The Secret

By Topher Kaler

Be careful what you wish for...

When their home planet Eden is destroyed, a group of kids have to grow up very quickly. Led by the charismatic Samantha, a thirteen-year-old with a thirst for adventure, they leave everything they have eve

• Language: English
• Publisher: Topher Kaler
• Release date: Dec 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9798218346560

Book preview

The Secret

Topher Kaler

Copyright © 2019-2023 Topher Kaler

All rights reserved

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

3nd edition, previously published as The Secret of Pandooma.

ISBN: 979-8-218-34656-0 (ebook)

For my family who inspire and support me

Prologue

Sometimes, grown-ups forget what it was like to be young. Not us. We had such an amazing experience, and we will always remember it. What we learned, the friendships we built, the fun we had—these are all things that we could never forget.

Our childhood was different from that of other kids. We weren’t born on Earth, but neither are most people these days. We were explorers, discovering new places and solving ancient mysteries. We fought life-and-death battles. We fought pirates. We escaped from lava-filled caves. Of course, all kids do these things; the difference for us was that it was all real.

It was hard growing up on our own. That’s right—we had no adults with us, which is probably a good thing because no adult would have let us do what we did. They would have said that it was too dangerous, and hey, they would have been right. But we had each other and that made us stronger. When we worked together as a team, we could do more than any of us could accomplish on our own.

When we think back on it now, it was an incredible time. We were young and ready for adventure. We had no idea what was in store for us, which was probably another good thing. We might have chickened out if we’d known…

Chapter 1:

Eden

Life on Earth is different now.

People are funny in many ways. Ancient civilizations made up wonderful stories about the skies, using these stories to explain their lives, why things happened, all the mysteries they didn’t understand about the world around them. These stories were passed down to children and grandchildren, important lessons spanning the generations.

Then, the people of Earth became bored with the sky. They were too concentrated on living their lives and trying to make more than the next guy; after all, the sky didn’t change much, so how could it dictate their fates? Every now and then, Halley’s Comet would make an appearance, meteors would shower, or the Sun or Moon would be eclipsed, engendering new reverence. And the stars were always pretty to look at, especially on a clear night, but for the most part, people ignored everything happening in the skies and focused on life on Earth.

Centuries passed before the skies became important again. There was a great race between nations to be the first to land on the Moon. It was a matter of national—and political—pride. When humans finally did walk upon the Moon, it was thrilling. For a while, people were excited about space again, but then they returned to their everyday chores and the skies became nothing more than a sporadic distraction.

This cycle continued. Sometimes people were excited about exploring the skies; sometimes they were excited about exploring the oceans; sometimes they weren’t excited about exploring at all. It all came back to the everyday stuff in the end.

Time passed, as time does. The Earth changed a lot over the years. New technologies made life easier and—so the masses were told—better. The different countries had, thankfully, resolved many of their conflicts and, while retaining their individual cultures, had joined forces to create united, cooperative and peaceful federations, mapped, more or less, to the continents. People had learned that it was better to develop their own cultures while accepting and appreciating others.

The people learned to live in harmony with the planet and both flourished. Life was good—but, of course, that couldn’t last. With all of the continents facing overpopulation, the overarching Council of Terran Federations met to discuss the possibility of inhabiting other planets. Vast underwater cities, as well as the large cities on land, were full to capacity and the Earth couldn’t accommodate any more people. There really wasn’t anyplace else to go—not that the people knew about, anyway. This venture would be unprecedented; this time, the people of Earth would be traveling into unknown galaxies, never to return.

Space fever spread across the planet. Everyone knew that their future lay in the stars. Things moved at a fantastic pace and several colonies were established on the Moon, which eventually became the independent Lunar Federation. Then, the people of Earth looked to their nearby neighbor, Mars. Life away from Earth was getting better and easier; rockets and space shuttles were faster and bigger than ever before. For the first time in the history of humankind, space travel was a viable option for all. Journeys between planets were not only possible; they could be done in a few weeks.

