3 Sci-fi Stories from the Void (Vol. 3) | Story Compilation
the crew by jeffrey von hauger the dodecahedron could have passed for an exotic asteroid gravimetric phase shifters had no visible windows doors or propulsion mechanism they'd been adrift for three days and what was left of the 12-man crew worked to revive the ship they're bouncing around like a stray electron in the core of a star the silver-skinned middle-aged humanoid had intense black eyes small blue and white striped insects crawled along the top of his bald head he glared at a detailed 3d hologram of the sector their helpless circular trajectory was accurately represented and tracked the gas giant was beautiful from a distance with its immense spiral of rainbow-colored rings orbiting in a ship uncontrollably consumed by the churning river of stone and ice was another story more like riding the rim of an event horizon responded the first man's twin the four seven one eeb8 clones on the bridge were identical to a dna level all the exact age they were born to wearing matching seafoam green flight suits and jump boots the neutrino bears are multiplying out of the third twin his words were not spoken but thought and understood by all on board a sense of joy relief and hope was experienced unanimously the next deck down was silent crew quarters and kitchen empty three bodies in the med bay lay bagged stacked and motionless in the heart of the ship the hexagon memorizer shimmered and glowed like a miniature version of the craft itself its quantum computing power guided the actions of both ship and crew insects crawled the conduits of the great open room that surrounded the memorizer busy bees drifted between hives and hydroponics strategically placed in the five corners of the electric second level the lower deck was abuzz with more mammal ask activity while they were missing fundamental mammalian qualities like hair females and the ability to reproduce sexually they made for it with digitally enhanced neocortexes that put their terrestrial genetic ancestors to shame they moved in simultaneous performance rarely speaking like limbs of a single super organism their minds interlinked via neural transmitters kept a constant connection to each other in the central memorizer three clones emerged from the plasma drive airlock they stood momentarily as the antechamber hosed off their pressure suits then they removed their helmets the rupture is repaired said the ship's scientist the engineer and the grab drive operator still stridently walking away looked up and smiled we'll be able to establish a pulse suggested the gravity shifter excellent navigation will pass telemetry except the optimistic engineer the engine room sparkled with digital color as crystalline diamond controls flashed and pulsed the fire and destruction of two days earlier was no longer visible they worked fast the scientists exited engineering with more of a statement than a question if i'm no longer needed i'll return to the bridge his two assistants quickly stowed the environmental gear and followed the scientist out of the room outsiders would refer to the assistants as jacks or jack of all trades an old term but accurate though there was no hierarchy in the anarchistic egalitarian society the jacks were truly the pride of the collective able to slide in any role do any job perform any task with precision and skill they were dedicated humble egoless and above all ruthlessly capable nothing was too complex nothing too insignificant they assembled a robotic laser cannon from spare parts with the same thoroughness they would replace batteries in a flashlight all work was equally important the three clones walked with purpose and speed to the aft tube and jumped up to the bridge slowing at the last second using their grav boots captain were ready to break orbit the scientist and his men took their stations the captain wasn't actually the captain he was bagged in the med lab after sacrificing himself to save the ship the new captain was a jack who effortlessly changed roles from surgeon for seven one eeb eights the captain role was challenging as it required taking on personality traits foreign to the day-to-day life of a clone they focused on interactions with outsiders and guiding the crew as a kind of upbeat coach the excellent navigation based on our current movement in the deflection angles off the next bodies we make contact with we should be able to pulse off the third impact the scientist added to navigation's plan the third object is 85 ice and 15 nickel judging by its mass we will shatter 42 percent of the asteroid causing a 12 degree variance in our trajectory we can still break orbit but we'll end up at drift again navigation looked concerned the ring system will pull us back in 84 hours after we've reached our greatest escape distance the rings were crowded with matter doing 42 000 kilometers an hour resulting in endless collisions we'll risk it communication we should be able to send a stress signal once free the captain smirked he'd been working on that particular expression it conveyed so much with just a curl of the lip however it was hard to send via technological