Omega Rising

Andrew Aldrin sat staring at the blank screen in front of him.

Nothing. Nothing but a single-lit pixel and a flashing white cursor.

He had no idea how long it had been since anything else had graced the curved emptiness of the digital display adorning his operational station. He glanced again at the Speedmaster on his wrist. An original ST 105.012. The original 1969 'Moonwatch'. The legendary artifact had been returned to his family's possession, having spent almost a century lost in relative obscurity, but that was a story for another day. For now, its famed precision appeared no match for whatever was happening on board the space module he called home.

He and his immediate forefathers had only ever known the space station and the spacecraft that accompanied it. At some point in their history, almost a millennia before, life had changed inextricably for humanity, and his early ancestors had been forced to leave Earth, the only home they had ever known. Cataclysmic events are like that. Choice becomes a scarce commodity.

He tapped the watch face lightly, and attempted to turn the Chronograph's mechanical dial again, but was met with the full wound movement's continued resistance. It was still 4.44 am. The thin white hour and minute hands refused to budge.

He scrunched his brows, narrowing his eyes. Then he removed the heirloom piece from his wrist and turned it over in his hands. The original engraving was barely visible. He could make out the worn initials of his 40th great-grandfather if he angled the backplate towards the light and, even then, they were almost worn flat from generations of use. The watch itself was in near pristine condition though, clearly stored well, when not in use. This had prolonged its life well beyond the expectations of the original design. At first, he thought that his prized timepiece had finally run its course, but it didn't take him long to realise that all horological devices on the ship had stopped tracking time simultaneously.

He turned his attention to the astronaut seated on the edge of his desk. Clad in a white spacesuit with green and purple embellishments, and wearing a clear closed helmet, the auspicious character, named for his distant relative, was another constant in Andrew's life. "So what do you think, ranger? Do you see a way out of this?"

"This is a secret mission in uncharted space. There seems to be no sign of intelligent life anywhere."₃ The ranger's voice was unwavering, his steely glance unchanged, but the faint glimmer of a smile etched permanently on his round face, revealed the size of his heart, which miraculously still beat beneath the layers of plasticity covering his breastplate.

"You got nothing either, huh?" Andrew's fingers tenderly traced the outline of the little spaceman, another remnant from his family's past, extending his wingspan, and pretend-flying him around his desk. Then repositioning with care, he pushed his chair away from his station, sighing as he made to stand.

"Andy? Ahem... Commander..." Deep in thought, the voice startled him. He spun to face his First Officer.

The officer cleared his throat and started again. "I'm afraid the time conundrum has us in a pickle, Sir." Certain he was about to hear a diatribe of epic proportions, Commander Aldrin slumped back into his chair. His first officer had an eye for detail and a mouth to accompany it. "What's the update, Jordan?"

"Allow me to share the 360-degree visuals from the flight deck, Sir." Jordan Phillips pulled a chair alongside his commanding officer and flicked through the visuals from the spacecraft's cameras. There was no denying that the edges of space were folding in on itself. Planets were crumbling, disintegrating, appearing to merge back into the darkness that had once given birth to them.

"I've never seen anything like it... In all my years as a navigator..." Jordan's voice trailed off. The two men sat taking in the scenes unfolding before them. Andrew closed his eyes and focused on massaging the dull pain emanating from his temples. Then he drew a deep breath and stretched his arms behind his neck. It seemed like an eon before he broke the silence between them. "So, what does this mean? For us? Is there time to turn back?"

Jordan's eyes remained fixed on the screen. "I'm afraid that's not going to be possible, Sir. Everything behind us appears to be in dissolution. We are in a transient state. Motionless. Our fuel reserves are low. I'm not sure that we can make it back, even if we tried. We encountered a lot of empty space before we arrived at this point, so it doesn't seem there is much for us to return to... We would surely be choosing death."

Trying another approach, Andrew ventured, "Can we outrun whatever this is then?"

