Beyond Hyper Space Book 3- A Chance to Live

8/4/2019 Beyond Hyper Space Book 3- A Chance to Live

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Beyond Hyperspace Book 3

A Chance to Live

The ground rumblings that had a first been slight had lately

been much more frequent and increasingly more violent. I slowly

entered the scientific works building where the best and brightest

Terrans and Humans worked side by side in attempt to find

something, anything to help our current situation. Waving to the

hard working occupants, I headed for the workstation of Doctor

Jonas.

Doc Jonas and I had been friends for over twenty years.

Hey Doc, whats the current timetable?

His glance told me it wasnt good. Im afraid its much

worse than we thought, instead of a few years, we may only have a

few months, even days. Weve sent teams, using the land scooters

with seismographic equipment, to the far reaches of the inhabitable

zone. Data now indicates that when the eruption and explosions

come, they could be large enough to completely destroy sizable

areas.


3/23

Youre sure? No chance of a miscalculation?

Im afraid not Van. I said when they come, not if. Weve

got to do something soon or this entire region with all the people

will most certainly die!

Okay Doc, let me see that writing again. If that old ship is

here we have to find it. I think I may have found someone who may

be able to help.

Really? Someone knows where the ship is? Maybe well

have a chance after all.

During earlier research Jonas had come across writing about

the ship that had brought the Humans. The writing spoke of the lone

remaining crewmembers journey after hiding the ship. Inside the

writing was a word map to its location. It said the ship could be

found across the valley of the sun, through the darkness, into the

great void. I just hoped above hope that it was true.


4/23

Id planned for months to attempt to locate the deserted ship.

If its condition was as we had been told then hopefully we couldsalvage parts from our ship to make it whole. Now though, it looked

like no matter the condition it would have to do. Many lives were

depending on it.

Thanking Doc Jonas I quickly departed for the farm of Silas,one of the Human elders. Sitting in the parlor drinking herb tea, I

breached the all-important question. Handing over the writing, I

asked, Okay Silas, any idea what any of this means?

The old man took a few seconds to study the paper. Sure, I

know exactly where this is.

My heart soared until he noticed the puzzled look on his

face.

Well, Silas continued. I believe I know where this is. A

few months after the last crewmember died a few of us went on an

exploration journey into the mountains. Im pretty sure I can draw a

map to the valley.


5/23

I was of course, elated. While waiting for Silas to finish his

map I thought back to the time we had first arrived here. Had it onlybeen twenty or so months ago? It seemed longer. Our appearance on

Tranquility happened this way.

***

The hyper-drive was completely destroyed and the quasar

pulse engines were just about used up. Ive got to set this bucket

down now, I thought, or were history. I have one-hundred-twenty

folks depending on me. Damn the sneaky Torags anyway.

Suddenly my thoughts were interrupted, Captain, First

Officer here.

Go ahead Rico, what have you got for me?

Well, I think we may have found one. Its a small planet in

that group surrounding that large gas giant we noted a couple of

hours ago.

Is it inhabitable?


6/23

All scans indicate that it is compatible with our needs andis a fairly close match for Terra. Half the planet seems to be

wasteland and half looks inhabitable; however it appears to be a

little unstable.

Terra was our home world before the Torag Empirealmost completely destroyed it. We were only saved at the last

minute by a somewhat garbled subspace transmission warning us

away. An unexpected meteor shower had previously damaged our

ship. Without a safe place to land to make repairs we knew we were

in trouble but we knew we couldnt return home. Anyway, at the

last word we had, only the Terran outer rural colonies remained and

they werent expected to last long.

Snapping back, I realized what the first officer had just told

me. It really doesnt matter how unstable Rico. Right now I would

be happy to find any place for a soft landing. Im heading for the

bridge, set a course and take us in.

Roger Captain, here we go.


7/23

A short thirty-minute decent and we executed a soft landing

on the small planet. We made it down just in time too because thequasars finally died a few minutes later. Had they quit earlierwell

I didnt really want to think about that.

A quick but thorough search for materials to make repairs

found none, but did find inhabitants that were a somewhat primitivepeace loving people. The current populace was not native to this

land, but had also come from the stars. They called themselves

Humans from a world called Earth.

***

Two years earlier a pacifist society fled their home planet

Earth in hopes of finding a more peaceful planet for colonization to

become their new home world. This was after increasing danger of

being pulled into an Intergalactic War currently raging across two

galaxies. Earth had no space force remaining to speak of. Most of

the space ships and crews had left many years ago. The few that

remained, mostly old rickety transports, would be of no

consequence if they were attacked.


