Into The Void (13 page)

              “Yes. Mankind has been interested in the appearance of the overlapping galaxies long before we first met the galactic community. We have been studying it for some time as it was a perfect example of examining space dust because of the location of one galaxy being in front of the other. Because of this we watched it closely. After some time we realized that it was really one galaxy that appeared like two galaxies. This caused even more study as the galaxies were not tearing each other apart as they should have, leading us to think differently about the creation of a galaxy. It didn't make sense that there could be two galaxies in such perfect unison without interacting with each other. We are positive that it is indeed two galaxies that have somehow become one. We are also positive that the galaxy has what we need to survive because we have studied it for such a long time.”

              “But how can you be so sure?” Secondary Counselor Ggleem Zmex asked.

              “It is about the age of this galaxy and-”

              “And if there is life in that galaxy?” Interjected Head Counselor Nabrou-k.

              “This AI should be able to detect it and be able to communicate with it. Also, we have been sending FTL communications to it for years and been using all kinds of instruments on it for hundreds of years to determine what is in the galaxy and we have found no anomalies that could indicate intelligent life to the point of space flight between solar systems,” General Vaas replied.

              “Are you sure a soldier is the best fit for the mission?” Head Counselor Nabrou-k asked.

              “You have seen Captain Steele's record. An extremely dedicated soldier with lots of brains as well as brawn. He's not just a typical grunt who follows orders. He is a grunt who thinks at a level sometimes higher than our commanders. Besides he has been training for years for extreme high risk missions and is the best mankind has to offer. He has undergone scientific training as well as hostile environment combat training for any life threatening situations that would come up. He has some of the best military training in the galaxy even before he started training for this mission.”

              “That's what concerns me. That a man with military training would be the primary choice for scientific mission,” Head Counselor Nabrou-k said.

              “This mission is primarily scientific and exploratory. No human has been in space for over 100 years at once. We simple don't live past 170 very often. This trip is going to take well over 150 years and who knows what awaits him out there? The stress he undergoes can only be survived by a dedicated soldier. Besides no one has left the galactic edge. Nothing has even survived past the edge and reported back. Who knows what awaits out there in the void? Who better prepared to face the possible horrors of intergalactic space than one who has been facing horrors their entire life?” General Vaas asked.

              “And the probability of him surviving more than 10 hours after leaving the edge is next to none! You are spending all this money and sending mankind's best out there to suicide,” Tertiary Counselor Lerpr-utz said.

              “With all due respect, mankind is use to suicide missions. War after war and experiment after experiment has shown this. There is a reason we always step up to take on dangerous tasks that most races don't want to do. It runs through out blood,” General Vaas said.

              “I'm not sure about this General Vaas. While it may be true that your kind is use to suicidal tasks and dangerous exploits this one seems a bit drastic, even for humanity. Even some of your own race thinks its a bad idea,” Head Counsaler Nabrou-k said.

              “Mankind has never been able to make up its mind as a whole on one single thing. This is the exactly that,” Secondary Counselor Zmex said.

              “I'm sure if you met Captain Steele your doubts would be put at ease,” General Vaas said.

              “Where is the Captain?” asked Secondary Counselor Zmex.

              “He is currently training to complete complex scientific and physical objectives with his team  in a zero gravity environment on an asteroid some where out in space,” General Vaas stated.

              “You haven't picked him as Captain of this ship yet?” Head Counselor Nabrou-k asked.

              “Not exactly. His scores are the highest and he has the highest probability of succeeding in the training, but there is always the chance he could fail. Mankind's best doesn't stop training until the mission is accomplished.”

              “Yes, mankind is by far the most complex organism in this galaxy, maybe anywhere. You just don't stop until you've either killed yourself or become better. The saying 'A human doctor is the only suitable doctor for a human' is true. How much I do not wish for mankind's die hard determination and extreme ideas to be upon my people can never be stated enough. If there is one race that can do it, it is without a doubt mankind. I do hope you don't kill your recruits in the process General,” Head Counselor Nabrou-k stated.

