Their laid-back conversation was interrupted by two customers entering the next booth. Both of them wore seiyuu police uniforms.
Seiyuu police. A group run by the Seiyuu Surveillance Society, they targeted seiyuu crimes independently from official or civilian law enforcement.
Akane and Sachii glanced at each other and rose to leave. As they did, one of the cops yelled, “Yomokura’s yuri partner, Sachii Amamiya, just posted a photo with her to social media! They’re in Pwyll City!”
“But... That’s here. Ah! Wait!”
They’d spotted Akane. She ran out at top speed, but the cops were right behind.
“Argh, Senpai! I’m so sorry! This is all my fault...”
Sachii had always been an idiot, and it was hardly worth being surprised by now.
“Doesn’t matter! We need to get back to the Samidare and get outta here!”
Akane and Sachii ran up the long escalator to the spaceport. If anyone got in their way, she kicked them out of it with Seiyuu Karate. They fell over, rolling down the escalator, and got stomped on by the pursuing cops.
“Fuck it, Sachii, let’s fly!” She used the low gravity to take a big bound and move quickly upwards.
They reached the top level. The spaceport was four kilometers square, a vast maze of paneled corridors filled with passengers getting on and off ships. Leaping over the heads of the crowd like an action game, they hurried towards the Samidare.
Meanwhile, both cops were out of breath. Born and raised on Jupiter’s moons, their endurance lagged far behind the Earth-born seiyuu. Earth had the strongest gravity of all habitable areas within the solar system. If they fought, they could easily win, but they’d definitely called for backup, so jumping ahead was the best option.
“There! The Samidare!”
Sachii thrust the key into the hatch, punched in the password, and went in. Both raced to the studio, put mics to their sacs, and started manipulating gravity, throwing the ship into an emergency ascent.
Europa was a tiny snowball against the aether luminescent, lightning-covered face of Jupiter. A ship came rocketing from that snowball towards them. A seiyuu police cruiser.
“Senpai, should we shoot them?”
“Nah. While we’re engaged, more of ’em’ll come. We need to get away from Jupiter.”
Akane poured all the power she’d stolen from the helium seiyuu into accelerating the Samidare.
“Where are we going?”
“Out of the solar system!”
“In this ship? That’s crazy!”
“It sure is! But the seiyuu pigs are flying an interplanetary ship, too. If we leave the solar system, they won’t be able to follow us!”
“Won’t other ships intercept us?”
“Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are all on the other side of the sun from Jupiter. Even if they send an aether transmission calling for backup, they’ll never catch us. And outside the solar system all signals get reflected back. If we can just get out, we can get away clean before word spreads. Then we just have to follow the beacon, catch up with the Dark Seiyuu, and rip her apart.”
“You never do plan small! Of course, I’m with you!”
And with that, the Samidare charged out of the solar system with a thunderous roar.
Twenty days later, they reached the furthest reaches of the solar system, the heliopause. The point fifty AU from the sun where the solar winds and the Milky Way aether flow collide. Beyond that, the aether concentration gets much higher, and the environment is totally different from inside the solar system.
As they approached the heliopause, another ship approached from the distance. It was on course to crash into the Samidare head on, moving very fast with no attempt to slow down, but this was no cause for alarm. This ship was the Samidare itself. The discrepancy between the aether density within and without the solar system at the heliopause was so great it reflected all light originating within the solar system. It functioned like a gigantic mirror, and every ship that approached could see itself.
Behind the Samidare’s reflection was the entire warped sphere that formed the Milky Way. The light that made it in from outside was heavily refracted, and to anyone inside it was like looking through a fish-eye lens, like the whole world was inside a tiny orb.
The actual shape of the Milky Way was a round disc, thicker in the center. Our solar system lay on the outskirts of it, and viewed from there, the Milky Way resembled a dorayaki seen from the side. The swollen center portion let out a blinding white light, and as you went right the light went from white to blue, and to the left it went from white to red.
The Milky Way was divided into three sectors based on the qualities of the aether flow — the Laminar, Turbulent, and Critical sectors. What gave these sectors their defining properties was the Reynolds number, which predicts how easily a flow will be disrupted. Generally speaking, the greater the concentration and speed of a fluid, the higher the Reynolds number. For example, when you first turn on the tap, the water flows out smoothly, but as the flow gets stronger it starts to churn, spraying in unpredictable directions.
Areas of the Milky Way with low Reynolds numbers were called the Laminar Sector. In these regions, it was easy to predict the aether flow; whirlpools and storms did not occur, and it was easy to fly through. Most settled areas were in the Laminar Sector, and viewed from the solar system they were either blue or red. When the aether flow was smooth, positions along the spiral from the Milky Way’s center looked blue when they were approaching and red when they were retreating. In this sector, it was possible to use the aether flow to connect regions with aether transmissions and use the aethernet.
Meanwhile, aether pulled towards the massive gravitational force at the center of the Milky Way (the maelstrom) reached far greater speeds, in correspondence with the law of conservation of angular momentum. As aether flow speed increases, the Reynolds number goes up, and the behavior becomes impossible to predict. A small change in density can cause eddies, and those eddies cause other eddies. Eddies expand like dominoes, becoming storms, with no way to tell when these storms will appear. Turbulent aether generates heat and radiation, creating environments that can’t be navigated. This was the Turbulent Sector. During the Great Seiyuu Age, a number of daredevil seiyuu braved the turbulence, but only a handful ever returned. These days, the sector had been officially declared off-limits. From a distance, it appeared to be giving off a white light. Turbulent aether released all types of light and it all blended together, looking white.
Between the Laminar and Turbulent sectors was the Critical Sector. While this area was generally laminar, it was so close to the turbulent sectors that at any moment it might be disrupted. As the Reynolds number corresponded to the length of physical objects in the flow, it was difficult to navigate with larger vessels. Aether transmissions were also easily disrupted, making this a frontier frequently isolated from the Laminar sections and civilization.
Akane and Sachii passed through the heliosphere, making preparations to travel through the Milky Way. Given the increase in light energy, they applied sunscreen, and dimmed the lights. Heat lost to the void increased as aether grew thicker, so they began wearing extra layers of clothes. Fortunately, the ship was well stocked for both eventualities.
Once they were ready, Akane gave the order.