by Ryan Frieda
Captain Steele carefully landed on the object. The object appeared to be made of wood.
“Is this wood Jamie? Can you tell from where you are?”
“I can't... tell.”
“Your sure your alright?” Captain Steele asked.
“Yes. I'm running possible string theories of how we got here and I am not... finding any answers,” Jamie replied.
“We'll get out of here. You'll find a solution. You always do. Keep at it.”
Captain Steele continued to move up this object that was at a 50 degree incline. He could hear the creaking of wood as we walked on it. He found a hole that even had the wood splintering in it and climbed though. He grabbed a sample of the wood and headed for what he thought was the back of the object.
The ship was a complete mess. There was wood, wires, and chunks of stuff Captain Steele couldn't identify everywhere. He decided that whatever was in here was probably crap and not worth salvaging but he was interested in finding a console to learn what he could about the ship. He came to what he thought was the bridge and was fascinated to find a computer without a holoscreen. He had only read about these things. Every computer once had a big thick glass screen and a physical keyboard that had actual buttons on it. They had been completely phased out nearly 1,500 years ago, in 2,500. There were only a few left in a museum on Earth. He marveled at it before trying to figure out how to turn it on. He finally found a button and pressed it. Normally, with holoscreens you just touched where the screen was and it would come to life. It flickered to life and a read out showed up on the screen. It looked like it was booting up. He plugged Jamie into it through a port in the back.
“Getting anything Jamie?”
Captain Steele waited for some time.
“Jamie? You alright?”
“Yes,” Jamie said sternly.
Captain Steele had been around her long enough to know not to piss her off and just left it at that and continued on his way. He grabbed the device he plugged into the back of the compute, made his way out of the bridge's window, and jumped upward to another ruined ship. He could see the engines on this one were too far gone. He jumped to another ship and felt like he stepped in a puddle of mud when he landed. He quickly realized that the ship was organic.
“Got an organic ship here Jamie.”
Captain Steele waited several minutes.
“Jamie? If your okay I need you to say so.”
After waiting for several minutes without hearing a reply he tried again.
“Jamie if you can hear me I need a reply.”
“I hear you... I'm... working.”
“Okay. If you need anything let me know. We look after each other. Okay?”
Captain Steele waited for a reply but didn't get one.
“Okay?” He asked again.
“Okay,” Jamie said.
Captain Steele reexamined the object and made his way to top where he found a hole. He looked down and could see what appeared to be a wound that created the hole. The ship looked like it was a living organism that was long dead. The wound look like a massive bullet wound to the head only instead of flesh and a skull it looked like rock that was damaged. It looked just like a bullet wound only all the organic flesh was rock, grass, and mud. He looked down inside it and could see vines that he thought were the veins of the organism. He jumped down the hole after weighing the possible dangers. The scientific side of things was extremely important, but the danger was extreme. However, because there were no other once living organisms here other than him and this thing he assumed that either this was the thing that was eating all the living creatures that entered the dimensional rift or there was nothing living in the dimensional rift except him for whatever reason. He also figure that because of the wound being as bad as it was this thing was probably long dead anyway and making it safe to jump into it.
Captain Steele took some samples and moved through the object. He saw a mud like substance dripping from the walls and vines. He could also see water dripping from the ceiling to the floor. He could tell there were several floors, and each were about 6 inches taller than he was. He walked around until he found a slope at a 55 degree angle covered in mud that slid down to the next floor. He decided to carefully slide down this. He figured that the slope was the equivalent of stairs. After sliding down it he walked around until he found the back end of the object. He looked at it and saw what he figured were the engines. They were round in shape and looked like dark pockets of water being held together by a thin film of a gelatinous like substance.
Captain Steele knew there was absolutely no way to use them so he just left it. He wanted to find the bridge. He looked at the vines and saw they didn't lead anywhere in particular but went up into the rock between the floors. He knew he wouldn't be able to follow them to find anything big because they went into the ceiling making them hard to trace so instead he wandered around the ship without any clues as to where he should be going. He walked around the ship and found it to be relatively spherical in shape. It appeared to only be about 35 to 40 feet tall. From time to time he could see what looked like tree trunks extending upward and he assumed they were support beams. He came across an object near the center of the second lowest floor that was made of dirt that had vines going into it. The patches of dirt were powdery like they hadn't seen water in ages. He blew on it and part of it became dust, some floating off away from the patch of dirt while other particles of dust just floated around the object. It made him think this object had it's own gravity that was separate from the rest of the ship. He was positive this was the creature's heart, or something equivalent to a heart. He took a quick little sample and continued to try and find the bridge. He was pretty sure it was probably near the top, where a brain would be.
