Second Visitor Into the Sun (ePub)

First there was Oumuamua and now Second Visitor has arrived in the Solar System. Only the United Federation of Planets starship Columbia, captained by Elias Long, can intercept. The Columbia quickly leaves Phobos base. So quickly that Harlan Smith, President of Mars, is still aboard, an unwitting stowaway. But who sent this interstellar craft and why? Where did they come from and where were they going? What things beyond the scope of human experience are contained in the ship? Are technologies inside that man, a violent species, is not meant to have? Humans have thousands of questions and Long is determined to find the answers. Columbia's computers are rapidly filled with the records of a civilization whose sun has gone nova, the heart and soul of a race of sentient beings, but where are the Visitors? Is this a ghost ship destined to travel the galaxy for all eternity? As exploration is winding down and Second Visitor and Columbia approach the sun, a sudden course correction necessitates an emergency evacuation. The last exploration party led by Long, accompanied by a Visitor, barely makes it back to Columbia in the cargo shuttle Phobos IV, the exterior partly melted. But wait! Did everyone make it back to the Columbia in time and where was Harlan Smith??? Did he remain in the vessel, an interstellar stowaway destined to travel to journey's end? There was no turning back without getting incinerated, but it wouldn't do to have lost the President of Mars.