Through the Abyss

by Daniel Litchfield

  The Guardian

  Through

  The

  Abyss

  Prologue:

  The Awakening

  Custos Date: 24,946 PE

  Earth Date: October 2,1967

  In the outskirts of the Galactic Group’s reach, a lonely Cruiser traveled through space at blistering speeds chasing after an impossible anomaly. Pushing toward what they hoped would bring peace to the war-torn Galactic Group, the decision was made to arrive right on top of the peculiar energy outputs. Worried about his reputation, the Fleet Vessel’s Captain decided that he would see the anomaly for himself before declaring the discovery to his home station.

  Inside the Cruiser’s only bay, twenty-one sleep deprived individuals huddled around their Troop Leader. Like prisoner zombies forced out of their cells for a random roll call in the middle of the night, their blank stares and catatonic state were hard to miss. With some still covered in grease and metal shavings from just finishing their last shift, everyone knew that it would be a long time until their heads hit their pillows again.

  This would be the eleventh time that the group of mechanics would be called upon to assist the flight teams in setting up one of the most extensive and time-consuming search grids ever theorized. Without a full crew onboard the Ship, the small group of mechanics were left with handling the vast majority of the work. Under normal situations, establishing search grids this extensive meant human lives were in immediate danger. Instead, the weary team, made up mostly of fresh recruits, was forced to go through the whole process over and over again as dry exercise runs. As if being voluntold for a three year deployment without any chance of going on leave wasn’t bad enough, the Cruiser’s entire crew was sent into a desert galaxy further away from home than anyone had ever been before. With strictly controlled communication back home and even less information from their Chain of Command, a growing sense of unease hung thick in the air.

  “Alright everyone, you know the drill by now. All movement teams across the Ship are on active status. So HURAAY, that means we are expected to assist with the programming, loading, dispersing, and repositioning of equipment once we arrive.” The overly energetic team leader, Ensign Tzippie, briefed from a small tablet. Standing at 5’5”, the young Ensign was relatively short for a Natron civilian. A stocky man who grew up playing sports but would rather waste his time away in a gym, Tzippie was one of the most high-strung Ensigns his soldiers had ever met.

  “Thankfully, our area of responsibility has not changed since my initial mission brief so I can spare you my excellent briefing skills on that. Unless, that is, any of you want to go over it again.” He looked at his men to see if anyone needed clarification only to be met with vacant stares.

  “Yes. Well OK. Either way, Staff Operative Garand and I already provided your designated locations to your on-board systems. So, we shouldn’t have any confusion this time around,” Tzippie glanced at his notes. “Ok, briefed that already. Briefed that. You don’t care about that.” Refocusing on his team, he continued. “We are number three in the shoot, nothing changed there. No change to friendly situation. Enemy Situation, not applicable. So why are we here?” he mumbled under his breath drawing a few laughs.

  “Finally. Longest Knight’s Mission: Again, No Change, but because regulation says I have to brief this part, here it is. Longest Night supports the development of search grid theory and practice within the Necros Kyklo galaxy in order to reduce lives lost both in battle and intergalactic disaster.” The young leader paused to again look down at his mission notes and as he did, he caught the deflated state of his team out of the corner of his eye.

  Deciding to forego the painfully repetitive Maneuver Order that he had given ten times previously, Ensign Tzippie closed out of his notes and frowned, allowing his soldiers to see his own fatigue and frustration. “Look, I know we literally just got off shift and many of you were asleep by the time the order came down; but I really need you to shake off the grogginess that I can see in every single one of you.” Tzippie paused to look around at his soldiers.

  “Yes, this will be the eleventh time setting up a grid with basically no change to your standard operating procedures. Yes, you guys get overworked by people who don’t seem to care about you, let alone come down to see what it is that you actually do. I get it. You are sick of being away from home on a deployment that doesn’t make any sense and the secrecy pressed upon us makes even less. I wish I could tell you that after this we are done and going home, but I just don’t know. So for now, report to your battle stations and prepare for another great round of Longest Night!” Tzippie shouted while raising his fist in the air; the tone of the last two words viciously sarcastic.

  A hundred different side conversations gushed out of the crowd as they received the blessing to disperse. But before anyone had the opportunity to cover any serious ground, the Longest Night’s Captain’s voice boomed throughout the bay while his middle-aged face reflected off the bay’s monitors. “Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Captain Speaking.”

  All movement stopped, not necessarily out of respect for the Captain, but for the simple fact that their battle stations would be kept frozen until the Cruiser wide announcement was completed. “For the vast majority of you, what I am about to say is extremely important. So, if you haven’t already, stop what you are doing and pay attention. During our last exercise, we picked up an anomaly just outside our parameters that we couldn’t leave without investigating. While it is still too soon to tell, you may very well be playing a part in one of the biggest discoveries in the history of the Galactic Group.”

