The Great Beyond

by A. K. DuBoff

  “Thanks,” Paul replied.

  After a few minutes, the young scientist began babbling.

  “Calm down, deep breaths… Now, repeat whatever you just said,” Paul ordered.

  “Colonel, the computer says that the radius of this ring is 12 kilometers. This thing is huge!” Horovitz said in awe.

  Adjusting the ship’s angle again, Paul gave them their first look at the center of the metallic ring. The center of the ring had an inky blackness that managed to be a darker shade than the voids of space around it. On his sensors, the darkness had a wave-like quality to it that mesmerized Paul, while simultaneously grabbing him with a cold foreboding.

  “This can’t be real,” Horovitz gasped.

  “Why? Strange metal rings are staples of science fiction,” Paul replied.

  “What? The ring? No, humanity could build one of those now,” Horovitz said dismissively.

  “Then what?” Paul asked.

  “It’s what’s inside the ring,” Horovitz said.

  The pause grew longer, and Paul began to worry that he wouldn’t finish the thought. He was about to ask him to continue when Horovitz spoke again.

  “There’s an event horizon. They’ve caged lightning… John Archibald Wheeler was right. That’s a kugelblitz!” Horovitz exclaimed.

  “A what?”

  “A kugelblitz,” Horovitz replied in irritation. “Whoever built this caged a black hole. They’ve warped spacetime!”

  “What does that mean? Barney style, remember?” Paul asked.

  “Think of it as a bridge between two points in space. In theory, if we entered the event horizon, we would travel to the other side and exit in a different point in space,” Horovitz said slowly.

  “How do you know this?”

  “I wrote my thesis on Dr. Wheeler’s paper, Geons, when I was a grad student. What he speculated… it’s right in front of us,” Horovitz said, his enthusiasm lending him an almost giddy tone.

  “Okay, so what do we do now?” Paul asked. “Without the Mixon Drive, we’re not going home any time soon. We’re light-years away—we’ll die before our ship returns to Terra Firma.”

  “Only thing we can do.” Horovitz stared grimly at the ring. “We enter the event horizon.”

  —

  Location: Boyajian's Star, Milky Way Galaxy

  Maneuvering toward the massive ring took time. Making minute changes to their orientation, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Cooley continually adjusted their course.

  “Can we speed this up?” Horovitz asked.

  “If you’re right, this ring is a tunnel through space. So, we need the Z-480 to enter the ring head-on,” Paul replied. “If not, we might come out the other side slamming into the ring.”

  After answering the young scientist, Paul continued moving the shuttle closer to the kugelblitz. When he achieved the perfect alignment with the metallic ring, he gently pushed the throttle forward. With the increased thrust, the Z-480 started accelerating at alarming rates.

  Their craft started shaking. It felt like the vehicle was going to rattle itself apart, bolt by bolt. And then, bolts did begin to work themselves loose. Screws dropped onto his lap, inertial gravity driving the pieces of metal downward. Sirens and alerts went off, adding a layer of flotsam to the river of chaos Paul was attempting to ford.

  “The ring… it’s sucking us in,” Paul shouted, his eyes never leaving the computer panels as he fought to maintain control.

  When Horovitz didn’t say anything, Paul grunted and continued trying to reverse the thrust of the shuttle to slow their approach. None of it made a difference; the Z-480 kept picking up speed.

  “Horovitz, flip the—”

  Time froze and a stillness settled over the shuttle for a brief second. Paul never finished his statement. Space outside the shuttle blurred into nothingness, only disturbed by the groaning of the metallic polymers that composed the hull of their craft. He could only observe what was happening. He couldn’t move, the pressure pushing him back into his seat. He was a hostage to the moment, watching silently as he waited to find out what was on the other side of the caged lightening they’d chosen to ride.

  Paul didn’t know how long he sat there, glued to his chair. One minute he felt a crushing pressure trying to squeeze the life out of him and the next it was over. The light of hundreds of stars replaced darkness as the Z-480 returned to real space.

  “Find out where we are,” Paul ordered the scientist sitting next to him.

