(Story being told by Kesler Coreman)

We were just starting out in our voyage to the stars. You know how the story
goes, it's the same for just about everyone. Our ancients built there
understanding of the universe upon the foundation of their father's
understanding. It's a constant cycle, each generation learning something new,
and the next generation improving upon it. We sent our rodents into space,
then our steel moons. We sent our probes to the edge of our system and still,
it was not enough. We wanted to know and see more, we needed to.

Then, just a couple of years ago, Kobor invented his fusion drive engine. Now
suddenly we could get our propellent straight from the void of space itself.
The drive would allow for constant acceleration for as much of the trip as
desired. What it really meant, was that instead of taking a hundred years to
reach the nearest star, it would only take two plus a few days. We could
travel so close to the speed of light that the difference is negligible.

This also had another meaning, we no longer had to send a robot to our
neighbors, we could go ourselves. There was some opposition at first mainly
due to the cost of the venture, but once it was fully realized that human
beings could travel the stars in persona, the mission was the top priority of
the entire planet. I was just glad I got to go.

The Ship was built at an orbital station, based upon a design that proved
successful for interplanetary journeys. Since the ship would be under
acceleration for the entirety of the journey it did not require that any of it
be rotated to provide gravity. That saved a lot of space and complication. But
the ship was still big. It had to hold a bunch of food, six years worth in
fact. Now the journey is only supposed to last about five years, two years to
get there, one year there to study, and another two years to get back. that
extra year of food is mainly just emergency rations, but they are still better
than starving to death. Why an extra year? Well there's this old astronauts
saying that goes like this; "In the dead of space bad shit happens, and since
bad shit don't taste good, you damn sure better bring a sack lunch."

The launch started out as a disappointment to many people, mainly because we
had to use the positional thrusters to get away from all the orbital platforms
that now clutter up the earths sky. But once we kicked in that Kobor drive the
planet had a new sun.

***

"Coming up on marker number nine." Silbasi's words came crackling over the
intercom. "Copy. Give me an acceleration reading on my mark ... mark."
"670985.45." She responded. "670985.45, Copy." "Pretty fukin fast, eh?" Ghuny
said from beside me. "Yeah, who'd a figured those scientists had it all right."

Four hundred and fifty seven standard days into our journey and not a single
hang-up. No leaks. No explosions. No temporal shifts. No unexpected asteroids.
It was making me very nervous. A few minor mishaps would make the trip a great
deal more real for me. I for one believed that nothing ever went completely
right, and if it did there was something seriously wrong.

Overall it wasn't so bad. Everyone got along as well as could be expected. I
mean a couple of fights isn't so bad if one considers the entertainment value.
Tempers would flare, fists would fly, lumps given and everybody knew where
their place was. All with a "We're still friends" attitude. It was easy to
keep it that way too. The ship had six sections: The Neurocenter, the Habitat,
Research, Stores, Thrust and Systems.

Systems and Thrust were the hardware of the operation. They were maintained by
the engineers, Tareen and Gondoola. Stores was were we kept the supplies. The
Habitat was a set of interconnected compartments that housed the crew during
off time. Research was where all the crap we found was analyzed. Faeno and
Quint were the resident eggheads. Then there was the neurocenter. It wasn't
anything spectacular, after all we were an exploration vessel, but was ample
enough to house the three people that were in charge on navigation. It had
three seats all in a reclined position. There were displays and terminals
along most of the forward bulkhead. It wasn't at all like those old personnel
freighters, where a pilot could be easily overwhelmed by the number of tiny
nobs and dashes. It was more modular. Large interfaces that grouped the data
and controls.

"Huumm, huumm ..." The computer on Ghuny's terminal began calling for
attention.
"Sensors are picking up some solids parallel to course, captain."
"Distance of parallel?"
".6 kubits."
"Awright."
"Ooooh, this is interesting." Ghuny sounded excited.
"What?" a little bit of tension edging into my voice. "Here it comes!" I
thought.
"Sensors indicate the object has geometric symmetry."

Nature doesn't usually grow or create things that  have  too  many  hard
angles. Such things only exist because of sentience.

"Bring it aboard."

***

It was a big metal cube. Go figure. So what the hell was a big metal cube
doing flying through space parallel to our course? Yeah well, we couldn't
figure it out either.

We finally reached day 600, time for the big turn around. we had made the trip
out at a constant acceleration which provided about 1.4 g's. The planners had
decided that this would allow for the most comfortable g-force for the
longest period of the flight. The only draw back was, that for the remaining
145 days of the trip we will have to decelerate at about 2.1 g's, and for a
day it will have to go up from 5 to 7 g's depending on the distance remaining.

