Beyond Hyperspace Book 3, P.J.Lawton [top business books of all time txt] 📗

A Chance to Live

The ground rumblings that had a first been slight had lately been much more frequent and increasingly more violent. I slowly entered the scientific works building where the best and brightest Terrans and Humans worked side by side in attempt to find something, anything to help our current situation. Waving to the hard working occupants, I headed for the workstation of Doctor Jonas.

Doc Jonas and I had been friends for over twenty years. “Hey Doc, what’s the current timetable?”

His glance told me it wasn’t good. “I’m afraid it’s much worse than we thought, instead of a few years, we may only have a few months, even days. We’ve sent teams, using the land scooters with seismographic equipment, to the far reaches of the inhabitable zone. Data now indicates that when the eruption and explosions come, they could be large enough to completely destroy sizable areas.”

“You’re sure? No chance of a miscalculation?”

“I’m afraid not Van. I said when they come, not if. We’ve got to do something soon or this entire region with all the people will most certainly die!”

“Okay Doc, let me see that writing again. If that old ship is here we have to find it. I think I may have found someone who may be able to help.”

“Really? Someone knows where the ship is? Maybe we’ll have a chance after all.”

During earlier research Jonas had come across writing about the ship that had brought the Humans. The writing spoke of the lone remaining crewmembers journey after hiding the ship. Inside the writing was a word map to its location. It said the ship could be found across the valley of the sun, through the darkness, into the great void. I just hoped above hope that it was true.

I’d planned for months to attempt to locate the deserted ship. If its condition was as we had been told then hopefully we could salvage parts from our ship to make it whole. Now though, it looked like no matter the condition it would have to do. Many lives were depending on it.

Thanking Doc Jonas I quickly departed for the farm of Silas, one of the Human elders. Sitting in the parlor drinking herb tea, I breached the all-important question. Handing over the writing, I asked, “Okay Silas, any idea what any of this means?”

The old man took a few seconds to study the paper. “Sure, I know exactly where this is.”

My heart soared until he noticed the puzzled look on his face.

“Well,” Silas continued. “I believe I know where this is. A few months after the last crewmember died a few of us went on an exploration journey into the mountains. I’m pretty sure I can draw a map to the valley.”

I was of course, elated. While waiting for Silas to finish his map I thought back to the time we had first arrived here. Had it only been twenty or so months ago? It seemed longer. Our appearance on Tranquility happened this way.

***

The hyper-drive was completely destroyed and the quasar pulse engines were just about used up. I’ve got to set this bucket down now, I thought, or we’re history. I have one-hundred-twenty folks depending on me. Damn the sneaky Torags anyway.

Suddenly my thoughts were interrupted, “Captain, First Officer here.”

“Go ahead Rico, what have you got for me?”

“Well, I think we may have found one. It’s a small planet in that group surrounding that large gas giant we noted a couple of hours ago.”

“Is it inhabitable?”

“All scans indicate that it is compatible with our needs and is a fairly close match for Terra. Half the planet seems to be wasteland and half looks inhabitable; however it appears to be a little unstable.”

…Terra was our home world before the Torag Empire almost completely destroyed it. We were only saved at the last minute by a somewhat garbled subspace transmission warning us away. An unexpected meteor shower had previously damaged our ship. Without a safe place to land to make repairs we knew we were in trouble but we knew we couldn’t return home. Anyway, at the last word we had, only the Terran outer rural colonies remained and they weren’t expected to last long….

Snapping back, I realized what the first officer had just told me. “It really doesn’t matter how unstable Rico. Right now I would be happy to find any place for a soft landing. I’m heading for the bridge, set a course and take us in.”

“Roger Captain, here we go.”

A short thirty-minute decent and we executed a soft landing on the small planet. We made it down just in time too because the quasars finally died a few minutes later. Had they quit earlier…well I didn’t really want to think about that.

A quick but thorough search for materials to make repairs found none, but did find inhabitants that were a somewhat primitive peace loving people. The current populace was not native to this land, but had also come from the stars. They called themselves Humans from a world called Earth.

***
Two years earlier a pacifist society fled their home planet Earth in hopes of finding a more peaceful planet for colonization to become their new home world. This was after increasing danger of being pulled into an Intergalactic War currently raging across two galaxies. Earth had no space force remaining to speak of. Most of the space ships and crews had left many years ago. The few that remained, mostly old rickety transports, would be of no consequence if they were attacked.