  “What? How?” asked the befuddled Horovitz as he stared blankly at the terminal in front of him.

  “The stars— Use them to figure out where we are. Use solar navigation,” Paul said soothingly, his finger pointing to the navigation terminal to the doctor’s right.

  It didn’t take long for Horovitz to report back. “The computer doesn’t recognize any of it. We’re out past any known star charts, so the navigation algorithms can’t interpret these solar configurations.”

  Nodding his head, Paul began scanning the area. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, exactly. He was hoping to find salvation among these new stars, as unlikely as those prospects were. Scanning the space around the Z-480, he found nothing… until blips began appearing on their radar.

  “Are you seeing this?” Paul asked.

  “Yes, they’re registering as… unknown space objects,” Horovitz replied.

  “Couldn’t you just say UFO? Might as well go for the cool factor,” Paul said.

  “Are they flying? We’re in space; there’s no atmosphere for flight,” Horovitz replied.

  Any further conversation was cut off by more alerts going off on their command screens.

  “It’s the engine. We’ve got a serious containment leak,” Horovitz said as he unbuckled.

  While the young scientist floated back to the rear of the shuttle, Paul began toggling through the sensor readings. He needed to make sense of what his onboard computer was seeing. While he was going through the screens to search for any data that he could find on the unidentified ships that sat just beyond visual range, they started moving. The movement caught his eye, drawing his entire focus to the cockpit window in front of him.

  “How the hell are you moving so fast?” he whispered to himself.

  He quickly reacted to the unnaturally swift approach of the strange craft, toggling through his screens again to recheck the readings. Before he’d made it to the third screen to check for anomalous heat emissions, his screens froze.

  “Horovitz, the damn computer froze up again. Can you fix it?” Paul shouted over his shoulder.

  “Did you try turning it off and on again?” Horovitz asked in reply.

  Cursing to himself, Paul leaned forward and slapped the side of the command terminal. Turn it off, my ass, he thought to himself as he hit the monitor again. It worked, causing the screen to react briefly. A slight waver shimmered through the frozen screen, accompanied by a strange humming sound. It gave Paul the briefest moment of hope before the terminal started rapidly flashing through every setting.

  “Ummm, Horovitz,” Paul said nervously.

  Before he could say anything else, the ship noticeably shuddered. The ever-present hum from the onboard star engine power plant was noticeably absent. They were dead in the water, the cockpit’s only illumination the red emergency lights. Looking up, he could see the strange ships had stopped right next to the Z-480. Close enough that the ship filled the entire cockpit window.

  “Bold choice, stranger,” Paul whispered as he took in the orange and yellow pattern of the alien ship.

  When the ship didn’t immediately power back up, he hollered back to the scientist. “We’ve got a situation here, Horovitz. We need you to power back up! Not the time to play games!”

  The urgency in his tone got through to the preoccupied scientist. “I didn’t do that. I thought you did?”

  When Paul’s only reply was to let out a stream of curses, Horovitz floated back into the cockpit.

  “See that s
hip outside the window? Yeah, it looks like I was right about that UFO,” Paul told Horovitz.

  Horovitz strapped himself into his terminal and attempted to restart the ship, ignoring Paul’s verbal jab. None of his actions over the toggles or switches had any effect. After several tense seconds, the consoles flickered again before booting back up—streams of data flooded through their screens. The text quickly flashed by, barely giving them time to decipher the information before it disappeared.

  “Are you seeing this?” Horovitz whispered.

  “Yeah, our ship is glitching,” Paul replied.

  “No, it isn’t. Did you see what was flashing across our screens?” Horovitz whispered.

  “No, it was too fast,” Paul replied.

  “Looks like that other ship is in control because we certainly aren’t. It’s the only thing that makes sense. The screens started switching from our code and language to something I didn’t recognize. They’re learning our language and technology. Their invasion into our programming code is teaching them,” Horovitz said.

  “That’s bad?” Paul asked.

  “If they’re bent on intergalactic conquest, it could be,” replied the scientist.

