The Ruins of Arlandia Complete Series

by William Wood

  “I’m going out there,” he said. “I’ve got to go find them and get them on board.”

  “No you don’t!” Astra said. “Wexton and the robots can handle it.”

  “And what if they can’t?” Calvin asked. “What if they need help?”

  “I’m sorry to say this, but Wexton is better suited to finding Petori and Freks than you are,” Astra said. “If you get lost or hurt, he’ll have to go back and find you.”

  “I’ll be careful.” The ship rocked with another explosion. “I promise.”

  Astra started to say something, but Calvin was out of his seat and off the bridge before he could hear her objections. He knew it would take too long to use the elevator so he ran down the steps two at a time. He got to the bottom and ran to the airlock. He was disappointed to find Sierra One alone at the door, still standing guard.

  “Where are they?” Calvin asked loudly.

  “They have not returned yet,” the robot stated simply.

  “Wexton!” Calvin shouted. There was no answer. Calvin ran outside to the junction at the end of the corridor and looked left and right. Dark black smoke clung to the ceiling. The station shook; fire covered the walls in both directions. He felt like he was on the verge of panic. He realized they had to leave immediately or they would all die. Then he made up his mind; they would have to leave Petori and Freks behind.

  “Wexton, we’re out of time!” The floor shook beneath his feet, and breathing became very difficult. He coughed violently, and wondered why his equipment wasn’t providing him with oxygen. That’s when he realized he wasn’t wearing his vest or helmet, and therefore, did not have a shield generator or portable oxygen supply.

  He was seized with panic. A blast of fire flashed through the air and the oxygen was burned up, searing the skin on his hands and face. His hair felt singed. Calvin could feel the vacuum of space sucking the air out of his lungs. The station was dying now, and so would he.

  Suddenly another burst of light and flames erupted around a corner, and robot parts flew in all directions like a massive metal tsunami of tiny robot parts; arms, legs, and heads. That was quickly followed by loud whoops and hollers as Petori and Freks ran up to him. Neither of them were wearing protective vests or helmets. They were out of breath and were covered with burns and minor cuts.

  “That’s the last of them,” Freks gasped.

  “Oh, are you sure?” Petori said. Calvin tried to answer, to yell at them, but he couldn’t find his breath. Fortunately Wexton was right behind them, with the two large robots, Sierra Two and Three.

  “You two!” Wexton shouted. “Back to the ship, NOW!” Calvin wobbled and fell sideways. Before he hit the floor, Sierra Two grabbed him and pulled him along. Calvin felt very dizzy, and the harrowing run back to Azure Frost was a blur. Debris shot through the air, and the smoke was so thick he couldn’t see what was in front of them. At times it felt like there was no gravity, but somehow they managed to get back.

  Once back inside, Sierra One closed the hatch. Calvin felt a blast of cool fresh air and gasped as it filled his lungs. Wexton looked like he wanted to say something to Calvin but stopped. Instead, he hit the communication panel and shouted into it,

  “Astra, get us out of here!” For an instant, everyone looked confused. “Take Calvin to the bridge,” Wexton said to Sierra One. “Everyone else with me.”

  Sierra One helped Calvin walk down the corridor towards the elevator. Calvin heard Wexton’s voice boom down the corridor.

  “What were you thinking?” he shouted. “You almost killed us out there! Stand at attention when I’m talking to you!”

  “Sorry, sir,” Petori stuttered.

  Calvin cringed. It reminded him of when he was in training, and the instructor was in his face, screaming.

  “No!” Wexton shouted. “You are not allowed to talk! If we get out of this,”

  The elevator door closed.

  On the way to the bridge, Calvin felt his senses return, the feeling returned to his fingers and toes (he wasn’t aware he’d lost feeling there) and he could breathe again.

  Sierra One helped him to his chair then quickly left the bridge. Calvin sat down and put his belt on.

  He looked at Astra. She was pressing buttons and staring intently into a monitor. She looked very scared.

  “The clamps won’t let go,” Astra yelled. “We can’t detach from the station.”

  Calvin shouted the only thing he could think. “Blow the clamps!”

  “If we do that, we’ll tear the side of the ship open.”

  “It doesn’t matter! We have to get out of here!”

  Astra complied without hesitation. Calvin was certain it would be impossible to know when it happened because the ship was already shaking violently, but when the alarms went off, he knew. The ship was floating free.

  “Hull breach on level five, section six,” Ion reported. “Emergency force fields are in place.”

  “This is going to be close,” Astra said. “Calvin, go!”

  Calvin heaved the throttle to full power; no gentle increase. They got a shocking look at the space station as they pulled away. The bottom of the base was gone and a black swirling mass was tearing into the upper levels. Swirling clouds of gas were being sucked inside also. Slowly the Frost pulled away from the base, struggling to gain altitude.

  “Full throttle, Calvin!” Astra exclaimed. “Get us out of here!”

  “We are at full speed!” Calvin said.

  “The black hole is increasing in size exponentially.” Ion reported, a little too calmly.

  “Is there any way to get more power to the engines?” Calvin asked. “I thought we had more power than we could use.”

