Chapter 4
1802 Words
Chapter Four
Daniel walked onto the bridge. He almost walked too fast and collided with the door. Thankfully, it moved up and out of the way in the nick of time. It would have been embarrassing to hit his forehead on the automatic door and come stumbling onto the bridge on his behind.
“Captain,” Ben said.
Daniel nodded to his first officer. “Thank you, Ben.”
Everyone else was silent. Zach didn’t even look back at Daniel, though he did adjust his bowtie before putting his hands back on the helm. Shawn glanced at Daniel from the corner of his eye, then his eyes shifted back to his navigation computer. He stopped to stroke his black beard as he began keying things back into the computer.
“Well,” Daniel said, running his hands through his slicked back dirty blond hair, “this is quite the warm welcome.”
Zach grumbled something unintelligible from his pilot’s seat.
“Are we there yet?” Daniel asked.
“We’re another five minutes from exiting hyper speed,” Shawn said.
“Are we there now?” Daniel asked.
“You’re as bad as a toddler,” Shawn mumbled.
“Excuse me, Shawn...but how would you know? You don’t have any children.”
Shawn glanced over at Daniel. “I do have a little sister, you know.”
“No, in fact, I did not know. Thank you very much,” Daniel stated.
“And no. I won’t introduce her to you. She’s off limits.”
“Wait...how old is she?”
“Forget I mentioned it,” Shawn said.
“The way you made her sound, I thought she was like a toddler.”
“Well,” Shawn said, “she was once.”
“So she’s all grown up now?”
“She’s in the space academy and far away from here, thankfully.”
“Are you implying I’m a bad influence?”
Shawn blinked. “Are you implying that you’re not?”
“Absolutely. I’m like the best influence anyone could have.”
“It sounds like you’re rambling.”
“I am,” Daniel admitted. “Are we there yet?”
Shawn keyed the panel once more, then grabbed a large joystick.
“Zach, coming out of hyper space in fifteen.”
“Fifteen what?” Daniel asked.
“Fourteen.”
“Donuts? Because I could totally use a donut right now,” Daniel said.
“Thirteen.”
“You forgot fourteen.”
“No I didn’t, you were talking. Eleven.”
Daniel huffed then sat in his captain’s chair. Once Shawn’s countdown dropped to one, Zach pulled his own controller back as he frantically pressed buttons. It was like he was fighting a boss in a video game. The controller was similar too. Video games, after all, were just training for spaceship navigation and piloting.
“Captain,” Shawn said.
“Yes?”
“We’re there.”
“Nice,” Daniel said.
“We are now in the 24735 System.”
“How many planets?”
“Unbelievable.”
“Yes, I am,” Daniel said. “But that’s not what I asked.”
“There are sixteen planets in this solar system.”
“Sixteen?” Daniel asked.
“Correct.”
“Wow. That’s like one more than fifteen.”
“It’s more than double earth’s own solar system.”
“More than double? Earth’s solar system has nine planets. It’s less than double. Double would be eighteen.”
“Pluto isn’t considered a planet anymore,” Shawn said.
“Your face isn’t considered a planet anymore.”
“What?” Shawn asked.
“Nothing. I just really like Pluto. I’ve visited the colony on there. Life on Pluto is quite interesting. Some years are longer than others.”
Shawn shook his head like a wet dog.
“Still, eight planets times two is sixteen. So, it’s exactly double the amount of planets from earth’s own solar system. Not more than double.”
Shawn furrowed his brows.
“Uranus is still considered a planet, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, if a somewhat smelly one,” Shawn admitted.
“Ha ha. Very funny. Wait, did you just make a joke?”
“Oh no. You’re rubbing off on me,” Shawn groaned.
Daniel grinned.
“See? Bad influence.”
“Sir,” Zach said.
“Yes, Zach?”
“We’re approaching a storm.”
“A storm?”
“Yes, sir. It looks like a hurricane.”
“A hurricane? We’re in space, Zach, not the Gulf of Mexico.”
“Nonetheless, it looks exactly like a category three hurricane on our radar.”
“Is it stationary?” Daniel asked.
“Negative. It’s moving toward us at fifteen miles an hour.”
“Time before impact?”
“Ten minutes.”
Daniel smacked his forehead. “Are you saying we just came out of hyperspace into the path of a space hurricane?”
“I guess?” Zach said.
“Space hurricane? Good grief. What’s next… a space tsunami? Space fire?”
Zach shrugged.
“And what makes you think it’s a space hurricane? Wouldn’t it be a space tornado? After all, there are no oceans in space.”
“There shouldn’t be atmosphere either for the tornados we’re accustomed to,” Zach said.
Daniel scratched his nose. “So, what exactly is this hurricane made of?”
“Unknown sir. It’s possible it’s dark energy or dark matter.”
“What’s the difference again?” Daniel asked.
“Do we have time for a lecture?” Ben asked.
“Right,” Daniel said. “What are our options?”
“Hyper speed through it doesn’t seem like a good idea. With the strong currents of the dark matter, there’s no telling where it’ll throw us at those speeds. We don’t have enough room to turn around, and going backwards isn’t a speedy option with how our thrusters work.”
“Okay, these are all great things of what we can’t do...what about—“
“Going through the center is likely a bad idea. Since it seems to be similar to a hurricane, there is an eye at the center that seems stable, but the speed of dark matter around the eye is traveling at very high speeds.”
“If this was a hurricane, what would you say the speed of the winds would be?” Daniel asked.
“The outer bands are traveling at sixty miles per hour, but the ones closer to the center are moving at almost ninety miles an hour.”
“That would kick us like an empty soda can,” Daniel whispered.