8/23

Pooling all their wealth, the pacifists managed to hire a

small space ship with crew that had landed for rest and refit prior toheading back in the conflict. The space crew, in no hurry to return

to battle, agreed to search and deliver them to a suitable place for

colonization. For the several hundred people crammed into a

confined space, after many weeks in space with hope almost gone

they found this planet. They jokingly named it Tranquility.

With limited fuel and supplies remaining the ships crew

determined to also stay, at least for awhile. To protect the colony

from possible detection they decided to hide the ship. With the

exception of one crewmember they were never seen again. Most of

the Earth folks thought they simply changed their minds and left the

planet.

About a month after leaving to conceal the ship, one of the

crewmembers stumbled into camp. He was very sick and his

condition was grave. He didnt last long, but before he died he told

the elders as best he could the location of the ship. Since the elders

had no way of flying the ship even had they wanted to they simply

took down the information and promptly forgot about it.


9/23

***

As our disappointment on not being able to repair our shippassed we determined to make the best of our current situation. Life

was good, not great, but good for all until a combined scientific

team using equipment from our ship discovered a frightening

occurrence. The large volcanoes were growing. Pressure was

building daily and the tectonic plates were starting to shift. At thecurrent rate of shift, the tiny occasional ground rumbling would

soon be large devastating earthquakes and volcanic activity. Since

there was no practicable way to relieve the building pressure, the

prospect of major explosions was inevitable. That discovery was

almost six months ago. Our time was quickly running out.

Two days after our visit, armed with Silass map, the First

Officer, three crewmembers and I set out to locate the abandoned

Earth space ship. A crew of five should be more than sufficient to

handle the old ship. Early the second morning we broke camp and

started our search for the valley entrance. After searching fruitlessly

for over an hour I heard a shout.

Captain, I think I found something.


10/23

Before I had a chance to reply there was a terrific explosion.

The earth shook with a mighty heave and we were thrown to theground. The blast was many kilometers away but the force was

incredible. Looking toward the horizon I could see a large plume of

a combination dust and smoke.

Shakily getting to his feet, the First Officer said. Wow,Captain that was some eruption.

Yes Rico, it was a major one all right. It looks to be

somewhere in the vicinity of the human compound.

If thats the case, there must be a lot of injuries. Should we

head back to help?

I dont think so. It would take at least a day to get back. Im

not sure of just how much help we would be. I believe that we

would be better off to continue this mission. The fate of the entire

populous now depends on us.

Right, Captain.


11/23

Oh, just before the blast you were about to show me

something.

Yes, over there. If you look closely, there, back along the

shadows, you can see a crack. I believe that crack may be a

passage.

I took a minute to study where he was pointing. Yes, I

believe youre right. It may be just what were searching for. Lets

head that way.

A few minutes later we entered an extremely narrow

passage. It was so narrow in places that we had to turn sideways to

get through. Eventually though, it led to a magnificent valley. As

we stood there mesmerized, the sun rose over the mountain. It was

an awesome thing to see as it flooded the valley with brilliant light.

The valley of the sun, I thought. As light filled the valley we could

see just a short distance away a dark area that might be a cave

entrance. We moved in the direction and in about ten minutes we

found it, the entrance to the darkness.


12/23

It took about an hour of careful walking and climbing to

traverse the one-kilometer long cave. Just as I was about to becomeworried we saw a light. The end of the cave brought us into another

valley. It couldnt have been more different than the first one. It was

dead. No life. Not a single living thing, plant or animal. It was all

brown and grey rock and dirt. We all stood for a few seconds and

stared. This was the very edge of the inhabitable zone. It was thevoid; it had to be!

Oh hell, Captain, the First Officer said looking about. I

dont see any ship. Do you think this is the place? Maybe they

didnt leave the ship here after all. Maybe it was all just a myth?

Attempting to keep the dejection out of my voice, I said,

Its got to be the place Rico, theres no where else. The ship just

has to be here somewhere!

Suddenly one of the crewmembers shouted. Captain,

somethings over here! Looking to where she was pointing I saw

it; the bare outline of a ship. Something wasnt right though, that

was not any old space ship. On closer inspection I realized what it

was; regular ships did not utilize chameleon camouflage!


