Lionel ignores his boss. “There’s something strange going on. Our radar isn’t picking up the star. Also, our ship’s exterior temperature hasn’t changed.”
“So what?”
“If we were this close to our Sun, we’d fry.”
“Maybe that’s a cold dwarf.”
“I’ve never heard of that.” Lionel leans forward. “Whatever it is, we’re approaching it fast!”
An anomaly appears on the cockpit’s holographic radar. It flashes black and white, contrasting with the green dots on the display. Lionel points to it. “Look, now we’re picking up something 100,000 miles away.”
“Why is it flashing?”
Lionel analyzes the radar log. “The object doesn’t have any mass.”
“So it’s not a star?”
“Apparently not. It seems to be some kind of energy.”
Abe’s brow furrows. “What if it’s a black hole? If we get sucked in, we’re dead on arrival.”
An incoming call rings in the cockpit. “USS Hawkeye, this is Gareth Allen, do you read me?”
Lionel answers. “Mr. Allen, we hear you, sir. This is Captain Mercer aboard the Hawkeye.”
Gareth replies after a lag. “Congratulations on a mission accomplished. That was the largest missile strike we’ve ever seen.”
“Mr. Allen, we did not launch the EMP.”
After several seconds of silence, Gareth shouts, “That’s impossible! We felt the impact on Earth, and there’s dead silence from the enemy.”
With his smartglasses, Lionel takes a picture of the weapons console. “Mr. Allen, I just sent you evidence that the EMPs are still in our bay. About a minute before launch, we were hit with an explosion and our power went off.”
Gareth pauses. “Then how do you explain the blast in the sky?”
Lionel shrugs. “All we know is that we’re traveling towards an unidentified light that appeared after the blast.”
Suddenly something eclipses a small portion of the star. Abe sits upright and stares ahead. “Oh my God, am I seeing things?”
Lionel squints. “Is that what I think it is?”
Gareth barks, “What the hell is going on? Can you describe what you’re observing?”
Silence fills the cockpit as the spacecraft hurls towards the unknown.
“Hawkeye, what do you see?”
“Director Allen, it’s hard to explain,” Abe says. “I could be wrong but there appears to be a planet ahead of us.”
“How is that possible?”
Lionel nods in silence. “I know what it might be. Colonel, look at the distribution of light around the star.”
Abe looks straight ahead. “What about it?”
“Now look off to the side. Do you see how the density of light changes?”
“Can you describe your vantage?” Gareth interrupts.
Lionel takes a photo. “I can see a clear demarcation of space ahead of us. I could be wrong, but it looks like a portal has opened up near our ship.”
“Like a wormhole?”
“That’s right. We see a distortion in space and a large star much brighter than our Sun. There’s also clearly a body next to it.”
Gareth gasps. “What kind of body?”
Lionel activates the ship’s telescope and zooms into space. A blue world appears on the cockpit display.
“Oh my God,” Abe whispers.
“What do you see?”
Lionel’s jaw drops. “A planet! It has clouds and seas and even a moon.” He waits for the telescope to focus. “I see oceans of water!”
“What?” Gareth cries.
“Yes, and there are white clouds just like home.”
“Are you sure you aren’t looking at Earth?”
“Sir, the land is purple in color. And there appears to be one large land mass with no obvious continents.”
Gareth’s voice rises. “You must have opened a portal to a new solar system!”
Abe shakes his head. “We didn’t do anything, sir. I don’t think we caused this event.”
“Then how did it happen?”
“We don’t know.”
Lionel stares at the zoomed-in display. “Mr. Allen, we now see polar ice caps and a thin, blue ozone layer. The planet has much in common with Earth, except for the purple land.”
“How close are you to it?”
Lionel scans the radar. “We will approach in several hours. I look forward to flying through it to the other side.”
Gareth screams through the speaker. “Do NOT fly into the wormhole. I repeat, do NOT fly forward.”
Abe looks up. “Do you want us to turn back?”
“Yes, come back home.”
Lionel falters. “…but Centcom told us to inspect the star and report our findings.”
“Forget about them. The CIA will handle it from here. You are not to report your findings to anyone until you receive permission from me. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Lionel reassures. “We are heading home now.”
31.
MANOS COVERS his eyes with his left arm, shielding himself from the blinding light in the sky. With his right hand, he points a gun at Beth. “What the hell did you do?”
Outside the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, the dirt field pulsates with electricity flowing through an ultra-high-voltage cable into the Bay Area. As the sun rises, its orange hue is masked by the intense white radiance of the star.
Smiling silently, Beth and her colleagues sit handcuffed on the ground. Above them, the remnants of a mushroom cloud drift towards space.
“Answer me!” Manos roars. “What was that explosion?”
She stares at him defiantly. “I told you, but you didn’t want to believe me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We’ve solved fusion power.”
He kicks her in the back. “You’re fucking delusional. Why are there two suns in the sky?”
She falls forward in agony.
“Answer me!”
She looks up at him. “Check the market.”
“What?”
“Look at oil prices.”
Manos dons his smartglasses and loads a real-time stock ticker. His jaw drops when he sees the price of crude. “Why is Brent down 11% in the last hour? We’re at $77,000 per barrel.”
Beth grins. “We just activated the world’s first fusion reactor. It’s in your best interest to let us go.”
Manos appears confused. “I don’t understand. What does that have to do with oil?”
“We generated 50,000 gigawatts of electricity in the last five minutes.” She points to the neodymium laser. “That is the biggest power plant ever created, and it doesn’t emit a single greenhouse gas.”
“But why is oil falling?”
“The market sees a massive spike in supply and that lowers prices of all hydrocarbons. It’s only the beginning. With this breakthrough, we will no longer need fossil fuels.”
“That’s impossible.”
“They are obsolete, Manos. Soon they’ll be worth pennies. We’re freed from our addiction.”
Manos scratches his face. “You mean a little laser can create that much energy?”
“Yes, you idiot. We’ve used less than five percent of our deuterium supply. At this rate, our reactor will run the world for several hours.”
“That sounds too good to be true.”
“It isn’t! And the best part is that it’s clean. No more pollution and global warming.”
He shakes his head and points upward. “You liar! Look what you’ve done to the sky. There’s a giant ball of fire heading our way!”
Beth looks up and squints at the bright star. “I’m not sure what that is.”
“It appeared right after your blast.”