It went very smooth. We cut the engines, flipped the ship and cut them back
on. I think Quint launched his lunch the very second we had zero g. We told
him not to eat breakfast, but you just can't tell a whiner anything. It wasn't
until we re-ignited the engines that the bad shit happened. Puncture alarms
from the research center came screeching into the 'pit.

Faeno had stayed in the research center to keep an eye on things, (not to
mention that there are some real comfortable chairs in there) and piped in
pretty quick to say that no mission critical emergency had occurred, so we all
jumped up and headed for research to see for ourselves. It was more like
crawled up, I mean at 1.4 g's we had achieved a pretty good muscle tone, but
to suddenly be under 2.1 g's still takes a bit to get used to. (Aside from
that there was still the smell of recently launched lunch hanging in the air,
a la Quint.)

We made it into research and found Faeno staring at the deck, so what the
hell, we looked at the deck too. There was a hole there, a square hole. I went
closer to get a better look and found the hole went all the way through the
deck, I could see the next deck down, or what used to be up. I got close
enough to look straight down the hole and saw yet another hole in the deck
below. And down below that sat the metal cube, firmly entrenched in a
bulkhead. I felt compelled to speak up. "I thought you said that research was
secured." Quint spoke up right away (you know how whiners are.)

"It was, we locked that thing down right there," he replied while pointing to
the wall.

Sure enough they had locked it on the wall so after turn around it could be
placed on the newly re-oriented ceiling/floor. "Well damn, if you guys had
know the thing was that dense you should have made the proper arrangements."

"Yeah we knew it was dense, it just wasn't supposed to have that much mass.
It's got some weird properties."

"Oh and you wait until now to tell the rest of us? That thing isn't going to
turn this ship into a supernova or anything is it?"

"No no, it should be safe enough."

"My how you inspire me with confidence."

That's not the only thing the eggheads had failed to inform the rest of us
about. Some days back they had started getting some strange readings off the
star we are traveling to. That's it, just strange readings, neither one of
them will say a damn thing more than that. It's starting to get us all on edge
because of what happened to the advance probe.

Back when they decided to go with a manned ship instead of a complicated
robot, they thought it would be convenient to slap a few sensors on a Kobor
drive and send it on ahead. to take some basic telemetry readings so we could
pick a good orbital insertion point into the system. I liked the idea too, and
we managed to convince the money grubbing grouches that it was a requirement.
The probe was launched three months before our ship left, and got to the area
of the system around 480 days as it was able to accelerate much faster than
we. When it reached about the place we are now it started sending back
nonsense data, which became more and more senseless the closer it got to the
star, and then when it reached the system it just disappeared. Not a trace.

Since another probe couldn't make it before we get there, one won't be sent.
That means no advance data, we have to pick an orbit based on what we find.
And what we're getting is 'strange'. So you can understand why we're little a
bit edgy. Quint and Faeno are not exactly the most popular members of the
crew right now.

***

"That's an order Quint. Not a recommendation. Not a suggestion. AN ORDER. And
if you're scientific little brain can't understand that we'll step over to the
airlock and see if we can't clear things up!" I was riled. After couple of
days of hearing no explanation but "We're just getting some strange readings
that's all.", I wanted to know exactly what those strange readings were.

"Well ..." Quint began a little nervous, " Usually, a star gives off certain
readings when one approaches it. For instance, the star's light becomes more
discernable we can tell what it's mass is composed of. Also, with the aid of
the sensors we can begin to analyze it at its various levels. But ..."

"But?" I prompted impatiently.

"But were not getting anything of the sort from the star we're approaching. We
can't detect any sort of gravitational well. The star doesn't seem to have a
mass either."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean? I suppose that light out there is
someone's flashlight!?" 'Here is when the shit starts happening.' I thought to
myself. "Start running all the non-standard scans on it. If it isn't a star I
want to know what it is."

Two days later and we still weren't any closer to figuring out what it was we
were headed towards. Then ...

"Captain," Ghuny had horrified look on his face. "I've been visually scanning
the space we're headed for and the closer we get to this star, the less there
is to see. I don't mean just the edge of the galaxy. I mean there is nothing
to see beyond. There are no other galaxies detectable. Nothing."

"Hold on, " He continued, "I'm getting something on the visual."

"Put it on the main screen."

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It WAS a big flashlight. It was just
barely discernable by its own light.

"It's a wall captain." Silbasi made dreadful announcement.

It was a huge ... immense light fixture made to represent a star. We were
close enough to see it. This also meant we were too close to miss it.

"Engage full thrust! Give it all she's got!"

"We're too close captain. There's no w..................."

In the silence of space, the ship crumpled against the dense casing that
housed this particular section of the greater whole.