At the End of Light

A Nick S. Edwards Production

Disclaimer: AIC and Pioneer, all rights reserved, own Tenchi and all other 
characters from the Tenchi series. Orbit publications and Iain M. Banks 
copyright the Culture.  This is a non-profit piece of entertainment.

Events take place some 815 years after the Culture-Idiran war for the 
Culture and in the Tenchi Universe TV series.

A Culture and Tenchi Universe Story.


Prologue

	The star field lay silent in the vast dark reaches of space. Stars 
individually twinkled like diamonds sown onto some huge black velvet garment 
floating everywhere, its ends stretching to infinity.
	The void was altered somewhat by the sudden and explosive flash in the 
middle of nowhere a huge blue/white flare erupted from nothing, blotting out 
each and everyone of the trillions of stars surrounding the galaxy. As soon 
as the flash had appeared it was gone; everything returned to normal except 
that a new object was visible amongst the endless expanse of stars.
	The object was a huge silver reflective ellipsoid at least one hundred 
kilometres long by fifty kilometres wide. It lay dormant simply reflecting 
off its silver shell all the photons from stars billions of light-years 
away. The alien object wasn't doing anything extraordinary, simply letting 
the universe carry it around in its ongoing expansion; it was now a part of 
the slow evolution of time and space.
	Barely one light-year away there was one of the many places that life had 
evolved to form sentient organisms, a wonder in its own right, Earth was the 
closest habitable planet to this strange event that had just taken place. 
Earth was the home of many a curious family but no-one had quite a life like 
Tenchi Masaki, a seventeen year old boy living with his grandfather and 
father and several female colleagues in a house set in the peaceful country 
of Japan.
	The spheroid turned some 180 degrees and slowly accelerated towards the 
solar system of Sol, home to Earth.


The World In The Eyes Of Tenchi

	Tenchi had had a hard day at school so far and wasn't enjoying it much at 
all. He had been involved in a conspiracy that involved the missing answers 
to the upcoming physics test and he was a suspect despite him having a 
perfect record in class. First thing that came into his mind was the name of 
a girl he knew. That girls name was Ryoko. She had been trouble ever since 
he found her at the crash site of a spaceship after a long chase from yet 
another spaceship from the "Galaxy Police". Ryoko, among other things, was a 
space pirate, which Tenchi didn't care too much about really. What Tenchi 
did find annoying was the ongoing feud between this girl and another called 
Ayeka. Ayeka was also from another planet though not a criminal herself, she 
could easily make one regret actions that went against her beliefs. The 
princess of Jurai (a planet that dominated the galaxy and beyond) could be a 
handful at the best of times but when Ayeka and Ryoko met Tenchi they 
immediately fell in love. Which is exactly where troubles began to brew. 
Tenchi having the bare minimum experience with girls prior to this incident 
now had two persons of the opposite sex trying to become very intimate with 
him.
	Ryoko being a bit of a rebel would often tease Tenchi and generally do bad 
things such as steal upcoming physics test answers for him so he could cheat 
and ace the test. This was why Ryoko came to his mind every time stuff like 
this happened.
	If only the now marooned Galaxy Police officer by the name of Mihoshi had 
not botched the capture of Ryoko, then that way Ryoko would be the best part 
of a thousand light-years away, Mihoshi wouldn't be generally messing his 
house up with her clumsiness and princess Ayeka and her sister Sasami would 
be able to go home (their ship had been involved in the Ryoko incident and 
ended up a little unspaceworthy to say the least).
	"Lousy Ryoko, I was nearly suspended from school! Father would've gone 
ballistic if I had to tell him that."
	Tenchi continued walking down the dusty path through the large wood of 
trees in flower and blossoms. He often liked walking to and from school just 
so he could witness nature at its most beautiful.
	His satchel that he had been carrying over his shoulder now became much 
lighter and Tenchi also thought of that name he had been thinking of seconds 
before: Ryoko.
	"Come to walk me home Ryoko," a monotonous tone in Tenchi's voice alerted 
Ryoko who was now carrying his satchel and floating beside him.
	"Why Tenchi, don't you like your friend Ryoko to walk you home from a hard 
day at school?"
	Tenchi didn't answer. Instead he continued on walking in the sunlight with 
the white and pink blossoms falling in the gentle summers breeze.
	"Tenchi! I think you need to relax now, here let me take your jacket too," 
Tenchi turned round only to miss Ryoko as she vanished in thin air along 
with his black satchel. Ryoko reappeared directly behind Tenchi and pulled 
off his jacket much to the surprise of its owner. He yelled (something that 
was now commonplace in the Masaki household).
	"Ryoko! Give me back my jacket! Why do you always have to do these things 
to me?" Ryoko put on a solemn face and dropped both the jacket and satchel.
	"Fine. Be like that. I only came to greet you unlike Ayeka and family. I 
often wonder why I bother," and with that last word she quietly disappeared 
from view.
	"Oh Ryoko!" Tenchi now felt sorry for her, she was right about her being 
the only one to greet him after school though but that was probably because 
the rest of the group at home were doing chores and Ryoko was simply messing 
around...again.
	Tenchi picked up his dusty belongings and hastened his pace towards the 
wooden house of his, suppertime was imminent and he could almost taste 
Sasami's cooking already.

