Falling Chandeliers

My eyes cracked open, then flew open, then I was flying to the window. I pulled up the blinds, a part of me doubting that there would be anything. Said doubt was quickly dispatched when I saw the hill around us glimmering a snowy white in the dull gray morning light. Having a day off school meant time to play and get extra homework done with a mug of hot chocolate. I flicked on the light, except it didn’t turn on. I flipped the switch a couple more times… still nothing. What a great day to have no power, I thought, and therefore no heat. No power also meant no video games. I sat down in front of my dresser and grabbed a sweater, sweatpants, and some socks out. Putting them on, I made my way downstairs. I stopped at the front door and decided to take a look. I opened the door and was greeted by a nippy cold, biting at my ears as I stepped out into the white wonderland. I paused for a moment on our mini-porch and carefully lowered my foot onto the single step down that was closest the snow. My foot glided slowly over the thin yet slippery ice that covered the front end of the porch. Carefully bringing my other foot off of its secure hold on the dry cement, I stepped into the start of the snow. The snow crunched underneath my feet, more like ice than a soft fluffy powder. I also stopped to realize how quiet it was. The gray fog that enclosed our neighborhood seemed to deafen the sounds of I-5, rendering the hum of traffic inaudible. The silence and the fog formed an alliance, muting all sounds and restricting my vision. The evergreen treetops all around seemed to just barely peek out of the fog, as if crying for help before being dragged off into the gray sea. Wet, heavy snowflakes began to pelt my face as I turned around to head back inside. I had a double-take as I passed the plants in front of our porch, noticing that they were surrounded in a glassy prison of ice a literal inch thick. I looked at them in awe, mesmerized by how clearly the ice had captured their features despite how thick it was. Stepping carefully through the front-door ice patch, I re-entered the house.

The day went on as we tried to figure out the power issue. It wasn’t our fuse box, so it had to relate to the substation nearby. That was something we couldn’t fix, so we’d have to hope for the best. With the power off, things in our refrigerator would start to warm up. We hatched an idea. Since it was so cold outside… Why not? We started taking things out of our fridge and placed them on our table on the back porch. Everyone was laughing at the absurd idea, but it actually worked! With the world as our new refrigerator, we set out to solve the next problem.

Heat was going to be a definite problem since we ran on electric. We closed all upstairs doors and turned on our fireplace, which could only be turned on with our backup batteries.

Soon we got bored and headed over to our neighbor’s house to catch up with them since we hadn’t met with each other in a while. They welcomed us inside and asked if we would like some tea, since they had a gas stove and gas heating. We enjoyed talking with them, the smell of tea and the feel of warmth surrounding us. Soon, they called over some of our other neighbors, and we partied in spite of the weather.

I, not being a huge fan of parties, decided to go on a walk through the cloudy hills. Greeted by a breath of cold, dry air as I opened the door, I started the journey. I slowly sidestepped down our neighbor’s steep driveway, making my best attempt to avoid slipping. I arrived safely down the slope and started up the hill on which our neighborhood was built. As I took a left at the through street that enclosed our bundle of houses in a “U” shape, I heard a sickening snap followed by the tinkling of shattered glass. I looked to the trees nearby and noticed some of their branches missing. I also noticed that most of the other branches were heavily weighed down by that same thick layer of ice that I had seen on our curbside plants encased in. The very tops of the tall evergreens were the most obvious to see with this effect. The weight of the ice burdening them, they hung their treetop heads as if mourning the loss of their limbs in the cold gray fog. I continued to walk along the street further up the hill, passing under the power lines that usually hummed with a cicada’s buzz, but today were silent. Another crack, deafening in the silence of the fog, signaled the loss of another precious limb as it was followed by the sound of a falling chandelier hitting the floor. I continued to wander through the silent fog, amazed at its surreal beauty. I when I got back around to our “U” loop, I decided to check if the party that was still going on. It was, so I enjoyed my time with others while sipping tea and eating snacks. When it was time for the party to end, we headed back to our house and played games in the cold even after the sun set, with the use of flashlights. Huddling together like a group of penguins, we went to sleep in the same room.

After we took a little excursion to Belknap Hot Springs the following day, we came back to see our lights on. We were thoroughly overjoyed with our luck! Despite power coming back on, however, there was one last thing that needed to happen. With all of the freezing rain, our air conditioner condenser became a literal ice-cube. Knowing that the ice was not going to melt off naturally for a long time and smashing it off could damage the unit, we were forced to take our only option: defrost by blowtorch. A whoosh came as we ignited the gas, the flame glowing a vibrant blue as it rushed out the nozzle. We set to work meticulously melting the ice, being careful not to get too close as not to burn the rubber wire protectors and melt the plastic. Every now and then, a green flame would fly off of the grate that protected the fan, and the smell of burnt paint would rise into our nostrils. Eventually, we had the whole thing clear of ice, for the most part.

And so ended the pathetic two-day adventure of living through an ice storm. We slept in our beds, warm, all the hallway doors open.

