The AtomSpheres (ePub)

The AtomSpheres Resort is an orbiting satellite comprising five vast spheres looped together with rings and assembled in the shape of the text book laboratory atom. Each sphere contains some sort of amusement park, or green spaces, lakes, and aquatic parks. The rings comprise the accommodation., and the utilities.

The AtomSpheres is a masterpiece of gravitational engineering, where visitors can walk on the wall, or the ceiling, every surface is used in one form or another. The Atom has been the go-to holiday destination for over two hundred years. But it is showing signs of age, it has problems and parts are wearing out. But rather than spend money fixing those problems, the governing board of directors decide to attach another sphere-Spher'rios.

Spher'rios will be the showcase sphere where the Praes-Eedan Corporation will set out their future vison. But the problems will not go away, and rather than solving their problems, Spher'rios becomes the problem. Is it just one sphere too many? And whilst the Tech-Engineering department is searching for the root of the problem, Spher'rios disappears with everybody in it.

Five-thousand-eight-hundred-and-six people, and a sphere 2 km in diameter, simply vanished. One second it was there, a split second later it was gone!

Then, thirty-years later, the Deep Space Fleet recovers an emergency CubeSat beacon that is relaying a Mayday signal from the lost sphere. The serial numbers checkout, but the damage and encrusting looks much older. After careful examination and carbon dating, and a lot of disbelief and even more checking and rechecking, everyone agrees that this in not thirty-year-old damage. No, this damage is nearly a thousand years old!