Adrift Among The Stars — Part Two
Disaster in Hyperspace
Four weeks into the voyage, Ka’rail was in the middle of his shift. Alone, he watched the displays in the Control Room. He was being as attentive as possible while completing the boring job. Discrepancies in the ship’s operation were rare, but they did occur. If he was too slow in his evaluation and report, he would be demoted and perhaps dumped from the crew at the next opportunity.
Thus, he spotted the anomalous indication instantly. He hesitated for only a moment, but this was long enough. In the blink of an eye, the structural integrity display was awash with red indicator bars. Ka’rail knew what had happened. The hyperspace field surrounding the ship had collapsed. There was an immense quantity of energy stored in the warp of the space-time fabric. It took several hours for the hyperspace generators to build up the energy to allow the ship to travel hundreds of times the speed of light. This energy had to be bled down slowly as the ship decelerated.
However, what Ka’rail had just witnessed was a spontaneous collapse of the hyperspace bubble. The uncontrolled distribution of energy had twisted and crumpled the struts connecting the hyperspace generators to the ship. Not surprisingly, the ship’s orientation display was also flashing red. The ship was tumbling uncontrolled as the warped slice of space-time merged with the rest of the Universe.
This was the most dangerous possible event for a starship.
A significant portion of Ka’rail’s training had been practicing his response to this incident. His fingers flew over the control icons, but the Brain was already busy finding channels to disperse the unwanted energy. The frantic tumbling of the ship had no effect on Ka’rail or any other person aboard. The artificial gravity affected those within the ship independent of the motion of the ship. At this moment, Ka’rail was the only person aboard who knew that a catastrophe had befallen them.
As the energy ripples twisted the components of the ship, it dissipated. Within moments, Ka’rail was able to initiate the ship’s stabilizers. His immediate concern was to determine the ship’s location and the direction to the nearest base in the Ta’rus colony. This was the closest possible source of help, and he needed to get a distress call transmitted while the ship was still functional. Once they lost the primary generators, there would be insufficient power to send a hyperspace transmission.
There were only seconds to spare. Space was really big and a rescue ship would only be able to find them if it knew their exact location. An error of more than a 100 million miles, and they would be lost forever. While this seemed like a large quantity of space, it was a mere pinprick in the astrogation chart.
While the Brain attempted to orient the ship, Ka’rail surveyed the damage control display. He hoped the portions of the vessel which housed the personnel had remained intact. It was quite possible that he was the only survivor. For a heartbeat, his thoughts turned to El’ban. Fortunately, most containment structures were still green.
Returning his attention to the astrogation display, Ka’rail found it to still be red. The Brain was unable to find their location. Ka’rail was befuddled as this seemingly impossible scenario had never been practiced. The galaxy was 105,700 light-years across, but the ship could only travel within a tiny region of a few hundred light-years. Within that region, there were a half-dozen specific stars used by the Brain to orient the ship. These stars had unique spectral patterns which could be found by the Brain within milliseconds after returning to the normal space-time Universe. But, the stars could not be found.
Ka’rail dimmed the interior lights and looked out the dome. The Universe looked as he expected. It was full of stars which, to the human eye, all looked the same. The central portion of the galaxy was as before, but on the opposite side. This wasn’t important; it merely indicated the ship had stabilized pointed in the opposite direction of the initial travel. Given the disruption caused by the collapsing the hyperspace bubble, this was not unexpected.
New red bars appeared on the engineering display. The primary generators were offline. The position of the ship was a moot point for the moment. Transmission of a distress call was no longer possible.
Ka’rail glanced at the incident clock; 42 seconds had elapsed. He tapped the icon for intraship communication. When the sleepy voice of the Captain responded, Ka’rail began his report. “Sir, this is Watcher Ka’rail. We’ve experienced a collapse of the hyperspace bubble. Most all ship functions are off line. The Brain is unable to specify our location, and I was unable to transmit a distress signal before the primary generators failed.” He could have simply screamed, We’re all gonna die!
***
“So, Ka’rail, was it dark matter?” Dy’low asked. He was an assistant pilot. He was also sitting with El’ban and her friend Og’cun in the mess hall.
