Where We Go

William Carter awoke, a dead man. He was freezing. He had no idea who he was or where he was. He looked around, at the fluctuating lights and heard a deafening siren coming from all over. Dashboards surrounded him full of technology he felt like he had never seen before, yet he knew how to use them. He turned the siren off out of instinct, using the controls as if someone was using his arms like a puppet. As he began to use these controls, flashes had started coming back to him. He was remembering events that had occurred, and then he remembered that he had recorded everything that happened in his ships’ logs. He immediately went to these logs in order to recall everything.

Log 1

The latest tropical storm had just hit a week previous and the death tolls were still coming in, it was already at over 500,000 people. Nature took no hostages. It was devastating the population, which has decreased by over ten percent in the past five years. All of the ecological scientists told us that we had 200 years before the planet’s core overheated and the

planet could no longer be habitable anymore, but we all feared that it would be much, much sooner. The storms would not let up, it was one after another and people were in constant danger. Much of the land that we had synthesized to support more people has already been eroded away by the storms and earthquakes. I was being pressed to finish my projects on long distance and intergalactic travel, yet my funding had been cut each year previous, because most politicians believed that the ecologists needed the funding to save the planet, but at this point I fear we are past the point of saving. We need to focus solely on preserving our people and finding a way to civilize a new planet. I am so close to figuring out the FTLD (Faster-than-light- drive), which would be our most efficient way of moving because it would take much less time, and with less time, there are less problems. I am just missing one component. I have found a way to sustain a stable window to travel through sub-space in, but I cannot create a stable opening to that window, the ship could instantly be destroyed the second it enters the window if I cannot stabilize it. The second project, which is far more practical, is the sub-light engines and stasis pods, in which the passengers would be suspended in stasis until the destination is reached. The sub-light engines are ready, but stasis tech is relatively new to our people and I do not feel comfortable yet in suspending people in them for what could be thousands of years. The bottom line is, this planet can no longer be our home. We need to save as many of our people as we can, and staying here is only causing more loss of life. We need to put all of our funding into SISP so that I can finish my work, but many have begun to question my abilities because I have not done anything major since completing the sub-light engines. They have no idea, however; that I am the only one who can save them.

It was all coming back to him, Will was remembering Shezara, all of his work, his family, his life. At that moment a horrible thought struck down through Will’s body. Where was his family? Another. Where was anyone? Why was it just him in the ship? He checked the life signs aboard the ship and breathed a bittersweet sigh of relief, there were two other life signs in the bridge. He had no idea who they were yet, but the feeling that he was not completely alone was enough to give him even one breath of fresh air. “Please be my family” he thought. He almost did not want to see if it was not them. He ventured down the halls, that he had supposedly designed, as it came back to him. He came up to the bridge doors and swiped the mechanism to open them. He saw who these two life signs were.

Log 2

10 years have passed, and these scientists estimations have shortened, every one of them. “We have 200 years” …” we only have 100 now” …”70” …”30” … ”within the next two decades this planet will no longer be habitable”. Of course, now that these scientists can no longer do anything, the fate of the planet falls on me and my team as a last resort. If they had just listened to me, then maybe we would not be playing catch up with our very survival as a race. I’m no ecologist and based on the years leading up to today, I could have told you we did not have 200 years, maybe another 50 if we were lucky. Now it’s all on SISP, I finally got the funding that I had always lobbied for, but it was starting to feel too little too late. We enhanced our stasis tech and were now confident in a long-term suspension in stasis if absolutely necessary, but viewed it as a last resort because even though it could sustain the life for as long

as needed, we have no idea what the effects on the body or mind will be after thousands of years. A short trip in stasis would be much safer, if we could travel through sub-space. We have also finally discovered a way to create a stable window for the FTLD and sustain that stable window, but more problems have arisen. Based on my simulations, we may not have enough power output to exit the sub-space window. We would be stuck in sub-space and the ship would be destroyed if we tried to exit it. There was also the issue of power sustainability. We had enough power to make the trip, but we are concerned that while traveling through sub-space, power could be drawn from sub-space and could overload the ship. We do not yet have the best understanding of sub-space, but we know that energy flows through it and that energy could overload our systems. We just don’t have enough time. We should have been working these problems out for the past 10 years and now they expect me and my team to just save all of them with the little time we have left. There is also the problem that even if we can figure out how to successfully travel, that there aren’t enough ships to take everyone. Previously we thought that only about twenty percent of the population could get taken, but now that has dropped to roughly one percent. We are talking about 120,000,000 people. Who could’ve imagined that is what our race would fall to. We hit the highest peak in our existence, just before the fall, and the fall was harder than anyone could have ever predicted. They should have just listened to me. Now they are not even informing the people that only a fraction of us will be able to go. They should have listened to me. My wife, Ariel, is worried but I keep assuring her that the government has it handled. I know that she and my children will get taken along if we have to leave so I have been slowly getting ready for that. I have spoken with my father too, alerting him that he should begin to prepare for such a thing to happen. However, my father seems a lot less worried about this whole situation, he has always been a calm and collected man so I guess I don’t really have to worry.

