Trapped in Zero-Point Space

By A. A. Roi

A 16,000 word story in the tradition of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

Being the arguably only intelligent species we know if in the universe, many of us regard humanity as a supremely messed-up species, and that perhaps intelligent species existing amongst the stars are far more refined, moral and respectable. This, sadly, or amusingly is not the case. Dispatches from the Inter-Galactic presents a satirical story of aliens that humanity might have seconds thoughts about making first, second or third contact with.

This is the story of Phil, the Balleeni Supersymetrical Particle Filterer, who, against his better judgement, accepts a contract working on a brane puncturing station in the Okposo Dark Nebula. The new job, well, it don’t turn out quite as Phil expected. That's Dark Nebula's for you.

It can also be read in its entirety at www.thenewscifi.com/dispatches/01

• Language: English
• Publisher: A. A. Roi
• Release date: May 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310891977

A. A. Roi

Born in the United States to Canadian parents, he has developed a somewhat sardonic view of both nations, their relationship with each other, as well as the rest of the world. He developed in interest in sci-f media and literature, writing and art, from an early age as well as an keen interest in the future (where we all are, after all, going to spend the rest of our lives). With a desire to learn, but little interest in being taught, he has started and been involved in numerous businesses involving cosmetics, IT, the internet industry, as well as audio-visual tech. He currently lives in the far south, is engaged in several writing projects in the genres of science fiction, fantasy and horror, and shares his home with a handful of cats.

Book preview

Trapped in Zero-Point Space

By A. A. Roi

Copyright 2014 © A. A. Roi

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover by Oört

Smashwords Edition

Table of Contents

01 – Introduction – Hoping for the Worst

02 – Do You Need a Clone? You’d Better Say Yes

03 – The More the Merrier?

04 – A Cranky Torpedo

05 – Sili Directions

06 – Up to Its Neck

07 – If it’s Too Hot for You, Then Don’t Touch it

08 – Instructions from Blueneck, or, just Because

09 – Really, how Much Darker than Black can You get?

10 – Day and/or Night Shifts with Blueneck

11 – You can Keep Your Tendrils to Yourself

12 – Do not have Another Antarean Supernova, or Even a First One, Really

13 – Sex with Aliens, not Necessary all, but Certainly a Whole lot of Them

14 – Various Ways of Killing Many Types of Consentients (but Mostly Morphoids)

15 – Metamorphosis, or, You’re Not so Black after all

16 – The Zero-Point Trance is not Necessarily Restful

17 – One by One, Two by Two, and Likely Three by Three as Well

18 – Seeing the Reality of the Zero Point, and Like any True Reality, it’s not so Attractive

19 – Countdown to Departure, Again, for the First Time

20 – Getting Out Soon, and then after that, Getting in

21 – Conclusion, or, the Clone Doesn’t Actually Fall from the Tree

Introduction – Hoping for the Worst

Have you ever felt as though you’ve gotten yourself into an unexpectedly difficult situation, such as being stuck in the Schwarzschild radius of a black hole, or found yourself being reduced to component amino acids by the viral wraiths of Gwam? No? Then you probably need a small cluster of symbiotic sympathetic implants to identify with our latest dispatch from the intergalactic. We have just the things. Fitting well now? Just give them a few moments to burrow under your epidermis. There. Now you, as well as the rest of your species, providing for a decent viral infection rate, should be able to keep up.

For those of you who’ve been xeno-experiencing on these upper galactic bands for the last few millennia, you might remember Supersymetrical Particle Filterer Phil. He’s an actual Balleeni energy pod filterer (a subset which are particularly uncommon) who’s made his mission to travel through all the major sectors of the galaxy cleansing zero-point energy filters literally station to station. When he reached the Okposo Dark Cluster, he decided to try out a servicing position at a free orbiting deep space brane puncturing facility. But in doing so, this would break the number one directive he has sustained over centuries of galactic transiting:

Never work at a job I couldn’t wormhole my way out of the moment the motivation struck me. We Balleeni are an empathically and telepathically sensitive species, and to be trapped amongst any potentially powerful emitters of consentience for extended periods of time would have psychological consequences its best not going into.

He’s rather proud of the limited number of close proximity consentients who’ve been disemboweled, cut limb from limb, ventilated, disintegrated or otherwise met their maker over the course of his travels:

Nothing that a Medicvac couldn’t repair in a jiffy. Except for the disintegrations. You can’t fix that. Not really.

In over 6500 years, and a journey which has taken him a quarter of the way around the galaxy, he had never broken that simple directive (that he has been willing to admit, anyway). But Dark Cluster space, with its many black holes and twisted clouds of black nebulae, the dimensional fluctuations are too dangerous for large craft to navigate. This means crews of the stations that pump differential energy from pockets of warped alternative space-time are compelled to long periods of sequestration in one of the most tortured regions of known space.

But as he had developed a hankering to explore the rigors of wide open space, figured if he managed in this environment, he could take on an even more extreme assignment – filtering supersymetrical residue for decades from the propulsion pumps of a superstring skimmer as it punches through the inter-arm along the long edge of the Legendary Apahomi Rift,