              “These men will fight until they go home no matter what. If all die, one will still be alive. I have a gut feeling that Captain Steele will be the one,” General Vaas said as he removed the AI's holochip from the AI core.

              “Let's hope your right on that General.”

              Jamie kept the ship traveling at FTL speeds. Her holographic form floating above the floor of the ship. She wandered around the ship a lot. She was recently understanding why Captain John Steele felt so alone out here. She could feel it herself and she was just an artificial intelligence. She wasn't really used to feeling strong emotions yet the weight of the darkness and being alone weighed heavily on her. She may have programs that helped her understand strong emotions but she didn't truly understand the impact of them until now.

              “Now I know why John always wanted to leave the ship,” Jamie told herself, “It's unbearable.”

              She hovered to Captain John Steele's bunk and stared at it a long time. She tried to forget what he looked like but she could not because of her programming. They had been together for decades and now he's gone. She was starting to seriously doubt Earth's Government's plan to only have one human on this mission. She knew the reasons, and knew it was the best option but it was not fail proof. She was not suppose to run the mission by herself.

              Jamie went to the cargo deck and activated one of the many droids that were going to be used by Captain Steele to help construct the Instant Teleportation Device. She activated it and wanted to see if it had any personality matrixes. Maybe she could help reduce her feeling of loneliness if it did. She searched the programming on the droid and it did not. She tinkered with it for a while wondering if she could create a subprogram in herself and modify the droids code to allow it to have a personality.

              After several attempts and several hours of modifying the droid's code she was unable to create a program to do so. She made some notes and was going to try something else when the scanner went off. She disappeared then reappeared in the bridge to check it out.

              “John, we have-”

              Jamie stopped herself. It was the first anomaly she had had by herself. It was odd not to have Captain Steele here to talk to and have him reply with his normal sarcastic remarks.

              Jamie took the ship in for a closer look. After drawing the ship closer to the object she found a planet that was in the shape of a circle with a hole it. It was the shape of a doughnut. She thought it might be another construct like the object Captain Steele was on then realized it was less like a ring and more like a large doughnut. There was large amounts of surface on each side. This meant it was clearly a planet. The planet also had 6 sets of rings. The first four rings looped inside the doughnut and around to the outside on the North, East, South, and West sides. Then the last two were looped around the outside of the planet like normal rings at an “X” shape. The planet was orbiting a large amount of poorly lit gas.

              Jamie analyzed the gas and saw that it was a proto-nebula. She came to the conclusion that it had been created since she and Captain Steele left the Milky Way. That would be why there is absolutely no recording of a nebula out here in their information computers.

              Jamie scanned the planet for any additional anomalies and found none. She then send a droid down to the planet to check out the planet. The droid went down shortly after entering the atmosphere and became unresponsive. She sent another droid down there to recover it. She watched the video feed from the droid. She watched as the droid moved in closer to the planet with the light of the nebula giving off an eery glow to the planet.

              “Where did you go?” Jamie asked.

              Jamie searched the entire area looking for the droid. She continued to watch the camera feed and after being unable to find it she sent the next one droid to the surface. She scanned for the lost droid and found nothing. She watched as the droid came closer to the surface and noticed that the planet had multiple ecosystems. There was one that was clearly a desert and another appeared to have snow. Whatever this object was it would have had been around for millions of years to have such defined ecosystems.

              Jamie pushed the droid into the planet's atmosphere. She was amazed to find that the planet's atmosphere was doughnut shaped too. The atmosphere of the planet was in the shape of a doughnut and there was even a hole in the atmosphere where there was a hole in the planet. It was a most peculiar anomaly. After the droid entered the atmosphere the droid's visual feed got cut. Jamie sent the signal to  bring it back up out of the atmosphere. As soon as she sent the order to the droid all response from the droid stopped.

              Jamie flew the ship in for a closer look to see if maybe there were life forms stopping the droids. She was still too far out to notice any life forms. She scanned for them and did not get any back on the sensors. She decided to fly the ship to the center of the hole of the planet where the was no atmosphere and try to get a better look at planet. She could clearly see oceans, jungles, deserts, mountains, and even an area that had extremely active volcanic activity. There was one whole side of the planet that was just one ocean.

