Distant Horizons/Chapter 7

Chapter 7 Hole

Suddenly, Hando realized his dilemma. A terrible, cold shiver crept slowly down his spine, and he felt the fear eating away at his mind, his soul. Hando began to tremble and shiver. Slowly, he turned his head towards the viewport, and was met with an unspeakable horror. The nebula was wild. The black clouds of swirled around violently, and the ship began to shake. In front of the ship, a huge vortex was swallowing the gas and dust. Is whirled about violently. “PULL UUUUUUUUUUUUUP” screamed Hando. But no use. The ship rocked and turned over, and it was snagged by the vortex. The crew of the Distant Horizons was shaken and tossed. Hando was flung against the transparasteel viewport. In a futile effort, he yanked at the drive leavers. The ship shook with the force, but continued to move inwards. Hando looked up. The clouds parted. In front of his nose, Hando saw it. He was face to face with the most dangerous thing in the universe. A huge sphere of total darkness. A black hole. He saw the very light in the cabin twist and bend. He felt queasy and sick. The black hole came closer and closer. It swallowed gas, asteroids, debris, everything. Hando stared back, the rest of the crew were writhing and squirming, in mid air, but to no avail. Hando tried to scream, but no sound came out. He couldn’t even expel the air in his lungs. Hando felt a tug, and watched, as his body started to stretch. He became longer and longer, thinner and thinner, and the cockpit of the Distant Horizons became narrower and narrower. He watched as the hole became more and more close. And then, with horrible screech, the Distant Horizons was swallowed. Hando saw the world distort and blur around him. Suddenly, his mind slowed. His body slowed. Time slowed down, until everything gradually came to a halt. Hando could actually feel thoughts creep through his brain. He gave the mental command to raise his head. A few seconds later, he began to gaze out of the viewport. His eyes peered towards the centre of the hole. Nothing, absolutely nothing, could be seen. A few seconds later, his head obeyed a brainwave to look backwards. He turned. The light in the shuttle distorted Hando, and everything looked long and bent. His head was about half a mile from his shoulders. He saw the stretched body of Shia drifting in the endlessly long cockpit. The twi’lek was in tears, long thin tears. He looked at Hando, but now there was no anger in his gaze. Only love. Only caring. Then suddenly, in the distance, at the back of the hundred mile cockpit, a huge light blazed. Hando felt a spark of power, raw energy. His head turned back to the viewport. The centre of the blackness was no longer there. Just a huge, blinding white light. Suddenly he could move again. He felt queasy as the cockpit shrunk again, and then grew again, stretching in all directions. He felt the life go back into him, as his body was energized. Powered hot and alive. Hando felt amazing. He felt like he could hurtle the Galaxy into oblivion. He felt as powerful as a supernova. He flashed his gaze around, and looked everywhere at once. Everything was hyper-alive, aware, and powerful. The Distant Horizons came closer to the blinding white spot. Until at last with a surge of raw power, the ship tore into the light. The power was incredible. The ship was hurtled around endlessly. Hando, Shia, Ghoel, Trisha and Ghai spun around faster and faster. Every now and again, Hando saw the white part, and the familiar space reappear. He saw the white dots of stars, the black void, and every now and again he felt the familiar worldly feeling. Happy memories of space began to come to mind again, and soon Hando began to laugh happily. He remembered the smuggling runs, the fights with imperials, and new republic. The Distant Horizons spun faster and fiercer, and more and more black space showed. Soon, the crew became more and more alive and aware, and soon they were all laughing merrily, watching the spin go faster and faster, the white grow less and less, until at last, with a surge of energy, the Distant Horizons was hurled away. Hando fell back down to the ground. The familiar feeling of space travel. He watched as the stars spun around in the sky, sometimes nearly turning to star lines, sometimes bringing forth faint tinges of the blue of hyperspace, but gradually slowing down. Slowly but surely, the Distant Horizons came to a halt. Hando Likir collapsed back in the pilot’s seat. He and the rest of the crew panted, trying to get their breath back. Then they began to laugh. Hando kissed Trisha’s lips and the two were silent, while the rest of the crew laughed on in sheer joy. Hando turned to face Shia. The twi’lek was already gazing at him. He nodded to Hando, and smiled. An enigmatic smile, Hando thought. What he really meant, he was still unsure. However, Hando smiled back the same. He turned his chair to face the rest of his crew. “What was that?” he whispered. “That” said Ghoel through his earpiece “is a White Hole.” “A White Hole” grunted Ghai, “I think I might have heard of that before.” “A white hole” said Ghoel, “Is our link. If a black hole in one universe connects with a white hole in another universe, a bond is formed, through which we may pass” “What?” gasped Trisha. “Are you seriously suggesting that were... yes. That would all add up.” “Cringe on it or accept it, my friends” spoke Ghoel, “but we are here. In another universe. With no way out.” “Suppose that means I don’t have a price on my head” muttered Shia. “Yeheeea,” laughed Ghai, “Id seriously like that scaly monster Bossk to work this out. He won’t fall on the idea, no way. Unless he’s stupid enough to land in a black hole.” “Like us,” added Trisha. “Trandoshans often commit ritual suicide in situations such as those,” said Shia, rubbing the slightly scarred back of his right Lekku which he had landed on while falling out of bed. “So would I,” countered Trisha, “so would anybody with more sense than us.”

