Dr. Creepen's Dungeon - S6 Ep334: Episode 334: Horror Stories from Outer Space

Episode Date: April 30, 2026

Today’s first nightmarish tale of terror is ‘The Sun is not a Star’, an original story by the wonderfully talented James Caligo, kindly shared with me via Dr. Creepen’s Vault so that I could narrate it here for you all, with the author’s express permission.user/JamesCaligo/r/DrCreepensVault/comments/ylcphw/the_sun_is_not_a_star_final_part/Tonight’s second macabre tale of deep-space fear and terror ‘Dead in space’, an epic work by Taxi Dancer, kindly shared directly with me via my sub-reddit and narrated here for you all with the author’s express permission.user/Taxi_Dancer/

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Welcome to Dr. Creepin's Dungeon. Ah, space. It unsells us because it embodies the ultimate unknown, when infinite expands of darkness, silence and isolation. Its vastness, with incomprehensible distances stretching between worlds and stars, reduces human existence to something fleeting and insignificant. And the hazards are relentless. Leather radiation, the suffocating vacuum, and the absence of warmth or shelter.

It's an environment that resists. comprehension, utterly alien to life as we know it, where the possibility of encountering something vast, strange and unknowable, lingers just beyond our reach, quietly intensifying our deepest fears of what lies beyond. As we shall see in tonight's two feature-length stories, now as ever before we begin a word of cautioned, as tales will contain strong language as well as descriptions of violence and horrific imagery. That sounds like your kind of thing. And let's begin.

The sun is not a star. by James Collego. The sun's not a star. That's what I heard my father say in a fit of fear once. I was 12 years old when he came back from working at NASA. He retired and started working on solar panels instead, but always hated working on sunny days. He wasn't warm or even remotely acknowledging of me or my mom anymore.

He looked at us as if we were ghosts the entire time that he was with us. Something that still gives me a chill to this day. Before his retirement, he used to be more of a family man. He kissed my mom, gave me a warm hug, and was overall a proper father towards me and my little sister. He always seemed like he loved his job. The pay was good, and he'd always bring me some parts of a scrap project he'd be working on.

Life seemed rather routine, but peaceful and beautiful even. I thought I was way luckier than any of my friends whose parents weren't always as successful. retirement, my dad would have pictures of him on the International Space Station, space shuttles before they were phased out, controlling a rover that was meant for Mars at some point, and even meeting one of the presidents of the United States. He was an excellent astronaut, and I remember during one of his many visits from high-ranking officials in government that the man had said to him that he was one of the best. I wasn't really sure who this person was, but he had a strange symbol on one of his badges. From what I could tell, it looked like a shield with six eagle wings coming out in pairs of

three on each side. Well, after this meeting, that's where everything changed. I didn't see my dad for six months. But when he returned and retired, he never had any more interest in outer space. He'd stare up at the night sky and almost looked like he wanted to curse at it. He dreaded every day when the sun would rise after having a hard time sleeping every night. One day I decided to tell him that I wanted to be an astronaut like he was. His response was rather surprising and immoralizing on top of that. Listen, Hayden, I want you to promise that you won't follow him my footsteps. There's nothing good about outer space, and there's nothing especially good about the sun.

He clearly wasn't fond anymore about the idea of space travel. I resented him for what he said to me that day. For years, though, his health had been deteriorating. And mentally, he was becoming more unstable and would frequently have nightmares, screaming in the middle of the night and saying things like, It's not a star, and Nexus Gates. To me, this sounded like unreasonable gibberish. That was always something that puzzled me and made me wonder what exactly it was

that Dad had experienced during his time at NASA. But finally, he had to be put, into a mental home, his mind completely losing it and spilling out into senseless repeats of some unexplainal event that was incoherent turned absurd. On one particular Friday afternoon, more and I were cleaning out dad's stuff and I happened to come across his journal in his briefcase that he'd left open by mistake, probably. I wasn't even aware that he'd had one, so I opened it up and started taking a look at what he'd written down. Well, there were some more absurd pictures that he had clipped inside it.

There were astronauts I'd never seen, and we had quite a few of them visit our home. And we'd had quite a few of them visit our home. There was also him with a team of five others that I couldn't identify. Behind them was a large facility, futuristic in design. It looked like he was on the set of a science fiction

or space exploration TV show from the 80s. Well, that's probably an exaggeration, but you get the point. It looked out of this world. He wrote down a lot of stuff, but most of the pages were just recollections of his many exploits that had to do with previous missions that I was already aware of. It wasn't until I got near the end of the journal that the last few pages had a different take. They were more detailed, and the content was not what I was prepared to learn about.

Project Light, Hair. I found this to be an unusual name, started looking through his notes of what it was all about. And instead, I believe I discovered what caused my father's mental instability, and I'm not sure I should be sharing it with others now. But, well, if you're willing, here was his story. February 17, 2017. Things are going great. We're a little bit ahead of schedule, and we should be arriving on the moon in about ten minutes. I couldn't believe I got picked by the Protectorate Organization as a moon. Walker. I wasn't even aware that they were still doing moon missions.

Hopefully one day I can tell my son Hayden about this one. Unfortunately though, they still have me sign that non-disclosure agreement, so I'll have to keep this one under wraps for a few decades. I've docked now, and I'm ready to meet the team that I'm going to be working with. About 43 other people are working on this moon base. We're supposed to keep an eye out for UFOs. Well, at first I thought they were kidding, but the director of the base, called Dr. John Valley, told us that UFO doesn't mean aliens,

although we did say that we shouldn't rule out that as a possibility. Personally, I thought I was learning things a little too fast, but after my association with some of the other crew, I was becoming a little more informed about our place in the universe. At least I was learning about our general knowledge of the solar system. February 19, 2017. I was in the mess hall and four other guys were sitting at a table, They invited me over, and one of them, his name was Damien, was spouting about some nonsense that went down about four years ago.

So, here's a fun story. My friend who works with the protector of military branch on Earth told me that they had to deal with some nasty beast that had crash landed in the wood somewhere. It was wiping out all the people in the surrounding area, and they had to hit that thing with flamethrows and missiles for over a day until it destroyed one cabin. and get this, the couple that was inside that cabin was armed to the teeth and managed to get the final shots in. I'm telling you, it's rather embarrassing that civilians were able to get the wind from under those guys. I wondered about what this beast was, growing more curious about what else they knew. But there were some dismissals of his claim and the conversation changed into introductions. So, where are you guys from? Damien asked.

A few spoke of various places, Kansas, Egypt, and one from Vietnam, which I was a little surprised to hear. But one guy replied, I'm not entirely sure. Her memories are foggy, but I believe I came from overseas. Everyone looked at him like he was crazy, except for Damien. He suddenly came up with a theory. Oh, yeah, I heard some scientists talking about this one. despite his over-dramatic mannerisms, everyone sat at attention because he seemed to have a lot of inside information. The Vietnamese guy said, well, go on.

Okay, so, I'm assuming you guys have heard of that similar thing called the Mandela Effect, right? Everyone in the group rolled their eyes. Well, except for our mystery man, he seemed a little more interested. I for one didn't care too much so I quit paying attention and couldn't recall anything else that was spoken of then. February 27th. Now was the day of our experiment. It was February 27th and one of our fellow astronauts as well as scientists was about to do a spacewalk. Or as we like to call them, moonwalkers.

Her name was Judy and she was definitely a cute one. She reminded me a lot of my wife based on her behavior and the way she gave her. got flustered by every little inconvenience. We mostly tolerated her, even if she had that tendency to blame us for some of those inconveniences. She was taking one of the lunar roving vehicles quite far from the base. We've been receiving reports that there was a strange power surge in that area. The Apollo missions had discovered it long ago,

but was unable to find its location. Now things have changed, and our technology has improved. Of what I've heard, it's improved. even more so than I'd formerly believed. We watched on the monitors as her cameras recorded everything. She was approaching a large lunar cliff face, a steep 90-degree rise, and in front of her was a large white marble platform. It had a circular design with a row of pillars holding up the top of the cliff from the inside.

In the center of it was an obelisk, with strange symbols of unknown origin carved into each side. "'Julie the base, are you guys seeing this?' she radioed. I was watching in confused amazement. Never in my mind did I expect to see something so human built on the moon. Ancient humans on top of that. But there was something that caught my eye. There was a small carved out section near the base of the obelisk, a statue sat inside.

I told the director about it, and he relayed. what I'd said to her. She walked towards it, reaching down, pulled it out. When she took a look at it, everyone in the room couldn't quite make out what it was.

It was abstract, and every time you thought you were just about to figure out what it was, it was somehow changed shape again. Well, I guess I'll be heading back. She turned around, and when she got back to the lunar rover, there was a sudden flash from behind her.

that caught everyone's attention. She turned around but saw that nothing had changed with the monument. March 7th, 2017. We're finally going to see what the solar base is going to do tomorrow. Well, I have to admit, Project Lighthand is going to be amazing. Judy and Damien were explaining it to me that it would allow us to have infinite energy from the sun. They explained to me how there's a space station that orbits near the sun,

I thought that was insane. The heat and radiation should have killed everyone there. But they assured me everything was automated by a series of robots that are controlled from here. They showed me some footage of the space station. It's kept in an orbit on the other side of the sun, so that no one from Earth can spot it. Smart, but I honestly couldn't tell you who'd be wanting to know about it anyway. What the project is supposed to accomplish is that it will fire a beam down into the

sun that will rip open a temporal portal that can be contained inside a massive reactor on board the space station. Thus, we won't have to rely on nuclear, solar, wind or fossil fuels ever again. A large portal into the sun will generate endless heat for the next billions of years. I didn't know we perfected the wormhole technology, I said. Damien laughed and said, "'Dud, they got that thing in the bag like twenty years ago. "'Remember when I said about my buddy, I had to fight aliens on Earth? "'You really think that technology hasn't been exploited by us?' "'Judy rolled her eyes and said,

"'First off, you shouldn't be telling everyone about what's going on "'in the military brands of our organization. "'You can get in trouble, Damien.' "'Ah, big deal. "'The director's been in the rooms "'where I was telling some of the others about all the weirdness that goes on back home. Yeah, but you signed the non-disclosure.

Don't try and use that in this argument. That only applies when we get back to our normal lives. I'll say whatever I want while I'm up here. We're literally on a moon base. I enjoyed their conversations. They were such a comedic duo with each other, and I felt like maybe there was a bit of romantic tension between them. But I still couldn't wait for the project tomorrow.

March 18th. We were excited about the new project about to commence. Everyone was in the control room, staring at the dozens of screens on the wall and desks. It was an anxiety that I believe we all shared, the fear that something might go wrong, or perhaps the entire loss of the space station itself would set us back a dozen years. I stuck close to my two friends that I'd made, Judy and Damien, and we watched as a nearby satellite was recording the station from the outside. And that's when the director told everyone to be quiet and watch.

The countdown had begun, and my thoughts were to going back home and this was going to be a revolutionary moment for everyone on earth. The idea that my kids would look at me and know that I was there when this history was being made was a heart-racing moment. Damien was getting rather uppity about the whole thing. He insisted that this, Tess should have been experimented on Jupiter first.

He was worried that the reactor wouldn't be strong enough to hold the energy and that we were risking the solar station's survival during this project. Yeah, don't worry about it, man, I said. If the station is destroyed, nobody loses their lives, and it's just the government's money that's wasted. Well, he gave me a dead pangler and said, Yeah, my tax money burning up right before my eyes. Judy and I paid him no more attention, and we watched on the monitor as the countdown was nearing its end.

Three, two, one. A beam of energy was shot down into the filtered light of the sun, digging deep into its surface. We were all standing with astonishment, happy that the first part of the operation was going smoothly. Judy smiled at me. I did the same as this was a monumental moment. in human history. With energy from the sun, we could have enough power

to travel all the way to the next star system. That's when Damien rolled his eyes at everyone else's cheering, and I saw that his face suddenly lit up when he took another look at the screen. There was another eruption

of murmuring coming from those who were near the front, and Judy and I turned back. The colour of the room had also changed from bright yellow to a sudden mixture. of crimson red and Egyptian blue colouring. Well, I couldn't process what I was looking at.

This was unorthodox and completely insane. The sun was changing to a different colour. The surface of it was blue, deep and malevolent. Surrounding it was a hue of energy that was red in colour. The whole thing made the sun look like a menacing abomination as it pulsed with waves of energy outwards. Everyone looked in shock and horror as they saw the entire space station that was orbiting above the sun get torn to shreds and disintegrate into molten shards of metal in outer space. For a brief moment, I thought about how Damien was right.

Then I realized that what was happening was far worse than any of us could understand. Alarms started going off all around the base. Unfortunately, there wasn't much for any of us to do, since this was well out of our area of exploration. But then the satellite caught something else. What we were seeing was happening in real time. Thanks to the wormhole technology that had been appropriately named space-time drilling, we were able to transport a lot of our small-scale fleets to areas within our solar system. Everything from satellites, space stations, and radio transmissions.

I wasn't completely sure how they achieved this, but all I can guess is that the alien technology probably had some to do with that. But what the sun did next was that it shot out a concentrated beam of energy from a singular point on its surface, firing at a tremendous speed that was

equivalent to a flash of light. A long streak came from the surface and was heading out into outer space. By this point the director was already getting in contact with command on Earth. I left the room with Judy and Damien

and we ran out to the observatory section at the base, wanting to see the change in the sun's surface when the light finally reached us. We had about one minute left by the time we reached the observatory and stood next to each other alongside at least a dozen more people who were in the room. Perhaps we all wanted to see this with our own eyes. I watched as the beautiful white light that came from the sun started to dim and became that vile, dark blue light. I could only imagine what my family and friends on earth were thinking when the sun suddenly changed colour. This isn't going to end well.

