I heard voices in the dark debate the red supergiant’s identity, the consensus agreeing it was Betelgeuse, a star over three hundred times the diameter of our sun and ten thousand times as luminous. If correct, then we had been transported to another section of the Orion spiral arm.

And then one of my cabin mates turned to me and addressed me as Bill.

So now I had an identity. The consciousness that had been Michael Gabriel had hitched a ride in the body and mind of William C. Raby. I … or should I say we, were a marine geneticist, selected for Mars Colony, not by merit, but by extensive international private bank dealings that had helped fund the journey.

Like many of the other passengers, Bill Raby had known the right people to bribe and had the means and political clout to save himself.

But you weren’t really this Bill Raby, were you?

That’s just it, son, in every sense, I had become him. My consciousness dominated his, I felt his fears as if they were my own. I had his memories, and his overwhelming sense of guilt, for like me, Bill Raby had also left a loved one back on Earth, and it was tearing him up inside.

The desperateness of our situation quickly spread throughout the cabin. Our trip through the space tunnel had destroyed most of our ship’s electronics, damaging our outer hull, crippling our engines. Like the rest of the fleet, we were hurtling through space, out of control, being reeled in along powerful gravitational forces that our damaged sensors could not identify.

Another wormhole?

No, it was a planet, its atmosphere vermilion, its appearance in many ways similar to that of Mars, though closer to Earth in size. Like the Red Planet, the alien world possessed two barren moons, one the size of Earth’s lone satellite, the second—a smaller potato-shaped body, perhaps fourteen miles in diameter.

Panic levels rose as our twelve vessels plummeted through this alien world’s atmosphere. With our heat shield damaged, our cabin began heating up like a furnace. Children screamed. Passengers held one another, hoping and praying for another miracle all of us knew in our hearts we didn’t deserve.

But another miracle did happen, coming this time from our gallant crew, who managed to angle the shuttle’s descent just enough to allow us to slip through the searing atmosphere without combusting into ash. A collective cheer embraced the cabin as the blackness of space morphed into a magnificent cardinal red horizon. Aerodynamics took over as our winged vessel soared like a plane high above an alien landscape. As we descended, we could make out a geology composed of barren volcanic rock, splashed with patches of moss.

Fear returned moments later as we continued losing altitude, dropping fast, with no suitable landing place in site.