Science fiction. The Watchers

 

Science fiction. The Watchers

There is severe turbulence and everything is being jolted around, like prawns in the non-stick frying pan. The view outside is that of black smut like thing spreading everywhere, that is getting denser; so dense that it has obscured the view of everything that lies beyond this veil of black smut. And maybe it is the same for those who lie on the other end of this wall of black smut that is growing uncontrollably in all directions- If at all there is anybody alive on the other end of this black smoke.

Nobody knows about its origin or about its nature, because whatever it covers or appears to come in contact with, turns into black smut. The transformation is so instant that it cannot be detected.

And we are scared! Here is the reason of our main worry.

Our civilisation has perfected the art of developing one of the strongest materials that exists in the universe. Titanium alloy reinforced with diamond-like bonding. And we use this material to develop Guardian Posts ( Also known as Watchers )

We need these self balancing posts mounted with cameras, infra red beams and laser beams. These beams spread in all directions of the space surrounding our planet, thus acting as watchmen for our colony. These posts can levitate in space for millions of years. And they warn us against any imminent threat.

Yesterday this black smoke came into contact with few of our Watchers. And in nano seconds the Guardian Posts vanished and there was nothing left of them, they too had turned into this black smut. And the Watchers designed to safeguard us, now were a part of the black smoke meant to destroy us- The black smoke had turned them diabolical. And in absence of Watchers we are highly vulnerable to attacks from other civilisations.

Or is it that we are already under attack and this is a new kind of warfare that our technology is unable to deal with? We do not know yet.

But whatever it is, we either need to escape from it or understand it. And without the Watchers we cannot achieve this. So we are working on new and improved versions of Watchers which would serve the purpose of highly reflexive and dependable Watchers, and also help us understand the composition of this mysterious smoke that has launched an attack on us, and it appears to be chasing us from every direction.

Our chief of warfare tactics and his team of engineers have arrived at the main research and development facility and they propose to trap some of this mysterious smoke. But so far they are clueless about how to  collect a sample of this strange smoke and then test it. Because based on our data anything that comes in contact with this smoke turns into black smut. And it does not matter which material it is, so far it has consumed everything that it has come in contact with. And it is a major problem that we are dealing with right now.

Everyone is busy understanding the nature of this substance and decode its composition in order to be able to contain its spread.

Finally someone from the chief’s team proposes a brave idea, but how well it will work in this situation can only be understood once it has been implemented, and we are able to test it in the real ecosystem i.e. within this black and dense smoke. In the meantime while everyone is busy discussing ideas and thinking about a solution that will help us free ourselves from this rapidly growing world black smoke that incinerates anything that it comes in contact with. And before it consumes us and our space crafts , we need to find a solution.

Now it has been more than a week and the chief and his team are still discussing the right solution, and with every moment of inaction we are allowing this world of dense smoke to consume us and our species forever.

It was just another day and the black smoke was not any farther than 50 miles from us, and based on its growth so far, our experts believe it will come in contact with our mother spaceship in another 4 hours. With this news the chief’s team wants to work on some risky and brave solutions, even if that means not understanding the composition of this dark smoke, and only finding a means to escape this world, and make sure that the population is safe and survives.

I am from the special squad called the risk takers, we are trained to enter into risky regions of the space about which our civilisation has very little or no knowledge, and to do that I have received special training in flying super fast and almost 50 different sensor enabled mini space crafts, designed to survive any impact and even sustain the intense heat of the outer two rings of any star. Which are extremely hot and offer magnetic resistance that can alter the course of the normal space crafts. But my space craft can travel through these alien worlds too.

However, right now we are faced with a different kind of problem. If the black smoke can consume Watchers it can easily turn my space craft into ash. And we are certain about it.

There appears to be one option that none of the scientists has considered so far. 

Nobody knows its highest or lowest point based on our current position. We know it is chasing us in horizontal linearity but is it the same vertically, we have no idea.

And our department that works independently, is considering to execute a highly risky mission. Where I have been assigned the task of finding its deepest point, and another member from my squad will have to establish its highest point.

Here are our calculations:

• We now know that when we were at location x1, in space, it was 100 miles away from us, now we are at x2 location in space, and it is 50 miles away from us. By calculating the differences in speeds ( our mother spaceship's speed and the rate at which it is experiencing growth when it comes to its linear expansion horizontally) and then by factoring in the distance from it when we were at location x1 and location x2, we have been able to calculate its speed.

• And based on this calculation, we know that our space crafts can travel 200 times faster than its growth.

• Now, if it will be able to consume us in 4 hours, that means we will have to determine the height and depth of this black smoke in 3 hours or anything that is lesser than 4 hours.