Over time, humans created new colonies and new federations. With the Moon full and Mars filling fast, the people of Planet Earth expanded into the universe.

. . .

It was a woman named Sally Rogers, an employee of the Planetary Registry, who discovered the planet that was to be named Eden. In her early twenties, Sally was young compared to many of her colleagues, but she was at the top of her field. Her boundless energy allowed her to work the endless hours required to watch the skies, and her incredible enthusiasm and love for the stars kept her interested.

Through her telescope, the planet—given the unimaginative name of SR-34166 by the Registry—looked a lot like Earth, but it was very far away. The powerful telescope showed that it had a lot of water, although not as much as Earth, and a similar atmosphere to the Mother Planet; Sally could estimate the atmospheric density using spectral analysis. Even the gravity, she believed to be pretty similar to Earth’s, given SR-34166’s size and location.

However, there was no way to know exactly what SR-34166 was like without getting a lot closer, which Sally estimated would take almost fifty years. Why would anyone bother when there were a number of attractive planets much closer?

Why indeed?

. . .

It was another forward-thinking woman by the name of Erin MacDonald who first mooted the idea. She represented a group of people seeking a new planet to colonize—which wasn’t unusual in itself, but this group wanted to adopt a simple way of life, and they wanted to adopt it as far away from Earth as possible. When Erin heard about SR-34166, it seemed to be the answer to all her—and the other group members’—prayers, so she arranged a meeting with Sally.

Intrigued and excited that someone was interested in her discovery, Sally provided Erin with everything that she knew about SR-34166. In fact, she did more than that; she asked Erin all about her group and their philosophy, and even helped Erin file the claim on the planet. And so it was that Sally Rogers decided her days on Earth were numbered. This was exactly the opportunity she had been looking for—only she hadn’t known it until Erin had come to visit.

The final step of registration was to name the planet. From now on, SR-34166 would be known as Eden. Given the name that the group had chosen for the planet, Sally and Erin proposed they call the ship that would transport them there the Apple. Everyone agreed wholeheartedly. They’d found their planet and they had gained the expertise of the genius Sally Rogers to help them on their way. Their dreams were finally coming true.

. . .

When the ship was complete and running, the group established the command crew that would get them on their way. Erin surprised everyone by declining the role of captain, saying that she was too old and it was time for someone younger (and less opinionated) to guide them. After much discussion, the group chose Sally to be their captain since she was most familiar with space and Eden, and was gifted with natural leadership skills. It was time to load the Apple up and head for Eden and their future.

The Apple was a special ship, the first of its kind, capable of sustaining the crew—and future generations of the crew—on the long voyage to Eden. The journey would be so long that children would be born on board, grow up, run the ship and have kids of their own before they arrived on Eden. This also meant that most of the original crew members would probably not live to see the end of the journey.

Space travel was a new experience for the entire crew, including Sally. They had all done little space walks, of course, but most had never been on an extended mission. What an eye opener! Most parts of the ship had artificial gravity, but those areas with reduced or no gravity took some getting used to. These people had lived their entire lives on Earth and floating around weightlessly for too long tended to make them turn a little green.

For the first few weeks of the journey, the crew made sure everything worked on the ship; if something were to go wrong, they wanted it to happen while they were still close to Earth. They meticulously tested everything they could and found that, thankfully, it all worked fine.

In addition to the standard operations of any ship, the Apple had different types of gardens (including hydroponics bays) to grow fresh fruits and vegetables. There was also plenty of livestock on board. It took a lot of work to keep everything running smoothly, but as a result, the Apple had a happy—and well-fed—crew.

Erin ran the school, which had classes following breakfast until lunch six days a week. She worked the kids hard, but just before lunch, there was thirty minutes of game time where they could run off some of their energy. After lunch, the children had chores, and then did their homework. Once dinner was eaten, the little kids played until bedtime, while the older kids hung out with their friends. One of the favorite games was hide ‘n’ seek in the plant area; they just needed to make sure that it wasn’t watering time!