“Captain,” Ben said, “I think our best bet would be to angle our ship to hit the space hurricane’s left side. It’s rotating counterclockwise. If we angle our ship to the left, we’ll hit some of the weaker bands, and we’ll get caught in the momentum of it pushing us away from its center.”
“Interesting theory.”
“Sir,” Zach asked.
“Proceed as Ben suggested.”
“Yes, sir.”
Zach grabbed his controller and began frantically pushing buttons. The Ghost jerked to the left, slamming Daniel into the right side of his chair. Gritting his teeth, he looked for his seatbelt.
“Remind me to never let you drive,” Daniel muttered.
Before he could get another coherent thought out, he could feel the dark matter pushing against the back of the spaceship. The velocity of the Ghost increased by more than four. The Ghost was a fast ship, but it was a smooth ship.
Not anymore.
There was nothing smooth about being pushed by a dark matter hurricane. It wasn’t a straight push, but the bridge wobbled left, right, up, and down. Zach was holding onto his controller steady, trying to keep them balanced, but the momentum of the storm was too much.
Sixty to eighty miles an hour was nothing for the Ghost. It shouldn’t affect the spaceship so much, but dark matter was something else entirely. It did something extra that normal wind wouldn’t.
The lights flickered on the Ghost. For several minutes, besides the rough terrain of being slung back and forth. For some, that meant being tossed on the ground. Those fools hadn’t found their seatbelts.
Daniel finally found his and clicked it.
“Click it or ticket,” he muttered.
The lights went off. Inside a cloud of dark matter, there was no light. The view screen was black. Solar panels couldn’t detect starlight. And for some reason, the battery backup ceased to work.
“Uh oh,” Daniel said, “someone forgot to pay their power bill.”
“That would be you,” Shawn said.
“I guess I should have taken up the offer for my spaceship’s extended warranty.”
“Naw, those things only ever cover batteries and alternators,” Ben said.
“Well, crap. Wait a minute...our batteries are out.”
“Perhaps it would have been helpful then,” Ben admitted.
“Winds are fading,” Zach said.
The bridge was filled with silence. Whistling echoed outside of the spaceship as the dark matter swirled around the Ghost.
“The dark matter is too strong, I can’t hold onto this path for much longer,” Zach said.
“Stay on target,” Shawn said.
Daniel’s eyes widened and he glanced around, expecting to find a TIE fighter following them.
“Another two minutes and we’ll be out of the worst of it,” Shawn said.
“It’s too strong,” Zach said.
“Stay on target,” Shawn said.
A small white circle flickered on the view screen, then disappeared. Daniel’s heart slammed into his throat. That white objected looked awfully familiar. And it didn’t look like a moon.
“We’re almost there,” Shawn said.
“Winds are easing off,” Zach said.
“Hold steady.”
“Turning off thrusters,” Shawn said.
Daniel glanced over to Shawn.
“Thrusters off, allowing the storm’s momentum to sling us forward. Keep our drive shaft steady, Zach.”
Zach smiled. “It looks like we made it.”
Daniel laughed. “Look how far we’ve come, my baby.”
“What?” Zach said.
“Never mind. Keep holding steady.”
“And we’re through,” Shawn said. “The dark matter storm is behind us.”
“Excellent,” Daniel said, tapping his fingers against each other.
“Thrusters back online,” Shawn said.
“Good,” Daniel said. “Let’s put some distance between us and that storm.”
“Um...captain?”
“Yes?” Daniel asked.
“We’ve lost everything but impulse speed.”
“No...” Daniel said, rubbing his hands on his face. He glanced down to his watch, then tapped it. “Call engineering.”
Phillip came on screen. The lights looked to still be off where he was as well.
“Yes, Captain?” Phillip asked.
“Status?”
“Status of what?”
Daniel blinked. “Everything.”
“Sir, there are way too many problems down here in engineering for me to list them all. What is it you’re needing?”
“Lights would be nice for a start.”
“The dark energy drained all of our batteries.”
“When will they be recharged?” Daniel asked.
Phillip shook his head. “No, you don’t understand. They drained all the batteries. Completely. They will no longer hold a charge.”
“What?” Daniel’s jaw dropped.
“All our batteries are garbage. We need to make all new ones.”
“Do we have material to do that?”
Phillip shrugged. “A little, but we’ll only be able to replace a ship wide eighteen percent of batteries and power cells.”
“Brilliant. So, what’s that mean for our return trip?”
“I’m not going to lie, Captain. If we cannot find natural resources to create and replenish our batteries, it’s going to be rough. We’ll be hard pressed to make it back.”
“Are these batteries the main problem?” Daniel asked.
“For lights? Yes.”
“What about travel? Navigation tells me we can only access impulse speed.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s an even larger problem.”
Daniel rubbed his eyebrows. “Great. What do we need to get our speed back?”
“Well, all of our crystals have been depleted. We have reserves of course, but those reserves will only get us to the inner planets. It isn’t likely it’ll get us out of this solar system.”
“So, what you’re saying is we’re trapped here?”
“We could return...but it would take generations.”
“This is not a generations ship. This is an exploratory ship. We need to be able to return home with hyper speed in a matter of days or weeks...not generations.”
“I’m sorry, captain. But without the proper crystals we need...it’ll be impossible.”
“And where are likely places we could find these crystals?”
“Well, we could run scans on the surfaces of the planets and moons of this solar system. It is likely we can find some on the surface, or under the surface.”
Daniel scratched his chin. “It looks like you have an ‘or’ coming.”
“Or we could search for a local asteroid belt. Most of these crystals we get from our asteroid miners.”
“Bloody asteroids,” Daniel said. “I thought we were done with them.”
“I know, sir.”
“Very well. Begin your scans for local asteroid belts.”
“Yes, captain.”
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