Tales of the Navigators: Strange Space Short Stories Volume 1

Katie Silverwings

Tales of the Navigators: Volume 1

Strange Space Short Stories

First published by PepTalk Productions, LLC 2024

Copyright © 2024 by Katie Silverwings

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Katie Silverwings asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

First edition

ISBN: 978-1-959922-23-0

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Contents

Dedication

Foreword

Timeline of Strange Space™ Adventures

I. THE FIRST CONTACT ERA

1. Sleeping Beauties Cover

2. Sleeping Beauties

3. Characters Appearing in Sleeping Beauties

4. A Conspiracy of Fluff Cover

5. A Conspiracy of Fluff

6. Characters Appearing in A Conspiracy of Fluff

II. THE NOVAN WAR ERA

7. Aliens at a Tiki Bar Cover

8. Aliens at a Tiki Bar

9. Characters Appearing in Aliens at a Tiki Bar

10. An Interlude of Colors Cover

11. An Interlude of Colors

12. Characters Appearing in An Interlude of Colors

III. THE POST-WAR ERA

13. A Mystery, Unsolved Cover

14. A Mystery, Unsolved

15. Characters Appearing in A Mystery, Unsolved

16. The Ones Who Wear White Hats Cover

17. The Ones Who Wear White Hats

18. Characters Appearing in The Ones Who Wear White Hats

19. The View From a Distance Cover

20. The View from a Distance

21. Characters Appearing in A View from a Distance

22. Fox in the Cave Cover

23. Fox in the Cave

24. Characters Appearing in Fox in the Cave

25. Rooftops and Space Whales Cover

26. Rooftops and Space Whales

27. Characters Appearing in Rooftops and Space Whales

28. The Tragedy of Harold the Violet Cover

29. The Tragedy of Harold the Violet

30. Characters Appearing in The Tragedy of Harold the Violet

On Colony Stars and the Sol Coalition

The Human Visitor’s Welcome Guide to City-on-the-River and Florivan Kittens

On the Defense Fleet’s Darter Squadrons

On Fleet Protocol and Florivan Kittens

On Florivan Kittens

On Navigators and their Counterparts

On Florivans and their Names

On the Subject of Aptitude Classification and Martian Social Structure

On the Academy Nav/Quan Programs

About the Author

Also by Katie Silverwings

Dedication

To my family, my friends, and the wonderful folks of the Strange Space™ Fan Club who’ve made it possible for all these stories to see the light of day.

This edition of Tales of the Navigators: Volume 1 was made possible through the generous support of the members of the Strange Space™ Fan Club, including:

Astral Navigator

Sharon T. Hinton

Space Adventurer (1 Year)

Tabitha

Thank you so much to all of my Fan Club members and supporters! I couldn’t do this without you.

To find out more about the Strange Space™ Fan Club and join for free, visit:

www.KatieSilverwings.com/Fan-Club

Foreword

When the characters of the Strange Space™ universe first introduced themselves, it was in the form of a novel bearing that name. My writing process, though, is one of discovery; I’m seldom the sort to outline something, write all of it, and then move on. I sit down with a general idea and start typing, and sooner or later the characters guide me to the story they actually want to tell. If I get stuck along the way, I ask one of the characters a question about themself and their world and write a short story to answer it. Sometimes, they drop hints about other moments in their lives in passing that turn out to be far more important by the time I get to the end of the final draft.

In the case of Strange Space™, I made the ultimately fortunate mistake of asking a certain grouchy old Navigator who appears in its first chapter just who the Florivan was who could put up with him. He introduced me to Celadon Toreval, and I have had a near-endless list of stories to write ever since.

Some of those first short stories I wrote to figure out the workings of this universe have gone on to be published as full-length novels. Ten of the others are presented here in this first volume of Tales of the Navigators.

Each of these stories offers a new perspective on the characters of the Strange Space™ universe and the world they inhabit. I am so pleased to be sharing them with you!

