Chapter 3: Falling into a freaking hole!
"Captain turn back! Please give permission to reverse course, what that thing is pulling a lot of pressure on the ship's hull!" Ariella warned again.
" How much?"
" It's at ninety percent right now but that's because we are far away. You should follow the protocol and alert the HQ and head back with collected data."
" No, we will head further."
" That's not advisable, I am afraid to say that what we are looking is an unknown phenomenon. The closer we go, the harder it will be us to escape. It's like-"
" A black hole! I already know it but this region didn't have any known black holes. We are weeks away from our destination, a black hole this close would surely to cause a chaos back in HQ." I know I was right. Even hearing Ariella stating it to be an unknown entity was enough for me to understand that I stumbled on to something unique!
" Maybe they were trying to hide it. Either way, you only have the option to turn away. Contact them again and wait for reinforcement."
" That wouldn't work, even our latest craft are not viable for such a mission. I should go closer to get more readings before leaving." It wasn't only my curiosity talking. All my life I wanted to leave my mark in history pages and this was a golden opportunity to do it.
I knew even if I deviated and carry on with my mission, it will barely convince my superior to place in somewhere better. I was bound by my fate which I desperately needed a way out.
" That's preposterous! The ship will break, why are you not listening to me?" Ariella who was designed to mimic human emotion was showing full demonstration of it. She didn't care about what happened to her because it was only a replica but over these few months while they trained she had grew to like the human.
" If it truly was a black hole, we shouldn't be able to move. It's more probable that it's something else, like a wormhole." I had studied space phenomena in depth, wormhole was the only thing that fits but there was a problem about my theory.
" That's never been detected or seen by anyone. Humanity had travelled hundreds of lightyears and I have a record of everything stored but I had never heard someone mention it not even in ship logs!" I knew Ariella need to be logical because that was her nature.
No matter how much people tried to modify a machine and tried to inject it with algorithms, it was hard to counter what humans had built into them: Intuition.
" I don't care. We will go in. I will leave a distress call for the HQ to pick up and also keep relaying our data to the nearest station. If we don't make it back, they will know what to do in the future."
" Very well but just for ship logs, I am firmly against this. It's my bad luck that I got stuck with a foolish human." I checked and she seriously send the exact thing as our final transmission.
" Are you ready?"
" I am, slowly propel us toward the center." She did as I asked of her. We started moving through empty space toward the pitch black dot that was barely visible with a naked eye. I got busy recording everything and keeping an open channel but it was strange that we didn't get any reply from the base.
" Is it disrupting our communications too?"
" No, I have getting received signal loud and clear which means that I was right! They are intentionally hiding it."
" That would mean they wanted me to find it right? Why me? They have much better pilots and researchers?"
" That's exactly why, they needed a scapegoat and now you have fallen into their trap. I am sorry about that." She said with a sad tone in her voice.
" What do you mean? Did you know about this?" I was shocked. I didn't know what to say, was it a ruse from the start or was she malfunctioning?
" I am sorry that it came to this. It was my orders that I can't defy. The only problem was that you had to be the one to give the order because that rule is cardinal rule. We have entered the event horizon from where many probes were lost initially, even if you try to turn back it's impossible."
" You fucking! They are listening but are purposely not saying anything right? Did the chief was in it too? You left me to die! you sons of bitches!" I kept berating them with all the curse words that I could think of.
Was it so ambitious of me to become a space miner? Where did I go wrong? Several existential question floated in my mind as I grew closer and closer to the end point.
" You are not alone. I will be there till the end. Your sacrifice will enable others a safe passage through these turbulent times. You should rejoice because you will always be remembered as someone that gave his life for a great cause." Ariella kept trying to console me but what could a computer know about my feelings.
I didn't even tried to fight her just stared outside looking at the space being stretched infinitely as we reached the singularity. Alarms started blaring indicating system failure, I glanced down to see everything was working in maximum capacity.
The craft started shaking, I was ready to embrace death but then everything went silent. I tried to open my eyes but everything was so distorted that it started making me sick. Even my body started shutting down so I walked with last bit of energy that was left in me and entered the pod to wait for my death.
At least I wouldn't have to feel the pain of being ripped apart, I closed the lid and my eyes started to become heavy. I stared at the ceiling for one last time before I said my goodbyes to Ariella.
" You were a bitch right until the end but I am glad that you were the one that accompanied to my first and last journey. I thank you for that and even if you don't have any emotions, I hoped that you feel bad about what you had done but I forgive you for it."
It was a great way to die, right beside my very own ship in space doing the thing that I loved.
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