I can only imagine how this will impact photosynthesis, Judy assumed. I wouldn't think about that. Just imagine how fast society will crumble with this change. I then stood there in contemplative silence. My mind was still reeling over what had transpired, and I kept wondering how this could have happened. What did we do that would cause a sun to change?

I guess it wouldn't matter because everyone in the room started shouting and panicking, and their fingers pointed up toward the sun. Judy shook my shoulder, and I came out in my trance. My eyes stretched out from shock as I saw a gigantic beam of energy, supercharged and as bright as the sun was before, coming straight towards the earth. No, oh dear God, no, I panicked. That's when there was a massive flash of energy,

energy and a vibration that rippled through the base. No one could look up, and the few people who saw it happen started screaming out that they couldn't see anymore. I saw my skeleton through my hands, even though I had my eyes closed on top of that. It must have been tremendously bright to have been able to accomplish that. But after a few seconds had passed,

the light had died down, and I was able to look back out into space to see what had transpired. My heart sank, and I fell into despair. I watched as an entire molten material was firing off into all directions from where the earth once was. The earth. Everyone on it. It was all gone. I'm not too sure what exactly played out outside of my field of vision.

I became so distraught that I was having flashbacks of my own life. Typically this was associated with someone who was about to die. or perhaps I felt that I had dyes. Memories of my wife opening the door, our son and newborn daughter waving to see me as I walked up towards our beautiful house. I thought alone that they'd have been instantly vaporized was so distressed that I must have shut down emotionally

for quite some time. Judy and Damien were shouting at each other about something that I wasn't paying attention to. But then they grabbed hold of me and led me along through the base towards the control room where the director was. Judy sprinted ahead of us and approached him first. Director, we have a really bad situation.

Must have been hard for him to hear because there were a dozen monitors with men on them, dressed as captains, shouting and explaining to one another what had happened to Earth's command. The director replied, Listen, Judy, trying to have a discussion with all of the other captains.

Currently, there's too much pay. panic going on throughout the chain of command, and whatever it is, I already know about it. Earth is gone, and now every human that's currently off-world is the last of their kind. He turned his back on her, kept trying to tell the others to calm down, but there was still a great deal of distraught going through all of them. Duty, frustrated, stomped her way out of the room, and Damien and I followed after. Damien attempted a moment of human. I guess it was his way of coping. You sure were able to make yourself heard with all that stomping around.

You'd think the low gravity would make that more difficult. Shut it, Damien. I wanted to know more about something, but apparently the director has better things to do. Finally, my silence was broken when I heard her to say that. I guess my curiosity had come back despite my shock and inability to process my loss. So, um, what exactly was it that you wanted to know? She stopped right outside the women's barracks, then she turned her out and said to the two of us,

well, I wanted to know more about that monument. She then walked in and closed the door just as quickly. We weren't going to follow after her because, well, it's the women's room. I laid down on my bunk for a few hours. Damien was right below me doing something with his tablet. I kept replaying those moments. The sudden loss of my whole life and now being trapped on the moon. All of his beauty, all of his people, all gone in an instant.

A flash of light only to be atomized. My only hope was that it was quick and no one had actually felt it. Bad news, Shea. Look at this. Damien held up his tab. It was a simulation. of Earth and the Moon. Damien explained.

If you notice, the Moon no longer has the gravity of the Earth to keep it in its orbit, so now we're being slingshot into outer space. Better than falling into the sun, don't you think? I said. Yeah, but... I don't know, man.

It's going to get really bad here. We only have enough food to last us a year. What about water? I asked. It's probably not going to be an issue. We get our water from the moon. There's plenty of ice on the surface. Well, of course, as we head further out, it's going to be a lot colder.

We probably won't be able to use the lunar rovers anymore. So it doesn't matter, then. We're all going to die. It's not as bad as all those people on the space stations. They have less food than us, and they have to recycle all that water, but it's a limited supply. I'd say they'll probably last only about two months of the most. Without the wormhole technology leading us back to a habitable planet, the entire human race will go extinct within a year or two at the most.

Why did this happen to us? I mumbled. All we wanted was to find an even more efficient energy source than nuclear power. The process of tearing open a wormhole took a lot out of the nuclear-powered engines of the space stations that we'd been building. Sure, they would last for a few decades, but eventually they had to be replenished. and that would require more time and money to be devoted to refueling instead of expanding outwards. Damien suddenly interrupted my thoughts and said, You know, I wonder what it was that Judy was up to.

You should probably go see, don't you think? Well, considering the alternative of laying here in bed, well, I had nothing else to do. Both of us left the bunks, went over to the women's side. I knocked on the door, and it quickly slid open. There was a beetle-shaped redhead that answered the door. She spoke with a spoker's cough. What are you doing here? I led you in with all the women.

Um, look, we just want to talk to our friend, Judy. Judy, well, she left about an hour ago. I think she said something about seeing the director. We thanked her for the information, ran to the director's office, seeing that that would be the likely area that he'd be in at the moment. We knocked on the door and heard a bit of shuffling from behind. Damien and I gave a brief glass at each other, wondering what it was that they were trying to hide in there.

The automated door opened, and Judy was the one to answer us. I was the first one to speak. Judy, we want to know what's going on with you. What aren't you telling us? I looked inside and saw that the director was sitting at his desk, staring out into the black void from his tiny oval-shaped window. "'I don't believe I'm at liberty to discuss this with you,' she spoke, dropping a signal that she wanted us to leave.

The director suddenly spoke up, turning around in his chair towards us. "'Oh, let him in. Nothing matters anymore anyway.' She stood aside and the two of us walked in and approached our boss. His eyes were red and his face looked exhausted. His body, all of it, was hunched over his desk and he said, So, take it you want to know what's going on with Judy. Ask away. We weren't expecting this invitation, but I said,

Listen, I get that the earth is gone now. We're not going to last much longer ourselves. Why do I get a distinct feeling that you two have been planning something? We are. How about you take a guess of what it is? I looked around the room, trying to see if they were leaving a clue for me to notice. Well, nothing looked too out of the ordinary,

mostly because the director loved to collect artifacts from other cultures. It's funny, this room probably housed some of the last fine china, African vases, and bottles of unopened Italian wine that looked like they'd been sealed in the 1920s. Damien was also looking around, but he was a little more focused on Judy. Now I was certain that he had a thing for her, but, well, this probably wasn't the best time. Then I looked at the desk.

On it was that statue that we'd found from that weird monument that we'd seen outside. That's not supposed to be here, director, I pointed it out. Ah, clever. I think it's time that Judy and I let you two into our little secret. I looked at Judy, she remained quiet. We waited as he took a deep breath

and said in a calm but serious tone. I'm not supposed to discuss this with you, boys. But none of that matters anymore. This statue is a key to a form of technology that our organization has been trying to master, but it's often too damn unpredictable. What kind of technology is that? Damien asked. Nexus gates.

Nexus what? I said, baffled. They called Nexus gates or gateways, points, depending on who you ask. There are a mysterious technology that randomly appears in various areas around the world. Our organization has known about them for a long time, but how they operate has been difficult to replicate for our own uses. Well, um, how important are they? I asked. Our wormhole technology is only able to stretch us as far as the copper belt.

We've only managed to create a small fleet that can survey our little dot in the galaxy. but these these nexus gates are a big deal how wormhole is a child's play in comparison to them I saw an open seat at the other end and swiftly sat myself down I was definitely gonna need it

after what I heard next well in what way wormhors are the basics but these nexus gates are capable of and this is just from myths and legends as what has first-hand accounts from those who've managed to activate them Well, they're capable of interdimensional travelers, well as an unusual side effect of time travel.

They banned reality to their will and manipulate space-time with relative ease. Not a single human knows how to actively control one. Not any that we've met. Damien had the same shocked expression that I had. I asked. So there are other universes out there, and these gates are capable of teleporting us there. Judy intervened then in the conversation and said, Yes, but don't think that any of those universes are like ours.

Some of our most brilliant astrophysicists and metaphysicists have concluded that there's such a thing as infinite universes. Well, there may be an earth just like ours, only still around. It's just a matter of finding one, which isn't an easy course. The director was slumped down in his chair and had his hands over his face. The distraught in the air hung heavy. Damien started laughing, spooking all of us into thinking he'd finally cracked. But instead he said, Guys, don't you remember?

He said those nexus gates are capable of time travel. I don't know why it didn't hit me before. If we could activate it and get it to help us to time travel back, then we could prevent this whole thing from happening. It's not that simple, Director Valley said. nobody in our organizations ever managed to use any of them. There have been mishaps where they turn them on, but the technology is so advanced,

even though these gateways are estimated to be hundreds of billions a year old, possibly trillions. Well, what's the statue for? I asked. Judy replied. Not every gate needs them, but it is said that some are powered by them. They function like a kind of key. Well, maybe. Maybe we could...

Enough, the director shouted. Everyone stood quietly, watching him go through his emotional breakdown. He kept shaking his head and crying. Look, sir, with all due respect, I'd like to go home and see my wife and kids again, I affirmed. You'd die trying to go by the off chance that you'd be able to get a piece of technology that no one understands to work exactly how you wanted it to? He coldly glared at me then I glanced over to Judy

who looked like she was fully on board with my idea and I turned towards Damien who had the same expression I looked back down at my superior looking down at a man stricken by despair over the loss of our home world well should be staying in here to die

his eyes changed for a brief moment I could almost see a spark of hope come back to him but the worst timing ever dropped on us when everyone in the base started screaming. I too felt something entered inside my head, and everyone in the room was covering their ears and crying out in dreaded panic. A loud, screeching sound, slowly morphing into a low growl,

with a voice so deep and filled with so much hate, it was a deafening experience, even though it was just a telepathic voice. You stole from me. You do not own my soul. I will wipe you out and cleanse my domain. Pray to your guards and die. After all of that, the high-pitched ringing faded away, and everyone in the room was visibly shaken.

My hands were out of control, and the director looked like he'd been foaming a little at the mouth. Damien was on the floor, his whole body shaking uncontrollably, and Judy was leaning against the bookcase on the right side of the room. everybody had been unprepared for this intrusion and that's when the insanity outside the room began exiting the office

all of the remaining staff were huddled in corners screaming at the top of their lungs one man had been trying to take a screwdriver and bash it through his head right through the ear no less some people were fighting and clawing at each other now we'll clarify it wasn't everyone I'd say that about out of our staff of 43 people, excluding myself, maybe 15 of them had started

going insane. I turned back towards the director and saw that he was still foaming at the mouth, his face laying down on the desk. I think it was safe to say that that number was now 16. Despite the hard time that all three of us were having to get moving faster, the shaking alone wasn't going to stop us. Duty was leading us ahead, taking us to the control. room, where she started messing around with one of the consoles and looking at a monitor.

Oh, no, I didn't think you would do this, she muttered. Damien asked, what? All of the satellites near the sun have already started falling towards the surface. A few space stations that were in orbit around Mercury and Venus are reporting back. They say that the planets are falling towards the sun. I put two and two together and said, which means that we're probably falling into it too. She understood what I said, and looked at the console again before bringing up a nearby satellite to us.

It was, as I said, the moon was now moving back toward the sun. All of the planets were being pulled in at an astonishing speed. But this broke all the laws of physics. But then again, do those even matter anymore? Does anything really matter? Well, if the director isn't capable of coming to a decision, I am. Shea? Damien? She turned to us and I look back at her,

waiting for her to tell me exactly what I knew was coming next. I need to get you into a spacesuit. We're about to go find our Nexus gate. We quickly ran through the endless, identical hallways, running past the few people that were still out and about, but quite a few were trying to avoid those who descended into madness. Judy was explaining, we have to get down to one of our lunar roving vehicles.

It's going to get really hot outside as we get closer to the sun, so we have to move quickly. They can only hold two of us, though. Which one of you wants to go with me? Before I could even get my hand up, Damien shut up and said, I will. I raised an eyebrow at him. but I wasn't about to fight him about this.

If we could just go back in time, this whole mess would never have happened. That brings up a question. How are we going to prevent this? Judy, how are we supposed to stop them from going forward with a project in the past? I don't think they'll just take our word for it, even if it would be odd that a version of us had come from the future. She stopped in her tracks, realizing that we needed to provide proof. Damien and Shea, go to the data and records room.

All the security cameras are there, and all of the footage from the satellites and space stations are transmitted to this base, not to mention all of the data from the experiment is also available to us if we can get it onto a flash drive. She explained to us how to do it, and the two of us were off to get the information needed to prove our situation to our past selves.

She would get the rover ready, and everything seemed to be going according to our plan when we reached the room. I started the downloading process, and Damien kept watch. Oh yes, now will be a good time for us to get our last words out since I wasn't going to go with them. Look, I want you guys to know that I'm really glad I had you as friends. I said, smiling at him. Well, no, they told us not to get too attached to our co-workers,

but I wasn't one to follow the rules very well. He chuckled. So, when you... you and Judy, if you and Judy can go back in time. You can ask her out. He scratched the back of his head and looked rather uncomfortable with my question. Hey now, not that I wasn't thinking about it, but like, listen, I'd rather stop this horrible timeline from continuing. I looked away, trying to hide a brief smile and shaking my head. He's right, but I have faith that will make it happen. With the download nearly complete,

It took a job, we had such huge storage space on those flash drives. One thing I want to say before you guys leave, do you think changing the timeline is going to resort in death anyway? He thought to himself for a moment, seemingly wondering if that was the case himself. I couldn't tell you. Not so sure what the repercussions would be, but it sure beats falling into the sun and the earth getting destroyed. Finally, the download was complete, and I quickly put the flash drive in my pocket.

it. But right as Damien opened the door, one of the co-workers who gone insane lunged at him at full force. Damian! I shouted instinctively, rushing to aid him as he tried to kick off the madman. The insane worker had gripped around his neck and kept lifting it up and bashing the back of Damien's head against the concrete flooring. He then proceeded to bright down into Damian's neck and I saw blood trailing out, while my friend was letting out a gut-wrenching scream. as we both were struggling to get this psycho off of him.

