A pure fractal made in Apophysis 2.09, overlaid in two different ways
Trying to get home for Christmas on a starship is always a dicey proposition – even if the best your fleet starship can do is Warp 5 or 6 due to overworking the warp engines, it's still a starship that can do more just about anything other than a fleet ship in better condition, and there wasn't another one near a distress call.
“Captain, yes, we can get Warp 6.5,” Lt. Cmdr. Doohan said from engineering, “but, understand that we are going to be in our everlasting home for Christmas above that – our hull integrity fields are not trying to do even Warp 6.75, but I'll patch in the auxiliary shield generators for 6.5!”
It was a small matter to appearances, but serious – a very small shuttle by fleet standards had gotten caught in the edge of an unexpected solar flare.
“How they have survived this long, though?” Lt. Morimoto said.
“It is an anomaly,” Cmdr. Helmut Allemande said as he swung into chief science officer mode. “A shuttle that size and class actually should not be in the shape that it is in – hull integrity is near 100 percent, and shield strength is near 80 percent. There is some kind of unusual energy source.”
“And, whatever language they are speaking – sounds like broken glass,” Lt. Almuz said as he began re-calibrating the communication board.
Meanwhile, Admiral Benjamin-Banneker Jackson and Commodore Wilhelm Allemande were on their way to the bridge anyway, having prepared their plan to pass on to Admiral Elian Bodega for while the Amanirenas was in repair, and both of them were riveted to the sound coming from the communications board.
“What in the world – report,” the admiral ordered, and I brought him up to speed on what was happening.
“I know that voice,” Cdre. Allemande said. “I know that voice!”
The noise from the board stopped all of the sudden – meanwhile, the Amanirenas moved into position and extended its far stronger shields over the shuttle, and … .
“The unusual energy source is powering down … fading fast, Captain,” Cmdr. Allemande said.
Cdre. Allemande had gone over to the communications board.
“Play back what was said for me, Lieutenant,” he ordered, and my chief communications officer did so.
The commodore considered this a long moment, and then reached out his 95-year-old hands and re-tuned the board – and the words became clear, although it was still a unique voice: crystalline, like a glass armonica.
Meanwhile, Cdre. Allemande, reaching back 55 years into his memory, indeed knew that voice.
“Your Majesty, Queen Qvalliqa,” he said, “this is Wilhelm Allemande, now of the starship Amanirenas. Do you read me?”
“Wilhelm … Wilhelm … I thought that was your voice… if anyone would care enough … .”
“Oh, thank Captain Khadijah Biles-Dixon and her crew … I'm an old commodore along for the ride … but Your Majesty, what happened?”
Long story short; the queen had been a passenger when the solar flare had caught her shuttle unaware … but as she was one of the silica-based lifeforms apparently common in the region, she had volunteered to get hooked up to the warp drive and give it the power to keep those shields up. Needless to say, Queen Qvalliqa was a being of immense powers, just living quietly and not bothering anyone with said powers, unwilling to see others of weaker make up perish although …
“Wilhelm … I am dying … I have melted and reorganized myself down to my inner shards … but thank your captain for me … it was not in vain.”
“Qvalliqa, forget all about that,” the commodore said as he rolled in the chair to another set of panels. “Dying? On my watch? Now you know better than that.”
Meanwhile, I was talking to my chief engineer in engineering.
“Yes, we have some dilithium to spare because we're going to get fueled up in the Solar System before coming back out, Captain – I can calculate the amount based on the expenditure the queen must have had.”
So I had the human and humanoids beamed directly to sickbay, but Queen Qvalliqa beamed to engineering … and not a moment too soon, for Lt. Cmdr. Doohan, apprised of her delicate state, beamed her literally into the cupped hands of Cdre. Allemande. All that was left of her fit right there.
“I have you, Your Majesty,” he said gently. “It is me, Wilhelm. We have a dilithium bath for you to rest in, and I will hold you together.”
