Note: This short story is also published as its own in my profile. However, this isn't the final version of the entry. The final version will not be up in this compilation of short stories. It will be published as its own story, and will be entered to @SciFi's contest.

Enjoy, and please give critiques. It'll help me a lot.

* * * * *

"Captain's voice log, 2354, mission day 75.

We finally pushed into the zone where the 'Astragalus' recorded the anomaly. So far, we only found empty space. I was always skeptic about the Astragalus' reports and everything seems to support the theory this was all a big hoax and our mission a wild goose chase..."

"Cap? Need you on the bridge now. Eve registers an extensive asteroid field. And... oh my god!"

* * * * *

Captain Caccese's chair swiveled over to the controls as he heard his panicking crew over the intercom. As his chair's momentum went slower, the captain typed in a command. I wish voice commands for logging in were real.

A hologram, produced against the flight deck's window to a literal vacuum, rose out and displayed an HTML page of Orion-III's network system, with a green background and a long, white, empty horizontal bar that indicated him to type the password in order to login to Orion-III's communication and navigation networks.

He looked down on the control table, filled with sophisticated equipment and controls. On his sight revealed a keypad, revealing all the 26 letters of the modern alphabet. His fingers flew across the buttons, his memory yelling the password to him. Astragalus2103.

The hologram changed as soon as he entered the passcode. It revealed another HTML page he called the bridge, revealing the entire communication and navigation systems of Orion-III.

On yet another tab, he opened the Orion Archives -- a system that contains all files of the Orion Space Program, one of the programs under the Astragalus, the world's leading company in cosmological research and travel. He opened a document that contained one of Astragalus' most controversial discoveries.

"Published by: Astragalus - 14th Research Team, Sweden.

There are slightly more to the emptiness of the so-called the Cold Spot. Based on our observations, there are unusually-high concentrated amounts of radiation in the said region of emptiness. We propose that there might have been high concentrations of antimatter annihilating most of existing matter in the said region, releasing exponentially high amounts of energy in the form of a gamma ray burst."

Hopping back into Orion-III's communication systems, he logged into one of the channels. If the Kiruna theory was true, then may god help us all . . . even though I still doubt it. Our Universe is made of matter. Almost entirely of matter. Why would such amounts of antimatter exist?

As soon as the channel loaded, it showed his crew's faces, which tells him that things are about to head south.

"Cap, Eve registered an extensive asteroid field. We tried to register it in the ship's navigation system to activate our protocols in case of an asteroid strike, but the A.I. won't even register the field as an asteroid field!" Eriksson said in his Swedish accent.

His face, instead of his usual smiley, blond-haired face, his blue eyes were wide and he kept panting.

"Okay. Calm down," he told the Swedish man. "What do you mean, 'our navigation systems won't register the field'? Something wrong?"

"There's nothing wrong with our systems," Berger said as his face with brown hair and brown eyes appeared on the hologram. "Everything's working just fine."

"It won't be, when one of those objects crash with us," Eve added. The captain looked at her dirty blonde hair and narrowed brown eyes. She then sighed on screen.

"Just do something!" Eriksson yelled.

"Computer, show me the asteroid field," Captain Caccese told the computer.

"I apologise, but we have not detected any asteroid field," a computerized female voice replied.

"See?" Eriksson told him.

"Please calm down," the captain told him with a soft voice, like how a mother would calm her baby down.

"Computer, show us the local area."

Soon, the computer displayed a live view of what was outside the spaceship. Captain Caccese saw no asteroid close to the ship. Further, however, he observed thousands of stray asteroids and objects, in which he knew was in a collision course with Orion-III. The captain cursed under his breath, seeing how worse everything could turn out.

"Cap, should we push through?" Eve asked.

"Please no."

The captain paused. If our computer systems doesn't detect the asteroid field, then it must be made of something completely different.

He gasped. "Antimatter!"

His crew looked at him.

"If we collide with one of these things, this spaceship would be non-existent."

"How did you know that was antimatter?" Eve asked.