Short Story – The Blast

The Blast

My eyes cracked open, seeing the room in doubles. My head felt like an expanding battery, overheated and swollen. I groaned as I heaved myself off of the standard-issue carpet lined floor of the bridge on the U.S.S. Constellation. I swayed as I tried to balance myself and looked around. The bridge looked fine, but it appeared that  I wasn’t the only one to be thrown from my seat; the other officers were attempting to gain their footing as well. An early riser, Commander Lee, came to check on me.

“Sir, are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine. Check in with the other bridgemates, call Vanholz if any wounds need to be addressed.”

“Understood, Captain.” He saluted, then went off to find the medic. If something hit us, we needed to figure out what it was, and fast.

“Everyone, I want an immediate report of the ship’s integrity. Flores, check if we still have weapons and shield power. Talu, I want you to run a diagnostic scan on the ship’s hull. See if there are any breaches. Satra, check the ship’s distortion field generator and run a 360 degree scan of everything within 5 AU.” Three “affirmative”s answered and I set to work on the console in front of me.

Lieutenant Flores was the first to answer: “Shields and weapons are up, but we’re running on backup power, Captain.”

Lieutenant Commander Talu reported, “ No breaches sir, but I’m reading internal damage and an automatic lockdown procedure in the rooms near the…”

“Distortion field generator,” Lieutenant Satra says, cutting Talu off. “It’s been completely annihilated!”

“Can we run any simulations to try and recreate what might have happened?” A breach in the field generator means we would be stuck here until help arrives. A manual fix might also be possible, but it would take about as much time, and we’d have to land to do it.

“Yes, sir” she replies. “ I’m reading temperatures as high as 3,000 degrees Kelvin and there’s huge amounts of gamma radiation. My guess is that one of the tanks containing antimatter had a power fluctuation, weakening the magnetic field and resulting in a chain reaction that tore the field generator to shreds. However, our reserve powers stores are full, so we should have capability to do anything normally besides distortion travel.”

“At least that’s working. Were there any people working in the room at the time of malfunction?”

“Thankfully not sir, the emergency doors were mostly closed before the blast could escape. Two engineers walking down the hallway got minor radiation burns, but it could have been a lot worse. They are being treated in the infirmary as we speak.”

“Good to hear,” I say. That was a relief, though I’d still have to contact the headquarters at Earth about our current predicament, but even if they sent help, it would still take at least a couple of weeks for a ship with supplies and repair crews to get here. “How about those scans, Satra?”

“Scans report no threat in the vicinity, but there seems to be… Captain, you may want to see this…” I walk to her console and peer over her shoulder, “I’m reading one M-class exoplanet, oceanic, about twice the radius of earth, at about 2 AU away. It might be in the Goldilocks zone of this system,” she says.

“We still have engine power and fuel, right?” I ask, knowing that there would only be so much before we would have to switch to backups.

She runs a brief diagnostic, “Yes, our engines are fine, but we have only about 65% fuel remaining that we can use without tapping into emergency reserves.”

“Will it be enough to get us to the planet?” She brings up a program on the screen, sets a few conditions, and waits.

A couple of results show up and she says, “According to my calculations, if we follow the most efficient path, we can use another 40% of our total fuel.”

“Computer, load Satra’s flight course and bring us into proxy-scan range of the planet, activate stabilizers when in range, keep our heading and speed during the scan.” A few moments pass as the Constellation’s autopilot locks in the course, followed by a deep and distant rumbling as the ship’s engines roared to life, eager to move again.

Commander Lee walks in. “The injured are being treated, sir. Did I miss something?” I give him the brief run down of the distortion field generator, the planet, and the crew. Afterwards, I decide that I have enough knowledge of the situation to inform the rest of the ship’s crew. I press a button on my own console and a sharp whistle rings out through the ship, “This is your captain speaking. We believe that the shockwave you experienced originated from the distortion field generator room during an equipment malfunction that set off a matter-antimatter reaction. Two crew members suffered minor injuries that are being taken care of. There are no immediate threats in the ship’s vicinity, and we are headed to an M-class exoplanet to land for resource extraction and repair. Avoid the distortion field room if at all possible. We are trying to vent the room and restore radiation levels to a safe threshold. That is all, thank you.” I end the transmission and set to work on informing Earth Space and Exploration headquarters of our current situation.

A small holographic display appears in front of me, followed by the face of Fleet Admiral Jonis. “Yes, Captain?” she asks in a cool voice. I explain our situation, everything from how this incident started to our current flight course for the exoplanet.

“An exoplanet, hmm? Judging from the location of your transmission, our superposition tracers seem to indicate that you are in the Kepler 22b system. Kepler 22b is a mono-planet system once held as a number one candidate for life to exist. Be careful down there, Captain. We have no idea what you might be getting into down there. Report the details back to me if you find anything. Meanwhile, I’ll send a supply and repair freighter your way. Any questions?”

“None, ma’am.”

“Stay safe out there, Walker. Jonis out.” the holographic transmission fizzled and died.