“Today, Ladies and Gentlemen, you embark on a great journey…”

PT was tough. Captain Carter ran the crew hard, drilling them with exercise after exercise. Juno even felt herself getting a little winded despite her years of training. The First Officer was not required to join, but Juno felt it was right to join in as second in command.

Captain Carter, on the hand, walked among his crew like a drooling lion, inspecting their efforts. If someone was not giving it their all, he would tear them a new one.

“...not a journey to a specific destination on the galactic map, but a destination in time. You are the travelers of the future, agents of its coming. Right now, your lives, your decisions, will determine the future of, not just mankind, but all species across the galaxy. The Milky Way is untamed. Wild. After today, through you, it will be a little less so.”

After PT was finished, Captain Carter stood before the crew and nodded. “Good work, ladies and gentlemen. We’re going to show the rest of the galaxy that we aren’t afraid to get dirty. We aren’t afraid to work hard. Humankind is depending on us. We won’t let them down.”

“Yes, sir!” his crew responded with the vigor of battle hardened hell walkers.

“Go clean up and get dressed. Members of the Board of Human Affairs, and the Earth Advisory Board both will be here to see us off. There will be a lot of important people in this bay soon. Look your best. You have one hour. Dismissed.” The crew filed off the bay deck back onto the ship like a line of ants. The main crew headed for the adjoined locker rooms, where they’d take turns cleaning up. The officers headed to their personal one.

Captain Carter met with Juno as she watched them file in with dictator style authority.

“Juno, I want the crew in line and looking proper before the higher ups show. Make sure they’re in tip top shape.” He then recited ceremony lines to her, where each crew type should gather and how they should stand. It would be her job to make sure the crew looked as good as possible for whoever showed.

Juno wondered who all that would be. Would the Assistant to the Commandant show? Was he even still aboard the Luna 1? Maybe the Chief Station Officer? Probably not Alloy, or Miller, and not even Hernandez. It struck in her that moment that the meeting would be the last time she’d probably ever see Miller or Hernandez.

“I want you front and center, Juno. You’re my shining star, understand?” That was the first compliment she’d heard him give anybody.

“Yes, sir.”

“And I want Leto, Carrigan, Demont, Lee, and… Geseck at the forefront of their company. Milo, Mills, and Hamburg at the front of theirs, and Engineers Micheals, Halsey, Jimenez at the forefront of the engineers. Everyone else is in line behind them.” A couple of them were like her, impressive in their field, but not all of them. It was a bit strange he wanted a few of the rookies front and center.

“Oh, and what’s that specialist’s name, the Second Aeronautical Operations Technician?” Juno hadn’t yet put faces to ranks and professions quite perfectly, yet.

“Which one, sir?”

“The woman with the potato face.”

“Oh, that’s Boucher, sir.” Boucher was a french name, pronounced as Boo shay, but Juno hadn’t known that. She pronounced it as it was spelled, knowing full well she was probably butchering it.

“Right, put her in the back.” Juno hid a scowl. Oh, that was it, then.

The ship was cleaned, primed, and calibrated. The crew was straightened and propper. Weapons were stowed, armor stored, gear locked up. Water levels, power levels, engine feedback: check, check, check.

“You will go places no human has ever gone before. You will see things no human has ever seen before. You will meet new species, interact with new cultures, new civilizations and you will do so bearing the reputation of all the humans before you. You will do so, affecting the future reputation of all humans who will come after. You are the tip of the spear, the inciting action, the starting word to a long story that humanity will tell. Make us proud. Make humanity proud.”

The Board member from Human Affairs could talk a good game. Inspiration rolled through the crew. A little fire even started in Juno.

She stood beside Captain Carter at full attention, the crew in rows behind her. Engineers were with engineers, soldiers with soldiers, scientists with scientists. When Juno first lined them up, her suspicions were confirmed. All of those selected to be in front were either the best in their field, or more commonly, the prettiest crewmates.

She knew what Carter was up to. He was playing to command. The man clearly knew his way around politics. Juno didn’t like that, and she despised politics like the sick plague it was.

The Assistant to the Commandant was one of the many faces of high ranking officers attending. Lin caught her eye a few times while the speech was going on. Her feelings of pride clashed with begrudgery over the thought of him. He was the reason she was here, for better or worse Juno hadn’t decided yet.

There were others in the crowd who looked very important. Among a litany of different suits, uniforms, and pay grades, officials from all walks of life had come to see off this ragtag group on their adventure. Juno guessed it was exciting for them, like some kind of childhood dream come true. Or maybe it was like powerful children playing with toys, pushing pawns in random directions to see what happens. She still hadn’t made up her mind yet which one it was.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Juno recognized none of the other officials except an astronaut: the Chief Officer of Luna 1. An older woman with graying hair and dark skin, she looked like somebody’s grandmother. The only way Juno knew who the woman was by her outfit, a black, white and blue tailored jumpsuit.

The woman looked soft and squishy. Years of delegating on a space station will do that a person, Juno guessed.

The Board of Human Affairs speaker was a mature man as well, balding with distinctly asian features. She didn’t know much about the Board, except that they oversaw all human interest in the systems. They were a big deal, so whoever this was came from a long way to get here. Juno also recognized the dress of an Earth Advisory Board member, another big shot. They were concerned with uniquely Earth problems.