“Wilhelm, dilithium is poisonous to you … .”
“I am suited up for safety, and besides that, I am 95 years old. I have perhaps another 30 years. You need not die for 3,000. I have you, Qvalliqa.”
And he did, resting her in his hands for two hours so she could regenerate enough for more movement safely, and then climbing into the dilithium tank in his modified space suit, having her laid over his chest, and lying there for 24 hours straight so she could spread and grow on that surface.
My first officer, cousin to the commodore, explained.
“You know, Captain, that my elder cousin is passionate, and his anger is legendary. So is his love. He was a lieutenant on a ship forced into orbit around her world, and she received them and gave them all that they needed to make repairs and get safely home. He was the science officer and figured out how to communicate with her and her people, and so did most of the communication with her, and came to admire her deeply.
“A few years later, my cousin was widowed, and of all the beings he had ever met, Her Majesty was the one who somehow found out and reached out to him with condolences. This touched him deeply, and that is how he found out how much she also admired him. This led to a warm friendship, although brief, for after the year of his mourning he had to get back to work. But he never forgot, and he is repaying her for what she did for his ship, and for him.”
Or, as Lt. Cmdr. Doohan put it more succinctly, “Cdre. Allemande is hardcore!”
“Absolutely out of his mind,” Adm. Banneker-Jackson said, “but then again, I have two bionic legs and got them doing too much trying to get others out of harm's way, so, I really can't say anything.”
Meanwhile, after 27 hours, the queen had recovered and become stable enough to be in the tank by herself without breaking apart, and over the next several days as we moved on toward the Solar System, Lt. Cmdr. Doohan adjusted the mix of minerals as needed so that by the time we were in the home parsec, she was able to step out of the pool of her own power, in a delicate version of her true form.
Her Majesty thanked me, the bridge crew, and the engineering crew by name, one after another in order of rank, and then recognized my uncle, Adm. Banneker-Jackson as the ranking officer. But Cdre. Allemande she embraced – a thing that could not have been altogether comfortable for him being made of soft flesh, but he embraced her and handled her like she was fine glass.
“Because she is,” I said.
“I'll say,” my chief engineer remarked. “The power she has – she was able to take the minerals we have and adjust them on the atomic level to make what she needed to rebuild herself. It's a good thing they went right on and joined the consortium, because there are powers out here who would take all of them.”
“And probably get their clock cleaned doing it,” I said, “because clearly, they would be well able to defend themselves.”
“Yes, there is that part,” Lt. Cmdr. Doohan said. “Even dying, Queen Qvalliqa was holding that shuttle's shields together, so imagine a planet of beings like her. It's a good thing Cdre. Allemande and his colleagues made a good impression 55 years ago.”
“And he and we are still making it,” I said.
Her Majesty would make a full recovery. A ship had been sent out from her homeworld to meet us so she could be taken home, and we made the rendezvous before entering the Solar System. Cdre. Allemande piloted the shuttle over to the receiving ship himself. The last I saw of the queen was just before they boarded that shuttle.
“After all these years … the affair of the heart continues,” she said, “for I was down to my heart, and you cared for me with all your heart."
“Qvalliqa, I talk a lot and am excitable, but I do not let my words fall to the ground. You are a queen and I am a common German earthling. Even if you were human, what could not be could not be – if it could have been, it would have been 53 years ago. Nonetheless, what I said to you then, I meant.”
“I know, Wilhelm. You have shown me. Your heart is worthy of a queen … and you let your queen of 50 years know that I salute her.”
“I will, Your Majesty, with pleasure. Be ever well, for the next 3,000 years – and please do read my report on how to vet reputable passenger shuttle companies!”
There was something like the laughing of a glass armonica.
“You told me you were only going to live another 30 years, and you are making tools for me to use for 3,000 years?”
“Qvalliqa, what I said 53 years ago, I meant.”