              Jamie thought she saw a light come from the planet's surface temporarily. She thought it was too much like spot light to be a freak occurrence. She used the ships massive lights to signal back and waited. After waiting close to 30 minutes she started to fly the ship out of the planet's orbit when two quick flashes came from the planet's surface. She quickly did the same and waited.

              Once again she waited 30 minutes before starting to leave. After 30 minutes of inactivity she left and headed to the side of the planet where the nebula was not lighting and flashed the ship's lights again. After 30 minutes she left and headed to another area of the planet and flashed her lights again. This time she got an immediate response. She quickly repeated the pattern back and waited. She didn't get a response back. Whatever was causing the flashes to come from the planet's surface mean that there clearly was life down there and that they were trying to communicate with her.

              Jamie quickly called for one more droid. She quickly checked it over for any problems and sent it down the the planet's surface. She watched the camera feeds and ran scans around the droid the entire time. She flashed the ship's lights at the planet again and quickly got another quick flash. She sent the droid into the atmosphere and the droid quickly died and stopped responding.

              Jamie watched from the ship and the droid didn't even fall to the surface on fire. The droid just disappeared. There was clearly some kind of barrier preventing her equipment from working once it entered the atmosphere. Maybe atmospheric pressure? Chemical makeup of the atmosphere? She was still trying to comprehend the light patterns. What were they trying to say? She has every language algorithm possible. She should be able to make some kind sense of the lights but she couldn't. She knew they were communicating but wasn't sure what they were saying. She thought about flying the ship down into the atmosphere but decided that that could destroy the ship like it did the droids.

              After not getting a response Jamie flew to another part of the planet and activated the ship's lights. She did this well over 20 more times over all the different ecosystems. There was no longer any response. No longer being able to do anything she made a note in the computer's logs and went on her way.

Chapter 12

Remnants

              “Jamie, Captain Steele's AI, Date 4059, month 7, week 1, Log 3303.”

              “I have come across a planet that is very very unique. The planet is well advanced, with many many many different ecosystems. It was also orbiting a proto-nebula. Jungles, deserts, oceans and many more. The planet is round like an 'O' only the planet is not as well rounded on each side of it. Each side has a very large amount of mass on it. There are numerous sets of rings on the planet as well. There were many peculiar things on this planet. You can see the log for more information.

              “The most peculiar thing, perhaps, about this planet is that it had life forms that where able to communicate via large lights. I sent several droids down the to the surface and the droids stopped responding. It is unknown as to why they failed. The scans failed to show what the problem could have been.

              “I am still unsure of how the new nebula was formed. I checked the database to see if there was a possibility that a new nebula could have formed while we were on our way here and there was no way it could have. We might have come across a situation that hints a new way that nebulae are created even though we are not sure exactly how or what happened.

              “I am still heading in the direction of the Overlapping Galaxies. I am five years behind schedule but am slowly making up the time. I should, however, reach the Overlapping Galaxies on time and complete the mission.

              “I recently was able to decrypt some of the files Captain Steele found on the floating object several decades ago. It seems that they had a much more demanding culture than anywhere in our galaxy. I also was able to find some new schematics for a new type of energy for travel. This energy uses cosmic dust to produce vast amounts of energy. The cosmic dust is collected into a vat and once a vat is filled it is destroyed using a laser to freeze the dust. The dust upon being frozen is destroyed with a thermonuclear explosion causing the dust to change form from a solid to a plasma. The dust goes through all four main states of matter and unleashes its energy. The energy 'lashes' out and propels the user at speeds faster than light. It can cause a medium sized ship, a frigate, to travel at well over 25 times the speed of light.

              “They were unable to contain this energy and it caused problems in the past with the destruction of ships. The were also unable to control where this energy would propel them. They were also unable to use this type of energy to power cities and said that it could cause planets to be transported several light years away in a moment. The device was purely experimental in nature but it could solve our problems. I also recommend we do not try this experiment anywhere in our galaxy, or any other galaxy for that matter. I recommend we try it in intergalactic space where if anything goes wrong we are not dealing with severe repercussions.

