*
‘Attention flight crew,’ a disembodied voice announced half-way through the evening. ‘Prepare for an unscheduled translation from FTL.’
That woke them up. They had only been sleeping for a couple of hours. At first the alerts had sounded like part of a dream sequence but they had soon become very real. Kalen had her arms around Salem. He gently wriggled around to face her. With a slight brushing motion of his hand he woke her from her sleep.
‘Wakey wakey,’ he cooed.
‘What time is it?’
‘Late,’ he paused a little to make certain that she was listening. ‘Something’s going on. There’s an alert of some sort going on and we’re about to translate out of FTL.’
‘Already?’ She was still very groggy and seemed to be having difficulty understanding exactly what Salem was saying.
‘We’re not at Earth yet. I guess there is some fault with the drive system.’ He hoped she would be convinced by that, but he knew it to be untrue. It was his job to know this kind of thing. FTL systems rarely failed and he was almost certain that the last FTL failure had happed long before he was born.
‘I thought FTL systems couldn’t break down?’
‘They don’t, usually. But there doesn’t really seem to be any reason to stop right now does there.’ He would have tried to reason with her further but one of the door sentry systems chimed and took up his attention. ‘Who’s there?’ he called.
‘This is Officer Gray from the flight-crew. We would like to speak with you immediately.’ Salem furrowed his eyebrows wondering why they would need to speak to him. But he could tell from the tone of the officer’s voice that this was a pressing matter. He waved at the door sentry which chimed again and displayed a graphic of an opening door.
The officer came into the bedroom in full tactical gear. ‘Mr Green? Mr Salem Hadrin Green?’ the officer asked.
‘Yes.’
‘There is a situation developing. The Captain has requested that you come to the flight deck immediately. I am here to escort you there.’
‘Can’t it wait,’ asked Kalen.
‘I’m sorry miss, but this situation requires Mr Green’s immediate attention.’
‘Why do you need Salem?’ she asked.
‘Mr Green is the only person aboard this vessel qualified to advise us on these circumstances.’ Salem realised that something dire must be unfolding. He had a suspicion that a very particular skill-set of his was going to be of use. He emerged from the bed stark naked and began to put on his clothes.
Kalen on the other hand could not see any reason for the intrusion. ‘And what exactly does Salem possess that could be of significant importance to you?’
‘Mr Green is a tactical advisor for the United World Defence Institute. He is therefore best qualified to respond to this incident.’ The officer was growing a little restless and his tone was becoming terse. ‘Mr Green, we need you immediately. This way please.’ He held out his hand.
Salem turned towards Kalen and stated softly, ‘don’t worry, it is probably nothing. I will be back in a moment.’ The two left together. Kalen gathered the duvet around her and began to feel a little worried.
Salem entered the pandemonium on the flight-deck apprehensively. He might have been an advisor to the United World Defence Institute but actual violence frightened the hell out of him. A tall elderly looking woman, with her grey hair in a tight bun, strode over to him. She breathed huskily and her voice was even huskier. It was like footsteps upon gravel. ‘Mr Green?’ Salem nodded. ‘We have a situation.’
‘Please call me Salem,’ he answered. ‘What seems to be the problem.’
The grey haired lady looked him up and down. Whatever she was looking for she apparently found it. He had no idea what that could be. ‘Perhaps you should take a look.’ She directed him over to a holo terminal. Her withered hands played with the illusion that was the screen and a visual was called up. ‘As you know, we continuously scan for radiation signatures during FTL flight.’ He nodded, it was a wise precaution against crashing into another vessel. The captain moved her hand over the holo. A graphic superimposed itself over the star field that the holo was displaying. ‘Around half an hour ago we detected large amounts of radiation coming from an unknown source.’
‘Yes I see it,’ Salem mused. He didn’t think much of it. ‘Probably just a binary star, they can kick out a lot of radiation.’ The grey haired lady studied him again for a second.
‘That’s what we thought, at first. In fact, if it hadn’t been for my tactical officer over here, we wouldn’t have even bothered dropping out.’
‘What made you stop?’
‘Well the particular star field that you are looking at is...well I’m not sure how to say this. It’s exactly where Earth is.’ Salem frowned, this seemed highly unlikely. A solar event, even from the sun, would not be creating this much highly specialised radiation. The captain seemed to see what he was thinking. ‘Yes,’ she continued. ‘We didn’t really believe it either. But we checked, and then double checked. Sensor analysis concluded that it is coming from the Solar System. What we need you to do, is to tell us how that is possible.’
