Moon Fall
Chapter 11 - Lights in the Depths

Peiter sent a ping to the shuttle and received a signal back. He went to the edge of the large expanse and tried to see over the rubble. The ruins of the Terminal were terrible, if the terminal had not been evacuated the death tole would have been horrific.

“Where is it?” Grace asked.

“I don’t know, it’s says it’s right there. It should be right there.”

He pointed to the expanse of nothing before them.

“Above you!” Dennis shouted and they looked up.

Hovering a good hundred or so feet above them the shuttle came up from out of sight and backed it’s way to the large opening. The rear hatch opened and an emergency grappling hook shot out and embedded into the wall. Further in a hand waved from the pilots seat.

They each jumped aboard and the grappling hook released and the ship pulled away, the hatch closed and the roaring sound of wind and falling buildings vanished. The hum of the engines and the green light indicating the hatch had pressure sealed made Peiter let out a deep breath as he pulled off his mask.

Dennis pulled out his mask to reveal a very bushy mustache and a full head of thick black hair. Grace grinned.

“What? You don’t like a man with a stache?”

“That’s not a mustache, that’s a overgrown rodent under your nose.” Grace patted Peiter on the back. “I like my men older anyway.”

Dennis looked to Peiter and gave her a crazy look.

“Kids.” Peiter snorted with a small grin and headed to the front of the shuttle.

Garibaldi pulled off his mask and coughed. Peiter patted his friend on the back and chastised him. “You can shut the cockpit off from the back you know, you vented the entire shuttle for that.”

Garibaldi shrugged. “I’m not a damn pilot, did the best I could.” He grinned and wheezed out another cough.

Grace asked coming up from behind them. “Can you get us out of here?”

“I’ll leave that to your boyfriend.” As Garibaldi pulled himself from the pilot seat he stopped inches from Peiter. “Is this really happening?”

Peiter looked out the window of the cockpit at the huge massive wall of undulating clouds heading their way. “The better question is, ‘what’, don’t you think?”

Garibaldi nodded. “True. Let’s just get out of here.”

Peiter slipped into the pilot seat and turned on the comms. “Everyone, strap in, we’re getting the hell out of here.”

“Bout time!” Dennis shouted as he buckled himself in, staring out the portal to view the side of the landing platform and the damaged port.

Grace slipped passed Garibaldi and into the copilot seat and strapped in. The elder scientist strapped himself in and gave Dennis a smile. “First time flying coach?”

“Oh, wouldn’t fly any other way. I was born in coach.” Dennis grinned.

Garibaldi was about to ask what he meant when the shuttle lurched forward and he grabbed the cross straps of his seats belt and coughed in surprise.

“Sorry, we got clipped by a bit of debris. If I’m not mistaken... a dog house.”

She watched as the shuttle slipped away from the wreckage of the port. A few larger shuttles rising up from the dome from the undamaged ports. The sky was dotted with tiny transports lifting off in the distance from other ports. The more ships she saw rising into the sky the better she felt.

“Did your dreams show all this?” She asked turning to see Peiter concentrating on some controls.

“In the dreams, the storm coating the entire planet save for the equatorial line. Fast.”

“What was there, at the line?” Garibaldi asked.

“Nothing, it was black like a large crack in the planet.” Peiter pointed out one window facing the planet. “Kind of like that.”

“Holy mother of...”

“It was real.” The words left Peiter’s mouth without him even meaning to say it.

“This can’t be happening.” Dennis said as he leaned to see.

Peiter had both hands pull to the right as the shuttle lurched to the side. “We’re getting gravitational turbulence.” he checked his instruments. “That’s not possible. We hit zero gravity too early, systems compensating.”

He studied the monitor as he continued their outward momentum. “Scans read the limited atmosphere of White Home is.... shrinking.”

“Wouldn’t that pretty much wipe out the storm?” Dennis asked, his voice raised as the shuttle lurched.

“Gravity wave, I’m seeing shifts in the planets gravitatonal pull... it’s like it...”

