GALATEA- Artemis One

Artemis One – Prelude

We watch from the bay windows of Artemis One, as the final ship takes orbit into the unknown dark void of space. The vast viewing windows offer a panoramic view of what once was our home.

My heart is pounding in my chest like a drumroll, as we are forced to watch the end of the life we once knew. A life filled with our loved ones still alive and any future we thought we might have, now just a forgotten dream of what once could have been.

For the first time in six months, it is eerily quiet as we watch from a safe distance. For the past one hundred years, scientists and global warming experts tried their best to undo all the damage done from thousands of years of carelessness and greed our kind has thrust upon our planet.

Truly there was no hope left for the survival of Earth. But a select few wouldn’t give up on the chance to save their loved ones left behind to die no matter how much the odds were stacked against them.

Once the last of the ice caps melted due to the rising temperature of the earth’s core, the government knew there was no undoing the damage that had been caused by global warming.

In the past hundred years, the world’s top scientists and leaders in space expeditions and exploration had made leaps and bounds for space travel, the leading world governments knew even back then that the countdown to the end of the world had already started. The only future the human race had was one among the stars, traveling through space to find a new planet to call home.

Since the year 2028, we have made many successful missions to colonize Mars. Now in the year 2221, we have self-sustaining bases on Mars that allow humans to live and thrive in contained atmospheric buildings that are capable of holding 20,000 people. However, it is still projected to be another hundred thousand years before the terraforming on Mars is completed—thus the reasoning behind finding a viable planet now.

Not too long after colonizing Mars, we gained the capability to travel throughout the Milky Way galaxy via micro-hyperdrive jumping, allowing for many ships to jump back and forth between Mars and Earth, and for the rapid increase in delivering the necessary goods to house as many humans as possible for the impending doom of our home planet.

Not long after the arrival of the first few ships carrying survivors of Earth, mainly scientist and soldiers of the world’s top leading governments, did it become an all-hands-on deck situation to figure out hyperdrive jumping for long distance.

Thankfully what became a team effort between what was once called Russia, the United States, and China, we have been successfully conducting hyperdrive jumps from one end of our galaxy to the other. No one has ventured past our galaxy yet. But that’s where we come in.

It’s our job. It is our duty as the chosen few to move on past this galaxy and the next until we find our new home. The commanders and elders of the three chosen ships made a collected decision to wait until Earth was completely destroyed before we make our first long-distance hyperdrive jump. Thus the reasoning behind our three ships silently drifting in space for the past month, waiting for the telltale signs that the earth is finally splitting part.

Personally, I think its cruel to make us watch this. They think it will instill loyalty to the new republic for us to fall in line and want to survive at any cost. It makes me want to spit in their faces and throw them a big fuck you right up their pompous asses.

With tears streaming down my face, I watch along with the rest of the crew at what was once our home implodes on itself. There was a time when our Earth was once a beautiful planet filled with so much life and beautiful creatures of all shapes and sizes.

Now it’s once blue oceans and vibrant green continents have now dimmed and grayed to lifeless versions of itself. In the last ten years, the water levels started to recede back, the beautiful green trees and crops started to die off, causing a down flux in the animal population for both land and sea creatures.

As all one thousand of our crew, men and women watch as our old home explode with bright reds, orange, and white lights as the Earth’s core finally vaporizes. The expanding gas causes the planet to explode with such force that it does not condense back together, and the fragments of our shattered world drift apart into the endless, black void of space. It was sobering of the impermanence of all things.

We all mourn for our old home, for the loved ones we left behind and for the possible futures we could’ve had. I myself am leaving behind a mother and father that I will never see again. I had a fiancé six months ago, but when we found out that I was chosen to be a survivor and he was not… That was the last day I saw him. I was so heartbroken and hurt that he would just walk out and leave me. But looking back now, what could he have done any different? I was meant to live, and he was chosen to die.

It’s not like we were given a choice on staying or leaving. Once chosen, the government picked us up within twenty-four hours, and we were whisked away to a secret location. We were all chosen due to our credentials and genetics. I’m not only a renowned doctor, but I also had the right genetic makeup to be less susceptible to many diseases. After all, that’s the point in sending all of us out here—we’re supposed to make sure the human race does not die out.