  Paul wasn’t sure what to say; instead, he stood and drifted back toward the supply locker. Grabbing the survival gear, he quickly added it to the webbing on his bulky spacesuit. Once his kit was situated, he turned and started shoving equipment into the hands of the startled scientist.

  “Glad I added an emergency pioneer kit. I was a good Boy Scout; I planned for the worst,” Paul said.

  “Huh?” Horovitz asked, still in shock.

  “If we had to, we could survive by landing on any habitable planet. We might need these things with these aliens,” Paul said grimly.

  “But what am I supposed to do with these weapons?” Horovitz dumbfoundedly repeated.

  “Not die. You’re supposed not to die,” Paul said before floating back towards the cockpit.

  The Z-480 lurched before he could strap into the seat, slamming him into the terminal near the main entrance hatch. He fought against the pain, ignoring the pinpricks of light that danced across his vision. When his head cleared, Paul saw that their ship was being pulled toward the strange vessel.

  “They’re bringing us onto their ship,” he said grimly. “Some sort of tractor beam.”

  Their ship lurched again, yanked to and fro by the invisible grapple. Only the padding against the wall of the shuttle passageway prevented injury from the sudden movement. The longer this went on, the angrier Paul got. He started muttering every vulgarity he’d learned in the Marine Corps, stopping only when the young scientist grabbed his arm.

  “Let’s see what they do before you start shooting,” Horovitz cautioned.

  Neither of them said anything else as the unseen force towed them ever closer to the alien vessel. Time slowed as their small proof of concept craft was dragged into the unknown.

  “Fuck, what’s taking them so long?” Paul demanded.

  “Even aliens have to follow the laws of physics,” Horovitz replied, his voice devoid of emotion.

  Impatient and unwilling to twiddle his thumbs while he waited, Paul went through each of the weapons that he’d attached to his gear. He made sure that his blade could be easily removed from the sheath, the secondary weapon firmly slung upside down on his chest harness. After ensuring that his carbine was locked and loaded, but with no round in the chamber, he drifted over and repeated the procedure with Horovitz.

  Once they’d prepared as much as they could, they both floated back toward the cockpit. The young scientist resumed his efforts to regain control of their craft, to no avail.

  “It isn’t going to work,” Paul told him. “We need to get back to the exit and prepare to make a stand.”

  They drifted back out of the cockpit when the Z-480 suddenly encountered gravitic distortions, unceremoniously dropping them onto the deck.

  “That’s not supposed to be possible,” Horovitz said as he struggled to regain his footing.

  Ignoring the young scientist, Paul stood and noticed that the weight from his gear seemed more oppressive than he remembered it.

  “Either the gravity is stronger than Earth, or we’ve been in zero-g for too long,” he told Horovitz.

  Clank.

  The dull thud sent a rippled vibration throughout the ship, bringing Paul’s attention back to what was going on outside of their vessel. Looking out the cockpit window, he saw that they were inside an empty compartment. Has to be a shuttle bay, he thought as he scanned his surroundings. The walls that constrained their ship were painted in the same yellow-orange color as they’d seen from the outer hull.

  “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Horovitz,” he said.

  “We were never in Kansas. Who the hell wants to be in Kansas?” Horovitz asked, distracted.

  Glancing over, Paul saw that Horovitz was fiddling with the gear attached to his bulky spacesuit.

  “You break it, you buy it,” Paul told the scientist. “Now, leave your gear alone.”

  “Sure,” Horovitz replied, still fiddling with it.

  Grunting, Paul dismissed his navigator and took in what he could see of the cavernous compartment where they’d landed. While he took in his surroundings, he clamped on his helmet and gestured for Horovitz to do the same.

  “Let’s go,” Paul said, dragging his companion toward the exit hatch. When they got there, he took up the best defensive stance he could manage in the confines of the shuttle and waited. And waited. When the small HUD on his helmet told him several minutes had passed, he turned to the scientist.

  “Horovitz, go see if you can run some scans. What’s on the other side of this hatch. Atmo? And how close to Earth’s gravity are we? Get me something useful.”

