Leap of Faith (Original)
#1 of Leap of Faith
It felt natural to be in the woods. To walk among the thick trunks, knowing in their old age. To bask in the silvery light of the moon as it shone through the thick leaves. Of course, all of this was a little strange because of my knowledge that I was currently about four and half thousand light years from home. This entire display was just a hologram. I missed the real thing.
I wondered what I was doing so far out here.
-
The year is currently 3028. Humans are dead. In a sense. In the year 2567, after the race of humans had spread across a vast amount of space and wreaked havoc on the 'way of the universe', a strange thing was spotted from Earth. Literally a few miles off the moons surface, a warp of space had seemingly come out of nowhere. None of their technology could detect what it was or where it led, so they decided to deal with it the old fashioned way.
_ Blow it up._
_ One of their most powerful bombs, a_ Rift Screamer was detonated right before entering. The results were devastating. The warp, in all of its complexity, put an immense amount of strain on the 'fabric' of space around it. The Rift Screamer, in all of its stupidity, nearly quadrupled that strain. And just like that, before anyone had realized what had happened, Earth disappeared.
_ Like Clockwork, each of the successively colonized planets spreading out from Earth were visited by this strange anomaly. Even when nothing was done, each of those places visited disappeared. Eventually, there were none left. Humans were far from extinct though. Each warp lasted long enough for the race to simply leave the planet, and every last one of them just went to a new one and re-colonized._
_ But no matter where they went, the warp followed them. For nearly 400 years, this persisted, wearing the human race down. At some point in time, they just... gave up. They were tired of running. Tired of trying to make a new home everywhere they went._
And then ironically, the warps stopped.
_ Normally, this would make them ecstatic, but they were only more worried. They settled down cautiously, spreading very slowly._
In space, one did not want to have children. In response to that fact, medical sciences made amazing breakthroughs, extending the human life at an exponential rate. Eventually, they just didn't need kids. With their extended lives came new abilities at the loss of many more, possibly important ones.
They became telekinetic, and psychic, and everything after and in between. But they lost emotion, they lost empathy. They lost everything that made them human.
And so the humans died, and the Guilon's were born
-
Even after years of expansion, the now dubbed Guilon's had still not discovered extraterrestrial life. But, in the year 2999, they discovered a sprawling empire. They were advanced and intelligent in their own rights, but were put to shame by the Guilons. For the most part, they were almost exactly like the humans before the warps took their home.
So alike, in fact, that the warps were taking their home as well. They pleaded the Guilons for help, but none was afforded.
And so, in an audacious move, at least from the humans point of view, war was declared.
-
"Special Advisor Liath, you're requested on the bridge immediately." One of the female communications officers voice broke through the hologram as it shut off automatically. Liath sighed, and quickly hit his bracelet, sending an affirmative of his approach to their location. He exited the room, quickly turning to the lift and entering his personal code for the bridge.
Within a few moments, the doors opened into an expansive room lined with screens and nearly filled to the brim with people rushing around. His ears twitched temporarily in response to the offensive noises, but he quickly took control of himself. He approached the center of the bridge, where a large bear stood.
"Commander Juin, I was requested?" He spoke, his voice remaining monotone as he examined the screen she was staring at.
She turned and stared at him for a few moments before returning her attention to the screen as well. "We found another one. This planet though... it's different." She said, a slight note of worry creeping into her voice.
Liath forced himself in front of the screen, quickly scanning over its multiple compartments and digesting the information. "Its... this planet, its uninhabited. Why is there a warp?" He asked incredulously.
The Commander looked at him with the same look of incredulity as well. "We thought it was just a random fluke, but a quick scan of the system shows that... well, there are warps on almost every planet. The star is a little difficult to scan, but we think there's one near it as well."
The Commander showed him another panel showing the readings of the rest of the system, but as soon as he approached it, the power went off. He blinked in surprise and turned to face the rest of the people on the bridge, but the instant his paw slipped out of position, he felt and intense feeling of suction against the back half of his body, and then everything went dark.
-
"Name, Skills, and reason for joining?" the female voice rang out, saying the same things for the umpteenth time.
