The Third Craft

by James Harris

  “Let’s get out of this mess first!”

  The shuttle shuddered and lifted off the tarmac again. Buffeted by the intense heat winds, it made its way slowly to the terminal doors. It was like hell’s fire out there. The entire surface of the planet was ablaze as far as the eye could see. Cyclones of smoke and jets of fire filled the horizon.

  “Let’s do it!”

  The tiny shuttle burst clear of the terminal and soared through the lower atmosphere. The tarnished white bodywork was singed to a red-brown color within seconds. Parts of its outer shell glowed bright red with heat, then turned white. White-hot embers began to flake off in streaks of smoke that trailed the craft as it flew. The two occupants focused their powers on protecting the forward hull as the ship’s brain screamed DANGER. They labored to maintain the forward motion of the space shuttle as their combined auras fought off radiation, flames, and fiery debris. The craft edged closer to the planet’s outer atmosphere.

  Then, suddenly, they were free. The oxygen-depleted atmosphere thinned quickly. As the shuttle reached the fringe of the atmosphere of Sargon it began to cool rapidly. There was a terrible snapping noise as the craft’s skin cracked with the sudden change of temperature. The instrument panel shattered as the cabin interior abruptly chilled. Asunda held his hand up to protect his eyes.

  “My ears popped!” Amonda said.

  “Funny.”

  “That was close.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “You can let go now.”

  Asunda looked down at his hand. “Oh, right.” Then he smiled. “We make quite a team.”

  Amonda pulled back her hand with a coy smile. “That we do.” She glanced up at the rear monitor. “My God, Asunda. Look at the planet. It’s ablaze.”

  Asunda studied the monitor. Sargon was receding quickly as the shuttle sped into space toward the cruisers. The entire planet was a flaming mass of molten rock. The ring clouds of water vapor were barely visible, overcome by flames ten miles high – maybe thirty miles high on the far side of the planet, where the solar wind’s effect was strongest. The spinning planet was throwing off burning rocks and debris. It was changing shape as it surrendered to the huge gravitational pull of the massive orange sun.

  Sargon’s own gravitational force was diminishing rapidly. A ring of rocks, like a small asteroid belt, had formed around the stricken planet. The shuttle bucked and heaved as it was struck by solar gales and space debris. Amonda pointed to an old star-fighter ship as they rocketed by. It was one of hundreds of derelicts, victims of the House Wars, abandoned to orbit the planet. It had become a glowing torch, as the heat from the sun had ignited the composite hull skin. Fragments began to break off and spin in their own orbits around Sargon.

  It didn’t take long to reach the three galactic cruisers docked on the far side of the planet away from the sun. The cruiser’s protective cloaks were billowing outward, warding off the effects of solar radiation. They were clustered near each other with their noses facing the sun to avoid the side-wash of its sudden radiation storms. The solar flares and winds were swirling all around them. The magnificent sun had reached mammoth proportions.

  Ahead was Gamma I with the Narok insignia clearly visible on her side.

  “I must transport to Gamma I,” Asunda said. “Then you can take the shuttle and leave for Gamma III.”

  The tiny shuttle hailed the cruiser. It was fully automated; there was no crew on board Gamma I, only the crypt-orbs of one hundred thousand people stacked row upon row on several decks. A sliding panel opened like the iris of an eye on the side of the cruiser near the rear. The shuttle entered and the panel closed.

  The craft skittered awkwardly to a stop. The two occupants leaped from the smoldering craft at the same time and walked side by side. Asunda and Amonda looked almost identical. They both had spindly white bodies with long arms and delicate hands. They seemed to move like spiders on their narrow legs. They appeared to drift across the floor with minimal effort. Asunda turned and examined the burned-out hulk of the shuttle.

  “I don’t know how we made it,” he laughed. “Look at this. The hull is a charred mess. The conduit tendrils are exposed. See there? Look, these are the ship’s shields. They’re fried.”

  “Life support worked. We had air to breathe. The rest we could manage ourselves.”

  “We are the Gifted Ones, aren’t we?” he said smugly.

