Life
The multiverse teemed with life, and not only the life man brought from Earth, but alien life in staggering numbers on millions of planets, and with such diversity that the definition of the word, life, had to be amended.
In the late twentieth century, when man was making his first footsteps on the Moon, we knew little of the stars and galaxies that twinkled above us in the night. The "cell phones" that people carried in their pockets fifty years later were infinitely more complex than the room-size supercomputers that enabled us to fly the Apollo missions.
In 1969 we knew of other planets in our solar system, other moons, but beyond that we were ignorant. Exoplanets and Black holes were still just in the realm of science fiction, never mind dark matter and dark energy.
Then, as our technology got better, our techniques got more sophisticated, our telescopes and radio telescopes became more exacting, we found our first black hole, and then our first exoplanet.
It came with some excitement in the astronomy field when the closest stars to our Sun, the three stars of the Centauri System, in particular, the B star, had not only an exoplanet that was approximately the size of Earth, but that it orbited in the so-called goldilocks zone where water can exist in liquid form.
The Earth then went near hysterical when in 2026 a probe sent to burrow under the ice sheets of Jupiter's moon, Europa, found not only the predicted ocean of liquid water but also life in the form of single-celled organisms that resembled bacteria.
These were small first steps, but they proved that life wasn't a miracle born on the third planet of a yellow dwarf star, on a remote branch of one of the billions of galaxies.
And though life was not omnipresent (it was inexplicably absent from worlds that seemed to have all the necessary prerequisites) it was none the less plentiful, a result no doubt of the sheer magnitude of the multi-verse.
If life was present on less than one percent of the exoplanets orbiting all the distant stars in the multiverse, the numbers of living worlds still mounted into the billions. Yet, what eighteenth-century philosophers called sentient life, not so much.
And though out in the unexplored parts of the multiverse there surely were other races that had traveled beyond their immediate solar system, we had at the time of this story contacted only eleven still in existence.
As to those Alien races, it was just lucky that the Multiverse was so huge. Because of its immensity, the races rarely came into contact with one another, and never had to fight over scarce resources.
In fact, most of the other Intelligent Races in the multiverse were so different in makeup and biological needs that communication was maybe not impossible, but totally impractical. It's hard enough to grasp the concept of an alien living on a gas-giant planet who's whole body structure is made up of gas, never mind "talk" to one.
Worlds that have shown evidence of past civilizations were also found, but life, even for vast civilizations, is not eternal. Many a bright light that had burned in the void for eons was snuffed out by some stupid, irrational, nonsensical breach of the law of self-preservation.
For it has been observed by some of the greatest minds that the prerequisite character trait for any creature to successfully emerge out of the primordial ooze, far more than intelligence, was aggression.
House Kleet
"LV-426 to Braxs tower," Heinrich said calling into the control tower.
"Go ahead LV-426," the tower answered back.
"Requesting a jump to our sister verse, and a return jump in exactly three hours. Over."
"Yes LV-426, you are cleared for a jump in wormhole 27 commencing at 1128 hours, with a return jump at 1428 hours."
"Roger tower, wormhole 27 at 1128 and 1428 hours. Thank you, tower. LV-426 over."
"Have a safe trip. Over."
The designation of Heinrich's ship, LV, stood for light vehicle, which was basically a two person scout ship. It was lightly armed and armored, but the benefit of that was that it was fast, and that was what Heinrich liked most about her.
Plus, she was a real sweet ride. The fact that she could be tasked with entering a planet's atmospheres made it necessary for her to be aerodynamic, and on account of it, beautiful. Her design was more like one of the jet-powered airships that flew in Earth's skies hundreds of years in the past.
Arrayed in House of Kleet's colors of red and yellow, she stood out like a sore thumb, but Heinrich had little to worry about in these two universes in terms of enemies, and so he kept his colors blazing.
This jump was into a solar system that was so close to his own home system, that if it wasn't in another universe, the two systems would occupy practically the same region in space, hence the name sister universe, or sister verse.
Heinrich flew his LV past the tower and to an area designated in space for his jump. It was lit up with a red circle in his HUD, and the circle would turn from red to green when the tower opened up the wormhole.
His LV was too small and too underpowered to open a wormhole on its own so he depended on the tower to open one for him. It would be the same on the way back to Braxs.
