With all the crew safely onboard the Voodoo the explosion seems to dissipate in space. John slumps in the captain’s chair on the VooDoo and looks up at Veyah standing close by,
JOHN: “Are we still moving Veyah?”
VEYAH: “Yes, but I am unable to determine speed and navigational position because the sensors are down. Because I have no sensors the Inertial damping is fully on as a result. We seem to be clear of Alice.
Alice…..is gone!”
Ioa looks surprised and upset. The crew except for Veyah and John who are both busy all look at Ioa sympathetically.
GHOST: “Wow”
JOHN: “Can you bring Voodoo to a stop?”
VEYAH: “I can without sensors, but there is a problem”
JOHN: “What’s the problem Veyah?”
VEYAH: “I would normally triangulate star positions to estimate our rough coordinates and speed; but there are none, you will have to do it manually John?”
JOHN: “I’m unable to get a readout of our current speed or position, like you said, there is nothing out there to get a triangulation or bearing from, no stars, no pulsars, nothing, not anything. I just cannot measure our speed or get a fixed position.
We’re going to have to come to a full stop somehow. I’m going to shutoff the forward bow wave modulation but maintain VooDoo’s guardian shields. Inertial damping will fluctuate without the bow wave”.
Luna looks over at Veyah when she announces to John a possible issue with John’s plan,
YEYAH: “Although I’m unable to measure our speed John, shutting down the bow wave deflector without actually knowing how fast we are going could be very dangerous. The ship will implode if we are going past light speed. We could be going faster than L-1”.
JOHN: “I believe we are moving sub light, because I can sense in my eye implant that the blue light shift in the light spectrum is negligible, and anyway, we HAVE to come to a full top to get our bearings”
LUNA: “So, John, if we survive the bow wave being turned off and an implosion, how do you know when we’re stationary”
JOHN: “The forward bow wave modulator creates a bubble around the ship, the bow wave bubble we travel in when going faster than light makes our mass or weight zero.
Without the bow wave our mass would be millions of tons at just the speed of light, to go faster than the speed of light we need to have no mass. By turning off the bow wave we will have weight, we just need to slow down until our mass is the same as it should be when we are stationary. Simple!.
Veyah raises her shoulders and stands in front of John.
LUNA: “Or if we are going faster than light, we are all dead”
JOHN: “Porter? Dizzy?”
Porter and Dizzy double check their consoles for blue light shift, PORTER: “I concur, it’s safe to turn off the bow wave modulator”
DIZZY: “So do I”
JOHN: “Veyah, you have the ships controls. Drop a satellite behind us so we can track ourselves backwards and shut down bow wave modulation and bring the ship to a stop”.
Veyah walks across the deck and assumes her position at the star-ships helm control. She brings up screens that she needs to control the ships slowdown from near light speed.
YEYAH: “Some systems could shut down. And I would advise you all hold on to something securely fixed to the deck if you want to remain standing”.
The crew all brace themselves for a sudden deceleration. Dizzy hugs Tombs who is holding onto a handrail,
YEYAH: “3, 2, 1, bow wave shutdown, engines in reverse, slowing down…”
The flight deck goes black, the crew all get thrown forward for a brief split second, then get thrown back the other way as Alice slows then comes to a sudden stop.
The interstellar star ships lighting and instrumentation flicker on and off momentary. A screeching noise like the tearing of metal of a big sea going container ship rubbing up against a dock wall emanates inside Alice from no certain direction.
GHOST: “What the fuck is that!”
The crew worriedly look around and up and down,
YEYAH: “Sensors are down, I’m unable to process the disturbance. But your hypothesis worked, and I have brought Voodoo to a stop. I can confirm that we are now stationary”.
JOHN: “Tombs! You’re with me, we’re getting suited up, we’re going for a walk outside to find out what that noise was”.
TOMBS: “Ok boss”
JOHN: “The rest of you, we need to check over the ship’s data logs and ships systems”
DIZZY: “On to it John. Come on Porter”
John and Tombs go down to the lower cargo deck where the TMG (Trans Migration Gateway) is located. They put on their spacesuits and astronaut space propulsion units and walk over to the TMG console.
JOHN: “I’m setting up the TMG so we are looking back at Alice, I don’t want to walk into an accident”
John adjusts the TMG and the gateway door buzzes. Only a black view can be seen, no stars or galaxies.