  “We do, sort of,” Astra added. “Ion, divert all power into the engines, quick!”

  “But the safety protocols,” Ion said.

  “Forget the safety protocols,” Astra said. “If we don’t get out of here that black hole will devour us!”

  There was an obvious difference when power was diverted to the engines. Calvin felt pressed into his seat, along with a little bit of hope. Slowly they began to pull away. Astra displayed the reverse view on the screen. Half of the station was gone, and the black hole was considerably larger. A small black object was just pulling away from the other side of the station.

  “Look!” Calvin pointed.

  “It’s one of the Goremog shuttles!” Astra said.

  It was also trying to get away, but unlike the Azure Frost, it wasn’t moving; just barely holding its position. Long thin lines of fire poured from the engines. Curious about their own status, Calvin looked down and checked the instruments. The shields were at full power and the engines were running at one hundred and twenty percent. Every other system, including life support was operating at reduced levels.

  “So far so good,” Calvin said. “No flashing red lights yet.”

  Suddenly there was a massive detonation near the center of the base. A wall of fire ignited the remaining oxygen that was leaking into space. Within a few seconds, the fire and the remnants of the structure were sucked inside the black hole. The Goremog shuttle started losing ground, slowly being dragged closer to the monster. The shuttle’s struggle didn’t last long. Clearly it didn’t have enough power to escape the gravitational forces that the black hole was inflicting on it.

  Tiny explosions burst along its hull, and the red fire streaming out of its engines stopped. The shuttle lost power, fell back and the black hole swallowed it, but not before disintegrating into thousands of pieces on the event horizon. There was a fireball that lasted a fraction of a second and was gone.

  It was a grueling ten minute struggle to claw their way out of the planet’s atmosphere. Calvin expected that once they were back in open space they would be able to get away; that they would be out of the black hole’s reach. He was wrong.

  There was a surge of energy from the black hole, and the gravity pull increased dramatically. Calvin was focused on his instruments. When
he looked back up he got a big surprise. The Goremog battleship filled the window, and they were directly in front of a massive laser cannon; staring into the darkness of the vast open barrel.

  “Calvin!” Astra screamed. “Look out!”

  The black hole was dragging the battleship in too, front first. Its engines were blasting in full reverse, trying to escape the powerful gravity, but it was slowly losing the struggle. It was slowly inching back towards the event horizon while Azure Frost was creeping forward and the gap was quickly closing.

  Calvin had only seconds to react. He pulled back hard on the controls. The Frost went up and over the top of the battleship but lost a lot of ground. They were closer to the black hole, but had narrowly avoided being smashed to pieces by the battleship, which was now directly below them.

  “Something’s wrong,” Astra said. “Ion, look at those readings!”

  “That’s very odd,” Ion said. “The black hole is very unstable.”

  “What does that mean?” Calvin asked, confused.

  “I don’t know,” Astra said. “But there’s something not right about this.”

  “You’re telling me!” Calvin said, not sure what she meant. “What’s right about it?”

  “No, that’s not what I meant. This somehow seems familiar.”

  Calvin’s mind raced. The black hole was growing, and they were no longer pulling away from it. The engines were at full power, and he didn’t know what else to do. “Then we don’t have a chance?” He asked. Then he thought of something. “If it’s unstable, won’t it simply collapse?”

  “I’m not sure,” Astra answered simply. “I’ve never seen a black hole destabilize before. I doubt it will be as pleasant as that.”

  “Then we need to go faster,” Calvin said emphatically. “Ion, isn’t there anything we can do to get more juice out of the engines?”

  “Only one thing,” Ion said. “We can activate the engine booster.”

  “And why is this the first time I’m hearing about that system?” Calvin asked.

  “Because it overloads the engines,” Ion said. “It’s very dangerous. It could cause serious damage to the core. That kind of damage can only be repaired in a space dock. We risk crippling the ship. It should only be used in extreme danger.”

  “We’re there!” Calvin shouted. Astra had a strange look on her face, like she wasn’t sure they should use it. Why? Ready or not, he was about to find out, and that scared him.

  “OK, do it,” Astra said. Without a word, Ion complied.

  The engines roared, Calvin and Astra were smashed into the back of their chairs; Azure Frost surged forward away from the black hole.

  The engines groaned and screamed; the ship began to shake. The controls vibrated in Calvin’s hands. There was a bang and a pop. The temperature gages climbed rapidly.

  “I’ll be in the engine room,” Ion said suddenly. He got up and hurried out of the room.

  It felt like the ship was coming apart. But wasn’t that preferable to getting sucked into the black hole? Better to damage the ship than get crushed into a tiny dense element. With that in mind, he pushed the engines even harder.

  The alarm sounded. Astra screamed, “We have to shut down! The engines are over heating; nearing critical!”

  Calvin looked at the gauges; the needles were nearing their limit.

  “Are we far enough away from it?” Calvin yelled back.

  “It doesn’t matter!” Astra shouted back. “If we blow out the engines we’ll be sucked in any way!” The engines quieted down and the forward momentum slowed and then stopped.