  A sense of excitement began to pulsate throughout the bay at the sudden deviation from their routine. All eyes and ears were glued to the monitors except for those found on two seasoned mechanics standing off to the side. Both had heard enough speeches given by other Senior Officers in similar situations to know what their Captain was doing. To them, the words were a last-ditch effort to get the crew to buy into a mission that they had repeated over and over again. While inspiring personnel with a sense of purpose is what they wanted their leaders to do, they both resented the fact that the Captain’s true intentions were purely for self-gain. A rejuvenated crew at the potential for excitement and adventure would ensure that his mission was deemed successful by his boss, who would assuredly be logging into the battle net to watch the mission unfold.

  “I bet he thinks his next promotion is the anomaly,” Operative Harreng said as he rested his body against a Cargo Transport, not even attempting to fake an interest in the Captain’s words. With a five o’clock shadow and disdain written all over his face, Harreng proudly stood at 5’11” with a party gut of 220 pounds.

  “The guy has spent the entire time either in his Quarters or on the Command Deck, doesn’t know how to operate his own Shuttle, relies completely on everyone else to do his job for him, and comes from a long line of disappointing Flag Officers. Of course he is getting promoted Harreng,” Operative Costell answered with sinister hostility. The bay’s artificial lights reflected brightly off Costell’s freshly shaved head while his safety uniform appeared one size too small for his athletic frame. Only two inches shorter than his friend, Costell too loved partying as much as Harreng; but his metabolism handled it better.

  “You wouldn’t believe the dream I was having when these clowns woke me up,” Harreng blurted out, not liking the trend of the current conversation.

  “Yeah? Do tell!” Costell replied, hoping that he was about to receive some juicy details.

  “Oh Operative Costell, how naive. That’s what we like to call around here a joke. And why is that funny you may ask? Well, because truth be told, I was in bed for maybe five minutes before Tzippie’s stupid smiling f
ace woke me up.” The words came out with a sting.

  Costell hung his head in exaggeration and chuckled, “Definitely not the first thing you want to see when you open your eyes. But hey, if it makes you feel any better, I got a solid thirty minutes of sleep in the last forty-one hours, so I am definitely qualified to operate heavy machinery!” His tone reflected someone who had been abused far too many times to let the current situation truly get the best of him.

  “Meh, you’re definitely good to go. Not like this stuff is expensive or anything. Just don’t let your super soldier replace the wrong oxygen sub pump again and you can’t go wrong,” Harreng teased.

  “Oh, so now we’re bringing up our trouble makers huh? Because I seem to remember a certain time when a certain someone’s sand pounder got caught sleeping in the back of a Medical Transit by the XO,” Costell shot back.

  “Hey now, hey now. At least he was honest with the guy!” Harreng said in-between fits of snickering.

  While rolling his eyes at his friend’s response, Costell noticed a hairline fracture along the Transport’s Access Door’s seal. What looked like a random strand of hair could actually cause the door to fail when introduced to the vacuum of space. If broken, the damage to the interior would be catastrophic. Anything not tied down properly would rush to the failed Access Door, destroying everything along its way. More importantly, once the seal burst, the Transport’s ability to maintain an atmosphere in the rear compartment would be impossible. “Hearing him tell the XO that he was in there because he fell asleep was the most priceless thing.”

  The pair laughed for a few moments before Costell directed Harreng’s attention to the access door. “But hey, are you seeing this?” He asked, pointing at the door. “We can replace an entire drive transmission in less than a day but can’t spot in your face faults like these.”

  “Meh, it’ll buff out,” Harreng replied with a stubborn calmness and quick shrug.

  Knowing his friend all too well, Costell simply waited for Harreng to say the right thing.

  “Seriously though, I agree,” Harreng finally relented. “We need to find out who last operated this thing and tear them a new one because they definitely did not go through After Operation Protocols.”

  “Well yea, but we’re the ones with the brainiacs who cleared it post launch,” Costell retorted.

  Returning to the mindset of a Noncommissioned Officer, Harreng answered. “Alright, so once Captain what’s his face is done speaking, I’ll grab one of mine and check the entire door mechanism to make sure there aren’t any other issues.”

  “Good copy. I’ll quietly get with Garand and ask for help getting a team together without drawing too much attention,” Costell said, already thinking of the best way to approach explaining the situation to his boss.

  In the background, the Captain continued speaking to a now captivated audience, “… back to the designated clear zone, so please stay on heightened alert. Once again, if found, immediately get to the buffer zone and report to higher, do not corrupt the opportunity. Alright, I’m out of time to speak. Exiting jump sequence in Three. Two. One.” After traveling fifty-five thousand light years over the last forty-eight hours, the Cruiser was finally reaching its destination.

  In order to traverse vast amounts of space quickly, the Cruiser’s jump drive used anti-matter and a hybrid Iron Fusion Core as its power source to generate the energy needed to accomplish the feat. Done in two phases, the jump sequence first reached out and grabbed a section of dark matter far off as an anchor point. Once locked on, it then pulled back as much space as possible in-between the two like a rubber band and waited for the order to let go.