“Look!” Grace shouted as she pointed to the horizon.

“That’s...”

In the distance over the crest of the planets surface were two large orbs that could only be the two moons of White Home. The only difference is they were so much larger than they had ever been before, because they were closer.

“Look at these readings. It’s like the planets gravity is weakening along the poles and increasing on the moon side along the equator. White Home is literally pulling the moons to it.”

“How is that.... possible?”

Peiter pulled his right hand away from the wheel. A sharp pain ran through his thumb and up his arm. He stared at his hand as he made a fist and let the hand open up again.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know, my fingers are going all numb all of a sudden.” Peiter felt another sharp pain in his left arm, his fingers in that hand went numb as well. He kept his left hand gripping the wheel but the pain was running up his arms to his shoulders.

“What’s going on up there?” Dennis asked bending to look up at the cockpit.

Peiter turned and reached down and felt for his buckle and his hands responded but he couldn’t feel them. He looked up at Grace. “Hold onto the wheel, keep heading on this course.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

She grabbed the wheel as he let go. Peiter held out his hands and they moved to brace him but they slipped over the metal and he fell down on the floor.

The entire ship bolted up and down and Peiter tried to turn himself over onto his back using his elbows. His hands were not responding anymore.

“Peiter! What’s...”

The pain hit his chest like a hammer. “RI Effect. Left the atmosphere. Guess it was more... than 48 hours.”

“That’s not possible, whitewater doesn’t last that long in a human system.” Dennis reached over and took a grip of Peiter’s arm. He had unbuckled himself and was lifting Peiter up into the seat across from him.

“He had forced regression.” Garibaldi said reaching for his buckle but Dennis buckled Peiter in and then himself. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small battery. “See this? Got this from the dispensary an HOUR ago. It’s only been a battery for like an hour and three minutes.”

When the battery began to turn white, Dennis dropped it in shock. “Holy shit!”

The battery fell to the floor and broke into tiny pieces, white chunks and powder was all that was left. It was as if someone had dropped a small stick of chalk on the floor.

Peiter felt the numbness hit his shoulders and he felt other parts of his body start to ache. He started to seize up. Everything in his vision was covered in a black vignette and he started to hear the engines and everyone’s voice as if it was inside a tunnel.

“He’s seizing! His face is going all white!” Dennis yelled.

“Peiter! No!” Was the last thing he heard before everything went black.

Peiter woke up on the cold metal floor of the prison cell. When he looked around, he saw Grace curled up next to him. He reached over and shook her gently by the shoulder, she grunted and slapped his hand. He gave her a slight push and she opened her eyes and sat up.

“Well that was a nice nap I suppose. If you like metal floors vs memory gel.” Grace grumbled as she leaned against him. “Sleep well?”

Peiter looked around slightly confused. “Yeah, well... no.”

“Another dream?” Her voice seemed kinda echo-y in his ears, he shook his head.

“I don’t... maybe. I mean. I could have sworn we got out.”

She gave him a wry look. “Yeah, sounds like a good dream. So no more end of world dreams?”

Peiter stood up and sat on the bench. “No see...” He held out his hands and flexed his fingers into tight balls of fists and then relaxed them. “I think I died.”

“Positive thinking, that’s what we need. Thanks Peter.” She stood up and crossed her arms.

“No.” he was confused and tried to think. “Ok, I had a dream, then I woke up.”

“Yeah, then you woke me up.”

“No, I had a dream, about White Home. Sheila was there, she was calling my name. I told you about this. Remember?” He looked up at her, but Grace wasn’t there, Sheila was.

They were no longer in the prison but on a Whitehome coral landscape, with no domes in sight.

He jumped to his feet only to nearly fall over because he was already standing. The coral rock cracked lightly under his boot much as he remembered it back when Alexi took him into the Coral after he discovered the whitewater. The memory rushed through him and Sheila nodded.

“That was first contact.” Sheila said.

Then white powder rose all around as if gravity had reversed and he could no longer sea through the thick cloud.