  “What did that do for us?” Calvin asked.

  “We gained some ground,” Astra answered. “The engines are straining to their limits, and right now we’re barely maintaining our distance.”

  The temperature gauges stopped moving, but to Calvin’s dismay, they didn’t go down either. How long could this last?

  “Is the black hole still growing?” Calvin asked.

  Astra checked the computer. “Yes, but the rate of growth has slowed. This is interesting. Look at these readings. I’m not even sure it’s a black hole.”

  “Then what could it be?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Calvin looked at the screen, the Goremog battleship was very close to losing its battle.

  “I bet you’ve never seen anything like this before,” Astra said, watching in awe. There was a bright burst of light on the front of the battleship as it touched the event horizon. A massive debris field of burning fragments spread out in all directions, but was immediately sucked in. The entire forward section of the ship exploded, including what looked like the bridge. Calvin and Astra watched in shock as the ship began to disintegrate. Explosions ripped down the length of the ship, and suddenly it lost all power. It was dragged into the monstrous black hole and shredded by the massive pressures and tidal forces. When it was gone, there was nothing left; no evidence that the battleship had been there at all.

  “Oh my gosh,” Astra said. She quickly checked the computer. “Oh no, I was wrong!” A new set of alarms blared loudly; red lights flashed.

  Bright flashes of lightning zigzagged across the black hole, the perimeter expanded and receded three times in rapid succession.

  “Hold on to something!” Astra screamed.

  The ship staggered backward, despite the fact that every ounce of power was dedicated to the engines. That didn’t matter, and neither did the fact that the Azure Frost had the most advanced shields and hull plating ever designed.

  “We’re outta time,” Astra said, wide eyed.

  “We’re going into the black hole?”

  “No, it’s coming to us,” Astra said. “The gravity well is about to…”

  She didn’t get to finish her sentence. It was as if an invisible hand reached out and took hold of the ship and dragged it inside the black hole. All time seemed to stop. There was a cacophony of horrific sounds all screaming and shrieking. Intense pressure crushed him from all sides. Calvin’s eyes went dark. The last sensation he felt was Astra grabbing on to his hand and squeezing. All sounds stopped, and he felt nothing.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE:

  ADRIFT

  The first sensation Calvin became aware of was dizziness; he felt like he was spinning out of control. Slowly his vision cleared. He raised his head and felt a twinge of pain in his neck. The bridge was bathed in a soft red light. The monitors were dark; the buttons and knobs that were usually lit up were off too. Calvin tried to move the flight controls but they were stiff and unyielding. But the scariest thing was the silence; no engine or oxygen pump sounds. This brings back memories, Calvin thought; all of them bad. He looked out the window, expecting the worst. All he saw were stars. At least this time he knew they were still in space; no Goremog warship hovering above them.

  He turned to check on Astra. She was still strapped in the chair. Her left hand hung limp over the side and her long brown hair covered her face.

  “Astra,” Calvin said, gently brushing her hair aside. “Hey, wake up.”

  Astra moaned and opened her eyes. She sat bolt upright and looked around. “What happened?” She asked quickly.

  “Don’t ask me,” Calvin said. “I have no idea. Did we just go through a black hole?”

  “It wasn’t a black hole,” Astra said.

  “How can you be so sure? We must have just flown out the other end.”

  “No, that’s not how they work,” Astra said, clicking a few buttons on the console. “They aren’t tunnels from one place to another. If that had been a real black hole we would have been crushed into a tiny singularity smaller than a single molecule; we’d be dead now. Trust me, that wasn’t a black hole.”

  “Then what was it?”

  “I don’t know yet,” she answered. “But this is very bad. Main power is down. That means no shields, no cloak and no life support.” She sprang up out of her seat. “I’m going to the engine room.”

  “OK,” Calvin said.
“What should I do?”

  “Stay here,” Astra said. “When we get power restored, get the ship cloaked and moving as fast as you can.”

  “I can do that.”

  “We’re like sleeping Tullimars out here,” she said as she moved to the door. “And I don’t like it.”

  Astra used the manual override; a hand crank, to open the door. She spun it quickly until it was half-way open, and hurried off.

  Calvin sat alone, in the dark. With nothing to do, he let his mind wander. It took only a second for him to realize that if the cloak was down, Azure Frost was visible for everyone to see.

  Calvin wasn’t worried. He was confident Ion and Astra would get the power back on. Maybe he was scared so often it was becoming the new ‘normal.’

  He couldn’t use the scanner, but he could use his eyes. Calvin leaned forward and looked out the windows in all directions, half expecting to see a Goremog ship approaching. He didn’t see anything, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t an enemy ship lurking in the darkness of space, half a light year away, preparing to attack.

  Calvin wished there was something he could do, but he wasn’t an engineer. He couldn’t help repair the engines or diagnose the power failure. All he could do was pilot the ship. He hated that fact, and hated even more that all he could do was sit and wait. Initially he found the silence relaxing, after what they had just been through, but it didn’t take long for it to start getting on his nerves, like he was being suffocated.

  He heard the sound of footfalls approaching. Calvin was relieved when Dev strode in.