Intergalactic

They dropped out of hyperspace a few sub-light flight hours away from the wormhole. Not only did the Aerax enforce a sub-light zone roughly a dozen light minutes around it, getting too close to a wormhole while in hyperspace was also risky. Like warp bubbles, wormholes went beyond normal space.

The crew had switched the Rusty Bolt for a different ship that Yezz had organized. The Grimalkin was nearly spherical, half the size of their own ship, and had a high speed but short range hyperdrive. Most of its volume was dedicated to propulsion systems, with a small cargo hold. In other words: It was designed for wormhole transits, where the cost depended on the volume of an enclosing sphere.

„Still gives me shivers.“, Red remarked as the gate appeared on their sensor display.

„But why?“, Twitch asked after setting the autopilot on course, „You’ve said it some times before but we never used one, so I didn’t ask.“

They stood up and walked through the doorway on the right side of the bridge, where a small mess hall was located. The crew area of the Grimalkin was small, another testimony to the fact that the ship was built for short travels of a week or two at most.

„Not really sure, Twitch.“, the captain replied, „In part because I can wrap my head around warp bubbles, but I can’t grasp what a wormhole actually is. Sure, I’ve seen some of the math, and it really didn’t help at all.“, she let out a small laugh, sitting down at the table where Grubs was finishing his meal. „I mean, it shouldn’t be difficult. We have theoretical papers about wormholes from the pre-space age, long before we made first contact with aliens. I think it was Morris and Torn or Thorne or something. We had to learn about them back in flight school theory, but I forgot. But once us humans were interstellar and could do actual research, we just failed completely. Warp bubbles we got. We still don’t have the tech to create hyper cores, but we understand the theory, we can describe it mathematically, we’re just cave men faced with a metal weapon - no matter how well they understands it, they just doesn’t have the tech to create one. But wormholes? Total mystery to this day.“

„We’re not alone in that, if it helps.“, Twitch remarked from the galley, pouring himself a glass of water. „Lots of more advanced races haven’t figured out wormholes. The dozen or so species that have keep it a secret. A very lucrative secret for some of them. Still, doesn’t explain being so uneasy.“

„Hm, yes. There’s some more. I don’t get why black holes cause spaghettification and wormholes don’t. At least the ones large enough for travel should, for all I know.“

„That“, Grubs interrupted, „is part of what they work out when they structure a wormhole. You know, structure it into a gate.“

„And that“, Red picked up his words, „is another part of it. Our hyperdrives we control, we program. When you fly into a wormhole, you’re at the mercy of some alien you can’t understand if you tried and if they decide to blow you up because today is explode-a-human day or whatever, they can just do that.“

„There hasn’t been an…“, Twitch started

„…incident for thirty years.“, Red completed the sentence, with a slightly annoyed tone of voice. „You’ve said that at least five times the last week while we bubbled here.“

„Sorry, captain.“

„It’s ok. I should stop being a child about it. Anyway, in an hour or so we’ll discuss prices and other details with the birds.“, Red finished, using the derogatory name for the Aerax race.