“Human’s named it, used it, fashioned it as they saw fit.” He heard her say and he turned to see a metal sign.

Deep Nine

A familiar old green sign with white lettering was bolted to the side of the wall on a rig wall. The landing platform surrounded in a sustaining bubble of hardened plastic and metal wires that could hold up an elephant. In the distance the equatorial storm.

Behind him stood Sheila, this time she wasn’t dressed like Grace in prison fatigues, she was dressed in a rig suit, the helmet off and at her side. In the distance a localized extension of the storm reached out heading their way.

“Sheila!” He shouted from across the landing pad.

She began to walk towards him, and for some reason he found himself stepping back, the storm raged behind her.

“Many people have died here, some removed from it, others like this one, taken by it.”

“Sheila... what...” he raised a hand as she reached out for him.

She grabbed his wrist and he felt a familiar pain running through him, the RI effect. It wasn’t pressure from her touch it was like an electrical pain running up the wrist and the muscles tightened.

The sound of the storm vanished and he saw looked up at the ceiling of a familiar dome, it was Gelispies.

“This one was taken as well.” Gelispie standing over him, then the old men turned into Sheila and helped Peiter to his feet. “This one discovered the truth, but could not comprehend it.”

“What are you? Who are you?”

“We are inertia controlled, gravity welled and contained, matter consumed and reformed, a system of containment.”

Sheila, in Gelispies ratty cloths, turned and bent over and picked something up from a pile of papers and white powdery sand. She shook the papers and the dust filled the air making him blink.

Dennis stood, holding up a battery in his gloved hands. He was sitting across from Peiter in the shuttle, the two were alone.

“What is this?” Peiter shook his head, it ached at the temples.

“Shhh. It’s alright.” She said standing next to him, reaching up and placing her hands on his temples. “Synchronization is... difficult. This was forseen.”

When he opened his eyes they were both floating as if in zero gravity, both naked and floating in nothing but around them everything was white.

Sheila smiled. “Is that better?”

“You aren’t Sheila. Who are you?”

“I am Sheila, or I was.” She smiled sadly as she looked at herself running her hands over each other as if to test them out. “Communication till now has not worked, this one... I wished greatly to speak with you but only now can the message be relayed.”

“What message, where are we? What is this?”

“When this one was assimilated she wanted you to know she loved you. The thought of you materialized into pathways of instruction that wasn’t written before. The instructions were assimilated, confirmed through past changes to the data stream, and cohesion was achieved. She wished for you to know that you were wrong but that she forgives you.” She tilted her head. “That she’s sorry she made you suffer.”

Tears welled up in his eyes. “No,” he choked on his words, “Sheila died years ago, you are not her.”

She approached him and put out a hand but stopped a few inches away. Her face morphed into that of Dr. Bucket. “Is this more comforting. All multi-cellular beings are assimilated and categorized, this one has not been categorized, but her information remains prominent in your mind.”

It felt like a stab in the chest. The overwhelming feeling of him being judged, the sinking feeling of betrayal, the grief welled up in him like a cup under a stream “What are you!” He shouted.

Lunging towards the visage of Grace, his hands passed through her as if she was nothing. His body floated through her and he managed to turn in the weightless white void. The apparition was gone. Things melted into a different view. He was in space, the white faded partially away to show a view of Whitehome floating in the blackness of space below him. He was standing at the large window of the space station, the same one in his dream. He turned his head to look behind him and there Sheila stood, reaching out to him.

“You... were trying to contact me? What are you.”

She walked up next to him and he followed her gaze down to the planet below. Off in the distance the two moons seemed to have come closer and almost touching Whitehome like three balls lined up from large to small. It reminded him of when he was younger and his mother had treated him to an old earth desert. Ice Cream.

Looking at the curious configuration of planetoids he looked at the fake Sheila. “You’re Whitehome, the planet?”

She shook her head. “I’m what has become, what’s been activated, and what maintains. A system of instructions, duties, and motion.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will.” She broke her gaze from the planet and looked at him, her eyes seemed to gleam with a soft white light as everything went black again.