"You've seen the images from the front cameras, Commander," Jordan's voice softened, dropping a few decibels, "Just where would we be running to, Sir?" They both sat staring at the quiet destruction on the side screens. After a brief pause, Jordan continued. "You want to know if we have time... but time is at the heart of the problem. We appear to be at the fulcrum. Time and space are pivoting on a fine balance. This moment reflects the purity of Schrodinger's cat. We lost contact with the other ships days ago. They could be anywhere, or nowhere by now. We have no way of knowing what is left of the worlds we have left behind. In theory, we can move beyond this point, but that will likely create a new time-space continuum, separate from the one we'd be leaving. We'd be the only ones encapsulated and governed by the new space, and there would be little to no hope for humanity, with just a few of us traversing that reality. It seems crazy to contemplate, but right here, right now, time and space are both materialising and ceasing to exist, in the same moment."

"How is this even possible? Time, space, and matter intercede to produce everything we know and understand. Without them, what do we have?" Andrew paced back and forth on the flight deck, his thoughts imploding; a microcosmic reflection of the quantum chaos taking place beyond the boundary of his ship.

"There is one other option..." Jordan had walked over to the viewpoint embedded in the nose of the craft, and motioned for Andrew to join him. Looking out beyond the visible collapse of stars and interplanetary systems, into the dark void that lay ahead, a distant and mysterious bright light rose slowly on the horizon of nothingness. Andrew's gaze shifted from the light on the horizon to the single flickering pixel on the screen and back, several times. It appeared to be the only constant. The silence hung thick between them.

"What do you want me to do, Commander?" Jordan leaned forward and gently squeezed his friend's shoulder. "Andy, it's time. You're still our Number One. You have to decide." The irony did not escape Andy. He turned again to face one of the most iconic collector pieces from the previous millennium. He picked up the little astronaut, "What do you think, little guy?" As he held down the activation button on the voice module, Jordon interjected... "With respect, Sir, that's just a toy!" The response from the tiny speaker embedded in the astronaut's breastplate crackled with indignation, "I think the word you're searching for is Space Ranger!"₃

Andy chuckled. It always amused him how the message cycling seemed to come up with such appropriate responses!

"Sorry about that, Buzz. Where do you suggest we go from here?" The reply, when it came, was emphatic and exuberant.

"To infinity... and beyond!!!"₃

Andy's smile broadened. He recalled how he'd fallen in love with those words the first time he had heard Buzz utter them. It had been such a joyful day. He couldn't have been more than three years old. Buzz had been a birthday present from his dad; a gift of love handed down through the generations. The little ranger was the best kind of friend a kid could wish for, and they had spent many a day together chasing around the tight corners of the space station. And now, all these years later, when the people who mattered most to him had long since departed his world, Andy knew that, where hope was in short supply, those words still spoke of limitless possibility. He just had to look in the right place. Perhaps space, time, and matter were three-dimensional interlocking rings, and whatever was causing them to break apart, was about to reveal something far more important. Although highly contested, he had read that theoretical physics might allow interlocking rings to separate, given the addition of a fourth dimension. He wondered what would be left in their absence.

Jordan's eyes were locked on Andy. Slightly exasperated, and knowing that his question was rhetorical at best, he implored... "This isn't a game, Andy. You have to make your decision on the information to hand. So... what are you thinking?"

Andy stared past Jordan and into the dark vacuum of space. "Jordan, a bright young physicist and philosopher once said, 'the heart has its reasons, whereof reason knows nothing'. That young man was Blaise Pascal. What I'm thinking, is perhaps he was right after all."

Jordan rolled his eyes and shrugged. "What the hell does that even mean, Andy?"

"It means, that from the beginning to the end of time, from the Alpha to the Omega, I'm choosing life. We're going home, Jordan." Commander Andrew Aldrin smiled and took the helm. Right or wrong, after all this time, wherever it was, home had a nice ring to it. And with that, he turned their ship towards the light and fired the remaining thrusters.