• We cannot escape it if we travel horizontally, because its current formation is like the alphabet U, and we are somewhere in the curvature of this alphabet U. Where, we do not know, and given this orientation if we propel our mother spaceship with horizontal linearity. The mother spaceship will be entering the middle of the inner ring of the two giant stars that surround our planet. And our huge mother spaceship, cannot generate that much thrust, as is possible in case of my mini and super fast space craft.

So, I will have to dare a deep dive at top speed and then make sure that I equate two essential components of time:

1. Time taken to reach the end of its depth

2. Time taken to return to the mother spaceship while considering variables like gravity and other forces

Any miscalculation would mean that I am either consumed by this mysterious smoke or when I return there is no trace of the mother spaceship.

I, and my team member fire our engines, and as soon as the ejectors launch us in our directions, I position the nose of my space craft downwards and I begin descending into the unknown world at extremely high speed. I must have covered 40 minutes, when my space craft began experiencing abrupt jerks, and it moved downwards at twice its top speed.

This confused me for a moment and then I realised there was some force acting on the space craft that was pulling it towards it. It reached a point where I had no control over the craft. It kept falling into the lap of this force that was pulling it with an incredible force. 

After 60 minutes I saw a huge football like thing and it kept getting bigger, and the smoke that spread like a mushroom, shrank in its diameter as I got closer to this planet. This planet had a unique atmosphere that appeared to be hazy and it seemed to neutralise this black smoke. I still had 3 hours to fly back to the mother spaceship, but according to my space craft I only had 1 hour and 20 minutes left, because the drag of the planet would slow down my speed, and to leave this force completely, I would need at least 1 hour and 40 minutes.

I land on the planet. And instantly my sensors check the air quality, which according to my smart screen was unfit for humans. So I wore my space suit with air purifying equipment and I ventured out. I began collecting samples of this thick and dark smog like blanket that appeared to neutralise the black smoke that was consuming everything that came in its contact.

I filled 3 containers. Placed them in the space craft and I fired my engines and after a few minutes I was high enough to initiate my nuclear booster engines to escape the pull of the planet. Everything went smoothly and finally I landed on the mother spaceship. 

Our members of the risk squad began examining the contents of the containers, as the rest of the team was assisting my other team member who had been able to reach its top most point and had just returned.

Now we had three options:

• Either to navigate the mother spaceship to reach the top most point of this black smoke and then fly higher and leave its influence zone. But given the time constraint our mother spaceship will not be able to achieve it.

• We move to the planet with this protective layer that neutralises the impact of the dark smoke. But once the mother spaceship enters its influence zone, it will attain speeds that will make it unmanageable and it would most likely crash, because it is a huge spaceship that accommodates as many as 5000 people.

• We find a way to replicate this dark smog-like content in the containers and spread it around our mother spaceship like a balloon. 

Our senior leader takes a few veils filled with this dark smog and nano sensors; and via mini drones launches them into this black smoke that has been chasing us for many days now.

The veils are successfully launched into the black smoke, they instantly disappear, and we were expecting the nano-sensors to disappear as well, but the neutralising smog had formed bubbles around them and this kept them from getting dissolved in this dark smoke. We instantly received data feed from these sensors and the neutralising smog was self replicating, as it interacted with this dark smoke. And we could see it consuming it, it was almost like an enormous iceberg coming in contact with a Star’s hottest core. 

And there was our recipe for claiming our victory over the black and mysterious smoke. We injected 200 veils with this thick smog and fired them into the black smoke using our mini drones. Today is the 4th day and the black smoke has now reduced, and we can clearly see the planet from where it arose.

The black smoke is still leaking into space. Because the unique atmosphere of the planet from where I had collected the magical smog has developed a hole. And this is a threat to our species and our planet too. So our engineers are repairing this hole in the atmosphere of the alien planet, and according to their calculations it will take 2 years to fill the hole completely. But for now we are safe and our mother spaceship can now easily levitate in the atmosphere of our native planet.

Hey, just wait!

By the way this can be the case with your planet’s atmosphere too. The Earth. When we look at it from space it looks as beautiful as our planet. But it saddens us to see your planet dying, you certainly can help it heal and revive its lost freshness.

To know about this in detail, please refer to the science fiction novel, They Loved in 2075. It is a romance science fiction that deals with subjects that would matter to humans living on Earth in 2075. But to avoid being trapped in a situation like ours, you should act now. And in order to know how to act in the interest of the planet Earth, refer to the science fiction novel, They Loved in 2075.

Heal it all and heal it well!