“Hey Shia,” said Ghai, “Didn’t you say that the bounty hunter Cad Bane...”

“From the same crazy black hole-loving species that Hando comes from, yes I knew him. Please continue.”

“Hey why are you still so mad at him Shia,” cried Trisha, “Thanks to him you won against, like, a million bounty hunters?”

“And got sucked out of the universe to somewhere we can never live” growled Shia, “I’d like to see you try land on the nearest planet in the nearest system in the nearest galaxy in the nearest cluster in the nearest supercluster in the nearest whatever-cluster. I mean we haven’t even got the Hyperdrive. And don’t forget were in a different universe. There could be any random unknown laws of physics and all that, all the fabric is probably filled with antimatter, and we don’t even understand the laws of time around here. I mean, were completely lost.” “You know, Trisha, Shia’s got a point.” Mutter Ghai, quietly, “If I had a huge price on my head, I’d rather run from the bounty hunters rather than hide somewhere you can’t get out. And, yeah okay, you don’t need to give up all hope, but don’t try landing anywhere around here, seriously. I mean, when two different types of matter collide, they make a real viscous blast. You take like a teaspoon of alien matter to our universe you can use it to blow up a city, but if you land a 500 tonne freighter made up of something out-of-universe, well; you blow up a planet... probably” “More importantly you blow up yourself” grunted Shia, “I mean you don’t know what I’ saying brother. Subatomic particles and Gamma rays is what you turn into.” “Okay people, calm down,” sighed Hando. “I admit I was wrong, taking you here.” I’d thought that was a normal black hole back there, I mean, I thought we’d all just gradually get spaghettified into atomic width. But we didn’t. And now, yes, we are lost. And this time I am sure there is no way out. But one thing I also would care to remind you all of is that we are not much more hopeless here than we were back in our own universe. I mean, we’d been drifting, in empty space, for months. If we hadn’t all worked till we collapsed on the floor, we could have been suffocated, killed and eaten by baby sarlaccs, smashed by asteroids... anything.” “So what your saying is here there are no sarlacci or asteroids, and the life support recharge works, and so now we simply have to wait until the food runs out, is that it?” groaned Shia, spitefully. “Before this happened, there was a small chance of somebody rescuing us, but now, there is no chance of anybody rescuing us, especially since we seem to be in complete blackness, with no stars anywhere...” “Really?” said Trisha, “I thought...” Trisha looked out of the viewport. Her eyes were met by the most outstanding sight. There was nothing. Absolutely nothing in the sky. She saw nothing. There were no stars, nebulae, galaxies... “What the kriffing hell?” gasped Hando. Suddenly, Ghoel’s head darted down from the place he had been cowering, and the wise Wol Cabbasshite spoke: “I think I know where we are” he said.