telepathy his thoughts went to the engineers navigation has a marker set the pulse to ricochet us of the third impact we are synced for a one-shot gravity glide controls to helm the engineer felt even more optimistic the captain leaned forward as he'd seen other species do he wasn't sure why a straight stoic posture obviously projected reliability and confidence but he leaned forward anyway crooking his elbow hand grasping his right knee firmly and raising his left arm into the air helm it's all you he lowered his arm and beamed with confidence the helmsman who of course looked and dressed exactly like the captain hovered his hands over the controls the engine was offline and there was nothing for him to do until the moment they fired the gravity drive ready sir he enjoyed practicing the appearance of a command structure that other species tended to respect the inert ship tumbled slowly as it raced around the ring completing a full orbit every 93 minutes it collided with a stadium-sized asteroid crumpled its outer crust and drifted away in a new direction small chunks burst when they struck the outer hole they careened into an enormous iceberg covered in a pink mossy bacteria left a pentagon-shaped crater and spun toward the awaited impact like a top that this rapid rotation were capturing phenomenal planetary data inside the ship the scientists and others felt no external movement the core ship remained steady all eyes focused on the projection of the outer environment though adrift they followed the predicted course perfectly the huge icy third object had a silver sparkle to its interior they swirled right into it the captain grasped both knees in his most impressive lean in yet now in the liquid plasma moat that separated shell from inner ship the neutrino bears went into motion they were only noticeable on a microscopic level but their metabolism sent ripples through the core outside the ship came to life it pulsed muted colors that rivaled the patterns of the rings the clone's enhanced inner ears tingled with slight change in gravity a nickel-laden chunk of ice broke clear in half the ship did a 180 in direction and helm's fingers went into motion space ahead of the vessel shivered and a deep conical artificial gravity well appeared the ship fell into it with a springing lunge and so did 4 000 metric tons of ring particles the mass of the asteroid material surrounded the ship through their exterior viewer they appeared buried alive the scientist conferred with his team we will break free from the debris it was a long minute and a half until the gravity well collapsed helm's course change burned the engine out their sky burial began to break away and their position was well above the great ring field of the garuda gas giant communication contact with deep space guild restored sending distress signal rescue vessel and route to our position eta 72 hours local time a momentary phase shift punched a hole in the rings that no observation could explain as naturally occurring the captain's smirk was epic a scientist tried a smug look on himself as for the helmsman he went for a no-holds-barred shit-eating grin they would continue with the rest of their species on their quest for immortality [Music] the zone by jeffrey von hauger we need you on the bridge now reading an extensive asteroid field end oh my god and voice log 2354 mox cleared his throat with a croak and stared at the dusty computer monitor a green claw manicured to a point flicked off a chunky control switch and a lizard handprint was left behind on the control panel the large komodo dragon in leather pants leaned into the ridged right angle contoured chair they were out here exploring the zone in the relic it's a good thing they believed in a god he spat out his serpentine tongue tasting the stale air of the derelict spaceship mux transmitted his thoughts through an implanted neural device a kind of technological telepathy can you get this jalopy started the calgarite must have got him when they entered the belt four sections back at the rear of the ship block wave received the communication on his bright yellow headphones they matched his thermal goggles and velvet shorts perfectly the androgynous jet black-skinned being didn't wear anything else rindos though nothing like var ann's shared the advantageous spacer traits of longevity and temperature tolerance wave focused his misty angelic eyes on the primitive propulsion system he reached slender fingers into the mechanism turned to gear initiated a startup sequence and restored power everything's intact my guess they took the crew and ditched the ship probably thought it was worthless no one appreciates the classics block's right i swirled they got eaten didn't they mox raised a scaled eyebrow you ready to fly this thing out of here block unfastened a tube from the engine and huffed a big lung full of co2 then exhaled pure oxygen in the air yes mox moved over to the navigation station and worked the manual maneuvering controls the seven centimeter thick window had a meter long crack in it but was holding on the other side was nothing but blackness the zone had long been declared a