SWNOVELS Chapter [5] Presence
Hundreds of icy boulders were crossing through Outer Space, pinging between one another amidst the starry pinball setting. Avoiding the ricochets, the Crystal Ship soared along an iridescent thrust, weaving towards the planet in the foreground of the constellation. Upon the platform, Quantum[X] was driving the vessel; his fitness being put to the test, redlining the summits of his potential.
Throwing his body into swooping turns, he steered the ship through the minefield, colliding and exploding about him. Barrel-rolling the vessel in-and-along-and-out the rift of a glacial mass, he swung and launched a punch of §uper§tring§ ahead of him. The glittering threads stretched ahead, scramble-springing the hulk upon impact, deflecting the stone from his course just in the nick of time.
Throughout the storm, he had managed to survive by riding a delicate balance that was often fine as a razor’s edge. Swiftly navigating the empty spaces between applying force to unavoidable obstacles had resulted in many close calls; none yet, destructive. A red dot blipped across the radar of his lens.
Up ahead, a flatiron of ice, large as mountain, bounced into the path he had formerly envisioned; the vessel, suddenly positioned to collide along its immediate trajectory. He assessed it’s dimensions and relative momentum. It was too large to blast aside; coming on too quickly to steer about. There was no route to thwart the impending collision. The time to act was now.
Quantum[X] cut the thrusts and jumped down to the deck. Upon landing, he raced to the bow before lunging to the railing from which he sprung. Along an arc, his body gyrated via bicycle-kicks through the boulders, narrowly making his way towards the icy mass. Pedaling upside-down the peak of his arc, he scripted code across his lens and began unraveling from a solid state of Being to that of airy Essence.
§uper§tring§ twirled down the slope, sharpening their flow. The iridescence slipped into the flatiron, on course to obliterate the Crystal Ship. Quantum[X] was swiftly drilling towards the mountain’s center, when his Essence condensed to a singularity before big-banging, momentous.
A seismic ripple shook the rock from within to without. Following the quake, an iridescent ring sliced out its center along a vertical, chopping it into two clean halves. With the division, the parts drifted from one another, knocking aside the rocks crowding the environment, while opening passage for the Crystal Ship.
The vertical ring of §uper§tring§ condensed to the center point from which they had been expressed, solidifying to Quantum[X]. Floating amidst the void, he put his hands behind his head, taking to time to embrace the moment of rest. Along its drift, the sails of the Crystal Ship scooped across him. Caught in their wing, Quantum[X] found himself being carried back unto the journey.
With body oriented along his flightpath, he looked beyond the parting halves, unveiling the vantage. Before the three distant stars, the path was clear all the way towards the ringed planet. Looking closer, he saw something more. Ascending beyond its rings, a white moon was in orbit, emerging from the dark side of Saturn.