flight directors, using small towing vehicles, turned the vehicle around to face the hanger exit. The loudspeaker announced near flight and the platform evacuated of all personnel. She hit the thrusters and as power built up the noise in the cockpit became an all-consuming engine roar. The dashboard in front of Kenjal started counting down from thirty seconds. At two seconds the shuttle jerked and within the last two seconds, shot out of the hanger.
Cursing every word she knew under her breath, Marie fought of the wave of nausea as her body was plastered against the seat and her body immobile from the g-forces. About five minutes out Kenjal cut the thrusters and the sudden silence left her feeling deaf. The quick release of pressure had her forcing bile back down her throat. Her body pressed up against the straps, floating a little in the seat. She closed her eyes to stop the dizziness and blurry vision.
"Everyone ok?" their pilot asked as she tweaked her systems to realign them with the navigational path.
"Oh yeah." Don smiled, giving a thumbs up. "I love departure. It's like an extreme ride."
"Oh yeah. Just like a ride," Marie stated after she had better control of her body.
Kenjal chuckled. "We'll go at this pace about ten minutes, let everyone adjust to the atmospheric change."
Marie sat quietly watching space revolve slowly as Don and Kenjal chattered in the background. It was comforting, hearing the communication. Space always seemed so silent, so dead to her. The distant stars and planets held promise, but always seemed just out of reach. Like a mirage in a dry desert. No matter how fast you headed towards those distant jewels, they stayed the same distance away.
After the adjustment period, Kenjal increased their speed to thirty-two kilometers an hour. "This speed should get us there in about ten hours." She watched her CPU's. "I could go faster but it'd be hell on the systems."
"Ten hours is fine," Marie authorized and looked back out the small viewer at the void of space.
"So, Lieutenant, why you at Pluto-C?" Don asked after several moments of silence.
"Working," she stated simply.
He laughed and reached over to tap her shoulder. "I get that part. Why did you transfer from Mars A? That's a fine colony, large, busy, active."
"Tell me about it," she grumbled. "I was reassigned." Before he could ask anything further, she lifted a finger at him. "Don't really want to get into the details. Needless to say, I pissed them off and they banished me to the furthest place they could."
She watched as Don and Kenjal shared a look and then returned to discussion of the latest space yacht races around Saturn's rings. They argued over the close ring tactic of the leading ships. Kenjal affirmed her view that the closer to the ring the faster the revolutions, the quicker the win. Don affirmed his view that the closer to the ring the more danger and more corrective action needed, exhausting the pilot in the long-term, which unnecessarily endangering the vehicle.
Ten long hours later, they eyed the object on the console's screen from a safe distance. The object was about thirty miles wide, the shape of a fat potato, the color of rotten moss, and the texture of something akin to an old scrub pad. There were pits sporadically along the surface and a thin blue fog-like substance enshrouded the whole object.
"It kind of looks like a comet in basic structure but also like a...beehive," Marie observed. "There's no entrails, no shroud of dust. Plus the simple fact it's not moving, and the material is something I've never seen or read up on before."
Don pressed zoom and adjusted the view to one of the black pits on the object. "The finder can identify a depth to the pits."
Kenjal looked at both of them. "It doesn't feel right. I'm getting a tingle at the base of my neck. I think we should report this and get out of here as fast as possible."
Ignoring her, Marie continued to observe the object. There was a pull with her and she was intrigued. The voice in the back of her mind kept screaming to her, reminder this is what got her in trouble at her last assignment.
Their shuttle started moving toward the object and Don nudged Kenjal. "Hey, I don't think we should get any closer."
"Neither do I," Kenjal firmly concurred. "That's why I made no move to get closer."
"Then why are we getting closer?" Marie asked, apprehension finally kicking in.
"I don't know, ask Boomerang." Kenjal worked the controls to try and stop the movement, to no avail. "Well, now we're in the fryer. I told you two sleuths we shouldn't have hung around. Now we're headed to the mysterious mother ship."
