ACT ONE
Illi-Triata-Yunda, Reactor Systems Engineer, Crew 2, Cycle 99
IHV-101 Legacy
11 light-years from Dayden
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I was deep in thought, as I often was during our journey.
In my mind, I frequently imagined myself on the planet’s surface. Fresh, cool wind flowing across my scales, the alien sun shining down as I lay under its rays, one hand feeling the lush grass while my tail felt the sand against my scales. I take a great big breath, the salty air filling my lungs as avian fauna soars above me.
The sky above me is a beautiful brilliant blue, as white billowy clouds swirl and travel across the sky, bringing with them fresh, cold water, freely falling from the sky. An utterly alien world, a paradise planet.
A loud, electric BEEP snaps me out of my fantasy. I am surrounded by dark red lights, illuminating the cramped access vent I found myself inside. During the long periods of time waiting in here, it was not uncommon for me to daydream about our destination.
Sixteen years of travel.
Sixteen years coasting through the cosmos sleeping, waiting, working, and sleeping again.
This was my 8th… no, 9th cycle, part of group 2 while groups 1 and 3 hibernate. The rows and rows of switches and terminals surrounded me as I almost subconsciously twisted the appropriate knobs and checked their corresponding segmented displays.
"Alright Yunda, reactor readings appear stable. Stand by while we run the self-test."
I gently pushed away from the manual console, slowly drifting back into the wall of the maintenance tunnel. The inside was dimly lit by the lights of the interface, the reactor systems so dense and complex that even a systems check would require a specialist in one of the two shafts to work on them in-person.
"Self-test nominal. I think we're good Yunda, you can get on out of there while we prepare the first entry burn."
I wrapped my tail around a handle near the hatch, pulling myself out of the narrow, zero-g passageway and into the larger maintenance area. Waiting for me was an upside down Hybeto, or, was I the one upside down?
"Well look who's finally crawling out of their burrow," he teased. "You've been in there, what, six hours?"
"Closer to seven," I told him.
"Might as well be your personal quarters with how much time you spend there."
"Reactor stability is important, Hybie."
"Yeah, yeah, I get it," he said with a snicker.
I stretched my arms and let my tail float about in the extra space, before it subconsciously wrapped around one of the many wall-mounted handholds throughout the zero-g modules of the ship.
"Seriously though, you really should stop by the rec area more. We barely get to see you. Feels like I barely even get to see you," he told me.
"I've never been a party person. Maybe I'll be more up for it once all of us are safe on the ground."
"Well," he replied, "by the looks of it, that's happening sooner rather than later!" A smirk growing on his face as he said it.
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"Speaking of, aren't you on the Habitat Systems team? Shouldn't you be making sure the hab is ready to despin and brace for engine burn?"
"That's already done. You really have been in there for a while," he chuckled.
"Oh, wow. I guess I have…" I scratched my head for a moment.
As if on cue, our radios crackled on simultaneously, with the familiar voice of Mission Commander Riys making his presence known. "Inspection crews are ingressing now; make sure you're all in your places and have something to hold onto. Main engine burn begins in one hour.”
"Well, that's our signal," he said, prompting me to follow him and float to the main access tunnel. I opened a compartment in the walls and placed my work equipment inside; gloves, my work vest, and a dosimeter, fastening them in place. Locking it shut, Hybeto and I made our way out of the reactor tunnels and into the now stationary habitat ring. “Copy that,” we both replied on our radios.
Fluorescent lights dotted the inner circumference of the ring, handholds, previously folded into the walls and floor, now sprung out to assist movement in zero-g now that the ring's centrifugal force had ceased. Usually, this ring would be under a steady spin, mimicking a level of gravity in between that of our destination and that of our home planet, Dayden. It and it’s interior layout were designed in such a way that, during the ship’s multi-month long burns, the acceleration and deceleration of the ship itself enabled the habitat to have a form of artificial gravity without needing to spin it, which could provide unneeded mechanical stress when under the extra load of an engine burn. As such, the habitat’s floor was curved; from the rearmost wall and the outermost circumference, keeping the layout sensible regardless of either direction the ship’s gravity was providing. Right now of course, there was no gravity present, but this would only be temporary as we prepared for the first major deceleration burn entering the Criah star system.
Progressing along, we arrived to the rest of group 3, forty others, plus Hybeto and myself. "There she is!" Shouted one fellow astronaut. "Finally fished her out, eh Hybie?" Said another. I rolled my eyes.
