Chapter 01

The ship trembled and groaned, engulfed in chaos as fire and sparks erupted throughout. Not only were crates and boxes flying about due to the violent shaking, but the passengers onboard added to the pandemonium. Captain Gary Bremner surveyed the scene, realising that the ship, enroute from the moon base to Earth, had encountered an anomaly. A micro fracture in space wreaked havoc on the ship's systems.

Bremner was aware that these passengers were genetically enhanced through experimentation, possessing mutated powers whose workings remained a mystery to him. He had been instructed not to provoke them and simply transport them to Headquarters for assessment, the purpose of which was unknown to him.

Halfway into their journey, the ship's sublight engines failed, causing it to be dragged backward. With only sublight engines for propulsion and manoeuvring thrusters for slow movements, the 22-seater ship, 24 with the pilots, faced exploding panels on both sides. Meanwhile, the restrained passengers, their cargo, grew increasingly agitated.

Gary had witnessed one of these "freaks" moving objects with their mind and reading people's thoughts. He had been specifically warned to be cautious around the young redheaded woman in seat 1D, who was considered the most precious among them. No one had disclosed the nature of her abilities, but the atmosphere surrounding her was characterized by power and fear.

The tall redhead, standing at around 6 feet with quarter-inch thick rubber-soled shoes like all the "passengers," had long fiery hair flowing neatly to her waist. A single strand fell across her forehead, reaching past the tip of her nose to her chin. Notably, a white scar adorned her left cheek, beginning just below her left eye. Her piercing light blue eyes, which would have been even more striking in natural sunlight, complemented her pale fair skin. Captivated by her rare beauty, Bremner perceived her as slim, well-toned, and athletic, despite her unremarkable baggy grey dress that concealed her figure, except for her broad shoulders resembling those of a powerful swimmer. She was known as Caitlyn Riagán, but among the passengers, she was referred to as the Spiorad-Briseadh, Irish for "Spirit Breaker." Bremner knew she was Irish, but none of the passengers were identified by name; they were referred to by descriptions and codenames. The Spiorad-Briseadh occupied a row of four seats alone since both the security personnel from the GenTech Research Foundation, to which these individuals belonged, and the other passengers were fearful of her.

As everyone, except for Bremner, his first officer, and the three security personnel, remained strapped to their seats by titanium metal bracelets on their legs and hands, the Spiorad-Briseadh sat in solitude. Her presence evoked fear among both the security personnel and the other passengers. Bremner couldn't help but wonder what thoughts occupied her mind, as her expressionless face and glazed eyes stared off into space.

Suddenly, his communication device beeped, alerting Bremner to an urgent message. Choosing to remain by his command cabin, as he believed his experienced first officer could handle the situation, the captain, a seasoned veteran of 45 years, deferred to his co-pilot, Michael Stafford, who was 35 and had over 10 years of experience. However, Stafford's distressed voice over the comms indicated that something grave was unfolding.

“Captain, I need you up here, fuck Gary something is terribly wrong.”

Hurriedly, Bremner responded, "Hold on, Michael. I am on my way.”

As Bremner rushed to the cockpit, his mind raced with questions. What could possibly be happening now? Were they in danger? The tension on the ship reached a boiling point, and the captain knew that the fate of everyone onboard rested in their ability to overcome the challenges ahead.

Dhanushka Fernando looked up from the flying console, known as the helm, a term coming down through traditional sailing ships. But now instead of the original steering mechanism, the wheel, it used touch screens.

Dhanu at 23, a 6-foot-2-inch-tall man with straight black hair, was scowled at by his co-workers and colleagues for his outdated hairstyle. Despite this, he didn't see any problem with it. He was considered averagely built among the crew of the Helmsman, but in his country, Sri Lanka, he was considered a big man. He attended one of the oldest and most prestigious schools on the island, which was started by the British in 1851. The school, which still stands today, was originally located in central Colombo but was moved to the southern suburbs in 1918. Dhanu grew up as the eldest of three children and was always put in a position of responsibility. He had fun with his friends, but among his siblings, he was the responsible one. Unfortunately, his mother passed away when he was 15, during the birth of his youngest brother. His father, an air transport and teleport platform engineer, was always working and never at home. Despite his somewhat boring and routine life, Dhanu was comfortable with it. He took care of his siblings and worked hard, and now he was the junior pilot in charge of the graveyard shift on the spaceship Salvation.

