Into The Void (32 page)

              “I'm sure you'll think of something,” Captain Steele said, “Did I ever tell you why everyone called me Omega?”

              “No, I don't believe you did.”

              “When I first started in the military I got all these crappy missions. Stupid things, simple things, but I always got them done and done well. After a while the higher ups saw that I was getting all these things done really well. They would then give me better things to do. I got some decent missions and I got all of those things done and done well.

              “Then one day, I was team three. Team one and two were some of the best men around, but my team was a bunch of new guys doing something new. None of them had done anything so high risk and covert. We were pretty much the back up of back ups that they knew they were not going to need but put us on standby just in case. We all knew we were pretty much just there as an extraction team to get everyone out if things went bad.

              “The mission was a high risk extraction mission. There was a rebel pirate base on a planet out in the middle of nowhere that was hidden deep inside a massive jungle. It was well fortified and these rebels were regularly attacking ships that were carrying military equipment or expensive trade goods. They were always able to attack ships with almost no casualties to them, even when the military had ships guarding the supplies. The leader was a tactical genius. No one knew where they were based at until the mission started and we needed to extract him from the base for the information on where they took some super secret prototype weapons. He was one of only four people who knew where. One of those who knew where the weapons were killed himself before we could get the info, one was accidentally killed during the interrogation, and the fourth had the weapons at a location we were trying to find. We also wanted to remove the leader from power and this was the perfect opportunity to do both. We also wanted to obtain any important documents from the base and disable the base's major defenses.

              “The mission only needed 10 men, and they had only one chance to do it. Any more men would raise too much alarm and any less and they wouldn't be able to do everything they needed to do. Three teams were placed in various position just in case the alarm was raised. Team one had the element of surprise on their side but they failed and the base went into full defense. Team two went in along with my team. Team two quickly went down as we were going in. We went in and everything was a mess and the enemy knew we were coming. I commanded team three and we ran in and came out without a single loss and got the mission done. We were able to capture the rebel leader as he was escaping, obtain important documents, and shut down the major base defenses.

              “Slowly but surely my superiors realized that I was always getting things done and done right. They saw that no matter what I did I got it done and done right. I quickly became their first choice because of it. They knew that I would be their first option but by choosing me first it would also be their last time something was asked to be done, so they called me Omega,” Captain Steele explained.

              Jamie was silent for a while before speaking.

              “I know what I want to do,” Jamie said.

              “What?”

              “I want to be the director of a museum about you. All about your life, your career, your explorations, your discoveries, and our journey. I want to forever let people know what you've done with your life. To explain first hand what it was like to make this trip, to explain the challenges, the discoveries, and to explain what it was like to be around you. I want to tell everyone what it was like to be around The Great Captain Steele. They have to set up a museum because of all you've discovered and I want to be the one running it.”

              Captain Steele paused for a moment.

              “That sounds great. I would be honored for you to do that and I wouldn't want anyone else to do that,” Captain Steele said, “With all that we've discovered and all that we've done they would have to set up a museum for us wouldn't they? There could even be a section where you still get to process all the data we found and could even cross reference it with any new and current data that comes up.”

              “I would love that John. You think there is any way that could happen?” Jamie asked.

              “Of course. If I make sure to put it in my last log that I want you to directly oversee any markers or monuments that are ever displayed of me they would have to do it,” Captain Steele said.

              “Thank you John,” Jamie said with a quiver of emotion in her voice.

              “Your welcome. It has been a great honor to serve with you and to undertake such a task with you. I am truly honored. Thank you.”

              “The honor is all mine,” Jamie said.

              Captain Steele had been building the gate for several months. As he was building it he noticed that his dexterity and flexibility was slowing dropping. He could also feel the weight of his body slowly draining his mobility and energy as well. He noticed his vision seemed to get worse with the day.

              Captain Steele reached ahead of him and put the last piece into its place and then wielded it into place so it would stay there. He then worked on the electrical wires that still needed to be put into their places. He had done most of the electrical wiring while he worked on the rest of the gate but some minor parts still needed to be done. He placed the last wires into their places and checked over his work and saw that the Instant Teleportation Device was completed. He had finally completed the Instant Teleportation Device after several months of work. After knowing he had completed it, he used his DSSM thrusters to back away from the gate and looked at it. It really was an incredibly rewarding sight. He then slowly moved to a console on the side of the gate and plugged in the info to sync the gate up to the one in the Milky Way. He connected his computer on the ship to his DSSM to do his last log.

              “Captain John Steele, Date, year 4160, month 1, week 1, Standard Milky Way year, log number 6,000.

              “I am finally here at NGC 3314, or The Overlapping Galaxies, as I have referred to it as before. I have been constructing the Instant Teleportation Device for several months, as you know, and it is finally done. I am just about to turn it on and activate it.

