Beyond Sol

Chapter 15

"AETHER whats the status report?" Muhammmed asks.
    "Ring two, excessive atmospheric pressure and elements-" AETHER says as Eliza shot her eyes to me.
"Fuel load, reduced. Outer hull layers, dissolved. Temporary pressure loss in Ring one and Hangar bay." AETHER Finished.
    "Whats with the excessive pressure and chemicals in Ring two?" Eliza asked.
"Unknown. Further human research must be done." And from there we all started walking to Ring two, instantly.
"Masks." I said as we floated through the cryo module. It was only two point five atmospheres of pressure. We would be fine without a EVA suit. Right? Anyways.
"Start entry process of Ring two." Amelia called. She grabbed the handle and twisted it three sixty degrees. The door has large white letters displaying the text "A L P H A C E N T A U R I" and with a long beep and a greenlight, the door slid into a small hole just large enough to hold the door.
"In we go," we floated to the ladder from there we started climbing with ever growing gravity every step we took. "Opening Ring two door two." I call as I twist the bar three hundred sixty degrees. "Unlocking." The first door locked, and as the second opened a rushing green gas poured in.
A slight panic occurred but eventually we gathered the balls to climb further upwards. We were able to climb into the lab, shattered glass and chemical spills just about everywhere. I looked around. There.
"Get the emergency EVA's" I said as I sprinted over to the wall, strapping the boots, helmet, gloves, pants and chest plate on. "Why EVA? Our masks fend off the chemicals." Eliza asked.
"Not radiation to your skin they sure as hell don't. And I sure as hell don't want to have four Beyond Sol executives come into the Spectrum and place me in cuffs for 3rd degree murder when we land on earth again. If we do, that is."
    "Fair enough." We bagged some of the liquid with a small vacuum and picked up some of the glass samples. "WARP ACTIVITY DETECTED."
"Bowsers are all bark no bite until you respond to them. We can finish up here and then go check it out." Eliza said as she continued picking up random shards of glass.
"Got it..." As we finished cleaning up, a proximity alarm blared.
"Time to go check that out," I say as we climb down the ladder, quickly throwing off our EVA's and rushing to the bridge. "AETHER Status report?" Amelia asks,
"Vessel within one hundred kilometres, callsign is Sierra, Papa, Echo Charlie 972."
"SPEC972? What the hell?" James asks, rubbing his head slightly with a small burning pain.
"Nice for you to join us, sit down." Eliza orders as she watched the small vehicle which appeared as a tiny star.
"SPEC382, The . AETHER Get me a telescopic view of the object, I want its radius, size, and hull composition." I say as the screens zoom in. While its a bit blurry and undetailed. Its clear what it is. Two large gravity rings, two large boxes on the back, a small nuclear engine module, a small thin hull, and a bridge similar to an A380 cockpit. It's a Spectrum. "What the hell?!?" Comes an understandable reaction from Muhammmed.
"I don't know, AETHER cancel out all velocity relative to the object. Send out an IFF ping. I wanna know if these guys can help us or are stranded in the same situation we are." I say.
"Affirmative. IFF ping came back neutral."
    "Sending out a radio call." I hold the mic close to my mouth, sending out the call. I stare at the red light on the dashboard, waiting. The light shuts off. The greenlight button stopped working a while ago.
"H-H-hello?" I stammer.
"Hello." An unfamiliar voice shoots back. I'm shocked. It has people. This thing is either brand spanking new or old as hell.
"I am Captain Grace of the Spectrum. The vehicle for the ESMV program, Extra Solar Mission Venturer." Grace says, he sounds a bit elderly. 50 maybe? Maybe even stretching into the sixties. I don't know. But that confirms it. This is very old.
"I'm Captain Carter of the- Spectrum. The vehicle for the Beyond Sol program. How long have you been here?"
    "Me? I'm only 54. But my mission has been here for over eighty years. Earth years, that is." I spit out my water onto the dashboard from the drink I just sipped on. THEY'VE BEEN HERE SINCE 2062? I couldn't wrap my head around that. Their mission has been here for eighty years. Its 2138. And they've been here since 2062. Woah.
"Eighty years? Just on that tiny thing? I mean. Woah. Sure my crew has been living here for what? Nine years but eighty is over 8 times as long. And you've only just noticed us now?"
"My fleet has been chasing you around the system the entire time. We visited you during your cryosleep phase. It's not just us in this system."
    "What do you mean it's not just us."
    A 3D visual representation was displayed on the dashboard. Holy. Look at that thing! The amount of rings on that. Let me count...12 rings! 12! Twelve massive rings with a thick hull too. A few measurements appeared. Oh. My. God. The radius of the rings- Six kilometres. That means the distance from side to side of every ring is twelve kilometres. Wow. And the thing is thirty kilometres long. I squint. Hangars! There's hangars! Not for jets. Spectrums. On each ring had the words, "NASA, CSA. CNSA, JAXA, ROSCOSMOS. ESA." World collaborations right there! "What's her name?"
    "The Event Horizon. NASA named it that way because when you step in. You never want to step out. Also your ship there looks a little beat up, well alot."
"Wanna know what happened yesterday? Little chunk of debris came and smashed into ring one at a relative velocity of three KM/S. The escaping air blew us into a nine g spin and then a strike on the hangar blew us in a temporary eleven g spin. We blacked out and were just finishing cleaning up the lab now."
    "Are you in need of aid? We could take you back. Get you fuelled up, restocked. You could probably stay with us for a while. I could talk to my boss."
    "Okay. Yeah. Sure. But what was your guys' original mission? How did you end up here?"
    "The same way you did. It was a simple aerobraking manoeuvre with Neptune. And then later the warp drive fired up and sent us here. And for our original mission? Warp to Alpha Centauri and let humanity die out." I was dumbfounded. NASA wouldn't kill everyone- Of course they would Carter. NASA doesn't give a shit. Of course NASA would let humanity die off.

