by Todd Fries
“You won’t believe it!”
Jacob answered.
“What?”
“Your brother was busy. I found a number of boxes marked medical supplies in the other room. Being curious, I opened one and guess what I found?”
“Medical supplies?”
“No. The original books from the library. All of the biblical texts are here. The ones we discovered inside SM1 are all neatly packed in boxes. He made sure that we were able to take the Word with us. Can you believe it?”
Jacob smiled. It was free-will at work again. God arranged for his brother to bring the bible to him, just as he had wanted to do since the day he watched those men beat him on a dirty sidewalk in Chicago. The Lord spent years preparing Hap for this day. One thing was sure; Hap was a changed man. He marveled at God’s ability to plan so far ahead and to consider their needs in a moment of crisis, and to use someone he had written off years ago. He spoke once more to Hannah.
“Thanks for letting us know. It certainly means a lot to me.”
When he turned to observe the console, Nickolas was preparing to engage the fusion reactor. Nickolas grinned.
“Nothing gained, nothing lost. Here we go.”
And with that, he pulled forward as SM1 raced into the deep of space.
PAYBACK
Thus says the Lord, “Though they may be strong and many, they will be cut off and pass away. Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more. And now I will break the yoke from off you and will burst your bonds asunder.”
Nahum: Verse 12
General Taylor regained consciousness. His head ached and his throat felt stiff. He coughed violently, leaning his head over a bucket until his lungs calmed down. Besides the ringing in his ears, he could hear an alarm screaming throughout the facility. He recognized it as a nuclear alert and dialing his desk phone, he demanded an explanation.
When nobody answered, he slammed the receiver and scanned his office. It was a mess with one man dead and another incapacitated and laying front of his desk was the traitor. He paused when he saw him. Hap was breathing heavily and holding some bloody rags against his chest. Now he remembered. He shot him right before he was accosted by Jacob. He didn’t see that one coming. The guy was supposed to be a non-violent religious nut. Anyway, it was clear they had abandoned Hap.
This was fine with him as he had some unfinished business to take care of and it was going to be a pleasure. He observed Hap as he came out from behind his desk. If he was smart, the man should start begging for his life about now. Finding a gun on the floor, he fumbled with the safety and pointed the barrel at Hap’s head, but then raised it toward the ceiling. What was he doing? There was no way to make this look like an act of self-defense if he shot the man while lying on the ground. Then he thought of his knife and unsheathed it, but that wasn’t any better. Any good forensic pathologist might be able to figure out what happened. What he needed was a more subtle way to end this forever.
Exploring the room with his eyes, he saw one of the pillows on his couch. This might work. If he could suffocate him, they might think he lost too much blood, resulting in his demise. The last thing he needed was a witness to his actions, so cleaning up this loose end was a necessity. In either case, he couldn’t have this man going around and turning people against him. He’d already caused enough trouble with his postings.
He thought about General Reynolds. The guy was weak and uninspiring. His ideas were dangerous and the only way to kill a dangerous idea was to kill the man. The plan was simple enough. He ordered some flowers for his bride-to-be and arranged to get her out of the apartment and then he simply knocked, introduced himself and in a moment of distraction, killed him with a single thrust to the back of the skull. It was all over in minutes.
He looked back at Hap, but neither of them said a word. If Hap knew anything, he understood what was coming next. But he wanted to get one last ‘dig’ at the man, and broke the silence with his own words.
“Looks like your friends abandoned you. Guess you picked the wrong side.”
Hap didn’t answer.
“They won’t get far. My men will stop them long before they get anywhere. Plus I still have their leader. You caused a lot of trouble for me. Who would have believed that one of my trusted lieutenants would turn on me in such a violent fashion? The best you can hope for is a lifetime in Leavenworth or a death sentence for murder. I think both are unacceptable. Don’t you agree?”
He moved in closer to Hap, whose eyes became wide as he propped the pillow in front of his chest. This would be quick and easy. The man was weak from his fight and had lost a lot of blood. He wondered if he should just let him bleed out, but he didn’t know how much time he had and these sirens were a distraction. Someone might come looking for them, so he decided to move forward with his plan.
Kneeling down on top of him, he positioned himself in the best way to maximize his leverage. Hap tried to roll his head from side to side as he forced the pillow over his face and then taking advantage of his body weight, he used his chest and arms to compress the cushion, while using his knees to pin his arms to the floor. There was some minor struggling as he sealed his airway, but nothing more than expected. There was little fight left in him, so all he had to do was keep pressure on the pillow and this would all be over soon.
At that moment, he could hear the sound of boots climbing the metal stairs to his office. They sounded frantic and before he had time to look up, two medics burst through the door of his office. Thinking quickly, he released the pillow and gently placed it under Hap’s head. At the same time he shouted.
“Over here! Quickly! This man’s been hurt.”
Two medics rushed to his side and started evaluating his condition. As he backed away, he saw the look of terror in Hap’s eyes and knew he’d get his chance later. Everything was still in a state of chaos. What he needed was some time alone with his friend and being the ultimate authority on this base, he could do whatever he wanted. He addressed the two medics.
