NEBULAR Collection 6 - The Great Tremor: Episodes 27 - 30

by Thomas Rabenstein

  A loud scream left Hassan’s lips and made Nuri shiver. She was uncertain what to do.

  »Hassan what’s out there?«

  »Oh my God,« Hassan shouted. »It’s suffering so much! It has a consciousness and it’s out there ... everywhere!«

  Nuri Jawa paled.

  »What can you see in Heaven’s name?«

  Hassan got up fast and shouted a warning, »It reacts! Now! We need to tell Nok! Quick!«

  Hassan’s voice was so alarming that it scared Nuri to death. With flying fingers, she activated the intercom to the command central. Nok Daralamai took the call immediately. Without waiting for Nok, Nuri said, »I don’t know exactly what it is, but something is going to happen! Hassan sends us a warning! He’s in contact with Nebular!«

  A slight breeze brushed against her neck and a cold hand touched her shoulder. Nuri shuddered and shrieked briefly. He touched Nuri’s hand. Hassan couldn’t wait and took a step through the continuum. After the next blink of her eyes, she was standing before Nok Daralamai, who looked surprised.

  Hassan’s forehead was covered with sweat. The man could hardly stand on his feet and said to Nok in a hoarse voice, »Something is going to happen! Get ready ... «

  At the same time, almost all Triton Base tracking stations issued a warning. Nok looked around confused and didn’t believe her eyes. The central display showed how the light-blue ice giant Neptune suddenly changed color. At the same time, the tracking stations reported varying astrophysical parameters. The planet began to contract without any apparent reason. The gas giant was changing to a dirty brown sphere while the characteristic white crystal clouds in the upper atmosphere faded away, becoming transparent.

  »The planet is shrinking!« excited calls came from the astrophysical department. The calls stopped as Triton began to quake all of a sudden.

  Nok had to support herself on her seat’s backrest as not to lose balance and fall. Some crew members fell to the ground and struggled to get back on their feet, because the quakes came in several waves, lasting between five to ten seconds. Excited, fearful screams sounded from the speakers. Nok watched with a frozen face, as more and more emergency calls were received.

  »There can be no earthquakes on Triton! There’re no geological activities anymore! The moon is cold for millions of years!« an astrogeologist said in disbelief.

  Nok activated the internal communication system, trying to reach the crew.

  »The base can take that! Remain calm and collected!«

  »The entire moon is shaking!« somebody yelled.

  The refugee fleet displayed signs of chaos. The ship commanders had also detected Neptune’s changes, resulting in panic-like maneuvers. Some ships, which had only recently landed on Triton, wanted to escape the tremors by rapidly ascending into space.

  Nok felt sick to her stomach. A heavy load pushed suddenly on her shoulders forced her to her knees. Nuri and most other crew members also went down or held on to their consoles. Screams of pain sounded throughout the command central.

  Only Hassan was not affected by the unusual effect. Even the Techno-Cleric was able to maintain his suspended position, but with a significantly reduced body diameter.

  »That’s impossible! The Moon’s gravity cannot just increase,« Nok moaned, her voice trembling.

  She was watching the central holo and saw two recently launched spaceships plunge back to the surface, crashing with blinding flashes near Triton’s equatorial region. Other ships in the vicinity were damaged by the explosions before they could activate their protective fields.

  »Hassan …,« Nuri groaned exhausted and then collapsed.

  He jumped over to her, picked her up and pulled her inside his protection field. Seconds later, she no longer felt the brutal gravitational force. Thankful, she looked into his dark eyes and hugged him.

  »It’s a localized anomaly. Apparently, we are witnessing an unnatural change in the gravitational constant,« 40028 commented without emotion.

  »Watch out! Another gravi-shockwave!« Klori’Tar warned over the still active link. »I know similar phenomena from Scutum-Crux. There, they called these effects dimensional overlaps. It may, at any time, come to even worse effects!«

  »What is …?« Nok shouted. Then the crew watched how a shimmering, semi-transparent wall went through the Neptune System, racing toward Triton like a gigantic tidal wave.