              “The ship is running fine. There are no problems with the ship and it is in prime condition. I will keep you up to date on any new information.

              “I also want to take the time to note that while I do not fully understand strong emotions, I do feel very alone out here. I have implants that help me understand strong emotions, but I did not know exactly what they would have felt like until now. The darkness is intense. Every sparkling dot on the horizon is a whole galaxy and there isn't a whole lot of them out here. The ship feels cold, and I am unable to feel temperature. The ship creaks under the pressure of constant FTL speeds and the heat that comes with it. There is a complete lack of noise in some parts of the ship except for a simple hum that your ears quickly tune out. The only time a noise happens is when the ship creaks. When that happens it often sounds like a fright train compared to the dull hum.

              “I am not human, but out here even I feel human. I feel the void of space all around me, swallowing me up. Captain Steele said that there was nothing else out here but him, except there was. I never understood that until now. There really is something out here with us. Scans don't show it, I don't see it, I don't hear it, but I do feel it. There is a large, foreboding, and judgmental feeling out here in intergalactic space that makes an AI fear, which is something AI's don't do. Whatever it is, I am willing to face it and willing to win.

              “Jamie, out.”

              After Jamie finished sending the message she went back to work on the droid trying to get it to talk. She had been working on it for 8 years, heavily modifying the code of the droid. It was originally something completely different from what it was now. She looked into the saved code she had tinkered with it some more. She kept working on it until it seemed to acted differently.

              “Can you speak?” Jamie asked the droid.

              “Yes.”             

              Jamie let out a sigh. She had finally gotten it to speak. Its voice was a very 20
th
century generic robot voice and it didn't have a lot of personality but it was working. After getting it to finally speak she sat down and started a conversation with it. She knew she finally had someone to talk to. She knew the loneliness would finally start to fade.

              The breathing was heavy.

              “Help...”

              Life signs were dropping.

              “Please...”

              The silence was mind numbing.

              “Anyone...?”

              Darkness was invading.

              “Help...”
              The cold was increasing.

              “Can't... see...”

              The nothingness was enveloping.

              “Must...”

              The pain intense.

              “Air...”

              The burning, traumatizing.

              He opened his eyes to darkness. The holographic display on his suit was flickering. The helmet's face mask crushed. He was loosing lots of oxygen. He could barely feel his limbs. He was drifting off into darkness. He tried to move through the pain and almost passed out. He tried to get his bearings. There was nothing but rock in all directions. He was drifting and his suit had very little power left. He moved his head and noticed that his suit was severely damaged.

              He was feeling the nauseating effects of vacuum. He was spinning, twisting and turning with no bearings available. He knew his time was coming. He looked out of his helmet and saw that it was cracked. His face would be exposed to vacuum. He looked closer and noticed that a small holographic display had covered the hole flicking on and off occasionally blocking the air in his helmet from escaping. He knew his time was coming. He knew it was close. He knew he had one chance if he wanted to live.

              “Help me... please Jamie...”

              Jamie was talking to the droid on the bridge when she was pinged. She knew something laid ahead of the ship. She looked off into space and saw nothing. She knew something was off. She looked at the sensors on the ship and they said nothing. She wondered what the ping could have been. 

              Jamie knew something was off. She floated around the ship to make sure that everything was okay. She floated around the ship until she came to Captain Steele's room. She knew immediately what had happened. Captain Steele was somehow alive. She turned the ship around and headed back. She knew it would take a while to reach him but she knew she need to try.

              Jamie threw the ship's engines into overdrive. She was going faster than many ships had ever tried. She watched the engines carefully for any sign of over heating. She was pushing the ship to its limits. If Captain Steele was alive it would be worth the damage to the ship. She knew that the ping would have been sent years ago for it to reach her now but it was still worth the try.