              “I do, however, have one final request to make and one final thing to officially log. It has recently come to my attention, from my AI, that some statue of me may be placed somewhere. I want any and all monuments of me built by the government, detailing my journey, my image, my explorations, or any records publicly displayed of me, I want my Artificial Intelligence to oversee them. She has been by my side and has been as much a part of this journey as I have, if not more. I would also like her to be able to terminate this request or alter it when she wants. I trust her with my life, and she has saved it on many occasions, as she and I have recorded. I know she would be the best keeper of these records, and would take great pride in doing so.

              “Now, with that being said, I turn to the gate. I am about to turn it on and will await the first ship through. The gate should send a single that travels much faster than light to the other gate activating it and indicating it is connected. This is the final log of Captain John Steele. Captain John Steele out.”

              Captain Steele left his log running so it would record the first ships pulling through the gate. He then turned on the gate and waited. The gate turned on and lit up like it was ready to send and receive ships. The signal should reach the other gate in the Milky Way in a couple minutes. The gates required technology that couldn't be put into ship's engines due to the fact that the gate has to remain stationary, with the exception of it rotating slowly around the star of a solar system as the solar system rotated around a galaxy.

              Captain Steele turned on a separate radio channel from his log so he could speak to Jamie without having his log record it.

              “Take care Jamie.”

              “John?”

              “Thank you for everything Jamie, from the bottom of my heart.”

              “John...?”

              “Will you do me one last favor Jamie?”

              “John are you alright?”

              “Take care of yourself Jamie.”

              “John?” Jamie remotely checked his life signs, “John your life signs are fading! I need to get you back-”

              “The mission is complete Jamie.”

              “John, please get back to the ship. I can help you. I can still save you.”

              “I have lived 20 years longer than most humans do and with all of my injuries at that. The goal of the mission and you have kept me pushing forward. Now that the mission is complete my body is shutting down.”

              “What about me John? What about me keeping you going?”

              “You will always outlive me Jamie. I have always known that. That is why I asked you what you wanted to do. I wanted to make sure you could always do it.”

              “No... Please John.”

              “My body has been shutting down for years. Even more so in the last weeks. You know that.”

              “John. I can't loose you again. Please...”

              “You'll always have me Jamie. Your the only one who knows all about me. Your the only one.”

              “I don't want to loose you again.”

              “You won't.”

              “John... Thank you... for everything...”

              “No, thank you Jamie. You've been the best friend anyone could have and you've been the best friend I've ever had. You mean more to me than anything else and you have become my entire world. You've become everything to me. Thank you for the decades of friendship and thank you for this. You really are an incredible interface. Thank you Jamie... for everything.”

              “No, thank you Omega. Thank you John.”

              Jamie ran a scan on Captain Steele's vitals and saw his eyes had just stopped working and his heart rate and blood pressure was low. After several minutes Captain Steele spoke.

              “I can't wait to see the first ships through the gate,” he said with tears streaming down his cheeks.

              Jamie checked the gate and saw that no ships were coming through.

              “John.. their... their no-” Jamie stopped herself, “Their incredible John. I wish you could see them. The first one just came through and it's of human design.”

              “Thank... you...”

              “John?” Jamie said and waited.

              “John?”

              “John! Please John...”Jamie paused trying to collect her thoughts, “Thank you. Thank you John... I won't ever forget you,” Jamie said as her voice trailed off into her tears knowing that she had just lost her best friend.

Epilogue

Legacy

              Jamie's holographic form hovered behind of a group of young kids and their parents as they ran out of the museum shouting “When I grow up I want to be just like Captain Steele!”

              Jamie hovered around the museum. Captain John Steele had completed the mission just in time to save the Milky Way from a catastrophic end where 9 trillion would have died.

              After entering the Overlapping Galaxies there was regulation already set in place by Counselor White over a century ago for resource management. The population was to be spread out between the Milky Way and the Overlapping Galaxies so that there would be enough for everyone to go around. Over time, resources in the Milky Way would replenish and with the increase in resources from the Overlapping Galaxies there would be enough to keep the entire population alive.

              Races from the Milky Way met races from the Overlapping Galaxies who had yet to discover space travel beyond their own solar system. The races in the Milky Way shared technology with the races in the Overlapping Galaxies and the races from the Overlapping Galaxies were very very glad that we had shown up.

              The resources were more than enough for everyone everywhere. A new boom of exploration set out. Not only to other galaxies but throughout the Overlapping Galaxies as well. The resources were so plentiful and the worlds so wonderful that exploration seemed to want to take its time in exploring both of the spiral galaxies that made up the Overlapping Galaxies. In time, the races had ventured everywhere but the core of the galaxy. The thought of two galaxies having the same core concerned most investors from even trying to go into it. They had studied it from the outside and found it to be more turbulent than the Milky Way's core and that while promising anomalies most likely lay within it, most left it be due to significant cost and significant failure rates of any mission that would partake in such a dangerous journey. The payout was most likely small, and many people wanted to consider it sacred ground as a reminder of Captain Steele's venture into the unknown. As such it was the little left of the galaxy that was unexplored and in the end Jamie didn't mind that.

