Doing the Space-Time Warp
I'd been aboard the "Avatar" for six months, studying XG-2471 from a mere 1,000 light-years away. At that distance, though we were well beyond the event horizon, we could still feel the supermassive black hole's tug, like a baby reaching for its parent's arm. We were an experimental ship. We had no flash, instead built like a radiation-shielded tank. But we had all the scientific bells and whistles Tau Ceti could provide. We were here for the long term, and all 326 of us were here by choice.
This wasn't my first ride, either. With three degrees - in stellar physics, astrophysics, and space-time theory - I'd been out on missions for the past 20 years relative ship time, mostly studying stellar formation in galactic nebulae, but moving ever closer to end-of-life scenarios like black holes. Something about the permanence of disappearing matter and energy (with the exception of Hawking radiation, of course - a term we borrowed from the Earthers after we made first contact) intrigued me. I wanted to know where it all went, what happened after it shot through the event horizon, and how other massive objects around the hole were affected by the its presence. Now I was first officer on the "Avatar," doubling as the head of the space-time department, and I had enough data streaming in to keep me jumping for joy for the next century or so.
I was on midwatch the third day of the ship's week when the anomaly began. At first it was just a series of fluctuations on the gravitometer, spikes and dips in the measurement of the gravitational field surrounding the ship. Then, there was a slight bucking and heaving of the ship itself, as if we were riding the crests of a gravitational wave. However, the output from the black hole before us remained constant. It made no sense. If there were no change in the hole's influence on space-time, how could there be recordings of changes in the continuum?
The starboard infrared telescope made the first observation and, to be honest, the entire science team just about laughed it off. There were small particles crossing the event horizon and emerging from the hole, which, according to physics, was impossible. But, no, that actually wasn't quite right; they weren't particles. They appeared similar to insects. They had bent extensions lined symmetrically around a central axis when viewed top-down, or legs on a long body when viewed horizontally. And their speed was phenomenal, moving at about 1/10 the speed of light. Now the gravitometers were going wild, and the ship was being buffetted as the very fabric of space-time around it was pushed and pulled in all directions.
The creatures (what else could we call them?) rode the waves they created, warping all of space-time as they proceeded away from the hole's perimeter. At first they came just a few at a time, but then the stream of them increased so that even the event horizon shimmered with the warping effect. They were converging on a spot maybe 150 light-years from our position, and as they came closer, we could hear the straining of the ship's hull, and our helmsman had a devil of a time keeping our attitude oriented toward.
"Full reverse," the captain finally ordered. "Let's get some distance from this."
"Aye, sir," the helmsman replied, and he input the flight plan and hit the controls. Nothing happened except an increasingly loud whine from the engines, and a rattling of the hull.
"She's not responding!"
"Input jump coordinates." He turned to me. "How far until we're safe?"
"Uncertain. We are being strained past our limitations. At least 10,000 light-years I'd say."
"Helm, emergency jump to the Omega Alpha system. Science, get as much data as we go for later analysis."
"Aye, sir," we both responded at the same time.
But it was too late. At least a thousand of the creatures were now converging on a single spot, and space-time was closing in on itself. "They're forming a wormhole," I muttered with astonishment. "They must live in gravity wells."
"Unable to jump, sir. Engines are offline."
Of course they are, I thought to myself. The intense gravity forming so close to our position would cause the mechanism to stretch along the wormhole's vector and destroy its alignment. And the crew was beginning to be affected, too. As the ship around us groaned and screamed with the gravitational stress, our bodies were being stressed, too. Once the shields collapsed and the hull's integrity was breached, we would be pulled into the wormhole like strands of hair. Needless to say, we would not survive the process.
Well, I had wanted to observe space-time warping up close and personal. I guess now my wish would be fulfilled.