  »This is a very fast moving time-space distortion!« Klori’Tar warned. »It will overrun us in a couple of seconds!«

  Nok looked at Hassan for help. He was standing upright, still holding Nuri in his arms. He nodded briefly at Nok and calmly said, »Oh, yes, it’ll hit us. Everybody take cover!«

  Later

  Little Magda could not sleep. Right beside her bed was a window through which she could see the underwater world of Agua City. The oversized, pressure-proof window gave her the impression that she was in the open sea. Magda loved that feeling when falling asleep, looking at her friends outside. This included all the sea creatures that swam by her window to check on her. There were the dolphins that often appeared with bold and fast swimming maneuvers. The intelligent animals felt instinctively that Magda was friendly minded. But also fluorescent plankton, attracted by the house lights, danced in front of the window pane. A seahorse family had decided to settle on the window’s outer frame. Every day, she observed starfish and shellfish, moving in slow motion, through the front garden of her underwater residence. Magda liked her home, even if she couldn’t go outside to play. This was her garden, planted with colorful coral, a place, swarming with life whose inhabitants she liked to draw and paint.

  Typically, Magda fell asleep quickly. The changing scenes in the ocean made her sleepy fast. Even before the large grouper, hiding between the big oxygen tanks of the house, left his abode, she was usually already in the land of dreams.

  Today, however, everything seemed different. Magda was restless. She often dreamt of her father and missed him very much. He had been gone for so long. He was traveling in space, her mother had told her.

  Throughout the day, there was excitement in Agua City. Many strangers had come and tried to find shelter in the underwater city. They were mostly continental residents who were not accustomed to life in an underwater world. Something had scared them and they no longer wanted to live on dry land.

  Magda didn’t understand why things had changed around her, but she felt that something was going to happen.

  When she asked for her father, mother gave her this strange look with tears in her eyes.

  »He’s coming home soon,« she always said. But how soon was soon?

  Magda got out of bed, briefly waved at the seahorses and embraced her doll. She went to her bedroom door and shouted, »Open!«

  The house computer reacted promptly. Silently, the airlock door opened.

  Magda pitter-pattered into the living room and wanted to see if her father had arrived already. She did this almost every night for quite some time now.

  When she saw the light in her father’s office area, she smiled. For a moment, she stopped and listened. There were voices.

  Slowly, Magda walked further.

  »Mommy?«

  The girl listened, but there was no answer. Determined, she headed for the office and stepped through the door.

  First she recognized her mother, who seemed very relieved and happy. But there were also other people. Magda saw a big hairy man who saw her first, waving to her friendly. Then there was tall man with no hair, who wore a golden shield, like the knights in her storybooks. Then she caught sight of her father, who spun around on his heels and joyfully spread his arms.

  Magda was shy. The other people in the room scared her a little.

  »Everything is fine, Magda. Don’t be afraid,« her mother said softly. »Say hello to your dad.«

  Astonished, Magda looked around. There was a strange woman with light-brown skin and strange glowing eyes. Interested, she saw a little individual who reminded her of an underwa
ter inhabitant. He was barely taller than her and had a green face. Although, Magda had never seen such a stranger, she wasn’t afraid of him. She quickly ran to her father and fell into his arms.

  »Don’t be afraid, my love. These are our friends,« her father whispered and kissed her on the cheeks.

  »Where were you so long?« Magda asked, giving him a big hug.

  »I was out of town and I came to take you with me,« he whispered lovingly.

  »Take me with you?« she asked surprised. »Where are we going?«

  Toiber Arkroid picked her up and held her in his arms.

  »We go into space and look at the stars.«

  »Really? Can the seahorses come too?« she asked.

  Arkroid smiled.

  »Let’s see what we can do, my little princess.«

  »Are you sure, Toiber?« his wife asked. The tall and slim women seemed hesitant.