That’s the cruelest part in all of this—we were supposed to be thankful for not dying, even though we were ripped away from our loved ones, barely given enough time to say goodbye. And now we just witnessed the death of those loved ones along with the remaining seven billion people on earth. But that’s the thing about life. Even at its cruelest moments, when you think it’s the end, life finds its way to keep going.

The death of one thing can be the breath of life of another. Life has endless possibilities and everything we do and every decision we make changes those possible futures. As the old saying goes, “life goes on.” It finds a way to keep moving forward. As the last survivors of earth, it is up to us to survive as we travel into the unknown, hoping to find a new planet to call home.

My old self is now dead. Everything that I was back on Earth no longer matters. I have now been given a new life here onboard Artemis One. Thanks to lots of genetic testing and computer algorithms, all of the passengers of Artemis One have been paired with their perfect genetic match.

This is supposed to allow us to further our race by ensuring our offspring have the strongest genes that will increase their survival rate. I already met my match right before we boarded a few days ago back on Mars. He’s a very handsome man, tall—maybe 6’2”—with a strong build to match his square jaw line. We don’t know each other well yet, but I have great hope we will be at least good friends in the near future, especially if I’m expected to carry his offspring.

As we take one last time to grieve our fallen world, and our past lives, we say in unison,

“Rise above.”

My eyes well up, and my vision blurs as tears threaten to spill over. Turning away from the window, my heart is heavy with the weight of our loss. Artemis One is now our home and our future. We cannot fail this mission. For if we do, then all of our losses was pointless.

As everyone dispersed from the viewing windows and made their way to their designated stations, I decided to head to my cabin to take some time to be alone and reflect on what we just watched. Making my way through the sterile, metallic hallways, my footsteps echoed in the silence. The rest of the crew was likely at the bay windows, watching the remains of Earth drift apart.

I needed solitude, a quiet place to gather my thoughts and feelings. As I scan my armband to open the door, I’m a little surprised to come face to face with my genetic match, Lieutenant Lucian Dorian. He is tall and strong, his body a testament to his role as the commander and top warrior of our crew. But despite his intimidating physique, his eyes hold warmth, for only me.

His caring and compassionate spirit is what drew me in. He was my other half, my partner and genetic match. We were chosen for each other by the scientists back on Mars. Paired to produce strong and capable children, to further the existence of human life as they traverse the cosmos in search of a new home.

Lucian looks up as I approach, his eyes meeting mine. Seeing the unshed tears in my eyes, his expression softens. He steps forward, his arms open, and I go to him willingly, allowing him to envelop me in his strong embrace.

“Sorry, Lucian. I wasn’t expecting you to be in the room so early,” I say.

“That’s quite alright, Annalise. I see you had the same idea as me to find some place quiet,” he states with a soft expression.

I can tell by his puffy red eyes that he is just as emotional as I am with what we all just witnessed.

“It’s gone… They are gone,”

I choke out barely above a whisper as I try to hold back my tears. If even possible, he holds me tighter, stroking my hair.

“I know,” he murmurs. “But were still here. We survive. We move on.”

Looking up at him, I search his eyes. “How can you be so string?”

Lucian smiles softly, his thumb brushing away a tear from my cheek.

“Because I have to be,” he says. “For you, for the crew. We all have our roles to play, Annalise. Yours is to keep us all healthy; mine is to keep us safe and moving forward.”

Taking a deep breath, my body relaxes into his. I feel a spark between us and wondered if he felt it too.

Our connection is more than just physical. It is a bond, a promise of something more. Looking up at him, our eyes meet. I can see it in the way he looked at me. The potential for love, for a future together among the stars.

As I look up into his eyes, we both relay the same message with just a look. No matter what happens in the future, we will be okay and make it through this together as a team, a pair. And hopefully, in the near future, as lovers bonded together by our shared grief of the loss of our past lives and now by our intertwined futures.

There is nothing holding us back. Our future and destiny are as endless as the cosmos we are exploring, together we would forge a better future, one of hope, love, and prosperity.