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Futuristic Light Space

The Omen of Death

My presence has marked your eventual demise.
You are sitting in the pilot's chair of the starship Andromeda, on the edge of the Protherus star system, getting ready to make a Light Space Jump to your freighter's next destination. You hear a sound, like someone gasping in surprise, and look up from your console. Your co-pilot, Karl, is looking intently at his console, and doesn't seem to have heard anything unusual. You must have imagined the sound, for you and Karl are the only two people aboard this starship.

"Jump calculations are complete," Karl says to you, sitting in the co-pilots seat beside yours.

Before you, the transparent plasglass windows of the cockpit provide a view of the stars. Space stretches on infinitely before you. Directly in the middle of your foreward view, a star shines brighter than the others - it is your destination, the closest star to the star system you are currently in.

"Preparing to Jump to Light Space," you say, mentally going through your pre-jump checklist, as you press buttons and flick switches to the correct settings. You feel the ship beginning to vibrate as the interstellar propulsion system powers up, ready to activate.

"Activating LSJD," you say, pressing the final button. There is the usual flash of white light, and...

...

You are sitting in your pilot's chair, in the cockpit of the Andromeda, and something is not quite right. Outside the windows, the darkness of space is gone, there is only light. You raise your arm to cover your eyes, but as you do, the light pales. Instead of searing your eyes like a thousand suns, the endless expanse of white outside the windows gives off a soft light, like looking at a white plaster wall that someone is shining a torch on.

As your eyes adjust to this strange phenomena, you hear a gasping, gurgling sound from behind you. Glancing to one side, you see the strangest thing. The right hand half of the cockpit is stretched out before and behind you. Your co-pilot, his chair and console, are now lines and blobs of horizontal colour, stretching through the room in streaks, like a motion-blurred, time-lapse photograph!

Your head goes dizzy as your eyes and brain try to make sense of what it is you are seeing, then suddenly the strange warping of space stops, and the entire cockpit looks normal and whole once more. However, your co-pilot, his body restored to its correct physical form, sags forward in his chair, held up by his chest-crossing seatbelt buckle. Blood trickles from the corners of his mouth as his head drops forward, staring sightlessly down at his console.

Outside the ship, the pale light - the endless expanse of whiteness instead of the blackness of space - tells you that something is horribly wrong here.

1. Examine Karl's body.

2. Bring up a ship damage report on your console, and try to find out what is wrong with the ship.

3. Check the ship's sensors, and see what it can detect.
 
Karl! Good god, Karl, what the hell happened to you!?

Of course I picked 1. My immediate concern is for the crew - in this case, the other 50% of the crew on this ship.
Whatever results from 2 or 3 will probably take some time to take care of, whereas Karl can be addressed immediately. Putting off the bad news for later never hurt anyone.
 
(Choice 1 was chosen with 1 vote!)

You move from your console, over to beside your co-pilot. You lift up his head so you can look in his eyes. His head, fully illuminated by the pale light shining in through the windows, stares back at you, seeing nothing. You release him, letting his head drop back down again.

Looking at his jumpsuit, you examine the body-monitoring device built into the suit. The device is supposed to monitor life signs, as well as the surrounding environment, and it tells you that his heart has stopped. Karl is clearly dead.

1.Bring up a ship damage report on your console, and try to find out what is wrong with the ship.

2.Check the ship's sensors, and see what it can detect.
 
2. Check the ship's sensors. I'm curious about that light, and more importantly what might have caused it.
 
Okay. Alright. Let's not stall any longer.

Time to pull up the sensors. I'm sure if there's anything out there, it can't possibly be as harmful as it was to Karl earlier.
 
(Option 2 has been chosen with 2 votes!)

You look at the ship's sensor screen. It shows your ship in the middle of the screen, but shows no signs of planets or stars in the vicinity. In fact, it shows nothing at all, in any direction. You look out the window again, at the vast expanse of whiteness that seems to stretch out endlessly in every direction. There's nothing out there but pale, white light.

What is this place? Is this Light Space, the other dimension, that ships pass through when they jump? Did your ship somehow become stuck in this dimension, half-way through the jump procedure? If so, how are you supposed to get out?

With no other choice to see if anything is wrong from where you are, you decide to now bring up the ship's status display to see if it could point anything out. For a moment you just look at the screen, unable to believe what it is saying. According to the screen, nothing exists behind the ship's cockpit. The rest of the ship is simply gone... vanished... non-existent!

'How can that be?' you think to yourself. After all, the power generators at the rear of the ship must exist, because all the computer systems and life support within the cockpit is functioning just as it always does. The rest of the ship MUST exist!

Frustrated, you turn off the status display.

Feeling a little uncertain as to what you might find, you nervously walk to the rear of the cockpit, and press the door release button. The rear door slides open and...