“Once he’s stabilized, secure him under guard. I want him arrested for murder, assaulting a fellow officer, behavior unbecoming and possibly treason. You got that?”
The two men nodded as they continued to work on the wounded soldier. One of them stopped to examine the unconscious man leaning against the desk while calling for additional help to transport the injured. General Reynolds holstered his gun and pushed his way past several other people coming up the stairs.
“Get out the way!”
He shoved one of the stretcher bearers and continued down into the main corridor. When he entered the hallway, he looked both ways, but it was clear of people and being certain that the escapees were heading toward the hangar, he ran as fast as possible toward SM1. He had to hope his guards didn’t abandon their posts in the midst of this emergency, but since he hadn’t given any specific order regarding what to do, he couldn’t be sure if they were still in position.
When he reached the hangar, his heart sank. The door was open and when he stepped inside, his worst fears were confirmed. SM1 was gone and so was his career. Someone was going to have to take the blame and it wasn’t going to be him. He had a traitor on his hands and plenty of witnesses. But then he realized that Hap was also a witness against him and if this became public knowledge, all of his secrets would be revealed.
He made up his mind. Hap was an imminent threat to this base. Who knew what else he had planned. By all rights, the man was a terrorist and actively involved in the theft of secret technology, not to mention aiding and abetting. He reasoned that Hap may have other accomplices who were unknown to him and barring any other catastrophes, the man had to be stopped and now.
Pulling his gun, he raced toward his office and arrived just as the medics were bringing him out on a stretcher. Stopping short, he ordered them to drop the prisoner. Pointing his gun, he yelled again.
“Drop him! Now!”
The two medics hesitated, unsure of what to do until a v
oice boomed out from behind them.
“Drop your weapon!”
General Taylor looked beyond the emergency responders, only to see a colonel and several soldiers pointing rifles at him. What were they doing here? Before he could react, the Colonel addressed him a second time.
“General Taylor. You are under arrest by the Authority of the President of the United States. You will stand down and drop your weapon!”
“Me? Arrest me? What for? The man you want is on the stretcher!”
“I’m not going to ask again. Drop the weapon!”
“Why? Why am I being arrested? On what charge?!”
The Colonel answered.
“For the murder of General Taylor and Kathi Fried. The false imprisonment of base personnel and exceeding your orders.”
He thought for a second and then felt the anger growing inside him. The only other person who had been intimate with his activities was Hap Washington. Could he have been leaking this to Edward’s Air Force Base all along? This was beyond treason, this was like a stab in the back and after all he’d done for him. Was there no loyalty? The man had to pay for his crimes.
As suddenly as they began, the sirens ceased and it was quiet once more. He wondered if the Colonel had something to do with the alarm and maybe this had been his way of re-taking the base. It’s what he would have done. However, it was useless to ponder it now. He lifted his pistol to eliminate the threat and in the next instant, he ceased to exist.
TRAPPIST-1e
The ripple effect was something he could only imagine. As SM1 accelerated, Mark could see the waves compressing into ever tighter folds as the ship skipped across vast oceans of space in the blink of an eye. Everyone stood mesmerized by the sight and if he didn’t know better, he could literally see into the bottom of each fold as they passed over the peaks.
Nothing was stationary. The stars seemed to move up and down the crest of each cap and then fade into the next crevasse. He imagined if he were in a boat, moving along the coast of Norway and he passed a fjord, the houses would seem to move relative to his position. And when he crossed the center of the waterway, he’d be able to see deep into the interior of the country while never actually following the hidden shoreline. If he had to walk around the interior of the inlet, without the use of a boat, it might take a man days to move from one side to the next. But by using a boat, it might only take minutes to cross the same channel.
It was the best he could come up with using his knowledge of physics. While a boat might cross the fjord, it didn’t create the fjord. The fjord was already there. It wasn’t as if the coastline was a straight path and the boat distorted the beach in order to shorten the trip. They only needed to cross it. The amount of energy required for a boat to manipulate the geology of the coastline by moving, folding and compressing the tectonic plate, would be impossible. In contrast, by simply taking advantage of the pre-existing channel, they could navigate from one side to the next while utilizing minimal power.
He and Lori had reasoned that while the gravitational waves generated by pulsars, transport energy as gravitational radiation, they might also affect dark matter. If dark matter did exist, the universe might be full of it and the empty spaces between stars might not be empty at all, but tightly packed with matter. If so, he theorized that pulsars were creating giant waves, much as wind created waves on the oceans of Earth. All of which could be amplified and focused. In his opinion, this was the function of the fusion drive.
It was this concept that lead him to re-name the fusion reactor. In his research paper given to General Reynolds, he described it as a Pulsonic Amplifier which was a device that rode up and down the pulses like waves. As an example, waves on Earth were generated by wind passing over the surface of the sea.