‘Let me see an exact breakdown of the radiation signature. It could literally be anything. But you did the right thing dropping out of FTL, I wouldn’t want to fly into that if I were you.’ The captain motioned for the computer to bring up the data. A column of digits and timecodes expanded in front of him. To the side were several graphs. Without thinking about it Salem sat down to analyse the data.
‘Do you see anything?’ asked the captain. Salem ignored her. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He stood up quickly. What the hell was he going to do?
‘Captain. What is the nearest United World colony to here?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Just tell me.’ His shoulders were tense. His heart was racing.
‘Caladonis, I guess.’ She frowned at him. ‘I will ask you again, why are you interested in the colonies.’ But Salem wasn’t listening to her. He was firmly occupied with other thoughts.
‘Can you establish a communication with them?’
‘Not at this range,’ was her reply. She waited for him to tell her what was going on. He said nothing. She was becoming irritated by his pacing. ‘Tell me what is going on Mr Green or so help me god—‘ she didn’t bother to finish. She could see it all from the moment that he turned to face her. She could see it in his eyes. She almost wanted to tell him not to tell her. But her curiosity kept her silent.
‘We need to get a hold of that colony captain. We need to see if they are able to answer, because Earth certainly can’t. Those radiation signatures are not the signatures of a star.’ His voice raised its tempo, he was speaking like a madman now. ‘Do you see those lines,’ she nodded in response. ‘Those lines represent a compression wave. Those over there represent a burst of anti-matter particles. These two lines represent the frequency and size of each burst of radiation. If there is anything left of Earth, it won’t even be worth visiting.’ His whole world was being turned upside down.
The captain rounded on him. ‘Now wait just a minute. How would we be able to detect these events from all the way out here?’
‘Anti-matter explosions like this are very unusual. They are so unusual that they do not get drowned out by the background noise of the universe. Simply put; it is amazing that we did not detect it sooner.’ She looked at her tactical officer. He nodded sadly. She turned her head about the flight-deck, everybody was standing still. All activity had stopped.
‘What does this mean Salem?’ She used his first name, hoping that his responses would be a little more forthright.
‘It means we can’t go to Earth.’ Her tactic hadn’t paid off.
‘Surely we should get closer, check it out? Decide what to do when we have more information. They may have been testing a weapon or something.’ Salem shook his head in response.
‘Captain I am afraid that a te
st of that magnitude, for this duration, and occurring so frequently would have been nothing short of suicidal. The data is quite clear. It really doesn’t make a difference whether we did it to ourselves or somebody else did it to us. Whether it was a test, whether it was an act of war, doesn’t really seem to matter. The colonies are all connected to Earth via communication buoys. If we make it to the colony then we can try and make contact via their communications network. I wouldn’t, however, hold your breath.’
She stared at him. In all of her fifty years as a ship’s captain nothing like this had ever happened before. It was unreal. It was incomprehensible. ‘So what you are saying is that Earth has fallen,’ she said quietly. Her fingers began to make little folds in her blouse. Her body shook as she processed the information, as if for the first time.
‘Yes.’ He could not offer her any other response. There were no maybes here, there were no ifs. She seemed to let out something like a moan. Her nostrils flared as she took in breath. There was obviously nothing that he could do, but something in him told him that he should take action, give orders, if only to attempt to maintain a sense of hope. He touched the captain on her shoulder. She looked up briefly and measured him yet again. ‘Captain, you need to make an announcement to the passengers and the crew,’ he stared at her levelly. ‘They need to know captain, it is their right.’ She nodded. ‘Then I want you to set a course for Caladonis and pray that it is still there.’
The captain pulled herself to full height and began to issue her orders. He turned around on his heel. There was no use for him anymore. This was an unarmed vessel, if there were warships waiting for them when they got to the colony, they were done for. At any rate it didn’t matter if he stayed. The world that he had worked for was gone. His entire self had changed. His reality, the very core of his being belonged to something else anyway. No, it belonged to someone else. She was waiting for him in their bedroom. He would have to tell her, he would have to let her know. For him the end of the world didn’t really seem to matter so long as she would stand next to him and prop him up when he fell down.