"Our navigation system isn't designed to detect antimatter. It only detects objects made of matter. Hence why the A.I. doesn't detect the asteroid field, because they're made of something else."

"Well, what do you know . . . Astragalus was actually correct."

"Let's get the heck out of here before it annihilates us all," the captain ordered.

"Cap! We have detected gamma radiation about to head in our direction!" Berger reported.

As if things couldn't get worse.

"More bad news, cap. I don't think we can accelerate in time to get out of the collision course."

"I'm out of here!" Eriksson then ran out of the camera.

"Erik!" they all called.

At this point, the captain recalled his science classes back in college. He remembered his professor, who once told him that when matter and antimatter annihilate, they create huge amounts of energy.

"Cap, we're basically dead," Eve told him. "It's over. The radiation, if not the antimatter, will kill us all."

"I don't think so."

"What do you mean?"

"Remember those piles of trash we still haven't disposed yet?"

"What are we going to do about them?"

"Throw them towards the asteroids."

"But they'll annihilate! We'll die before we could even do that!"

"Trust me, I know what I'm doing. I'm your captain, after all. Call Eriksson to dispose the trash."

Eve called his attention via the intercom. For the captain, however, Eve's words slowly sunk in. What if we were too late? What if our garbages doesn't match the material the asteroids are made of? What if it won't cause an annihilation to boost our trajectory? We're all ending up in our graves, anyway.

Eriksson appeared on the camera again. "What, cap?"

"Dispose our garbage off the spaceship. Make sure to throw them towards the asteroids."

"Are you serious?"

The captain sighed. "Just do it."

"Cap, the radiation is nearly about to hit us!"

Captain Caccese didn't move. He just watched Eriksson press a button. In his ears registered a slight rumble, a signal that tells him that Orion-III's trash are being thrown out.

Outside Orion-III, a hatch opened. Tons of garbage shaped into cubes escaped towards the asteroid. Orion-III's rockets began propelling, as fast as they could, as the cubes moved across the vacuum, between the ship and the asteroids.

As soon as the cubes touched the asteroids, it gave off a bright flash as tons of energy were released. The excess energy moved through the vacuum, eventually hitting the ship.

Back inside, the captain could see some red lights blaring.

"Warning! Back compartment is damaged! Requesting immediate repair! Sending distress call . . . ."

However, the captain, as well as the crew, could feel the ship move faster. The crew closed their eyes, hoping for one miracle -- to escape.

As more energy were released from the annihilation, what looked like a small and bright flash of light turned into a majestic bang, outshining even the most powerful supernovas in the Universe. The energy released pushed the ship into faster motion, disfiguring parts of the ship in the process.

"Cap! We can now activate hyperdrive!" Berger reported.

The cap looked at the hologram. We have reached high speeds by the energy pushing us even faster!

"Computer, initiate hyperdrive."

"Initiating in 10 . . ."

At the same time, another computerized voice announced, "Warning! We are approaching high levels of gamma radiation! Requesting immediate pullback!"

"9 . . ."

The computer counted down. When it reached five, Berger added, "We're about to die!"

"4 . . ."

"Please let us survive . . . ." Eriksson muttered.

"3 . . ."

"We'll die, anyways," Eve commented.

"2 . . ."

The captain prayed that he and his crew will survive. God help us . . . .

"1 . . ."

The crew closed their eyes.

"Initiating hyperdrive!"

He felt the ship rumble. He looked at his view outside the ship, and saw thousands of dots -- galaxies and stars alike, form a majestic view. With everything he got worried about, he smiled a little bit, despite his heart wanting to pound out of his chest. However, he felt uncomfortable, wanting to hurl his insides out, gasp for fresh air only found on Earth . . . or other planets.

Soon, white lines started appearing, and what was once a majestic view of the Universe became nothing as the ship moved across the vacuum at nearly impossible speeds.

One thing's for certain though . . . The world, if not the galaxy, is not going to believe what they have found -- a huge antimatter field, just like what Astragalus had hypothesized.

Even though they had found something, the captain swore that he'll never go back to the Cold Spot again.