Into The Void (22 page)

              “What's the status of the ship?” Captain Steele yelled to Jamie as he put his DSSM suit on.

              “It's bad, most of the electrical systems are gone. All robots are down. We still have limited engine control. This storm will continue to last for several more months and unless we get to FTL speed we will be here for the next 500 years before every system reboots automatically,” Jamie said.

              Captain Steele put on his suit just as the lightning struck the ship. The lightning passed throughout the ship and struck his suit but his suit prevented any injuries to him.

              “Are you alright Jamie?”

              “I am trying to keep the ship going. These strikes are extremely powerful. There are striking the ship with close to 100 exajoule. That's close to the amount of energy the USA used during the early 2000's,” Jamie said, “That's above our compliance limit for the ship by about 10 times.”

              “If that measurement is anything like the yottabytes of storage on the derelict ship then were in big trouble,” Captain Steele said, “What do I need to do?”

              “Can you fix the engines so we can leave?”

              “I'm on it.”

              Captain John Steele floated over to the engine compartment. When he got there he found evidence of recent fires but assumed the recent loss of atmosphere to the ship, including air, ended that. He definitely liked that. It made his job easier. He started looking for the source of the problem. He could see that the engines still worked but were only running at .5%. He knew that they would need them at at least 50% to get anywhere. He continued to look at them when he noticed that the electricity broke a pipe. That broken pipe caused a valve to turn stopping the coolant to the engines.

              Captain Steele moved to storage to find a replacement pipe. He found one and headed back towards the engine room when he saw lighting arc throughout the ship. He saw it hit his suit but his suit took the lightning without damage to him. He made his way back to the engine room and replaced the pipe and turned the valve but the engines didn't kick into high gear.

              “What's the problem Jamie? Why isn't it working?”

              “You want the good news or bad news?” Jamie asked.

              “Oh I don't know, lets go with good news first,” Captain Steele replied.

              “You get to do a space walk,” Jamie said.

              Captain Steele paused for a moment.

              “What?” Captain Steele replied after several seconds.

              “You get to do a space walk.”

              “Nope. Next solution.”

              “You need to do it John. I don't have control of the droids to do it.”

              “That's not exactly a prudent thing to do considering I've only got one leg. There has to be another way.”

              “There isn't. I've run all the possibilities. You need to repair the engines from the outside. They've taken significant damage and need some of their exterior parts replaced. The doors are not working so I'm going to need you to blow a hole in the hull so you can get parts out of the ship,” Jamie said.

              “What? Are you freaking mad? You sure the lightning strikes hasn't fried your circuits? Can't we get the electrical system up first then open the doors?”

              “No, the lightning strikes have destroying our electrical systems. We need to leave the area first,” Jamie said.

              “Shoot. Why do the parts need to be replaced?”

              “There are numerous blockages, fried electrical wires, broken nozzles, broken gimbals, and two broken main valves,” Jamie said.

              “That's a lot of parts. Alright. I'm going to blow a hole at the end of this hallway near storage,” Captain Steele said.

              Captain Steele grabbed some of the high end explosives and went near the end of the hallway. He placed some near the end of the hallway and put up plenty of spare hull sheets near the other end of the hall so they would be pulled near the hole as the ship decompressed making the hole smaller. He wasn't sure if the ship could decompress any further but he decided to prepare just in case. He blew the charge and there was a slight suction of air as the hole opened up. The ship apparently didn't have a lot of air left to decompress.

              “Can you rotate the ship Jamie so that I will have some protection from the lightning? I don't think I have more than a single direct hit from the lightning before I die.”

              “I will do everything possible John.”

              Captain Steele grabbed extra pipes to use as lightning rods that he would toss off into space. He knew being near the heat of the engines was dangerous as it was, but having lightning strikes in the area with as much energy as the United States used in the 20
th
century in a single bolt was a death wish. He knew they didn't have 500 years to sit here either. He approached the hole in the hull and looked out. He could see the storm raging on before him. Bolts of blue and white lightning lit up the sky enough to see black bolts of lightning. He knew this was a terrible idea but he trusted Jamie's judgment and her ability to keep him safe.

              As Captain Steele stepped out into the vacuum of space his Geiger Counter went off showing high levels of radiation that the lightning was causing. He slowly crawled around the ship as Jamie moved the ship around. He was having a hard time crawling around the outside of the ship with his leg blown off. He came near the corner of the ship where just on the other side would be the external part of the engine. He poked his head out around the edge and knew there was a major problem.

              “Jamie what is our exact location?” Captain Steele asked while moving toward the engine.

              “En route to the Overlapping Galaxies.”

              “And what year might it be?”

              “The year is 4130, standard Milky Way Year. Why John?”

              “Because I'm looking at a green colored start vibrating violently.”

              “A green colored star? Such things don't exist.”

              “Yeah? Well I'm looking at one,” Captain Steele said.

              “I'll scan when were out of here,” Jamie said.

              “I'll just keep repairing this ship then. Keep me protected.”

              Captain Steele worked around the ship. He could see lightning all around him. Jamie was doing the best she could trying to keep the lightning from striking him by rotating the ship so that lightning would strike it instead.