JOHN: “Veyah! External illumination please”
As John and Tombs stand in front of the blackened view of outer space though the TMG doorway VooDoo illuminates herself. When they see the view John and Tombs look at each other.
TOMBS: “Is that what I think it is?”
JOHN: “It certainly looks like it”
The pair find themselves looking at the remains of a Endellion spaceship and debris encircling VooDoo.
TOMBS: “How? What’s happened John?”
JOHN: “When we have checked out the data logs I’ll tell yeah, otherwise I’m guessing. Let’s see if there is any damage done to the ship. I don’t want to be out here for too long”.
TOMBS: “Me too”
They go through the TMG and find themselves outside in the darkest outer space either of them have ever experienced. Toms looks over at John and nervously says,
TOMBS: “I’ve never seen it so black”
JOHN: “Me too”
They both manoeuvre closer to Voodoo using their compact astronaut propulsion units and land on the ships outer hull.
They both activate their magnetic boots which turn on with a magnetic hum. A heads-up display in their helmets tell them the boots have been turned on and have contacted the ships outer hull.
SOFT FEMALE SUIT-HELMET VOICE: “Mag-boots engaged. You are secured to ships outer hull”.
John looks up at the debris encircling Voodoo,
JOHN: “Tombs! Watch out for that shit. Better still set-up your localised suit radar to give you a warning of any debris that gets too close to you”.
Tombs and John fiddle with touch screens attached to their suit sleeves, TOMBS: “Ok, done”
John looks at the remains of the ship that looks like it is embedded into VooDoo’s hull. He holds up a handheld scanner and scans the wrecked ship,
JOHN: “Tombs, get some droids out here to clean this up, scan’s show that there is minimal damage to the hull, this ship seems to have welded itself to Voodoo’s hull during the collision. The heat must had been huge to do that. Come on, let’s get back inside”.
As John and Tombs make their way back to the TMG doorway yellow droids with various tools can be seen making their out of TMG doorway on their way to clear up the remains of the wrecked Endellion spaceship and also to repair any hull damage. Tombs goes though the TMG while John waits for all the droids pass him before he goes though himself.
When John gets back aboard the Voodoo he goes over to a communications panel on a bulkhead wall and places his hand on a rectangular hand sized panel that turns the device on.
JOHN: “Tombs, can you manage the droids doing the repairs”
TOMBS: “No problem”
John takes off his spacesuit and then goes to the flight deck. He sits next to Luna who is busy doing calculations,
JOHN: “Any data yet Luna?”
Luna replies,
LUNA: “You won’t believe this John; I’m surprised we survived the explosion. It measured like 10 Gyres going off at the same time. We were inside the explosion, and barely going though it like the lensing effect we were trying to create”.
JOHN: “Where are we?”
LUNA: “Your not going to believe this John, let’s go to the observation window, I have something to show you”
They both exit the flight deck and go to the observation gallery on the upper deck of VooDoo.
LUNA: “Veyah, open the observation window”
A 3-meter section of ceiling and wall slides opens to reveal a curved window of open space,
JOHN: “All I see is a fluffy ball? What galaxy system is that?”
LUNA: “ That John, is not a galaxy, that is our universe”
John pauses for a few seconds to take in what Luna just told him, JOHN: “What?
LUNA: “ That John, is not a galaxy, that’s our universe”
Johns face drops, he goes quiet, then folds his arms looking up, JOHN: “Wow!”
LUNA: “Wow yourself, how we getting back!”
JOHN: “Same way we got here. Problem is? how do we recreate that event? I’m going to have to do some deep thinking”.
LUNA: “Brains?.... Deep thinking?... No sex tonight then?”
John raises his eyebrows at Luna who has now crossed her arms emulating Joh. Luna has raised her left eyebrow at John now, she is also tapping the floor with one foot. Luna is grinning at John. John sarcastically grins back at her; he turns around and exits the observation room.
Next morning the crew are sitting in the cafeteria having breakfast. John walks in and sits down at the end of the table where the rest of the crew are eating. He pours a coffee from a thermos jug from the middle of the table into a mug, he then cascades some cereal into a bowl from a clear plastic container.
LUNA: “Did your brain sleep well John?”
Dizzy looks up.
DIZZY: “Do brains sleep separately from your body?”
A surprised Porter looks at Dizzy then directly at John,, PORTER: “Is that true? I never knew that”.
John smirks.