–Katie Silverwings

Timeline of Strange Space™ Adventures

The following timeline lists all of the published Strange Space™ Adventures and Short Stories in roughly chronological order. Where stories feature major time skips, they have been placed based on the earliest events of that story.

Short Stories marked with *¹ can be found in Tales of the Navigators: Volume 1.

The First Contact Era

Sleeping Beauties *¹

A Conspiracy of Fluff *¹

The Novan War

Celadon: A Strange Space™ Novel

Aliens at a Tiki Bar *¹

Warmth and Darkness: A Strange Space™ Novella

The Garden in the Darkness: A Strange Space™ Novel

An Interlude of Colors *¹

The Post-War Era

A Mystery, Unsolved *¹

The Ones who Wear White Hats *¹

Feathered Friendship: A Strange Space™ Novella

A Matter of Kittens and Mittens: A Strange Space™ Novella

The View from a Distance *¹

Fox in the Cave *¹

Rooftops and Space Whales *¹

How Ocean Merlani Stole their Navigator: A Strange Space™ Novel

The Tragedy of Harold the Violet *¹

I

The First Contact Era

1

Sleeping Beauties Cover

To all the curious humans, explorers, and artisans who seek to make the world resemble our fondest dreams.

2

Sleeping Beauties

Space is big; everyone knows this.

The distance between planets is wide, and the distance between stars even more so.

With the laws of physics being what they are, even eight hundred years on from the colonization of Mars, the swiftest ships humanity has ever built cannot travel further than the edge of Sol’s planetary system without taking decades or more to get there. Likewise, messages between Earth and her five extra-solar colonies are constrained to the speed of light itself. No method yet known to humanity can break that galactic speed limit, although generations of brilliant people have set their collective genius towards finding a means of doing so.

One particular chain of messages between Earth’s Sol Coalition Scientific Directorate and the colony at Luyten’s Star is a prime example of the limits of keeping in touch over the vastness of space.

The first message in the chain is one which creates great excitement both when it is broadcasted from Luyten’s Star and precisely twelve years and one hundred and thirty-five days later when the signal finally reaches Earth. This message announces to all who might be listening that on the grand occasion of the colony’s fifty year anniversary, the noted explorer Dr. Hereford Travis has announced he will be mounting an expedition to the nearby twin-star system of Procyon for the purpose of establishing a research base on one of its planets. Long range analysis has shown this particular exoplanet to be promisingly Earth-like. The expedition takes as its inspiration the efforts already underway by the celebrated pioneers of the Proxima Centauri colony, who had relatively recently completed construction of full satellite colonies on several planets between Alpha and Beta Centauri.

By the time the congratulatory message from Earth regarding Dr. Travis’ expedition has reached Luyten’s Star, the construction of LSS Hulthemia is already complete. It’s quite a small starship when compared to the bulk of USS North or any of her generation-ship sisters who had carried colonists from Earth, but Hulthemia is far more advanced and doesn’t have nearly so long a journey to make. Procyon is only a single light year away from Luyten’s Star, after all, and with the small vessel’s state-of-the-art engines and solar sails, the journey there has been projected to last just over twenty Earth-standard years. This will still be a lengthy voyage, but that too has been taken into account: the eleven members of Hulthemia’s crew will be traveling in cryogenic sleep, to awaken only when the ship has reached Procyon’s heliopause boundary.

Dr. Travis’ cordial response to the Sol Coalition Scientific Directorate is sent directly from Hulthemia after the ship has left orbit. On the amused recommendation of the mission’s primary astrophysicist, the message includes a reminder that the Directorate will need to forward all future correspondence to the outpost on Procyon c which the team will be in the midst of building by the time word of their grand send-off from the North City Spaceport reaches Earth.

This message also includes video greetings from each of Hulthemia’s crew members as they climb into their comfortably small cryogenic stasis pods and Dr. Travis activates the system to seal them in and induce the deep hibernation state which will protect them from age and illness as the ship makes the long, lonely journey.