void of empty space the varan understood that a small but incredibly dense black hole cleared the region however vanished star systems left behind a ring of condensed dark matter and an asteroid belt that hid the event horizon the majority of the field was heavy metals iron lead arsenic and mercury intermixed with dark matter this compacted material interacted with matter in odd ways particularly if you happen to be a carbon-based life-form mox was there to grab a boulder of this stuff put it in a containment unit and haul it out the scientists that put him up to the challenge knew there was no way to remove the dark matter material but wanted him to try anyway for his troubles they offered a top of the line synthetic crew member named randall she and her experimentally enhanced positronic net of a nervous system came bounding through the bridge door randle was physical perfection meets mental unlimitedness or at least that's how they boasted about her mox dumped a third of the brick's computer memory into her to test her out the result was the greatest synthetic he'd ever worked with the fact that she had a thousand years of his personal logs memorized made her adept at working with him all right buster this bucket of bolts is ready to roll randall bumped mocks out of the navigation seat with her hip she braided her sandy blonde hair into a golden spiral that decreased at the rate of 1.61803398875 until it centered itself perfectly at the back of her head mox took note of this repeated form around throughout nature now being recreated by a synthetic being he slid into the captain's chair his long green tail uncomfortably hanging off the side okay hit it we'll have a hell of a time working our way through the dark matter clouds randall turned around and winked a triple pupiled eye at mocks knowing full well he appreciated her being in perfect alignment with his thinking the old metal ship entered the field its engine strained to resist the pull of distant black hole block wave tapped the power cube attached to the engine and gave them enough boost to move to higher orbits randall chugged the old ship around the first few nearly invisible asteroids mox pulled a small rectangular monocle out of his vest pocket and attached it to his left eye it powered on and the dark asteroids out the front window came into focus he could see the chemical makeup of the different elements composing the floating objects to the naked eye it was all blackness but mocks saw the outline shapes of the asteroids with shimmering colors it had the 8-bit feel of an old video game it came to a clearing with three small boulders the middle one it's all mercury in dark matter suggested randall as she slowed to a stop i think the right one mox countered in their galactic game of three card monet but it's nearly all metalloid arsenic randall started moving the ship in exactly no sooner had he spoke when two beautiful yet grotesque creatures became visible crawling on the surface of the middle asteroid they pulsed with dancing rainbows of bioluminescent light their bodies were slimy and bulgy like crustaceans without their shells their heads were all mouth with jagged oversized teeth eight appendages worked in unison to move them around calgarites randall thought and transmitted to both mocks and wave she turned the ship starboard away from the center asteroid but it was too late one of the creatures jumped and floated until it hit the side of the ship it went straight up the top pried open a hatch and crawled in blockway felt all the air rush out of the engine room he picked up his turbo blaster pulled his goggles over his eyes put the tube from the engine into his mouth and puffed co2 the temperature dropped to nothing and his exhales froze on the end of his nose when the creature entered the room it completely filled the doorway it was both mesmerizing and terrifying for a moment wave took in a marvel of the universe until it opened its hideous mouth and made its intentions clear block opened fire his rifle threw fist-sized phaser blasts into the slimy translucent monster it flashed with electric light and screamed a high-pitched screech that was heard on the bridge wave kept his finger down on the trigger rounds ripped through the walls in the creature it turned and ran the calgarite went back out the hatch and jumped away look mox pointed out the window half the rocks in the field began to glow with moving bioluminescent light randle locked the ship's ancient particle weapons and fired until they conked out they had no effect she looked at mocks raising her shoulders in an i don't know kind of way get the asteroid and get us out of here he replied randall opened the cargo hatch all the way and guided the ship perfectly grabbing the floating black space rock she aimed toward the outer edge of the field block wave cranked his power cube to the max and hoped the old metal ship glided through a sea of sparkling light and invisible asteroids the lights grew brighter and danced around the ship randall saw a way out and pointed the ship at the clearing mox saw a huge field of dark energy through his eyepiece we're not going to fit