5: Renegades of Ophelia's World

Louis Silvera of the transport vessel La Sirena was awakened early on his shift by an emergency com from the bridge. All around his cabin were posters of various daring-do resort hotels across the colonies. Jump from Space at New Procyon. Swim the whales at Thander's down. Dance in New Cuba.
He made his way out the cabin ignoring the collection of a bachelor's life.
Holograms of Cuban dancing girls reached out from the walls as he made his way down the ship's halls, "Morning Capitan!" each said and blew him a kiss.
"Turn off the holograms Artie or there is going to be trouble!" he bellowed, but the kisses followed him all the way to the bridge where a whole troop of them were dancing around Artie who had his feet up on the command console."
Silvera slapped a toggle on the wall and the girls disappeared. Artie, however, remained, slightly perturbed.
"What?" Silvera growled.
Artie said nothing but touched some screens and diagrams came up all flat.
"This is a full spread of the hypercasts we are receiving" he finally quipped. "De nada."
Silvera tilted his head sarcastically and made a face, "Soooo-fix it. Don't wake me up for this shit and turn off the holo-girls in the hallways it doesn't cheer me up any more. I'm going back to bed" he said and turned to leave.
"Not broken." Artie said quickly before Louis could escape.
"Uhh, hello-it has to be broken or there would be some chatter on that screen. You know, a whole bunch of yapping lonely freighter pilots, advertisements for cheap resort hotels on obscure little asteroids, droning bull feathers cast about the universe aye? Fix it."
"Not broken." Artie repeated. His eyes left the floor where they had been examining his boots which he had removed from the console. They met his Captain's face waiting for the implications to finally sink in.
"So there's nobody broadcasting from the other side?" Silvera's eyes went dark....

The streets never looked as dangerous as they did this day. Anyone might be a kidnapper ready to abscond away with him for ransom. He passed the familiar taverns and heard familiar songs drifting through to the alleys and passageways. Perhaps the betrayers even now celebrated their evil act among those fellows. Millin climbed among some forlorn bell towers and slept.
Alone, hungry and afraid, he watched the lake.
Sooner or later a starship would port there. He would stow away on it....

Gravity simulators went wild on both ships. Every object not battened down went flying off in different directions.
Borges was MERGED, "Spatial distortions! List to port hard; we've got anomalies out of smooth space! Jagged edged, moving, linear event horizons! Radiation flares, temperature contrasts, moving out full ahead!" For all the urgency in her voice she was steady.
The crew watched as the universe ripped open.
Boada groaned, "Tu Madre!" and plunged himself into a cannon cockpit.
Amazingly, like two canyons of darkness and lightning springing out of a sea of normal space, a sputtering of white dwarfs and neutron stars the size of moonlets came lifting up like an eighteenth century balloon show. Comets and bits of asteroids, Predecessor station ruins, busted planets; a hurricane menagerie spilled before them.
Twisting in the storm, their ships fought to maintain equilibrium. "What the devil is this?" Mel roared across the com...