The sleeping explorers do not know precisely what they’ll find, but the best data their long-range telescopes and scans have been able to compile has told them that the planet they have their eye on is capable of supporting Earth-type life. Nothing has ever been observed which would indicate sapient life forms with any level of technology in the system, but there is clearly life of some kind there waiting for them to study. Obtaining more precise information than that would be past the limits of humanity’s present technology, even if the explorers’ own home star hadn’t recently been experiencing solar storms which interfere with the data collection just as much as the interaction of the solar wind from Procyon’s two stars with the galactic cosmic rays has.

Still, enough data has been gathered for the colony’s leadership to have agreed to send Dr. Travis and his crew forth. Humans are by nature a curious species, after all. Now that Luyten’s Star’s settled worlds have developed to a point where they can possibly send explorers onward, it’s only natural that they’d do so.

It is, therefore, only with the greatest ceremony and appropriate words of optimistic pride in his ship and his team that Dr. Travis bids farewell to Luyten’s Star at the end of his historic message to the rest of humanity. The message sent, he performs one last check of the vital signs of each of his crew members and confirms that the ship’s autopilot is functioning correctly. That done, he is ready to climb into his own cryosleep pod.

As the seal on the translucent dome of the lid activates and the cryogenic stasis systems activate, Dr. Travis closes his eyes and relaxes, secure in the knowledge that he and his team will wake to a new world of discovery; the first of a new generation of interstellar explorers and pioneers.

* * *

"Eldest! Pardon the interruption, but I must speak with you."

One moment, dear—Amaril? Why don’t you take your practice sphere down to the Youngest’s office and get their opinion on it while you wait for me? There’s a good kitten—Now, what is it, Ireven? You usually let me know when you’re coming to visit.

I usually have more warning, Eldest, and usually things are of a less urgent nature.

"Oh, urgent, is it? I was wondering why you seemed so agitated. What is your urgent news, then?"

One of our scouts has just sent a report of an encounter with a small ship.

Have they, now, Ireven? What sort of a ship?

Alien, but not from any of the peoples we have come near before. It seems to be sailing on stellar winds alone.

And what of the ship’s crew?

Our scout’s scans confirmed life signs, but the ship hasn’t sent any signals indicating they’re aware of our scout’s presence. The periodic broadcasts our scout detected which led them to the ship seem to be automated and aimed towards the Near Red Star. We believe that is the ship’s origin point. At its current speed, it is projected to pass directly through our system between twelve and fifteen solar orbit cycles from now.

I see. The Near Red Star, you say?

Yes, Eldest.

In that case, you will take one of our vessels out yourself to investigate further… and be prepared to greet these aliens, if they show themselves to be friendly.

"Greet them, Eldest? The Council’s policy has always been that our vessels remain hidden—or at the very least, to dip into the Strange to avoid being noticed by aliens for more than a moment."

"I am aware of our policies, Ireven. The last Beacon to shine in our navigation spheres was traveling to the Near Red Star’s system. I would not be surprised if these aliens are associated with him. If they are, they will certainly be worth our attention and greetings."

…Yes, Eldest.

I expect you to keep in contact over the relay-radio so the Council can be aware of the situation as it unfolds—and I would ask that you take my apprentice with you to observe on my behalf.

"Eldest? Are you certain? Amaril is little more than a kitten, and a survivor-smallest at that—and I know you have been training them, but they are still—"

My apprentice is young, yes, but I believe they are ready. It would be good for them to take a turn jumping stars, if they are to one day be among those tasked with keeping them for our people. And while it may be true that they are extraordinarily sensitive even considering their circumstances… I would not be surprised if that turns to your benefit in the end. Trust me, Ireven.

…As you wish, Eldest.