The doors opened. It was not his family. His heart dropped. It was a scientist he worked with, Thomas Gerard and his wife. He hurried to help them, trying to ignore the feeling of absolute emptiness that had just hit him. They woke up and were in the same condition Will was in when he woke up. Will had concluded that the stasis must have caused a temporary amnesia but that reading through recordings and the logs had helped him regain his memory. They were confused and scared but Will worked them through it and they began to remember. Will brought them back to their personal logs and they went back to remembering.

Log 3

Something is happening. The scientists aren’t talking to anyone and the government is not telling me anything. This cannot be it, this is way too soon, but the tremors are getting worse and people are starting to get mobilized. I’ve called the capital multiple times but no answer. I need to know if I should go get my family or keep working. We are not ready, not even close. The ships that we have ready can hold maybe 100,000 people each. We’re going to have leave too many of them behind. Finally, I get an answer. They are saying that its happening now. The planet’s core is overloading we are going to have to leave within the next thirty days before it becomes unbearable. I told Ariel we need to get our things ready to board the ships when they are ready because it could happen at any moment, and I will not have time to get my family ready with all of the work I have to finish on the ships. I have been sleeping here for the past

month, trying to get as much work done as I can, but I need to make sure I go home just one more time to get my family here. I need to explain to my children why we are leaving. My son, Jack, is a bright young kid so I think he will take it well and realize the weight of what is going on. It is my daughter, Ava, that I am worried about. She is just a happy little girl with no cares in the world and I do not want to put all of this on her. She will struggle with not being able to take all of her things with her and for her to understand why we are leaving our home and all of her friends behind.

Will was getting overwhelmed he needed a break. It was as if his entire life was being downloaded into his mind all at once. He decided to take a break from the logs and assess what was happening right now. He had remembered all he needed to, to operate the ship. He realized they must have landed. “Why hadn’t I checked the ships’ time logs?” he thought. The time logs matched the time they would land 3RTh. They were there. He checked the atmosphere and living conditions outside and it matched their readings. He opened the door and stepped out.

Log 4

Today is the day. We have to leave today. I rushed home to gather my family as soon as I heard the news. I explained to my daughter that we are just going on a little trip, and that some of her friends will be on the other ships when we get there. This calmed her down a little bit but I could see it in her eyes that she was scared and just wanted to go home, this killed me. Jack was helpful and assisted me with our belongings. He had grown up a lot over this past year, helping a lot around the house as I’ve been gone a lot working on my projects. He resented me at first, I knew he did, but he has come to appreciate the circumstances as I have told him what I’ve been doing with my time. My wife is my biggest supporter and I don’t know many women that would have stayed with me after what we have been through in the past couple years. I have been distant, suspicious, and gone for many of the years but she has always stayed by my side and supported me through it all. I do not know what I would do without her, I have spent about ninety percent of my life with her, even knowing each other in our childhood. After I gathered my family, I went to tell my father as quickly as I could, but this did not go the way I planned. They did not want to go. They both just said they were ready for their time if it really was their time, and that they felt they would be taking up valuable space on the ships when they would be gone soon after we arrive to the new planet anyways. I pleaded with them to just come with and that they would be valuable, especially with my father and his experience in leading people. They refused to listen, but I could not take this, I could not leave them behind like this. No matter what I said they would not listen. He assured me that I can take care of my family and I can lead better than he ever could, then we said goodbye. As long as I can save my family that is the only reason I am living for. They are my number one priority and they always have been. We have six ships that will hold about 600,000 people. That is what we will start over with. Everyone will be put into stasis for the trip and the ship will wake everyone up when we arrive. The ships will be how we rebuild, they dig into the ground and lock in a root system, and our technology will synthetically begin rebuilding a livable civilization. We have marked the landing spots on 3RTh and we are ready to begin boarding the ships. All of our families are already here and will board first. All of a sudden a massive earthquake hit and a tidal wave was heading right for us. We just

started boarding everyone with the clothes on their back. This was it we had to board now and leave otherwise all of our work was going to be destroyed and that would be the end of us.

Everyone was in a panic trying to get on board but they were not all going to make it. We had to leave. We made the choice to close the doors early or we would not make it so we began to ready the engines and take off. They started off and we entered space. We had left them behind. This was it, we are the best and brightest of our people chosen to continue on and save our kind. Only about 350,000 were able to board but it was either cut it off early or we all would have died. It had to be done. We are now readying to start the FTLD and start our journey. The planet is beginning to go critical, and when it does we need to not be here. It will create a blast big enough to incinerate the entire solar system. We have to jump now. I alerted the other ships that we have to try and jump prematurely otherwise we will not make it. There just isn’t enough time, we have to go now. The captains of the other ships argued that we cannot go now we do not know what happens if we jump before the FTLD is ready, we could all be destroyed. We have to go now though so that we even have a chance. We begin the jump, the windows open up in front of us, but the planet is overloading behind us. It is interfering with some of the windows. They aren’t going to make it.

It was better than they had ever expected, there was green everywhere and flowing water within sight of the ship. It was the most beautiful thing Will had ever seen. The air was so much fresher than he had ever breathed on Shezara. He saw smoke off into the distance and decided to investigate. It was not a far walk, it was another one of the ships, but this was not a major ship, it was a shuttle. He walked up and opened the door.