Shipside
Somewhere far beyond the outer edge of the small solar system named after its single, medium sized star called Sol; beyond its terrestrial planets and asteroid belts, past its many-mooned gas giants, farther even than that tiny, neglected little dwarf planet called pluto, located about 18 billion kilometers from its home planet and separated from it by the roiling bubbles of magnetic tides at the edge of the solar system, floated a single lonely metal starship speeding away at a pace of 65,400 k/h (regulated caringly by both inertia and the careful, sporadic release of RCS fuel).
The ship wasn’t a very small one; indeed it was actually quite large. Its 6 main propulsion thrusters lay dormant as it spun silently, slowly revolving through the cosmos. Its outer body was unpainted, instead left a dull metallic grey. The ship had no wings to speak of, as it was never meant for re-entry. The vessel began abruptly, with thrusters and protective flaps at the back, and continued abruptly, with jagged segments of metal forming a rather ugly, boxy body, until it finally terminated with a control room and a number of protruding antennae and other detection instruments. Long, 2 foot thick deep-blue treated plexiglass windows lined the ship, crisscrossed with steel supports and infused with heavy lead to ward off radiation. On its starboard side, “MIRV-03” was written in large, stark white lettering. (MIRV was a joke on the part of the Terran Union. It did not in fact mean “Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicles,” but instead “Manned Intersolar Recoverable Vehicle.”)
It really is a lonely ship.
Flight Engineer Aaron Jacobson half-stood, half-floated at the Sensors and Scanners station in his white uniform and headcushion, reading data from the long and short range radio and muon detectors, ultraviolet radiation spectrometers, and other assorted mission-critical instruments, and copying them all down on a form strapped to a clipboard.
The control room consisted of 4 command stations each with their own displays and other equipment. In order from left to right, first was Navigations, then Sensors and Scanners, then Main Control (thrusters and flight planning), and finally Life Support and Ship System Controls (lights and such). The walls were a dull metallic grey, like the rest of both the interiors and exterior of the ship, but here and there a few thick wires poked out of the walls, only to resubmerge a few feet later. Despite the fact that the room housed most of the mission-critical devices and controls on the ship, it was packed, stretching a mere 20 by 10 feet, most of which was used by electronics and control hubs.
Aaron stood at 6’ 1”, too tall to comfortably fit through most of the metallic hallways and compartments of the ship, but just barely short enough to fit inside the ship in the first place. He had blonde hair and rather boring green eyes, and an obviously waspy complexion that was only made worse by the time he had spent on the ship, away from light. His muscles had atrophied slightly since launch, and his skin was extremely pale, but he had expected worse conditions, considering how long he had been asleep.
31 years? He thought to himself, barely managing to resist the urge to look again at the offending figure glowing somewhere at the bottom right side of the large holo-display in front of him.
I’ve been asleep for 31 years?
He didn’t even know that the cryotubes could sustain themselves for that long, much less keep him otherwise untouched and more importantly, alive. Perhaps the most surprising thing was the fact that he hadn’t been killed by the massive amount of radiation that constantly bombarded the ship. Maybe the Union had been a little more serious about the mission than everyone had thought (lord knows lead is heavy, and heavy spaceships are expensive).
Then again, maybe they hadn’t... It had come as a bit of a shock to Aaron to find that 2 of the 8 members of his team had not been in their tubes when he had awoken. Not that he had noticed, of course, he was far too busy vomiting and coughing from the effects of cryosleep. But when he had towelled off and returned to the crew cabin after a short meal of sloshy protein goop and lemonade, he had found 6 tubes filled with their respective, pale crewmembers, and 2 empty ones with red lights above them. Apparently, one had burst during the 5th year of the voyage due to a pressure spike caused by an unplanned collision with a small asteroid. The cryogel had leaked out, leaving behind only the frozen water crystals, which continued to be cooled by the tube itself. The girl had awoken, trapped in a prison of ice, pounding and screaming for help from her sleeping crewmates as she slowly froze and died of hypothermia. The ship had detected her failing vital signs and ejected her after death. The second tube had functioned perfectly, but unfortunately its occupant had died from radiation poisoning some time in the 22nd year, and had been ejected after the ship failed to detect a heartbeat for a solid week.
This discovery had unnerved the FE somewhat, and he had quickly evacuated the crew cabin and its two ghost tubes to check up on the instruments he had been awoken for.
Aaron eyed the hallway leading to the ship’s armory, more simply because of the association with the dark thoughts than anything else.
He knew the purpose of the mission well, and had trained for years beforehand. He had memorized the project goals by heart, and firmly believed in the goodness of the expedition. He recited them to himself as he moved over to Navigations, then to Main Control, calculating and enacting the changes needed to be made to the ship’s route.
“Due to explosive population growth and continually raising threats of nuclear war from smaller factions, the Terran Union has decided to take upon itself the last possible step it can reasonably take. The state of the world is one of near ruin, with global economies crashing on a daily basis and food production becoming far outpaced by overpopulation. The total current population is estimated at 27 billion, and the Earth cannot sustain this number. Nuclear war is no longer a possibility but an inevitability, and the nations of Earth simply do not have the resources necessary to fund extra-planetary colonization. Thus, the Exodus project aims to spread humanity to whatever habitable world it can find, without the burdens of colonization or terraforming. A secondary nature of the project is to continue the legacy of the Human race long after its extinction, through the discovery of the vessels by intelligent life. Participants are not expected to ever return to Earth, and are unlikely to survive the trip without injuries. However, this cost is negligible compared to the small chance that the Human race may continue to exist somewhere else in the universe. Thus, the Exodus project strives to continue the legacy of the human race in an economically viable way.”
The weapons served more to demonstrate Humanity’s technology than to actually do harm, but it still comforted and scared the Flight Engineer that they were onboard. What if someone went crazy after being woken up?
Aaron sighed and detached himself from the command station as he turned away from the display. The problem he had been awoken for had been a simple redirection course meant to avoid a large asteroid the sensors had picked up. Satisfied by the new plot, he floated back to the crew cabins, stripped, donned his thermal suit, and stepped inside his cryotube. The glass door closed itself when he was completely inside, sliding silently out from the roof of the tube and latching itself shut with a hiss. With a shuddering breath and one last look at the crewmates surrounding him (and more importantly those who weren’t) through the glass, he activated the tube, leaned back, and prepared himself for a long sleep.
Outside, the spacecraft activated its portside RCS thrusters and evaded the slowly oncoming threat. Days later, however, the thrusters on the opposite side hadn’t fired. Nor had they fired years later. In fact, a single, softly pulsing light in the corner of the navigation monitor dedicated to Main Controls continued with its inquiry many years after its operator had left it.
>>Authenticate thruster reactivation at requested interval? Y/N
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Not bad I will follow
I'm pretty sure that the earths population will max out at ~10 billion, as that's already twice what it can sustain. At least not without magical food vats.
Every time I see the word 'station' my mind auto corrects it to stallion.
...
I'm reading too much fic...
1979481
If ~10 billion is twice what Earth can sustain then it would already be at ~150% capacity, yet humans are still there.