I quickly looked around for whatever I could use as a weapon, and I spotted a fire extinguisher nearby. I grabbed it, and quickly ran back and bashed it in the back of the worker's head. For this, I only managed to anger him more. He turned back toward me, ready to bounce. I prepared myself, and when he tried to take the leap, he miscalculated, and I was able to thrust the fire extinguishes butt end right into his face at full force.

I had a crunch, and I realized that I may have crushed his nose. He fell back, wiping the blood off his face, and feeling his now broken nose. With his back turned towards me, I threw the metal canister back down and kept hitting him in the head until I knew that he was dead. I dropped it when I saw that the man wasn't moving anymore, and ran back to Damien, who looked dead himself. Before I could get up to go find duty, he reached out to my arm and muttered,

You go, prevent this. I didn't want to leave him, but that's when the sirens and red lights started erupting throughout the base. We were now in the danger zone. I looked back down at my friend, and he had blood trickling down his smile. He gave me the thumbs up,

and then passed out. Forced to abandon my friend, I bolted as fast as I could back towards the hangar bay, where we kept the rovers. There were a few guards on the base, and they were mostly taking care of the ones who hadn't gone insane already.

When I made it to the hangar, I saw two spacesuits prepped. Judy was already inside one, and she looked shocked when she saw that I was the only one who'd shown up. Where's Damien? she asked, her expression fearful of what my answer might be. Look, we got attacked. He didn't make it.

for a brief moment both of us wanted to stop and go back to make sure that what I'd said was true but time was now ticking down to the few minutes that we had left she went back to the rover and the hangar door slowly opened and revealed to us what had been happening on the surface this whole time jeez let's hope these suits can handle the heat her remarked she pressed forward at full speed and both of us were thrown back a little by the sudden motion. We hit the sound of the surface harder than we'd expected, but now we were heading out towards the direction of the gateway. Both of us had our radios on so we could talk to one another. When we get there, make sure that you have your suit's camera on, she ordered. I realized

what she meant and saw the little camera built into the top of the helmet. I pressed the button, and we were both recording. How do I describe what the surface of the moon looks like when you're falling in towards a blue star. I looked up at the sky and I could see other planets that were being torn apart by its gravitational pole. We both had our solar visors down, allowing us to get a glimpse of what was happening to the other planets that were closest to the sun. Mercury was already gone, but Venus was already starting to break up and fall to the surface.

Nearby, Jupiter happened to be within our line of sight. It was still pretty distant, but I could see a stream of gases being pulled off from its surface and falling in faster than the planet. A surreal sight that I never thought I'd see in my entire life. The surface of the moon was also starting to break as small rocks were starting to float up and dust was being kicked up and thrown into the vacuum of space. The light outside must have been extraordinarily bright.

Damn, I never thought I'd see the end of the solar system, I said. Well, Judy replied, let's try to make sure it never happens to begin with. I had to check our instruments to make sure that the rover would be able to hold out by the time we managed to reach the gateway. So far radiation levels were starting to pick up, but the heat was something that I was more concerned about. Our suits were capable of handling radiation levels equivalent to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, but it's the heat that we would really have to worry about. The typical suits used by astronauts at NASA were capable of surviving in temperatures ranging from minus 156 or to a number.

149 Fahrenheit to 121 Celsius or 250 Fahrenheit. But these are protectorate-issued deep space survival suits, capable of surviving temperatures of minus 240 Celsius or 498 Celsius, pretty advanced stuff. But after about a 10-minute drive, we spotted the monumental gateway standing defiantly to the impending doom that was about to completely eradicate the last vestige of evidence that there was ever a moon.

I was taken aback, seemingly mesmerized by the surreal landscape as the surface was being lifted up and thrown into the furnace that was getting bigger with every passing minute. We must have been falling in at a colossal speed. The rover was having difficulty staying glued to the ground, showing us that the gravitational pull of the moon was starting to lose out. When I looked back at the sun, my heart sank when I saw that colossal solar flares were exploding out from its surface. They fired off into space, seemingly grabbing hold of all the planets and their moons. The speed of which they were able to move was staggeringly incomprehensible, making me question every notion of reality. What should have taken hours for them to reach out to those planets?

It did in mere seconds, unless, of course, it had done them a while ago, and we were only now seeing the light. I like to believe that that was the case. but there was no time left one of the solar flare shot out from the sun's surface and grabbed hold of the moon itself pulling us in even faster well how do I know this

the temperature was rising rapidly we stopped right at the stairs leading up to the platform where the obelisk was located right in the centre surrounded by its ring of pillars we ran as fast as we could to the top and Judy and I took a look at the statue in our hands "'When we do this, we'll have to try our absolute hardest to prevent this future,' she said. "'I'm with you every step of the way.'

She finally slipped the statue into the small cavity near the base of the obelisk, believing that this would be all it would take. But nothing happened. "'Hey, um, why isn't it turning on?' I questioned. Um, uh, uh, she stammered and started looking around. desperately wondering if maybe we did something wrong with the statue. I joined in and saw that the surface of the moon off in the distance was starting to vaporize instantly from the ever-expanding solar flare

that was reaching out toward us. It was a small one, hooking on to every celestial body in the solar system. Come on, hurry up, Judy. She kept searching around and pulling out a small device from one of the many pockets built into the suit. She started taking pictures of the strange symbols that were carved into the pillars and obelisk. "'Hold on. I have to get this stuff translated.

"'Perhaps they tell us how to activate it. "' Geez, I have to find the right language first.' "'I watched as the robe were starting to lift up and flip away, "'being drawn in towards the sun. "'Juddy,' I shouted anxiously. "'Hold on, hold, right, there,' she said excitedly. "'I hovered near her, hoping to get a look at what it said. "'She explained.

It's some surprisingly ancient Sumerian. Thankfully, we have a database that can translate this. I urged her on. Yeah, yeah, look, that's cool. Now, tell us how to activate this thing. It says,

to change your destination, dig deep within yourself, and specifically choose your new domain lest you travel beyond your land. I turn my head to her, raising an eyebrow, when thinking that this had to be a prank. Well, she shook her head dismissively and clarified.

Listen, it means you sincerely have to want to go somewhere else, and you have to be extremely specific about it in every detail, which I can only guess means that if you miss any key details, it might just drop you off at any point in time or place. That made much more sense, and we both turned back towards the obelisk. Judy was the first to put her hand on it, and I noticed that some of the symbols carved in it started to glow. Hey, I think it's working. Before I could finish, there was a flash of light and a huge pulse of energy that exploded from it.

We were both thrown back, and with the gravitational pull weakening, I found myself weightless for a few moments before I landed on the sand. I looked up quickly and saw Judy crashing nearby, hitting a few rocks face first. I got to my feet as quickly as I could, but felt the horrible pain in my ribcage, but tried to ignore it as best I could. When I reached her, I turned her towards me. Her visor was cracked, and I could see oxygen was leaking out. She looked like she was already starting to suffocate. She reached out and told me through the radio,

Go, go save humanity, Shea. A hand loosened its grip on my suit, and she fell unconscious. There was nothing I could do to save her. But there was one thing I could do. I had to run. I looked back at the Nexus gate and saw that it was firing off a massive beam of green, blue, and red light into the empty void of space. It was a spectacular sight to behold. I looked back at the other side and saw that a wave of superheated rock and plasma were stretching out towards me,

reaching the moon base within seconds. I saw the whole building instantly melt into molten metal. Despite the pain I was feeling, despite the exhaustion from the despair that I'd experienced, I knew what I had to do. I had to give it my all. I had to bring back my family. I had to bring back my friends. Everyone was counting on me to restore everything, and so I charged forward.

Reality seemed to slow down for me. The wave of energy that was coming from behind me, the beam of light shooting off into the stars. I threw myself forward with no other goal in mind than to give everyone their lives back. It felt exhilarating, a flow of adrenaline that kept me going at this moment, reaching toward the stairs and beginning every painful step upwards. I didn't give up. I jumped forward with as much strength as I could muster, and threw myself into the obelisk, placing my hands around it and whispering to myself,

take me back to save humanity. A swirling vortex of energy and green, blue and red light surrounded me as it created a breathtaking cascade of endless light. The entire moon was breaking apart in front of me, and I wondered if maybe I'd done it wrong. But I had to have faith in what was in front of me, and closed my eyes, hoping it would be quick. Hit with a bright light and weightlessness, I dropped abruptly back down to the ground. I laid on the floor, trying to catch my breath after experience. all of that. I turned my head towards the open valley from where the band of flames had been approaching, only to see a white light of a star off in the distance. I saw the moon base right

where it was between the two hills beside it. My eyes widened, and I knew what had happened. I'd done it. I'd gone back in time and was given my chance. My heart was racing, and I quickly got to my feet. I knew now what I had to do. I had to bring this flash drive and myself as the proof I needed. Not much else could be said after what transpired when I got to the base. Sure, everyone was spooked by my presence alone, but then I showed the director all of the data that was collected from the future, and he said that he needed to make a few calls.

I had to stay in quarantine for a few days, but almost everyone didn't think that I had anything contagious. I ended up reflecting a lot, wondering what would happen to me. After three days I was allowed to walk around the place and interact with everyone, running into Damien, Judy, and, most unnervingly myself, had to be almost entirely something that slipped my mind when it came back to the past. He and I looked at each other and a few people around us were wondering what would happen next.

When our fingers touched each other, I felt an unusual vibration go through my body, like my insides were rippling and curling in on each other until, without warning, the other me flashed into a beam of light. It was so blinding that we all covered our eyes, but I felt a strange overlap in my memories. I felt his as well as all of mine. It was an odd sensation, but he was gone, but I was gone. No, we were both cancelled out and merged together. I wondered if this was some sort of correction to the time stream. After that I had to go and answer some questions. This was the first time that time travel had ever been accomplished so thoroughly.

They debriefed me and wanted to know how we'd managed to activate the Nexus Gate. I wondered why they didn't know how to use them. It seemed so easy for me and duty to get hours working. One of the agents who questioned me said that they knew about the Sumerian writings on the wall of the Nexus Gates, but returned trips during experiments had been unsuccessful. You can send a person in, but you can't get them back out. I reminded them that I was in a similar situation, and thankfully that seemed to be a good enough answer for them.

Before I was allowed to return to Earth, they made me sign a non-disclosure agreement again and also gave me a good severance package, considering I'd just save the entire human race as well as everything else on Earth. I saw Judy and Damien one more time before leaving. I decided to mention Damien's crush on duty, just to stir the pot a little and make sure he didn't chicken out this time around. But, well, I was home again. Sadly speaking, upon returning to Earth, I found myself a little more edgy every day.

I decided that I should get a job with solar panels, thinking that this could be an ironic choice and a safe way to harness the sun's energy. But I can't stop thinking about what I did all. the time. It's always hanging above my head, reminding of me of what I can do. I was under constant stress. I looked at my family and kept thinking that they're all really just ghosts. They're dead in my timeline, and yet they're still alive. I don't know how to think about it in any other way. I feel like I'm losing my grip on reality, fearful every time I watch TV and there's an obelisk on there. I find myself slipping further and further away from my own sanity. Everything about this place now reminds me of I don't belong here anymore.

I experience so much, and to see all of it deleted out of existence makes me wish that I was gone with it. I wish I was with my original family. Wish I was with my original friends back on the original moon base. Jeez, I'm losing it. After reading my grandfather's journal, I don't know what else to say. It almost seems like the mad ramblings of a man who had just lost its. mind. But at the same time, things are a little too aligned. He was an astronaut. He did go away for months, and when he came back, he initially tried to make it look like nothing had changed,

but slowly became distant from everyone. And if what he says is true, that means there's something insanely destructive that's constantly hanging over our heads. I'm not going to let what happened to my dad mess me up, either. There's always something dangerous that could destroy humanity anyway. So I guess this one piece of advice will always do us good. Just don't think about it. Dead in space. 500 years of galactic exploration. By taxi dancer. Terran year 2588. Even as late as 2008, when the first interstellar earth ships reached out for the first time to colonize the endless, black, frigid horrors of space, the rustling derelict carcassies. of long-forgotten aircraft carriers, battleships, and submarines were still being unearthed

from when they came to grief during the period of Earth's history known as World War II. Now, nearly 500 years after mankind's first cramped habitation units on Mars had evolved into domed, bustling megacities and spaceports, nearly five miles in radius, the rustling, derelict carcasses of long-forgotten starships, now being encountered centuries after they first came to grief in the lonely, uncharted, corners of space. The early days of interstellar travel were initiated by the one thing which had always motivated humans to strive towards the greatness of leaving their comfort zones.

She agreed, and the promise of riches. Globalism had finally brought humanity out of the dark ages of believing in rugged self-reliance and individualism and into an enlightened new era of collectivism where there was no more need for individual thought, free speech, or the belief in religious and worship of Icaic mythical gods. With Earth's resources rapidly being depleted in order to sustain an unsustainable population of dozens of billions,

and with fully an eighth of the planet now uninhabitable because of pollution and waste, it was the international global corporations and the newly formed United Terran government, the UTG, which ended up giving new life and new hope to humanity. Humanity had outgrown the Ten Commandments, the ten subjugations which had been handed down by a god that never existed, and instead embraced three simple laws.

