It’s launch day. The crew has been working towards this goal for the last
fourteen years. It’s only an interim goal, though. Their final destination
won’t be reached for another 216 years. Captain Halan Yenant won’t be alive
to realize the dream, but he still wants to do it. He wants to push forward,
and find a new home on the other side of the galaxy. People often ask him
why he would attempt such a thing. It’s not particularly dangerous—at least
not compared to what his parents went through to flee to this universe in
the first place—but the rewards are impossible to know. What’s out there? Is
there a planet hospitable to human life? Is it any better than what could be
discovered in the stellar neighborhood, or maybe just a little further out?
A hundred and fifty-thousand light years is a hell of a trip when you don’t
know what you’re looking for, and don’t much care. They’re doing it because
they can, and because they couldn’t do it before. Yenant’s ancestors lived
in a tiny universe, populated primarily by white monsters who would rather
see the humans dead. Now that they’re here, they have room to spread out,
yet they’ve not done it. Every single one of the eleven billion refugees—and
all their recently born descendants—still live in the Gatewood Collective.
There are no terrestrial planets here. They orbit the host star in
gargantuan centrifugal cylinders. They’re great; they have everything they
could ever need, but they aren’t natural, and Halan never considered them
to be his home.
When he was a boy, Halan was hanging out in his parents’ lounge when a man
walked in with an interesting idea. A friend of his thought it might be cool
to send a spaceship from here, to the outer edge of the outer ring of the
Milky Way galaxy. Of course, there are plenty of stars beyond this imaginary
border, but if they were going to do this, they ought to place the
destination somewhere. The man, who named himself Omega, was a clone of an
engineer. Omega was created to be responsible for a modular spacecraft
destined to connect every star system in the galaxy. He had abandoned his
post, but was seemingly trying to make up for it. He thought Project
Extremus sounded nice, but the two people in charge of the solar system
scrapped it, believing it to be too outrageous, and possibly unethical.
Halan knew better, so he dedicated his life to learning everything he could
about space travel, so he could one day fulfill the hypothetical mission. He
never thought he would be leading it, though. He couldn’t do it on his own,
and plenty of other people thought it was a nice idea too. He was chosen to
be the ship’s first captain, and he is planning to honor that by being the
absolute best possible.
Most of the people going on this journey with him have already been living
on the ship. It’s just as comfortable and spacious as their original homes,
so they figured there was no point in waiting. Some may have been worried
about being left behind if they didn’t wait there for a few months. The
pre-launch inspection has already been done, so right now, Halan is standing
at the entrance, watching the stragglers arrive, along with the last of the
cargo. Captain Kestral McBride and Lieutenant Ishida Caldwell come up last,
after everyone is in. They run the entire solar system. The refugees from
Ansutah have their own form of government, which runs things on a day-to-day
basis, but anything that impacts a greater region than a few sections of a
centrifugal cylinder has to go through the two of them. No one elected them
to this position, but they were the ones who built the cylinders in the
first place, and facilitated the people’s rescue from a dangerous home
universe. Since the arrival, no one has questioned their right as the
ultimate leadership.
The two of them had to sign off on this entire project, though going against
Halan’s people’s wishes probably would have caused more problems than it was
worth. They want to leave, and that should be respected. They engineered
their own ship, so little should be in the way of them realizing their goal.
Even so, Team Keshida, as they are collectively called, are still not
extremely jazzed about this situation. They have always been rather adept at
hiding it. “Do you have everyone and everything you need?”
Captain Yenant’s lieutenant, Rita Suárez comes up to his side, holding a
tablet. As she can trace her family tree back to one of the original members
of the group of humans who first lived on Ansutah, she’s a bit of a
celebrity. She doesn’t like the notoriety, though, which is why she’s
leaving. The reality is that this decision has only made things worse. She
taps on her pre-launch checklist. “The last of the biomolecular synthesizer
back-up parts have been loaded up.” She checks it off the list. “We should
be good to go, sir.”
Captain McBride smiles. “There’s one more thing that’s not on your list.”
“There couldn’t be,” Rita protests. “I was very thorough—”
“It’s not on your list, because it wasn’t decided until this morning,” the
other Lieutenant, Ishida interrupts. She taps on her wrist device. Omega
suddenly appears next to them. “He’ll be going with you.”