  While the scientist scurried back toward the cockpit, Paul waited. After a few minutes, with nothing happening outside, he walked over toward Horovitz.

  “Anything?”

  “No, and I still can’t control the ship. Unfortunately, I didn’t bring any personal computers to use as an interface medium either,” Horovitz replied.

  “Roger, then we need to take the fight to them.”

  “Can’t we just stay on the ship?”

  “And do what? Should we wait until we run out of supplies, and I have to suck-start my service rifle after splattering your brains all over the cockpit window?”

  “That doesn’t sound pleasant,” Horovitz muttered.

  Without saying another word, Paul turned and advanced toward the rear airlock while he unslung his rifle. He waited for the pressure to equalize—again, higher than conditions on Earth, but within the rated tolerances of the suit. Grasping the handle, he opened the door and observed as much of the exterior compartment as he could—which wasn’t much; the Z-480 was positioned with its hatch facing an ominous grey bulkhead.

  “No time like the present,” Paul whispered as he tightened his grip on his rifle.

  With a resigned sigh, he cautiously peeked his head out the shuttle. There was no movement in either direction, so he exited the vessel. After clumsily clearing the drop ladder, he spun toward the rear. Scanning as he moved, he took in the massive compartment. Advancing toward the back of his vessel, he saw that the area could comfortably house a dozen Phoenix Stations, but it sat empty.

  “Right, time to find the hatches that lead into this ship,” he muttered.

  As he spoke, he noticed three exits that almost blended into the walls of the alien ship. Two of them were over four hundred feet away, so Paul prioritized the one that was closer to their shuttle. It was still over two-hundred-fifty feet, which damn near seemed like a half-mile trek in the higher gravity. Walking around to the front of the Z-480, Paul opens the emergency exit that sat under the cockpit.

  “You coming, or do you wanna stay here by yourself and hope for the best?”

  Horovitz yelped, surprised that his secure cockpit had been breached and seemed to be on the verge of hyperventilatin
g. After taking a few breaths that sounded remarkably like what Paul had suffered through during his wife’s Lamaze class, Horovitz answered. “Wait for me!”

  It didn’t take his companion long to rejoin him. Once the scientist was standing in front of him, Paul harshly addressed the man. “Stay behind me, watch our rear, and keep up.”

  After he adjusted how Horovitz held his rifle, Paul turned and started toward the nearest exit with his own weapon held at the low ready. While he was in the best shape he’d ever been in, he found advancing through the heavier gravity physically draining. By the time he’d reached the exit closest to his shuttle, he was short of breath. His navigator was as exhausted as he was, and Paul had to slow down so Horovitz could catch up.

  “Horovitz, use your whiz-bang brain to open this hatch,” Paul ordered.

  “It doesn’t quite work that way,” Horovitz mumbled as he shuffled forward.

  While the scientist worked on the hatch, Paul stood to watch. The compartment, one that he’d dubbed Hangar Bay Alpha, appeared empty. However, an instinct born from years of training told him that he was being watched. A sense of foreboding settled over him. Simultaneously, a tingling sensation ran up the back of his neck, causing an involuntary shiver.

  Turning suddenly, he finally saw the movement that his gut had sensed was there. Every surface of the compartment was covered with a thin layer of swarming robots. They looked like a drunken fool had crossbred metallic ants and spiders. A thing out of his nightmares, but there wasn’t anything Paul could do to stop them.

  “They’re swarming our ride,” he said, tapping Horovitz on the shoulder. “You better hurry up!”

  “Just shoot them. It’s what you Marines are good for!”

  “I don’t have that many rounds,” Paul replied. “Get that god damned hatch open!”

  Bouncing from one foot to the other, Paul kept an anxious eye on the robots as they quickly digested his shuttle. He almost jumped when Horovitz tapped him on the shoulder. Pushing back the wave of panic that threatened to overwhelm him, he turned his back on the threat. It was difficult; every screaming instinct told him to engage the threat. To eliminate the enemy.