13/23

Chameleon camouflage was reserved for warships. A shipwas covered in a living organic compound that let it blend into any

surrounding making it almost invisible. No wonder we hadnt seen

it, I thought. But what type of ship was this?

Moving closer we were stunned. I had seen ships like thisbefore. What the colonist thought was an old freighter was in fact a

battle scarred but still deadly Space Raider. How did we know it

was a Raider? Besides the organic camouflage, it fairly bristled with

plasma and laser cannon ports. It was small fast and lethal.

As the Intergalactic War wore on the Galactic Alliance

had taken small Type II freighters and outfitted them with the more

modern equipment, engines, and armament. Because of their size

and speed they made perfect scout and attack ships. If this was an

Earth ship then they too must have been part of the Alliance. I

wondered why we had never heard of them.

These small fighting ships had been built to last. Aside from

normal deterioration that included two years of inactivity, this one

looked to be in fair condition even though it had to be over ten years


14/23

old. Looking over the ship I couldnt believe that the crew had

parked it here and simply walked away. I guess they were just tiredof war.

Searching nearby, we found the graves of what must have

been the crew. They werent graves really, just piles of stones each

with a small marker. The last remaining crewmember must haveburied them prior to his return to the inhabitable zone. We held a

small memorial ceremony for the dead, then set to work.

It took two days to decipher the inner workings of the ship.

The language differences posed a small but not insurmountable

problem. I still couldnt believe our good fortune. Wed been

expecting to find an old worn out hulk of a ship with limited

capacity but what we had found was incredible. This Raider had

been outfitted with H-2 type hyper-drives that still appeared to be in

fair to good working condition. It helped that the original crfew

took care to ensure that the drives were shut down for proper

storage. The H-2 drive was the prototype for todays more modern

drives. Although the H-2 could be considered antique by todays

standards, it could still push a ship this size at almost twice light


15/23

speed. My old ship had been outfitted with H-3.5 drives but would

have had a hard time outdistancing this one.

I couldnt wait to get it into space, once we had replenished

the fuel supply of course. The ships old fuel cells were nearly

empty but with the extra supply of the newer fuel rods on our old

ship we would have no trouble converting them thus giving us morethan enough fuel to re-supply the cells. Since the main drive

systems were similar there wouldnt be any compatibility problems.

Three days later, the solar sails had recharged the power

sufficiently to bring the thruster engines on line. With little

difficulty we lifted off and made the short hop to the settlement. It

felt wonderful to be flying again but the joy was short lived.

Landing at the Terran compound we couldnt believe what we saw.

Destruction and carnage were everywhere. The eruption from days

earlier had been devastating. Although it was over fifteen

kilometers away, the force of the explosion was massive. We

learned that many were dead or dying; some from the force of the

blast, others form the poisonous toxins released into the

atmosphere. Leading the clean up effort was Jonas.


16/23

Pulling him aside I said. My God Jonas, what a mess.

Yes, though a mess would hardly describe it. I see you had

goof fortune at least.

With some pride I pointed toward the Raider and said, Yes,

here it is. I realize the ship isnt very big but I have a plan. Comeover and have a look and Ill explain it to you.

For the next half hour I showed Jonas the ship and outlined

my plan. The Raiders cargo holds could be fitted out as passenger

compartments and with supplies would hold about one-hundred-

fifty persons. My plan was to load to capacity, lift off and using my

old somewhat outdated star charts to find a sympathetic world. With

a bit of luck I could deposit the travelers and return for another load.

With enough time I could save the remaining colonist.

Jonas had been surprisingly quiet during my tour and talk.

When I finished he waited a few seconds than delivered the big

blow. My plans might just be for nothing.


17/23

Im sorry Van, but its just not going to work. There just

isnt time.

What do you mean Doc, it has to work.

I guess I had better explain. The eruption and explosion

was about two kilometers from the main Human compound. Aboutfifty percent of the Humans were killed outright or died within the

next two days.

I cant believe what Im hearing. Fifty percent of the

Humans would have been almost two-hundred-fiftypeople.

Not only Humans, as you can see, several of our folks died

as well and the death toll is climbing every day. The atmosphere is

poisoned and will take hundreds of years to be clean enough to

actively support life again. That is if there arent any more

eruptions. And, you and I both know thats not going to happen.

Thats all the more reason get quickly going. That way I

can return for another evacuation.


18/23

No Van, you wont be able to return. At most we have a

few days left. Our science team determined that the next one wouldbe one hundred or even one thousand times stronger than the last

one. By all our calculations, this planets inhabitable zone will cease

to exist.

