Into The Void (7 page)

              Captain Steele looked into the now unlocked area. He saw about 50 people. He looked around and saw six kids, no older than six years of age.

              “Omega to actual we have a problem. Come in.”

              Captain Steele waited to hear back.

              “Omega to actual. Come in.”

              Captain Steele waited again.

              “Omega to actual, we have young kids on board. Need extraction.”

              Captain Steele waited.

              “Negative Omega. Your mission is diplomat and general. We need that intel. We can not bring in a ship, scans show too much debris for safe extraction.”

              Captain Steele stood in disbelief. He knew for a fact that there was more than enough space to get the survivors off of the ship. There wasn't too much debris either. Was this the military he was fighting for? To leave kids to die when they didn't need to? This wasn't the way his military normally did things.

              Another large explosion caused the ship to shake violently. Captain Steele knew that as bad as that explosion was it wasn't long before the the ship's life support fell and the general and diplomat would die right where there were.

              Captain Steele pointed at the diplomat and general and said “You two, get into this. We're leaving.”

              As the diplomat and general moved towards the group, Captain Steele looked at the kids one last time. A little kid held out his hand for help and started to try and float to him. Captain Steele turned away knowing that if he tried to help this child he wouldn't and couldn't abandon him but would need to.

              “I'm sorry,” Captain Steele whispered as he turned and signaled Catalyst to lock the doors shut.

              Catalyst locked the doors shut as the ship shook again. Captain Steele pushed his team to leave the ship. As they left a breach in the hull he looked around and saw that there was enough room for a rescue ship but he pushed aside his emotions for now. He knew that whatever he was being trained for and the military intelligence that they would get was far greater than six small kids. He didn't know what that could be, but he knew that it was needed.

              Captain Steele wandered around the tail end of the object for several hours while Jamie downloaded all the information possible. He stayed in close proximity as if to guard her from any unknown threats. He was trained to protect anyone downloading valuable information. After several hours he decided to sit down for a quick bite to eat. He was lucky that the DSSM suit allowed you to choose what you wanted to eat. He decided it had been several weeks since he had a bacon cheeseburger with seasoned fries so he chose that. As he sat there and drank his cheeseburger paste he wondered about what had made he feel like he was being watched. It had been over eight hours since he felt watched and that concerned him greatly.

              What could have made him feel watched but then stop when he was in the large Mendelevium room. Was it something alive in this object or was it the object itself? Why did it stop after he entered the large Mendelevium room? Why would it stop there and not when he was blown out of the ship? The more he thought about it the less he liked this object.

              “Jamie have you found out anything about the creatures that lived here from the data on the console?”

              “No because we cannot translate their languages.”

              “Wait, what? Languages? You didn't think about this before now?”

              “Yes, there seems to be many different types of writings. However I have found something that appears to be some kind of cipher.”

              “What does it say?”

              “I have been translating it for about the last hour. It is very complex and will take another hour or so. I will let you know when it is done.”

              Captain Steele ate his paste while sitting on the floor. After he was finished he made a quick scan of the area again and pulled out his data pad to play a game on it while still scanning the area. He had nothing but time. After another two hours he was alerted by Jamie that she was done with the cipher.

              “John, I have translated the images and code. It is still complex and hard to translate. From what I understand is that this object has been around for nearly 8 billion years.”

              “How could it be around for 8 billion years? Also, any information on any life forms or defense systems?”

              “I am unsure, and no. I have not translated everything and what I have I have not come across such information.”

              “Keep checking.”

              “I will.”

              After being awake for 55 hours Captain Steele decided he needed a nap. He did not feel safe with that thing lurking about so he set his DSSM on high alert for any external movement.

              “Jamie tell me you have something on defense systems.”

              “They are all dead or powered down and will not reboot.”

              “Good. Lets keep it that way. I'm going to take two hour nap. Watch my back. I don't like being out here alone. I have a very bad feeling.”

              “You can return to the ship John.”

              “No, I have ventured too far into the object to return and explore this deep again without loosing dozens of hours in traveling back and forth. If anything happens to me I will finish you...”

              After several hours of sleep Captain Steele woke up. He sat up and looked around him. Still safe thankfully.

              “Status Jamie.”

              “Still translating and transmitting.”

              “Anything good?” Captain Steele said with a yawn.

              “Several. These things came from the galaxy we now know as “destroyed galaxy”. The destroyed galaxy was a galaxy that was observed in the year 2009. It was then called NGC 6240 and it's main feature was the two supermassive black holes that were about to collide. They collided much sooner than anyone could understand. The two black holes should still be on a collision course today but are not. This ship is from that galaxy.

