The concentration of energy in the very tip of that cosmic storm vortex was sufficient to reduce everything in the shuttle to a fuzzy smear. The craft, the crew, the kelpies and even the sheep debris were all reduced to nothing more than a patch of molecular mist. So, dear reader, that’s it you will be thinking. That’s the end of the kelpie adventure story. It is all over. Kaput shuttle. Kaput crew. Kaput kelpies – sad to say, all finish, no more. Amen.

But no…. There’s more! But, our space kelpies were made of sterner stuff than that. You see, kelpies don’t quit that easily and this is where our story really starts to get interesting.

You see, in deep space there lives a largely unknown race of uniquely creative “creatures” called space-wraiths. A lot of people don’t know about space wraiths, but believe me, they do exist and there are in fact lots of them out there. The thing about space-wraiths is that they have no physical form. They exist only in the shape of thoughts. They can be anywhere or everywhere… or… nowhere, all at once. These things tend to make them a little different to all of the rest of us. Every single space wraith has powers beyond your or my comprehension and one of their best tricks is that they can make anything at all from nothing at all.

A couple of space-wraiths can construct a small planet or even a star system at a pinch and they often do so, just to amuse themselves. Most of what is out there has been made by wraith folk and you only have to look around our own Milky Way solar system to appreciate just how much mischief these freaky little chaps can get up to. Space-wraiths should be scary but they are not because they have a great sense of humour and only do good creative things.

It was just a small family of space-wraiths that came upon the molecular smudge that used to be our space shuttle and its contents. Drifting about in the nothingness between the mighty galaxies out there, this wraith family immediately felt the forlorn presence of the Kelpie spirits. They felt this before anything else. It was for them, like coming onto the site of a train crash and they were profoundly moved by the apparent decency of the Kelpies and they wanted to help.

The wraiths had a merge-think and agreed to gather up the shuttle puddle to completely rebuild it on the spot - right there and then. They wanted to meet the Kelpie people and they wanted to help get them safely back home to Oz. While creating an ordinary space shuttle from scratch would normally have been child’s play forward for them, this mishmash of atoms was quite a puzzle. Sorting out which atoms were ovine, which were metallic, plastic, ceramic, canine, human, and so on was just the start. What a business!

It looked like a construction site with piles of bits and pieces all over the place all sitting there in the middle of nothing. But what joy! Those wraiths were in their element. They were having a ball, cracking jokes about “wraithing” against the clock and having great fun with constructive improvisations as they went along.

The more frivolous (younger) members of the wraith team (perhaps each no more than just 100 million years old) were improving on the structures of the original shuttle components as they pieced them all back together. They called it “free-styling” and they chuckled as they went about their work (in the throats they didn’t actually have) – and that’s a pretty cool trick anyone would have to agree.

As the shuttle took shape again it became quickly clear how grand the new one was going to be. Superb, splendid, magnificent, awesome… all of that and then some… But more of that later…

So you know what to do, don’t you?... yes, don’t miss the next exciting episode. Stay tuned, this story gets better all the time.