Captain Steele climbed the slopes to the top floor and wandered around until he found what looked like lava floating in a spherical shape with bits of dark gray clouds circling some of it. There were vines that went into lava and out of it and he was surprised they didn't catch fire. He decided to try and get a sample and scooped some in to a vial. He walked around it looking at it. He was positive that it was lava and it even had chunks of rock in it like lava might. The outer part of this ship was covered in green grass with light brown rock just under it. He was positive he was inside some kind of organic species. He followed the vines to what he hoped would lead him to the eyes near by and found a single slot where the vine went up into the rock above him. He looked out in front of him and he could see out of the ship. He looked at the vine going upward into the rock and he knew that just above him was the top of the organism. He knew that what he was looking out of must have been its eye.
Captain Steele went back to the wound and climbed out and headed towards the front where the vine lead. He made it there and looked over the edge and back at the object. There it was, dark red rocks that protruded slightly from the rest of the object. He knew that that must be its eyes. He could see out from inside, but not see in from outside.
“This is incredible. Have you been watching this?” Captain Steele asked Jamie.
“No.”
“Well your going to want to see it when I get back to the ship. Your going to love it,” Captain Steele said.
Captain Steele wanted one last look at the engines. He climbed back down into the organism and made one last walk to the engines. He checked them out, studied them, then decided to poke the water sacks. As soon as he did snow shot out at him at a 90 degree angle from the floor, then the sacks lit up with bolts of lightning and the creature shot forward knocking him forward onto his stomach.
“Holy...” Captain Steele said in surprise, “Wow. This thing can move.”
Captain Steele wondered for a moment how he could utilize it for the engines and realized that the level of biomechanical engineering to make it work was beyond his ability to imagine and probably beyond their chances of using. They needs parts to fix an engine, not to replace the current one with a prototype engine freshly extract
ed from the end of a dead creature.
Captain Steele got back on top of the creature. He looked around and saw that everything was different. He was apparently quite some way from his ship now. Even is navigation interface on his DSSM suit was telling him he was too far from his original point to be able to locate his ship. He decided to look around to see if anything looked familiar. He looked around when he noticed a ship he recognized: The Space Shuttle Endeavor.
“That burned up upon exit centuries ago. They retired that shuttle then brought it out of retirement for travel between planets in Earth's solar system by massively retrofitting it. It burned up in the year 3,500. What's it doing here?” Captain Steele asked Jamie.
“Jamie?”
Captain Steele waited for an answer and failed to get one.
“Jamie?”
Captain Steele looked around for his ship or any other he would recognize that was close to his ship. He looked at everything near by and failed to find anything that looked familiar.
Captain Steele waited. He knew something was wrong. He needed a vantage point. A point to orient himself. He decided the Space Shuttle would be a good point because it was so easily recognizable. He floated over there carefully landing on the Space Shuttle Endeavor. He didn't know what it was doing here and he knew it burned up upon exit in the early 3,500s.
Mankind saw that the design of the early Space Shuttles built by the United States of America were some of the best ever built by man. They saw how well it stood up to the test of time in a museum so they retrofitted it with modern technology and reinforced the structure in the year 2,500. It was continually retrofitted while remaining roughly the same shape and size. It was used as part of the Deep Space Exploration Missions to explore deep into mankind's own solar system.
Mankind had finally confirmed a red dwarf, known as Nemesis, at approximately 1.5 light years away from the sun, in their own solar system but just beyond the Oort cloud, and launched the furthest manned expedition of the time to reach it. Nemesis was originally theorized as being a possible reason for numerous extinction events on Earth. Once the theory was made public the scientific community went to work trying to prove if it existed or not. The initial proof showed that it couldn't exist and therefore it didn't exist however that was discredited in the year 3,000 when it was first visually spotted by a satellite orbiting Iapetus, a moon of Saturn. When it was proven to exist it rocked the scientific community who had looked for it for decades a millennium before. The scientific community also noticed there was a gas giant, Tyche, orbiting Nemesis as Nemesis orbited our own solar system. This was the first time a red dwarf was spotted orbiting a solar system that also had its own planet orbiting it.
The mission to reach it was attempted in the year 3,500 because of several large objects past Neptune large enough to have their own gravity were in semi-straight line. This semi-straight line was then used as a sling shot to over come the pull of the solar system's gravity, namely the sun's.
The mission started on Triton, a moon of Neptune, because it's location being the furthest mankind has settled away from the sun in the solar system with a well established trading route and significant industrial manufacturing. Triton was also a well established colony in the solar system at that time. Mankind was excited to be able to realistically reach for the stars again. The Space Shuttle Endeavor was retrofitted with a new engine and equipment and it's launch was first manned mission past Pluto. Pluto and it's moons weren't as well established as Triton and trying to get all the necessary parts out to Pluto for a mission just wasn't as realistic.
