EPISODE 2
How I got here is a
bit of a long story, but I’ll cut it short. There was this guy you see, on
Alpha Centuari, and we had a little misunderstanding over a poker game. He
seemed to think I had cheated him and wanted his money back. I pretended to go
to the loo, snuck out the back door and managed to get to my space ship with
inches to spare. I blasted off a few minutes before him and ran like hell. He
must’ve had some very sophisticated sensors on board because he followed my
exhaust signature like a dog after a rabbit. In fact he dogged me all the way through
the asteroid belt and I just couldn’t shake him off. His ship was a lot faster
than mine, not to mention armed to the teeth. I was hoping he wouldn’t follow
me as far as General Outer Defence Station 5 because of all the Federation
cruisers and battleships hanging around there, but nothing seemed to put him
off the scent, he just kept on coming. He fired at me again on the approach to
G.O.D. 5 but thankfully missed. But only by a mile. This was getting too close
for comfort.
Before he had time to recharge his plasma cannon I pulled
sharply around G.O.D. 5, coming as close as I dared and then skimmed across the
face of the wormhole hoping to generate enough G’s to slingshot me outa there.
Not the most sensible manoeuvre but preferable to death by laser section. The
only thing I had miscalculated was the size of the wormhole. I wasn’t expecting
it to be that big. A gigantic whirlpool the size of a planet, twisting away
into nothingness.
Federation flares were fired at me as I passed Station 5
and my radio exploded into life with a series of urgent warnings.
‘Damned cops,’ I thought. ‘Trust them to arrest the wrong
guy.’ I ignored them and piled on the speed. This was a matter of some urgency
and I wasn’t going to let a few figurative yellow lines stop me. The radio
continued to squawk and shriek at me.
“This is Station 5 to Mining Vessel 385GW. Please be
advised that you have entered a no-go zone and are in dangerous proximity to
the wormhole. Please reverse your position and proceed to Alpha Station Dock 6
for questioning.”
“What for? I haven’t done anything,” I argued, just to
give me some more time.
“You have entered a restricted area and are in violation
of Federation code 35624.1205.”
“Okay, okay. And just where is Dock number whatever you
said?”
“We have already sent you the co-ordinates in a code-red
package. Please expedite.”
“Here’s the problem
base. I got this guy who wants to kill me. If you look at your screens more
carefully you should be able to see him taking aim at my ass. So I ain’t
stopping for nothing.”
“Station 5 to Mining Vessel 385GW, that is not acceptable.
Please change trajectory to sent co-ordinates and commence deceleration.”
And as if this wasn’t enough I was having a bit of a
problem with my slingshot calculations. They weren’t working out so well.
Instead of getting further away from the wormhole, I was getting closer. I
could feel the gravity-well slowly getting hold of my ship.
I managed to escape my pursuer, but not the wormhole.
After a three day tunnel ride through hyperspace I was spewed out the other end
into a solar system that my computers had never even heard of and couldn’t find
on any of their star maps. I didn’t have long to worry about the problem
though, my sensors immediately picked up some off-the-chart mineral readings
from a gigantic asteroid nearby and I knew I had, in old prospecting terms,
struck it rich. Rich enough to pay off my protagonist and have enough left over
for a life of luxury.
It took me a little over a week to load my little ship up
to the gills and start heading back to the wormhole. Hopefully the wormhole
worked both ways. It didn’t bear thinking about if it didn’t. To increase my
chances though, I gave my old bucket as much G thrust as she could stand
without coming apart at the seams and aimed it straight down the wormholes
throat.
But, I never made it that far. Something came between us
and here I am, marooned on the strangest looking planet I’d ever seen.
My stomach growled, reminding me that I still had to
collect breakfast this morning. I fired up the mech suit headed for one of the
pods when the landscape beneath my feet began to heave and buckle, like some
mythical beast twitching in its sleep.
N
DON'T MISS NEXT WEEKS EXCITING EPISODE