Pooling all their wealth, the pacifists managed to hire a small space ship with crew that had landed for rest and refit prior to heading back in the conflict. The space crew, in no hurry to return to battle, agreed to search and deliver them to a suitable place for colonization. For the several hundred people crammed into a confined space, after many weeks in space with hope almost gone they found this planet. They jokingly named it Tranquility.

With limited fuel and supplies remaining the ship’s crew determined to also stay, at least for awhile. To protect the colony from possible detection they decided to hide the ship. With the exception of one crewmember they were never seen again. Most of the Earth folks thought they simply changed their minds and left the planet.

About a month after leaving to conceal the ship, one of the crewmembers stumbled into camp. He was very sick and his condition was grave. He didn’t last long, but before he died he told the elders as best he could the location of the ship. Since the elders had no way of flying the ship even had they wanted to they simply took down the information and promptly forgot about it.

***
As our disappointment on not being able to repair our ship passed we determined to make the best of our current situation. Life was good, not great, but good for all until a combined scientific team using equipment from our ship discovered a frightening occurrence. The large volcanoes were growing. Pressure was building daily and the tectonic plates were starting to shift. At the current rate of shift, the tiny occasional ground rumbling would soon be large devastating earthquakes and volcanic activity. Since there was no practicable way to relieve the building pressure, the prospect of major explosions was inevitable. That discovery was almost six months ago. Our time was quickly running out.

Two days after our visit, armed with Silas’s map, the First Officer, three crewmembers and I set out to locate the abandoned Earth space ship. A crew of five should be more than sufficient to handle the old ship. Early the second morning we broke camp and started our search for the valley entrance. After searching fruitlessly for over an hour I heard a shout.

“Captain, I think I found something.”

Before I had a chance to reply there was a terrific explosion. The earth shook with a mighty heave and we were thrown to the ground. The blast was many kilometers away but the force was incredible. Looking toward the horizon I could see a large plume of a combination dust and smoke.

Shakily getting to his feet, the First Officer said. “Wow, Captain that was some eruption.”

“Yes Rico, it was a major one all right. It looks to be somewhere in the vicinity of the human compound.”

“If that’s the case, there must be a lot of injuries. Should we head back to help?”

“I don’t think so. It would take at least a day to get back. I’m not sure of just how much help we would be. I believe that we would be better off to continue this mission. The fate of the entire populous now depends on us.”

“Right, Captain.”

“Oh, just before the blast you were about to show me something.”

“Yes, over there. If you look closely, there, back along the shadows, you can see a crack. I believe that crack may be a passage.”

I took a minute to study where he was pointing. “Yes, I believe you’re right. It may be just what we’re searching for. Let’s head that way.”

A few minutes later we entered an extremely narrow passage. It was so narrow in places that we had to turn sideways to get through. Eventually though, it led to a magnificent valley. As we stood there mesmerized, the sun rose over the mountain. It was an awesome thing to see as it flooded the valley with brilliant light. The valley of the sun, I thought. As light filled the valley we could see just a short distance away a dark area that might be a cave entrance. We moved in the direction and in about ten minutes we found it, the entrance to the darkness.

It took about an hour of careful walking and climbing to traverse the one-kilometer long cave. Just as I was about to become worried we saw a light. The end of the cave brought us into another valley. It couldn’t have been more different than the first one. It was dead. No life. Not a single living thing, plant or animal. It was all brown and grey rock and dirt. We all stood for a few seconds and stared. This was the very edge of the inhabitable zone. It was the void; it had to be!

“Oh hell, Captain,” the First Officer said looking about. “I don’t see any ship. Do you think this is the place? Maybe they didn’t leave the ship here after all. Maybe it was all just a myth?”

Attempting to keep the dejection out of my voice, I said, “It’s got to be the place Rico, there’s no where else. The ship just has to be here somewhere!”

Suddenly one of the crewmembers shouted. “Captain, something’s over here!” Looking to where she was pointing I saw it; the bare outline of a ship. Something wasn’t right though, that was not any old space ship. On closer inspection I realized what it was; regular ships did not utilize chameleon camouflage!

Chameleon camouflage was reserved for warships. A ship was covered in a living organic compound that let it blend into any surrounding making it almost invisible. No wonder we hadn’t seen