The Last Horizon

by Anthony Hartig

  The Zephyr lurched hard to the right and we were thrown against a bulkhead. I staggered awkwardly to my seat and squinted through the canopy at the flickering particle lites from the laser fire outside. A Seeker ripped a huge panel from the Moira’s fuselage and penetrated her hull…

  “Scotty!” I shouted hoarsely. “We need to jettison that goddamn shuttle that’s attached to us or we’re screwed!”

  …a blinding bluish-white light flashed from the Moria--it seemed to pull everything into a vacuum of silence that lasted forever…I held my hands up to shield my eyes and time lapsed into a slow motion drift as jagged shadows danced on the bridge…

  …a fraction of a second, and an internal explosion from the Moria blew out a section of her hull with an orange ball of flame. Something had ignited their O2 generators and she was actually on fire…

  …a secondary blast sent fragments spinning through the darkness and debris clattered loudly against the Zephyr…I looked up and the severed upper body of one of the pirates drifted by the canopy…

  “Oh god!” I cried as I put a hand over my mouth and turned away.

  “Nikki!” Scotty yelled through the mayhem, “What do we need to do?”

  I regained my composure and leaned over the flight panel. “Terminate false load exercise, password: Faraday.” The cabin lights stopped blinking and I double-checked the auto pilot. The drives were still on cruising speed and I could see the Moria Balá slowly pulling away from us with her guns blazing. “Let’s get these two back to their ship and ditch’em!”

  Scotty frisked Grey’s wilted body and fished out my Cobalt. “Nikki, your heater.”

  “Thanks.” I grinned as I holstered my weapon.

  He grabbed Grey roughly and slung him effortlessly over his left shoulder. I flipped Echo over with the intent of dragging her by her arms when I saw where I had shot her. “Gee-zus!”

  “What’s wrong?” Scotty asked as he carried Grey over to where I was standing.

  “She’s a friggin’ AI!” I exclaimed as I stared at the exposed wires still sparking and sticking out of her stomach. Echo’s eyes were still open but the cornea of her left eye was glass black.

  “I’ll be damned.” Scotty scoffed. “Come on, we’d better hurry!”

  The Zephyr pitched sideways and shook hard as we moved Grey and Echo’s bodies through the cargo hold, pushed them back into their shuttle, and closed their access door. I slammed the port hatch and engaged the locks as Scotty and I backed out into the decon chamber.

  “We’re done. Let’s get back to the bridge!” I exhaled.

  We strapped ourselves into our seats as I watched the Moria tangle with the Seekers. Two of them had already attached themselves to their ship and were pulling it apart. Even with the distance between us, we could hear the “Thunks!” of armor-piercing rounds boring through the Moria’s hull as the other battle drones fired their cannons with every high speed pass.

  I leaned forward and slammed my hand on a button that detonated a ceramic ring around the docking port. The Zephyr trembled as the shuttle blew free and floated lifelessly into the void.

  “Hang on, Scotty!” I grabbed the control yoke, pulled back, and banked left as a Seeker took a direct hit from one of the Moria’s pulse cannons, spun wildly by us, and smashed into the shuttle at full speed. We were pushed against our seats as they exploded and the bridge rattled from the blastwave.

  “Son-of-a-bitch that was close!” Scotty shouted over the din.

  “Powering up!”

  “Let’s go! Let’s go!” Scotty drummed his armrests apprehensively.

  “Sequencing!” I hollered. “Going hypersonic!” The drives ramped into a high pitch as we watched the Moria Balá blow up…

  …”HYPERSONIC ENABLED!” I flipped the toggles, reached down and jammed the trim levers forward, and the Zephyr left the chaos behind as she drove into the icy darkness. I adjusted our trajectory and sank into my seat as I put my headset back on and ran a systematic scan to check for damages.

  I was thankful the Zephyr had redundant power source systems; with one of the main cryogen pipes that served the right hypersonic drive ruptured, I had to run a bypass to keep the drives operating. We were hit pretty bad, and I could only run them at three-quarter capacity or run the risk of squelching at full throttle.

  I snickered as I shook my head and looked over at Scotty.

