#flashfiction

Doctor Mortimer Powers completed the pre-launch checklist and felt his baby hum to life. The starship, which he called Destiny, had taken twelve years to build and he had spent his entire adult life designing the ship systems and the Continuum drive.
The speed of light was immutable but Powers found the shortcut around the limitations of the universe by finding a way to temporarily exit the universe and re-enter at another point.
The first jump had been anticlimactic. Only the finest instruments recorded the disappearance and reappearance of the test drone a mere three microns to the left of its original position, but it proved his theories.
Millions of dollars from true believers had funded his researches until the first successful Continuum jump threw a drone across space to Barnard’s star. The drone brought back images of a distant star and its planets. Mankind’s path to the stars was now open and the government invested billions in the race to own the stars.
Today culminated that effort. Today the Destiny stood tall at Cape Canaveral awaiting its fateful jump. A starship had no need of a launch facility, it could enter Continuum from anyplace but the historic site of man’s first flight to another celestial body seemed the appropriate site for the first manned flight to a distant star.
Powers had fought tooth and nail to command the mission. Forty years of his life had been spent developing this dream and he wanted to be the first man to pilot a starship using his drive. Public opinion swayed the experts opinions away from denying the sixty year old his moment of glory.
“Continuum in 30 seconds,” Powers said.
His words were relayed to the four other scientists aboard Destiny and to the receivers at mission control and around the globe. All humanity held their breath as the countdown cycled down to the historic moment.
“3, 2, 1 – launch”
Powers pressed the flashing icon on his screen to trigger the Continuum drive and Destiny vanished from its pad.
Colors flitted at the corners of his eye. His inner ear spasmed as the universe disappeared. For less than a second Powers experienced the nothingness of the Continuum universe and then his own reality snapped back into place around him.
Zero gravity; they had arrived.
He triggered the external cameras. Every screen on the ship sprang to life and showed the majesty of space around them.
Destiny floated among the stars. Powers triggered the navigation program and in less than a minute the supercomputer informed him that Destiny was 40 parsecs from Earth. They had done it.
Powers sat back to enjoy the view. Enormous nebulae swirled around the ship. He allowed himself to indulge in pareidolia, identifying shapes in the interstellar clouds. There was a tree; there a rabbit. Motion in one of the clouds drew his attention. The stardust rolled and seemed to draw back. Powers leaned forward, hoping to see a star through the dust. An enormous eye turned to regard the small ship.
Destiny’s crew screamed as the creature, larger than a planet, opened its maw and then swallowed their ship whole.