              “They were able to engineer black holes in that galaxy and they appeared to be running from it.  They used them for power thinking they could control them but it got out of control. They made two very small black holes at the ends of their galaxy and it ripped the galaxy apart. The galaxy then became two galaxies then were pulled back towards each other.
              “This object you are on was an attempt of survival for the best species in their galaxy. They fled after the black holes became unstable and ripped apart their galaxy. This object was an ark of sorts to try and keep them alive. They set off in a direction hoping to make it. They didn't know where they were going but they knew they needed to change galaxies.

              “The destroyed galaxies are not old enough to produce this object. This object is roughly 8 billion years old while the destroyed galaxies were a starburst galaxy back then,” Jamie said.

              “How is a starbust galaxy that old? Don't starbust galaxies use their gas so fast that they die out?” John asked.

              “Exactly.”

              “So what your telling me is that this object is alien even to them?” Captain Steele asked.

              “Not exactly. The galaxy that is there today is much younger than the one that was there before now. The original galaxy was ripped apart by the two black holes so fiercely that the galaxy was recreated as a starbust galaxy due to all the left over gas that was ripped from the stars. The black holes ripped apart the very cosmic dust of their galaxy and tossed it around only for it to be compressed and then formed into two smaller galaxies. The two black holes that they created then pulled on each others gravitational pull.

              “This defies galaxy formation as we know it. If the galaxy was closer to the place where the big bang started then it would be older because it was closer to where the universe started and would have been formed sooner than rest of the universe. That is not the case here. The location of the galaxy is too far from the center of the big bang to be as old as it is.

              “They also have theory's on how the universe started. There are calculations here that prove that our understanding of how the universe was created might be wrong. The big bang is both omnidirectional and sent in one direction,” Jamie explained.

              “Let me try and see if I'm seeing where your going with this. That because the universe isn't 2D, or flat like a piece of paper, it would have had to exploded in one direction and that that direction had to be shaped like a cone so that there would be three dimensions instead of two dimensions?” Captain Steele asked.
              “Correct John.”

              “So I'm guessing then that the big bang exploded in one direction in the shape of a cone but it also exploded multiple cones in every direction?” Captain Steele asked.

              “Yes. As the funnels moved outward from the starting spot they grew wider and wider on the ends leading away from the big bang and eventually ran into each other causing various 'rifts' in space time. These rifts caused black holes,” Jamie explained.

              “Gotcha. Well I'm glad I don't have to write reports on my mission's anymore because that would be rather hard to explain to lots of people.”

              “John this discovery is revolutionary. This is ground breaking.”

              “Jamie calm down. Just tell me about this thing I'm on. That's all I care about right now.”

              “This object you are on is an ark of some sort. It contains a treasure trove of information. There is something else John.”

              “What is it Jamie?” asked Captain Steele.

              “This object has information on how to make and control black holes.”

              “Destroy that info.”

              “John this information could save...”

              “It destroyed their galaxy twice! Not once but twice! Lock it up and destroy it!”

              “The scientific value-”

              “I said do it! It will kill everything we are trying accomplish here. Destroy it!”

              “John, I...”

              Captain Steele let out a big sigh. Jamie was a robot and was supposed to be logical but instead was being emotional. It was probably some programmed attempt to make him feel like she was a human when there was no other human around. If a computer was being emotional then there was no way to make it think logical.

              “Fine, lock it down, send it FTL speeds to secure facility and tag it with something like 'alien virus-do not open'.”

              “Thank you John!”

              “I trust Earth's government not to use it, others, I don't know,” said Captain Steele.

              “There is one other thing John.”

              “What?”

              “Their are... videos. There are video's of the effects of black holes. Both time lapse and normal time of people, planets, solar systems, and even their galaxy. They are... graphic. They are recorded on this console to persuade others not to use the technology”

              “Send them to my personal computer on the ship. I'll watch them when I get back.”

Chapter 7

More Questions

              Captain Steele wondered where to head next.

              “Jamie, whats the best path from here? Anything else interesting in those archives?”

              “Yes, go to the bridge. There is another console there. Take a left and head down the hallway until you reach a corridor and then take a right.”

              “I'm on it.”

              Captain Steele walked down the corridor for about a mile before coming to another hallway. The lights on the floor where still heading toward the big room with the diagrams. He wondered why.

              “Jamie, why the diagrams on the floor and the lights?”

              “I don't know I'm hoping the bridge will tell us.”

              Captain Steele walked down the hallway until he came to a “T” intersection. As he was turning right the corridor disappeared.

              “Jamie, you get that? What was that. I thought this thing was inactive.”

              “Correct. I think we may have turned some power system on when we scanned the console back at the back of the object,” Jamie said.

              “You think?”

              “Yes, I think so.”

              “Well you better figure that out. This thing is 8 billion years old. It's kinda a death trap already and I don't need some 8 billion year old security system trying to jack with me.”