  »Trust me, Lucia. We won’t need to suffer and one day we’ll return to Earth. But now we have to leave the Solar System. Time is running out.«

  Lucia Arkroid took Magda by the hand and said to her, »Come, little Mermaid. We must quickly go and pack a few things.«

  As Magda and her daughter left the room, Arkroid looked at them with sad eyes.

  »They won’t understand,« Pi said and put his hand on Arkroid’s shoulder.

  »Lucia and Magda will get used to it. I have a strong family,« replied Arkroid and looked around. »It’s not easy for me either to leave all this behind, but there’s no other way. I wouldn’t survive the time lying before us without my family. I want to make sure that my wife and daughter are well. I made this decision shortly after our arrival. I think it was the right one.«

  »I understand you,« Pi replied softly. »I would’ve done it the same way.«

  »How much time do we have left?« Arkroid asked. »Nautilus had predicted a probability of a dimensional overlap just before we arrived on Earth. We need to be fast.«

  »If the beacon counter is still correct then we have six hours to go,« Herimos replied with his deep voice. »We’ll soon see if our hopes become a reality. We must not miss the right moment.«

  »I’m pretty certain about this,« Arkroid responded with a smile. »We’ll start immediately and fly to Neptune. Nautilus has analyzed the news and collected information on the fleet near Triton. They’re protection seeking extraterrestrials. Scorge had led the fleet into the Solar System, hoping to be safe behind the solar protection field before the Great Tremor arrives.«

  »He’s currently on Earth,« added Pi. »Our friend and a fleet of Shwakan ships helped to evacuate Mercury and made contact with Admiral Friedberg.«

  Arkroid pondered for a moment before he said, »Yes, Scorge is a friend indeed. I still have a strange feeling about this ...«

  »You said that the Klorian forwarded a message from you to the Triton Base. Why then these doubts?« Pi asked.

  »I’ve no doubts about my message if one disregards the fact that I’ve knowingly engaged in future events. I’m concerned about the right timing, the timeline or temporality. It’s possible that I warned the people too early.«

  Herimos rubbed his chest armor.

  »Shouldn’t we contact your friend and thank him for his help?« he suggested.

  Arkroid shook his head.

  »We came to Earth, protected by our disguise field and won’t reveal our presence. I will stick to the plan. Later, we’ll contact Scorge and thank him for his services to Humanity.«

  Seventeen minutes

  The space-time distortion, shockwave reached Triton and came over the people and extraterrestrials with the speed of light. Neptune, all its moons, as well as the entire refugee fleet, were hit head on. An escape, although some ship commanders desperately tried, was impossible.

  Nok perceived the shockwave like an ice-cold wind that swept over her face. From the moment of contact, the time suddenly seemed to stand still. Although, awareness and thought functioned normally, the surroundings looked like a three-dimensional picture frozen in time. Nok’s awareness was stronger as never before, while her body followed another, slower time.

  What’s going on with me? Are we all going to die? I see my surroundings as if I had incorrectly polished spectacles. It reminds me of viewing myself in a funhouse mirror at the carnival. My body feels as if it were frozen along with the time. What did Klori’Tar say, A rapidly progressing space-time distortion? What’s that all about? I can neither feel cold nor heat, hear no noise, I can’t taste anything. My body feels numb, as if dead. My mind tells me to scream or run away, but my body no longer obeys me. It’s like I’m in a basin filled with molasses, which counteracts my movements. When this shockwave moves at the speed of light, then why am I stuck in it for such a long time?

  Nok saw how her body deformed. Her arms stretched and turned into long bands while her hands were extending away from her further and further.

  Oh my God! That’s the end! I’m getting stretched like a rubber band. No one can endure such a thing. It tears me apart!

  Nok’s thoughts stopped briefly.

  This phenomenon is inconsistent with reality. No one can tolerate this, but I don’t feel any pain. What happens to us? Am I hallucinating? Why do I have to watch this? Why do my eyes not obey me and close?

  All of a sudden, the process was reversed and Nok’s arms snapped back like a rubber band. Nok’s mind refused to accept this effect as reality.