The central passageway that runs from the cockpit, through the ship, to the cargo bay at the rear, looks exactly as it always does. Lights in the ceiling illuminate the steel passage. Metal grating panels on the floor allow access to various wires and cables that run through the ship, beneath your feet. Door hatches are set into the passage walls at different points along its length, leading to various rooms aboard the ship. Far at the other end, you see a large hatch, that opens into the cargo bay at the other end of the starship.

Everything looks completely fine until suddenly there is a shearing of light and form, as a section of wall about half way down the passage blurs outwards into the passage, in an array of colorful streaking lines - then suddenly flattens out again to look like a normal section of wall once more. Perhaps things aren't as completely normal as they seem...

You say a short prayer that the motion blurring phenomena won't happen anywhere near you.

1. Start walking down the passageway.

2. Remain in the Cockpit for a while, just to be safe - that is, if anywhere on this ship is safe...
 
Is the anywhere on the ship that is safe from this stuff? Based on the former co-pilot's testimony, I would say there definitely isn't.

There really isn't much left for us in the cockpit, so let's get moving and see if we can do something about these anomalies.
 
(Option 1 was chosen with 2 votes!)

You step out of the cockpit and into the passageway. As you move through the doorway, you feel a strange sensation, like stepping through a thin wall of water.

1. Turn around.
2. Continue down the passageway
 
Weird, continue on. I'm guessing this sensation will only get stronger, but hopefully it won't turn out to be something dangerous.
 
Oh, if I turn around I won't see my cockpit again, or it'll appear to be overwhelmed by the anomaly.

I'll just assume that's what would've happened and get through the passageway before I get too curious.
 
(Sorry for the delay here, anywho Choice 2 was picked with 2 votes!)

You decide to continue down the passageway. A few metres along, you reach door hatches on both sides of the passage. One is your sleeping quarters, the other is Karl's. An image of his dead face, blood trickling from the corners of his mouth, flashes before your eyes. You take a deep breath, and calm yourself. You know you will need to keep a level head if you are going to get out of this alive.

1. Open the door to your sleeping quarters.

2. Open the door to Karl's sleeping quarters

3. Walk to the aft end of the passageway
 
Man, if only I remembered if there was anything important in my room. Perhaps I've been spending far more time on the pilot's seat than I thought.

In either case, I doubt I visit Karl's room that often. He may or may not have something useful in his quarters, but we'll never know if we don't take a quick peek inside. Let's go for it.
 
(Option 2 has been chosen with 1 vote!)

You press the button set into the passage wall, and the door to Karl's sleeping quarters swooshes open. However, you just stand there stunned, looking through the doorway. Even with everything else going on, you did not expect to find this. Or rather, you expected to find at least something.

On the other side of the doorway is nothing - just whiteness. No floor, no walls, no room - just the endless expanse of pale white light that surrounds your starship.

1. Close Karl's door.

2. Hope there is something else on the other side of the doorway, and step through...
 
That door's getting closed.

Any superstition I have in me gives me the feeling Karl's room isn't there because he's also gone. Maybe the same thing will happen with my quarters, but I really hope it isn't and what I've come up with is true.
 
Close the door and get out of there! We need more information about that light before we just prance right into it.
 
(Option 1 has been chosen with 2 votes!)

You quickly press the button again, and watch the door slide shut. The last thing you'd need is to trip and fall outside the ship into that endless nothingness! Or so that would seem...

1. Open the door to your sleeping quarters

2. Wander back to the cockpit

3. Walk to the aft end of the passageway
 
(Option 1 was chosen with 1 vote!)

You press the door release button on the wall, and the door to your sleeping quarters slides open. Through the doorway, things look normal. Your bunk is up against one wall, the covers thrown aside - why make a bed if you're the only one who's going to look at it, or use it? Against another wall is a desk unit, with a few personal odds and ends inside and on top of it. A closet containing your clothing is up against a third wall.

The lights are on, and you don't see any strange blurring, bending or stretching of the universe.

You step through the doorway, and instantly feel that sensation again - the feeling of walking through an invisible wall, like passing through a sheet of water. Your sleeping quarters are now quite different to how they had looked an instant ago...

Firstly, the bed is made. You can't remember ever having made your bed. Secondly, and more disturbingly to you, the sheets are bright pink with little white bunny rabbits on them!

You suddenly hear footsteps behind you, and spin around to see a woman wearing a pilot's uniform, standing in the passageway, outside the room. She looks up from a clipboard she was reading, and her jaw drops as she sees you looking back at her. You can see the cogs turning inside her mind, as she tries to find words to say, and her first instinct is to shout, "Get the hell out of my sleeping quarters!"

1. Quickly step back out into the passageway!
2. Ask what she is doing on your ship - and what did she do to your sleeping quarters?
 
I'm honestly intrigued as to what is happening. I have a feeling that stepping back will only bring us back to the ship with nothing much left for us or to yet another dimension, so it is better to see what is going on here first.