“I must voice my concern,” Rita continues to argue. “I was not made aware of
this, and he is not on the manifest. You cannot simply add whoever you wish
to be rid of. This in an internal matter—”
Ishida interrupts again, but this time with merely an authoritative wave of
her hand. “We are placing him on this vessel to be rid of him, yes, but we
could have just as easily dispatched him to Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida, or
Teagarden. We’re sending him with you, because he went against my wishes,
and told you about this idea...my idea. These are the consequences for his
actions. If he thinks it’s such a good idea, then he can see it through. I
don’t really care whether you have anything to say about it, or not. You can
shoot him out an airlock once you take off, for all I care. I literally have
a million more just like him.”
“Ain’t nobody like me,” Omega contends.
Ishida taps on her cuff some more. Omega’s eyes roll to the back of his
head, and he faints, but before he hits the floor, he disappears. “I’ve
hidden him somewhere on the Extremus. You can either waste your time trying
to find him, or you can just stick to your schedule.”
Halan looks over at the other Captain. Kestral looks back. “Don’t expect me
to argue with her. Her title may make it sound like she’s my subordinate,
but she’s actually my partner. If she says Omega stays on the ship, he stays
on the ship.”
“Very well,” Halan decides.
“Sir,” Rita presses.
“We will launch on time, and then we will search the ship for him. Don’t
worry, Rita. I’m sure we’ll find some use for a brash and disgruntled clone
of an engineer.”
Rita is not an unreasonable person. She knows when she’s been beat, and she
will concede graciously. “Very well, sir. You have five minutes until you
need to speak to the passengers. I’ll prep the crew.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant. I’ll be up there in a minute.”
“One more thing,” Kestral says after Rita leaves. She takes out a small
roundish object, and hands it to Halan ceremoniously. “This is a recall
device. If you hold the string, and press the top button several times, all
of this will be undone.”
“What do you mean?” Halan questions. “All of what?”
“The mission, the trip,” Ishida clarifies. “It’s a reset button. If
something goes wrong, and you have no other options, this will reverse time,
and put everyone back here instantaneously. It will have quite literally
never happened. Once your tenure is over, you may pass it on to your
successor. But I wouldn’t tell anyone else about it, If I were you.”
A confused Halan stares at them. “This is a generation ship. What if
something goes wrong in a hundred years? They’ll just be erased from
existence?”
“The captain won’t,” Kestral says. “Or rather, whoever pushes the button.
They’ll be returned with all these people, even if they haven’t been born
yet now. They alone will survive that paradox, should it come to that.”
He keeps watching them with that look. Then he drops the device on the
ground, and stomps on it. “I won’t allow that. We live and die together.
That’s why we’re doing this.”
“Very well, sir,” Kestral echoes Rita from earlier.
“Good luck, Captain,” Ishida says cordially.
“Thank you.”
“You better go.”
“Close it up,” Halan says as he’s walking up the ramp. The ship’s AI seals
all entrances. Halan transports to the bridge, where the crew is working on
prelaunch. “Everything on schedule?” he asks them.
“Yes, sir,” replies the Executive Bridge Officer.
“Keep at it. I need to address the passengers.”
“Of course, sir.”
Halan steps into his bridge quarters. He readies himself with a good glass
of water, and some speech warm-ups. Finally, when it’s time, he approaches
the microphone. “Passengers of the Extremus. Some say that our journey to
this day began fourteen years ago, when a man came to us with an idea his
superior came up with about traveling across the galaxy. Others say that it
truly began once we were rescued from our home universe, and brought here,
back in 2230. I wasn’t around for that, but I am grateful for it. Still,
there are those who claim the journey actually began centuries ago, while
our ancestors were struggling on the human continent of Ansutah. However you
look at it, I’m not personally concerned with when the journey began. What
matters is where we’re going, and how we get there from here. We are about
to launch from the Gatewood Collective, and fly at reframe speeds, across
thousands of light years. It will take us two hundred and sixteen years.
“We do not possess the kind of longevity technology the rest of the stellar
neighborhood does. We live day to day, and we do that for about a hundred
and twenty years. Not one of us will be alive to see our new home. This is
your last chance to avoid the truth that you will die in space, far from any
star. We’ll be taking off in eleven minutes. That should be enough time to
make it to the nearest airlock. Anyone inside of one of these will be
teleported out of the ship with no questions. I hope none of you do, but
that is your choice, and I will understand. Our numbers are great now. We
started out with a few hundred hopefuls, but have since grown to the
thousands. I find that impressive. Like I said, none of you will see the
planet we are destined to name Extremus, and that is the bravest thing I’ve
seen anyone do.” Halan clears his throat. “If you are a member of the crew,
please take action stations. If you are a passenger, and you haven’t
already, make yourself at home, and enjoy the ride.”
Minutes later, they’re gone.
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