As time passed and children who had been born on the ship got a little older, a new game evolved. Having never known any different, they weren’t adversely affected in the slightest by the sensation of floating around certain areas of the Apple and zero-G tag rapidly became the new favorite playtime activity. They couldn’t understand what the big deal was, and the sight of a green-faced adult groaning as they drifted past was the cause of a great deal of hilarity.

As the children grew older, they were assigned to help in different areas of the ship, especially where they showed an aptitude for a specific skill. They needed to learn how to maintain the ship, since someday they would run it, in addition to their regular schoolwork and chores, but for the kids, this was fun, not work.

The crew of the Apple celebrated the five-year anniversary of their launch, then in what seemed like no time at all, it was their tenth anniversary. Before they realized it, they were approaching fifteen years in space. This voyage would take over forty years, so most of their journey was still ahead of them, but life was good on board the Apple. Although both adults and children followed a fairly strict routine, there was also plenty of time for leisure and fun. And these people knew how to have fun—Sally joked with Erin during a quiet moment that every week, there seemed to be a reason for another party. Two crew members getting married; a positive pregnancy test; a good grade at school; a job well done. Nothing was too big, or too small, to celebrate.

Life was calm and peaceful.

Until it wasn’t.

. . .

It was during the seventeenth year of their trip that Bill Peterson, who was responsible for all of the computer systems on board the Apple and usually manned the science station on the bridge, called over to Sally, the concern in his voice putting her immediately on high alert. Despite the fact the journey had been so smooth up until now, she never took her responsibilities as captain lightly.

Sally, I am getting some strange readings ahead, Bill said. Even though the crew’s goal was to reach and colonize their new planet safely, they wanted to take the opportunity on the long journey to map as much of the space that they were traveling through as they could. Bill had been loving every minute of this task, but the frown on his face right now spoke of deep unease.

Can you elaborate? replied Sally with a raised eyebrow. For Bill to make such a vague statement was unusual in itself, even if she ignored the tension hunching his shoulders. She felt a knot develop in her stomach.

Umm, not really. Looking confused, Bill replied hesitantly, glancing up at her. He waved her over and added quietly, Sally, I have never seen anything like this before.

Do you think we can go around it? Whatever it is that you are picking up. The knot in her stomach turned to nausea as she looked at his screen.

Not easily, replied Bill. Given these readings, he indicated the very large number on his display, this thing is… well, humongous, as the kids would say.

Sally looked at the monitor on Bill’s console and reviewed the information.

Whoo! I can say for sure that this wasn’t here when I first spotted Eden. I wonder where it came from… Sally trailed off and paused for a minute, thinking. Then she came to a decision. Let’s put it up on the main viewer.

Okay, but before we ponder where it came from, let’s figure out what it is and what we’re going to do about it. Bill smiled grimly as he punched some buttons and brought the main view screen to life.

All stop! ordered Sally. Everyone on the bridge looked at her, then at the screen, and then at Helmut Riesen, the chief navigator who, as usual, was at the controls, piloting the ship. Did Sally mean he was to stop the Apple?

Sally must have read the hesitancy in Helmut’s expression as she reiterated, "All stop," looking directly at him.

Aye, replied Helmut, a little reluctantly. All stopped. He looked up at Sally; he had been the primary pilot since they left Earth, and this was unprecedented.

Sally looked back at everyone on the bridge and raised a finger as if to say, Hold on, just a second. She then activated the communication system.

Attention, everyone, you may be wondering why we have stopped.

There was a hush that filled the entire ship. All anyone could hear was the ventilation system, until Sally’s voice rang out again.

We have encountered a strange anomaly in our path. Sally paused for a brief moment, considering what to say next and letting the news sink in. We will be stopping temporarily to observe it and determine the best course forward. All hands at ready stations.

Everyone on the bridge raised their eyebrows, but did as Sally had asked, analyzing every bit of data that they could find on the giant anomaly, trying to figure out what was ahead of them. Every so often, members of the senior crew on the bridge would glance up at the odd giant displayed in all its mysterious glory on the main view screen, wrinkle their brows in confusion, then return to scanning the data on their personal monitors.

