By the 24th century, man had moved out into the galaxy, exploring the limitless locations in space. They continue to discover not only new planets and civilisations, but other strange things. They have discovered faster-than-light travel, in a way not many people would have thought possible.
Men built great starships to carry them to the stars. Out in space, they discovered mysterious, unexplainable objects, originating from far away.
But one day, one of these starships was approaching Earth after a long voyage through space. This starship, named the starship Saturn, was coming home. On the way, it came across a peculiar gravitational anomaly, originating from about 80 astronomical units away from Earth. The anomaly did not affect the ship, but since it was along the ship's course, the captain decided to go investigate.
"Alter course, helmsman," Captain Abaci ordered.
"Aye, sir," the helmsman acknowledged, and complied.
In space the ship took a turn about 45 degrees to the right, heading for the strange anomaly.
"Estimated Time of Arrival, fifteen minutes," reported the helmsman.

 In another part of the ship, Dr. Thomas Ranon was conducting a scan of the anomaly. He detected molecular structures which would have not been recognised by 20th century scientists, but which were a common sight to 24th century scientists and engineers.
"Antimatter," Dr. Ranon said, more to himself than the other people present.
Antimatter. One of the things on which was based the modern FTL drive. And yet this spread of antimatter was different in some way. There was too much of it. Normally there would only be traces in most of space, with concentrations around the hyperspace holes through which the antimatter came from who-knows-where. But there was never as much as this, unless...
"Dr. Graham?"
"Yes, Dr. Ranon?"
"You know those hyperspace antimatter holes. Are any around here?"
Dr. Graham pressed a few buttons on a console. "Yes," he finally replied. "In fact, there should be one just about where that anomaly is."
Dr. Ranon continued. "Do you suppose a hyperspace hole could grow in size?"
"I suppose so, under the right conditions. Why?"
"I think we have one now."