	Ayeka was busy laying out the dishes as Tenchi arrived, he noticed Ryoko 
lying on one of the ceiling beams with her black tail clearly evident and 
wagging about. She took one look at Tenchi gave a low grunt and rolled over 
to face away from him.
	Ryo-ohki hopped along the kitchen floor to Tenchi's feet awaiting a good 
pet on the head as a hello gesture but Tenchi simply walked into the lounge 
and sat down in exhaustion on the sofa. Kiyone or Mihoshi's long suffering 
and superior partner in the GP was sat on the chair opposite typing on a 
laptop computer that no one other than Washu could've conceived.
	"Hi Tenchi, how was your day then? If it was anything like ours then I 
would be lying on that sofa now...tiring doesn't even cover it," Kiyone 
said, her eyes still set on the thin computer display. She looked tired and 
stressed or maybe too tired to be stressed would've been a better 
description. Obviously the duties as a GP officer came before rest and 
pleasure so she was still typing away as Tenchi closed his eyes and sighed 
heavily.
	Mihoshi walked into the room her hair was in a mess and she was carrying a 
large pile of paperwork that obscured her view. She continued to wobble 
until she tripped over Ryo-ohki as she tried to get more attention from 
Tenchi. A loud squeal from both as Ryo-ohki leapt into Tenchi's lap only to 
be crushed by Mihoshi and her pile of notes. Tenchi let off a muffled scream 
similar to 'Get off!' and started to struggle as Mihoshi was lifted off the 
now dazed boy and flattened Cabbit by Kiyone.
	"Mihoshi you klutz," shouted Kiyone and pointing to an even more tired 
Tenchi on the sofa. "Watch what you're doing will you! God it's a miracle 
you haven't been taken away and labelled the universes most useless 
detective!" Kiyone was in a fit of rage by now but soon mellowed out and 
continued with her typing whilst giving Mihoshi an evil glare and asking if 
Ryo-ohki and Tenchi were all right.
	Ayeka upon hearing the fuss walked into the lounge area, spotted Mihoshi 
gave a 'tsk' and rolling her eyes then walked back into the kitchen again.
	Such events were seen daily in this house or in the immediate vicinity of 
the bungling detective that is Mihoshi.
	Now back on his feet, Tenchi enquired about the whereabouts of his 
grandfather. No one knew so he found his own dad in the garden and asked.
	"Oh hi Tenchi. Good day at school?"
	"Uh yeah dad, um, do you know where grandfather is?"
	"Yeah sure, he's at the Shrine again becoming one with nature and all that. 
Say do you want to see my new architecture drawings? I'm making a block of 
flats now!"
	Not wanting to disappoint his father Tenchi said he'd see them later albeit 
never. Instead Tenchi looked up towards the Shrine at the top of the 
mountain. It was getting dark now and the stars and moon were coming out 
again to announce a wake up call for all the nocturnal animals that hunted 
at night. The woods were active in the day and night in these areas. Just as 
Tenchi turned to go and have dinner a speck of light caught the corner of 
his eye. He turned again to look towards the sky where he supposedly saw a 
shooting star. Nothing. If it was one he wished that he could have a good 
nice summer holiday without any commotion and relatively stress free. If 
only life were that simple he thought and walked inside the house again.

	The whole Solar system with which Earth was confined to by the forces of 
the suns gravity was devoid of any real ship based technology other than the 
obvious NASA attempts to send probes to Mars and the fringes of the system 
but these were primitive playthings compared to most of the unseen vessels 
lurking in the inky blackness of outer space. The Sol system had just three 
interstellar ships, Ryo-oh which was Ayeka's now badly damaged but 
regenerating tree ship from Jurai, Ryo-ohki or Ryoko's Cabbit pet that could 
turn instantly into a vicious pirate ship and lastly the Yagami which was 
Kiyone and Mihoshi's patrol ship.
	Other than these space faring craft Earth had nothing to compare to the 
numerous other advanced civilisations out there. No Earth government had the 
tech as of yet nor the money to build such things and so people often 
ignored Earth until it becomes a space faring society.
	Something else was out there though, something that wasn't part of the 
Tenchi household yet out in space, very close by. If no one on Earth 
could've created it then who did? Looking beyond the normal dimensions of 
space, into the upper realms of hyperspace where objects appeared 4D (a 
sphere was a circle and could be seen right through, black holes appeared as 
deep space water funnels sucking matter into nothingness) there could be 
seen the silver ellipsoid that only hours before had entered the perimeter 
of the Sol system in a blinding flash of light. The hundred klick long 
silver monstrosity had moved itself into a high orbit over Earth, some 
100,000 kilometres from the surface of the planet. No intelligence or 
weather satellites would pick this object up, not even the powerful Hubble. 
This anomaly was phased into hyperspace and thus wasn't visible to anyone 
within real space. That is not visible to all.
	Washu had been routinely checking her systems in the huge lab of hers when 
she noticed a huge mass was heading for this planet! Her sensors had 
detected this thing just enter the system and then slowly but surely glide 
swiftly into Earth's orbit and stopping. It didn't do anything after that 
but stay in a geo-synchronous avoiding all forms of communication with Earth 
as if monitoring the planet, oblivious to its new observer. Washu didn't 
think anything of it at first and thought it was a Jurian ship passing by or 
come to take Ayeka back to Jurai since her ship was out of action. It wasn't 
any of these things. It was however intimidating, just staying there looking 
down from the heavens like a scientist to a petri dish culture. Feeling 
slightly unnerved, Washu opened her doorway between dimensions and appeared 
in the Masaki hallway just as the others were tucking into dinner.
	Had Washu been a little late for her meal, then she would've noticed that 
one of her scanner screens was flashing, it had registered something:

***ALERT: POSSIBLE FIRST CONTACT EVENT TAKING PLACE***
Detecting high-energy electromagnetic beams emanating from declination +32° 
23' 11", right ascension 4h 28m 42.7s.
Anomaly scanning Australasian continent at present. Anomaly is proceeding to 
probe major centres of population.
Centre count and city index so far: London, Glasgow, New York, Washington, 
San Diego, Buenos Aires, Paris, Berlin, Prague, Moscow, Tokyo. Count = 11.
Whereabouts of this equipment has not yet been determined by anomaly.
Printing and saving sensor readings.
~Continuing tachyonic and subspace/hyperspatial bursts.~

	This information was recorded into Washu's huge databanks and the now fully 
active sensors were continuing to monitor the new object with considerable 
attention. At the mean time Tenchi and the gang were uninformed of the 
events taking place directly over their heads, it would not be until the 
next day before anyone really noticed changes.