“Today is anniversary of invasion, right, my friend?” asked old man in lab coat.
“Indeed. 2 years since open declaration of war…” answers him another old man dressed in blue military uniform, “and we can’t hide anymore. Today is the day when we will need to send Pluton back, or risk of detection is too high.”
Two men were sitting in a cramped room filled with monolith looking objects. One man was scientist, the other - general. In front of the scientist lied a cube projecting a hologram similar to a laptop. On the screen image of a young man lying in transparent cuboid was displayed.
“Memory wipe is completed, right?” asked general with heavy look on his face.
“Don’t worry, we did everything we could to maximize success of an operation,” reassured him scientist, “he will not be detected unless we don’t know something about our enemy.”
General stood up from his seat and started walking in circles. Five minutes later he stopped and said, “I prepared everything on my part. Everyone who knew were eliminated. We can start.”
Scientists smiled knowingly, “Alright. Procedure will start in 5 seconds. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. Start!”
Suddenly room rumbled. Ear piercing sound of bending and snapping metal filled the space. Alarm siren started to contribute to cacophony of metal: “Sealing is breached! Irreversible damage! Abandon ship!” Monoliths started to melt, black goo running down their surface.
Then it all ended. Screeching of metal stopped, alarm died off, monoliths stopped bleeding and light went off. At the same time you could see two old men floating in the room.
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“Well, looks like generators died and even backup one doesn’t want to kick in. Our spaceship is just a scrap of metal now, my friend,” said smirking scientist as he ignored all the pain his frail old body received from vibration just now.
“We can still proceed to shuttle…” replied general. He used his flashlight option on his watches to illuminate mechanical cranks on the door that popped out when lights went off.
“Old guards like us need to give breathing space for young ones even if we don’t consider the need to keep secrecy with our mission. I passed all my knowledge to netcomms of my student yesterday. Hopefully they will grasp Faster than Light theory without my assistance and do something with it.” Scientists grasped his seat, floated and positioned himself in it comfortably. He urged, “Sit down too, my friend. We have done all we could anyway. We are no longer needed.”
“You’re right. I assume oxygen in this room will last for 20 minutes.” said general as he too assumed position in his previous seat, “You know, although you made numerous tests regarding transportation part of our operation, I still have fear that Pluton will fail. His power is too unique.” told general as his lips trembled.
Scientist laughed and replied jokingly, “Now look at you, old fool. You was keeping yourself together for two month, didn’t drop a tear, when you killed your own son, and now this? Relax, people always start over think things when they finish the deed.”
“This mission is more important than my son, than me, than a whole crew of this ship,” said general without a smile.
Scientist assumed serious expression and reassured him, “His Psionic powers are ideal for this mission. There’s really noone else we could send with such a task.”
General relaxed, closed his eyes and started reminiscing his past life. Remembering sports that he used to be fun of with scientist they started to talk about matches of their youth. 15 minutes later they were in heated debate over a controversial referee, when general’s watches vibrated indicating low level of oxygen.
“I guess that’s it. I need to finish my last work,” said general with bitter face as he took out a pistol from a holster.
“Goodbye, my friend.”
*BANG* *BANG*
Noone will know who said these last word. Was it scientist who always addressed his college roommate like that. Or old military person made a crack in his own mentality at last, when sending his friend to the last journey. Now only two people with holes in their heads were floating away from each other. Smartwatches on the hand of one of them sensed cease of pulse and shut down, putting room in eternal darkness.
From the outside of the ship you could see a 1km long wreck with a gaping hole on the side pointing towards a small sphere far away. Shipwreck was completely silent. It wasn’t emitting any signal, didn’t have a source of light. It will forever remain floating in space until it crashes into an asteroid or some planet catch it with it’s gravity pull, finally granting 205 bodies still inside it proper burial.