              The ship shook as they tried to sustain a speed several times faster than what it was designed to do. The ship started to creak and buckle. She called the droids out of the cargo bay to help reinforce the hull. The ship shook violently before a large piece fell off the outside of the ship. The sensors went crazy and the ship started to spin as the ship tried to redistribute the weight from the collapse of the FTL bubble. The engines overheated as they tried to maintain a straight non-rotating path.

              Jamie ordered one of the droids to keep a close eye on the engines and another on the part of the ship that was buckling the most. She went by the bulkhead that Captain Steele repaired at the beginning of the mission and noticed that it was about to give way completely. She ordered a droid to reinforce it with spare metal. She was notified that the droid in the engine room stopped responding and the engines where at critical levels.

              Jamie teleported her holographic image into the engine room only to notice it was on fire. She ordered two droids to take put it out. The ship shook violently and started to buckle again. She ordered more droids to reinforce the ship. She was just notified that another droid stopped responding at the bridge. She teleported over there and found a breach in the bridge window. She knew that the hole created would take a sustainable amount of work to fix and that it was going to tear the ship in half if she kept the ship going at the speed they were going. She had received a message that the port side hallway had a breach and they had lost a droid. She slowed the ship down to a crawl so that the droids could repair it but she kept moving the ship forward.

              She went to look at the navigation computer to see how far they needed to go and for how long. Just three weeks at double the speed she was just going and she would reach Captain Steele's last known location. The ship was in no condition to go at the speed of light however she knew that ultimately the mission wouldn't be successful in the long run without Captain Steele. She also knew that Captain Steele could be dead. She sent a signal out.

              “John, do you copy?”

              Jamie waited. She started to count the seconds. She counted several minutes hearing nothing.

              “Help... I...” She heard.

              “Hold on John, I'm on my way,” Jamie said.

              Jamie wasn't sure how she was getting a response so soon but she knew it was Captain Steele. She had to get there. She ran some diagnostics.

              “What's your condition John?” She asked and waited.

              She heard a response back.

              “Critical. Debris... all...”

              She knew something must be terribly wrong and that she couldn't go hauling the ship in there at the speed she was just traveling at otherwise she might hit the debris. She had to go into the area slow which means she had to go much faster than she was already going for 5 days to make up the time difference. Her diagnostics came back that the ship had a 35% chance of surviving at the current speed if the hull breaches are sealed. She ordered the droids to seal every hole as tight as they could.

              Jamie set the droids to repair the ship for ten hours to make sure the ship was holed up tight. She then pushed the ship to go faster and carefully watched the ship's sensors. After 4 days the ship was in such a condition that it could no longer sustain that speed and so she slowed it down substantially. She continued to fly the ship at the slow speed and when she arrived at the last known location of Captain John Steele she was amazed at what she saw.

              Jamie arrived at the last known location of Captain Steele and saw debris everywhere. Large chunks of sharp jagged rocks floated everywhere. The ship had well over 3 dozen hull breaches, severe system failure on all systems, and had lost gravity and life support in most of the ship. She knew that just a couple abrasive evasive maneuvers were all it would take to tear the ship apart. She knew that just one of those rocks hitting the ship would likely shear the ship in half. If she had known that Captain Steele's location was in this bad a condition, she would have never pushed the ship as hard as she did.

              Jamie knew she would never be able to scan for Captain Steele in all this wreckage.

              “John, can you give me a location?” Jamie asked.

              Jamie waited for minutes. She knew that it had been days since the last transmission. She scanned for any life forms. The estimated time it would take to find him would be days with all the debris. She knew Captain Steele didn't have that much time. She piloted the ship carefully to avoid any debris while the droids repaired what they could.

              “Star is starboard...” Jamie heard over the radio.

              Jamie knew that that would make her search easier, but not by much. All it meant was that the star was on his left side.

              “I need more John,” Jamie said.

              She waited and heard nothing. She moved the ship downwards, careful to avoid all the rocks. Jamie took a closer look at the rocks as she went by them. The looked very similar to the rocks Captain Steele described on the planet's surface. They were pointed in a direction, almost like a knife only jagged as well. She knew that only one decent hit from those things would destroy the ship, and a minor hit would make the ship harder to pilot.