As they drew closer one of the pits slowly lit up, going from a dark deep orange to a brilliant white. The blue fog dissipated in an area in front of them, reemerging after they passed through. The Boomerang stopped about twenty feet from the lit up crevice and an arm-like structure came out and expanded to incase their vehicle. Within minutes the portal clicked, opened, and the ladder descended to the surface of the arm shaft.
The three of them stared at each other for a few more moments, speechless.
"Well, do we go into the scary black hole?" Don whispered, joining Kenjal in looking at Marie.
Marie felt a bristle at the nape of her neck as a thin line of sweat broke out. This is what got her in trouble before, Marie thought. She should have contacted higher command at the nearest headquarters to assess this object and provide back up if needed. She should've deferred to a higher authority on next steps. Instead, like her previous experiences, she went headlong into the unknown and got herself and her crew into danger. Hopefully this time would end in the death of one of her personnel.
"Well, we can't stay here," Marie finally concluded, hoping to find an escape route for her team and get back to Pluto-C in time to warn the civilians.
She headed the exit, leading first down the ladder with Don following her after she gave the all clear, then Kenjal taking up the rear. Looking down the shaft, they saw a dimly lit passageway that ended on an apparent turn. The gravity was low but enough to walk without bounding techniques, which was a relief to her. She'd never been good in light grade gravity.
The smell was antiseptic yet earthy as they headed cautiously down the passageway and around the corner. At the end stood a closed door with no obvious entry keypad or handle of any sort. A low rumble alerted them to some movement from behind the doorway and they positioned themselves for defensive assault. Instead, the door slide open and they were confronted with an empty antechamber about twelve feet by twelve feet.
"Well, looks like we enter the creepy room," Kenjal retorted to no one in particular. "Nice welcoming committee."
As they hesitantly entered the room, the door slid closed behind them and seats slid out of the walls. The three banged uselessly on the door for a few minutes, screaming and cursing.
"I guess they want us to sit," Don deduced after they settled down. Both Kenjal and Marie gave him a bland stare. "What?"
Sitting, 3-D images materialized of a galaxy. Pinwheel shape with five distinct spokes and two dust rings. The sun was a small blue dwarf and it looked only to contain about six major planets. The image narrowed to the fourth planet out and they watched as a mass exodus of objects, just like the one they were in, ejected into space. They spurt out like pollen, scattering in different directions and at different speeds.
A timeline of some unknown measurement system moved fast as the view tracked a singular objective, most likely this one. As it moved through the galaxy and beyond, through the dark in between galaxies, the object continually stopped near specie made technology.
"Must be other populated places," Don commented quietly.
At each stop, what looked like a numerical value popped up and some kind of tally started. After the image stopped outside Pluto-C, faces and text appeared. Unknown species with some bar value. They all looked distinctly different. Some had multiple sets of eyes and fur. Some were bared skins with a glean. Yet again, some were almost identical to humans. The last three figures showed Bill, Marjorie, and surprisingly, Peter.
/> "They must have taken Bill and Marjorie, and then Peter while we were in route." Marie stood and fumed. She circled in place. "You bastards, where are they?"
The image paused and then a view of Bill's quarters materialized. The image zoomed in to the living area and on the ground.
"Son of a bitch!" Don clenched is jaw systematically as he pointed. "The powder, that's Bill, or what's left of him."
"Why?" Marie asked out loud.
The image of the bar appeared, the faces streamed through again and the bars adjusted accordingly. Then a scatter gram appears and dots accumulated on the chart.
"I still don't understand," Marie vocalized. "Are you collecting them?" A dashboard image materialized and the dial went up to the halfway point. Then the bar and the scatter gram sequence restarted.
Kenjal took her shot. "Are you accumulating and integrating them?" The dashboard dial shot to the full point. "Why?" An image of a family tree appeared and same faces from before started populating the branches. As they did the bark of the tree transitioned from light brown to dark brown from the roots up.
"You're growing your population?" Don interjected heatedly. "Then why are Bill, Marjorie, and Peter ashes now? Why did you kill him? You can't make dead people part of a society!"
An image of a cocoon appeared and in fast time, the cocoon opened and the butterfly escaped. Then the image of Bill's ashes flashed on