JOHN: “Luna is being funny”
The rest of the crew (who are not laughing) all look at dizzy. Dizzy looks around the table at the straight faces.
DIZZY: “I wasn’t sure; I got that wrong didn’t I”
JOHN: “Anyway, we have 12 spare Gyres. We need 10 to create a lensing effect again, except it will be an elongated lens this time. The Voodoo is smaller and lighter than the Alice was. If this was the Alice 12
Gyres would not had been enough. It will take us 2 weeks and a day to get back, not 28 seconds like it did to get here.
PORTER: “Two weeks?”
JOHN: “The problem is, that we still will not have enough energy to support the bow wave generator, so the life support systems will have to be turned off. The air, water, food regeneration, the guardian shields etcetera and etcetera. We will have to use the hyperbaric chambers to protect ourselves against radiation, high gravitational forces and go into a cryogenic sleep for the long journey”.
GHOST: “When”
JOHN: “Today”
PORTER: “What about Me and Dizzy?”
JOHN: “Gamma rays could damage you both”
Dizzy looks around at Porter,
DIZZY: “Sleepy sleepily, dreamy dreamily”
PORTER: “Some A-I dreamtime”
Porter grins showing his teeth,
LUNA: “I want to do some medical check-ups on all of you first.
Dizzy stands up,
LUNA: “Humans Dizzy”
Later, Luna goes back to her and John’s cabin. She sees that John is in the shower, she undresses and joins him. John turns around, LUNA: “How’s your brain now”
JOHN: “Its ok”
LUNA: “Two weeks in Hyper sleep. You better make love to me now”.
They make out in the shower.
In the evening all the crew except for Ioa and Veyah are in the Hyper sleep compartment preparing for their hibernated sleep. The hyper sleep compartment has 8 sleep chambers. The room and all equipment is medical white.
Each Sleep chamber has a white diamond quilted padded interior with a head rest for just one person. The crew get ready by getting dressed in special padded suit’s, and then help each other put on medical monitoring equipment.
Ioa and Veyah appear.
JOHN: “Ok you two, everything set? ok?”
VEYAH: “Ten Gyres in place to create a lensing corridor, and are all ready to go”
IOA: “I’ll shut down all life support once I have checked that you are all well, asleep, and tucked in before we set off”
Ioa and Veyah observe as John and Luna hug and kiss before they get into their individual sleep chambers. Ghost and Tombs do the same.
Porter and Dizzy look around and decide to just awkwardly hug each other.
Each crew member gets into their own sleep chamber, then plugs their medical monitoring cables into built into consoles near the headrest. Each crew member activates their own chamber to start the sleep process.
Each chamber leans back slightly into the star ship’s hull. A vacuum hiss is herd from overhead at each white coloured hyper sleep chamber, and a
clear slightly domed door to each of the sleep chambers slides downwardly and clunks shut.
Each chamber now slides away from the wall quietly downwards until it lays flat on the floor face up. A remote circular flush fitting handle turns on it own on each chamber door.
A small screen on the middle of each door goes from a green
“VACANT” to a red “ENGAGED”, then starts to display a flashing
“MODE: Preparing… MODE: Executing Hyper Sleep, MODE: Occupant Now Entering Hyper Sleep… MODE: Occupant in Hyper Sleep… MODE: Monitoring….”
Each of the crew fades into hyper sleep. Ioa checks each chamber while Veyah looks on. Ioa and Veyah then vanish and reappear on the flight deck.
Veyah and Ioa take their positions at the flight consoles. Veyah looks around at Ioa,
VEYAH: “Ready?”
IOA: “Ready when you are”
VEYAH: “All systems checked, life support off, systems all look good.
Flight path all pre-programmed. Let’s go then”.
With two outstretched fingers Veyah presses down on her console, the Gyers implode as the VooDoo enters compressed space that has been created by the Gyres.
John finds himself back in the white room with one door. Ioa and Veyah walk in and close the door behind them. Veyah and Ioa are dressed in bright patterned summer dresses and are both wearing broad smiles and look beautiful.
John looks down at himself. He realizes that he has sunglasses on, he removes the sunglasses, and he can see he is dressed in a cool white summer suit and can feel something on his head. He reaches up and removes a white fedora hat with a black band.
VEYAH: “How you been John?”
IOA: “Where are we going today John?”
YEYAH: “Lets go though the door and find out”
Ioa and Veyah both take each of John’s arms and put their arms though his and lead him towards the closed door.
