Mission Orion: The Travel through Time

Chapter 4 | Discovery

I rushed to the bridge and found Reneesh hurrying towards my cabin. "What the hell is wrong?" I asked. "Rithvik, you wouldn't believe this!" he said, gesturing me to follow him pointing to the bridge. Together we ran to the bridge. "Look at the radar system." Reneesh said, pointing towards it. There was this huge thing visible on it. "What on God's name could that be?" "I said in disbelief. The visibility was blocked as the structure was behind one of Saturn's moon. Does it come onto our trajectory path?" I asked Reneesh. "No, It won't." He replied. "Could it be a comet or an asteroid?" I asked Reneesh. "No, Rithvik. Look at it, carefully. I know I sound crazy but it looks a lot like a spaceship." He said, pointing to the screen. "One of the enemy ships?" Konrad asked, with a hint of fear in his voice. "Should I send out a drone?" Reneesh asked me. "Yeah, please do. And in the mean time send out a message on the same frequency in which we communicate with Earth." I ordered. "Konrad, prep Raptor One. And help him, Souvik." Reneesh ordered.

We waited for half an hour after we'd sent the message and we still didn't get a reply. "It's probably just an asteroid. A huge one." Anna prompted. "Or we are just on the wrong frequency." Konrad muttered. "How long till Raptor One reaches the visual range?" I asked Reneesh. "Five minutes approximately." He replied.

"Oh man, look at that. It's definitely not an asteroid. It is a spaceship after all and it's damaged. It looks a lot like ours, man." Reneesh said, looking at the live feed from the drone in his control machine. The feed went right into the box he was wearing around his head. Basically an advanced version of Virtual Reality. "Zoom in on the mid-section of the ship. That's where the names of the ships are usually written." I ordered. Reneesh followed what I said. "It's there, Captain. The first letter is definitely an O. And then the next one which I can see is an I, then an N, and then a T, a E, another E." "Orion Three." I interrupted. "Whoa. Orion Three? You're telling me that Orion Three has been here all along?" Anna exclaimed. "Reneesh, take Souvik with you on Ranger One and search for survivors, ASAP!" I ordered, running towards the control panels to initiate the sequence for the undocking of Ranger One. Reneesh and Souvik grabbed their space suits from the hook and ran towards the Ranger One dock.

"Ranger One, detach."

We watched on our live feeds as Ranger One made its' way towards whatever was left of Orion Three. "The docks are all destroyed. We will have to leave the ship unattended." Reneesh informed over the communications. We watched as Reneesh and Souvik made their way into the battered remains of the ship.

"We have found four bodies. The whole ship is depressurized, man. The people without the space suits would have just imploded after the hull breach." Reneesh said over the comms. I don't think we'd find survivors." "Tell that to me only after you find the fifth body." I replied. "Whoa.. wait a minute. I am looking at a cryo-sleep machine which is activated and is powered by the solar energy. Hold on a second. I'm going right towards it." Reneesh said over the comms. "Orion Four, it seems that the person inside the Cryo is still alive. There are vitals on the screen. This cryo belongs to a crew member named Leo. This may be a survivor. I getting the Cryo machine back to the ship as it is unsafe to open it here. Returning back to Ranger One. Over and out." Reneesh said.

I just could not believe what I was hearing. Looking at the condition of the ship on the screens, nobody would have had a clue that there would have been a survivor on board. Ranger One docked itself to Orion Four and we brought him on board. "Take the machine down to the medic bay. Let Konrad take proper precautions before taking him out of Cryosleep. I do not want any mess ups. Make sure he is well taken care of, Reneesh." I ordered. We had to wait for an hour before the survivor regained his consciousness. In the meanwhile, I prepared a report regarding our discovery of the remains of Orion Three back to Mission Control. I then walked down to the Medic Bay as soon as I received news that our survivor regained consciousness. "Oh man, I'm so glad to see another human face again. I thought that I would be alone." He said, sobbing at the same time. "You're safe, man. You're safe." I said, trying to calm him down. After an hour, the survivor slowly became stronger and was able to walk.

"What exactly happened?" I asked Leo, who was sitting in front of me in the conference hall. "Why didn't you contact the base after you entered this solar system?" I continued asking. "We just came out of time warp when I heard people screaming about missiles and bases, I was not on the bridge." he said. "Why did you stop looking, by the way?" He asked me. "Our radar-based satellites used for tracking spaceships were knocked out by the solar flares. In fact, Atlanta Control has no idea where we are right now. All that they know about our location is what we tell them over the communications." I replied. "Things are that bad, huh?" He asked me. "Yes. They are just becoming worse. Anyway, continue." I said. "The missiles then struck. There was no warning, no communication, there was absolutely nothing. Some of the missiles were deflected by our defence system. But there were too many of them. Our captain sent the emergency message. We fired all our missiles we had but they had some sort of defence system, a system, unlike anything I have ever seen before. Everything we throw at them gets deflected back at us. I put on my space suit as a precautionary measure. We were ready to retreat and we attained time wrap speed when the last missile hit us and the hull breached. The ship suffered rapid depressurization. And I don't remember what happened after that. There were chunks of debris flying around the ship. I soon realized that we were back into our solar system and I searched for survivors but I found none, just four bodies. The artificial gravity on the ship had deactivated. The communication antennae were taken out by the missiles and both the Rangers were severely damaged and not fit for flying.There was nothing I could do but wait. I didn't know whether there would be another mission. I was alive with the small hope that somehow, people would know I was here and would attempt to rescue me. I then had no choice but to go into cryo-sleep after running out of food. The solar panels were generating just enough to power up my cryo machine. I never bothered setting up a wake-up date. I'm so glad you guys rescued me." he said, his voice showing signs of strain.

"You are safe with us." I promised. I explained to him our situation and also about the crisis back on Earth. He was deemed fit enough to be in our mission. He was the sixth crew member of the Orion Mission. "Make yourself comfortable in my room, I'll see if any room can be converted into a bunk for you on board Orion Five." I told Leo, who had absolutely no problem with it. Anyone looking at him wouldn't have even guessed in their wildest dreams that this guy almost died a few hours ago. He was very enthusiastic and was jumping around the ship, continuously telling me how happy he was when he saw Konrad standing above him and how he'd almost given up hope about someone rescuing him.

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