              Every time the ship was hit with lightning Captain Steele could feel the electricity move across the metal hull. Each time it hit him it hurt. The pain was the worst where his leg had been blown off. He kept releasing spare pipes to use as lightning rods. The lightning would strike them then jump to the ship. He knew this was a very, very, very dangerous situation.

              Captain Steele was not only trying to dodge lightning strikes, but remove external parts of the engine while it was still in use. That was a very dangerous situation without the lightning. It was generally not allowed under most standard operating procedures except in extreme emergencies. If they turned the engines off the ship would not be able to properly rotating as needed to help dodge the lightning strikes and it would make him even more likely to be struck. Without the ship rotating he would be like a tall tree in the middle of a flat plain during a thunderstorm. Except the storm wouldn't be above him, but it would all around him in every direction, including directly to his left, right, and below him.

              Captain Steele was removing the blockages and then used them as lightning rods. Each time lightning struck one it would cause a blinding flash nearby and caused the object to explode. After removing one piece of blockage from the far left bottom engine he started to replace the gimbal. The gimbal was a ball and socket joint that allowed for the rotation of an object along a single axis. It essentially helped keep the engine in place and accounted for the shaking of the engines during times of extreme thrust. Without it, part of the ship's engines would be broken off.

              For Captain Steele to remove one he need that section of the engine to be off. If it was off it would make the ship harder to maneuver but as long as the rest of the engines stayed on the ship could maneuver.

              “Jamie, turn the far bottom left engine off.”

              Captain Steele saw the bottom left engine turn off then went an reached into the hull of the engine where the gimbal was. He tethered the external part of the engine to the ship with some cables and removed the broken gimbal, replaced the gimbal, then reattached the engine.

              “That's one down Jamie. Were solid to use it again.”

              Captain Steele crawled along the ship's hull again back to the hole where he could grab more parts. He reached the hole and entered in and floated to the storage area. He grabbed some more parts and headed back out. His Geiger Counter was off the charts. He slowly moved along the ship's hull back toward the engine. He came near the back end of the ship when a bolt of lightning struck right in front of him. The bolt jumped and struck him straight in the helmet.

              Captain Steele felt the intense heat all over his body, felt his heart stop pumping, heard ringing in his ears, and tingling in his fingers and toes. He came to a second later. He quickly oriented himself and grabbed back onto the ship.

              “Jamie! That was too close.”

              “I'm trying John!”

              Captain Steele moved back to the engines. He started to get near the top left engine nozzle when another bolt of lightning struck near him causing similar effects on him. He came to and grabbed the ship. He knew he had to get back inside. Each time the lightning struck it left strong traces of radiation. He was essentially swimming in a pool of radioactive electricity while working with plasma fire.

              Captain Steele saw the top left engine turn off and he started to work on replacing the nozzle. He had to completely let go of it and let it float freely in space. As soon as he let it go it was struck by lightning causing it to explode. He started to replace the nozzle when he noticed that one of the connectors holding the four sides together was broken.

              “Great...” Captain Steele thought.

              Captain Steele was going to need to go back into the ship to grab another. He left this one out where it was, partially attached to the ship.

              “How can a star be green Jamie?”

              “It is most likely the heat of the star. It would have to be at an astronomical level. The higher the heat of the star the whiter they become. Why it is green is odd. We have never noticed such a star and nothing like that exists in the Milky Way or any other galaxy that we know of. It's temperature would have to theoretically be over 250,000 Calvin, or 629,540 degrees Fahrenheit. It would be the first ever Population 3 star discovered. Those are thought to have died out shortly after the Big Bang,” Jamie said.

              “The Population 3 stars have never been observed. They are only thought to exist because some elements that could not have been created during the big bang are seen in the emission spectra of quasars. A quasar is matter that is shot out of a super massive black hole at the center of a galaxy. A super massive black hole is required to make a quasar, and because a super massive black hole would require a very large star to collapse so it could become a black hole, it is theorized that some of these super massive black holes were once older stars that ran out of fuel and collapsed causing them to be the super massive black hole we see today,” Jamie said.

              “So in layman's terms, black holes are just really large stars that have died and these elements that are found in their quasars mean they are also found at the centers of every super massive black hole. So because of that, super massive black holes must have been around for a long time and because they have been around for a long time it means that they might have been the first stars in the universe. Am I in the general area?” Captain Steele asked while climbing around the ship.

              “Yes. You seem to be reaching but that answer will work for me,” Jamie replied.

              “Well why didn't you put it like that?” Captain Steele said.

              Captain Steele entered the ship and went to the storage area to see if there were any spare parts that would hold the pieces together better. He looked around and didn't find any. He grabbed the next set of repair parts he needed and headed out.

              “If that's the case, why is this star out here?” Captain Steele asked.

              “It may be that these Population 3 stars still exist. Stars that are very hot are difficult to detect because their color is sometimes shown in ultraviolet rays. Ultraviolet rays are often invisible to the human eye, so the only way to detect them is by pinpoint scanning the night sky looking for certain light waves. Sometimes ultraviolet light can appear as a whiteish violet color when your close to it. My theory is that these Population 3 stars are shooting out so much ultraviolet light that they are shooting out ultraviolet light rays at a much higher frequency than what we are using to look for them. I bet if we move away from the star it would change colors until it no longer becomes visible. We could only then detect it by finding it's ultraviolet rays,” Jamie said.