"Alright everyone, that's enough," Riys commanded. Everyone knew what to do now, essentially a repeat of the first few months of our journey. We strapped into the floor-mounted seats for safety, and waited.
Minutes passed. We quietly laid in our seats, keeping our backs fastened.
Then, there it was.
"Engine re-light in 10 seconds."
…
"4… 3… 2… 1…"
I felt my body press into my seat, slowly at first, as the deceleration provided an aft-facing force that imitated gravity. The engine strength plateaued, settling on a deceleration that would enable a safe living space while constantly slowing its speed to safely enter orbit. After a few minutes, we were cleared to leave our seats.
"Engine burn is nominal. Take it easy folks, we're on the last stage of our journey now."
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I was still only a child when the excitement first broke out. Hope-27, one of many probes sent out to 36 planets across our neighboring stars, more than 100 years after its launch, sent back photographs of a living planet. An impactor probe, it imaged white clouds, green landmasses, and a vast blue ocean that covered the planet before landing in that expansive saltwater. Birds flew by during its descent, schools of fish were just visible before contact was lost with it, as it slipped beneath the waves of the planet’s massive oceans, drowning out any radio contact.
Hope was the culmination of our civilization’s pre-war technology. Back when the world’s powers were at the peak of their technological and economic prowess, an international project was born in which dozens of probes were sent out into interstellar space, at speeds nearly a quarter of the speed of light. Relatively simple, each one consisting of a transit stage and a simple atmospheric entry probe. It’d enter the atmosphere and land, taking and transmitting photographs, audio, and various scientific measurements until its power died.
None of those that sent them out would live to see the program’s results, and this was understood back then. The journey was immense, even at the absurd speeds they travelled, it would be several decades before any reached even the closest star, and sent back its findings. Even without the wait, most wouldn’t live for much longer anyway.
The riches, comforts, and inventions of this era would be squandered, as less than ten years after this feat of cooperation, the world was flung into a very brief war.
I wasn’t born yet, but its said it only lasted a few days. The antimatter bomb, one of the first inventions to come from the harnessing of antimatter energy, was used. It didn’t matter why it happened, or who started it, the end result was the complete collapse of every nation, and the total uninhabitability of the surface. Those that survived fled underground, building what would eventually become our new city-states, shielded from the unfiltered solar radiation that our close, red star bombarded the surface with. The bombs stripped away our atmosphere’s protective layers, and now nothing could grow on the surface.
By the time the Hope probes sent us their data, we had rebuilt our cities and antenna arrays. We had a rudimentary space program again, launching missions into orbit. The remaining scientific community excitedly examined the data the probes sent us.
27 was the only probe from the Hope program to confirm a habitable world. Every other probe found the same thing: dead, desolate rocks. This exoplanet, 11 light-years away, we had named Criah-3, the third planet around the planet Criah. Rich with water and oxygen, it was the only habitable planet within 30 light-years of our own.
There was a real excitement for space travel. Ever since the collapse, rebuilding efforts had been focused on city infrastructure, obtaining clean water, linking the societies of the world back together, hoping to one day return to our pre-war glory. When their signals reached us all these decades later, it reminded us of what came before, and what we could return to. Space was exciting again.
But there was more to it than just the excitement of another world. There was something in the data, something only spoken of in hushed tones. A terrible discovery that never left the walls of the space center, built out of an old launch silo. Something that was only told to those making this trip, something that justified a suicide mission costing the yearly economic output of an entire nation…
I was one of them, one of the 252 astronauts who gave up their life at home to survive in a new world. To maybe, find an answer, and save our species, even if it meant the people back home… might…
No, you cannot let yourself dwell on it.
It's been almost 30 years since then, though at least 10 of those years were spent in hibernation aboard this ship. This ship and its sister, Admiralty, were the absolute culmination of all our rebuilt technology. A fleet of ten were intended to be built, all Criah-bound, but of course, plans change.
Cost overruns, missed deadlines, slashed budgets, even the public began to gradually lose interest, as people argued the resources could be better used for other programs. Only two were ever sent out, each carrying 126 astronauts. The crew would cycle in and out of hibernation, while a third of the crew maintained the ship, the remainder would sleep, and crews would shift in and out so no one spent too much time working.
That had all come to this. As I looked out a window, the brilliant light of a foreign star illuminated the exterior of our ship, the engines I had helped design working to slow us down into its orbit, and in a month's time, Criah's.