It heard them from the depths of its perpetual slumber; bursts of electrical signals emanating from far away, jumbled and faint. It tried to sink back further into the tranquility of its tenebrous stillness but sleep was hard to find, driven away by the promise of something far more alluring…..life! This aroused in its core a long forgotten sensation dancing at the very edge of an insatiable craving. It slowly stretched itself out into the void, chasing these echoes, trying to pinpoint their exact origin. Life! It was beckoning to its, now fully, awakened hunger. Spurned by this urge, it franticly searched in every fold of the void’s ever-entangled networks, expanding and retracting only to travel into a new direction. It searched for what could have been millennials or just the blink of an eye as it stretched itself further; pouring out into the void’s manifolds, fracturing and splintering across immeasurable expanses. The echoes grew louder as it got closer to a tiny nexus dancing brightly in the darkness. Life!
***
Location: Hyperspace
Date: Dhul Qadah-15th-1956 (Hijri calendar) / March 6th, 2025 (Gregorian calendar)
Captain Yassin Umarov squeezed the armrest of his chair as he watched his devoted crew working diligently. The Howling Storm was a monster of a ship, a gigantic cruiser built to ferry passenger from the outer planets to the core systems. A marvel of engineering, it was meant to withstand the instability of hyperspace. Despite its reinforced double-layered plating and its dual navigators, Umarov never underestimated the dangers of such a journey. As the convoy progressed through an unstable and hostile environment, where the very laws of physics that governed normal space broke down into chaos, Umarov became increasingly on edge. The convoy was larger this year than ever before. He had to increase the number of available cryo-pods and turned most of the fourth deck into a storage area for them.
One of the perks of travelling aboard the ships belonging to the consortiums was the relative comfort one could enjoy as their passenger. On long and gruelling journeys, suspended animation was a way for the wealthy to avoid the unpleasant effects of hyperspace on the human body. They slept comfortably in their rented cryo-pods and waited to be awaken from their artificially induced sleep, like the fairy tale princesses of olden times, once their destination was reached. The Howling Storm was the lead ship guiding the convoy through this journey. For Umarov, this was more than a simple voyage, it was a matter of reputation. To be the captain that lead the largest convoy of pilgrims to Hajj and back safely would ensure his entry in the annals of space travel.
“Yaqub, how are we holding up?” he asked his first mate.
“Our plating is holding for the moment, Captain. But, we had to dispatch more repair crews to deal with all the tears. I’m not sure if we can sustain this kind of tremendous pressure for too long.”
“What about the rest of the convoy?”
“We are getting reports of increased tears from almost every ship and even a few hull breach incidents from the smaller ships. We need to get out of hyperspace as soon as possible, Captain.”
“That won’t be possible, Captain. We are still far from the exit point,” replied the Howling Storm’s operations officer.
“Can the navigators plot a new course? One that would allow us to exit hyperspace quicker?” Yassin asked.
“Our current trajectory is the shortest one calculated by the navigators. Of all the possible exit points, this is the closest one to Earth.”
“Alright then. Yaqub, increase our speed and get us to the exit point as quickly as possible. Send a message to the rest of the convoy and tell them to match our speed and remain in a tight formation, we don’t want to lose anyone. Open a direct channel to the Nile, I need to speak to Captain Abdallah.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Yassin, what is this I hear about increasing our speed?” the booming voice of Ayman Abdallah, the captain of the Nile, resonated through the Howling Storm’s bridge.
“We can’t sustain this level of pressure for too long Ayman, it is getting too dangerous. We have to get out of hyperspace as soon as possible.”
“And end up hitting headfirst a tear or God forbid a rogue tendril? We might end up getting a little banged up along the way if we stay the course but at least we’re not going to destroy ourselves by going too fast and increasing the risk of an accidental collision with a micro-fissure by tenfold. This is a bad idea Yassin.”
“A little banged up? Is that what you call hull breaches? Listen Ayman, I have every intention of getting this convoy to Hajj in one piece. The last time I checked I’m the one leading this convoy and the one everybody is complaining to about all their woes along the way. Fall into formation and close the rear end of the convoy, make sure there are no stragglers when we increase the speed.”
Yassin cut the channel abruptly before the other man could respond. The last thing he needed was an endless back and forth with the notoriously stubborn captain of the Nile. He closed his eyes for a second and made a silent dua for wisdom and quietude. He had to remain calm to lead the convoy through this perilous journey. A burst of light suddenly engulfed the entire ship and violent tremors rocked the cruiser.
“What is going on? Yaqub, report”
“Captain, we are caught in….something,” Yaqub replied as he and the operations officer tried making sense of the readings from the external sensors.
“What do you mean something. What is going on exactly?”
“I don’t know Captain, I don’t understand these readings. I’ve never seen anything like this before. It seems we are trapped, but there’s nothing out there, Captain. Our sensors are not picking up anything.”
“What about the other ships?”
“The first half of the convoy seems to be trapped just like us. We are getting Mayday signals from almost all of them.”
“Open a channel immediately to the Nile.”
“Yassin, what is going on?”