I have never seen data like this before, said Erin finally, breaking the tense silence on the bridge and making one or two of her colleagues start in surprise. After staring at Erin in wide-eyed panic for a few seconds, the rather highly strung head of sciences Jason Manfry turned back to his own console. The facts and figures on his screen seemed, as always, to calm his logical mind, even though he was clearly as perplexed as everyone else on the senior team.

Neither have I, he agreed, turning to the man to his right. Chief engineer Robert Myers had come up from the engine rooms to help analyze the data and try to puzzle out what they were facing. How about you, Rob?

Nope, replied Robert. And let’s face it, we’re pretty hot on analyzing data between us. But…

But what? asked Sally a little impatiently when Robert stopped speaking and appeared to go into his own little world.

Give me five, was all he would say. Leaping to his feet, he ran from the bridge in the direction of his own department. It was actually more like twenty minutes before he returned, brimming with excitement.

Okay, he said breathlessly, I launched an exploratory probe right into that thing. We should get some data within the next ten minutes or so.

So half an hour, judging by your ability to estimate timescales, replied Erin with a wry grin. Sally, meanwhile, wasn’t so amused.

Good of you to run it past the rest of the team first, she snapped, fixing Robert with a penetrating gaze. His enthusiasm seemed to drain from him and he looked at his feet like a naughty schoolboy.

Um, yeah, sorry about that, he mumbled. It just kinda came to me impulsively…

Relax, Rob, Sally interrupted, grinning all of a sudden. It was a great idea, wasn’t it? The last two words were directed around the gathered team, who all nodded. It was indeed an excellent idea.

Realizing that they weren’t going to learn any more about the anomaly from the data they already had, Sally called the bridge crew together for a meeting while they waited for input from the probe. Once everyone was ready, she gestured to the visual of the anomaly.

Either this wasn’t here when we discovered Eden, or it didn’t show up on our scans and wasn’t visible through our telescopes, which I have a hard time believing. Bill and I have never seen anything like this before, and there is no record of anything like it in our history.

What have we figured out about it? Is it giving off any kind of radiation? asked Jason, anxiously. It looks like it is definitely giving off some sort of energy. What do we do?

Sally smiled calmly. Jason, there doesn’t seem to be anything immediately threatening about it, even though it looks scary. As for our next course of action, although I have some definite ideas, I would like to hear some suggestions.

We could fly into it and see what happens, said Jean Michael Gusso, grinning. The head of security did have his mischievous side, especially when he thought that he could get a rise out of Jason. Sally gave him a look as if to say, This really isn’t the time, and his grin faded.

Can we fly around it? asked Erin, ignoring Jean Michael and looking straight at Sally.

Not easily. It could add a significant amount of time to our journey. We can’t measure the anomaly, but it seems big, and it may be getting bigger.

Has the probe returned anything yet? asked Robert. I programmed it to report any new data to your station, Sally. Um, hope that was okay.

Sally’s eyes twinkled at him as she crossed over to her monitor. It wasn’t long, however, before her face fell.

No, she said. At first, it registered nothing out of the ordinary, and then all of a sudden, we stopped receiving its transmissions. There is no indication that it has been damaged; it just seems like the transmissions have been blocked or maybe even absorbed by something.

What do you think we should do, Sally? Erin asked. It really doesn’t seem like anyone here has any suggestions to offer.

"First, we should transmit what we have found to Earth, so that they are aware of it, if they aren’t already. Then, I think we should fly into it, very slowly…"

I was only joking about flying into it! exclaimed Jean Michael, which earned him another scornful look from Sally.

Isn’t that dangerous? asked Jennifer Ary, head of medical services. Should my team prepare for injured crew members—or worse?

Yes, it is, replied Sally, honestly. And yes, I guess you should. But it really seems to be our only option. We could fly around it, but for all we know, that could double our journey, and we don’t know if the ship can sustain itself for eighty to a hundred years. Also, given that this anomaly didn’t even appear to be here when we first discovered Eden, its growth rate must be incredible.