2
 
(Choice 2 has been chosen with 1 vote!)

"What are you doing on my ship? HOW did you get on my ship? And what did you do to my sleeping quarters! I mean - bunny rabbits on the bed?" you growl at her incredulously.

"Your ship? Your ship! What the blazes are you talking about! The Andromeda is my ship! I've run this vessel for six years now!" she growls, stalking into your/her sleeping quarters, and brandishing a pistol, which she proceeds to wave in front of your face!

"The Andromeda has been under my command for twelve years," you growl back at her, "It was my father's ship before me, and I don't recall either him, or myself, selling it to anyone else!"

"The Andromeda wasn't your father's ship - it was my father's ship!" she shouts back at you, waving her gun some more. "And it was my grandfather's ship before him, and my great-grandfather's before him!"

Something crazy is going on, and your brain is hurting just trying to work it out. A suspicion is creeping into your mind. "My name is Michael Dobson," you tell her, hoping an introduction, and an attempt at being diplomatic, might stop her waving the gun in your face. If it accidentally went off...

Her jaw drops, "No, it can't be..." She shakes her head in disbelief, "No, that was just a crazy tale, just mad talk - none of it could be true!"

"None of what could be true?" you ask, not sure you like the sudden change in her.

"My... My grandfather's name was Michael... My name is... I'm Susan Dobson," she says, looking you up and down, and inspecting you properly for the first time. She lowers the gun, then drops it forgotten to the floor.

"You're saying you're my granddaughter? That's crazy! That's..." you realise that maybe it is not so crazy after all. Something has happened to your starship. What if something had happened half-way through the jump, and your ship was indeed stranded in the extra-dimension of Light Space. Who knows how your ship, or even you, might be affected. Could this location on your starship actually take you to another moment in time - somewhere into the future?

"Tell me, why would you think you were my granddaughter?" you ask, softly.

Her eyes glaze over, as she loses herself to memories, "My grandfather used to tell wild tales. No one really believed him, and by the time I was born, he wouldn't talk about it. My mother, though, she said that my grandfather was in a starship accident once. He used to say that he met people from the past and the future. Everyone thought he was crazy, but other than that, he was perfectly normal. People said that the starship accident did something to him, and that's why he would make those wild claims. People said he was just dreaming, or drunk. Once though, before he died, he asked me a strange question... 'Remember when we were aboard the Andromeda together?' he asked me. I guess if he was you, then this, here and now, is what he was talking about. He said he would never have made it back if it wasn't for me..."

"So, I obviously get out of here alive then," you say as much to yourself as to her. "Karl and I made a starship jump, but we didn't appear at our destination - I think I'm still trapped inside of Light Space somehow. Strange things are happening as I move about my ship. When I step through that doorway, I'm back aboard my version of the ship, and this is my sleeping quarters, but when I step back in here, it's your sleeping quarters - somewhere in the future..."

Suddenly the ship shudders, and you both grab hold of furniture so you don't fall over.

"What was that?" you both ask at the same time. Suddenly a warning klaxon blares through the ship.

"I've got to get to the bridge!" she shouts, forgetting about you and the whole 'mixed-up time' issue. She rushes out the door and down the passage. Instinctively you rush out the door to follow her, and suddenly pass through that invisible wall again. She vanishes from sight as you step into the passageway - and return to your own time.


1. Quickly go back into the sleeping quarters.

2. Try heading to the cockpit, and seeing if your granddaughter is there.

3. Open the door to Karl's sleeping quarters
 
(Option 2 has been chosen with 1 vote!)

You turn to look up the passageway at the cockpit, looking through the open cockpit door, and your jaw drops. You stumble forward, pausing on the outside of the doorway to the cockpit, looking inside.

There are two people seated at the consoles, and neither is your granddaughter. You see Karl, looking very alive. He is running through jump calculations on the computer. Beside him, with a loud gasp, you see yourself! You are in there, preparing to make a jump!

Your eyes look up to the windows, and you see space outside, full of stars - instead of the pale, white light. You also see a large bright star in the middle of the view, and you realize that what you are seeing is the inside of the cockpit before you made the jump - just before your accident took place!

1. Enter the cockpit. Maybe you can tell yourself not to make the jump. If that's even possible?

2. Decide to stay in the passageway
 
2. It is best not to try to change the events that have already transpired, my knowledge of films in popular culture tell me that attempting this will have disastrous results. Also, by staying in the passageway, maybe you can gain more insight as to what happened during the jump.
 
(Option 2 has been chosen with 1 Vote!)

You aren't sure what might happen if you step back into the cockpit - especially if when you go in there, there could be another you in there! Or maybe the whole scene will change? Who knows! Instead, you step back, away from the doorway, and consider what other options you have.

1. Quickly go back into your sleeping quarters.

2. Open the door to Karl's sleeping quarters

3. Walk to the aft end of the passageway
 

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