* * *

Dr. Travis is more than proud of the crew he ultimately assembles for the Hulthemia expedition. Each one of his volunteers is precisely the sort of cross-disciplinary expert needed to pull the expedition off and prove that a second, larger team should be sent to join them. Dr. Travis himself is, of course, a fully qualified medical doctor in addition to his hard-earned expertise in cartography and xenobiology. The rest of his team are similarly versatile. The doubling and mixing of specialties is valuable, too, when it comes to making the most of the limited space of the ship and the resources it could carry along.

They are all, without a doubt, the finest minds the Luyten’s Star colony could spare for this first exploration voyage to their nearest neighbor in space.

They are also, all of them, the sorts of people who didn’t have many close family ties to leave behind, or who were willing to volunteer for a potentially one-way mission anyway.

Along with her ten brilliant scientist-explorers, Hulthemia carries one young woman with an entirely different set of skills. This eleventh member of the team is less of an engineer and more of a maker. It will be her task to take care of the planned outpost once it’s been built so the rest of the crew can focus on their own duties—and to find ways to create anything the researchers might require to survive and do their work that Hulthemia has not had the foresight to bring along.

This young woman is a different sort of brilliant, and the direct descendant of a similar specialist who’d been one of several carried in an early version of the cryosleep pods on the generation ship which brought the colonists to Luyten’s Star. The skills her ancestor had as a metalsmith and fabricator were considered invaluable to the eventual building of the colony, but impossible to adequately pass on to the next generation in the environment of a starship; thus he and those like him traveled as precious sleeping cargo rather than passengers. They were the only ones among North’s founding colonists who had themselves lived on Earth. The rest were part of the third generation to live out their lives in space.

As the direct descendant of those craftspeople and builders as well as a highly skilled member of their professional lineage, it is only natural that she volunteered to be the one of her sort to join Hulthemia’s team of scientists and explorers.

Her name is Henrietta Rose Lin.

She bears her clan’s traditional title as an Artisan with pride, even though her position with the expedition is on the merits of her practical skills rather than her artistic abilities.

Deep in the induced coma of cryosleep, her mind is occupied with dreams so vast and varied that there’s little chance she’ll ever remember more than glimmers of them when the day comes for her to finally awaken.

* * *

"You have a report for me, Ireven?" asks the voice over the relay-radio.

It seems the crew is unresponsive or incapacitated, Eldest,and their ship is sailing on its own, without their input. What life signs we can read are very faint, in any case, although their automated signals seem to still be broadcasting regularly. What we’ve translated of their broadcasts to the Near Red Star indicates that we were correct in that being their origin point, and that they were originally coming to visit our Sanctuary rather than passing through our system as our projections show they will.

"But there are signs of life within, yes?"

Yes, Eldest; the ship seems to have been severely damaged, though. Now that we are alongside them, we can see that their solar sails are torn and that they had maneuvering engines at one time, but these have ceased to operate some time ago. We believe the ship may have damage inside, too, but we are waiting for your decision before making a plan to board and investigate further. As near as we can tell from looking in through their viewports, the crew are all in torpor within some form of hibernation chamber.

"Good. Take all appropriate precautions to protect yourselves, but you have my blessing to board the alien craft. Learn all that you can from our sleeping strangers without waking them. When will their ship reach us?"

If we can set them back on course, approximately twelve solar orbit cycles, Eldest—assuming their propulsion systems are repairable. They seem to have been moving at the limits of their technology before those were damaged. I believe their ship is small enough that we could try to carry it with us through the Strange and bring them home sooner, if that was the Council’s desire.

"I see… Continue your investigation before you consider doing that, Ireven. Their craft may not be sound for travel by our means… and in any case it’s best not to rush things. We’ve waited this long to meet our new friends, we can be patient for a while longer."

Yes, Eldest.

* * *

When Hulthemia first launches, the expedition is hailed as one of the great triumphs of humanity. There are celebrations throughout the colonized worlds of Luyten’s Star, and for a long time after the ship has departed, it is still a regular topic of conversation.

How brave the explorers must be, the colonists say, to leave everything behind for the sake of scientific progress!