The HWSS Event Horizon appeared as a small star in the distance. No detail or anything. I could mistake it for a star. The screen above showed a telescopic view of it. It was a bit fuzzy. It looked as if there was atmospheric disturbance. Of course there wasn't but eleven g's didn't put up with the camera.
"Look at that thing!" Amelia exclaimed. The HWSS Event Horizon was 1200 kilometres outbound and appeared larger than the other Spectrum which was a kilometre away.
"It's a beast! How many people does it store at once?" Muhammed asked.
"A little over five thousand. If you use all the fuel and oxygen from the Spectrums maybe seven thousand. If you heat the place up maybe eight point five."
"Five thousand? Holy shit." He exclaimed as we continued heading towards the Event Horizon, a relative motion of 11 KM/S.
    "Requesting to enter Event Horizon airspace." Grace called, gesturing me to do the same through the small windows of the ships. I nodded
"Requesting to enter the Event Horizon's airspace." I mumbled as a call came back
"Spectrums granted permission to enter airspace. Dock ports 58 and 93." An ATC of some sorts responded.
"58 and 93, Do the ports like have letters on them or-" James was interjected by Grace
    "Yes. Yes they do. Hey Carter every crew has the annoying one is this guy him or like-"
    "Shut up." James said. I chuckled a bit and looked up to the windows. Holy! There it is! The Event Horizon. "Burn the jets. Don't wanna fly by it." I exclaim as Eliza swipes a button on her monitor without looking down from the image of the Event Horizon. Everyone was a bit dumbfounded by it. I mean, who wouldn't be.
After thirteen years of living in a crammed spaceship, something that spacious is luxury.
The shadow of the Event Horizon encaptured the Spectrum as we drifted in. Oh my god. "AETHER Switch bridge mode to clear." I say as small LED's usually invisible light up with a perspective of the entire outside.
I scan around for port 93. There! Aha. Its on a ring that stopped spinning. Ring 6 from the front. The docking port extended from a piece of the hull that just opened up. It fits perfectly, I guess the retarded NASA bastards were too lazy to make new technology. Stupid NASA.
The docking port clicks as greenlights brighten. As soon as I dock the ring started rotating again. A few objects like a coffee cup and a pencil or two dropped. Right, gravity. Always a pain in the ass. "Docking module, now." I ordered as we ran off to the docking module.
The airlock cycled as the exterior door slid open. A cold air rushed in, refreshing. A few medics awaited at the door, "Are you guys alright? You've been alone a long time." They asked.
"We're fine-" They started doing a pat down for any injuries. "You're good." Okay then. We walked inside, a crowd gathering. This felt really weird but good at the same time. I haven't seen a different human besides the same five people in nine years- I mean woah. It's pretty crazy.
People were gasping in awe. I mean sure, of course they've had problems over the eighty years but they had five thousand of each other, we've been disconnected from humanity for over nine years with just five of us. We've been through demons you couldn't even imagine.
A few men that looked like engineers, blue dirty overalls, hats, etc. "What shit has it gone through?" One asked.
"Eleven to nine g spin, tumbled in an atmosphere. Sat in sand that corroded some of the wheels over the span of a year, debris impacted the hangar and ring one. And also the fact its been tarnishing pretty fast. The original mission was to end over three years ago." Muhammed responded as he yawned.
"Okay..." They wrote it down on a clipboard.
And then a few men in black suits approached. "Follow us." One asked- Said? I dont know. The tone in their voice is weird. Like. Super weird. Anyways.
"Okay then." Amelia said as we walked through the long hallway of ring six. Eventually we stopped at 5 rooms. "Your staterooms." They handed over a key for each one.
"Thanks, I guess." James sighed. I slapped James on the back of the head.
"These people might have just saved our lives. Shut up. Now." I say, walking into the room. Oh. My. God. The room was massive! It had a massive window looking down into the main hull with the other rings. I saw a Spectrum touching down in one of the large hangars in the hull of the ship.
Eliza walked into my room, sitting down on the bed. "Carter." She said as I turned
    "Yes?"
    "NASA knows we're at the Event Horizon. And they're not happy about it either. They want us to undock as soon as possible, forget about the ship by telling AETHER to administer us some drug and to continue the course to KLMA-3E."
    "NASA doesn't know anything. Tell them we will be staying on the Event Horizon until the Bowsers are defeated and we are able to return to Earth."
    "Hostile but okay."
    "NASA should've thought twice about sending us on a mission that we were given at least a chance to return to Sol."
    "Fair"