One, for the citizenry, give all for the government. For the government, give all for the corporations. Three, for the corporations, give some for the citizenry whom the government deems worthy. At one point in ancient human history, is my very important. have been considered a dystopian concept, but history has been proven wrong before. Subservience to an all-powerful, all-caring, all-watchful, elite 1% had not only sustained mankind for centuries, it allowed mankind to flourish. Humanity finally achieved that which the mythical gods had feared the most. Unity of vision, unity of language, unity of focus,

unity of will, loyalty to the corporations, and devotion bordering on worship. to the one world government. The Holy Trinity of Father's Son and Holy Spirit had long been replaced with the Holy Human Trinity of corporations, government, and human citizenry in that order. And with this Enlightenment came the wisdom

that the future was out there in space, where the horrors and dangers hidden in the boundless black void also held boundless resources, boundless opportunities, boundless breathing room away from a polluted, war-ravaged, and overcrowded planets, and, above all, boundless profit.

After all, it was profit which made the world go round, and it was this quest for profit which led to the development of hyperdrive systems, which, in turn, launched literally thousands of colonizer and explorerships across the unforgiving cosmos in the first decades of interstellar exploration. Humanity had outgrown its home planet by account of billions, and out of sheer necessity, billions of billions of, Earth citizenry were piled into those first-generation starships, though admittedly not necessarily by choice, and launched into space. But eventually, for a few centuries of humanity overcoming

challenges, hardships, and great sacrifices, humanity went on to spread its seed with colonies on the moon, Mars, the moons of Jupiter, Alpha Centauri, Gamma Centauri, Delta Centauri, the serious system and the mysterious proximate and olgulate systems. Outward, ever outward, had the hand of humanity stretched. In so doing, mankind had proven that mankind was its own God. If there was a real God, he had yet to show his displeasure as mankind reached towards the heavens to take his throne. Still, to be guards also meant that sacrifices of suns had to be made. Many of those first starships which operated using first-generation hyperdrive systems, first-generation inertial propulsion systems, first-generation interstellar navigation systems, and first-generation life support systems were never heard from again. So it was inevitable that mankind would eventually run into the forgotten relics of those who came before,

who had made the ultimate sacrifice for the survival of the species. Jupiter orbit, Terran year 2184. It was a relatively random event which led to the discovery of one such vessel in Terranier 2184. In fact, it was the first in a long line of derelict ships which mankind would stumble across in the subsequent decades and centuries. A long-range patrol vessel with a crew of 24 was in orbit around Jupiter, on a mission to train crew members on how to operate the new orbital planetary survey equipment,

which was now making its way into the fleet. On the second day of the mission, a test of the long-range scanners picked up an unusual anomaly, not on the surface of the planet, but rather on Ganymede, the largest of Jupiter's moons. The signal was extremely faint, one which could have easily been overlooked. The perceptive scanner operator recognized the feedback signal as a structure of some sort, which should not have been there.

Ganymede had been scanned before, those early-generation planetary scanners would have had little chance of picking up an anomaly that small on a moon that was nearly the size of Mars. After several diagnostic checks confirmed that the sensor arrays were running perfectly, the patrol ship's commander ordered a change of mission and set course for the giant moon.

Once in orbit around Ganymede, it took another eight hours to reacquire the anomaly again. Since they were on a training mission, the patrol ship didn't deploy with its usual planetary surveillance drone, so it had to rely on long-range visual scanners to get a look at the structure. The image that appeared on the survey monitor was a grainy, pixelated image of varying shades of black and dark grays, and it took another eight hours before the imaging computers could finally clear up the picture. The amazed crew were presented with the image of the wreckage of a starship half buried in the grey, rocky soil. What was visible above ground was roughly 60 feet of a long, broken outer hull of a vessel that was charred black by intense heat.

Structures which appeared to have once been giant sensor arrays and communication towers had long collapsed, and the gutted interior of the vessel could be seen like ribs protruding from a long-dead animal carcass. The images were sent to UTG Fleet Command headquarters on Mars for examination, and after an extensive search of archival space exploration data and ancient starship designs, the tragic story of how this ship came to grief on Ganymede was revealed. The ship was confirmed to be a lieutenant-class exploration vessel whose original hull dimensions were 190 feet long by 80 feet at its widest section

and a crew complement of 60. The lieutenant-class was one of the very earliest of the exploration ships launched from Earth, Its mission being to scout ahead and find habitable planets for the larger colonizer vessels to exploit. However, the lieutenant-class ships, with their Generation 1 guidance and navigation systems, were notorious for being inaccurate, though they didn't know it at the time, and the revolutionary hyperdrive propulsion still had many bugs in the system which had yet to be worked out. Before long, a morbid whispered joke began to spread throughout the fleet, but the most dangerous thing to exist was a lieutenant class with a compass.

Before the days when the role of coloniser vessel and explorer vessel were combined into one massive starship back in the 2150s, explorer and colonizer ships launched in pairs with the objective being that the explorer ship led the way using its advanced long-range sensors to locate a suitable target body in space, while the colonizer ship provided the habitation, hydroponics, terraform equipment, and everything else needed to sustain life and exploit the planetary resources. The coloniser ship's hyperdrive was synced with the explorer ship's hyperdrive, so that the two vessels would not get separated during jumps into hyperspace. The mysterious vessel, which the patrol ship discovered, was the lieutenant-class United Terran government ship UTGS Carbin. That had been

partnered with the 600-foot-long Dahlia-class colonizer ship UTGS Jakarta City, which had a complement of 800 colonists and ships grew. The UTGS Carbin and the Jakarta City launched from Earth sometime between 2089 and 2091, and after they passed the moon's orbital arc, the two ships jumped into hyperspace, with the carbine's navigational systems plotting the trajectory towards a promising star cluster in the Proxima Centauri system. They were never seen or heard from again for almost a hundred years, until the carcass of the UTGS carbon was inadvertently found on Ganymede. From what UTG Fleet Command Headquarters on Mars could piece together,

early space exploration vessels used to use the gravitational force of Jupiter, Saturn or Neptune to assist in flinging the ship out of the solar system while in hyperspace. Though the practice was dangerous and long made obsolete by today's advanced technology, it was a common practice hundreds of years ago. The Carbon and the Jakarta City were the first to attempt an even more daring operation. In order to reach the far Proxima Centauri system, it would be necessary for them to slingshot from Jupiter to Saturn, then use the combined gravitational force of both planets

to enter hyperspace at the velocity needed to push them to their final destination. Sometime between the jump from Earth orbit to Jupiter, the guidance system of the UTGS Carbon suffered a catastrophic failure. As she attempted to use Jupiter's gravitational force to slingshot both herself and the Jakarta City beyond the boundaries of the solar system, the Carbine's primitive long-range proximity computer malfunctioned, apparently indicating that Jupiter was Proxima Centaurah. Near Jupiter, the Carbin's faulty long-range proximity computer caused the ship to be immediately pulled from hyperspace without the necessary deceleration time

to slow to normal warp speed, which at the time was approximately a war. week to 10 days. It was estimated that this sudden deceleration in forward motion resulted in the crew of the carbine suffering the force of over 150,000 Gs, which violently but mercifully smashed them into atoms in less than two seconds. The forward motion of the ship, combined with the gravitational force of the planet Jupiter, flunged the doomed exploration vessel directly into Ganymede, the battered hull of the carbon gashing a ragged trail on the surface of the moon for nearly 300 miles, before she ultimately settled in her final resting place. Considering the battering that she took, there's a miracle that so much of her hull survived the crash,

and it's a testament to how sturdy, resilient, and well-constructed the early space exploration ships were. Today, the site where the UTGS Carbin came to grief is now a memorial to honor and remember those intrepid souls who literally flung themselves into space during the early days of space colonization and exploitation for the good of the government, the corporations and the citizenry. Still, one giant mystery remained. The coloniser ship, UTGS Jakarta City, with 800 souls aboard, were also linked to the carbine's navigational system, meaning that what happened to the carbine should have, theoretically,

happened to the Jakarta City. Yet no signs of the colonizer ship were found. and the fate of the Jakarta city would remain a mystery for centuries. Half a centauri system, Terran year 2229. At around Terran year 2150, during the time when the United Terran government began perfecting the combination of explorer and colonizer vessels into one giant ship, simply known as a colonizer, it also became standard practice for long-range starships to drop marker boys, nuclear-powered signaling devices, which left a trail of the ship's travels through space. As mankind marked its first hundred years of space exploitation,

the UTG began a new push into the Alpha Centauri system. A half-dozen of the new coloniser vessels will be making this journey, among them being the new Florenski-class starship, UTGS Florenski, the first of its class built at the Florenski Ship Building Yards, which itself was built inside the largest impact crater on Earth's Moon, named after the planetologists who discovered it, Curia Lee Florenski. She was an unusually shaped vessel, 1,200 feet long and 400 feet at its widest section,

which was the box-shaped aft section that contained the ship's two hyperdrive generators and three warp drive engines. The middle section was considerably narrower, and contained the 200-foot-long radiation buffers followed by the secondary power generators, life support systems, and cargo hold. The remainder of the Florenski was taken up by the ovular-shaped foresection, which contained the main operational and habitation areas, consisting of three decks as well as the lower deck which housed the two hangar bays, containing the ship to shore shuttles and additional cargo holds for the cattle and livestock.

Comfortable, if somewhat cramped, the Florenski held a crew and passenger complement of 900 personnel. The UTGS Florenski, along with four other colonizer vessels, successfully emerged from hyperspace at the rim of the Alpha Centauri system, following the same jump coordinates used by the first colonizers who pushed into the system some 70 years ago. After sending a light speed message back to UTG fleet headquarters on Mars, that five of the six colonizers had finally arrived at the initial coordinate destination, the fleet of five colonizer ships cruised together for the two. some two weeks, checking systems and running equipment tests, before finally wishing each other corporate blessings and government speed, as each of the coloniser starships dropped away from the fleet and changed course towards their own separate coordinates and separate fates. For the next four months, the Florenski travelled alone in the endless black void, his long-range planetary scanners searching for that ever-elusive needle in a hastenck, a class one planetary body in a celestial system,

capable of sustaining human life without the need of specialized life support systems such as external oxygen supplies or thermal survival suits. In other words, a planet not too unlike Earth. By way of comparison, both Earth's moon and Mars were considered Class 5TL planetary bodies, inhospitable for human habitation, terraformable, limited mining possibilities. In terms of space exploration, these two celestial bodies would normally have been rejected for colonization, but out of necessity and human survival, both were transformed into Class 1 habitations, which is now home to over a billion inhabitants.

During the preceding six months, Lefroynski had little success in finding a habitable celestial body, though she did discover an unusual Class 5 moon orbiting a Class A gas giant, incapable of sustaining carbon life. This moon, one of about 17 that orbited the gas giant, was about two-thirds the size of Earth's moon, but whose mass was over 35% gold. Marking this moon as a possible future mining colony, the Florenski pressed on,

her warp engines propelling her from planetary system to planetary system. On the fourth month of the journey into the Alpha Centauri system, the Florenski intercepted a subspace distress message from one of the other coloniser ships, the UTGS Abel Bay. The garbled message was voice only and barely readable, but contained the startling phrases, "'Out of nowhere, class one, under attack!' The last phrase of the loop message caused considerable consternation aboard the Florenski.

The distress call was just over one month old, calculating the distance it took for the subspace transmission to reach them. Still, obedience had to be given to the directives put forth by the United Terran government, directives which did not include guidelines for a ship captain to change course from a predetermined course in order to aid another coloniser vessel. Loyalty had to be maintained to the government and the corporations only. As would be proven decades later, two or more colonizer ships working in unison would prove problematic to the UTG.

On the sixth month of exploration, the long-range scanners picked up on an unusual anomaly. A metallic cylindrical object, roughly five feet in diameter, was floating 450,000 miles from the Floreski, and was sending out a weak signal. Upon closer inspection of the object, the crew of the Florenski discovered that it was one of the marker boys left behind from one of the first colonizer expeditions into the system over three quarters of a century earlier. The weak telemetry data, which the marker boy was transmitting, indicated that the boy was dropped by the coloniser ship UTGS Ark Harvest, one of the first starship designs which combined the colonizer and explorer-class vessels. Historical data files recorded that UTG fleet headquarters received a transmission from the Ark Harvest 77 years ago with an initial report that they'd discovered a Class 2 planet,

meaning that they had located a planet which the long-range scanners indicated had between a 50 and 70% similarity with Earth. The excited crew of the Ark Harvest promised to send another transmission to the home world in six months after they'd conducted the initial reconnaissance and exploration of the planet. With any luck, the planet, named simply ACX-447C2, would be found to be completely habitable, thus changing its classification to a class. one planet. That second transmission, however, never came. For the next two months, the hopeful crew of the Florenski followed in the trail of the Ark Harvest, during which time they came across an additional two more signal boys, but no signs of the Ark Harvest itself, or the mysterious

Class 2 planet, which they supposedly found. Two more months passed with no other boys being located, and no scanner hits of any planets even remote. habitable. The crew of the Florenski were quickly losing hope, thinking this was nothing but a wild goose chase to catch a red herring, where long-range scanners alerted the crew of another anomaly, this time a large metallic object or objects drifting around an obscure dwarf star, roughly 270 million miles distant. The Florenski changed course to investigate this new clue, hoping to get a better picture with the medium-range scanners and the short-range visuals. When they finally got into visual range, the picture presented to the crew provided far more questions than it did answers.

The image that confronted the shot crew was what appeared to be a section of a much larger structure, more than likely a starship, roughly cylindrical in shape. The metallic object was a little over 300 feet long and 200 feet in diameter, and tapered to a wedged point. It was coloured a deep yellow with a broad white stripe that bisected the object. On the white stripe were the letters, vest, written in a broad, stylistic font. The discovery, no matter how startling, wasn't what shocked the crew of the Florenski. Rather, it was the multiple black holes which pockmarked the object, as if it had been impacted by multiple small meteorites that penetrated the hole's outer hull, as if it had been impacted by multiple small meteorites that had penetrated the object's outer hull.