  As phase one was going on, the hybrid Iron Fusion Core received a steady concoction of neutronium, neutrinos, and non-baryonic matter found in super massive black hole secretions. When the mind-boggling expensive brew was forced into the core’s colossal heat and pressure, the end product was an exotic particle with powerful magnetic and negative mass emitting effects.

  Using the Ship as a positively charged magnetic anchor to prevent the vacuum of space from stealing their creation, the exotic particles were circulated from vents and left to accumulate just outside the Ship’s exterior. Their magnetic properties allowed for a gap between the vacuum of space and the exterior surface. The force exerted on the particles outside the Cruiser created a field of negative energy that grew in strength as more particles were added.

  When enough exotic particles were outside, an extraordinary event occurred. A bubble of negative mass was created that was still subjected to the laws of physics on the inside but could travel faster than light on the outside. Even when given the slightest push, the bubble’s effects on space around it enabled Ships to travel huge distances in brief periods. The second aspect to the jump drive, however, was what provided the true speed. At the moment of achieving negative mass, the rubber band of bent space was unleashed, creating a wave that yanked the bubble toward its target. With the second phase added to the jump sequence and ever increasing technology, even civilian vessels were able to travel forty-five thousand light years in forty-eight hours.

  With the Cruiser’s bubble bursting, space was regaining its grip and slowing the Ship’s velocity. Hearing the Captain’s final words in the background after ignoring his entire speech, Costell jokingly asked, “I wonder what the old man even said? But yea, I bet the Transport’s door would’ve probably held fine; but I’ll go ahead and grab Garand and let him know the plan to play it safe.”

  “The Captain probably just wanted to let us know that we aren’t invited to his promotion ceremony. Alrighty then, sounds good. I’ll pull two of mine and start breaking her down,” Harreng replied, finishing just before the Captain’s voice boomed at nearly three times his original volume.

  “All sections, you are clear to initiate. I say again, all sections, you are….” The Captain’s voice trailed off as something drew his attention elsewhere, sending the bay into a flurry of activity at the assumption that their Captain had finished speaking.

  Operative Costell instantly started looking around for Staff Operative Garand. Before he could make it a few steps, Harreng reached out and grabbed the back of Costell’s reflective uniform. “Hey, I forgot to ask. Did you move the…”

  With all the commotion, not a soul heard the Captain’s words in the back ground, “What do you mean we’re about to lose all power?! We found it for ...”

  ZZZRRRIIIPPP! The deafening sound of energy getting violently ripped from every piece of electronics devoured the bay.

  ZZRRAAPP! Every light source shut off after no longer being able to stand up to the power surges.

  CRASH! CRACK! BOOM! Simultaneously, the Ship’s artificial gravity systems became overloaded and sent waves of opposing forces, toppling objects over.

  VVRRIIPPP!

  Complete darkness engulfed the bay as Harreng and Costell instinctively huddled low as objects rained down from above. People’s cries of pain and fear only added to the total chaos. Furious in his helplessness, Operative Harreng grabbed his friend and blindly made a run toward the general direction of where he remembered an open, empty cargo container was.

  BOOM!

  “Hang on a second Costell!” Harreng’s voice rang out as he suddenly lost his grip on Costell’s uniform.

  CRASH!

  Stopping in his tracks and fumbling around in desperation trying to find his friend, Operative Harreng cried out, “Costell! Where the …” CRUNCH.

  Nearly three million light years away, a man slept soundly by himself, surrounded by what could only be described as obscene luxury. The incredibly powerful man was as paranoid as he was wealthy. Instead of creating a luxurious apartment around peace and relaxation, he personally designed his most private and personal place based on the security systems available at the time.

  In total, eight heavily armored guards covered from head to toe in unusual, yet immensely intimidating uniforms protected the man. Outside the master suite’s
apartment’s entrance, two sentries and an oversized droid that looked like a six-hundred-pound turtle stood guard. The automated droid carried a plethora of different weapon platforms and came equipped with amazing sensing and tracking abilities.

  Within his private apartment were two pairs of roaming guards with the same sentry droid attached to each team. Refusing to allow another human inside his master suite, the final two soldiers stood by the master suite’s only entrance as the last line of defense. Unlike the others, the final two were hand chosen by the Emperor himself and bore all responsibility for the other six.

  Only getting small glimpses of what lay on the other side, the two guards often wondered what sort of mayhem went on in the Master Suite. Unnatural sounds and voices were often heard that could only be explained if another presence was in the room. Yet, as far as they knew, no other organic life form had ever been inside. Regardless of the mystery, the master suite was like a blackhole, sucking up all things comfortable and luxurious and dumping them in the room for the man’s pleasure.

  The Emperor’s gigantic bed perfectly swallowed his body and created a sleeping under water type of feeling. Perfect pressure was applied against every square inch of flesh, wrapping him in the warmth of a hug while letting every muscle melt into relaxation. In the near perfect sleeping environment, something began to stir.