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Not With A Bang
01/06/2008 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
Short fiction from the pen of GF Willmetts. The perils of FTL space flight prove just a little more dangerous than anyone had predicted... The experimental starship Ishta'woo began its slow deceleration back into normal space. The first ever spacecraft to exceed the speed of light but in doing so had spread its mass over the entire cosmos.
From the inside looking out, all the crew could see were specks of light that they could only hope were either stars or galaxies from afar considering how far they were spread across the universe. Ship-time and real-time meant nothing to each other.
The split-second in travel could be many millennia but it was always seen as a one-way trip. The great starship ramscooped its own wasted fuel as it reduced in size. There was a need for fuel at normal size to reach its destination in normal space and time.
Arriving in normal space, the Ishta'woo's mass detectors could detect nothing but empty vacuum. Had their galaxy died while they were in transit? There was dismay from the crew at arriving to nothing until a lesser class officer asked what had the ramscoop drawn up for fuel as the tanks were full to bursting.
The captain sought to record his last thoughts prior to the Ishta'woo exploding. It would be a futile gesture as no one would know what they had achieved. Anyone repeating their trip would undoubtedly absorb, destroy and expel the universe once more.
Then there was light...
The Beginning Not The End...
(c) G.F. Willmetts
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