It took me a moment and few helpful pushes from the people behind me to realize she was talking to me. I quickly rushed forwards, barely keeping from tripping over my nervously twitching tail. "Uhhh... Anam Saor. Minor Empath. Business." His baritone voice rang out, cracking near the end and getting a blush out of him in response. His ears flattened to his skull in embarrassment.
"Anam Saor. Please step onto the shuttle. You will be sitting on the first seat to the left. Thank you for choosing to join this expedition." She said, her eyes remaining cold as she ushered me forwards and waved the next person forward, repeating the same message again.
Anam rushed into the shuttle and took his seat quickly, his tail wrapping around his leg in nervousness as he pressed himself as far into the seat as possible. As was standard procedure, Psychics sat on the left and non-psychics sat on the right. Also, as was common, the right side was nearly full and at this point of time, he was one of three on the left.
A slight vixen sat right behind him, a major empath if he had heard correctly, and another fox a couple of seats farther back, a major telepathic. The two looked related. He quickly wrapped himself up in his own mental shields before either of them got anything out of him, and returned to being nervous.
-We can still hear you-
"And feel you."
The two behind him chorused in unison, and he cringed. Twins. Especially psychic twins, were awful to deal with.
-Pardon our intrusion. We simply wanted to greet you.-
"Yes. Please, forgive us. I am Lily, and this is Garen. And not all twins are terrible. "
He cringed, but forced himself to slowly turn around. His gaze slipped over the other side of the cabin, with all of its multiple passenges speaking among themselves, and faceted itself on the two sitting behind him. "I'm Anam. And.. it's uhhh... nice to know that there are some good ones out there." He said with a forced grin, surprised his voice had worked at all.
-Relax... no ones going to kill you. SO you're a minor empath? Very nice.-
"I'd have to say empathy is one of the hardest psychic abilities to control. Which would explain its exteme rareness even among the psychic community.
"We-" My mouth snapped shut before I finished as Garen interrupted me. From the look of things, these two were not used to having conversations outside of themselves.
-Oh please sister, you always try rubbing that in all the other psychics faces. Yes, it is one of the hardes to control, but the largest percentage of our 'community' our minor empaths. Their as common as flies!-
At least they had the decency to keep me in the conversation.
"True, true, but-" Her voice was interrupted as the intercom came online and declared our departure to be in a few minutes. She twisted around in surprise, and I could see why. We were the only three psychics on the entire trip. The others side of the cabin was completely full, and some of them were even beginning to move over to our side because of all of the extra room. I'd known it would be a light load, but three of us?
The other two apparently had the same thought.
They glanced at each other before starting to speak privately, and I turned back to face forwards. I'd already been through the academy. Top of my class. That just meant I was a skilled Minor Empath. Compared to the brute force a major empath could use... I was less than a fly.
"Lost in your thoughts?" A new voice spoke from next to me. "I was told to sit next to you." The voice said again. I reigned in a sigh. Despite being an empath, I was not good with people.
I turned to face my seat partner. He was moderately tall, at least half a foot taller than my short 5'6. He was probably a fox and dog mixture. His fur was silvery, with a few light splotches of a bright red seemingly thrown in randomly.
"Nowhere else to be right now anyways." I replied with another forced grin.
His seat partner laughed. "I suppose not. I'm Torrence. My friends call me Tor." He said, and stuck his paw out across his chest in an awkward movement for me to shake.
I quickly stuck out my own and limply shook his hand, ignoring years of carefully honed senses to just ask him to stop talking to me. "Anam. Everyone just calls me that." I said.
Tor gripped my hand hard, probably in an effort to keep it from falling out as he shook. He grinned widely and a sly look entered his eyes. "Major Psychometric." He said.
I groaned inwardly. What was the first lesson taught in the Academy? Always ask a Psychic what his powers were before letting him touch you. He basically knew everything I had ever experienced now. That was great.
"Well, I don't have to tell you what I am now? Do I?" I said, a bit of annoyance creeping into his voice. The second lesson taught was Never take advantage of your abilities with others.