 A few hours later, the Saturn stopped in front of the anomaly's location. Dr. Ranon went to the bridge, and explained his theory to the captain.
"Is there any danger to the ship from this antimatter?" the captain asked.
"Not from this distance. But I recommend we don't get too close to the anomaly and raise deflector shields. Who knows what might happen."
"Recommendation noted. Dismissed."
Dr. Ranon was about to leave the bridge when suddenly the ship was shaken.
"Report," the captain commanded.
"Shields down to 90%," the navigator reported. "Damage to main engines. We've been hit by a photon beam. It came from inside the anomaly."
"Go to Red Alert," the captain ordered. "Compensate shields."
Dr. Ranon observed as another beam appeared and hit the ship.
"Shields down to 85%, sir."
A few seconds later, the navigator reported something else.
"Captain, we are picking up ships emerging from the antimatter spread."
"Ships?" the captain wondered. "How many?"
"Four, sir. No, five, ... six, seven. Seven ships, sir."
"Communications?"
"Communications down, sir."
Suddenly, a spark of light came from one of the ships.
"Incoming torpedo," the navigator reported.
Impact, and the ship shook, much harder than before.
"Sir," the helmsman reported, "shields are dropping fast. Down to 50%."
"Helmsman," the captain ordered, "lock on weapons and fire."
"Aye, sir."
The Saturn fired, but didn't do much damage. The other ships fired torpedoes.
"Helmsman, get us out of here, maximum speed."
"Main engines down, going on sub-light."
The torpedoes hit.
"Captain," an officer said, "scans indicate the torpedoes are constructed of antiprotons. They'll do a lot of damage to us."
"Sir, shields are down completely, weapons down to minimum, major damage on most decks."
The captain thought for a moment, before deciding his next move. Then he pressed a button on his console.
"This is the captain," he said. "All crew search all decks for surviving personnel, then stand by to implement emergency evacuation. Captain out."
Dr. Ranon ran to the lift and went straight down to his quarters. He went in, and found his seven-year-old daughter, Sally, lying on the floor, unconscious. He rushed over to her, and grabbed a piece of medical equipment. After a few minutes, Sally woke up. She opened her eyes, and smiled.
"You'll be fine, honey," Dr. Ranon assured her.
Just then the ship shook again. An officer came in the door.
"Dr. Ranon," he said, "please come to the shuttle bay as soon as possible. Number 2."
"Okay," he replied. The man left.
Dr. Ranon turned to Sally. "I'll explain later, honey. Now, is there anything you want to take with you? We're going to have to leave here."
Sally stared at him for a while, then said, "Oh, yes. I'll get them."
While Sally gathered a few things, Dr. Ranon packed a few things as well. In his mind, he was beginning to form a theory, and hoped to be able to use it. Fifteen minutes later, Dr. Ranon and Sally left the room and headed to the shuttle bay.
On the way, the captain's voice came through. "All personnel implement emergency evacuation, now."
At that, the Ranons ran to the shuttle bay as fast as possible. When they got there they found the rest of the crew. Some of them were boarding shuttles, and taking off.
Dr. Ranon and Sally headed to shuttle #15, the one which Dr. Ranon had been using previously for his experiments. They boarded it.
Shuttle #15, also named the Atlas, was one of the smaller shuttles. After all the damage there were unfortunately not many crew members left, so there were on average four crew members to each shuttle. There were eighteen shuttles, in both bays, and most of them could carry six or seven. There were originally 100 people on the Saturn.
By the time the last few shuttles were ready to launch, there was hardly anyone left, so they only took two or three people.
Dr. Ranon started up the Atlas' engines. Luckily, the shuttle had not suffered much damage during the hits. The shuttle lifted itself from the ground, and then slowly moved forward.
The shuttle passed through the force field enclosing the shuttle bay, then accelerated into space.
Dr. Ranon raised the shuttle's shields so they would hopefully not suffer too much damage.
Unfortunately, the seven ships which came from inside the antimatter spread were still firing at the starship. When they detected the shuttles they turned off and concentrated on shooting them down. The shuttles had small photon weapons installed on them, but they did little damage.
Dr. Ranon piloted the Atlas around, trying to escape the attacking ships. He and Sally saw some of the shuttles being hit down. They couldn't do anything for them.
Up ahead was a large comet flying by. Dr. Ranon saw it, and decided to risk the chance of getting away. He accelerated and manoeuvred the shuttle behind the comet so it was hidden from view.
One of the ships came in pursuit. The Atlas detected it on its scans. And it also detected something else. Emerging from the antimatter were more ships, and they were attacking as well.
"Well, Sally," Dr. Ranon said, "it seems that we're in a tight situation here. Any ideas?"
Sally thought for a moment. In the 24th century even young children had some knowledge of space travel. But in this case Sally was lost for words.
"Sorry," she replied.
"Well, we could try to stay hidden with this comet to escape, but that would be risky."
Then Dr. Ranon looked around at the instruments in the shuttle. As well as the shuttle's systems, there were a few of Dr. Ranon's experiments. Unfortunately, none of them so far had performed up to standard. But there was still the latest invention, which had yet to be tested, though it was ready for testing.
"What if we use the new mechanism, Sally?"
"I don't know, what does it do?"
"It'll get us out of here, that's for sure. But we may not survive."
"It's worth a try," Sally said. "Besides, I don't think we're going to escape with the comet much longer."
Sally pointed to the main screen. Around the bright glow of the comet came one of the large ships. It had detected them, and was preparing to attack.
Just then, the shuttle rocked heavily.
"What was that?" Sally asked.
Dr. Ranon glanced at one of the screens. "A shock wave," he explained. "Origin:" he hesitated, "the Saturn. It's been destroyed."
Then the shuttle rocked again. "It's still going," Sally said.
"We could use it to our advantage," Dr. Ranon said, shouting over the noise of the Atlas undulating. "It could propel us, and then we could use its force combined with the gravitation of the comet to gain enough energy to activate the warp component. It should work."
"Let's try it, then."
"Okay. Hold on, the next wave is coming in a few seconds."
The third shock wave hit the shuttle, and at almost the same time the attacking ship fired. Both hit, but the shields managed to hold up.
The Atlas was propelled forwards, and around the comet. With the added power of the engines, it then escaped the gravitational field of the comet, and achieved warp speed.
"Engaging mechanism now," Dr. Ranon announced, as he pushed a series of buttons.
There was a flash, and the shuttle disappeared, leaving the attacking ship's crew wondering what had happened.
"They must have had a self-destruct device or something," the captain said. "Anyway, they can't do much damage if they've somehow escaped. Let's get on with the mission."
But yet, somewhere beyond the dimensions of space and time, a shuttle was travelling, waiting to come back to the universe again.

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