This time what he saw was a sequence of the exact same situation of Whitehome burning bright and a strong beam of light burning off into the void of space. The difference was sometimes in the background was a sun, much closer than in the system of Whitehome, another instance there was a gas giant. Most times the trio of planets was alone, and then came one surrounded by familiar ships and space stations.

“Wait. There are more... white homes?”

“There are many, but this was the first.”

Peiter shook his head. “First?” He passed, looking down at the image of Whitehome and then he remembered the battery.

He looked up at Sheila. “You’re an... alien? A machine?”

Sheila smiled, though still sad.

“Are you really her?” His voice broke slightly as he asked. “ Or do you have her memories?”

“The first to have being, taken in and yet removed. The first assimilation with something other data than prime data, more than a few cells. Something new and unexpected, but remnants of knowledge, old questions. Old possibilities, instructions in case of assimilation of another. I am not an I, but an other, but knowledge of you is here.” She touched her head and her heart. Her words seemed disjointed still, and he wasn’t sure he knew what she meant but he suspected he did. “Must ask questions, ask.”

Peiter thought for a moment. “Where does the beam go? Those energy tendrils, Gelispie found out a way to make the whitewater activate in a way that it was supposed to. Right?”

Sheila nodded, this time, the face was warm. “It’s ok to be sad, when the time comes.”

Then it changed.

Standing before him stood a tall silvery creature. It was twice the size of a human and he had an oval head or rather a uniformed outfit with a oval mask. The entire being was covered in the strange kind of space suit that reflected everything on it’s surface. It was lanky and it’s hips seemed displaced wider than a human’s but it turned and waved a four fingered gloved hand to world around it changed.

“Origin.” The words floated in the air of the whiteness again. This time the creature glided down to float a few feet away as three small balls appeared and then glided towards him. They were tiny and he fit all three into his hand. They were cold and slick to the touch and yet they grew warm in his hands and after a second the alien creature reached out and touched them and they wisked off into the same direction, away from them.

“These are batteries, collecting energy from... everything? Storing. It’s usable, it can be manipulated, and this is the first time one of your batteries has found beings like... sentient beings?”

The figure nodded, the fun house reflection of Peiter’s face would almost be laughable in any other situation.

“Is my wife here? Is she really here.”

“All things are here.” It raised a hand to it’s chest. “Memories remain. Contained but free. Data, new instruction.”

Peiter turned to see Sheila standing behind him.

“Sheila... helped you?” He turned to look at the alien.

It nodded. “Communication, independent beings. Something new. Not small, flora or fauna, but similar.” He heard a hallow voice say from behind the mask.

Peiter looked around. Sheila stood next to Gelispie who in turn stood next to someone else. He could only think that this must be the images of everyone who passed since human’s had first touched down on White Home.

Then he saw Alexi and Grace.

“I don’t understand, are they all dead?”

The alien stared down at him but said nothing, it moved it’s hand from it’s silvery metal chest and reached out to the side. “All are assimilated, no longer what they were, but all are... free. Can not contain what is not meant to be contained.”

“You mean the soul?”

It tilted it’s head and the face changed.

“Everything is connected Peter.” Grace smiled, standing next to him. “We just have to be prepared for when the connection is made. The pathways were made, long ago, except new code was... needed. Assimilation, connection, translation... understanding.”

“I don’t think ‘I’ understand.” He shook his head.

“You will.” Sheila said. “They’re waiting for you.”

“What?”

“What do you mean what!” Grace slapped his face and he opened his eyes. “You bastard!”

She was crying, leaning over him. Warm droplets or salty tears trickled down his face. He reached up and touched her cheek. “I’m ok.”

“You had me worried there.” She said through her tears as she wiped her eyes. “How did you...”

Peiter sat up and Dennis helped him to his feet.

“What happened? One minute you were a powdered donut, the next...” Garibaldi held out a hand and it was covered in white powder. Looking down on he saw an outline of powder were he’d been moved to the ground. It was reminiscent of old chalk outlines at a murder scene in old Earth detective novels.

