Star Trek Voyager: Unreachable Light

Chapter 1

Whispers

Illumination turns on as she steps barefooted into an Art Deco aquarium hall, wearing a mauve cashmere sweater dress. Her graceful hands diligently operate Nazca patterns on a touchscreen console. Blurry/grainy black-and-white holographic footage rolls out a glowing cornucopian device.

The 3D visions display four hyper individuals toiling inside an orbital station with lucent walls. They ogle now-and-then at the class-L planet down below. They might be people or perhaps, watchful AI entities waiting for an inexorable event. A little one giggles and bounces off its curved structures.

"Holy mackerel! Excited as a squirrel on a trampoline", exclaims the Ocampan female in control of the image projector. She shifts her head slightly upward as her pointed-puffy ears take in a subspace query. "Aha! That's correct; another human remark to express amazement", she responds smiling at the cyber-jelly fish in the backdrop.

- "Pulse Gaff online. Amplifying wave beam. Data recovery in progress", Kes resumes the cinematic recall behind the console. Her thoughts are log entries.

The glittery postern intensifies ahead of her. Kes senses an upsurge in suspense. The four beings halt their activities all of a sudden. Reobtaining knowledge is of the essence and she is there to ensure her generous hosts get it ...on time.

Characters' distorted voices die out as they spot a rocket module emerging out of the planet's dense atmosphere. The primitive capsule cruises their way. Three astronauts of unclear looks attempt their Species' first manned mission to outer space. Upside down, they look at the bluish mushroom swelling across a coat of sepia clouds. Kes attempts to attune for silver halide, but the photonic speck stays shallow and stars are trapped as brightly dots far away. The flick from a possible past goes on.

Mission Control: Commander Takhare; please start read-through.

"Propulsion,  Navigation, Devices... All good; my friends", Takhare replies assertively. He wrote the book on space travel, after thirty thousands hours as PIC in jet aircrafts and low-orbit missions. 

Previous career accomplishments, regardless of importance, built numerous androgen receptors in his brain to fuel more testosterone. His coolness has reached all-out boldness as he takes a peek out the windscreen to picture Nimbus, the enigmatic satellite orbiting his planet. Nothing now can't stop him from grasping it.

Mission Control: Initiate DLP Projector...

"Calibrating for geometric distortions", Takhare adjusts the photogrammetric bundle to verify structural integrity. He ignores whispers coming from the backseat. On his right side, Taraga, the big copilot gesticulates and pronounces incomprehensible words.

She presses a push-button and an opaque vapor leaks, pelting surfaces to diffuse the high reflection emanating from the Sun. Her people carved the rocket module out of a single forged massive stone, made mostly of Diorite for hardness and agatized fossils for malleability. The alloy is agglutinated by the twinning action of hexagonal Beryllium crystals. There was no other way to negotiate planet's turbulent atmosphere.

"No worries! DLP Scan came out safe-to-fly. We won't disintegrate or anything like that", Takhare gaudily reports.

Kes can't get her attention away from the show.

Mission Control: Oh yeah? You got us on tenterhooks here. Telemetry and dynamic attitude look good. We're proud of you three. Please, proceed with caution.

Taraga gets hyped up by the news encoded in whispers. Her people believe wardens keep in Nimbus their righteous knowledge. Nimbus belongs to the planet and its wisdom shall be set free to spill over everyone. "Walainaina piaki-papu ghatuqura" She mutters repeatedly.