“Ayman, it seems we, and half the convoy, are trapped in something we can’t identify yet. Take the lead and regroup with the rest of the ships away from our current position.”
“Subhanallah.”
“We’ll try to free ourselves but if we can’t, you’ll have to lead the rest of the convoy to Earth, Ayman.”
“Don’t worry about that. Let’s just focus on getting you out of this thing.”
“We will attempt a reverse thrust. Inshallah, this will do the trick.”
“Inshallah khair,” Ayman replied before breaking communication.
“Alright, transfer all the power to our reverse thrusters and pull us away from our position. Tell all the other ships to do the same.”
“Yes, Captain.”
***
Safiya felt as if her head was about to explode. The throbbing and the waves of nausea were unbearable. All she wanted to do was crawl into the darkest corner of her shuttle to hide from all the stimuli overwhelming her senses. She could barely feel Shamsuddin and that only made matters worse. Forcing herself to push beyond the chaos in her mind, she reached out to her brother in a desperate attempt to find an anchor to hold her steady. Shamsuddin, help!
***
“We are drifting further from Safiya’s shuttle, Captain. We need to regain control of the ship,” Dahir yelled as he sat in the pilot’s chair and attempted to correct their trajectory.
Hamza cradled Shamsuddin in his arms as he gently put him on the ground. The young man suddenly lost consciousness just as a bright light engulfed the ship and hyperspace became even more unstable than usual. Suleiman rushed to the supply cabinet and grabbed the first-aid kit.
“Quickly, Suleiman!” Hamza yelled as he continued to hold an unconscious Shamsuddin.
“Safiya, come in. Safiya, can you hear me?” Dahir tried hailing the shuttle once more while struggling to stabilize the ship.
“Come on Shamsuddin, wake up!” Hamza tried coaxing him back into consciousness while Suleiman scanned him for injuries.
“I can’t find any injuries on him, captain,” said a rather worried Suleiman.
***
Shamsuddin was floating alone in the darkness. He felt small and weak as if his body was shrinking. For the first time in his life he was truly alone, but instead of the fear this should have elicited, he was strangely calm, becoming more and more lethargic as he continued to swim in the darkness. There is nothing he wanted more than to simply let go and sink deeper into the ambient quietude. He felt warm and tranquil.
Shamsuddin, help.
It was but a whisper in the darkness, the remnant of something forgotten. It lingered at the periphery of his consciousness, desperately trying to take hold of his mind. He turned away from it, seeking the comfort of the blackness instead.
Please, Shamsuddin I need you. I’m scared.
Safiya. The name suddenly came to his mind bringing in its wake a deluge of images, memories, feelings. Sister, a recognized kinship followed by twin, an undeniable bound and a part of himself. It was calling out to him, frail, scarred, and lost. Safiya! He yelled from the confines of his mind. She needs me! That thought stirred him out of his torpor. Safiya! He yelled louder this time.
Shamsuddin, I can’t move. Where are you? I’m scarred.
Awakened by his sister’s distress, his previously dormant mind was now alert. He realized, to his horror, that he was nothing more than a consciousness adrift in a sea of emptiness. The darkness he once found so inviting was now incredibly unsettling to him. The thought of Safiya alone in the dark, trapped and scarred sent his mind into a frenzy, shattering the lethargy that almost swallowed him. A single frantic thought inundated his mind; I need to find Safiya. In the midst of his restlessness, his senses caught a glimpse of a presence. At first he ignored it, driven by the urgent need to locate his twin sister. He convinced himself that his mind, in the absence of stimuli, was playing tricks on him.
Suddenly, a feeling of utter dread invaded his entire being. He felt like a prey being hunted, corralled, and stalked. He could sense it in the emptiness; something in the dark was watching him. Reaching out with his senses, he probed the darkness. But there was nothing tangible there, nothing that could explain what he sensed before. He persisted in his probing and calmly opened himself to the surrounding darkness. But he could sense nothing but the emptiness itself. Pushing his senses further, he decided to focus on a single area in the black to scrutinize. There, in the enveloping darkness there was indeed something. It was almost indistinguishable from the darkness itself, a part of it that somehow felt different….alive? Shamsuddin thought to himself. But how could it be? Was he simply going mad trapped in this all-encompassing emptiness? He continued probing the same focal point with his senses, trying to ascertain his initial intuition. He searched until he found it.
There was a small thread, imperceptible at first, floating gently as if carried by an invisible tide. How he didn’t notice it earlier, he couldn’t tell, but there it was, camouflaged in the darkness. He followed the thread only to realize he was ensnared in it, held tightly in its embrace. Panic flooded his mind as he watched it pulsating faintly like a tendril. Forcing himself to remain calm, he followed the path of the thread; he followed it until he reached a small light ensnared just like him. It was afraid, he could sense its fear and despair as it struggled to free itself from the thread’s embrace. Shamsuddin, the little light cried out.
Further in the darkness, passed the little light, he could sense a maelstrom of fear, confusion, and despair turned into a deafening tumult. The convoy! A horrified Shamsuddin realized that they were all prisoners of whatever was lurking in the dark.
End of part 2
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