  “We are indeed.”

  Asunda pulled an anti-grav trolley over to the doorway. “Give me a hand with the crypt-orbs, will you?”

  The two of them managed to unload the orbs from the shuttle. They appeared untouched. Between them they pulled the trolley out of the landing bay into the main corridor of the cruiser. Asunda squeezed his eyes shut and pulled up a logistical map of the ship, then pointed to a spot on A-deck.

  “That’s where this cluster of orbs is to be stored. It has higher security and has its own protective chamber in case of damage from meteor collisions.”

  “The royal chambers.”

  “Exactly.”

  The pair reached A-deck and Asunda found the spot. There was a large silver casket-shaped pod. On the pod’s skin was a symbol of a human hand. Asunda laid his hand over it and there was a slight gush of air as the lid began to open. Asunda and Amonda carefully laid the royal crypt-orbs of the king and queen inside it. Asunda reached up and placed his hand on the symbol once again, and the pod lid closed, sealing with a soft click. The hand symbol flashed momentarily, signaling that security was armed.

  A-deck was small. They left and proceeded to B-deck. There, stacked in neat rows, were the holding stations for the remaining fifty-eight crypt-orbs. Each carton held ten orbs. Amonda carefully helped Asunda place all the orbs within the cartons.

  Then the pair turned and began making their way back to the landing bay. On each side of them, in neat rows of gleaming silver cartons, were the trays of thousands of crypt-orbs. The transport ship was six hundred feet long and the trays took up most of the space.

  “I feel their Beings,” Amonda said. “There are thousands upon thousands hovering near the crypt-orbs.”

  “They swarm like bees. They don’t know if they’re free to go yet. Or if their humans are alive or dead.”

  “We can meditate and merge with them en route, and settle them down before we go under for the journey ourselves.”

  “Let’s get you to Gamma III before we’re all fried to a crisp by the sun.”

  “Asunda, I’m hopeful this will work. I’ve had no visions one way or the other.”

  “Neither have I,” Asunda said, nervously.

  “The evacuation of an entire species has never been successfully carried out before has it?”

  “Don’t know. Maybe that’s how we came to be. Maybe we were created by creatures similar to us from another Sargon a million years older than us. Who knows?”

  They stopped at the threshold of the landing bay. The escape shuttle looked a mess and there were odd popping sounds from within. There was a soft red glow over the shuttle; bright red laser lines crisscrossed the entrance. A message was suspended in the air by the shuttle door: “ACCESS TO THIS CRAFT IS DENIED. DEPARTURE IS DENIED. THIS CRAFT IS NOT CAPABLE OF SAFE FLIGHT.”

  They stared at the charred hulk that had once been a gleaming white shuttle.

  “I guess we were luckier than we realized,” Amonda said. “We must have caught this poor old shuttle’s last gasp.”

  “We have other craft, such as this landing shuttle, but I recommend one of our small two-man outside-repair units. It will get you to your ship safely.”

  “I’ll carry a portable air tank with me, just in case,” Amonda replied as she walked over to the small upright craft. It was an oblong device seven feet high and four feet in diameter resembling a giant transparent tablet with arms. The powerful robot arms protruding from its sides were designed to repair the external surfaces of spaceships.

  Amonda touched a button on the craft’s side and a transpar
ent middle seam opened, splitting the machine in two halves like a pea pod. She climbed into one of the seats and a safety restraint belt automatically sprung across her chest. She placed a mouthpiece between her lips and clenched down with her teeth. She took a few breaths and then nodded to Asunda. He tapped the side button and the enclosure closed with a hiss. He stepped back and the unit came to life, rising swiftly to about three feet off the ground.

  There was an awkward moment or two as Amonda familiarized herself with the controls.

  Asunda left the bay area and opened the outside hatch, allowing her to leave. The tiny unit skittered away, like a hummingbird to its next flower.

