THE VARESE RIM
Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. But I know better. There are some things that can, humans just aren't one of them. That's why you should always avoid the Varese Rim, the creatures that are out there are unlike anything that had ever been recorded by anyone.
“Sir, are we really going there?” The husky voice of my first mate roused me from my thoughts.
“Yes, it was a direct order from the Sovereign himself.”
“But it’s labeled as a code black area, too dangerous for anyone to explore.” The fear in his voice was understandable, even I was considering disobeying the Sovereign. But if what I was told is true then we had to make it past the Rim.
“We know, everyone does but with the new Frontier Exploration class fleet that we have the Sovereign and council have decided that it may now be possible to make it through.”
“It also helps their decision with you being the only person to have ever entered the Varese Rim and come back alive.”
“It does, so Gabriel please go and assemble everyone in the hangar bay. I'll need to address the fleet before we begin our final approach into the Rim.” Saluting, he turned on his heel and marched out the door.
“Haaaa.” This will be my last mission, if we fail we’ll mostly likely all die in the Rim or even if we’re lucky enough to escape it the Sovereign would execute us all for abandoning our mission. But if we succeeded, we would have accomplished something that was thought to have been impossible.
“Fleet Commander Beltran, everyone is in the hangar and all the ships are on standby.” Gabriel's voice came over the intercom again drawing me from my thoughts.
“Alright, I’ll be there in a second. Caesar transports me to the Hangar.”
“Of course Commander.” the almost human-like voice of the A.I sounded before I was teleported to the main hangar bay. “Ugh” While teleportation was near instantaneous, the feeling of my body being broken down into atoms and then put back together was a weird feeling that I just couldn’t get used to. Standing up straight I looked out over the 10,000 men and women who were crewing this ship, the Prometheus, as well as all the holo screens that showed the crews of all the other ships that made up this fleet of 10 ships and nearly 60,000 men and women.
“ATTENTION, Commander on deck.” All the ship captains yelled in unison
THUMP
The sound of 60,000 boots stomping down in unison created a thunderous boom that echoed throughout the Hangar.
“At ease. As you all know this fleet which is composed of state of the art ships has been tasked with finding a way through the Varese Rim and exploring what lies beyond. I won't lie to you, the things you will see in there are unlike anything you’ve seen and nothing will prepare you for it. Failure of this mission will mean all of our deaths and we will be forgotten by history. Even if we succeed many of us will still die, however those that are able to complete the mission will get the names of everyone recorded in history and we will be known as the doers of the impossible.”
“Arriving at Varese Rim in 10 … 9 … 8 … 7 … 6 … 5 … ” Caesar sounded over the fleet-wide PA system.
“Alright, Everyone to your stations, you all know the plan for when we arrive. Caesar, transport everyone to their stations now.” Bright gold particles began to surround everyone, slowly getting brighter before in a flash of blinding light they all disappeared.
“Teleportation complete, Arrival in 1 second.”
VWOOM
Coming out of warp I was at the helm in the bridge looking out at my fleet that was moving into position around the Prometheus. Further beyond we could all see the beginning of the Varese Rim, a fog-like expense of varying shades of purple, red and yellows that seemed to have no beginning or end in any direction, almost as if the universe just ended there. And it would seem believable if not for the strange lightning that flashed inside it revealing the silhouettes of the creatures that inhabited the Rim.
“All ships sound off when in position.” A called through the terminal.
“This is Captain Michaels of the Sunfire we are in position.”
“This is Captain Anderson of the Eclipse in position.”
“This is Captain Rodriguez of the San Martina in position.”
“This is Captain Schultz of the Hessen in position.”
“This is Captain Volkov of the Poltava in position.”
The Captains of each ship sounded off one after another, when the last captain sounded off my anxiety began to slowly set in. Taking a deep breath I readied myself for what was about to come.
“Sir, all ships are in position and waiting for your command.” Gabriel stood beside me looking out the flight deck window at the fleet. Looking around at the faces of all the crew in the room I could see that they were as anxious and scared about what lay before us as I was. Steeling myself I gave the command.
“All Ships begin the operation.”
About the Creator
A.P Pleasant
New to the writing scene, going to post some short stories and would love some feedback if it's not any trouble. Cheers
Subscribe here and on Instagram to get early updates on when I release a new story.
Instagram: a.p.pleasant
Keep reading
More stories from A.P Pleasant and writers in Fiction and other communities.
Another World
Another World Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky. Though when we first arrived in this strange world nearly a year ago now the night sky appeared to be similar to that of Earth, the only reason we knew it wasn’t was the fact that there were two moons. For the first few days, we had all stuck together and formed a base camp near where we had arrived. During that time I talked to nearly 200 people to find out where they all had come from, and to my surprise, there were no two people from the same country, and not everyone spoke English, which was surprising because I could understand them all perfectly despite only being able to speak English. After a few days, everyone had begun to settle into the new routine that we all lived by now, however, that all changed on the fifth night, at midnight the sky slowly lit up almost as if the sun was rising, and majestic purple clouds began to dance across the sky. Then we were attacked by a group of twenty goblins, each one was no stronger than your average teenager but they were still able to kill ten of us before we killed them. After this, the peace that we had established crumbled like a sand castle and divisions formed, those with a weak mentality chose to either flee in fear, and others formed a group and departed to set up a new camp believing that anywhere else would be safer. By the end of the fifth day of the 195 people that had made up this camp was reduced to 100. Once we buried our dead and burnt the goblin's corpses we took what little equipment they had and began to use the weapons and armour of the monsters as our own.
By A.P Pleasant 3 years ago in Fiction
If You Love Me, You'll Do It
I met Jason when I was five years old. I could say that I loved him from the moment I saw him. He was so handsome to me and I felt in awe by his presence. When they introduced him as the new kid in school, I wanted to be his friend right away. I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember his smile and how he didn't seem shy. He appeared confident and ready to learn. I waved at him and said "hello," before anyone else could even say a word. He sat next to me, and I asked him if he wanted to be friends. He looked so happy as he said, "Yes!"
By Sidney Smith (Sid Smith)7 days ago in Fiction
'20/20'
"Do It Again" the track that would ultimately open the Beach Boys final album on Capitol Records which was released on February 10th 1969 had originally been released as a single in August of 1968. The track was the first of many post-Pet Sounds era throwbacks to the early Beach Boys sound which would become continually more cliched and eventually lead the Beach Boys to the level of self-parody they would eventually succumb to in the 1980s while their closest contemporaries The Beatles nearing the end of their run in 1969 would go on to be viewed as the most influential band of all time. However, the song itself is not bad on its surface, and it opens with a futuristic sounding (for 1969) drumbeat captured by then-Beach Boys engineer Stephen Desper using tape delays on the drums performed by Dennis Wilson and John Guerin. The song has been re-recorded numerous times over the years on various Beach Boys-related projects most notably the 2011 re-recording at Capitol studios featuring the five surviving Beach Boys at the time backed instrumentally by various members of both the Brian Wilson Band and Mike Loves touring "Beach Boys" to promote the then upcoming Beach Boys 50th Anniversary reunion tour in 2012. The hammering and power drill sound at the end of the song was an excerpt from a track called "Workshop" that was to be a part of the uncompleted "SMiLE" album.
By Sean Callaghan7 days ago in Beat
Comments (1)
Awesome story I, I loved reading it. It’s so creative and well written. Glad you are honing your talent on this site.