Monday 23 February 2015

The Lost Soul- A Sci-Fi Story!!

T-0minutes and counting

“Astronaut Cooper, We are ready to take off.”, communicates the guy from the base station.
“Positive” replies Cooper as the space shuttle starts to lift off from the Kennedy Space Centre on its way to the highly esteemed and sought after Mars Exploration Mission. The space shuttle starts its journey to the red planet with huge applause from the crowd and soon it disappears in a huge midst of clouds and trails it left behind.

“Astronaut Cooper, Report your velocity and the engine status, the first stage is set to be deployed.”
“Velocity reporting at 2400 m/s . Engine is functioning right. First stage is deployed. Over”replies Cooper as the Space Shuttle prepares its way out of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Claps erupt in the ground station as the shuttle successfully crosses the atmosphere. The smiling faces erupting in joy receive a big jolt when all of a sudden they lose contact with the space shuttle. They were no longer receiving signals from it and the faces became fiery at once. After investigating the reports, they found out there was a massive solar storm which was not scheduled for at least a month. Scientists started to find  a way to regain contact with the shuttle and know about its whereabouts only to be faced with disappointment.

Meanwhile, the situation was much worse in the Space Shuttle. Having faced a fierce solar storm, the Shuttle has been damaged a bit and the mission had been compromised. Soon after exiting from Earth’s atmosphere, the space shuttle was supposed to start its Hoffmann Trajectory towards Mars but that could not be possible without any support from the ground station. The signals had been lost and it was like being stuck in the blackout region forever. There was still a silver lining though, the engine was working well and there was minimal loss to the structures, so there was still some chance for them to return back to Earth manually without any ground support or if the signals came back to life.

Floating in Blank Space of nothing, Cooper was running out of ideas now. After the brief spell of solar flare, the shuttle lost its way and here it is now. It was like swimming in the middle of an infinite ocean where you can’t see the shore for eternity. He was looking perilously for any sign of Earth as they had escaped it just few minutes back. The hope was still alive if the physics went right.
That inspired him to work on the physics of the trajectory and he started to look into every minute detail hoping to get back to Earth. The quest for life can really make you do anything. As he was going through the maths nearing the solution, he was faced with an immense surprise. Through the small window of his shuttle, he could see a blue rocky like planet rising out of nothing. He erupted in joy just like a child when he finally gets his share of ice-cream. His prayers had come true. But wait!!

Earth is visible on the opposite side of where it should have been in theory. Who cares anyway when the destination is itself standing in front of you. “There could have been a mistake in the maths, a possible error.”, he thought to himself.

The battle was still not won yet. As the contact with the ground control was lost, it still was a big task in hand. Cooper had to manually steer the space shuttle according to Earth’s location and if he managed to do that tedious task, there was another might job ahead. The shuttle had to survive blackout while entering the Earth’s atmosphere. It would be a dangerous task in hand as the structure had already been damaged and there was no way to know if it was fit to undergo that operation. But he had to take the risk, it could be either him burning down in flames on entering the atmosphere or if the shuttle managed to peak through that, a movie franchise was definitely awaiting him.

Cooper started his quest back to Earth with his calculations which just had a minus sign missing in it. Since everything made sense after that, he went ahead with the correction and started to steer the shuttle’s way to Earth correcting for the Earth’s rotational speed as well. Things were going on pretty smooth with those precise calculations he had done. Slowly and steadily, the shuttle was standing on the face of the Earth marching toward it with pride.

The gigantic task was banging on the door now. It was time for re-entry. With his seat belt tightened, he oriented the shuttle towards the Earth at an angle of 45 degrees for minimal drag as the material could fail any time. Tightening his grip, he waited for that moment where he could feel the heat, literally.

The temperature inside the shuttle started to decrease exponentially as the shuttle begins its descent to the Earth unlike what he anticipated. The temperature was supposed to increase. “What is the sorcery?”, he murmured to himself in the shrinking cold which left him amazed and confused.  A deep sense of calmness also struck his mind since he knew he was safe now, the cold breeze was hurting him but his life had been spared. A sense of confused excitement ran through his body.
During the re entry, the space shuttle was oriented towards the coast of Japan, so it continued its descent in that direction. After the apparent blackout was over, Cooper erupted in joy as he could see floating white clouds in the sky and the calmness of the ocean could be felt from there. He started to work for increasing the lift of the shuttle to decrease the momentum and land safely on Earth, his last desire.

The speed had been controlled and the shuttle survived  the re-entry successfully. The gloomy face had all smiles on it. He was excited to be back on Earth but it was not going to last long. The moment he stepped out of the shuttle, he was set aback by what he saw. The ground was shaking and there was some apparent movement of the trees. Wait! The trees do not even look the same as he had left. Before he could even grasp a hold of what was happening, a loud thumping sound ruptured his ears. He turned back in fear and he just could not believe his eyes. A moving tree had caught hold of a chimp and was about to kill it.

A sense of confusion ran through his body. He looked for any inhabitants on that island but there was not even a single man made structure found. A lot was going through his mind and everything had started to make sense now. His calculations were never wrong. He was right all along. The solar
flare disturbed the trajectory of the shuttle and paved its way to the wormhole which had only been in books till date. All the unnatural occurrences confirmed this fact.

Cooper was stuck in a parallel universe now. In this universe, the chimps never evolved to become humans and the trees evolved to surpass the animal race. In this universe, Trees were the ultimate winner of “Survival of the fittest theory”. Trees were evolved to kill and wipe out every other organism on this planet. They were the superior race in this universe. The movement of the surface as he landed was actually their movement technique. They had been configured and adapted to live like that.

Cooper was the only human among those chimps and these ultra evolved trees. He was scared to death. He had found out so much and survived through all. He was set to change the laws of physics and give a new dimension to the existing theory. This definitely excited him.

He was stuck in this planet with no chance of getting back to Earth, his Earth. His evolved brain could help him survive here in the wild but of no use. He started his journey to find any possible way to get back to his universe. Days begin to pass with his survival extinct getting better but it was getting monotonous for him. Having lost all hopes, he decided to end up his life by drowning into the Sea. This was possibly some excitement in his life after those days as he began his descent into the ocean. The sea water had started to fill his body until he saw a bright light and thrown aback.

He was lying on the shore again.

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