The temperature feels like negative one hundred and seems to be getting colder. You hope the source of the distress signal can be located soon.
“Over here,” Kim says, standing at the edge of some deep pit in the rugged terrain.
“What did you find?” Commander Noble hurries over.
“I’ll let you see for yourself.”
You and John Luke peer over the edge, and you can barely make out what appears to be half a spaceship buried in the ground.
“I think I might have seen something like that on the TV show Lost in Space,” you tell them.
No one replies. Even John Luke gives you a blank stare on that one.
Hey, you gotta keep things light. Levity sure beats negativity.
The incline of this pit you’re standing by is steep, and it’s probably thirty or forty feet deep.
“We need a couple of people to go down there with cables and check it out,” Commander Noble says. “The rest of us will stay up here.”
Do you investigate the crashed spaceship? Go here.
Do you stay up on the edge of the pit and play it safe? Go here.
SKYFALL
YOU BLINK and it seems like ten years have passed since you chose to use the cyclone thrusters.
Actually, they have.
You’re living on the planet of Sautersaurus, which is a handful to say but a beautiful place to live. It’s one big tropical island. Unfortunately, there are no all-inclusive resorts on this planet. Just a strange tribe of alien creatures called the Suffercronites. They most closely resemble trolls. Adorable trolls, but still—a whole planet of trolls.
But, alas, Jack. You gotta adjust.
These were the ones to save you when the cyclone thrusters got out of control and your ship crashed. Only you and John Luke survived.
The Suffercronites nursed you back to health, and for John Luke, things worked out pretty well. He’s married now to an alien troll called Effersnozz.
Every day you think of the critical decision you made.
The stupid cyclone thrusters. How could you know they’d send you a billion miles away from Earth?
Once you and John Luke were revived by this strange alien tribe, you remembered you didn’t have enough fuel to get home.
They don’t usually run out of fuel in sci-fi movies, do they? They can just keep using their wonderful jumping-around-space juice.
But you’re doing okay. You miss your family, but you live on a beach. The troll people don’t do much except lie around all day. Like you’d expect a bunch of trolls to do.
The problem is, you got a hundred troll jokes and nobody to tell them to. You can’t tell ’em to John Luke. He’s in love with one of them.
Maybe, in the end, this is just one big trollegory. A story with a moral using a troll as a major character. Get it, Jack?
THE END
Start over.
Read “Look at the Stars: A Note from John Luke Robertson.”
ON THE RUN
YOU DECIDE TO GO to the galley to speak with John Luke.
“So, John Luke,” you whisper, “there’s something about this CLINT that I don’t—”
“I can still hear you, Silas,” CLINT says.
Great.
“This way,” you tell John Luke.
Go here.
CAT’S CRADLE
YOU TRY TO OPEN YOUR EYES but can’t. You feel like you’re awake, and hey—yeah, this is your mind rebooting again. But you still can’t open your eyes. So you start to thrash around.
“Uncle Si, it’s okay. Don’t shake around like that.”
You know that voice, but why is he calling you Uncle Si? Oh, that’s right. The last thing you remember, you were hunting a big cat with Willie and the boys, and it got the best of you. If you had been yourself instead of Jase, you wouldn’t have gone down that easy.
You try to say something—you’re not sure what—but it comes out like “Geveryheavy ang bung dontite.” Which, strangely enough, sounds a lot like “Everybody Wang Chung Tonight,” but you’re pretty sure that’s not what you meant to say. Then again, you usually mess up the lyrics, Jack.
“Look, Silas.” It’s the commander of your space mission talking. “Your mind is adjusting right now. Everything’s going to feel . . . odd. It took us a while too.”
Us? So we’re all back? In West Monroe? Do I have to go to work tomorrow?
“You’re the last one to awaken from cybersleep. Strange—last time you were the first. The dosage level changed a bit in your suit.”
You try to talk, but again it doesn’t make sense.
“There’s good news and bad news,” Commander Noble tells you through the hazy darkness. “So I’ll start with the bad news: we’re not on Earth. Actually, we’re nowhere close to it.”
Slivers of light pierce your skull. They’re blinding, and each one feels a little like a rake clawing its way over your brain.
“There was another malfunction. As I said, there was danger in going back into cybersleep too soon. So the ship went off target, and we ended up here.”
You’re dying to hear the good news.
“The good news is we’re alive.”
You wait for more. Like, Hey, we’re alive and the government is gonna give each of us a million dollars. Something like that. But you don’t hear anything else.
More light. More colors. Lots of colors. Lots of questions. Lots of backache.
“There’s some other bad news, but for that . . . well, you just have to see it to believe it.”
When you can finally open your eyes, you see you’re in some kind of amazing rainforest. It’s breathtaking. So many colors, some you’ve never even seen before. You’ve hunted in some exotic locations, Jack, but this is something out of a comic book. Out of some kind of 3-D sci-fi movie. You look for the commander—or anybody—but don’t see a soul.