  CHAPTER34

  The three cruisers flew in tight formation, with about fifty thousand feet between each of them. Their three noses formed a huge silver dart pointed toward the center of the universe. They were on course, all traveling at a uniform speed of about one hundred thousand miles per second. It had taken twenty weeks for the giant ships to build up to this cruising speed.

  They were about two hundred light years – one thousand, two hundred trillion miles – from our planet when the sun overtook the doomed Sargon. Amonda had been monitoring the situation daily, watching the sun as it continued to balloon in size. She had gasped and sobbed out loud when Sargon exploded, gobbled up by the outer fringes of the sun. Its debris spewed out into space and was immediately absorbed by its huge gravitational pull.

  There was an incendiary flash, and that was it. A planet ends and there is a momentary flash of light, then it’s as if it never was. Mankind was now nomadic.

  By the time Amonda saw the event, Sargon had already been gone for many months. It took the image months to reach the starships at light speed.

  Two weeks after Sargon was annihilated, the sun rapidly began to shrink in volume. The aging star had completely consumed the thermal energy of all nearby matter. The fusion of hydrogen, helium, and all the other basic elements had ended. The lack of radiation pressure (because of the elemental consumption), generated by the iron-fusing core of the sun caused the outer layers to fall toward the center.

  There was no longer sufficient energy to generate enough pressure to hold onto the overextended outer layers. The force of gravity took over. The result: collapse. The implosion happened quickly. During the collapse, the nuclei in the outer layers of the sun were pushed very close together, creating extraordinarily heavy elements that would be attracted to the gravitational pull of the core. Next, the nuclei in the central region condensed into a dense neutron core. The outer regions, drawn in by immense gravity, were repulsed by identical nuclei and bounced off the core in an explosion of immense proportions. A huge ball of blinding white light and immense energy was thrown off. Antimatter was created as a byproduct, and jets of negative and positive energy exploded out into space.

  Amonda had recorded the event. It was the End of Days for this solar system. There was no more sun. The solar system was dead. Sargon was gone forever.

  Shortly thereafter the three cruisers reached the first marker beacon and moved deeper into space, heading toward the epicenter of the universe and its younger, still-growing solar systems. Soon the beacon from one of the scout ships – scout ship Alpha I – was spotted. The cruisers registered its marker signal and downloaded the information from the ship. This information included galactic maps and destination coordinates, ships’ status, times of beacon deployment, and other ship-to-ship encrypted data.

  The wizards were reviewing the data independently when Amonda reached out to Asunda.

  “Asunda, do you see me?” Amonda asked. She touched her head near her com implant more out of habit than necessity.

  Asunda looked up. “I see you Amonda. Do you see us, Alexia?”

  “I see you both,” Alexia answered immediately. Alexia was a younger wizard who had been assigned to Gamma II as senior flight officer. She had narrowly escaped the carnage of an attack by the Abishot on Beta City. Her family had not. She had been orphaned. She was honored to be in the company of the other two celebrated wizards.

  All three possessed the Gift, and although they were on three separate ships, their thoughts were linked electromagnetically to one another and to each of the ships’ onboard computers.

  “Our sun has gone supernova,” Amonda said. “Our solar system is dead. Everything that defined us as a species is gone.”

  “It gets worse. We may not be able to outrun the expanding antimatter radiation,” Asunda said.

  “Let’s increase our collective speed to one hundred fifty thousand miles per second.”

  “Done,” Alexia said.

  “Done,” Amonda said. “According to the beacon data, we are on the same course as our scout ships. There is no course correction required.”

  “Now we monitor the anti-matter readings and wait,” Asunda said.

  “For how long?” Alexia asked.

  “We should be clear of any anti-matter contamination within six months. The sun was too small to form a black hole, I think. If I am wrong, it will begin to suck in all matter for millions of miles. Even then, I am convinced we have had sufficient time to outrun the threat.”

  “Six months!” Alexia said. “I’m getting bored already. Another six months?”

  “Alexia, go to the Chamber and catch up on some history or something,” Asunda said.

  “He’s right. We must keep ourselves busy,” Amonda said.