As they neared the object and censors could get improved readings, the suspicions of the crew had also been confirmed. They were indeed looking at the foresection of the lost, 950-foot-long coloniser ship, Ark Harvest, though what caused such damage to a vessel travelling in open space remained a mystery. More stunning was that the telemetry readings confirmed that the holes which had been punched into the Ark Harvest

weren't made by meteorites. The shocking report stated that the damage had been caused by something that projected a concentrated amount of very high heat, much like the military's plasma rifles, also known as flame guns, but on a much greater scale. Immediately, the memory of the Abel Bay's last transmission, where they used the phrase, Under Attack, haunted the crew of the Florenski. A minuscule power reading emanating from the Ark Harvest's wedge-shaped foresection was caused to send a shuttle from the Florenski to investigate. Successfully attaching tethers to the floating husk, the shuttle's boarding team managed a

spacewalk to what remained of the Ark Harvest end, utilizing the maglocks on their boots. The team penetrated into the black interior of the derelict ship, making for the weak energy source at the front of the vessel. What was left of the inner hull was charred black, as if a conflagration as hot as a sun had spread rapidly through every inch of the interior. What hadn't been vaporized instantly had been blown into the void of space when the Ark Harvest blew apart.

Still, there was an energy source, minuscule as may be, and it was coming from behind a thick bulkhead, which, while damaged, wasn't breached. It took a critically long time for the team to finally gain access through the bulkhead, and their oxygen supply had become critical, but every member of the team wanted to know what was on the other side.

Once again, what confronted the search team left more questions and answers. A rectangular opening had been cut into the front of the hull. Out of this protruded a long, thin barrel-shaped cylinder. And its base connected to the barrel was what appeared to be a generator or an extremely large energy projection capacitor. The whole thing was mounted on a rotating base, and built into the base were two metal reclining seats upon which the long-dead bodies of two of the Ark Harvest's crew were seated.

Whatever the thing was, it was clearly alien in nature, and didn't take a hyperdrive scientist to realize that the contraption was some type of alien energy casting weapon, so powerful that it still gave off a residual energy reading long after it had been fired. Whatever destroyed the Ark Harvest, the crew of the ship did not go down without, a fight. Somehow the crew managed to acquire the same example of the alien weapon, which was presumably

used to destroy the Ark Harvest. The two intrepid crew members were wearing full environmental survival suits, that this small compartment was completely open to the unforgiving void of space, hence the thick boghead which separated them from the rest of the ship. The right station seat mounted a primitive monitor used for target acquisition, while the left station seat mounted an energy output monitor and a sophisticated trigger mechanism. The two valiant gunners had apparently died at their posts, fighting against whatever it was that killed their ship. For the first time in recorded human history, a broken arrow message was sent from a vessel

in deep space to the home world system, a risky process which required a six-hour delay while all ship's systems, including life support, were transmitted to the main communications array tower. This concentrated power would enable the ship to transmit a brief message as well as a finite amount of telemetry data across the cosmos to the home world in a matter of a few days as opposed to a few months. This was a sort of dead man switch, meant to inform the home planets of a catastrophic event

that would lead to the imminent demise of the ship. The cost of sending such a message was staggering. It would require an average of 12 days for the ship to regenerate minimal operating power. once the broken arrow message was sent. In the meantime, the ship would be left drifting in space using minimal life support for just the crew compartments. This would mean that life support will be cut to all other areas of the ship, including the holding areas for cattle and livestock.

Additionally, the power to send the message would be more than the communication array could handle, and it was estimated that there would only be a 50% chance at best to bring them back online. It was, however, a chance well worth taking. Not only that, it was a mandatory directive dictated by the corporation that any first encounter with an alien advanced species or technology or habitation, or more importantly, weapon system, was a condition to initiate a broken arrow message.

And as predicted, the sending of such a message completely blew out the communications array of the Florenski and set her uncontrollably adrift on absolute minimal life support power only. However, after only 11 days, the seemingly lifeless hulk of the UTGS Florenski suddenly sprang back to life as minimal operating power had been restored and the emergency batteries had generated enough power to attempt starting the war pensions. First priority, however, was to attempt to get the communication array operational again, if at all possible. Against all odds, the black monitor screens of the communication station suddenly lit up.

Each monitor flashing a white and red priority 1 Alpha 6 message from the home planet, a direct communication from the president of the United Terran government itself. It was a brief message, one which left no doubts as to Floreski's next course of action. The commander or next senior officer, United Terran government, ship Krill Florenski. As soon as it is possible or permissible, extract and secure said artifact from the UTGS Ark Harvest

and return to start point with all haste. If such a feat is not possible, you will expend all possible resources to secure the artifact on board your vessel and a way to retrieval from follow-on resources, or, barring that, Mark set artifact in such a way that follow-on resources can relocate it.

signed Jejin President United Terran Government Prime Asian Continental Authority With that message It was the first time a recorded human history that the United Terran government

had ever issued a recall order for a coloniser vessel to return back to the home system And, as history would later record, it was a good thing that it had. Still, the captain of the UTGS Florenski had been left with a lingering feeling that the underlying reason why the Globo Corporation sent the six coloniser ships to Alfin Centauri wasn't really to find life-sustainable planets, but rather to bring back exactly what he and his crew

had stumbled upon. The United Terran government had recently been receiving reports, rumours actually, that at least one of the missing coloniser ships sent to Alpha Centauri over 75 years ago had found a Class 1 planet. But instead of sending their tithe offerings and sacrifices to the benevolent United Terran government, they instead decided to cut more ties with the home system. This, of course, could not stand. The corporations and the government had poured a vast amount of money and research into the exploration and exploitation of the cosmos.

Allowing a rogue colony in Alpha Centauri to break away would set a very dangerous and non-profitable precedent to which a UTG naval fleet armed with powerful, plasma weapons will be a very effective deterrent. Vega X. The Sirius System. Terran year 2318. Barely two decades into the new century and mankind was marking several remarkable achievements in its cosmic expansion.

Within the home system, the new-founded colonies on the dwarf planet series and the giant Jupiter moon of Ganymede had successfully struck an almost endless supply of water under the icy surfaces, and the desalinization facilities on both colonies were working overtime to clean and purify the water for distribution to the home planets and Earth colonies scattered across the galaxy. On Venus, the experiment of seeding the clouds with phosphine gases with algae biorect has resulted in an almost explosive growth of an algae-like substance which thrived in its new floating environment.

Scientists studying this remarkable development were convinced that with increased seeding of Venus's atmosphere, the resulting strain of floating algae may be a source of biofuels and a source of non-perishable feed to supply the citizenry whom the corporations have been pushing further and further out into the galaxy. Thanks to their selfless sacrifices for the good of the corporation, government and, of course, mankind, several new and habitable planets had been discovered. Among these discoveries was a rare class one which orbited a star-starved. three times the size of Earth's sun in the Syria system.

Known as Vega X, it was roughly eight-tenths the size of Earth, and was the ninth of 15 planets orbiting that system sun. The planet was 85% crystal blue water on which lush, picturesque virginal islands floated. It didn't take long for mankind's elite 1% to realize what a tropical vacation haven Vega-X could become. Soon, Vega-X, which was now nicknamed Vegas Triple X, to the common citizenry, was deemed off-limits to all except mankind's most important

1% including chief executives, influential politicians, corporate heads, heads of state, lobbyists, sport entertainers, celebrities, and anyone else from the elite upper tier who sacrificed and gave so much for the cause of humanity. Earth was no longer the polluted, war-ravaged, dystopian planet that it once was centuries ago. After nearly 300 years of Earth's elites sending the riffraff and dregs of humanity off into space, Mother Nature slowly began to reclaim and heal the planet. By the turn of the century, however, many of Earth's elites had also left the Earth to state their claims on the first fruits of humanity's most promising interstellar conquests.

Despite the fact that some friction may have existed between Earth and the governing authority of Mars, Earth was still considered the birthplace of humanity and the seat of humanity's growing galactic influence. It was, for lack of a better term, the home of where the old money resided. For those who held the purse strings of that old money, one of the most favorite places for the Earth's elite of vacation was the pleasure planet of Vega X.

In Terran year 2320, the regional chancellor of the North American Continental Authority Mabin Abode, a powerful and loyal sycophant of the corporations, won another re-election by a landslide 81 million votes. By way of celebration, hundreds of the North American continent's most important ruling class and influential citizens, including politicians, corporate executives, entertainers, the propaganda ministry, and of course, Chancellor Mabin Abode and her entourage, boarded the elegant, scruplesome, a sleek, luxury, star cruiser with a red and silver mirrored finish. It was considered to be one of the most opulent liners on the continent, if not the world. Normally, the journey to Vega X would take an agonizingly

long four weeks, but the trip would by no means be an unpleasant one for the very important elite guests of the 400-foot-long luxury liner. On the scruple sum, if you weren't one of the VIP elites, then you were a servant of the VIP elites, on call all day, every day, every day to serve and service those elites who made the galaxy go round. Still, once the scrupulsome reached Vega X, the elites would still have to wait for as long as a day or even a week before they could get to the surface. Because of the very strict restrictions imposed on the planetary government protect the fragile, pristine environment, absolutely no starship will be allowed to perform a water landing on the planet, not even

a luxury cruiser like the scruplesome and her mega elite passengers. Instead, an orbital port was constructed over Vega X where luxury cruise liners would dock and transfer their passengers to the awaiting shuttles that were waiting obediently to take their wealthy, powerful and influential guests to the planet's surface and the myriad of pleasures that awaited them. Unfortunately, and by design, the orbital port of Vega X was a relatively small facility, capable of servicing only a limited number of services. star liners, so as to limit the number of guests wishing to flood the planet.

To avoid the inevitable scheduling headaches of the galaxy's elite citizens crowding into the space dock, the planetary authority hit upon a simple solution. First come, first served. Once a liner announced its intention to dock, they were more than welcome to drop into orbit and wait their turn in line behind the liners already ahead of it. While this was a fair and equitable scheduling arrangement. It would not do for the Chancellor of the second most powerful of Earth's continental governing authorities and

highly powerful and influential guests. They were, after all, the elite 1% of the elite 1%. Chancellor Abode's benefactors had spent a considerable amount of money to influence the election in her favour and it wouldn't do to have them waiting above Vega X behind elites who weren't

as elite as they were. Unfortunately, the captain of the scruplesome had come into possession of hyperspace jump coordinates, which would bring the ship to a point that would put it ahead of any other starliner, thus ensuring that the scruplesome would have a prime spot on the Vega orbital port. Chancellor abodes, personal aides, eagerly agreed to the captain's scheme, eager to impress the leader of the North American Continental Authority, and perhaps be rewarded by a bump to second-class citizen. Right on schedule, the scruplesome departed Earth's orbit headed to the playground of the galaxy's rich and famous.

Four weeks later, the scruplesome arrived in the Vega X system and, as promised, the hyperspace jump coordinates had put the luxury liner far ahead of any other liner that was cruising under warp power towards the planet. Curiously, however, when the Vega orbital spaceport attempted to raise the scruplesum to inform her that the United Terran government had reserved a special dock for them so that they would not have to wait for an empty port. There was no reply in return. The attempt to raise the scruple sum continued for several minutes

with no response, and soon the situation became critical when the scrupleson's forward inertia added on a collision course with the vaguer orbital facility. The tug was immediately dispatched to the errant starliner to tow it back to the port.

To the shock of the crew of the tug, The once beautiful luxury liner with her distinctive red and silver mirrored finish appeared like it had been abandoned in the Mongolian desert for half a century. Much of the reflective red and silver coating that once covered the ship had now been worn away, revealing the dull metal beneath. The hull of the ship had ripples and showed signs of extreme metal fatigue. All of the small protrusions had been bent or worn away, and a myriad of wires and components hung from the open.

in the panelling which had broken away from the hull. Absolutely no power emanated from the ship, including propulsion and life support. As soon as the scruplesome was carefully secured into the dock reserved for it, the main entrance hatch was forcefully pried open. Horror awaited those who entered, as they found no living person inside. Not only was the newly re-elected Chancellor Mabin Abode, her entourage, and all of the very important elites who came with her dead, their mummified remains indicated that they'd passed away a very long time ago.

More horrifyingly, many of the bodies show signs that they'd been systematically butchered and eaten. Almost immediately, the United Terran government launched what would become the most intensive cover-up of an interstellar tragedy in recorded history. This wasn't just some missing coloniser ship holding thousands of common citizenry. Passengers aboard this particular luxury vessel were actually important. The data recorders recovered from the scruplesome revealed the tragic and grotesque fate of those who were aboard her. They revealed that the ship's captain did indeed utilize a previously unknown coordinate to initiate the jump into hyperspace towards Vega X. However, those coordinates put the scruplesome into what could only be described as a wormhole.

What was once a subject of theory and conjecture was now proven to be a reality. It is unknown when or at what point the scruplesome entered this wormhole. When the concern crew entered the captain's stateroom to alert him of the situation, as he was the one who personally entered the jump coordinates, they were shocked to find him sitting in a chair facing one of the wide viewports, which showed only a brilliant white light, the effect of the stars passing the viewport at such a fast rate. The captain was dead,

a cup of Earl Grey tea laced with poison sitting on a table next to him. Whether he was poisoned or he poisoned himself is still up for debate, but regardless, the passengers and crew of the scruplesome found themselves in a situation that they were now trapped inside of a wormhole where the exit point had yet to be determined. Helmand navigation stations attempted to adjust coordinates

to bring the liner out of the wormhole, but to no avail, as the override codes were in the captain's personal log, and beside the captain, only the first officer and chief engineer had access to this log. Suspiciously, however, when they tried to access those codes, the first officer found that they'd been completely erased. Again, whether this was sabotage or,

whether it was the captain that erased his own logs before committing suicide, was beyond the point of concern, as the crew's first priority was to safeguard the VIPs and get out of the wormhole. Six hours later, with the VIP's panicking and the first office of considering the possibilities and consequences of manually adjusting course, the proximity alert was sounded, indicating that they were approaching the Vega-X system. That, of course, was impossible, since the system, since the system was four weeks away, and they were only 12 hours into the journey. Almost as instantly as the proximity alarm sounded, it shut off, meaning that they had passed the Vega X system.