Just to be clear, we also don’t know if the ship can survive whatever is ahead of us in that anomaly, said Robert. If I thought that I would be around for the whole journey, I’d definitely recommend steering clear of this thing. So, we have no idea what happened to the probe?

"For as long as we could see it and hear it, everything was great, and then there was nothing. I understand you wanting to avoid it, but you won’t be here forever to patch up the Apple and keep her running, and your protégé may not have all of your skills. Sally frowned slightly. But we do have to make the decision as a team. I have given you my suggestion, but this is something on which we all need to agree."

The team debated the choices for what seemed like an eternity, and then decided to follow Sally’s recommendation. After making an announcement to the rest of the crew, Sally turned to look at the viewer.

"Take us ahead, slowly," she said, looking meaningfully at Helmut.

After a deep breath, he replied, Aye, aye, Captain.

The ship crawled towards the space anomaly. Everyone held their breath. The view on the main screen looked distorted, but there was no time to investigate it now.

I’m reading a slight increase in gravity, reported Bill.

Base shielding, Robert. Slow and easy, Helmut, requested Sally quietly.

Sally, the gravity has just increased by a factor of one hundred!

Back us out of here, Helmut!

The helm isn’t responding, replied Helmut, panic in his voice.

What do you mean? asked Sally, walking over.

Well, I am using reverse power, but we’re continuing to accelerate forward.

Sally turned to Bill. Suggestions?

No, was his short answer, his face worried.

Sally thought for a moment, and then said, Okay. Helmut, full speed ahead.

"What? yelled Helmut and Are you kidding?" exclaimed Bill simultaneously.

Do it, now! It’s our only chance.

Helmut pressed the controls and the ship lurched forward, accelerating.

Now, veer off, ordered Sally, leaning over Helmut’s shoulder.

Aye, Captain. Helmut nodded. He now understood Sally’s idea. As the ship raced faster and faster towards the center of the anomaly, Helmut turned her starboard.

Sally walked back to the center of the bridge. Bill, keep me posted on the gravity readings. Rob, energize all shielding to maximum, and see what you can do to strengthen it. Helmut, is it working?

Yes, we’re pulling slightly away from the center.

As they went deeper into the anomaly, they saw a strange energy source shooting what looked like giant streams of electricity or plasma into its center. Their luck seemed to be holding, though, because surrounding the central energy storm was a ring of normal space.

That’s it! Do you see it? said Sally, sitting down at her console. Helmut, head for that inner ring of space. She paused. And keep accelerating, she added.

Gotcha, replied Helmut. He increased the ship’s speed and steered toward the ring of normal space.

The gravity level is at the ship’s design point. The hull is reaching critical stress, reported Robert. I don’t know how much she can take before things buckle, even with the shielding. As if on cue, the ship began creaking and groaning, and several yellow and red lights flashed on the panels.

Sally nodded and looked at Helmut. Keep going, Helmut.

The ship accelerated for another ten minutes, constantly being pulled towards the raging center of the anomaly. The sounds from the hull became more ominous. Helmut kept adjusting the course starboard.

We are now exceeding the maximum design stress load for the ship, reported Robert. Several alarms went off, but were silenced quickly. Everyone looked around nervously as the ship began to shake.

And then, they passed the energy source. The creaking and groaning of the ship was deafening, and the shaking was getting so bad that the crew’s teeth were chattering. Even Sally had to sit down and cling to her chair. At this point, everyone was gripping whatever solid object they could find, hanging on as if for dear life.

Then, at last, the shaking eased, the noises lessened.

The gravitational stresses are decreasing, shouted Robert over the sound of the ship, his teeth still chattering. Nice job, Helmut.

Thanks, but we’re not out of this yet, said Helmut. He looked at Sally, who was watching the distance tick off on the helm. It seemed like an eternity, but the energy and gravitational readings finally returned to standard levels. Gradually, the shaking stopped, the