Random stories

Shaun sat in something that was uncomfortably like a leathery bean bag, but warm and cooing slightly as it breathed. He went to stand up in horror, but three shadows stood over him.

“Being, we have questions for you.” a voice thundered from somewhere.

Shaun looked up at the beings, and they resolved into glass faced protective suits eight feet tall, with several too many limbs and a tail. He couldn’t see through the glass, so it just mirrored his own terror back at him. Trying to resolve himself in another attempt at standing up; a hand without fingers, but gliding orange trails in the air as it moved, pushed him back down.

“Being, sit.” Said the middle one, in a blue suit. The others were in white with a green trim, and the final had a variety of oranges spotted all over it. Shaun found that suit distracting the most.

“Where am I?” was all he could so far manage.

“You are on a secure station for the processing new beings for the Federation.” The green tint said, each word causing it to glow slightly.

Shaun thought about the order of the next few questions. “How are you understanding me?”

The green tint cocked it’s head slightly “A complex issue. We detected that you seem to have no psychokinetic field. At first we thought your species were suppressing it somehow, but all tests show that your species does not seem to have one. There have been several communication difficulties. The Branderbush you are on translates all thoughts into Galactic. It has been created for this purpose. Your intention to speak goes into it, and our intentions are focused into it, and relayed to yourself. It is an inelegant solution, but time was a factor.”

Shaun swallowed and punched several thoughts that rose deep down into himself. Taking a moment to think, “What do you want?”

The blue one leaned in slightly “Where are you from?”

Without thinking he replied “Earth.”

“This Earth is within the Zarrow Cluster formation? The area known as the Zone of Madness?” The orange one replied quickly.

“I have… no idea what that is.” Shaun felt his hands get clammy, and hoped it was him, and not the beanbag sweating.

“You, and others like you.” the middle one replied “Have been appearing out of the Cluster, to make it look like the Zone of Madness is navigable. To undermine our own military, and standing within the Federation. Where are you really from?”

“I have no idea what you’re saying.” Shaun scrambled a bit more than he intended to “What do you mean, zone of madness?”

The green tint moved the blue one back. “Scree is saying that there is a region of space known as the Zone of Madness. Within this zone there are issues traveling across it. The universe does not work within it as it does outside of it. We have never managed to cross it. Yet your species are emerging from it, in strange unusual craft, that we have never seen.”

Shaun grabbed a hold of a fact he knew “My ship, where is it?”

The blue one moved in again “We have confiscated it. It is with our intelligence branch. As least what remains of it.”

“What did you do to it? I need that.” Shaun exclaimed

The green tint interjected “It exploded shortly after we recovered you from exiting the area of space. We are unsure why, you did not set it to explode?”

Shaun thought, he was getting some strange readings as he exited, and even with engines on full blast he was no longer making any headway. The readings stopped making sense, and were acting like he was in a thick atmosphere giving massive resistance. “The ship started acting strange, controls stopped responding correctly.”

“You left the region. We found no evidence of a crystal or regular power centre. What did you use to cross pull the stellar space together?”

Shaun thought for a moment “That sounds a bit like warping space. We can’t do that. We just made engines that increase speed and try to protect against relativity as you approach the speed of light.”

The beings looked at him “You just went fast?” the orange one said “You don’t warp space, or bring things closer ignoring the space between?”

“We can’t do that.” Shaun replied deadpan.

“How…” they seemed to restart their question from a different point of view. “What do you use to get off your planet?”

“A booster rocket. Massive rocket that pushes against the planet, that the overall equation of the thrust to load ratio allows something to accelerate with enough force and get enough speed to achieve orbit with the remaining weight.” He wasn’t 100% sure that was how his orbital mechanics professors would phrase it, but it got the right idea.”

The green one pulled out what looked like a pen and paper and wrote something, after a few moments, it was clearly back of the napkin mathematics. “That would mean…the thrust needed, the energy, the sheer momentum required” more mathematical scribbles followed by a low laugh “Zone of Madness indeed.”

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Submitted by Contranine on Tue, Dec 06, 2022 to /r/WritingPrompts/

The prompt

The zone of madness was thought impossible to traverse. The Federation of planets was, needless to say, intensely distressed by the news of an unknown ship emerging from the zone. They call themselves "human" and originate from near the center of the zone.