              “Understood. I will see if I can fix that, until then take a left then a right at the next hallway.”

              Captain Steele headed in that direction when he reached another “T” intersection. The hallway he needed to go down disappeared again. He took the only path way that was open in hopes that he wasn't going to be funneled into a trap. He continued down the hallway twisting and turning as the corridors changed their directions hoping that his good sense of direction would lead him towards the bridge. After walking for some time he found himself back in the large room of Mendelevium with the diagrams.

              Captain Steele walked up to the square and stood on it. The room lit up, glowing red, with the lights in the floor started pulsating faster and faster. He tried to move and was unable. He was slowing being lifted up into the air by an unknown force. The alien language suddenly started being wrote on the floor beneath him. The writing then jumping from the ground up into the air and swirled up around him. He heard sounds... voices. Sounds he has never heard before and would never be able to explain. He would never be able to repeat them even in his head.

              Captain Steele thought he was on fire. All he could see was orange swirling around him with intense pain. He screamed at the pain and the writing spun around him, shut up into the air, and down into his helmet and down his throat. He saw things he didn't understand. He tasted things he couldn't comprehend. He smelt things that were so unbearable and so very foreign. All his senses where on fire but yet he felt so alive.

              Captain Steele felt so powerful, so strong. He felt like he knew everything. The pain grew more and more intense. It grew so intense that he fearing it would rip him apart from the inside. The images became so intense he couldn't see anything. The tastes became so powerful he felt his tongue was going to dry out. The smells were so strong it was as if his nose was filled with the objects that he smelt. The pain became so strong that he was fainting. Every time he would start to fall into a coma the pain would rip him out of it. He felt his sides starting to tear apart. His arms and legs felt as if they were bursting at the seams. He tried to get free but the pain was to intense for him to move. He tried with all his might to get away but nothing helped.  He wanted to die but it continued. He felt warm liquid run down his arms and legs as they were in sharp pain. He felt his bones ache and felt them being stretched. He begged for his life to end, he begged to die, but there was no death. The pain continued then it suddenly stopped and he fell to the ground and became unconscious.

              When he came to he was on the middle of the square with his face down to the diagrams.

              “John! John! Wake up! You need to move now,” Jamie was yelling into his suit's earpiece.

              Captain Steele started to use his arms to lift himself up and he felt intense pain in his arms and fell back down. His DSSM was registering multiple fractured bones and broken skin. His face plate had cracked seeping radiation into his suit. What was left of his DSSM readout was not good. Fatal vital signs, multiple open fractures, severe bleeding. His DSSM registered lethal levels of radiation in his suit through the multiple cracks in it.

              “John get out of there now! You need to move now!”

              Captain Steele tried to get up again and fell back down. The pain was incredible. He saw multiple threat indicators coming from all directions. He told his suit through neural input to give him the maximum dosage of pain killers, adrenaline shots, anti-radiation medication, and gave the go ahead for his DSSM to do a “medical tend” to his bones. His DSSM shoved his bones back into the skin and “glued” them back for temporary fix. As soon as his suit did this he heard a bone chilling shriek came from deep within the ship that echoed down the hallways and throughout the ship. The shriek caused his bones to vibrate and hurt.

              Captain Steele used his gun as a brace to get up.

              “Jamie what the hell is going on and how do I get out of here?”

              “Take a right, then run straight. There is another hole in the object I have piloted the ship to.”

              Captain Steele started to run and fell back down. He got back up and quickly fell down again. Threat indicators were everywhere. He had to make it. He got up and ran for it. As he made it to the first hallway a large creature came around the corner and swung itself at him. He ducked and kept on moving.

              “Jamie, what the hell is that thing?”

              “It is the creature that was being worshiped on the diagram that was on the floor.”

              The creature was very large, probably about 10 feet tall and 10 feet wide, running on three massive hind legs with two massive arms in front. It had two eyes with eight pupils. Its teeth were about 3 feet long and looked as if they could easily cut through reinforced steel.

              Captain Steele ran as fast as he could but the thing was faster than him. He turned around and fired several shots at its massive body hoping to slow it down. As the bullets were about to hit the creature, part's of the body disappeared and reappeared.

              “The creature is a holographic species. It is a physical creature but it also has the ability to remove all or part of his body from the universe temporarily. It can also change forms,” Jamie said.

              “How the crap does it do that?”

              “John it was a natural ability. The files do not say what happens when they become holographic and where that body part goes.”

              “How am I suppose to kill it then?”

              “We can't.”

              “How did others kill it?”

              “With weapons beyond our comprehension. They made them early on in their evolution.”

              “Get me out of here Jamie!”

              “Head left at the next hallway.”