"Minor Empath... and some telepathy and precog in there too. Very weak, but still there." He said, a contemplative look spreading across his face.
I was surprised. When he said Major, he meant Major. Not even the Academy had been able to sense more than one ability in me. It wasn't uncommon for Minor Empaths to have more than one ability, but they were never very strong, or easy to detect.
"That's... that's a surprise." I said, my voice faltering slightly. I had two more abilities that I had no idea how to use. That was great. Hopefully they never decided to manifest themselves. Ever. Otherwise I would have to go through more grueling Academy classes to learn to control them.
The intercom came on again and declared our time of arrival to be in a few more minutes.
"That's a fast trip..." Tor said in surprise.
-Were only going to a ship in orbit. Then were heading out.- Garen butted into our conversation, Lily turning to speak with us as well.
"So, Anam, was it? You have telepathy and Precog too?" She asked me.
"Prob-" I was interrupted again as Tor spoke up.
"Almost certain of it. Quite a surprise, on my part. Their buried so deep that it's like trying to... find a needle in a haystack without any light. Or gloves." He said.
-Oh? So did he bury it?- Garen asked.
"Doesn't seem like it. You have to be aware of an ability to bury it. And burying abilities takes a massive amount of power, which he is in lack of. These were just buried naturally, without his knowledge."
I felt distinctly uncomfortable as the three of them continued to talk about me as if I wasn't there, but I still found their conversation mildly interesting.
"So, what are our sleeping arrangements supposed to be on the expedition?" Lily asked, winking at me as she changed the topic.
Garen caught on quickly, and followed he change of direction as well
-Psychics get their own rooms, and the others have to share a barracks. Their our labor, and were the... uhhhh.... Brains of the operation, in a manner of speaking.-
"Doesn't sound very fair..." I said quietly.
The other three looked at me as if I were crazy. "I'm sure we all went through the Academy, correct? We didn't get our minds hammered and slammed against walls to have to sleep with others." Lily said, Garen echoing her mentally.
"But... nevermind." I decided to give it up. It was a rare attitude, psychics believing themselves to be more entitled than non-psychichs, but it gave the entire 'community' a bad look. And from the way I noticed a few of the Non-psychics shoot dirty glares in our direction along with a slight rise of irritation in the air proved that point.
The intercom came on once again and told us to prepare for landing.
"Welcome to the Starship Jump."
-
The Empire discovered by the Guilons was referred to as Eagsula. It was a conglomerate of nations, all centered around a central system of stars called_Freedoms Victory, _in memory of the immense amount of effort that was put into binging the nations to peace. It was populated by species of supising vaiety.
There were crustacean like creature capable of sailing through space under their own power called the Portain. There were thin, manta ray like creatures who lived in an advanced underwater civilization they dubbed An Taoide.
There were the Saol and the Maireachts, Gin and Hun. Anything that could be imagined, and all right under the Guilons nose. But, overall, the leaders of Eagsula were the Eagsula's themselves. A single race with more variation in it then the entirety of all other races in the Empire. They made up almost 60% of the Empires population, and were the only species within the group capable of using psychic powers.
-
In the year 2879, an academy was established among the Eagsulas's to train them to use their powers. It was called, simply put, The Academy. It was feared, and powerful, and very difficult to pass. Failure either meant death, or having your powers sealed. Most preferred death.
This academy was the sole trainer of Psychic abilities.
-
In the year 2094, the first of the warps began to plague the Eagsula empire. At first, they reacted the same way as the humans, but after discovering that explosions only made it worse, they began sending ships to monitor the warps. And strangely, the only thing capable of sensing and exploring the rifts was psychic ability.
The most that could be found out was that they were not natural. Even the most powerful psychics lost their minds upon even the slightest contact with a warp.
-
Somewhere, in deep space far outside of the Eagsula Empire, a single Starship called Aurora discovered a strange anomaly where warps had spread across, for the first time in their knowledge, uninhabited planets. Even the star was being target by a warp. Merely minutes after sending this information back to the empire, the entire ship went dark as a warp appeared right next to it, and swallowed the whole thing before anything had even been noticed.