              Jamie went to the front of the museum and marveled at the statue of Captain John Steele. It was a life like statue looking just like him when he started the mission. The detail was incredible. She then hovered over to the next part of the museum detailing the mission with a picture of the Milky Way in one corner of the room and the Overlapping Galaxies in the far corner. They had finally given the Overlapping Galaxies a proper name: Galaxy John Steele. The room was to scale the distance they had traveled together. Every 6 inches was a million light years with the whole room was being just over 23 feet long. As she floated across the room, replicas of all the objects they came across in intergalactic space lit up. Everything from the derelict ship to the black hole then dimensional rift.

              Jamie moved into the next room where the space ship that they traveled in was at. The entire ship was there. Then beside it was an exact replica of what the ship started out looking like and it would change forms to show all the damage it took throughout the years. It would then show how it looked when Captain Steele had repaired it each time. It would cycle through these forms. It was most people's favorite part of the museum. To see what the ship looked like as it took damage and to see what it was like from the inside as well. The ship had taken so much damage that every time she went into that replica people always stopped her and asked if her and Captain Steele were afraid every single time something happened to it. She would always tell them that he never was afraid and people were amazed.

              Jamie moved into the next room and it was an a example of the derelict ship. There was a room to the side which was an exact replica of the derelict ship, just smaller, for people to get an idea of what it was like. There was the video of Captain Steele fighting the creature from his perspective, as filmed by his DSSM, and even the exact same creature Captain Steele killed and stuffed himself in the room. Grown men would often “Ooh!” and “Aah!” and sometime even cringe as they watched the video. The side room even had moving walls, lower gravity, and if people made it to where the location where Captain Steele was when he got attacked, a life size replica of the alien would show up. It was a holographic image but it looked so real. It wouldn't do any damage but people would still try to fight it and they would swing right on through it and certain parts would disappear, just like it did in real life. There was even a simulation room where people could actually fight a holographic version of one with a fake gun, fake grenades and read out of the DSSM and no one was ever able to come close to killing it. As she floated throughout the maze of moving walls a group of young teenagers stopped her.

              “How did he explore this thing when it was all dark? It's scary and I feel like it's watching me.”

              “He told me the same thing and was in it for more than two days.”

              “Wow...” they said in amazement.

              Jamie floated out of the maze and looked at the creature on display in the room. It was the exact same creature Captain Steele had killed on the derelict ship and it was the exact same one he prided himself on killing. She floated there and watched the video from Captain Steele's DSSM of him fighting the creature.

              Jamie then moved onto the next room which contained the Intergalactic Space Dragon. It also has a growing life like holographic form that kids could ask questions to. It was one of most kids favorite rooms in the museum. Best part is that there was no indication that any race had tried to hunt them down or had died looking for them.

              Jamie then moved on to the next room which was the solar system they had come across. It showed everything that was there that she and Captain Steele had discovered. Everything from the planet he almost died on to the gas giant. There were simulated environments of each place for people to experience. There was even an exhibit room that would show people what it was like to be on the planet when it blew up and showed the wreckage afterwords. The simulation of the gas giant's island would even change and would wow many people, especially kids. Kids would normally yell “Wow! I want to go there,” and adults always marveled at the explosion of the planet and talk about it.

              Jamie moved on to the room that kept the exhibit of the black dwarf. There was an area where people could go walk into and see what it was like down below the surface of the black dwarf where the clouds and liquid were. As she floated through an older women stopped her.

              “Excuse me, but what was it like to be so close to a dead star?”

              “It was an amazing experience. It was amazing to me because nothing like that should even exist and Captain Steele said the very material of the star vibrated and hummed but was completely solid yet squishy at the same time. He thought it was incredible as well.”

              “In all my years, I never knew such things could exist.”

              Jamie continued onto the next room which looked like the ship and recalled the experience with the space lightning. People could even step outside a pretend airlock and get a hint of the feeling and see the star off in the distance. The room had so much depth and felt so real.

              “Ma'am?” A man said.

              “Yes, sir?”

              “Did he really get his leg blown off again and continue to repair the engines?”

              Jamie laughed, “Yes. He even made a joke about it.”

              “Sounds like my kind of hero.”

              Jamie floated into the next room which recalled the hypernova. People could even experience in a seat what it was like for the ship to be shook by it.

              Jamie moved into the next room that recalled the black hole and all that happened there.

              “Hey! There's his AI!” Some teenagers yelled as they ran over to her.