What wonders will they see and broadcast back?

And then, just a bit more than six weeks after the ship begins its journey, a series of unexpected and violent coronal mass ejections from Luyten’s Star itself cast their storm of radiation and solar wind out in all directions.

The colony’s astrophysicists later determine that this months-long flare storm was likely a once-in-a-millennium event, but that knowledge does little to change the fact that the flares have damaged or outright destroyed a majority of the electronic equipment on every one of the system’s settlements. Only a small outpost built deep in the caverns of one of the major moons orbiting the star’s more distant gas giant is shielded enough to escape the effects of the flares.

It takes decades for the surviving colonists at Luyten’s Star to fully rebuild and reconnect their collection of settled worlds—long enough that the abrupt end to broadcasts sent to its sister colonies and Earth will make the rest of humanity assume that the colony has been destroyed altogether.

In the meantime, Hulthemia is all but forgotten. Some of the citizens of the Luyten’s Star colony still hold out hope that somewhere, the ship is still safely on its way to Procyon; most believe it has to have been destroyed entirely by the flare storm. Either way, there is nothing the colonists can do but regret that they will never know what happened to this crew of brilliant people.

The only consolation to those who knew the members of Hulthemia’s crew personally is that the bold explorers would have all been in cryosleep when the storm hit them. They wouldn’t have suffered as their systems failed, only slipped away from an endless dream without ever feeling a thing.

* * *

Eldest, we’ve successfully boarded the alien vessel. It seems we were right about them making their journey in hibernation chambers. We’ve managed to tap into what’s left of their computer system without disturbing the surviving sleepers.

"Surviving sleepers, Ireven? How many aliens are there?"

It appears that the damage to the vessel was more extensive than it appeared from outside. Aside from their guidance system and a central database we haven’t been able to access, their main computer system has failed entirely. Several of the ship’s other separate systems are severely damaged, including their life support—we’ve found six of the aliens in the chambers beyond help already, and I have concerns about how long the other five will continue to have power. From what Taril and I have determined, their hibernation chambers have back-up power cells separate from the ship’s mains, but some of these have begun to fail as well.

"Do you believe you can carry out repairs for them without endangering the survivors?"

Yes, Eldest. It will take us some time to learn their full language and systems, but their technology seems simple enough. Taril is already working on tracing the power flow to their hibernation chambers.

"Good. Do what you can for them; if needed, we will send a second team to assist you."

Thank you, Eldest. I’ve transferred all the information we’ve gathered already for the Council’s assessment.

"There seems to be something else on your mind, Ireven?"

I… have a small concern about your apprentice, Eldest. It might be best someone came to retrieve them.

"Oh? What concerns you?"

They’ve become quite interested in one of the sleepers… we’ve all sensed an impression of some kind of unique brain activity from the aliens, even though they’re in something resembling torpor—but Amaril claims they can feel more than that from this particular one.

"I see… very well, put my apprentice on the relay. I’d like to speak to them."

Yes, Eldest—Amaril! Come away from there, kitten. The Eldest wants words with you.

I’m here, Eldest!

"Ireven tells me you have been studying one of the aliens?"

I have, Eldest! They are such curious creatures—I found one of them that feels like they could be a Beacon, like the ones you told me you could see in the navigation spheres and call to through the Strange when you were young.

"Is that so, Amaril? Why do you say this?"

"They’re bright, Eldest! I’ve been sitting with them while Ireven and Taril were investigating the rest of the ship, because they said I shouldn’t touch anything or get in their way… I don’t know what it is that these aliens’ minds do, but this one is stronger than the others. I can feel all of these images floating around the edges of them, and I think if I sit with them long enough I might be able to understand them, even—or slip into whatever it is these creatures experience in their sleep and actually communicate with them! It’s hard to explain, but they feel like the edges of the Strange, almost—I’m sorry, Eldest, I’m not sure any of that makes sense…"

"I see… I would be interested to see what you can learn, if your sensitivity lends towards communicating with them. Tell me, Amaril, what do you think of these aliens, aside from the one you’re so taken with?"

