some try to flee instead, but there is nowhere to flee to - or is there? They have to have come from somewhere.

from_scratch

Well, he's tracking them as they go. "...Do you happen to know where they go when they're not here?"

slash-of-gold

"Away. We've never been able to follow them that far."

Some of the fleeing ships are shot down by their panicking allies, but not all.

from_scratch

"I am tempted to follow them."

slash-of-gold

"We won't be able to follow you, but you don't seem to have needed us so far... how long should we wait before trying to dismiss and resummon you?"

from_scratch

Cam hands him a thing. "This will eventually - depending on weird physics - have a delay of several minutes, depending on how far I chase 'em. But you can talk to it and it'll talk to me. Like so," he says to his computer, and his voice echoes out of the thing. "If I don't answer and there's not an obvious reason and the delay hasn't crept up high enough to explain it and I didn't tell you I'd be out of touch, then you unsummon and resummon."

slash-of-gold

"Understood. Good luck."

from_scratch

"Thanks!"

And Cam flaps for some distance and makes a high-speed atmosphere-friendly shuttle around himself and zooms away, chasing after scared evil aliens.

The evil aliens are headed away from the planet, toward the distant lights that resemble stars.

Eventually, though - after many, many planet-lengths, a distance that approaches the legitimately astronomical - it becomes clear that there is an edge to this universe. And hovering in midair, very close to that edge, there is a portal no bigger than an ordinary doorframe.

The aliens stationed at the portal are frantically shooting down all their own ships that make it this far, flashing emphatic lights to warn them away.

from_scratch

"Hey, did you know that the universe has an edge. With a fucking door in it. WHY IS YOUR WORLD THIS WAY."

slash-of-gold

"...What does the edge look like?"

from_scratch

Cam takes a picture and sends it. "It looks like an EDGE! With a DOOR in it! Why!"

slash-of-gold

There is a short silence.

Then: "...It looks like the edge of a Sphere. A very large Sphere, to be sure... but that's certainly a portal."

from_scratch

"What the fuck!"

slash-of-gold

"It's... not impossible, I suppose. But I can't imagine how old this person must have been when they died, for their Sphere to be this enormous."

from_scratch

"And why do you all just live in it! And not know it's a Sphere!"

slash-of-gold

"I have no idea."

from_scratch

"Well, your universe has a door and that's how the evil aliens are getting in. Any guesses what I'll find if I rush it?"

slash-of-gold

"Another Sphere and portals to more, I expect. And more of the Enemy. Until you track them all the way back to where they came from, wherever that is."

from_scratch

"Can I just, you know, close it, or is it permanent?"

slash-of-gold

"If the owners of both connected Spheres are dead, the portal is permanent. The owner of this Sphere must be dead, or we'd all need their permission to create portals out of it; I find it hard to imagine that the owner of the connecting Sphere might be alive, given that their Sphere has presumably been totally overrun by the Enemy."

from_scratch