As Hayden finished his final preparations for the voyage, he reflected on his decision. He was going to leave his home and his company in the Kuiper belt to make a new home elsewhere. Tensions were rising in the inner solar system, as the New Zealandic Democracy and the Mediterranean Coalition continued their silent glaring contests. This coupled with the increasingly divided political landscape of the Associated Stations in which he lived, led both Hayden and a small group of people to decide to leave. With the solar system largely filled in by other people already there was only one direction left to go, out. Out farther than any human has ever gone. Out beyond Sol’s solar sheath and into the farthest reaches of its gravity well. Out past where Voyager is still flying. Out to where the only ever visual came from the brief snapshots taken by Reisende 2 and 5 as they sped off towards Alpha Centauri A and B respectively. Out to where it would take months for any communications to reach them, and years for any ship. They were going out to the Oort Cloud.
This was no spur of the moment decision, it had taken months for the preparations to be complete, largely funded through Hayden’s own wealth. It all began when a group of disenfranchised voters decided they might as well leave the A.S. with the way things were going. They were largely being hyperbolic, but a small subset thought this was a great idea and started crowdfunding a voyage away from everyone else. It was when this small group hit seventy five percent of their goal that they realized there was a real demand for this, and they started looking for people who knew how to govern a station.
Here was where Hayden came in. He had already been silently frustrated with the direction of the A.S. and this crowdfunding campaign was the catalyst that made him decide to actually leave. He already had experience in leadership roles, and he was the head of the Hayden Construction Company so he could easily aid them in building their ships and stations. Absolutely floored, the leader of this group, Riley Dawes, accepts and development truly begins. As word got out that someone was making an expedition to the Oort Cloud, more and more people realized they wanted to leave and asked for a spot on the ship. This quickly grew from a small group of the disenfranchised, to an exodus of the dissatisfied. Construction was scaled up again and again, eventually forcing Hayden to limit the ship twenty thousand people on the first journey with promises that more could come along afterwards.
Which brings us to the present day. The Arc-class ship PCT Void Breacher has been completed, several prefabricated habitats are already on board, all personal vessels have been docked inside of it to take full advantage of the Void Breacher’s massive engines and efficiency, and all but five of the twenty thousand passengers have been loaded. These five are Hayden himself, his right hand man Michael, and three scientists who are using this expedition to establish a research station in the Oort Cloud. This group of scientists was the last to sign up and the last to arrive, and they were the people everyone was waiting on.
“Where the hell are these idiots? Departure was set for three hours ago, and I know that they arrived on the station yesterday,” Hayden growled, he had been preparing this expedition for nearly a year and to have a delay this late in the game, even a minor one, was infuriating.
“Come now Hayden, I’m sure they have a good reason to be late,” Michael said, attempting to placate him. “Maybe they are waiting on some shipment for their research that they won’t be able to get once we set off, or maybe they got lost. This station can be kind of confusing for people who are new here.”
“There is a full map and guidance system they can access online if they have even the slightest bit of sense,” Hayden sighed, already knowing Michael was right.
“Even with directions, stations tend to be pretty confusing, especially for those who have lived in gravity wells all their lives. Not to mention that the internet in the outer solar system is structured completely differently from those around planets,” Michael continued, calming Hayden to a more reasonable state.
“Fine, they get some leeway. But if they aren’t here in the next hour then we’re leaving without them.”
“Well I suppose that’s fair,” Michael admitted, “Speaking of departure, this may be a little late to ask this, but are you sure this is the right thing to do? You’re leaving the company you built from nothing to the biggest company in the Kuiper Belt all so you can go govern a small settlement in the Oort Cloud, and that might not even last past your five year term!”
“Well I suppose it is a little odd, but to be honest I’ve been growing tired of this life. Building the Hayden Construction Company was my greatest joy, but recently I have barely been building anything. Do you remember when we first started out? It was just you, me, and a shipload of elbow grease making a station from almost nothing. That was what got me going, that feeling of progression, of advancing and building a foundation of something great. Now that Hayden Co. is a fully fledged company, I’m out of my depth. I’ve been trying to get Grace to take over for me for years now, and this is what finally made her accept. You and I both know she has a better mind for the complex workings of a company than I do, but she didn’t want to replace me. In a few years Hayden Co. will probably be bigger than it ever was under me, and I look forward to seeing her progress without me holding her back.”
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“That’s… surprisingly well thought out coming from you Hayden, any regrets?”
“Okay, first off I think things out plenty you jackass, and yes I do have one major regret,” Hayden said, smiling at his oldest friend.