If his own theory was true, the ship itself wasn’t bending space. Space was already bent because of the pulsars. The spaceship only needed enough energy to skip across the tops of the waves which were invisible to the naked eye. In his opinion, this ‘dark-matter-transport’ was a revolution in design that took advantage of natural pulsonic waves being created with each rotation of the host star.
Now he finally had his chance to see the ship in action and by precisely measuring the intervals between each wave, he was calculating the relativistic speed of the vehicle. Science already knew the distance to Trappist-1, so all he had to do was document the time it took to reach the star and then divide that by the number of waves. In this manner, he could calculate the average depth of each wave, allowing him to compute the actual distance travelled.
Once he was able to verify the data, he could update his research paper which he named, “Pulsonic Amplification and Dark Matter Transport.” He would be lauded for his work and rightfully so. He had discovered the secret to reaching distant points anywhere in the universe.
He puzzled in his brain. This had to be how SM1 worked. There was no other explanation. The trick was knowing where to sail. This was the key, but it still left one remaining question. How did the ship find the top of each wave and where did those waves reside in the three dimensional landscape of space. It was then that he remembered something Nickolas said when he was describing how the stars around him disappeared from view, like a blanket being pulled over the sky. Thinking quickly, he looked up and around and sure enough, no stars and no light. Complete darkness.
He wondered. Were they still in three-dimensional space? If they were in two-dimensional space, the dark matter folds would have to be compressed into height and width, but no length. It would be like pushing an accordion together until the bellows were as tight as possible and then travelling over the compressed surface.
Before he could complete his thoughts, he felt light headed, which according to Nickolas, signaled that they were slowing down. As the stars returned from their brief hibernation, the red dwarf named Trappist-1 dominated their field of view and all around it, a series of spheres hanging in space. Given the close proximity of the planets, it was an awe-inspiring sight and equal to the best science fiction animations.
Nobody said a word. Even Jillian came out of hiding to take in the wonder of it all. It was odd to be able to peer directly into the star without squinting. Given the nature of this star, it only emitted about 1% visible light as compared to the Sun. Most of its light wavelengths were generated in the invisible infrared. But given the close proximity of Trappist-1e, the star was still shining at least 3000 times brighter than a full Moon in Earth’s night sky. The planet below them would never be brighter than twilight on Earth, but still enough to see without night vision equipment.
Speaking of which, he turned to examine the landscape below and it was totally unexpected. A vast ocean sparkled in the red glow of the sun and it circled a single large continent, sitting in the middle of the star-facing side of the planet. It reminded him of Antarctica when viewed from space. There appeared to be a ring of mountains along the border between the day and night side which completely encircled the terminator of the planet.
Examining these features closely, it appeared to be a planet sized impact crater. He understood that complex craters had uplifted centers along with broad, flat and shallow crater floors. The central uplift inside a crater was the result of elastic rebound, which might explain the land mass he was observing. In addition, the terraced walls and exterior rim might explain the range of mountains encircling the ocean. In theory, this was one giant impact basin.
The other odd thing was the lack of clouds. Nickolas had described Proxima b as having dark and cyclone-like rings of clouds that dominated the star-facing side of the planet. In the case of Trappist 1e, most of the cloud formation seemed to be blocked by the ring of mountains around the central sea, further isolating the continent below.
In the case of Earth, Antarctica was also an isolated continent. With no major land masses nearby, there was nothing around it to exchange the cold air or cause major changes in weather. If the land mass below was anything like Antarctica, it was very likely t
hat the surrounding sea was subject to high wind speeds, further reducing the chance of cloud cover and if it was sitting at a low elevation, the higher atmospheric pressure might contribute to keeping the region warm. The cold traps were probably at the poles or located on the dark side of the planet.
He felt his hopes rising. If this planet had a thick atmosphere with a protective ozone layer, UV surface conditions might be similar to Earth. In addition, if the core was spinning quickly, based on its fast orbital period, a magnetic field might also be protecting the planet. Jacob may have been right about coming here first. This was already looking far better than Proxima b, but what about water?
Pulling out a set of binoculars, he zoomed in on the continent and was immediately greeted by a series of lakes and streams. It had water, but was it fresh? He put down his lens and addressed his friends.
“I don’t know about you, but this is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. We’ve got a world sitting below us with water and a clear atmosphere. Do you see that land mass?”
Hannah answered.
“Looks like the bottom of our world, only warmer.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking. It’s how Earth might appear if it was turned on its side, placing our seventh continent on the equator.”
Jillian responded.
“A warm and habitable Antarctica?”
Nickolas interjected.
“I agree. This is a much different experience than Proxima b. When I first observed that planet, I was looking at a concentric ring of clouds, moving out from a central eye. There were some open patches between the rings, but nothing like the clear skies below. However, Proxima b did have rain in the storm zones.”
Jillian continued.
“Rain or not, if we’re going to plant crops, we’re going to need fresh water. Let’s hope those lakes and streams are a good source. Without it, the chances of making it here drop quite a bit.”