The Board of Human Affairs member stepped back when his speech was finished. In his place stepped up a clean cut man with jet black hair, blue eyes, and an outfit that spoke more about him than anything else. He was the Earth Advisory Board Director.

“Engage core. Ready for dust off. Let’s get this thing moving.” Captain Carter told the pilots. He stood on the flight deck, watching the front-of-ship displays. Juno stood beside him anticipating the jump. The docking bay doors slowly opened, heaving under their own great weight. Stars from beyond met them. The moon was in shadow, but the Earth was beautiful and blue.

This is it, Juno thought. This was possibly the last time she’d ever see Earth again. The moment needed some kind of ceremony, but she didn’t know what. Captain Carter said nothing while the ship charged.

“In your places. Ready for ship lift. Be prepared for gravity fluctuations. Remain in your seats until in free G,” The pilots instructed over the intercom. Neither Carter nor Juno listened to that last bit. They’d been through enough lift offs to earn their space legs. As a matter of fact, Juno could even grav jump standing.

“Let me tell you a story. About a hundred years ago, Earth was much different than it was today. Tech was different. Space exploration was different. The galaxy was different. Well, in that time we were burgeoning explorers with half the systems we have today. As you all know humanity doesn’t have a lot of neighbors, so it was odd when one day a ship arrived in orbit of Earth. An alien species, the Kurotids. Peaceful. No threat to humanity at all.”

The Voyager 8 lurched. The grav drive kicked in. Engines fluttered, causing the ship to groan, and ventilation to stir. The ship rose from the docking bay like a possessed body.

“They were simple travelers. Nomads. People from a lost civilization a thousand years old. They had stumbled by Earth without ever knowing we were there. Simply by accident did the Kurotids learn of our existence. We were much younger then, and much less a presence on the galactic scale.

“They stuck around for a while, trading ideas, and stories and cultural curiosities. We as humans were fascinated. A new species, visiting us? How special. They as nomads however, had seen it all. They’d seen distant suns of a thousand earth-like planets, stepped foot on uninhabitable hellzones, seen the distant parts of the Milky Way where only dead history remains. They’d seen it all. Completely unremarkable were we, all of our achievements, all of our progress and time in this galaxy summed up by simple curiosity. They were gone shortly after they arrived. They’d sated their curiosity and went back to the stars. You don’t hear about the nomad tribes of the Kurotids much anymore. They’re gone to history.”

Voyager 8 slid silently out of the docking bay gate. Empty space took the ship in. Luna 1 stayed behind.

“Charge grav drive for jump.”

“Charging for jump. Complete in two minutes.”

“They’re gone. It wasn’t war. It wasn't an expansion of some aggressive alien species. They simply vanished. Do you know why? Because they forgot who they were. They forgot their old cultures, their technologies, their ancestors, even their homeworld. They became homeless… nomads, destined to disappear in a growing universe. The Kurotid homeworld is out there somewhere and there are probably Kurotids still alive to this day, but they aren’t a spacefaring species anymore. No, those who visited earth that day were the last of the spacefaring kind, the last remnants of a once strong galactic civilization. And when we asked where they hailed from, they did not try to deceive us, did not try to lie, or tell us it was safer if we didn’t know. They simply said, ’We have forgotten.’

“You will be out there among the stars, nomads from the human race. You’ll be far from home. Your mission out there is to spread human interest, but make sure you keep it yourself.”

“Jump ready in ten, nine, eight…”

“Not all of you are earthlings, but you are all humans, everyone one of you. Earth’s blood flows through your veins. Don’t forget that. Don’t ever forget that. You are humans. Out there, among the stars, you will feel the effects of change try to shape you in one way or another. Resist that. Come back home when your mission is done. The biggest regret the Kurotids had can be summed up in a quote that is still a slogan of the Earth Advisory Board. ‘Wherever your new home may be, never forget where you came from. Never forget your home world.’”

“Jump ready.”

“Punch it,” Captain Carter ordered. The earth was so silent, and wordlessly blue. It was beautiful so much so that a hundred poets couldn’t find a descriptor powerful enough to evoke its beauty. It looked so simple, so innocent in the dark. This is it. Say something at least, Juno thought to herself. The only word she could muster though was, Goodbye.

The ship went quiet. Everything in it fell silent. The stars warped in strange ways like heat diffracting a mirage. Then the stars dissipated, winking out in a dark wave. The Earth was gone… and everything else with it.

OUtside the ship however, as the Voyager 8’s engines sparked and shot flame. A vortex formed around the entire ship like a cloak of light warping material. It was a gravity well, but instead of an attractive gravity, it was a repulsive one. It was more accurate to say it was a gravity mountain forming, one that would propel them forward at faster than the speed of light.

To the outside world, outside the gravity warp the ship was pure white. Inside, it was normal. Everything was working just fine. When the ship finally fully engaged the engines, the Voyager 8 punched forward with astounding ferocity. The earth jumped away. Then, Mercury and even the blazing sun.

The system was gone. They were headed now for the jumpstation beyond Neptune, a journey that would take humans twenty years hundreds of years ago. The Voyager 8 would complete it in sixty minutes…