Presently, the hologram in his head turned from red to green and he could see a great vortex open in space. It was large enough to fit five LV' s, but that was the tower's intent, out of an overabundance of safety.
He powered up his ship and steered for the center of the green circle which indicated the doorway into the sister universe. The only illumination came from the ship's lights, but he didn't need to see much for the process was completely automated. The ship steered itself.
It would have to since any deviation in course would have caused the ship to rub against the walls of the wormhole and would cause instant disintegration of those parts that rubbed, and complete disintegration if the whole ship were to plow into the side of the vortex.
He was headed for a moon that was orbiting Vienna, the second planet from its star. It was a terrestrial planet that the Kleets considered a complete waste of resources.
The reason for their frustration and disgust was that it was a wonderful planet with liquid water and an oxygen atmosphere, but it had indigenous life, hence the oxygen atmosphere. Because of that indigenous life, it made the planet off limits to development. Who's to say that in a few million years some life form on that planet might not evolve into an intelligent being.
The life on that planet was sophisticated too, not intelligent life, but a diverse group, the largest of which had a peculiar resemblance to featherless birds, some of which grew to enormous sizes.
Apart from that planet, there was little of use in this system. Two gas giants orbited farther out in the system, and a few asteroid mining colonies were spread out here and there, but the only other terrestrial planet was a small one orbiting perilously close to its star, which made it impossible to inhabit.
It took less than a minute to jump into another universe, and soon Heinrich could see the star he was headed for, and then Vienna and its moon where he was to make his rendezvous.
On that rocky moon was presumably one of his agents, one who had disappeared some years back under mysterious circumstances.
The day before this agent had sent Heinrich a coded message asking for a meeting. Though he found the reemergence of this agent to be troubling, the message came through the right channels, and his asking for a meeting on this moon, far away from prying eyes, was protocol.
Still, it made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. Where had the agent been these last few years? Why was he surfacing now, and what information would he have forthcoming? He didn't like the look of it at all.
Still, the image of Vienna, the third planet with its blue oceans and white clouds, brought back fond memories for him. Though it was forbidden by Imperial mandate, and considered poaching, he had hunted on that planet numerous times, first with his father and then with his friends.
Being that he was tired and it was a long journey, he was soothed by the planet's colors as he approached, and he was starting to nod off when the ship's warnings started to sound.
"Proximity warning," barked the ship's female voice. "Unknown ship proceedings on an intercept course. Unknown ship is approaching at point two-five C. Estimated impact in six minutes, fifty-two seconds."
"Location?" Heinrich barked back.
"At eight o'clock off to port."
Before changing his course, Heinrich canted his ship so as to be able to see the intruder. This area of space, though normally empty, wasn't off limits, so this ship could be innocuous, but Heinrich was wary.
"Unknown ship changing course to continue on intercept," the ship's voice told him what he already assumed would happen.
"Ship type?" He asked
"Military vessel, corvette class. The unknown ship's shields are up and weapons appear to be armed and locked on target."
A corvette was big enough to disintegrate his LV without much trouble, and just fast enough to keep up with him, at least for a little while. Heinrich gritted his teeth and turned to run.
"Unknown ship is firing, take evasive action," the ship said without emotion.
Heinrich steered away from the corvette, and the energy weapon's beam passed by harmlessly, but in very close proximity.
Heinrich changed his course, and he headed for Vienna again. If he could get past the planet, he could use it, and then its moon, as a screen. Given enough time he could outrun this corvette, and maybe take refuge with an asteroid mining colony until it was time to jump back to Braxs.
"Unknown ship firing," his ship announced again. "Take evasive action."
"Ahhhh," Heinrich yelled and swerved his ship just in time to veer away from the energy beam. The weapons computer on that unknown ship was honing in on him.
"Unknown ship firing. This time with a wider spread. Take evasive action."
The corvette was winding down the choke on its weapon to spread the beam out. That reduced the strength of the beam, but it increased its chances of hitting Heinrich's LV.
Heinrich felt a stomach-churning lurch of his ship.
"Energy beam hit astern. Shields down to forty-seven percent. Unknown ship firing. Take evasive action."
"Fuck!" Heinrich yelled as he felt another lurch of the ship.