yes we will randall swung the ship in a wild spinning turn the front section was consumed by condensed dark matter mox moved to the back of the cabin and watched the control room lose power as randall and the bridge were engulfed in nothingness the shadow that she became stood up and held out her arms i i feel amazing and then she vanished the derelict craft drifted into open space its power was gone the electric light from the cowgirl creatures faded with the asteroids back into the blackness of the zone the brick pulled up opened its hangard bay door and aligned it with a hatch on the drifting ship mox and blockwave moved the asteroid aboard their rectangular three-story rust-covered ship and never felt better about being home all we got was a chunk of arsenic not a trace of dark matter anywhere mox took off his rectangular monocle and they left the asteroid in the airlock the inner door came down and tiny lights flickered on the boulder inside the containment unit tiger proxima b the borel forest terraformer by jeffrey von hauger and finally we have a report from a forest project that started hundreds of years before any of us were born everyone in the control center turned their attention away from the head of interdisciplinary science and back to the monitor at the front of the room a data analyst from the back row made her way to the stage she coughed and cleared her throat before addressing the room the regional directors watching remotely in the population of three planets we've had an incredible response from film studios academic departments and even the interplanetary plant and seed society to acquire any level of access to the raw footage and that's just from the initial 30 second clip nothing else has gone public until now the monitor came to life with a distant view of alpha centauri a computer simulation zoomed away from the twin binary stars to the smaller third star and it's one planet in the habitable zone from there the camera angle orbited the rocky world with its red dwarf sun in the distance this is proxima centauri b 400 years ago when our first probe surveyed the world and deemed it to be in the habitable zone even today the system lies just out of reach of our crude spacecraft a moonshot environmental organization of the time pooled resources and sent a team of three robotic ships images of an outdated laser guided solar sail a primitive orbital satellite and a pair of pre-ai drones cycled across the monitor one was a land rover with a backhoe and digging arm the other was a bladed aerial surveillance device [Music] their plan was to transport the seeds of various endangered conifers and attempt to plant a borel forest that's a winter forest like the taiga in earth's northern hemisphere the satellite gathered solar energy and beamed it down to the drones and collected data sent back up the rover planted for a century before it died and the mission was abandoned the satellite would continue to beam a status report back every hundred years [Music] a grey cloud-covered planet filled the screen signals take five years to reach us from the ancient transmitter this compiled orbital pass of the planet 300 years ago confirmed an atmosphere and made it our closest earth-like neighbor being so far out of range for ships of the time nothing happened after that the next two transmissions never came and proxima was forgotten until last week the monitor went blank what you are about to see is a time-lapse compression of centuries of tree growth species evolution and deliberate forest migration on a planetary scale the room darkened and everyone watched in wonder as giant trees sprouted up from twigs and marched across the surface of a distant world beckoning in waiting for someone to come and breathe their air hello all this is magnetar i wanted to thank everybody for your patience with me as it's been maybe about a week and a half since my last upload i've just been dealing with a lot personally mentally physically and with my day job some of you know that i work a very demanding job that involves you know trying to save the planet from an existential crisis and that involves a lot of campaign planning speaking with people in power so on and so forth so i appreciate you being patient with me while i take care of what i need to do personally and professionally to ease your minds i have no plans to end this channel or stop supporting it with content i just don't have the flexibility and benefit of being able to upload an hour-long video every single day of the week so i apologize again if that is what you're looking for and i'm sorry that i can't provide it but what i hope to do is continue to provide high quality stories when i can to you all my goal is at least two uploads a week sometimes i exceed that sometimes i again don't upload for a week and a half please bear with me and i appreciate your continued support as always you make this channel great i do this to share these amazing stories with you so thank you if you haven't already subscribed i invite you to do so and join all of us here in the void but remember astrophobes be warned [Music] [Applause] [Music] you
2021-06-27 13:08