At this point, Chancellor Abode demanded that the first officer bring them out of the wormhole by manually adjusting course. When the first officer tried to explain the dangers of doing so, at the extreme speeds they were attaining, Chancellor Abode loudly overruled him. She was seconded by her entourage, the VIP politicians, the VIP chief executives, the VIP entertainers, and all of the lesser elites that she brought with her. Reluctantly, the first officer instructed the helm to change course, one half degree at a time. However, no sooner had the ship moved to half degree did she start to buckle and shake.

Warning alarms began to blare as the passengers lost their footing, diamond chandeliers began rattling violently. Christless paintings fell from the walls, and the exotic foods began vibrating and falling from the buffet tables. Immediately, the first officer ordered the ship back onto its original trajectory, and the ship obediently corrected itself before it shook itself to pieces. It was immediately obvious that a course correction of as much as one degree would rip the ship apart, with a white pantsuit now stained burgundy from spilled chamois. campaign, Chancellor abode through the rest of the drink from her glass into the First Officer's face. Accusing him of misconduct and incompetence, she again ordered him and the crew to find a way out of this

predicament, as elites from across the galaxy were waiting at Vega X to celebrate her well-deserved and well-paid for victory. Several questions plagued the First Officer and Chief Engineer. The most concerning was the death of the captain and the erasure of his files. The captain was relatively new to the ship, having taken over after the previous captain retired after achieving the status of second-class citizen. The new captain was Martian born and raised, and, curiously, the UTGMA had recently done away with the citizen-class system. In addition, the UTGMA, or United Terran government, Mars Authority, had been opposed to

earth mounting plasma-based weapons capable of vaporizing off-world colonies on her naval vessels. Something Chancellor Abode promised she would push for once she won re-election. But was this reason for the captain to sabotage his ship and commit suicide? It seemed unlikely, as he appeared in every way to be loyal and steadfast to the Terran authority. theories, hypotheses and conjectures were input into the ship's computers and tested, a process which took some time and patience. The ship's navigational systems still.

It was recorded that the scruple-sum was still on track to drop out of hyperspace in less than four weeks, so that most this ordeal would be over in a few weeks. However, the ship's chronological trackers seemed to have been damaged earlier, as it stopped counting time, but personal watches and timepieces continued working normally. The crew was busily researching whether or not this would affect the time they were scheduled to drop out of hyperspace in the wormhole, or if this was simply a technical glitch in the system. Twelve hours later, with the VAPs again threatening the ship's officers with imprisonment and demotion to fourth-class citizens, the proximity alert sounded, indicating that they were approaching Vega X again. As this happened, the ship's chronology recorder advanced one second. The first officer made note of this end. Sure enough, after another 24 hours had passed, the proximity alert sounded that they were approaching the Vega-X system again. And once again, the ship's chronological tracker advanced one second.

It was then that the horrified crew realized the terrifying situation they were facing. The captain had input coordinates into an extremely rare circular wormhole. This type of wormhole was one which wound into itself, much like the tracks of a magna rail system that started at one point and passed through several other points in a circular route until reaching its own starting point again. The Scripplesome was indeed scheduled to drop out of hyperspace in four weeks in real time, but within the wormhole, where 24 hours equaled one second,

for the passengers and crew of the scrupleesome. The actual time they will be spending inside the wormhole before they finally dropped out of hyperspace will be a little over 6,600 years. What happened next was the unthinkable. after the initial stores of food had been consumed. It's known that the ship's first officer, who'd been demoted to fourth-class citizen, was a first to offer himself the sacrifice for food. It's not known who the next person was who was butchered for food,

or if the order was drawn by citizen-class, elitist status, importance for the ship's functions, age, or if the next to be butchered, was simply chosen by lot. Did alliances form between Chancellor Abode and the elites against the lower-class crew, Did the crew do away with the class system, and did the situation devolved to the strong preying on the week? Such gruesome details were deemed classified from the data files which the government recovered and never released. Also classified from public release was whether or not the captain was actually an insurgent working for some radical wing of the Mars authority to jeopardise the ties between Mars and Earth. Some even speculated in secret whispers

that the captain was actually acting under UTG orders, capitalising on an assassination of Chancellor Abode as a pretext for arming UTG naval fleet ships with powerful plasma cannons, a move soundly opposed by Mars Authority, and many of the off-world governing authorities. What it ended up being released by the UTG Cosmic Intelligence Agency, the CIA,

was that an unidentified operative from the Alpha Centauri colonise. had bribed the scrupulsome's captain into inputting those errant coordinates in order to assassinate the Chancellor as a warning to the UTG. In any event, the horrific fate of Chancellor Abode and the elite 1% of the North American Continental Authority was the impetus which the UTG needed to begin arming her naval fleets, now called war fleets, with the new plasma weapons. The rogue colonies of Alpha Centauri, which now numbered 13, and were collectively known as the Constitutional Republics of New Columbia

were going to pay for their revolutionary treachery. Hiboria Major System, Proxima Centauri. Terran year 2587 In 2476, after a ceasefire was agreed upon with the now independent 13 colonies of the constitutional republics of New Columbia, took the United Terran government nearly a century to rebuild and re-establish our colonies. The UTG had suffered a contraction in galactic influence after the war as several of the near-rim colonies chose to ally themselves

with the constitutional republics, which, by 2587, now numbered 50 states. Once again, the search for Class 1 planets with a ready water supply took precedence, and the push to discover new worlds began again in earnest at a pace not seen for hundreds of years. During this time, ship designs grew even large, the corporation's finding it to be more profitable to build one massive multi-roll ship rather than smaller ships which specialized in one or two operations.

One such vessel was the UTGS Collidercope, a massive ship nearly 4,000 feet long and 500 feet wide. She was specifically to operate on a newly discovered Class 2 planet in Proxima Centauri, known as Hiboria Major, a planet roughly three times the size of Earth, whose elliptical orbit around the Earth, the system's sun took approximately 37 Earth months. Iboria Major was a very fortuitous discovery as she was 90 to 95% water, though during 14 months out of its year, most of the seas were nearly frozen over as the average planetary temperature dropped to minus 90 degrees Celsius.

However, during the spring and summer, which usually lasted for 15 months, the temperatures range from a balmy 26 degrees Celsius to a sweltering 60 degrees during which time aqua-harvesting operations could be conducted. The UTGS Collidercope was unique in that after she made splashdown to Iboria Major, her crew of 3,800 will then get to work assembling the prefabricated components stored within the vessel, which would turn the kaleoscope into 140 square acre floating aqua port to service the corporation's freighters, which would be expected to conduct. water harvesting operations soon after the kaleidoscope's conversion. In addition, the

kaleidoscope also carried several small submersible vehicles, as well as one 200-foot-long research submarine to begin initial exploration of the ocean depths. Eventually, if all went well, the UTG had plans to expand the port facility by a few square miles, effectively turning it into a small city dedicated to exploiting the planet's untapped resources. government politicians were acutely aware of the potential profits of this venture and hardly had to be forced to accept any money from corporate lobbyists to authorise funding for the global corporations to begin this bold new project. In 2581, the kaleidoscope reported that it made a successful splashdown on Hiborium Major

several hundred miles south of the planet's equator. It was the height of the summer in this hemisphere, and the seas proved to be rougher than expected. Using the ship's atmospheric drive, something which was done infrequently with large vessels such as the kaleidoscope because of the amount of power was needed, she finally set down hundreds of miles further south

where the seas were calmer. The plan was to begin initial construction through the summer and four months, while the scientific teams initiated the preliminary research into the water samples, biological life forms, aquatic vegetation, mineral departments, mineral deposits and everything else which may be exploited by the corporation for the good of humanity

and the profit of the elites. The actual heavy construction would take place during the winter months when the oceans froze over to a depth of roughly one mile and the heavy equipment could safely traverse over the ice to complete the rest of the construction. The first Heborian year was a difficult one for the construction crews. Despite sometimes working 24-hour shifts when the seas and weather permitted, they were still 12 months behind schedule owing to the sometimes uncooperative seas which could conjure monster waves, which, fortunately, only claim the lives of a few hundred workers. This, coupled with the high winds, incessant rains,

and the occasional attack by one of the biological species native to the planet, which lurked under the waves, conspired to put the final construction well behind schedule, and, by the end of the first 37-month year, the port facility was only 70% completed. The chief executive in charge of completing instruction of the facility was reduced from a first-class citizen to a third-class citizen by the corporation, though he was still in charge of the whole operation. This meant that a third-class citizen would be giving orders to second-class citizens who were foremen in charge of hundreds of workers.

The corporation hoped that this humiliation would inspire and motivate the thousands of third-class citizen workers to work harder and faster to produce the results and the profits which would benefit galactic humanity, no matter the personal sacrifices. In contrast, the scientific research teams had been amassing data in leaps and bounds. The seas abounded with biological life forms which resembled the aquatic life forms of creatures over 400 million years ago during Earth's or done. ovovician period, though these armoured, tentacled, mollusk, squid, octopus, and crab-shaped creatures could grow to hundreds of feet in length. Additionally, there were sea creatures which would follow the evolutionary process, which produced gargantuan creatures resembling Earth's prehistoric reptiles, like the Mozosaurus, as well as a shark-like species resembling the dreaded megalodon, though these

species were over twice the size of their Earth counterparts, and the occasional encounters with these predatory species resulted in tragic losses to crews operating the small two and three man submersibles. In fact, losses were so great that it became forbidden to utilize the small submersibles anymore. Still, the corporation demanded more data regarding potential subsurface life forms and resources which could be exploited for future profit, especially from a form of deep-sea seaweed which was discovered that had shown to be high in nutrients and which could possibly be processed into feed for human consumption. The seeding of Venus's clouds had resulted in the creation of some stunning floating gardens.

The tests on human consumption of the algae-like vegetation showed that it interacted with human biochemistry in such a way that it turned the person consuming it into a type of grotesque and mindless plant human hybrid that sought to consume human flesh in a deranged attempt to revert back into a human again. This unfortunate side effect, was discovered when UTG fleet Marines responded to a distress call from the scientific research station orbiting above Venus. Upon infiltrating into the station, the Marines found that the 500 scientists and technicians assigned there

had either been devoured or transformed into one of those humanoid vegetable creatures. After fighting their way back to the ship, the Marines detonated the explosives that they planted on the station's orbital gravimetric stabilizers, which sent the facility plummeting into Venus. Wisely, the corporation and the UTG blamed the loss of the facility on sabotage by fascist terrorists from the Constitutional Republic of New Columbia. In so doing, the corporation avoided any harmful litigation from the families of the lost scientists, while at the same time pushing the anti-constitutional Republic political rhetoric of the benevolent United Terran government. Still, that left the UTG with a problem of feeding the billions of outer system colonists,

did not have a local means of sustained food production, which is why the corporation insisted that research into exploiting the aquatic plant life on Hiborium Major for food production must continue, no matter how dangerous. To this end, the 200-foot-long submarine, which they brought with them, was modified to emit a 50,000 volt of electricity from its outer hole, which, in the water, was effective out to about 1,000 feet from the submarine. She was named Deep Dive 6 and required a crew of 28. Her mission was to descend nearly two and a half miles down

to where an expansive bed of the seaweed was located and collect enough samples to study and determine if it could be converted into a nutritious, non-perishable food source for the masses of billions struggling so valiantly for the good of the corporations. Early in Terran year 2585, the kaleidoscope sent a message to the UTG. on Earth, that the submarine Deep Dive 6 would be departing shortly for the seabed, and a second transmission would be sent in another 24 hours to report on the success of the mission.

24 hours later, UTG Fleet Command received a second transmission, saying that the Deep Dive 6 had encountered an unknown biological animal that was now at the bottom of the seafloor, and the rescue operations were underway. As it turned out, that was the last message ever received. received by the kaleidoscope. It was two Terran years before another UTG ship arrived to Heiberium Major in Terran year 2587, fearing that the loss of communication with the kaleidoscope may have been a result of an attack by the rogue constitutional republics.

The UTG naval fleet dispatched the heavy frigate UTGS Kosovo to the planet, a 700-foot-long warship armed with several kinetic energy weapons, missile launch tubes and one meat medium-range plasma gun. After scans confirmed that no other vessels were in the area, UTG or otherwise, the Kosovo made a successful splashdown on the planet's surface during the latter part of the hemisphere spring season when the seas were at their calmest and sailed to within a mile of the kaleidoscope. The entire kaleidoscope was listing to one side, at a 15-degree angle,

and fully a quarter of the facility was underwater. Half of what was visible above water was tinged green with moss and algae, and signs of rust was forming along the entire facility. It was only minimal power emanating from her, meaning that her nuclear reactors were offline, and she was running on fading backup generator power only. Shockingly, the part of the kaleidoscope, which submerged underwater, was covered with a thick bed of some kind of seaweed, several feet deep. but like the kaleidoscope, it seemed to be dead. A platoon of a dozen Marine Raiders boarded one of the Kosovo's aerospace assault ships known as a Helios gunship

and headed for the wreckage of the kaleidoscope. Because she was listing at an extreme angle, the gunship had to land facing up slope, the magloks on her landing skids securing her to the slippery landing deck. Once the rear ramp was lowered, the Marines quickly scampered out. The maglocks on their boots, keeping them from slipping on the slimy moss-covered deck,

although the going was still awkward due to the listing of the facility. Unfortunately, the two large yellow radiation-proof cases which the Marines had brought with them also tumbled out of the back, clanging noisily down the landing ramp, before tumbling over the side to crash 30 feet to the metal deck below. The Marines encountered no signs of life as they secured the area around the gunship, though in reality theirs wasn't a rescue mission. They weren't here to find survivors.