  “Nikki, ya done good!” Scotty smiled as he exhaled loudly.

  “We’ll be at Ceres Vesta in about an hour.”

  “Then?”

  “At the speed were going, we’ll be minutes away from the Pipe.”

  “That was a hell of an experience.”

  “It was nothing compared to where we’re heading.” I nodded. “Scotty, why didn’t you get in the pod and eject?”

  “Not my style, Nikki. I couldn’t leave someone like you behind to face those bandits alone.”

  “Thank you.” I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “It’s nice to know there’s someone watching my back.”

  “You’re welcome.” Scotty blushed. “Don’t get campy on me young lady. I don’t want to get misty-eyed.”

  “You know, I’ve dealt with hijackers before but never face-to-face like that. I’ve always been able to outrun them.”

  “Nasty bunch, but I think it’s safe to say we won’t be seeing them again.”

  “We can always hope.”

  The Ceres Vesta asteroid belt was just ahead of us, and we could see thousands of rocks, chucks of ice, and wreckage from freighters floating by as we cut through the blue and yellow ion clouds that saturated the belt. Ceres Vesta’s outer fringe was a graveyard for freighters and transports.

  “Is that it?” Scott gawked. “Is that the pipe?”

  “Not yet. Ceres Vesta is part of the Pipe’s spin, the field is so dense that most flights avoid this sector because of the obvious threat of collusion with debris or a stone. The only ships that venture this close are usually salvage rats and platinum miners.”

  “If there are salvage and mining teams working this area, don’t you think one of them would have discovered that pipe by now?”

  “Yes, you would think so, but the pipe shows up on scanners as a magnetic anomaly--a huge one. I think the reason everyone avoids the inside region of Ceres Vesta is because the emissions are so strong that pilots think it will fry their instruments.”

  “Will it?”

  “More than likely.”

  “Has it fried the Zephyrs in the past?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. May be they’re protected by the drive’s fields.”

  “How close are we?”

  “Take a look at the VDU and vector scanner.” I pointed. “See that void the asteroid field is rotating around?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s a ghost cavity. It’s the center of the wormhole. We’re fifteen minutes away from the Outer Horizon. In two minutes we’ll be entering its jet at a seventy degree angle.” I concentrated on dodging the husk of a large freighter that was adrift. “When we hit the barrier you’re going to feel some turbulence when we merge into the stream. Don’t panic, it’s just tidal gravitational force. I’m going to throttle-up and we’re going with the flow.”

  Scotty was silent again. He gazed at the passing ion clouds as we neared the Pipe’s jet.

  “I’m going to need you to stay calm, Scotty,” I said reassuringly, “especially when we breach the Event Horizon and push into Singularity; you’re going to feel a little strange on a physiological level, but don’t freak out, okay?”

  “What do you mean by “feel a little strange”?”

  “I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just an eerie sensation, and your eyes may play tricks on you. It’s not unpleasant, it’s just different. Are you ready?”

  “I can hardly wait.”

  “Don’t be a wiseass. Brace yourself, we enter the jet in 4…3…2…1…and…”

  The Zep
hyr reeled sideways and the cabin lights blinked as we were rocked in our seats. I pushed the levers on the center console slowly forward and ramped the drives up, they were almost at a hundred percent capacity, and I was comforted by their drone as the ship stabilized. I quietly stared out the canopy at the thin layers of ions in their shimmering blue dance against the darkness as we entered the Pipe’s jet.

  “Outer event in ten.” I dimmed the overhead lights. “Romantic, eh?” I smiled.

  “Who’s being the wiseass now?”

  “Clearly you can’t be talking about me?” I said innocently.

  “You’ve come a long way from that farm, Nikki. Can I ask you something?”

  “As long as I don’t have to answer it.” I smirked.

  “How did you get into this line of work?”

  “There was a guy I used to date a couple of years ago. He was a weapons runner. His lifestyle fascinated me. He made a lot of money with every run, and his stories were exciting. He was exciting. The places he’d been, and the people he’d met. I wanted that life--that excitement. I wanted that edge.”

  “Are you still together?”