              “Did he really step outside his own ship while you guys were being pulled into a black hole?” They asked.

              “He did. He even volunteered for it,” Jamie said.

              “No way! That's a complete bad ass!”

              “It gets better. He then unharnessed himself from the ship as well.”

              “Get out! No freaking way!” The teenagers yelled in shock.

              “Yep. He was pulled towards the black hole too while unharnessed!” She told them.

              “No way! How did he survive?”

              “He was very smart and very fast. He did lots of quick thinking and survived,” Jamie said.

              The room even had an area where the light in a room was designed to feel like you were Captain John Steele as you entered a black hole.

              She then entered the next room which was the dimensional rift. It even looked like the dimensional rift with all the ships that were discovered and their exact location. It even had an exact replica of the organic creature that seemed to be made of nothing but what was found in nature. When you stepped into the room displaying the dimensional rift, it would open up in all directions and you would feel like you were actually there. A young man stood there looking at where the Endeavor was.

              “Was the Space Shuttle Endeavor's engines really used?”

              “They were. Captain Steele was honored to see them go to such a great use.”

              “No one could have even begun to imagine that the apparent end of the Space Shuttle Endeavor was really the beginning of something much much more. It's incredible that it ever became as pivotal to the long standing survival of man as it did.”

              “It really was an incredible find brought on by Captain Steele's great ability to never back down, to complete the mission, and his ingenuity. For it to survive from its creation to long after its death as a sign of mankind creativity, ability, greatness, and survival is truly magnificent,” Jamie replied.

              “Captain Steele is an incredible inspiration to me. It is because of you two that I am able to keep doing what I do today. Thank you for choosing the impossible no matter what the cost.”

              Jamie then went into the next room which was room with all the samples they had collected. All of the other rooms had replica samples on display but this room had the actual samples. Off to the side was a giant lab where experiments were done on the examples. New research was always being collected and compiled and she had complete access to it all. Any new data that came in from anywhere she had access to and many people cross referenced the data she had analyzed and collected during the mission. This was one of the leading labs on all kinds of theoretical sciences. Just beyond the labs was an enclosed room where her AI core was. Jamie was in charge of the entire lab, and those who worked under her leadership loved having her as their boss. They would always marvel at what it would be like to work with her for as long as Captain Steele did. This was one of her favorite rooms.

              Jamie traveled to the next room which contained all the logs Captain Steele did on various holoscreens. It even had the most exciting ones already displayed for viewing. While each room had video footage from Captain Steele's DSSM when he was on a specific mission, this room contained them all. It had all his DSSM's on display too, along with Captain Steele's image from when he started the mission until he died. She loved this room because it reminded her so much of Captain Steele. This room also had the news broadcast that went out across the Milky Way saying that they had completed their mission. She watched the footage.

              “Even as the Milky Way is set upon the edge of complete destruction, there is still no hope. In an attempt to help prolong the end and survive the end, the governments have decided to collect people to several central points so that distribution of resources would be much simpler. The last shuttle should arrive any minute now,” A news announcer said.

              “Wait. Wait! I am getting some breaking news. Incredible! Captain John Steele, the human who left the Milky Way to head to the Overlapping Galaxies close to 160 years ago, has allegedly succeeded in going to another galaxy. He has made it to another galaxy? He has made it! Absolutely incredible! Wait, I believe we are getting brand new images coming in. Yes! These images you are seeing is a ship going through an Instant Teleportation Device. Yes, this footage is live and yes, I do believe that is the shuttle that left the Milky Way over 160 years ago. That is the shuttle! That is the shuttle on the other side of the Device folks! Oh my gosh! Captain Steele has succeeded! Captain Steele has succeeded!”

              As much as Jamie loved the rooms before the one she was currently in, the next room was her favorite.

              The next room had images of him and her and detailed their journey on their down time when they weren't doing anything but lounging around on the ship. At the end of the room there was a open door leading outside to a small field. Stepping out the door was a marble walkway leading down a slight hill. On each side of the walkway there was green grass with a few trees. At the bottom of this small walkway was the marble casket of Captain John Steele and just beyond that was a small rounded ledge that overlooked a beautiful natural view. 200 feet below this ledge, and 100 feet away from it, there were two waterfalls 400 feet apart and they were 400 feet long that poured down for 1,000 feet. A small natural bridge of reflective marble was between these waterfalls 800 feet below the top of them. At the far end of the waterfalls, away from Captain Steele's casket, was a large city that sat upon a hourglass like shaped hill far above the land below the city. This city was the first city to be founded in the Overlapping Galaxies. People from the city could look up above the waterfalls and see the memorial for Captain John Steele in the distance. Beside his casket on his left side was a statue of Captain John Steele and on the right side one of her with trees just beyond the statues on both sides of his casket. There was a caption that sat at the foot of his casket that said: