Ermac floated inside a tank filled with shiny red liquid, multiple wires connected to his spine, his eyes closed, but his vision as sharp as ever. The three dimensional image of infinite space surrounding him shook. Projected trajectory round a star, Nautilus was approaching, with many digital indicators attached to it, went out of control, changing and wrapping in spirals and disappearing. This can't be, a glitch, perhaps? Ermac thought. He opened up a menu with the eight engines, half of them blinking in red. Instantly, his insides turned, panic took him over. He felt the universe crashing in on him, his life losing its meaning.
He breathed in quick irregular intervals, forgetting the place he was in and the thing he was inhaling. The red liquid enriched with oxygen acted as a sedative and calmed him down. Now, breathing steadily and slowly he focused on the situation - four of engines out of order.
It took a minute to enter manual engine controls and disconnect the broken engines from the system, shut them down, stop energy transmission flowing into them. Now, surprised, he felt the ship shifting. His mind connected with the controls, not used to react to such multitude of sudden changes, had difficulty adapting. His consciousness was slowly slipping away. After doing everything he could, to stop the damaged engines and stop all energy flow he initiated their self-destruction and detachment to stop the fires from spreading into the ship.
Once Ermac got back to the trajectory screen, he felt a slight shock. The ship had begun to spin, its center of balance shifted. The Nautilus' trajectory was now passing the outer layer of the sun. With the last bits of remaining consciousness Ermac weighted all possible options and came to the most plausible solution.
He once again got into the engines screen, four engines in green color remained. One by one he detonated them and the ship shook once again.
Ermac returned the trajectory screen. He took a deep breath, felt his insides calm down and looked at the picture in front of him. To his relief, the trajectory line, now bypassed the sun at a great distance. The ship was now out of his or anyone's control. He could allow himself to pass out now. And he did, with a smile on his face.
Words 'Disconnection initiated' appeared on the window in front of the tank. The liquid surrounding Ermac drained rapidly, the connections on his spine unplugged as the level of liquid decreased. As a puppet with strings being cut one by one, in little short falls he dropped down.
Scarlet ran closer to him and covered his naked figure with a large towel. She wrapped him into the towel and gently slapped him.
With closed eyes Ermac silently said, "It's all for nothing, we failed miserably."
"No. There is still hope for the ship."
"For the ship, yes, but not for humanity," Ermac coldly replied.
------
Tom entered the city through a wrecked wall on the first floor. The exit was guarded by two security agents, they kept a small group of civilians away from the gate. Smokes from the explosions were already put out.
"Is everything under control?" Tom asked and walked towards a cab in the middle of the wreckage.
"Yes, the terrorists are all caught or eliminated." A female agent replied emotionlessly. "How did you do sir?"
"I did fine, situation is secured." Tom lied, speaking with his back turned towards the agents, trying to hide his frustration. He added. "Fix the wall and return to the HQ. I've got a rebriefing to do."
"Understood." Another, male, agent replied.
Tom sat into the cab and ordered it to go to the Security HQ at a slow speed. As the cab floated above the rooftops, Tom saw no panic on the streets. People seemed to go about their lives, having no clue about what had just happened. Sure, they must have heard or seen the explosions, but they knew that ship's security had handled terrorists swiftly and mercilessly and was now in control of the situation. For them, if the explosions had stopped, the world has returned to normal.
Even though the shell of an egg was in shambles the yolk was still untouched and clueless.
-----
Claire's consciousness returned, just after she was brought to the hospital. Maddening moans dominated the corridors. The cabs her colleagues were using to get to the hotspots were bringing them here, one at a time.
The man who was transporting her on a floating bed asked, "Need some help?"
"I wouldn't mind." another male voice replied. A scream in the distance followed his words.
Claire's bed was pushed to the side and parked by a wall of a long hallway. She lifted her head and caught a glimpse of a man being forcefully strapped to a bed, his legs decimated - one by the foot another just below the waist. She turned and saw doctors caring for patients that were in line to the surgery cabinets, a familiar blurry figure walked towards her. Dizziness came to her and she laid back. The world began spinning. She tried to keep awake as hard as she could, but was slowly failing.
A firm hand shook her by the shoulder. "Claire! Don't fall asleep!" familiar voice said.
Claire focused her eyes. Cyrus was leaning on her bed, staring worryingly at her, saying "It'll all be fine, I won't leave you alone."
Claire blinked her eyes. Her hand felt a warm touch of her husband, giving her strength. She asked. "Did we make it?"
Cyrus spoke slowly, pausing from time to time. "Don't know. We are still alive, aren't we? I guess we did, then."
The man who pushed her bed returned, said "Don't worry Sir, she has stabilized now", and three of them moved towards the cabinets ahead.
------
The Outsider stood still, feeling the space-time of his world and that of the ship. There was a slight change he could feel. The direction of motion was different now, the small distortions caused by energy emissions of the engines were gone now.
He concluded on what was going on and shouted out, "He did it! He did it!!" laughing afterwards.
His cocoon detached from all the creatures in red, but one. Keeping a thin line to the physical world, his cold essence began to fade.
------
Tim sat on the stairs of his castle, looking at the blue sky, his face troubled and sad.
He murmured, voice getting quieter with every word. "I failed, but I won't give up, I won't. I will be strong one day, I promise."
Tim disappeared from the stairs and appeared in the dark world where red beings where wrapped in blue net once. Now the blue net was there no more, the Outsiders presence was gone. Would he ever get back? Tim thought.
He touched one creature, touched another and another, until he found a small tunnel into the physical world.
He looked through the eyes of a stranger into the world he once was a part of. Nothing had changed there, had they won, or had they lost? Tim was left clueless.
-------
-One day later-
Tom walked into the Navigation room. Ermac sat by the central console, holding his arms crossed, piercing the console with his empty sight.
"We failed, Tom. We failed." Ermac said sadly, keeping his back turned at Tom.
The first citizen replied, "No, you didn't. I did. I should have prepared someone, should have trusted others more, should have had someone ready to help me, someone who had a decent skill-set." After a silent pause he continued, "I tried to fix everything alone and failed miserably. My confidence was my downfall."
Ermac turned his head round chairs side. "You know, if the Outsider wanted it could have ended worse."
"Does it get worse than this? Left floating in an empty void, with a lottery ticket in our hands."
"Well if you aren't going to play a lottery, you will never win it." The Navigator replied.
"What do we need to activate the jump-gate?"
"We need to stop the ship first. Then we need a small team to do the hard work and put the gate in the correct position. And then we must cross the fingers, close our eyes and... hope for the best."
"How long are preparations going to take?"
"If everything goes according to the plan - a couple of years to stop, a couple of months to 'form' the gate and then I will only need to push a button."
"Great. You mentioned you wanted to ask me something," said Tom.
"Yes. I have two questions for you, questions that were bugging me the whole day."
"Go ahead." Tom listened attentively.
"How long do you think it will take for them to find out that we are not going to the promised paradise? And do you think that that we are going to be accepted by our fellow human colonists with open hands once we jump out?"
Tom did not say a word. The two friends only stared at each other silently, realizing the complexity of the situation they were in.
TO BE CONTINUED IN THE NEXT BOOK...
A few chapters of the next story is out! "The Birth of Unity". It is a story of a ship traveling to another colony. Facing a different challenge. I think to connect both stories into one on the fourth book. While the third will be about Nautilus. Feel free to check it out!
I have completed another book, a comedy, sci-fi about time traveling - "The Business of Time Travel Tourism" it has fun, wacky characters, strange encounters, many adventures and interesting plot. Feel free to check it out.
Thank you for reading!
Feel free to check out my 'Short stories' I am quite fond of them.