  “He vanished over a year ago. No one knows what happened to him. Possible hijacking by pirates.”

  “Sorry Nikki.”

  “Don’t worry about it. He knew the risks that came with the job.”

  “And still you do this?”

  “It’s all about the edge.” I grinned. “Here we go…”

  Date: 6-24-2408 / Time: 01300 hours / Velocity: 4.43HsD

  …I reached down again and pulled the drive levers back to trim their thrust output. We were already accelerating at an alarming rate in the jet. A huge blackness defined itself ahead of us, its border was illuminated by thousands of points of light in a rapid orbit…

  …the instrument panels began to flicker as alarms sounded off with a loud buzz. There seemed to be a hollow reverberation ringing throughout the bridge--a loud humming noise that consumed the senses…

  Date: 6-24-2408 / Time: 01307 hours / Velocity: 5.8HsD

  …the Zephyr had surpassed the maximum escape velocity she could do under her own power; we were now at the mercy of the Pipe. The ion clouds were gone, and we were engulfed in darkness and being pulled into the great void…

  …the points of light outside began to merge as they passed by in streaks. Outer event had been penetrated, and we were still accelerating…

  Date: 6-24-2408 / Time: 01309 hours / Velocity: 7.3HsD

  …the gyroscope began to spin wildly as we breached the Inner Horizon. The scanners were glitching on and off, and there was an immense silence that pervaded the cockpit. The hum of the drives, the beeps and buzzes of audio alarms, and the dull drone of the O2 generators--all sounds were pulled into total silence.

  Read-outs on the VDU’s were frozen, and all the loose gear in the overhead stowage racks drifted to the ceiling…my fedora floated off the console…

  Date: 6-24-2408 / Time: 01309 hours / Velocity: 9.25HsD

  …we punched through the photon sphere of the Event Horizon and the lighting in the bridge took on a surreal tint; a diffused glow that cast strange shadows on the walls, like the peculiar shadows that one only sees during an eclipse. Other worldly. Even the lights of the instrument panels glittered brighter than normal…

  …I had the sensation of being stretched, and when I looked up at the cockpit canopy, I saw the back of my own head…

  Date: 6-24-2408 / Time: 01309 hours / Velocity: unknown

  …everything seemed distorted as we approached the center…Singularity. It was difficult for me to focus my eyes and I felt like I was suspended in time…the hallucination of being frozen against a wall of ice--cold and unattached to my body.

  There was no gravitational force and yet everything felt like it was being pulled in the same direction…everything seemed warped…floating aimlessly through time. I turned and told Scotty we were almost there, but I couldn’t hear my voice. The cabin and panel lights had blacked-out and we were in complete darkness.

  The Pipe was quiet. Dead quiet.

  Date: 6-24-2408 / Time: 01309 hours / Velocity: unknown

  Suddenly, everything snapped back on, the cabin lights illuminated the bridge, and everything that was floating dropped to the floor. There was a blinding flash of light, and I held up my hands to shield my eyes. A split second, and I was pushed into my seat hard.

  The alarms blared as I grabbed the yoke, and the Zephyr rattled. I looked up just in time to see the Medusa system ahead. The gravity fields of the Pipe launched us through space like a marble fired from a slingshot, and within a matter of seconds we punched through Medusa’s heliosphere.

  I began a vector scan to confirm our trajectory to Nexus as I stabilized the Zephyr. To our right, we saw Jain 134; a huge blue-green planet with four moons. It was gorgeous and I could see the rays of Medusa’s sun pierce its horizon as we passed.

  “Scotty, are you okay?”

  “I can’t believe we’re alive.” Scotty gazed through the canopy and sank into his seat.

  “Four minutes to Nexus. I hope Kurlie’s people are paying attention.”

  “Just like that? We’re actually in a different solar system now?”

  “Yes, we’re in Medusa, over three parsecs from home.” I replied.

  “How long would this flight have taken if we didn’t go through that wormhole?”

  “About ten weeks, give or take a few days, depending on our speed. A definite hypersleep voyage.”

  Scotty looked at his wristwatch. “Do you realize it’s still the same time now that it was when we were on the other side of that thing?”