              Captain Steele ran checking over his shoulder to see where the creature was. As the creature was almost on him he turned around abruptly, pushed hard off the ground using the DSSM suit's strength amplifier causing him to slide towards the creature, and fired several more rounds at the creature only to see that part of the creature's body disappear and reappear where the bullets would have hit. The creature took a swing at him as he was sliding under it and just barely missed. Captain Steele fired more rounds as he was sliding underneath the creature but no luck. He then stood up. The creature then turned around just as fast as he had and swung it's large arm at him. The hand of the creature struck him in the chest knocking him several yards back and causing him to hit the floor sliding on the ground for several more yards.

              “Need a game plan Jamie!”

              Captain Steele ran away from the creature hoping to buy enough time for Jamie to come up with a plan. The creature ran at him and he fired a full magazine at the creature and the creature just kept charging at him with the small parts of it's body disappearing and reappearing as each round passed through it. Captain Steele reloaded and ducked as the creature swung at him again barely missing him. He ran away from the creature again and it turned just as fast and made another swing for him hitting him in the back with such force that it knocked him several yards forward causing him to slide across the floor several more yards. The pain was already more then he could bare and with this thing knocking him around it was only another hit until he was out cold.

              Captain Steele wondered if the creatures holographic nature could be used against itself. He got up and let the creature run towards him. As the creature approached it's swinging distance Captain Steele readied himself to jump and hold onto its fur. The creature stopped just short of him, raised its hands up and swung downward. Captain Steele took a step back just as the creatures hands hit the ground. The force of the creature hitting the ground caused a miniature earthquake in the area that the DSSM registered at a 17.5 magnitude.

              The force knocked Captain Steele up into the air for a split second as the creature swung at him. The creature's hand hit him and he went flying into the wall cracking the wall he hit. The DSSM gave Captain Steele a “shock call” awakening him from the coma that the shock of the pain put him in. He saw the creature running straight at him at a high rate of speed. He leaned to the left at the last second as the creature swung at him hoping to smash him between the wall and its fist. Captain Steele grabbed the creature's arm as the creature pulled it's arm back.

              Captain Steele held on as the creature swung it's arm back with all its force. His DSSM registered he was taking 100 times Earth's Gravity. He was used to high gravity environment training but 100 g's was more than he had encountered at a second's notice. His DSSM used it's gloves to hold on to the creatures massive arms with well over 50,000 pounds of force. He then took his rifle and fired several rounds into the creatures arms. The rounds hit just to the left of his hands successfully striking the creature. The creature roared causing his suit to register sound levels at 4,000 decibels, 25 times the amount needed to rip apart an ear drum. His DSSM was able to cancel most of it out, even with the broken face plate, but the sound still came into his suit and the pain was so intense that his suit gave him another shock call.

              Captain Steele fell off the creature as he came to. The creature grabbed Captain Steele's leg and swung him up into the air where he took another 100 g's. His suit gave him another shock call and he took his rifle and open fired at the creature's arms and it hit. The bullets caused the creature to let go of Captain Steele. As Captain Steele fell to the ground the pain medication wore off and his suit gave him another large dose. He picked up his rifle and fired more rounds at the creature only to have the bullets miss because of the creatures ability to disappear and reappear.

              Captain Steele started to get up as he was reloading when the creature slammed his hands on the ground causing another miniature earthquake. The creature then swung it's hands back at Captain Steele causing him to be thrown into the wall causing the wall to crack. His suit gave him another shock call. No one has every lived past more than four shock calls in four hours and he was at four shock calls.

              Captain Steele grabbed a grenade from his belt, pulled the pin and moved to the right as the creature swung at him. The creature missed by inches and Captain Steele grabbed the creatures arm and placed a grenade it it's hand. Captain Steele timed it just right so that he could cook the grenade and ride the creatures arm long enough to be thrown far enough away from the grenades explosion. The creature threw it's arm back and Captain Steele let go and took only 50 g's this time as the grenade went off. The grenade sent an electrical, flammable, and biological liquid along lines of electricity in a nanosecond with a plasma thermonuclear implosion causing flaming fragmentation spewing everywhere as the creature's arm blew straight off.

              Captain Steele looked at the creature as it took a second to look at it's own blown off arm. The stump from the arm then started to spew a clear liquid sludge that had a neon glow around it. From the stump another arm started to grow.

              “Oh sh-”

              Captain Steele opened fired hoping that it would hit the creature. As the bullets hit the creature's stump it spewed more clear neon glowing liquid sludge. Captain Steele quickly reloaded and fired some more before the creature turned towards him, roared, then coughed up even more clear neon glowing liquid sludge before falling to the floor.

              Captain Steele unloaded another magazine into its head to make sure it was dead. This time the bullets went into the head. He paused for second.