"They’re… well, odd-looking, Eldest—I know you told me what the last Beacon had looked like, when you saw them in your visions, and these look like that for the most part—but in person they’re so… colorful! And odd! And it’s neat how they seem to be mostly shaped like us, even though they don’t have tails or the right number of arms or eyes, and they all look so different from each other… but I like them! They’re not too scarily different from us—not like the other aliens you’ve told me about, anyway—and they’re explorers! Like you and the other Elders say we were before we came to the Sanctuary."

"I’ve seen the images Ireven sent of them… you’re right, though, there’s a good chance they’re the people of the Beacons. If they are, then we have waited a very long time to finally meet them… do what you can to investigate your theory, Amaril. I will be interested to see what you find, if you can make contact."

Yes, Eldest! Thank you!

"Just be careful, kitten, will you? You may try to investigate this phenomena of the aliens’ sleep, but I expect you to still follow Ireven’s instructions too."

Yes, Eldest, I understand.

* * *

Henrietta Rose Lin finds herself standing in a field of ripe grain, the golden waves rustling around her as if caught by a soft breeze. The breeze catches her hair too, tossing it lightly as a similar wave of shoulder-length woody brown and plum locks that is far too eager to escape from the bandana she wears to keep it out of the way while she’s working.

The sun is warm on her tawny-pale face, the sky above cloudless and brilliantly blue in the light of the sun and its smaller twin. It’s a bit strange, having a second sun—and such a bright yellow-white light from the larger one.

This isn’t home, her memory tells her—home only has one reddish sun in the sky.

At the same time, this place feels familiar, as if she’s been here before and forgotten somehow when and how she came to see it.

She runs her hand along the heads of the golden grain that grows up almost to her waist. Her touch sends another wave of motion through the dry stalks, joining onto the rolling rhythm created by the breeze. She’s seen fields like this before, around the farm the older generations of her mother’s family kept on the outskirts of the North City agricultural district.

This place, though, is calm and quiet, and without the sight of the house or the distant towers of the city on the horizon that would be there if this was her home.

She takes a deep breath of the sweet, clean air and sighs it out. She appreciates the breeze, at least. She can’t remember why, but she feels like she’s been somewhere small and stale for ages, until she found herself in this place.

Another rustling in the distance draws her attention. She sees streaks of blue and silver between the stalks as it comes closer.

Hello? Henrietta Rose asks, confused but unafraid. Who’s there?

"Hello?" a voice echoes back in the breeze, over-toned with the sound of faraway wind-chimes.

A small creature, something like a six-legged, silver-furred cat in her eyes, slips out from the stalks of grain into the clear spot near her feet. It’s an odd sort of cat, though, with a much longer tail with a defined tuft at the end of the tip and shades of midnight blue inside its large tufted ears. A third eye opens in the center of its forehead to look up at her as it comes to sit on a large stone she hadn’t noticed was beside her.

I must be dreaming, she says. "You’re certainly not one of grandmother’s barn cats."

Henrietta Rose reaches out a hand towards the creature. It looks at her curiously and allows her to stroke its soft fur. All three of the golden eyes close contentedly at her touch.

"Dreaming?" the wind-chime voice on the wind asks, even as the creature is purring lightly and allowing her to continue petting its head as if it were just an ordinary cat.

Yes, she says, her memories starting to un-fog themselves a bit. "I must still be dreaming. My great-grandfather told stories about dreams like this, when I was little, from when he was in cryo-transit from Earth—even down to the field and the paired suns. I’m still in my pod on Hulthemia, only dreaming I’m somewhere else."

"Would you like to see more?" asks the voice on the wind.

The not-quite-a-cat places one of its six silver-tufted paws up on her arm as an invitation.

Of course, she says, smiling at the creature. If this is a dream, then she has nothing to fear.