Out there in the fragments of space. Far past the reaches of any human had ever reached floated a ship towards a destination on the edge of the universe.
Frank sat looking out at the large circular window at the endless abyss of stars. All those problems, they had left behind. He leaned back and peered over at their pilot, Henry. Here sailing through the cosmic ocean, the gamma rays, and empty were four men. Frank, an engineer, Henry, a pilot, Simon, a scientist and Andrew, the security expert. They had been cast out among the stars from earth in rapid time. The planet and civilization going from the atomic age to the quantum. New possibilities, new governments, new everything. The laws changed nightly and science seemed to move with liquidity. The possibilities, the technology, human understanding of the universe expanded exponentially. But so did problems. The atomic age gave mankind space travel and abundance of energy. The quantum age promised new frontiers, matter, unfathomable to anything seen before. The quantum age brought new ways of scanning space for things that could not be seen before. But there was only one object that was detected. In the whole universe. All matter. One planet was detected. Delta 5.
Frank looked over to Henry who was turning some knobs and checking the readings from the monitor overhead. Henry was the type of man that you trusted as soon as his hand shook yours. He was one of the best pilots in the whole galactic empire, despite being the age of 45, and had gone on more missions that most could count. His hair was styled short and always combed back. He always looked put together not matter what was happening. Frank had met him during a space pirate raid on a military ship. Since then they had stuck together on most missions.
“Have you ever seen anything like that?” Henry asked looking forward to our destination. Frank took the seat next to him and peered out. A glowing rainbow of color spread across. An abyss above and below its wave. In the middle behind the shimmering dust was something big. A large round shadow that eclipsed anything that they had seen before. They were light years away.
“No” was the only word Frank could get out. Henry pushed on the acceleration. “You know Henry. I was excited to get on this journey and leave all the troubles behind, but I have to be honest. I’m a little scared.
There was silence for a moment as they both stared forward.
“Yeah me too Frank. When we left I tried to shake down one of those scientist, Frank. When I looked into his eyes, there was something in them. Something that I knew they weren’t telling us. I don’t know what it was, I tried, but they knew something and it was worth getting us out here and onto that planet.”
They had left in a hurry. A group of the best scientist had gotten together, the ones who had been heading quantum science, and rushed them into this mission. They explained the vagueness of details and before anyone knew what was going on or could stop them, they were launching into space.
It would take another month to get there, but already the pressure was mounting. When the lights caught their eyes, excitement bubbled up to the surface. Now that they were getting closer, panic, nervousness and the fear of what might be started to creep in. The shimmering wave of colors was large and kept getting bigger. In the middle of all that was a planet. Frank had once thought that the Collisi plants of the 4th moon were the biggest thing in the universe. Of existence. It could be a whole galaxy. But delta 5. It was bigger then that. It’s size was maddening. He wished the greeks had seen it so there would be a word for it. He knew it would only get bigger as they got closer. Why was it the only planet detected by the quantum age? What was on it? He could only keep these questions in his mind for so long. He had no answers. He would ask Henry again later and they would discuss again. But nothing would be new. Frank closed his eyes and thought back to another time.
When he opened them again. All there was, was Delta 5 staring at him through the cloud of illuminated rainbow dust. What did those scientists know? God, help us,because no one else will.
Inspired by Men in space going into the unknown.