  “I have checked and rechecked all our systems,” Alexia said. “I walk around these empty halls dealing with these creepy Beings. It’s like being swarmed by insects. I’ve had it. I need some rest. I’m requesting leave for one month’s suspended animation.”

  “I agree that the Beings can be eerie and tiresome,” Amonda said. “But I am encouraged by their presence. They seem to be faithful to the crypt-orbs. They are not drifting away. That’s a good sign. That part of the evacuation plan seems to be working.”

  Asunda thought for a moment. “Alexia, why not take six months of SA? You, too, Amonda. I can keep watch and wake you if there’s a problem.”

  “Are you sure?” they both said at once.

  “I’m sure. See you in about six months. When you awake, we can finalize our plans for the remainder of the journey.”

  “Let’s go before he changes his mind,” Amonda said.

  Asunda watched the two female wizards from his control deck on a split screen monitor. They both got up and exited their respective control rooms, leaving the two command platforms empty. The bridge monitors, sensing no humans, flicked off. Five minutes later, the SA room monitors switched on. There was no special preparation necessary for SA. Amonda and Alexia climbed into their respective capsules, set their timers, and lay down.

  As simple as the SA process was, the machines went through a complex series of steps. Moisturizing jets were tested, and oxygen, nitrogen, and anti-grav settings were confirmed. A chemically invigorated moisture spray was needed to keep their bodies hydrated and to prevent the growth of fungus. The anti-grav was necessary to counter the ship’s artificial gravity. They would be almost weightless to avoid blood pooling and coagulation. The capsules were filled with a thick inorganic material to provide continuous pressure at key acupressure points while their naked bodies floated, at rest. The beds themselves were preprogrammed to monitor their individual vital signs.

  Both capsule lids closed slowly, almost simultaneously. Both women gave a little wave and lay back on their gel beds. The lids clicked shut. Thin bright red lights crisscrossed on top of the capsules, indicating that a sonic anesthetic was being administered. Within seconds they stopped. A dim blue light then pulsed across the lid. The light ended at a blue hologram-viewing screen. Inside the screen the occupants’ vital signs were displayed in neon red. Both female wizards were now in SA.

  Asunda studied their vitals for a moment. Satisfied all was well, he commanded the computers aboard the other two ships to alert him if any of the vital signs drifted from the normal prescribed parame
ters. He shrunk the screen down to a six-inch square. His main monitor was showing the vast black universe ahead, while the rear monitor displayed a highly magnified view of the dead sun and the spot where their solar system had once existed. For now the sun continued to flare bright white against the black sky, but it was shrinking toward nothing. A tiny black hole of anti-matter was growing slowly as the annihilation spread outward from the sun’s epicenter.

  Asunda spun around in his chair, which was one of three on the sparse flight deck. The control panel was minimalist. The craft was designed for automatic space flight and required no crew. The flight deck was there to facilitate departure and approach procedures. The craft itself was not capable of a safe conventional planet landing; it required a surface-to-space transport vessel to dock with it. It was a galactic cruiser capable of high-speed galactic travel, but was incapable of a proper gravity landing or takeoff. Its anti-matter drive couldn’t handle the sudden power surge requirements to counter the gravitational pull when landing on a planet. Its hull was not designed to handle the atmospheric friction of most planets.

  Asunda idly began to wonder if the tiny fleet was in any real danger. His mind was filled with nagging questions. How fast could the explosion travel? Could lethal levels of invisible radiation ever reach them? Or would the energy dissipate before reaching them?

  With excess time on his hands, he decided to brush up on his physics, asking for a module on the physics of solar energy, exploding stars, and the composition of suns. He sat back comfortably and watched the 3-D video lesson on astrophysics. He fidgeted through a boring introductory thesis on energy ranges, types, and descriptions of energy, matter, anti-matter, the structure of molecules, electrons, protons, neutrons, photons, and particle and wave theory. He was concerned about the speed that particles of anti-matter could travel through space. He was quite certain that the anti-matter would take the shortest route between two points. But if there was a warp in space, could the anti-matter take a short cut and cut them off?