The Space Shuttle Endeavor was just fine and had no major problems in well over 1,550 years it was in use. The shuttle was checked bolt for bolt from head to toe over 20 times before the mission. The ship was meant to survive out near Nemesis and orbit around the gas giant Tyche as it was close to Nemesis at the time. The shuttle had enough equipment to remain self sustaining for close to 150 years. It was mankind's greatest endeavor. It was everything everyone in the past had wanted to see and everything everyone now wanted to see. That is why the Space Shuttle Endeavor was chosen instead of the Space Shuttles Atlantis or Discovery or any of the more recently created ones.
Everything was fine when things launched but when it hit the upper edge of the atmosphere the fuel tank exploded due to a temperature problem. Debris was scattered out into the solar system because of how high up in orbit the Space Shuttle was and the speed it was going.
The Space Shuttle Endeavor was a peace of history, a tragic peace of history.
“Jamie?” Captain Steele asked.
Captain Steele waited several minutes.
“Jamie?” Captain Steele asked again.
Captain Steele waited for several seconds before calling again.
“Jamie. I need to know your alright.”
Still nothing.
Captain Steele looked around and couldn't see where his ship, and Jamie, was. He looked back at the organism and tried to find where they moved to by seeing if there was a ships moving away from the path the organism took. There was so much debris that he just couldn't see too far.
“Jamie? What's your location?”
“Need... help...”
“Jamie!? I'm on my way. Where are you? What's going on?”
Captain Steele waited for a reply, for a location. He didn't get one. He looked around to try and find his ship. He jumped upward careful not to push the Space Shuttle Endeavor too far away. He glided across the dimensional rift moving around pieces of debris looking for his ship.
“Jamie status check.”
Still nothing.
“I need you to give me a location Jamie.”
Captain Steele floated upward for about two miles, the Endeavor far below him. He looked around but failed to see his ship.
“John... Help.... please...”
“I'm on my way Jamie but I need to know where you are.”
Captain Steele continued to float upward before grabbing onto a ship. He decided he was going to go to his right. He floated for about two miles looking all around him for any sign of his ship but found nothing. After two miles he decided to turn back around and travel back the two miles. He got to his original point that was above the Endeavor and turned to his right 45 degrees and headed out two miles.
“Hold on Jamie. I'm going to find you and help you.”
Captain Steele floated for another two miles without seeing anything. The debris was just too thick. He headed back to his advantage point, and turned another 45 degrees to his right and headed two miles. He failed to see anything that closely resembled his ship.
“Jamie I really need a location. A ping, something, anything.”
Captain Steele waited and heard nothing. He made it back to his advantage point and turned right 45 degrees and headed out two miles without seeing anything before heading back. He decided to do the exact same pattern two miles below the Endeavor. His still didn't see anything. He knew he had to head further out. He had failed to see how big the dimensional rift was before heading out from his ship. It could almost be infinite in size.
Captain Steele decided he would make a navigation marker on the Endeavor in his DSSM's navigation system and head out 25 miles and circle around it at five miles below the Endeavor.
“John... at... ing.”
“Repeat Jamie, you were broken... Please.”
“I'm... at...”
Captain Steele didn't like what he heard. Jamie's voice was elevated and that led him to believe she in danger. He picked up his speed.
Captain Steele heard nothing. He dropped below the Endeavor 5 miles and started going out 20 miles. He activated his DSSM's thrusters and headed outward looking for his ship. He came across a long piece of debris floating horizontally. He grabbed it then pulled himself over it before pushing off it, making sure to shove it down and backwards away from the Endeavor causing him to increase his speed. There was a large ship in his direction and he rotated himself onto his right
side and turned right skimming the ship's exterior by inches. He then turned with the curve of the ship staying inches from it. He came near the end of the ship, grabbed it and pulled himself forward then pushed off it increasing his speed even more.
Captain Steele increased his speed and was now flying at close to 250 miles per hour. He came to another piece of debris and flew right under it, rotated his body 45 degrees then flew downward to avoid another space ship, skimming the surface until he found a hole in it. He spun into the ship and flew the around the ship's narrow corridors before finding the bridge and smashing through the windows. He then corrected his course back to going out towards the 25 mile point.
Another large ship was in front of Captain Steele that was very tall. It had a single hole one mile below him. He dived and rotated his body 180 degrees so that his stomach was only several inches from the exterior of the ship and increased his speed. As he entered the hole he rotated his body another 180 degrees and curved his decent into the ship. He entered the ship and pulled straight up, spinning and dodging the catwalks and cables of what appeared to be a decaying alien carrier ship. He found another hole and left right through it and corrected his course.
Captain Steele flew around several more object before reaching 25 miles out at which point he rotated 45 degrees and headed to his right. He flew over, under, and around ships and debris making sure to look around for his ship and maintaining a 25 miles radius from the Endeavor.
“Hold on Jamie. I'm on my way.”