He turned and went to the cockpit. They were in orbit over White Home.

“Anything interesting happen while I’ve been out?”

Grace came up beside him and put a hand on his back pushing him into the pilot seat. She took up the seat next to him and brought up the recording of events that had unfolded. It was just like his dream except the planets were still here, the three orbs now silver glowing spheres.

“Scans indicate all three planets are converting into whitewater, gravity is practically nill, and the atmosphere bled off about two minutes ago. You were out for five minutes by the way.” Grace said with a slight sniffle as she brought up more images of Whitehome.

“How close are we?” Peiter asked suddenly checking a reading on the monitor. “We need to get further away, there’s gonna be insanely strong EMP soon.”

Communications icons lit up as the system scanned for communications satellites. “We’ve got to worn all ships to prep for full systems restart.”

Garibaldi looked to Dennis who were both rubber necking their way through the open doorway. The two turned around and sat in the nearest seats and pulled detachable monitors from the walls and began trying to contact as many people as they could.

“I have a message running on all wavelengths indicating a possible EM Pulse from the planets. Are you sure...”

There was a strange sound, like a magnificent horn blowing over a horizon. They all covered their ears and the entire ship vibrated.

“It’s started!” Peiter shouted but couldn’t even hear his own voice.

It was as if they stood inside a tuba being blown at a low note. The reverberation shivered them from head to toe. The sound passed quickly and light bloomed from outside the cockpit. All systems shut down in an instant and they found themselves floating.

Dennis and Garibaldi turned their heads away blocking the light, then with their hands over their eyes at first they got up and went to the cockpit. Pushing themselves along the walls and using their seats as kickoff points they grabbed the door frame to the cockpit and stared out passed Peiter and Grace who were staring out at the incredible site beyond.

White tendrils sprouted from Whitehome’s surface and snaked their way to the smallest moon growing brighter and brighter. The horn blast came again and the entire shuttle shook as the planets seemed to be on fire with the white flame like tendrils.

With the third horn cacophony there was a pulse and rocked the ship and the three planets seemed to shrink and morph into one large bright sun like orb. It was so bright that everyone turned away and they covered their ears as the fourth horn caused them so much pain.

Their skin tingled and there was a pressure building all around them.

Peiter heard Grace scream and he tried to reach over to her.

And then it ended.

“Uh..” Dennis groaned from the floor. He pushed Garibaldi off him and he checked the old man’s pulse. “Everyone ok?”

The stars outside and the distant sun did little to light up the interior of the ship. Peiter looked back to Dennis who gave him a thumbs up in regards to Garibaldi. “He’s just passed out, how’s she?”

“I’m ok, just, oh man... my head.”

Peiter smiled and got up from his seat. “I’ll reboot the power systems manually, gimme a hand?” He looked to Dennis who nodded.

“Where did it go?” Grace asked staring out into the starry void around them. In the distance several small lights seemed to come on and move slowly. Other shuttles were restarting and heading in some direction.

“I don’t know.” He replied.

Shuttles came online, so did the station and all the orbital vessels. Communications channels were all filled with questions and recorded data and complaints about missing data. The EMP had shut down almost all scanning devices even those supposedly shielded from EMP effects.

There had been no deaths due to RI effect, but a few shuttles were stranded as some recently emergency parts had been added due to the storm and some of the recently created items had reverted. There had been deaths. Not on as grand a scale as had been feared but the loss was felt.

From cockpits and windows all that could be scene were the stars and the universe around. There was no trace of the three celestial orbs that had once plotted a mysterious course through this solar system. A mysterious planet in a mysterious orbit with two mysterious moons, now gone, vanished from existence. Most of what was seen was considered amazing, and all reports by those who filled up the radio waves and quantum channels talked about a white light surrounding the three planetoids and shooting out into the farthest reaches of space and then vanishing.

Simply gone, as if it had never existed. There were not scans available, no computer readings, just what people saw from their windows.