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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/daecrist on 2026-02-20 16:28:36+00:00.
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“What did you do, Bill?"
Varis's voice was tense. I turned to look at her. She had her hands on the control stick, but it was wobbling. I looked up to the display screen that showed the current status of the fighter craft.
It was all over the place. We were dropping down and then going back up. Like Varis was clawing to get as much distance between us and the ground as was possible, but localized gravity wasn’t cooperating.
"Shit."
"Gravimetric readings are off the charts in the localized area around where you just set off that fold jump," Arvie said.
“Double shit,” I muttered, "It worked so well the last time."
"I feel like I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the last time you pulled something like this, it was with a missile that has a much smaller profile than trying to fold jump a fighter craft and a reinforced flying tank into a new location."
"Where did you send that anyway?" Varis asked.
"I... folded them into the sun," I said with a shrug.
"You did what?" Varis said.
I looked up at the point in the sky high above the city. It was glowing brighter and brighter. Like it was a hole punched in the very fabric of reality right into the heart of a star.
"I'm starting to think maybe that wasn't the best location."
"You think?” Varis said, turning to stare at me.
There was worry coming through the link now. Worry, and maybe a little bit of panic. Panic wasn't good. Panic was how people piloting ships got themselves killed. Along with everyone else in the craft they were currently piloting.
“Taking the controls, I said
"Don't you think you've done enough damage?" she said, sounding incredulous at what I'd just done.
"Oh, come on baby," I said, leaning across the cockpit and hitting her with a kiss. "There's always time to cause a little more damage.”
She stared at me, but I could feel the slight hint of amusement coming through the link. I could see the way the corner of her mouth was quirking up ever so slightly.
"You always know exactly the right thing to say," she said.
"I do have a gift for that sort of thing," I said.
I turned my attention back to flying. Gravity was all over the place. Folding inside a gravity well already did screwy things to gravity. Folding from one gravity well to a gravity well that was orders of magnitude larger really seemed to be screwing things up.
I hadn’t stopped to think about that wrinkle. I just wanted to send that bomber someplace where even all that armor wouldn’t do it a damn bit of good.
"Come on," I said, smiling with a confidence that I really wasn't feeling in that moment. But it was always a good idea to project confidence. Especially when you weren't feeling that confidence. "You've never had to ride out a gravimetric distortion before?”
"I've had to do something like that, yes," Varis said, "Back in pilot school."
“See? It’s not a big deal," I said.
I tried not to frown as the ship went plummeting to the ground again as localized gravity went a little wonky and up became down for a moment, throwing the antigrav off kilter.
“I had to do it around an irregularity that was created out in the middle of space under very controlled circumstances,” she said. "Not in a place where I was in danger of actually running into anything that would kill me if I hit it."
"So did you hit the fake barriers they set up? They had electronic barriers that glowed an angry red, and if we ran into them it set off a godawful racket in the cockpit.”
“We had something similar, and I did. Many times. What about you?” she said.
"Yeah, we had the same training," I said. “I managed to avoid splattering myself in the hypothetical barriers though.”
"That makes me feel so much better."
The antigrav plates stopped working again. Which wasn’t quite right. They were still working. It's just that gravity was going a little screwy as spacetime was messed up all around us and there was that bright point of light above us as well. Blinding light. As though some asshole had summoned a very star over Imperial City.
It’s me. Hi. I’m the asshole. It’s me.
I thought about all the times the city had been destroyed by a few nukes going off. I wondered if I'd just inadvertently pulled something off that would make all those nukes look tame in comparison. If I'd done something that was going to crack the planet's crust or ignite the atmosphere.
"You opened the fold into the sun," Arvie said.
"I wanted to make a point," I said.
"But if you do that inside a gravity well as large as a star..."
He trailed off. I looked up and stared at the eddies of gravity all around us coming out from the big one. Then I looked at the display that showed various things going on all around the city.
It seemed to be a localized distortion, at least. A big motherfucker of a distortion, but localized. The spidery lines of cars moving through the sky were disrupted around that distortion. Thankfully, it looked like most of them were activating their emergency protocols and gliding down to the ground once they got far enough from the distortion.
Folding from high above the atmosphere, even if I folded from within the gravity well, also meant I'd folded high enough up that it wasn't affecting the entire city. So there was a point where all those civilian vehicles could get out of the distortion and go for the ground when the normal laws of physics reasserted themselves.
Still, the situation wasn't exactly great for anyone up here near the distortion. Which included us and a bunch of Imperial fighters hellbent on killing us.
"We seem to be attracting the attention of a bunch of the empress's forces," Arvie said.
"Just fucking great," I muttered. “So much for finding a nice place where we can lay low and not worry about the Imperials coming at us.”
"I tried my best," Varis said. "But unfortunately, the city is so full of Imperials chasing after us that it was impossible to find a place where they weren't."
"I'm not blaming you at all," I said, reaching out to grab her hand and give it a squeeze. She squeezed right back. "I know you did your best. Like, I'm not even going to be able to get away from all of this. Makes me wish we had a death blossom here."
I watched as the Imperials started to converge in on us. Though we were close enough to that gravimetric distortion that the Imperials were having trouble getting too close. Almost like they didn't even know how to fly with antigrav that was on the fritz.
That tickled something in the back of my mind. Something that went back to the good old days of flying around with Granddad. Of learning how to fly the old-fashioned way back like they had to back in the ancient wars on Earth when all you had keeping you aloft was a prop spinning really fast, or a controlled explosion rocketing you through the skies.
"Arvie, do we know what's going on with that distortion up there? How long until it closes up?"
"It looks like there is an odd fluctuation there," Arvie said. "Almost as though it's actually building towards something."
"Building towards something?" I asked.
"I can't tell you any more than that," he said. "Just that it shows the traditional signs of closing down, but there is also something odd going on because there are two competing gravity wells pulling on both ends of the fold you opened in spacetime."
He paused for a moment.
"There is a reason why they advise against opening up a fold in spacetime inside a gravity well, William.”
"I'm aware," I muttered. "But I also want to live. That's why I put that up there. It was fold that dramatically slow bomber out of here to a place where it’ll definitely get destroyed, or let all those people get nuked and we’re stuck with a situation like the one in the fortress tower where we can’t get our forces in to rescue people.”
"I understand. I just simply can't miss an opportunity to tell you that you've done something potentially dangerous and deadly."
"Potentially dangerous and deadly," I said, watching a power spike from that fold in spacetime. There was a sudden flare as an incredible blast of energy blasted out from the thing with a blinding light to accompany it.
Thankfully, the cockpit adjusted for that blinding light almost as quickly as it happened, so we weren't actually blinded. Shields were also enough to hold against the raw energy, but barely. They started ticking up again as soon as it stopped.
The only thing that saved us from an errant shot taking us out was that all the Imperials around us were hit with that same blast. Some of them were destroyed, which tickled something in the back of my mind again.
Though for a moment I’d worried that the Empress had actually managed to set off one of those nukes, but no. That was all my oopsie messing with things.
"Damn," I muttered. "What was that?"
"I believe that was a bit of the interior of a star trying to punch through the fold in spacetime you created," Arvie said. And to his credit, there wasn't much of a hint of accusation to his voice this time around, but it was definitely still there.
"And it's building towards another," I said, looking at th...
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