Black Hole Sun

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. There I was falling towards that beautiful new star. It had all happened in the blink of an eye. I was on my comms detailing the repairs to cadet Thompson when I was suddenly jolted away from the spacecraft. My tether had snapped off and I was drifting and spinning uncontrollably - at a startling speed.

We had been sent out to retrieve the only evidence left of that miraculous explosion that had happened 13 years before, when Jupiter collapsed in on itself and birthed into a new dwarf star. Juno was still there monitoring and recording the event, but during the explosion, we had lost contact and control of her. It took a few weeks to locate the doomed little spacecraft.

Then Nasa and SpaceX started working on a retrievable mission, to capture that beautiful spying harlot and bring the evidence home - to sift through the data and recordings and determine just what forces of evil we were dealing with. I decided to signal for help, but everything was static and broken up. "Thompson, Thompson - my tether broke, I'm speeding away from the ship!" There was no reply - just gaps of silence and static. Then when everything seemed lost, I caught a glimpse of her. She was still intact, in a slowly decaying orbit around the new star, just where the scientists had determined she was.

I tried again on my comms and this time I could hear Thompson replying something that was incoherant. He had heard me and they were alerted about the problem, there was hope. I looked back towards the ship and could see that the wing and fuselage were damaged and they were working on a rescue plan.

I remember back when it all started. It had caught the entire world and scientific community by surprise. In November of 2025 - the moon IO suddenly lost orbit and drifted towards Jupiter, crumbling apart the closer it got. Some type of mystical chain reaction started. All of the moons surrounding Jupiter started a suicidal swirling descent into that beast of a planet. Nobody saw it coming or fully understood how it was happening, but Juno was there recording the entire celestial event - a cataclysmic dance of destruction and rebirth. The Earth itself trembled and shook, almost like she was anticipating and predicting what was to happen next. Then suddenly, a deafening explosion so loud that every ear on the planet heard it and the shockwave that followed sent a third of the world into a temporary dark age. All electronics were devastated by the emp-like blast. It took days and weeks to restore things back to normal.

The truth was, nothing was normal anymore. All of science, philosophy, and religion were turned upside down in a flash. It was like a nightmare and a beautiful dream at the same time. Now there were two suns in our little solar system, and things weren't so quiet and peaceful anymore. Everyone seemed lost in the sauce and shocked at what had happened, not comprehending what to do next or how to deal with the miracle event and new changes. The earth would eventually heat up more and all of the oceans would someday evaporate and fade away, at least that's what the doomsayers always say.

Two burners on the same skillet were going to be too much for mother earth. Our sun was going to be affected by the new star and it would speed up its eventual deadly supernova. A lot of fanatic religious cults panicked and gave up on their very lives, tagging the whole thing as the rapture and second coming of Christ - in some sort of twisted celestial and spiritual theory. Chaos was everywhere and people were literally eating each other.

It had been prophesied by the Hopi indians many years before, but most people just wrote it off as a crazy prophecy, a conspiracy - until that beautiful November morning when everything changed. I had been selected as one of the required crew members for my technical knowledge on Juno. I was no astronaut, but they decided to train me anyway and prepare me for all of the hurdles and possible scenarios - an added security to possible failures.

There are a lot of dangers in dealing with manned space missions. We have a long history of it and this was going to be nothing different. I looked back at the ship again and could barely make out a rescue shuttle exiting the hangar. Miracle upon miracle again! I couldn't wait to tell the others about what I had just found. How long had I been out here? I looked down at my suit monitor on my wrist. The oxygen was dangerously low, then I blacked out.

Everything was blurry,but after a few seconds I started recognizing Thompson's facial features. I had been rescued and was now back on the ship. The next day after some sleep and recuperation, I was informed they had located and retrieved Juno and all of her data was being downloaded onto the ship's computer. After a few more tests, I was going to be discharged from the med bay. We were already on a new course back home.