Eric Tirel first learned of the illegal space jump from his best-friend only minutes before it actually took place. Had Eric had longer to think of the immensity of what they were attempting, he might have backed out. Had his best friend told him half of what was planned for the trip, Eric probably would have turned him over to the authorities and asked for a reward. As it was, Eric found out the truth much too late to make any difference.
:Year 2256.
On boarding the rental spacehip, Eric had blue suns and red beaches in mind. Eric and his two best-friends- Sam Ballard and Harve Baert- were going over to the Tau Ceti system on the other side of the galaxy for spring break. Or atleast that was what Harve had told when he had invited him-begged him, in fact- to be part of the trip. Invitation which he had accepted for he thought space would be better company than an overcrowded anti-gravity mall back home, especially when he did not have any girlfriend. He was far from being a nerd; he dated fairly regularly. But none of the girls he had taken had called him back. He just did not do it for the girls, physically that is. They did not know what they was missing, he would think. A shame he knew what he was missing. Both the girls he had taken out were gorgeous. He consoled himself saying that he had only not yet found someone who was worthy of him. But if truth be known, he was craving for some romance in his miserable life.
At the end of their conversation that day, Harve had mentioned a sun having gone nova in the Orion sector, near The Neutrinos Web- the boundary set up by the government that barred mankind from the worlds beyond, consisting of particles that moved faster than light but a million times stronger than iron. He had said that according to his sources, the energy emitted by the nova could potentially harm the side of the web near it. Eric had said that God only knew what such radioactive could do to space equipments and the human body and his remark had sobered Harve somehow. That piece of talk had left Eric with a weird feeling. Harve was impulsive but Mark decided he was not reckless enough to go anywhere near the burning nova. He had thought wrong.
Staring at the vast starry space, Eric began day-dreaming. He would always fantasize about spending his life in space, find an alien race and get alien kids. He knew it was absurd but he honestly felt that they must not be alone in this wide a galaxy.
It was not the Eric’s first space flight but each time he saw a spaceship, he was mesmerized by it. They always seemed novel and magical to Eric, it was as though he was from the late 21st century, when the first starship was conceived and built and sent into space. A low deep hum filled the room, swiftly shifting into a high-pitched whine before cutting off into a ringing silence. Strem laughed and Eric smiled as the Earth began to shrink like a colorful ball thrown into a deep dark well. In minutes they would be at full speed and in half an hour they would be out of the fringe of the solar system. What a great way to start a vacation.
‘Tau Ceti here I am!’ Eric let out as he tried to stretch on the rigid on the wooden chair on the control deck. Sammy shifted uneasily in his pilot seat at Eric’s words. Harve, who was by the view screen turned round and glanced at each of them. Tension filled the deck. ‘What is it?’ Eric finally asked, breaking the silence. Then the strangest thing happened. They both ignored him, and neither of them bothered to answer his question. The Excalibur began to hum and the overhead lights flickered as Sammy activated the graviton drive. They would be in a position to jump in a minute. Suddenly Eric’s suspicion that Harve was hiding a crucial fact became a certainty.
‘How long?’ Harve asked. He looked scared and jubilant. Eric did not know which worried him more.
‘Fifteen seconds,’ Sammy said. ‘Fourteen…Twelve…Ten...’
‘We’re not going to Tau Ceti, are we?’ Eric demanded. Harve did not answer. Eric grabbed him by the collar and yanked him around. ‘Are we?’
‘Eight…Seven…Six…’
‘Where are we going?’ Eric shouted.
Too late. It was done. Eric had the sensation of stepping outside himself. When the blink of time and space was over, Eric repeated his question, minus one word.
‘Where are we?’
‘Outside,’ Harve whispered in awe. ‘Beyond the Neutrinos Web…’
The pieces fit together in a moment. They had not hyper jumped toward Tau Ceti but in the Andromeda Sector, next to the nova, where the disintegrating star must have torn a hole in The Neutrinos Web; a hole they had plunged through.
A blue-white star burned in the middle of the view-screen, and Eric’s eyes adjusted painfully to the mass of light emanating from it. Either the nova was extremely bright or else they were way too close. It turned out to be the latter one. Sweat beaded on his forehead. The cabin temperature was rising rapidly.
A vent burst above their heads, letting out an ear piercing screech as the toxic steam escaped from it. ‘We’re losing our coolant!’ Sammy shouted. The soaring heat was obviously to blame; the ship, recent as it can be had never been designed to undergo such temperatures.
Eric felt sad, terribly sad. Harve had risked their lives without telling them; he should have been furious. He knew all too well what that meant- if the coolant circulating round the Preeze Cap( the system that cooled down the hyper drives) evaporated, the ship would heat up until it exploded. Eric’s fancy space vessel has been in the blink of an eye transformed into a time bomb.
‘Stop it!’ Harve shouted back.
‘How?’ Sammy asked, amused. ‘You’re the one who led us here in this mess.’
Harve cursed under his breath.
‘We’re doomed, we’ve got to accept that much,’ Eric said. His words took a moment to sink in.
Harve stared at the empty space beyond the nova which only minutes ago seemed so magical and mysterious but looked and felt like the claustrophobic walls of a hell, if not hell itself.
It was Sammy who broke the apprehensive silence, shaking his head slightly, he said 'There may be a slim chance of an eventual solution but i'm afraid that time is not in our favour.'
Time, Eric thought, it always there except when you needed it the most. When all of sudden a spark of an idea ignited in Eric's mind.
'Sammy,' Eric said, a rush of energy powering his features,' where has the coolant escaped? Even if it has stopped circulating the Preeze Cap, it has not -cannot have evaporated- then it must be somewhere on the ship,'
'Wow, Eric boy, is it just me or did you become an empath in the few hours,' Sammy whistled for Eric's plan of action was probably what was on his mind.
Sammy lost not one second; he almost instantly began tapping vigourously on the virtual keyboard, summoning holographic maps of the pipes and engines. A satisfied smile abruptly filled his faced, the edges of his wide Slavic mouth almost reaching to his ears. 'I've found it!'
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