Haly's Comet AU
AU where Haly’s Intergalactic Circus is a traveling caravan of starships that passes near Earth every 75 years or so. Their main ship is large, with room for the show and an audience, and there are a few other ‘ringside’ ships that provide supplementary seating through high-definition broadcast. The rest of the fleet is made up of individual and family ships of varying size and make. They travel tethered together by an energy field and drift on the solar winds.Â
One family of performers, the Graysons, even have a little observation pod that can be launched behind their ship and towed like a kite. Their fledgling, Dikki, likes to ride there and watch the stars go by.
The Flying Graysons are a major draw of Haly’s, and Dikki is the circus’s darling. He hops from ship to ship, welcomed by all. His parents call him their little Robin; the other performers call him their Sunshine, their Songbird, their Little Star. By the time he’s eight years old, he’s seen hundreds of different planets and felt the light of a thousand suns.
Then disaster happens. Ringmaster Haly refuses to pay extortion to a two-bit gangster on a planet soon left behind. In revenge, the criminal Zucco strikes at the heart of the circus. A tether is cut, and Dikki’s little observation pod is cast loose from his caravan and falls to Earth.
Haly’s backtracks as far as they can afford to in search of their missing bird. They never find him.