Ioa opens the door, and they all walk outside to a bright summer’s day onto a short old wooden pier without a handrail. Warm crystal-clear sea waters below are lapping away at the wooden pier supports. It is somewhere tropical. They all stand at the end of the short pier looking over the ocean.
VEYAH: “Hmmm… nice choice John”
JOHN: “I didn’t pick this”
IOA: “You did! because we can’t John”
VEYAH: “Ice cream Ioa”
IOA: “Chocolate with chilli?”
VEYAH: “Of course”
Veyah turns John around to walk back towards a sandy beach with over hanging palm trees with a thick forest that is behind a drinks bar. The bar is built on an out stretch of flat rock. The hut looks like a typical idealistic tropical grass roof and bamboo construction desert island type-built bar on an isolated beach.
As they get close a bar tender appears. John also notices a framed picture of Luna on the bars serving area. The picture has Lunas handwriting on it
“To John, Love you, Xx, Luna”.
IOA: “John?”
JOHN: “Three chocolate chilli ice creams please bartender”
VEYAH: “I’ll have a chocolate flake in mine”
IOA: “Me too”
JOHN: “Why not, and me”
The bartender makes up three chilli chocolate ice creams cones with chocolate flakes inserted in them from a horizontal chest freezer behind the bar, and then hands them to his three customers.
John and Veyah each get their ice creams and sit on stools along side the bar under the shade of the overhanging roof of the hut. Ioa takes John’s fedora hat and puts it on her head and smiles at him. She licks her ice cream and pauses looking at John for a short while.
Ioa then removes John’s tortoise frame wayfarer sunglasses, and she puts them on and then pokes out a chocolate covered tongue at him. She collects her ice-cream then skips away down the short pier and sits down dangling her feet in the warm sea eating her ice-cream.
JOHN: “She’s a younger you isn’t she Veyah”
Veyah and John both turn heads and look down the pier at Ioa with her back to them eating her ice cream,
VEYAH: “She doesn’t know. I prefer to see her as my younger sister”.
John turns to look back at Ioa again, this time she is in the sea swimming in a bright red bikini, her dress is nowhere to be seen.
JOHN: So, why are we here Veyah?”
VEYAH: “To enjoy this short 2-week break”
JOHN: “We are going to be here 2 weeks”
VEYAH: “A week has already gone by, so what I need to tell you I need tell you now”
JOHN: “Go on”
VEYAH: “Be careful of rich powerful men who can afford luxury goods, the luxury goods are fine, it’s just the wealthy powerful people who own those luxury goods and got all the way to the top, that you need to avoid”
JOHN: “Top of what?”
Ioa arrives back to the bar dry and dressed in a different dress that she had first appeared in. When he looks back at Veyah her dress has changed as well.
IOA: “That ice cream was fantastic. But sadly, we have to go now; Our two-week vacation is up”.
JOHN: “We’ve only been here minutes”
VEYAH: “The flow of time is different here. It’s been lovely, but Gotta go”.
Both Veyah and Ioa kiss John on each cheek leaving bright red lipstick marks. John notices that his ice cream is melting and dripping down on to his trousers, he gets a napkin from the bar and starts dabbing at the stain.
Still sitting down on the stool, he looks up, he finds himself back in the white room. He feels a sneeze coming on, as he sneezes he can’t help but to closes his eyes. As he sneezes he bangs his forehead on something.
As John opens his eyes after the sneeze he finds himself in the hyper sleep chamber waking up from his dream, he notices a mark on his chambers clear door where he banged his head and sneeze particular dribbling down when he sneezed.
JOHN: “Huh?”
Two weeks had passed and Ioa is smiling and looking at him through the glass door of his hyper sleep chamber.
Ioa checks on each of the crew. Once she is done she goes over to a wall console and taps away. Each chamber door opens.
Ghost sits up and tries to talk, but all she can manage is a dry cough, Each crew member slowly wakes while Dizzy and Porter just get up straight away and check the crew are ok. Dizzy gets a drink of water for Ghost,
Luna croaks at John,
LUNA: “Did you dream of me?”
John croaks back,
JOHN: “Of course”
Veyah appears,
VEYAH: “John, Full life support is 100%. Guardian shielding has been initialised. And VooDoo has crossed the boundary where interstellar space meets the Earths suns heliosphere.
Suddenly VooDoo is rocked by an explosion. Alarms go off.