They were here to gather all of the data recorders they could find, destroy the station and get out. By this time the UTG had developed a new design for a platform where the entire structure would be constructed in orbit. Once the fully completed two-mile-square functional station was assembled, it would be landed on Hiborium Major's surface as one massive structure. In the two years since contact had been lost with the kaleidoscope, The corporation and the UTG considered the kaleidoscope had to her crew obsolete and consequently expendable. The move to the Central Command Bridge was relatively simple, despite the awkward angle in which the Marines had to climb.

The dead vines of seaweed seemed to be everywhere, creating a carpet of the dead aquatic vegetation which crunched under the Marines' boots. The individual strands of seaweed were about an inch thick and wrapped with numerous leaves that resembled little green mussels, which were concave rather than convex, and within each of these leaves were small spikes, allowing the seaweed to grasp and cling like the tentacle of an earth octopus. In some places the remains of the weird vegetation completely covered corridors

and entire passageways an impassable quagmire of rotting seaweed, which, if not for the oxygen masks the Marines war, would have overcome them with a putrid smell like that of decaying fish. The seaweed was so prevalent in the northeast section of the facility, the section that was listing into the ocean, that access to the main communications network array had been completely blocked, which is possibly why the station never sent out a distress signal. Not that it would have worked, as so much of the fetid-smelling seaweed had wrapped itself around the antennae arrays that they had been bent and damaged to such a degree that the message would never have reached the home worlds. The question was, for that to have happened, the seaweed would have to have overcome the station in a matter of minutes. How could that have happened? And why? It was no secret to the Marines that the northeast section of the facility was also where the nuclear reactors were located, nor that their path suddenly became clear once they took the metal stairs up to the access corridor,

which turned west towards the central command bridge, while the jungle of rotting seaweed clogged the corridors leading east towards the nuclear. reactors. Though all of the Marines made the unspoken correlation between the path of the seed we took and the location of the nuclear reactors, the Marines said nothing. theirs was not to reason why, theirs was to do the latter part, and irradiated seaweed had nothing to do with mission completion. The thick, gunmetal titanium doors to the command center had been sealed shut, and it took a while for the petite female Marine with the flame gun to cut through the three locking bars. Once the door slid open, the Marines found only one body

in the massive circular-shaped command bridge. The body was slumped down in front of the main visual communication monitor. The head, left arm and upper torso looking to have been completely blown apart. An expended flare gun was still gripped in the hand of the right arm, which was still attached to what was left of the body. The main visual communication station was also a charred wreck due to the extremely close self-inflicted discharge of the flare gun. But fortunately, the last message that the person had recorded was stored in the main memory drive located in a separate section of the command bridge. In fact, all of the kaleidoscope's memory files were located at the station. Once again, it was an easy matter to reject the three, half-inch

by two-inch memory drives which contained all of the kaleidoscope's memory from the day she launched until the day Earth lost contact with her. Taking possession of the files, the Raider platoon leader, a lieutenant named Gabriel, must have thought that this mission was a cakewalk until the UTGS Kosovo alerted the team of a massive, unidentified biological creature headed directly towards the kaleidoscope. Almost immediately, the entire facility was struck suddenly with enough force to knock several Marines off their feet, even with their maglocks engaged. Whatever had hit the kaleidoscope was massive enough to make it list even more toward the ocean. The gunship pilot outside, a female warrant officer named Nasri, transmitted a panicked warning to the Marines to hurry up, as a monstrous tentacled thing was pulling itself out of the ocean and was crawling up onto the facility.

As the Marines exited in the main superstructure and made they wear outside on the landing deck, they were confronted with a prehistoric-looking aquatic horror of how much. horrendous size. It resembled an animal from Earth's Ordovician period from over 400 million years ago, a sickly pale, greenish-orange, squid-like animal, which had a conical shell,

much like a hermit crab. However, this beast was well over 200 feet long, a tangle, greedy, groping tentacles over 50 feet long extending from around a moor, surrounded by hooked feelers and a large beak.

But this wasn't what had shocked the Marines, nor the fact that the beast's multitude of eyes, each roughly ten feet in diameter, were glassy and appeared dead, or the fact that the creature smelled of rot and decay and showed signs of advanced decomposition. No. What startled the Marines was that, what was supposed to be the creature's head just above the milky pale and glassy dead eyes. It was a giant hole, out of which protruded a ten-foot-thick branch of seaweed, which gave off a pallid, six yellow glow. The beast moved sluggishly, like a puppet being manipulated by strings, as it clambered

aboard the kaleidoscope, cutting off the path between the Marines and their awaiting gunship. The beast's hungry tentacles grasped and flailed clumsily around, looking for something to feed into its grotesque, and immediately snatched up Lieutenant Gabriel and several other Marines, the fire from their rifles having absolutely no effect on the aquatic nightmare. That was when the plucky little female marine flame gunner, who would one day become famous throughout the galaxy for saving her platoon multiple times from the clutches of certain doom, while simultaneously losing her flame gun, sprang into action. Opening the aperture to her flame gun

to its widest setting, she fired upon the beast with a filled charge from her weapons capacitor at the point where the glowing seaweed entered the brain cavity of the Leviathan which was attacking them. The beast reared up its head, tentacles outstretched, and dropping the Marines unceremoniously before it slammed forcefully down on the armored deck. The resulting impact shook the entire facility and knocked the young Marine off her feet. The flame gun fell from her hands and, cursing bitterly at how much she would cost her to replace yet another flame gun, the young Marine watched dejectedly as the weapon tumbled down the deck and disappear over the side and into the ocean. The giant stinking beast, who now seemed officially dead, lay motionless on the deck, sheer weight slowly dragging it back down below the waves.

The seaweed, which only moments ago, was glowing, now resembled a dead, mottled green-grey tangle of vegetation which the Marines were slogging through earlier. As the beast sank below the waves, left behind thick, gelatinous pools of glowing, yellowish-green liquid that poured out of its open wound. This substance emitted radiation, though at a level which was not immediately harmful to humans. The Marines carefully scooped the slightly glowing, yellowish-green ooze into a compassy plastic container that they found, as their radiation-proof containers had been previously damaged.

Now safely aboard their Hilius gunship, the Marine Raiders brought back the sample to the UTGS Kosovo, where it was secured inside. the small hydroponics facility that was shielded against radiation. The kaleidoscope's data files were sent to UTG fleet headquarters on Mars, priority one message is no longer having to take months to reach the home system after the discovery of the circular wormhole, which, unfortunately, had trapped and killed Chancellor Abode 200 years ago. Since then, messages from deep space could be transmitted into the circular wormhole,

which could then be beamed out through the Neptune relay station and carried directly to UTG fleet headquarters. The entire process only took a few hours, and thanks to advancements in technology, the sending station did not have to suffer the consequences of massive system shutdowns or the need to survive on minimal life support, like the UTGS Florenski had to endure hundreds of years earlier.

The UTGS Kosovo remained on station over Hiboria Major for the next 36 hours, awaiting orders from UTG fleet command after they reviewed the files taken from the kaleidoscope. During this time, Marine Lieutenant Gabriel demanded to know why it took the Kosovo so long to alert his team that the presence of a living biological creature so large was approaching. Their answer was simple. The beast wasn't alive. 36 hours later, the UTGS Kosovo received a priority one message from UTG fleet command, ordering her to sanitize the area, then return to the home system with all haste. Targeting the wreckage of the kaleidoscope, the Kosovo struck the facility with two volleys

from her plasma gun in low orbit, which was more than enough to send the kaleidoscope to the bottom of the ocean. That done, the Kosovo warped into hyperspace for the journey back to Earth. Three weeks later, the UTG Kosovo dropped out of war. in the area of Neptune's orbit, and was on the deceleration trajectory towards the massive orbital station that was the San Diego Naval Fleet Base

in orbit over Earth, and she received a priority message from the UTG Fleet Command on Mars with immediate orders to divert course to Saturn. Troubling new discovery, one which worried corporate executives, would be the only reason why the UTGS Kosovo and her precious cargo would be diverted.

UTG Fleet Command, Mars Planetary Authority, Terran Year 2587. After the United Terran government gained control of all of mankind, it was necessary to add additional branches of government, so it was to maintain order and control over mankind's growing expansion into space. To the already existing executive branch, legislative branch and judicial branch, were added at the branch of the Propaganda Ministry, and the Ministry of Equitable Distribution, which was charged with ensuring that the 99% were allotted a fair share of the galactic bounty,

which the 1% deemed they deserved. All of these branches were equal, more or less, but all answered to the branch of supreme authority, the most powerful of all branches of government, whose dictates had the authority to override any decisions passed by any of the lower branches of government. This branch of supreme authority was made up of a secretive board of 12 executives whose identity was hidden from the public record, but who literally had the power of life and death over the entire galaxy. They were, in essence, as enigmatic as the god

whom the ancient earth cults had worshipped centuries ago may well have been considered gods themselves. Their status was so far above the elite 1%, but they were considered the 0.1% of the 1%. Though the branch of supreme authority was located within the Asian continental authority on Earth, there were a few top-secret and highly secured location. across colonized space where the Supreme Authority could meet, the second largest of such meeting places being in the capital city dome of the Mars Planetary Authority.

It was here, where the Supreme Authority met, in the capital rotunda building, several stories high and looking down upon the Mars Capital District. Outside of the Supreme Authority meeting room was a full battalion of the elite, black-uniformed SS or Secret Service, with orders to kill on site any unauthorised person on that floor. On the streets below, manning roadblocks for one mile surrounding the meeting place, was an entire regiment of the highly armed internal regulatory service, the dreaded IRS. They were the government's personal brown uniformed armed forces,

and they were equal in number to the Terran government's regular military. The politicians never really trusted the loyalties of the regular military, especially the space marines, who still help. on to ancient traditions such as honour and integrity, which the Turing government found somewhat distasteful. The defeat of the UTG military at Alpha Centauri, against the remarkably well-trained, well-equipped and highly motivated colonies of New Columbia left a bitter taste in the Supreme Authority's mouth, which lasted to this day. The meeting place was a grand, opulently decorated, semi-circular room whose walls were lined with pure gold. On a large, semi-circular dais,

the seats of the Supreme Authority were arranged in two tiers. Five chairs were on the upper tier for the Terran Corporation Executives, and seven chairs on the lower tier for the Terran government leaders. The war behind them was a large, ancient bronze plaque on which mankind's three commandments were engraved. For the citizenry give all for the government. For the government give all for the corporations. But the corporations give some for the citizenry

whom the government deems worthy. They sat facing all for the government. large holographic projection of the data files which were recovered from the kaleidoscope. A very panicked man wearing a white lab coat was emotionally explaining the events which had occurred in the last hours, events which brought an end to the kaleidoscope's mission to Hiboria Prime. All around him, the facility looked as if it was being shaken, as if caught in the middle of a sea quake, and the sickening sound of bending metal was so loud that he had to yell to be heard above it.

The man in the lab coat, apparently the last survivor, the over 3,000 crew and complement of the station, started by recalling that the submarine, the deep dive six, which they sent to the sea floor to gather the seaweed, had encountered a biological specimen of gigantic proportions. Resembling an ancient earth Mosasaur, the creature was at least 250 feet long and covered in a segmented exoskeleton from the crown of its alligator-like head to its flat vertical tail. Two flippers, each extending 50 feet from the body, protruded just behind the Leviathan 70 foot long and narrow more. Immediately the crew of the deep dive engaged

the system which sent a 50,000 volt of electricity out into the water. The maneuver worked well as the leviathan immediately spun around and spared in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, the creature's massive tail slammed into the submarine amid ships, battering the hull and sending it crashing into the endless bed of seaweed. Her hull now breached, the nuclear reactor spilled radioactive material over the ocean floor. Despite the dangers, a dozen three crew submersibles were sent down to the wreckage, only to find to their horror that the seaweed had somehow come alive, glowing from the radioactive spill, and wrapped all of the submersibles within its vines.

Horror crept upon horror as the crews of the trapped submersibles saw the crew of the downed submarine, obviously dead but animated. The tops of their skulls have been torn away in a vine of seaweed protruding out of the brain cavity. The crews of the submersibles, which numbered over 30 in total, had only a few moments to contemplate the alarming circumstances they found themselves in

before the vines of seaweed tore their little submersibles apart and burrowed into their skulls. Likewise, the giant sea creatures swimming near the seaweed bed were also being ensnared by the clinging vines. Their skulls mercilely being broken open as vines slithered into the now open cavity. The glowing vines reached upwards at a rapid pace, wrapping and entangling itself around

subsurface structures of the facility before climbing up the northeastern section of the kaleidoscope and headed towards the nuclear reactors. So fast was the infestation, but no one could escape the reach of the seaweed. The vines creeping through the ventilation shafts to get to the people sealing themselves in their rooms or work spaces. Once the vine was borrowed into the now-dead crew members, the reanimated corpses would walk towards the edge of the facility on shambling legs to fall overboard into the waiting ocean. The last survivor was the chief scientist who had first discovered the seaweed

and who thought it could be processed into human feed. As his video feed showed hundreds of the deceased crew now creeping towards the edge of the facility, a vine of seaweed protruding from their skulls. He initiated the shutdown of the nuclear reactors. recorded his last message on the datafiles, then put the flare gun into his mouth, and pulled the trigger. Though the events which the man described were terrifyingly horrific, the twelve seated at the dais watched with a sense bordering on boredom. To be honest, there existed literally thousands of transmissions and data files containing the last words of colonizing space explorers,

just moments before some tragedy befell them, and there were likely thousands more scattered throughout the far reaches of space, which had yet to be discovered. Still, the slightly glowing yellowish ooze which the Marines had collected greatly interested the twelve members of the Supreme Authority, which is why this rare assembly of the Supreme Authority had been convened, it was the byproduct of the irradiated seaweed which could control the mind and the action of a massive sea creature. If that substance could somehow be synthesized into something odourless and tasteless,

the Terran Supreme Authority would have complete control of the entire galaxy without fear of a three-thinking civilization like those of the constitutional republics. In fact, if the Terran Supreme Authority could somehow sabotage the water supplies of New Columbia, the rogue colonies of Alpha Centauri could be brought back under control of the United Terran government. It was imperative that the sample will be brought to Earth immediately, and, of course, sealed safely away in an air. area free of radiation. Saturn orbit. Terran year 2587. For many years after the ceasefire, the UTG had been utilizing specialised mining vessels, known as ice harvesters, to collect ice from the outer rings of Saturn for transportation back to Earth,

the Moon and Mars. Long before the facilities were built into the ice harvesting vessels, the ice collected from space had to be brought either to Earth or Mars to be melted down. filtered, sanitised and purified as water for the ever-growing population of mankind's two home worlds. The massive two-and-a-half-thousand-foot-long ice-harvester UTGS Messica, whose hull resembled that of the corn on the cob due to the many 100-foot-wide dome-shaped freezer bays, which festoon the ship, was two days away from completing its three-month mission of ice harvesting, and its exhausted but very well-paid crew of 75 were preparing to return to the Norfolk Port Authority Station, which was in orbit around Earth.