It was two hours past the incident. The effects of the adrenaline were wearing off, but Ka’rail’s hands were still shaking. He sat opposite Og’cun. Yesterday, he had been intensifying his efforts to discovery her sexual mysteries, there having been only two weeks left in the voyage. He had also been concerned Dy’low would get her first, but there was no longer an urgency. First, it was going to be a lot longer than two weeks before they reached civilization. Second, his concern for survival had supplanted his desire for sex.
Ka’rail shrugged in response to Dy’low’s question. The crew and passengers were fully aware of the disruption in the voyage, but the Captain had not made an announcement of exactly how bad their situation was. The Captain had not ordered Ka’rail to withhold information; he was probably concerned with other matters. Yet, Ka’rail would not upstage him.
“What’s dark matter?” Og’cun asked.
“You’re as white as a sheet. Are you alright?” El’ban reached across the table and held Ka’rail’s hand.
“Spacemen always look like that,” Dy’low said.
Ka’rail thought his friend was probably trying to keep the passengers from realizing their dire straits.
Dy’low turned to Og’cun and answered her question. “For a long time, it was thought most of the matter in the Universe was locked-up in the visible stars and planets which accompanied them. However, it has been revealed that there is a large quantity of matter floating around in interstellar space not associated with any star. These masses are too small to generate their own electromagnetic radiation, or to reflect it in any measurable quantity. Large masses can be detected by their gravity and avoided. Small masses can be deflected by the ship’s shields. However; there are problems with collisions with masses in-between.” He smirked, as though it was an unimportant detail. “These things are very rare.”
“But, how does a ship in hyperspace interact with an object in normal space?” Og’cun asked, exhibiting a hitherto unknown awareness of spaceship operation. “Are not the ship’s shields used solely during sub-light travel?”
“Yes,” Dy’low answered. “But all objects have gravity, no matter how small. And gravity is a distortion of the space-time fabric. Our hyperspace engines generate gravity waves. Thus, a ship in hyperspace can bump into the distortion created by an object. Stars are the only significant concerns, and the Astrogator carefully plots our course around stars. But, colliding with the disruption of a dark matter object can initiate vibrations in the ship’s warp bubble. If these don’t dampen in a few microseconds, the bubble can collapse.”
“Is this what happened?” Og’cun’s eyes fixed on Ka’rail.
He drained his beer and set the glass down with a thud. He flicked his fingernail on the rim initiating a ringing sound. A few heartbeats later, an animatron passed by and refilled his glass. Finally, he answered, “The Brain recorded no dark object.”
They were silent as Ka’rail sipped the beer. And then, curiosity got the better of Dy’low and he asked, “Ka’rail, your shift is not over. Why are you here?”
Ka’rail shrugged again. “Nothing to watch.” He did not elaborate that the Control Room was filled with the Captain, the Pilot, the Astrogator, and the Engineer. The Captain had suggested Ka’rail leave. The engineering section had been damaged and was uninhabitable; thus the Engineer was waiting for construction of a temporary airlock to be completed. Then, he would examine the damage.
“Was anyone killed?” El’ban asked.
“No,” Ka’rail answered. He did not elaborate that the hull had cracked in the engineering section and the emergency door had closed. Had anyone been inside the section at the time, they would have died. As it was, everyone had survived for a while longer. It was now a race to see which was depleted first — their supply of air, food, or water.
Moments silently passed, and then Dy’low stood. “I’ll see you all later.” While he had not explained his sudden departure, Ka’rail suspected Dy’low had been called to work.
“You look exhausted,” El’ban said, as she removed the beer glass from Ka’rail’s hand. “Come on, Og’cun, let’s get this poor boy to bed.”
Ka’rail was exhausted, but he was also wondering if the two women were about to make him the luckiest spaceman ever.
THE END of Part Two
Part Three, Can They Survive
***
Copyright ©2023 by S. M. Revolinski All Rights Reserved
Thank you for reading my story, I hope you enjoyed it. Check my profile for more stories for you to enjoy. I have more stories and books published on Amazon and other ebook retailers for your reading pleasure.