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The United Earth Space Fleet (UESF), Dhanu, like other men and women, had an equal opportunity to showcase his abilities and become part of a space-faring crew. He excelled in the program and ranked among the top three pilots. Ultimately, he chose to serve as the helms officer on this impressive final ship.

The UESF Salvation, serial AAE – 2240, the last ship of the initial deep spaceships for exploration. It was the fifth ship of its kind, fitted with a new metal alloy they found by experimenting, Stainless Steel with Titanium, called Titan Steel, the mix gave it properties unlike other, an exceptionally smooth but firm surface, radiation proof and Polarised. Once an electric current is sent through, it flares a foot and a half, electrified shield out into space.

With the length of the ship being 1000 feet and the width of the fuselage being 77 feet at the narrowest and 100 at the widest just under the wing, where the 2 bays (shuttle and

Cargo) were. With 12 decks, the Salvation had a pointed nose in front like many of the military fighter planes of the 20th century. It was like a Falcon or an Eagle, starting off with the beak and where the head and eyes are supposed to be, a small window is seen like the pilot cockpit where the bridge crew is.

As you move down the fuselage of the ship it has wings when it travels at sub light speed but retracts into the main body when it has to use hyperspace jumping. When the wings are out it has most of its laser canons in front (leading edge) and the Thrusters in the back (trailing edge). And the fuselage goes on till it reaches the sublight engine as its culmination.

The Salvation (as mentioned above and explained below) has 3 driving mechanisms.

Drive number one is thrusters. From the age-old days, when man first reached space, the manoeuvring thrusters were used. Tubes filled with a mixture of gases, with the exact scientific terminology being hypergolic mono-methyl hydrazine fuel oxidized with nitrogen tetroxide’. These thrusters are used for precision movements of the spacecraft, while dockings or landings are done on planets or moons. This drive is common in all spacecraft at that time.

Drive number two is the sublight engine, located at the end of the ship, this is also common for most ships with short range interplanetary travel, in other words, traveling in a solar system. It uses a nuclear energy to run, with the turn of this century, scientist began to perfect the technology of getting clean radioactive energy to run machines and now, starships.

Drive number three is the jump hyper drive engine also known as the slingshot drive. The name means you can travel as far as you can aim, and it’s true to its word, this drive can only jump as far as the deep space scanners can see. It cannot jump galaxies, only solar systems. Since Earth science have detected about 200 billion stars and mapped out a few thousands of solar systems in the Milky Way, this drive can jump to many. This uses the wormhole theory; the ship manages to rip a hole in synchronised time and space for it to go from one point to the other like a slingshot. More plainly put, like a worm going through an apple to get to the other side, without going around it.

Like most science fiction books have theorised starting with the 20th century, faster than light travel has to be done outside a solar system because the tears which are caused in space may affect the system in an unknown way. So even though no experiments were done by using the Slingshot inside our solar system or any other, this is a cautionary rule imposed by the UESF.

Dhanushka Fernando looked up from the flying console, known as the helm, a term coming down through traditional sailing ships. But now instead of the original steering mechanism, the wheel, it used touch screens.

Fernando’s console started blinking red rapidly, a warning on the right-hand side of the screen. And from the corner of his eye, Dhanu saw the warning on the navigator’s console also started to blink rapidly too.

Lieutenant Tony Warne was a chubby big made, burly Australian man, not as tall as Dhanu, but was wider, heavyset and muscular. The blonde haired and grey eyed man had a confused but irritated look on his face. “Lieutenant Fernando is this warning the same reading you are getting on yours”.

“Yes Tony, the very same one”

Warne was slightly senior than Dhanu, and thirty years old, should have been a commander by now, but with a couple of personal setbacks, he hadn’t had time to get promoted when he volunteered from the UECAF. Here though, he was in charge of the graveyard shift of the bridge.

It was 12.04 in the morning, so most of the crew were asleep including the senior officers, except Tony and Dhanushka.

“Command Centre to Captain Douglas,” Tony yelled at his console.