But what am I going to do? At best I can carry about one-hundred-twenty maybe one-hundred-fifty folks. What about the

rest? Who decides who goes and lives, and who stays and dies? I

cant do that. I really cant.

Its already been decided. Many of the remaining Humans

have voted to stay even in the face of death. They simply believe

that it is Gods will and that they are in his hands. This is their home

and they will live or die here.

But thats not rational! Dont they understand? What about

the others? There could be as many as a hundred that want to leave.

What about them?

Our research has determined that the toxin infection is one-

hundred percent fatal. The Council decided that should you locate


19/23

and prepare the old ship for space flight, no one showing symptoms

of infection would be a passenger. In the last couple of days manymore have become infected. Since we cant be sure if the infection

is spread by physical contact or simply by breathing the air we had

to make a decision. The oxygen scrubbers on the ship can clean the

air. We will have to limit physical contact to those folks showing no

infection. Van, I doubt that youll have as many as one-hundred-fifty total folks when you lift off. You need to leave as soon as

possible. How soon can you go?

We need to get the supplies loaded, transfer the fuel rods,

and download the computer data. Without the computerized star

charts we would be flying blind. If we work through the night and

all day tomorrow we can board and leave tomorrow night.

I just hope we have that much time. Ill put the word out

for all those leaving to come in right away.

Good, Ill supervise preparing for liftoff and you can bring

the people own board when were ready.

No Van, I wont be going along.


20/23

You mean..

Yes, Im afraid so. I am starting to show the symptoms,

headache, nausea, dizziness and rapid heartbeat. I probably have

only about two, possibly three days left. With a quiet sad chuckle

he said. At least Ill be around long enough to see you off.

***

The loading went a little faster than anticipated. By the

middle of the next afternoon we had enough supplies to last several

weeks. If the journey took any longer, well, hopefully it wouldnt.

With the First Officers help all the uninfected passengers

were safely stowed away. After all loading was done we had one-

hundred-twenty-three passengers and a crew of five. At sixteen-

hundred hours we were ready for liftoff. Just as the last of the

passengers were loading the ground started to violently shake. The

intensity of the quakes was growing by the second. It was now or

never.


21/23

Preparing to board I stopped and gave one last glance to our

adopted home. At the edge of the blast off zone stood Doc Jonas,arm lifted in a silent wave. I raised my hand to return the wave and

silently mouthed the words, Goodbye old friend, I going to miss

you terribly. I felt tears begin to form as the airlock slowly closed.

Taking my place on the battle bridge I quickly wiped awayany trace of tears and said. Okay First Officer, take us up to

standard orbit, half thruster.

Roger Captain, he we go.

Within a matter of minutes we had achieved standard

planetary orbit. Through the forward view screen we watched as the

planet below went through quake after massive quake. Suddenly

there was a long string of explosions, at least fifteen or twenty.

Looking toward the First Officer I just shook my head knowing that

nothing could possibly live through that.

Move us to a little farther away Rico; I dont want to take

any chances. Move us to extreme sensor range.


22/23

We were about one-hundred-thousand kilometers away

when the end came. Busy at my console I almost missed the finalblow. With a massive blast half the planet exploded! Stunned, we

simply sat and stared.

The First Officer was the first to speak. My God Captain,

did you see that? Its gone. I cant believe it.

With great sadness and quickly wiping my again damp eyes

I answered. Yes Rico, I saw it. Im afraid their gone. Tranquility

doesnt exist anymore.

Again there was a long silence. It was if no one wanted to be

the first to move on. Finally the first officer spoke. Captain, I

should set a course now, before shock waves reach us. Are we

heading for Terra?

I sat quietly for a few seconds a massive wave of nausea and

dizziness overtook me. After the blinding pain in my head eased up

a little I looked toward the First Officer.


23/23

No Rico, not Terra. Its been over a year since the Torags

came to our system. We dont even know if Terra survived. At H -2its several weeks journey and we simply cant chance it. We need

to find someplace closer.

Roger Captain. But where are we going?

I knew that if any of these people were going to survive this

ship had to reach a suitable planet quickly. Thinking of another

world much like Terra that we had heard so much about, I pointed

toward the forward view screen and the hundreds of twinkling

sparking lights. There First Officer, thats where were going, to

Earth.

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Beyond Hyper Space Book 3- A Chance to Live