Supernova
Submission for Day 1 of The Halls of Pandemonium- An event captured by 3 different POVs
June 12th, 10:32 AM Alexandria, Virginia
Todd held Malorie’s hand, fingers loosely interlaced, as they walked down the sidewalk.
“I am so proud of you honey” Todd repeated, looking at Malorie.
“These next two weeks are going to drag though” she responded.
“They are, but once they’ve over you finally get to start at your dream company” he mused.
He was looking down at her shirt, a gift from her new employer. It was a pink shirt, and in the center was a blue round logo with the words NASA centered in the middle.
“Where are you taking me to celebrate” she asked, pulling him in tighter.
The sun was rising higher in the sky, pushing away the clouds as it found its place. The birds were singing, and their dog Rover was hastily following along with them. His short corgi legs worked double time to keep up.
“I’m thinking that nice Italian place on the water that opened up. Pasta and a good Cab Sauv seems appropriate” he grinned.
“You know me too well” she responded. She looked down at Rover for a second, then slowly back up towards Todd.
“You know, now we can really start planning our future” she held her gaze.
They reached an intersection and hit the silver cross button. The pole chimed “WAIT” over and over as they aruffz eventually, the WALK sign lit up and the sound changed to chirping.
The three made it across the street and started walking down the pier.
“With your newer income, we can definitely start thinking about that. You know I wanted to wait until the right moment” he finally responded.
They made it to the end of the pier and leaned against the rail. The river was wide, with sailboats drifting lazily from one side to the other. They both looked out over the moving water, blowing white peaks in the wind.
“We can’t just hold off until some grand sign from the universe tells us to start” she responded.
As he opened his mouth to respond, a bright light lit up the sky above them. It seemed far out, but it was bright enough that they had to block their eyes.
They both looked at each other and broke down laughing, soothing Rover who was barking at the sky.
June 12th, 10:40 AM NASA Headquarters. Washington, DC.
Incredible”, Mark mouthed.
The Launch Control Center had a screen pulled up on the north-facing wall. He was zoomed in on what looked like a ship slowly moving through space. It was still, but the light refracted from its hull obscured the image partially to make a confirmation.
“We’ve worked our way through most of the filters”, Arthur typed commands into the terminal and looked up, “I haven’t been able to filter out that light.”
“I wonder if it is coming from the spacecraft itself” Mark responded.
Arthur looked up for a moment. The wheels were turning in his brain and Mark stared.
“What if it isn’t emitting light, but radiation of some sort?” Mark spoke up.
“We wouldn’t be seeing light like that if it were radiation… it would be more like digital static where we would see two ships at once”.
“How do we know that it isn’t some sort of radiation from another galaxy that emits light?” Mark continued.
“Listen”, Arthur looked up from his terminal at Mark, “We don’t know what it is. It may be life from out in space, but it is more likely just space debris passing far out from Earth’s orbit. We have no active missions that should be this close to earth.”
Mark slumped down into his chair.
Arthur continued, “With the amount of shit we launch into space, that is the likely answer”.
“Whatever you say” Mark looked back at the screen on the wall.
As Arthur looked back down at the terminal, the light on the screen got so bright and intense that it lit up the entire control center. They both quickly looked up at the screen as it did, and then all at once it cut out. They were now staring at an empty screen, with nothing but the stars they’ve always stared at.
“What the…” Arthur mouthed.
“It blipped away” Mark said, grinning from ear to ear.
??? ??? ???? Somewhere deep in space
The corridors of the ship shone with red, flashing in three-second intervals. The crew was able to turn off the blaring alarm long enough to think.
“Walk me through exactly what you did” Shane sternly spoke to Theo.
“I saw there was an alarm on the console”, he took a shaking breath while wiping sweat from his forehead, “that said to flush and replace the coolant. I’ve seen that icon a dozen times during training”.
He looked at Shane with wild eyes.
The panel to the left of them read UNCONTROLLED PRESSURE INCREASE. ADJUST NOW.
“Did you re-attach the lines correctly? Did you make sure the pump was turned on?” he said, the panic setting into his voice now.
“I… think so. I’m not sure.”
A new alarm started to blare and the text on the screen changed to CONTROL ROD TEMPERATURE TOO HIGH. WATER COOLING INSUFFICIENT.
Shane lifted the hatch in the floor and leaned through the opening. He turned on a flashlight and looked around. Dozens of marked pipes and wiring controlled the micro-reactor that powered their ship.
NASA, along with a handful of other agencies, had made huge leaps in the tech after the successful second landing on the Moon. The mission reignited the world’s passion for space exploration… as well as the budget for their mission.
As Shane looked around, Theo floated over to the wall console.
He keyed in a few commands and grabbed what looked like a microphone that was tethered to the wall.
“Headquarters, this is the Helios II calling. We lost power on our return trip passing by Mercury.”
He was sweating now.
“We’re not able to shed enough heat off the reactor. We’re unsure why the cooling isn’t working”, he looked down towards Shane, “We’re too close to Mercury now and the atmosphere is heating the ship even worse.” He released the receiver and heard nothing back.
“The satellite link still isn’t working” he yelled down at Shane.
He couldn’t hear him over the new console alarm, which showed the heat climbing up into the thousands of degrees.
The steel wall that separated the reactor from the inside of the ship was starting to sag.
The light from his flashlight crawled slowly along the sprawling pipes and cables. Then, it landed on a pipe fitting that was loose. Particles of water floated around underneath.
“Hey I think I found-“
The explosion vaporized the ship in a brilliant flash of light.
This story was for Day 1 of Bradley Ramsey ‘s The Halls of Pandemonium.
Here’s the prompt:
Thank you for reading borrowed worlds! If you enjoyed what you read, consider jumping into this universe!
I loved the three POVs. Great job!
Wow, you nailed the prompt.