The Big Rip

By K. B. Gregory

The universe is ending, ripping itself apart at the seams. It started almost imperceptibly, a few stars missing from the night sky. Gradually, it increased until entire galaxies had been swallowed whole. As for the people living there, well... There isn’t much they can do to stop it... is there?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Mar 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9781638297529

K. B. Gregory

K.B.’s love of science fiction began when her mother read her A Wrinkle in Time as a small child. Since then, she has lived with her head in the stars and her hands on a typewriter. Unfortunately, she is still terrestrially bound and living in Kentucky with her fiancé and their very spoiled cat.

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About the Author

K.B.’s love of science fiction began when her mother read her A Wrinkle in Time as a small child. Since then, she has lived with her head in the stars and her hands on a typewriter. Unfortunately, she is still terrestrially bound and living in Kentucky with her fiancé and their very spoiled cat.

Dedication

To my husband, who never stopped believing in me, and my friends, who helped me reach for the stars.

Copyright Information ©

K. B. Gregory 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Gregory, K. B.

The Big Rip

ISBN 9781638297512 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781638297529 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023903111

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

[e-mail]

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Acknowledgment

To the Titanium Physicists Podcast, whose very first episode inspired the creation of this universe based on theoretically true future events.

Stella

The stars were going out.

Her mother often told tales of guiding herself home using only the position of the stars in the sky, resisting the urge to confer with her geographical chip implant, the way that their ancestors had guided themselves before technology became so prevalent. That was no longer an option for her mother, nor any of humanity. The stars were going out.

Physicists had been raving about the disappearance of stars for the last sixty million years with increasing concern. They were mostly ignored until the last forty years or so when the disappearances became more notable. First went Orion’s belt, then Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. Last year, the stars that created the visible branch of the Milky Way had been missing when the sun went down. Nobody came to her eighth birthday party the next day.

People began taking the inevitable heat death of the universe very seriously at that point, but scientists across the Planetary Confederation were all in agreement; it was far too late to do anything now. She squinted at the sun, imagining the force fields that held it in check and kept it from swallowing its orbiting planets, wondering why they didn’t deploy similar force fields around the solar system. She kicked her ball idly and it sailed through her mother’s holographic flowerbed. Through the window, she listened to the adults whispering from