  “So what’s your point?”

  “Just a thought, but did it ever occur to you that every time you went through the Pipe to shave weeks off your schedule that time froze for you?”

  “Froze?”

  “Yes, the ten weeks you just saved; I think you and I may not have aged, but everyone else did. Everyone we know is now ten weeks older.”

  “May be that’s why things seemed a bit off with people whenever I got back from a run.”

  “It’s a possibility.”

  “This conversation is making my head hurt, and your inner geek is showing. Are you always such a pain?”

  We looked at each other and started laughing hard. We needed the levity badly. This was the only time I’ve had a passenger on a run, and I was glad I wasn’t alone for the journey. Scotty had saved my life, and now he saved my sanity.

  Nexus filled the canopy. It was a little larger than Earth but had two moons. I’ve always been struck by the view of planets from space; seeing the landmasses that made continents beneath the swirl of clouds within its atmosphere from afar was my favorite part of every flight.

  I lit the thrusters and ramped down the drives. The sound of the rockets was always a welcome noise to me. I brought the Zephyr out of hypersonic flight as we eased into Nexus’ exosphere where a blue halo surrounded the planet. We were traveling at Mach 6 and I held us in a high orbital pass over the hemisphere that was just receiving the first rays of morning light.

  I retracted the hypersonic drive spawnsons and engaged the heat shields. “It’s late afternoon in Fluture right now. We’ll be dropping into atmosphere once I pick up the signal from Kurlie’s clients. They’ll give us the final coordinates for landing. Better put our flight helmets back on.”

  “Because of the nature of this flight, I’ll assume we’re not going to land at Fluture Stellar?”

  “Probably not, but you never know with these people.”

  I checked the scanners when the VDU lit up and the image of an older man with dark hair and glasses appeared. He had a headset on with a small microphone, and his expression was solemn.

  “Blue Zephyr, copy.”

  “Roger, Blue Zephyr copies.” I responded dryly.

  “I have you on panel. Confirm identification: “Swamp”.

  “Blue Zephyr confirms: “Fever”.

&nb
sp; “Welcome to Nexus, Ms. Wells. You should be receiving a beacon transmission in a moment. Set your final coordinates to that point. You are thirty-five hundred miles northwest of Fluture. Drop your speed to Mach 4 and maintain your altitude. Have you received the transmission?”

  “Got it!” I smiled. “Transmission received and coordinates plotted.” I disengaged the autopilot and slowly began to decelerate.

  “Very good Zephyr. Maintain course until further instruction.”

  “10-4. Thank you, Fluture.”

  I exhaled and enjoyed the warmth of the sunlight. Within the hour, the Zephyr would be over the North Icarus continent and entering twilight as we neared the city.

  “Are you going to have a place to stay when you get there?”

  “Yes. Everything has been arranged for me. How about you?”

  “I’ve got to tend to the damages to my ship. I’ll figure it out from there, but I am planning on hitting the dance clubs.” I glanced slyly at Scotty. “Think you’ll have time to join me some time?”

  “I’ll be around.” Scotty smiled as he turned his attention to his SCaT Pad.

  The VDU chirped again, and our contact reappeared. “Blue Zephyr, copy.”

  “Blue Zephyr copies.”

  “Drop altitude to forty-five thousand feet and change heading to thirty-three minutes southwest.”

  The signal from the beacon grew stronger as we descended rapidly through the troposphere. It was a clear evening and there was a slight breeze coming from the east. I turned on the composite satellite image of the terrain below us as I made the changes to our flight path as instructed.

  “Blue Zephyr, drop your altitude to fifteen thousand feet, bring your airspeed to subsonic, and hold your course.”

  “10-4 Fluture, fifteen thousand feet.” The sky took on a gold and blue tint as the sun dipped below the horizon and gave the windswept clouds the violet color of evening. We were over a mountainous region, and we quietly looked at the shadows stretching over the landscape as Fluture city lights appeared in the distance.

  “Zephyr, drop down to forty-three hundred feet and drop your speed to four hundred knots.”

  “Roger, forty-three hundred.” I responded as I nosed the ship down.