Echoes
A/N: Ok, ok. So The people who REALLY wrote this story were Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Nina Kiriki Hoffman. But this book was too good to be kept a secret. I've decided to rewrite it, in a slightly simpler version. And ok, I'll admit it, I added some J/C. Who knows? I'm not even sure if it is sold world wide. Enjoy!
Time: The First Shift
Location: 2,410 parallel universes to the right of ours
Prologue
It was a standard yellow G-type star system, with 13 planets and 3 dozen odd moons. Where the fifth planet had been, a ring of asteroids slowly spread out around the Sun. Some unknown even thousands of years before had destroyed the planet in that orbit. The sixth planet held the beginnings of life, but nothing in this system promised a humanoid civilization any time in the coming centuries.
Suddenly, a planet sized sphere formed in the orbit where the fifth planet had been, as if a ghost planet had come into being. It existed for seconds, then vanished.
The shape of the planet remained faint in the dark of space, however, outlined by humanoid life in their last struggle to breathe in the cold vacuum of space.
Three and a half billion humanoid bodies were suddenly there in the cold of space where a planet had once existed.
Soon, they were all dead, a sphere of bodies slowly moving in three and a half billion directions.
Time: The Second shift
Location: 2,410 parallel universe to the right of ours
Two and a half hours later, three and a half billion more humanoids suddenly appeared in space in the shape of the ghost planet. They floated among the dead from the shift before, struggling to survive in the cold of space.
They quickly died.
Time: The third shift
Location: 2,410 parallel universe to the right of ours
Two and a half hours later, another three and a half billion humanoids died in the unforgiving cold of space, floating among the dead from before.
Time: The fourth through eighty-seventh shifts
Location: 2,410 parallel universe to the right of ours
Billions of bodies floated in the shape of the ghost planet as the emptiness of space continued to full with the grotesque shapes of death. Over and over, every two and a half hours, the unimaginable became real, an entire population of a planet died.
Time: The first shift
Location: 2,542 parallel universe to the right of ours
In the East, the sky paled. Globes of light hovering above the walkways dimmed in anticipation of the dawn. Cleaning machines scuttled across pale lavender pavement to polish off a few last stains before ducking into their daytime niches under curbs. Engines hummed beneath the transportation depot.
Lights winked and twinkled behind polarized glass walls as people rose,
cleaned sleep from their systems, and preparing their morning meals.
A woman stood beside a rooftop aviary, feeding her messenger birds and wondering who would enlist her services today and send their love and greetings to special people in their lives.
Children in thousands of family complexes woke in their sleepnests, emerged, and dressed, ready for breakfast and the walk to their nearest socialization centers.
Suddenly the deep blue of the morning sky filled with an intense white light that shimmered and grew brighter and brighter as each second passed. The light increased until every shadow was gone and the color of every building, tree, every blade of grass was bleached white.
The sky crackled, and with a slight rumbling, everything returned to normal suddenly, the intense white was gone.
And with every person on the planet.
Gone.
A/N: Ok, ok. So The people who REALLY wrote this story were Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Nina Kiriki Hoffman. But this book was too good to be kept a secret. I've decided to rewrite it, in a slightly simpler version. And ok, I'll admit it, I added some J/C. Who knows? I'm not even sure if it is sold world wide. Enjoy!
Time: The First Shift
Location: 2,410 parallel universes to the right of ours
Prologue
It was a standard yellow G-type star system, with 13 planets and 3 dozen odd moons. Where the fifth planet had been, a ring of asteroids slowly spread out around the Sun. Some unknown even thousands of years before had destroyed the planet in that orbit. The sixth planet held the beginnings of life, but nothing in this system promised a humanoid civilization any time in the coming centuries.
Suddenly, a planet sized sphere formed in the orbit where the fifth planet had been, as if a ghost planet had come into being. It existed for seconds, then vanished.
The shape of the planet remained faint in the dark of space, however, outlined by humanoid life in their last struggle to breathe in the cold vacuum of space.
Three and a half billion humanoid bodies were suddenly there in the cold of space where a planet had once existed.
Soon, they were all dead, a sphere of bodies slowly moving in three and a half billion directions.
Time: The Second shift
Location: 2,410 parallel universe to the right of ours
Two and a half hours later, three and a half billion more humanoids suddenly appeared in space in the shape of the ghost planet. They floated among the dead from the shift before, struggling to survive in the cold of space.
They quickly died.
Time: The third shift
Location: 2,410 parallel universe to the right of ours
Two and a half hours later, another three and a half billion humanoids died in the unforgiving cold of space, floating among the dead from before.
Time: The fourth through eighty-seventh shifts
Location: 2,410 parallel universe to the right of ours
Billions of bodies floated in the shape of the ghost planet as the emptiness of space continued to full with the grotesque shapes of death. Over and over, every two and a half hours, the unimaginable became real, an entire population of a planet died.
Time: The first shift
Location: 2,542 parallel universe to the right of ours
In the East, the sky paled. Globes of light hovering above the walkways dimmed in anticipation of the dawn. Cleaning machines scuttled across pale lavender pavement to polish off a few last stains before ducking into their daytime niches under curbs. Engines hummed beneath the transportation depot.
Lights winked and twinkled behind polarized glass walls as people rose,
cleaned sleep from their systems, and preparing their morning meals.
A woman stood beside a rooftop aviary, feeding her messenger birds and wondering who would enlist her services today and send their love and greetings to special people in their lives.
Children in thousands of family complexes woke in their sleepnests, emerged, and dressed, ready for breakfast and the walk to their nearest socialization centers.
Suddenly the deep blue of the morning sky filled with an intense white light that shimmered and grew brighter and brighter as each second passed. The light increased until every shadow was gone and the color of every building, tree, every blade of grass was bleached white.
The sky crackled, and with a slight rumbling, everything returned to normal suddenly, the intense white was gone.
And with every person on the planet.
Gone.