There they would spend the next month and a half downloading the ice into smaller shuttles for transportation planet side. Norfolk Station was a two-square-mile orbital station, half of which was dedicated to docking on port operations, and the other half dedicated to the vices and sins of the flesh designed to part the weary ship crews from their well-earned pay. 38 hours before the UTGS massacre's scheduled jump into hyperspace,

her collision alarms began ringing. An enormous chunk of ice, over half the size of the ice harvester itself, was hurtling on a collision course with the ship. Fortunately, the early warning alarms gave the Messica nearly a day to change course, that that was not what caused alarm to the Messica's captain. The ice crystals which form the rings of satin range from a few millimeters to a few meters. The size of this chunk of ice, with a mass of over a kilometer and a half wide, was an anomaly that bordered on impossible.

Being the inquisitive type, the captain of the UTGS massacre, Captain Edgar Pintalu, ordered a change, of course, and recalculated the jump point, but brought the ship near enough to the ice anomaly to use the ship's limited planetary scanners to study and perhaps mark it for future examination. It was 18 hours to jump when Captain Pintalus suddenly caught a complete stop of the inertial propulsion warp engines, the telemetry data of the massive space iceberg, leaving him in complete shock. On the surface of that gargantuan ice block hurtling through space were signs of carbon, evidence of life. Moreover, it was confirmation of a huge solid metallic structure encased within the ice.

Immediately, Pentalo relayed UTG fleet command on Mars of the finding he was in turn, ordered to mark the anomaly and follow it closely until a military patrol frigate could arrive, on station. This delayed the messengers' jump into hyperspace by ten days, but Pentaloo dutifully obeyed his orders. These days all U.T. sheep's captains had over a century of strict obedience to global corporation and government dictates ingrained into their DNA. When the naval fleet heavy frigate UTGS Kosovo arrived, Captain Pentaloo eagerly handed over all of the limited data telemetry on the spaceburg which the massacre was able to collect. Finally, the ice harvester was allowed to jump into hyperspace, headed towards the pleasure centres of Norfolk Station.

It wasn't a moment too soon. A slight radiation leak had been discovered in the hydroponics facility two weeks earlier. Ventrulu had planned to have its service once they reached Norfolk Station, but had to have that entire section sealed off during the wait for the naval frigate to arrive. Before the jump to hyperspace, however, the captain of the Kosovo transferred possession of a thick, transparent, double-walled, composi-plastic container, roughly four feet long, two feet wide, and three feet high, to Captain Pantalu. It was filled with a slimy, fungus-looking substance, which emitted a slight yellowish glow.

Seemingly relieved to be rid of the substance, the captain of the Kosovo ordered Captain Pantalo to secretly store the container in the Messica's hydroponics facility under armed guard, until they reached Norfolk Station, where a military security team would be waiting to take possession of the cargo. When Pantalo inquired of the naval fleet captain why the mysterious glowing substance was not being transferred in a radiation-proof container, the fleet captain replied that the radiation-proof containers had been damaged and were unusable, but that the double-walled, composite plastic containers were just as good, if not better, so long as the cargo was secured in a hydroponics area. Captain Pentali who obeyed his instructions without question,

neglecting to mention the small, almost negligible radiation leak in hydroponics. The jump from Saturn's rings to Earth orbit was usually a 16-hour journey. It would ultimately take the UTGS massacre six months to reach its destination. Meanwhile, reconnaissance probes from the UTGS Kosovo were sent to the massive Spaceburg and fired tungsten-steel cable anchors into it. Once tethered, the examination of the giant anomaly could begin. Dozens of metallic, egg-shaped pods roughly eight feet around and 16 feet long could be seen just under the surface of the ice.

They were connected by some sort of thick tether, nearly half a kilometer long, to a giant cylindrical object over 600 feet long, colored in shades of red violet and lavender, and highlighted in a bold white stripe which surrounded the four-quarter deck. On this bold white stripe, written thick black letters, 25 feet high, were the words UTGS, Jakarta City. She was in remarkably well-preserved condition since her disappearance nearly 500 years ago. It took ten hours for the Kosovo's plasma beam on low power to bore a hole through the ice to the Jakarta City, wide enough to allow a squad of Marine Raiders wearing their bulky ship-to-ship life-sustainment suits to enter.

The space walk from the Kosovo to the ice formation, which encased the Jakarta city, was extremely risky, but the world-trained Marine Raiders accomplished the task, including the claustrophobic trek down the narrow ice tunnel, which led to the mysterious ghost ship. The Marines would have to hurry, though, as the ice tunnel would freeze over again in a matter of hours, trapping them inside to suffer the same fate as the crew. Using a plasma rifle, the Marine Raider team, again led by Lieutenant Gail. Gabriel, penetrated into the interior of the ancient coloniser ship. It was a cramped claustrophobia-inducing experience, as much of the interior space was

blocked by ice, and in many places, the young female Marine corporal, operating a newly issued plasma rifle, had to run down several charge capacitors of her own weapon to melt a path through the corridors and peeways as they struggled forwards to the command deck. Along the way, the Marines discovered the mummified frozen bodies of several of the passengers and crew, all are very well preserved, all wearing environmental life support suits, and all hudder together as if waiting for their inevitable fate. It was a heart-wrenching sight for the Marines, but soon they'd burned their way to the command bridge. With the aperture of the plasma rifle set to full open, and with the last charge capacitor set to its lower setting,

the young female Marine carefully and patiently thawed out the drives which held the Jakarta City's data files. carefully removing those fowls from their mountings, the Marines beat a hasty retreat from the frozen tomb and returned to the UTGS Kosovo, where Lieutenant Gabriel turned the files over to the naval ship captain. Like the corpses aboard the Jakarta City, her data files were also remarkably well preserved, and the heartbreaking tale of the fate of the Jakarta City was soon uncovered.

The Jakarta City's navigational system was linked to her explorership, the UTGS Carbon. However, when the carbon inexplicably fell out of hyperspace at the Jupiter jump point, the Jakarta city's navigational link was severed, thus flinging the Jakarta city, unguided towards the second hyperspace jump point near Saturn. This unanticipated and violent action damaged the ship's hyperdrive generators, and she tumbled uncontrolled through her inertial flight trajectory until, days later, she finally ended up drifting lifelessly somewhere within Saturn's rings.

Using what was left of their warp power, the Jakarta City was able to limp slowly to the edge of Saturn's rings in the hopes of issuing a May Day alert to the many passing explorer and colonizer vessels who were leaving the solar system and using Saturn's gravitational pull as a slingshot. Alas, the damaged and overstrained warp engines finally died just as the Jakarta City neared the periphery of Saturn's rings. And although there were at least a dozen starships in the area,

a damaged communications array could only send out week six signals, which all went unheeded. While the Jakarta city was slowly poured back into Saddam's Rings, all of the power she had left was switched to life support, but that would only last a few days. Meanwhile, ice from Satin's Rings began slowly forming around the ship. As the end drew near, and the ship temperature rapidly dropped to fatal conditions, family groups were allowed to climb into the ship's inspection and repair pods. Small vessels tethered to the ship, which were used to inspect the outer hull and make repairs to the ship. These pods came equipped with their own internal life support systems

and allowed the family groups to spend a few more hours together before the systems ran out of power, and the families succumbed together to the frozen void of space. Rather than tow the Jakarta City back to Earth to bury the families on their birth planet, a costly endeavour to say the least, what were the expenditure of assets on such a large recovery mission, plus the inevitable lawsuits and legal fees from hundreds,

if not thousands of enraged family members who would, no doubt, be demanding answers to uncomfortable questions, which the Globo corporations would rather not be asked. The United Terran government instead found a clever solution to the problem. A nondescript space freighter was assigned a ferry four warp drive engines to the location of the Jakarta city, where the warp engines would then be secured to four points around the spaceburg. In addition, several telemetry scramblers would be embedded into the ice, effectively making the spaceburg invisible to scanners, unless the spaceberg was actually in visual range of anything. The chances of that happening were as astronomical as a giant meteorite hitting the Moon's Slorenski crater dead centre.

Once the warp engines were secured, they would light off in a sequence that would point the Jakarta city in the direction of the sun. Once the correct vector had been set, all four warp engines would ignite in one burst, which would cause all four to break. break away from the Spaceburg and send the Jakarta City on a trajectory which, after a few years, would eventually send her directly into the heart of the sun. No one would be any wiser, and a long-forgotten potential financial disaster for the global corporations would remain long forgotten. Between Mars and Jupiter orbit. Terran year 2587. Nine hours into the UTGS Messica's 16-hour journey to Norfolk Station, her alarms were ringing across the ship. Somehow, for reasons unknown to Captain Pintalu, the mysterious glowing ooze

somehow gained some type of sentience. It escaped the massacre's hydroponics facility and forcefully entered the security guard's bodies via their nose, ears and mouth. Responding to the primary instinct to replicate itself, the corpses of the now deceased guards attack the other crew members, holding them down with almost superhuman strength, while the ooze poured out of their mouths and eyes. The ooze then forcefully entered the other crew members, and the whole horrifying process spread rapidly throughout the ship. Faring that this infection would be brought to Earth, or worse, somehow contaminate the ice which would eventually be turned into drinking water.

Captain Pintalu brought his ship out of hyperspace to drift forever as a ghost ship in the void between Mars and Earth. Between Mars and Earth orbit. Terran year 2588. It was a one in a billion trillion occurrence. an impossibility, something which only the hand of God could have orchestrated, when the UTGS massacre dropped out of hyperspace, she appeared in the flight trajectory path of the massive Spaceburg which encased the unfortunate UTGS Jakarta City.

The contact was brief, but forceful enough to slightly divert the trajectory of both objects. The spaceburg's trajectory no longer sent it towards the sun, while the inertial trajectory of the UTGS massacre was disturbed enough, that it would eventually pass near Earth. A few moments later, Earth's planetary alarms were sounding, warning as an unknown metallic object was drifting into established space lanes and potentially threatening the hundreds of starships which used those lanes every day. The orbital station's long-range scanners confirmed that the drifting vessel

was a Saturn ice-harvester and attempted to identify her. The mysterious ship drifting aimlessly through space was indeed identified as the UTGS massacre which had missed its arrival date to Norfolk Station by six months. As the United Terran government was extremely interested in the ice-harvester for some unknown reason, two starship tug vessels were immediately dispatched from Norfolk Station to retrieve the massacre and towbacked to one of the docks used only by the military. Simultaneously, a squad of naval fleet security personnel were dispatched to the bay where the massacre was docked to retrieve its top-secret cargo.

At that exact same moment, a mysterious spaceburg almost a clear, kilometer, smashed dead center directly into the Floresnski crater on the moon, completely obliterating the helpless Floresnski ship building yards. At this day, no one knows how that huge chunk of space ice got through all of the Earth's sensors and scanners and remained undetected until it was too late. With no one but itself to blame for this unprecedented calamity, but unwilling to accept responsibility for the catastrophe, the UTG was forced to shift the blame for the complete destruction of the Florenski shipbuilding yards,

and the deaths of a quarter of million citizens as an act of God. Such a term had not been used for half a millennia, and the UTG Galactic propaganda ministry had a difficult time explaining the concept of God to the billions of enlightened citizens scattered across the cosmos when the news of the destruction of the galaxy's Lardish shipyards became public.

In fact, the concept of God, much less an act of God, they become so foreign that the Terran government simply explained that God was a mythical deity worshipped by those savage constitutional Republicans of New Columbia. Meanwhile, as the massacre was carefully being guided into the docking bay of the city-sized orbital station and the restraining tethers were secured to the ice-harvester, 20 military fleet security personnel breached the entrance hatched to the ship. As they filed into the interior of the ship,

they found it illuminated by an unnatural, sickly yellow glow. 36 hours later, all contact with the Norfolk orbital station was lost. End. Transmission. Copyright. 500 years of space exploration.

Historical module lesson one. New Columbia Board of Education. New Columbia Year 1776. And so once again, we reach the end of tonight's podcast. My thanks as always to the authors of those wonderful stories and to you for taking the time to listen. Now, I'd ask one small favor of you. Wherever you get your podcast from, please write a few nice words and leave a five-star review as it really helps the podcast.

That's it for this week, but I'll be back again, same time, same place, and I do so hope you'll join me once more. Until next time, sweet dreams and bye-bye.