  The anomaly has an undulating progression. The entire room is affected. The phenomenon ripples like a wave after a stone was thrown into the water. Only we’re not a swimmer, who’s carried by the wave up and down. We are the water surface, deformed by the wave. The space warps and not my body!

  Nok’s mind was racing. Now, her body had been squashed, compressed beyond recognition and disfigured cruelly. Still, her body didn’t respond to her mental commands. Everything in her field of vision was subjected to these abstruse transformations. The command console in front of her was flattened into a thin object, hardly thicker than a piece of paper.

  If our bodies are frozen in time and space, then why can I still think? Who has defined this cruel law and why? Are the soul and the mind perhaps each a separate unit, triumphing when the body fails?

  Nok’s thoughts were interrupted.

  Are there some noises?

  Tones, deep and ugly, reached her ear. It was an up and down humming. It sounded like a slowed down, distorted music recording.

  My hearing, it comes back, she thought as her body began to stretch again, stabilizing, followed by crashing and crackling sounds that tormented her ears.

  What is that? Is the shockwave crushing the moon’s crust? Is the frozen moon destroyed in the end by this phenomenon, ejecting us out into space?

  Just as quickly as Nok was captured by the space-time distortion, she fell back into reality. First, it rushed in her ears, then she screamed the words she wanted to say minutes ago or was it just seconds ago?

  Nok had lost their objective sense of time. Her arms went into the air, a defensive reflex, which ran into the void. Nok’s mental and physical sense of time came back a moment later and her perception returned to normal.

  In the same second, she was slammed by a gigantic fist and thrown to the ground. During the fall, she bit her lip and tasted blood.

  The increased gravity also threw the rest of the men and women of the Command Center to the ground.

  The same gravity anomaly, which could be felt before the arrival of the shockwave, had come back, only stronger.

  She heard shattering. Consoles collapsed, the ceiling came loose and light fixtures fell from the ceiling onto the crew members and the floor. Painful cries of injured personnel filled the room. It was a nightmare.

  Nok was overcome by severe nausea. The blood drained from her limbs and pooled in the body to sustain vital organs. Her bones cracked. Support beams and trestles of the dome’s steel construction bowed dangerously and threatened to buckle with squealing and groanin
g noises.

  »Hassan,« Nok hissed with great effort. »Lock Down!«

  He responded immediately, unimpressed by the harsh conditions, he walked over to the command chair to activate the emergency procedures. All over the station the airlocks slammed close. Should there be a localized structural breach, then people in other areas had at least a chance to survive the pressure loss and the shockwave.

  Once again the base was shaking, then an eerie silence. After a couple of seconds of silence, the whimpering of the injured could be heard again. Emergency calls from all base section were received.

  Nok pulled herself up to her command chair and wiped her long hair out of her face. With a quick move, she wrapped the hair around her hand and formed it into a knot again.

  »Was that it?« she asked into the room. »Status reports!«

  A young cadet with a heavily bleeding head wound got up from the floor. He was shaking all over.

  »Ma’am …«

  Nok looked at the young man.

  »Report to sick bay immediately! Where’s the officer in charge?«

  The man’s face was pale and ashen, as he replied, »He’s dead!«

  Nok held her breath and looked at the officer lying motionless on the ground. »All right, Cadet. What can you tell me?«

  »Most of the instruments are defect. We get calls from various ships. A few have crashed on Triton and other moons. The base structure is stable, some pressure sensors issued alerts. We have to check it ...«

  »This shockwave was just the beginning,« Hassan announced. »It heralded the Great Tremor. The solar protection field doesn’t deserve its name. It doesn’t protect! The shockwave moved freely through this sector and grazed the Neptune system. The Techno-Cleric has spoken the truth.«

  »Ma’am!« a surveillance officer yelled. »The few working scanners show a groups of large objects moving at high speed in the direction of Neptune!«

  »Klori’Tar!« Nok called via the comm-link without knowing whether the system was still working.