Then you realize you’re surrounded by kittens. There’s a white one. A gray one. A black one. Tiny kittens. The kind that should be playing with each other. But these all sit still, seemingly at attention, staring at you.
“I’d ask if you’re sitting down for this, but I see you are,” Commander Noble says.
Hey, where is he? You can’t see him anywhere.
“I’m over here, Silas. The black kitten. Yeah, right here. You’re looking straight at me.”
A talking cat.
Jack, there’s a cat—no, make that a kitten—talking to me.
“I know. Flip out. Everybody else did for a few moments.”
“What’s going on?”
The other kittens have circled around you now.
“Uncle Si, it’s okay,” another voice says. It seems to be coming from a calico kitten, but it sounds just like John Luke.
“What’s happening?”
“It’s okay to think you’re hallucinating,” the cat with Commander Noble’s voice says. “Unfortunately . . . you aren’t.”
You feel very, very weird.
“This planet is special,” the Commander Noble cat continues. “Every single being on it is a cat. Some are real, true cats. But for us humans, these are just our shells. You know. Like avatars.”
You laugh and shake your head, not really sure what that word means. But then you look down at your . . . paws? “What in the—?”
“It’s definitely not in our world,” Commander Noble says. “The environment here is very toxic.”
The calico kitten walks up to you and purrs. “Don’t worry, Uncle Si.”
This is insane.
“Why are we—? Why cats?”
“That’s how it is on this planet. Where do you think all those cat videos on YouTube come from?”
You shake your head—whatever your head looks like. Wait . . .
“Hey, Jack, what about me? Am I a cat now too?”
Commander Noble pauses. Then you look at John Luke—or the kitten that’s supposedly him. Nobody’s meowing or saying a word.
After a while, you can’t take
the silence anymore, so you run. You run until you come to a small pond, and you inch up to see your reflection.
Staring back at you is the ugliest cat you’ve ever seen. You don’t have any fur on your entire body.
“You’re a feline anomaly,” Commander Noble says as he comes up beside you. “And I’m sorry, but—”
Then he starts to laugh. Soon the other kittens have caught up too, and they’re all laughing.
“Y’all think this is some big joke, don’t you?”
More laughter and guffaws.
“How long do we have to stay on this—this kitty world? When can we go back home?”
“That’s good news too,” Noble says. “Only about nine or ten years. Then they’ll be able to bring us a ship and take us home.”
You want to shake your head and scream, but instead you find yourself licking your paws.
This can’t be, Jack. No way.
It’s only going to be nine or ten years. Nine or ten years? That’s how long you’ll be a naked, hairless kitty spending your days cleaning yourself and wandering aimlessly?
Things can definitely only get better from here.
Meow.
THE END
Start over.
Read “Look at the Stars: A Note from John Luke Robertson.”
ECLIPSE
BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY, you always say. Actually, you never say that. But still. Probably not a good plan to use the cyclone thrusters if you ever want to get home again . . . and maybe this ship can help you with repairs.
Commander Noble’s voice comes over your headset. “I’m sorry, Silas. This wasn’t part of the itinerary.”
“I’m ready, Jack.”
“It’s actually Mitch, not Jack, but whatever.”
The DC Enterprise is still shaking, and you can see it being pulled into a large opening in the other ship.
“Just give me a gun and I’ll be okay,” you tell him.
“This isn’t a military spacecraft. We don’t have weapons on board.”
“No weapons?” you ask. “What is this? I mean, you gotta have somethin’ in case of attack, right?”
“Listen,” Commander Noble says. “When we stop, Franco will show you the where isolation chamber is. Only two people can fit in it with space suits. You both need to go in there.”
“Isolation? For what? Decontamination? Are we infected or something?”
“No, Si. It’s to hide. We don’t know what’s happening. For the moment, we need to make sure we protect the two of you.”
“I can protect John Luke and myself. I know ka-ra-tay.”
You’re about to make a karate-chop motion, but a massive jerking sends you forward in your seat as the ship stops abruptly. Thank goodness you’re strapped in.
A towering figure enters your room without a helmet on. It’s Franco, the warrant officer.
“You can unstrap from the seats and take off your helmets,” he says. “Oxygen levels are fine.”
“Where are we?” you ask. “What happened to our ship?”
“We’re in the bay of that spacecraft,” Franco says. “Come on—we might be boarded any minute.”
“This is so like the moment the Millennium Falcon is boarded by the Stormtroopers and everybody’s hiding.”
Franco appears to have no idea what you’re talking about.
“You know . . . Han and Chew—”
“Mr. Robertson, you both need to get in the isolation chamber now.”
“Don’t get your britches in a bunch.”
Franco heads to the rear of the spaceship and presses a button, which releases a partial section of the floor. There’s a ladder on the side leading down to a small room.
“So how do we get out of there?” John Luke asks.
“The red button down there—only red button you can find. It’s partially lit, so you’ll be able to see it.”
“What if something happens to you guys?”
Franco laughs. “Then fly the Millennium Falcon out of here yourselves.”
“Hey, maybe we will,” you retort. “I flew a little in ’Nam.”