“Oh? And what is that Hayden? Still hung up on not getting that Triton contract?” Michael teased.
“No, that’s not it, and you know we were the better choice for that job! The only reason they could go lower is because they skimped on the reactive shielding, and look what happened! Five months into operation and they had a major depressurization on the viewing deck! But no, that’s not my regret. My regret is naming it Hayden Construction Company.”
“Wait really? Of all the things you did wrong, that is what you’re hung up on?”
“Yes Michael, that is what I’m hung up on. If I had any idea it would ever get this big I would have put more than five seconds of thought into the name. It has been bothering me since year one, but changing the name was always too much work, and by the time we had secretaries to do all that paperwork for us the cost of rebranding would have been huge. But anyway, how about you Michael? Got anything you’re going to miss?”
“Not really, I’ve never really had the time to set down roots anywhere besides our company, and a lot of them are coming along with us. I mean I’ll miss Grace, but I’ve learned that anywhere you go will always be interesting so I’ll stick with you.”
Just then, the scientists tumbled out of a door into the main hangar, cutting short their discussion. The scientists certainly looked like they were running late. All three of them were sweating from exertion, and had this slightly frantic look in their eyes that told of their hours-long search for the ship. Two of them were carrying a large box between them, which seemed to be the cause of their tardiness.
Hayden immediately jumped from his seat to help them, he couldn’t bear to wait any longer to set off. “Here, let me help you with that,” he said, taking a hold of the box and guiding them towards the loading bay, “I’m Hayden, the captain of this ship and you wouldn’t believe how happy I am that you’re finally here.”
Slightly taken aback by his abrupt entrance, the scientists proceeded to introduce themselves in turn.
The most serious of the trio, and the only one who didn’t look completely stressed out, spoke first, “You’re Hayden Emere right? The head of Hayden Construction Company? Anyway, greetings Captain Emere, I am Catherine Willis the head of this research team. I apologize for our late arrival, someone forgot to finish loading our probes last night.”
The tallest of the three responded, “Well I’m sorry that the shipment log was wrong. How was I supposed to know there were seven probes and not six like it said in the message? Oh, and I’m Brett Larson, the guy who is apparently not much more than a pack mule Cathy.”
“First of all you were there supervising when the probes were loaded onto the ship. Did you think there was just an extra probe lying around for some other purpose? And secondly, there was a correction sent less than an hour later telling us about the seventh probe, were you just not paying attention at that point?” Catherine snapped.
“Really? There was a correction notice? I certainly didn’t see one. Just look at my inbox!” Brett fumed, pulling up his data pad, “See! There are… two correction notices. Guess I just didn’t look at my inbox after loading them up, sorry Cathy.” Looking slightly embarrassed, Brett put away his datapad and got back to carrying the box, “Thanks for helping us by the way Captain Emere.”
“Oh it’s no problem, I just want to get this ship moving as quickly as possible. And call me Hayden if you’re going to call me anything,” Hayden explained. Then, turning to the third scientist he said, “And I caught two of your names just now, but I didn’t manage to learn yours.”
The third scientist, looking slightly surprised Hayden remembered to ask his name said, “Hello, uh, Hayden. I’m Richard Grover. Nice to meet you, and thanks for waiting for us.”
“Nice to meet you too Richard. Now you three let’s get you and your probe on the ship so we can set off. And while you’re here I’ll introduce you to Michael too,” Hayden said jovially, he called Michael over and introduced them, “Michael this is Catherine, Brett, and Richard, and this is Michael.”
“Nice to meet you three. And looks like I was right Hayden, they were fetching something for their research weren’t they,” Michael said.
“Yes Michael you were right, how could you possibly have predicted that people were delayed because they had to go get something they thought they didn’t need to get? Your precognition is amazing,” Hayden deadpanned, and with significantly more enthusiasm he exclaimed, “Now let’s get on that ship!”
And with that final stumbling block out of the way they took off. The Void Breacher carried twenty thousand people, five hundred personal transport ships, and significant chunks of what would later become Voidborne station into the void it was named after. The two year journey passed uneventfully, the majority of the passengers in cryostasis for the trip except for two major occasions. The first was when the Void Breacher officially crossed the boundary of the sun’s plasma sheath, officially entering interstellar space. The entire ship was woken up for this event, and there was a great amount of celebration as they are officially the first humans to enter this area of space. The second was when the Void Breacher reached the halfway point of its voyage. On this occasion the main crew was awoken so they could finally choose a final destination, now that the Oort cloud was in view. They decided on a particularly dense cluster of rocky bodies. And with that the Void Breacher glided silently towards its destination and arrived without a hitch.