Beyond Light

Leap Course.

The cyan propulsors on the Beyond Light’s rear shot light as she took off, accelerating faster than sound. The Brobdingnagian vessel intensified its red eyes and followed behind, like a god about to punish some daring mortal on its path.

“Commander,” spoke Flight Colonel Liang. “the second asteroid belt lays at about 1.2 astronomical units from our position. Maybe we can use it as a cover.”

“Informing: Shielding systems operating at 100% their capability, Commander,” spoke LIBRA. “All stealth main and supplementary systems on hold.”

“I’m controlling the Helldragon cannons, Captain,” said Yuri. “Ready to rock and roll!”

“Very nice. Mike, what’s an approximated ETA for that belt?” Asked John.

“It’s too far,” responded the Pilot, stress trembling his words. “Four hours at maximum speed. Too long before we get intercepted.”

“Damn it,” cursed John.

But that was not their real maximum speed. They still had another tech aboard they hadn’t used since they arrived: The Cosmic Lynx EPAL. Before he could announce his new orders, Jeffrey’s interfaces began to fail and beep in red. The grave, hellish face spoke again.

“There is no place to escape. You are surrounded. Yield and join us. You are only delaying the inevitable.”

Jeffrey connected the voice call again. “Go to hell!” yelled John.

“There’s no hell for the inflicted. Only heaven, the paradise we all shall advance forwards.”

“Quit that crap, Jeffrey. I don’t want to hear him again.”

“It’s not working, Commander! that machine has bypassed our firewalls and security modules!”

“LIBRA, can you do something?”

“Sending a counter signal,” responded the AI. “Creating a web of false protocols. I’ll bloat it the most I can.”

“...Put to work Cosmic Lynx, Mike. We are leaping,” everyone looked at John for a second, just to make sure if they had heard him well. “Do it. We need to get outta here as fast as we can. Xi, set us to leap a course for that asteroid belt.”

“...Understood, Commander. Setting course for a single leap. ETA: 8 minutes.”

“Really?” complained Jeffrey. “But we still have decay waste not cleaned, and our EPAL is still under heat stress! Maybe—”

“We can survive it," interrupted John. "We leap or that monster crushes us all.”

Mike took a second to respond. “Alright. Chief Wallace, Arthy,” he spoke through his earcom. “Hot our engine. We’re leaping.”

“Geez,” responded the Engineer. “There’s no other way, right?”

“Well, there is,” mocked Mike. “We can sing that monster a song about friendship and love and hope he befriends us. Why don't we turn this into a musical?”

“Mikey, Mikey, Mikey…” Wallace limited himself to respond, with an annoyed tone of voice John could imagine on his face.

“Alright, get ready, everyone,” continued Mike. “Unless you support my idea we’re tearing through the time-space machine.”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Yuri sang through the com. channel. “Monster fight us no, no, no! Sing along, everyone!”

“Yuri, this is serious!” spoke John.

“Commander,” interrupted Xi. “I’m detecting high quantities of energy coming from that ship.”

He expanded the screen, showing its image: the eight red eyes glared right behind them, their light intensifying, and its lights on the three bays below it getting lit.

“Must be preparing to attack,” said John. “Mike, take us outta here!”

“Alright, opening rupture in 30 seconds. Brace yourselves!”

“Good,” nodded John. He turned around and left the cockpit, moving to the room next to the right. There was Yuri, sitting on the terminals in the middle, a holographic screen showing him the monster in high-definition.

“Commander, should we engage?”

“Not yet. There’s—” all lights blinked for a second, dooming in darkness the ship for a moment before all screens beeped in red.

“Do you think you are in control? Stop avoiding your destiny. You are only delaying the unavoidable.”

All screens returned to normal. “W-what the hell was that?!” complained Jeffrey.

“That ship must be messing with us again,” responded Xi.

“10 seconds,” Mike informed. “Hold on!”

John rushed back to the cockpit and looked at the cosmos ahead through the front windows. A dazzling white ball stood ahead, warping space and light around. It grew in size with each second, getting a fulminating aura of blue light and swirling on itself like a hurricane.

“Three… Two… One… Leaping!” cried Mike.

The Beyond Light collided with the portal. White light dazzled through the windows like a nuclear chain reaction. They automatically shut down. John cleaned the sweat on his forehead. He had not even realized it was there. Nobody spoke after one second, looking up and taking a deep breath.

“So, did we make it?” asked Jeffrey.

“Good would it be,” said Mike. “that monster must be playing with us. What do we do next?”

John breathed deeply, trying to make his mind clearer. What trouble had they just got themselves in? To think that the only vessels they thought they would fight were those green ships of red finishes, but instead, they were now facing a cosmic nightmare.

Maybe Mike was right. Goliath had let them in and out those structures and only called it a trial. Now, they had escaped from it, but something told John that the reality was they were let escape. What for, though? The Eternity of Return didn’t seem to have had the same chance.

He felt nervous. That monster jammed their systems without trouble. Maybe it knew where they were going and was leading them to a trap.

“Alright,” spoke John. “I heard Doctor Weiber saying the belt possesses really big objects on it. If that’s the case, we could use them as a shield.”

“What if we hide?” asked Jeffrey. "Don't you think it'd be safer?

“There’s no hiding,” Xi responded for John. “that ship must have superior radars and sensors than ours. It won’t have trouble detecting us. It did with our stealth systems partially working.”

“And now we are exposed,” said John. “even if we had our stealth systems on, the massive energy that’s released when you finish a leap will expose us like a smoke signal.”

“So, what’s next?” asked Jeffrey. “We continue to escape indefinitely?”

“If that thing wanted us dead we would be so already,” responded John. “It must want something from us, besides turning us into those human synths we found on Vita Nova.”

“What’s it?” Mike turned his seat around.

“I… don’t know. Yet. But maybe we can hope it saves our lives.”

“Yeah, yeah…” he cynically sighed. “You know something? I’ve been thinking about the Eternity of Return. Maybe there’s more than name convention and coincidence as to why he was named like that.”

“It’s going to take a literal eternity to return,” said Jeffrey. “How clever.”

“May I ask something?” spoke LIBRA. “I’m highly curious about metaphorical concepts, like hunches, intuition, or metaphors. If the name Eternity of Return describes the situation of the ship, where you do believe the name Beyond Light goes?”

The three men traded looks, not able of generating an answer, yet thinking about it as a philosophical matter.

“...Let’s hope somewhere good, LIBRA,” responded John.

They waited in silence. What was next? Maybe the giant could not leap as fast as them. It appeared to be much more technologically advanced, but moving a ship of such a size through a leap must have been something hard and slow.

It was not the Eternity of Return —which was already too clunky, large, and heavy to leap optimally. It was at least 14 times larger, and its weight probably reached 1 trillion metric tons! Hoping that it didn’t count with nearly magical technology and its own physical limitations slowed it down was their only moral boost.

The eight minutes passed, and they reached their marked point in space. Another dazzling sphere appeared, and the Beyond Light broke through it and returned to normal reality.

“Destination at 180 million kilometers from the origin point reached,” informed LIBRA. “Course for Post Accelerating-Leap: complete.”

Mike whistled. “For a few more and we didn’t make it.”

“Commander,” spoke Xi. “I am detecting two energy boosts at 210,000 kilometers from us.”