Soon you and John Luke are crouching in the small closet-like room. It’s shaped like an oval and has a handful of control panels on its walls. The ceiling above you slides back into place, and you hear Franco’s steps receding.
“What do we do now?” John Luke asks.
“My daddy used to tell us Robertson boys and girls something when we asked that. He’d look at us and say, ‘Y’all’ll figure it out.’”
After about ten minutes, you hear footsteps above as someone enters the craft.
“Should we—?”
“Shhhh,” you tell John Luke. “Just wait.”
You hear a shout, then an explosion; now you detect unfamiliar voices. And strangely it sounds like they’re speaking English.
Why is it in sci-fi movies that the universe is, like, billions of miles big and full of all kinds of cool alien races and technology, yet they all seem to speak English?
Come on, Jack. Let’s focus. Get into the sci-fi game here.
Moments later, the voices disappear. Everything is silent, as if you and John Luke are the only ones still on board.
Well, this spaceflight’s suddenly become not so fun.
You wanted to orbit the moon at least once, but there’s no way you can do that if the whole crew is gone.
You press the red button Franco mentioned, and you and John Luke climb out of the isolation chamber and make your way to the bridge. Just as you suspected, everyone seems to have disappeared. You’ll make it your mission to find them . . . or you could take this baby for a little joyride. The gigantic door to the hangar is still open, the cyclone thrusters haven’t been used yet, and it might be best to get the Enterprise out of this other spaceship.
Looks pretty easy to drive.
Do you decide to look for your fellow astronauts first? Go here.
Do you try to fly the ship yourself? Go here.
WHITE SPARKS
YOU MAKE JOHN LUKE STAY BEHIND so he can avoid things like, um, dying. Unfortunately, you don’t realize the mistake he’s about to make.
It’s funny, the simple decisions in life.
He brought some microwavable popcorn. Mistake number one.
He decides to heat it up in a machine that resembles a microwave but really is for heating up stone found on alien soil. Mistake number two.
By the time you and Commander Noble hear from the crew, they’re evacuating the ship.
The ship that is now broken in half.
“How’d this happen?” Commander Noble demands.
“It smells like burnt popcorn,” you say, confused.
You finally locate John Luke, and he admits what he did.
A rescue ship will be sent. Of course, it’s gonna take a while. A really long while.
You can’t believe it.
Perhaps you’ll find life on this planet that can help you out. Perhaps you’ll find the source of the distress signal.
“I’m hungry,” John Luke says.
Perhaps you should have let him come along after all.
Don’t you just love the word perhaps, Jack?
THE END
Start over.
Read “Look at the Stars: A Note from John Luke Robertson.”
WE ARE ALL MADE OF STARS
YOU PRESS THE BUTTON as hard as you can. The blinking lights stop. So does the countdown. You expect something to happen, but nothing does.
The five astronauts are still in their seats, unmoving.
A door you didn’t notice before opens in the wall.
It’s Commander Noble. He’s walking on the floor. And he’s not wearing his space suit anymore, but he still has his headset on.
“Hey, can I take this thing off?” you ask through your mouthpiece.
“Yes. Your whole suit, in fact. The shuttle’s artificial gravity and oxygen are calibrated now.” He helps you unsnap your helmet.
“What hap
pened? The blinking lights. The alarm.”
“I can explain. Let’s get the rest of this off you first.”
It’s easier to hold a beaver than it is to take off your stinkin’ space suit. Finally you’re free, and you need to wiggle around a little.
“Settle down, Silas,” Commander Noble says, pulling you forward to get you focused. “We have important things to deal with.”
“Like what?”
“Like the fact that we’re three months away from Earth.”
“Three months?”
“Yeah. The fail-safe plan worked. It just—look, let’s attend to the crew and we’ll all convene and figure out what to do. How’s our youngest astronaut ever to fly into space?”
“Listen, Jack. John Luke’s fine and sleeping like a baby, but you mean to tell me we were sleeping for three months? How could we live like that?”
“The space suits are able to put us into cybersleep.”
“Say what?” you ask. “Cybersleep?”
“Believe it, Si. Technology at its finest.” Commander Noble slaps you gently on the back. “Come on—help me with the astronauts. There’s a way to get them out of their sleep. I’ll show you how.”
He first leads you to the bridge, where Parkhurst is in a deep coma. You expect him to press some buttons on the space suit somewhere or maybe undo a few latches, but instead Noble simply knocks on the helmet four times with his knuckles. Then he puts his palm on the top.
“The vibration and the heat of your hand send a signal to the suit’s core to wake up the person,” the commander says.
“Looks cool to me.”
Soon everybody is in the galley, gathered around an oval table in the center of the room. The commander has brought out food for everybody, but only a couple of the astronauts are eating. Most everybody looks pretty weary.
“Here’s what I know,” Commander Noble says. He’s the only one standing. “During the ascent, one of the five surge engines failed in flight. The ship corrected itself, but the information it received was off. It was reading that we were well into space, so it started a shutdown thrive.”
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