“Ready?”
The star burned with a dying intensity in the silent expanse of space. We were at least ten L-minutes away but it was about the size of a beach ball, pulsating an angry red and orange as it burned the last reserves of its fuel.
“I can’t believe you talked me into this.”
Jaren grinned. “You’ll love it, trust me. Just think of the stories you’ll tell back on Mars.”
“Of how a maniac nearly got me killed?”
“Exactly.”
The star throbbed, then flashed brightly, so bright that even through the ship’s solar visors Jaren and the others had to shut their eyes.
“It’s begun. Twelve minutes thirteen seconds and counting.”
Tara punched in a new set of coordinates in the ship’s computer. The computer beeped once in acknowledgment and Tara turned to face Jared.
“So you’ve done this before, right?” She asked.
“Sure have. In the Jana System. Whole system was going up in flames, swallowed up by Radigast, the red giant. I was hanging around near the planet Tenter, which had been evacuated hundreds of years ago. Radigast continued to grow, feeding on everything in its path, but eventually it ran out of steam a couple of planets down.”
“Ten minutes remaining.” Tara interrupted.
“Plenty of time. Anyway, when it stopped, that’s when it began eating itself up, and that’s when it began.”
Jaren turned and gazed out the front window. The star still burned, though it was nothing but a shell. A brilliant sun, providing heat and life to so many planets in this system is about to be extinguished forever, replaced by…nothingness. A black hole that would consume anything that wandered too close. And this was occurring a lot more often these days. Even Sol, the original sun, was nearing its death. And for all our medical and technological advances, there was no way to prolong the life of a dying star. Soon Earth would need to be evacuated, along with Mars and Titan and the Moon… soon we’ll be a race with no home.
“You know, maybe this is the beginning of the end?”
Jaren turned and raised an eyebrow.
“You know. The end. Of us. Of space, of the Universe. How many more systems can we run to? What if we can’t discover a way to travel intergalactic? We’ll be doomed to die in the Milky Way as suns all across space just… die.”
Jaren shrugged. “What makes you think other galaxies are faring any better? Maybe we haven’t come into contact with an alien race because this is exactly what happened to them? They ran out of planets?”
Tara shivered. “Two minutes remaining.”
“Turn 180 and prep the board. Warm up the rifters too.”
The ship turned silently and the dying giant slipped away, like a sun setting without a rise. The thick adamantium board attached to the underside of the ship shifted and lowered slightly. The large engines began to hum.
“One minute remaining.”
The ship rocked suddenly as the preliminary wind struck it. “Maximise radiation shields and thrust dampeners and brace yourself. This is it!”
The ship stopped rocking, until finally without a sound the full force of the solar wind escaping from the dying star hit the angled adamantium board and propelled the ship to speeds in excess of three hundred kilometres a second. The acceleration wasn’t instant thanks to the dampeners, but it was enough jolt heads back and throw anyone unwary off their feet. Jaren yelled in excitement.
“What did I say! Incredible!”
Tara had turned a pale shade of green and Jaren grinned again. “Activate the rifters before we’re torn apart.” He winked and Tara nodded.
Without a sound or a blink or flash of light, the ship vanished, swallowed entirely by the blackness.
