End of the World

Time of Death

I lie on the bed with my eyes wide open, watching the time on my phone move towards 04:00 hours. For some reason it’s hard to sleep. It has been that way for months. Nothing has changed in life, besides the ever present possibility of being called in for work early. That call has never been received, but for some reason, my thoughts keep telling me it will come.

04:00 hours arrives. No call. Nothing. I sigh with the relief that all will be well. My eyes can close once more. It’s a chore to roll over and spoon without disturbing her. She has been patient with the wakeful nights. At least she doesn’t mention it.

My phone rings.

I roll over and see the time, 04:02 hours. The office is calling. My perfect day is disrupted as the number flashes on the cell phone where it sits in the cradle. Why today?

The phone quiets as I grab it from the cradle. My feet find slippers, and without hesitation, out to the bedroom they lead me. The cat thinks I’m up to feed her and she rumbles down the stairs towards the kitchen. The bathroom is where I’m heading though.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Doctor Fergus?”

It really is a strange question when you come to think about it. This person has called my cell phone. Only two people live in this house and everyone knows it. So why do they believe someone else other than me would answer?

“Yes. The question, though, is who are you?” My voice is hushed, trying not to wake my wife.

“We have a 42.”

You won’t get the reference. Most people don’t. It means someone found a planet killer.

“Are you sure?” Yes, I actually ask the question. Stupid, absolutely stupid. Of course he’s sure. Why would he call if he wasn’t sure?

“Yes, doc, we’re sure. They verified it using Hubble.”

“I’ll be right in.” Off goes the cell phone. There is scratching at the door and howling.

The howl turns to shock and is abruptly cut off.

“I got her.”

I swear under my breath. The damn cat woke up the wife, and now she’s going to want to know what’s happened.

“I’m going to take a shower.” My hand turns on the water. It thunders into the tub. “Go back to bed, I’ll be home early.”

“Let’s get you some food.” Her voice trails off.

I can hear her go downstairs over the sound of the water.

Get Going

The smell of coffee floats up from downstairs. God bless her, she turned on the pot. Every once in a while I’m surprised.

Clothes first. My hand hits the lights and there is my suit laid out for me with a bundle of fur on top of it. Reminds me of why I married her.

“Okay, Mitus. Off.”

The cat just licks her leg. My head shakes. I reach out and move the queen out of the way in order to get dressed. It is 04:15 and time is running out. There is still another twenty minutes of driving ahead of me.

Mitus watches as I dress. She’s my cat, and always wants to be near me. The stairs are close and once down them, I’m greeted with my wife’s smile and a cup of coffee.

“I want you home early,” she says, one hand holding her house coat closed and the other one smoothing my hair. She tugs at my beard. “You’re getting a little salt in your pepper there.”

“I love you too.” I pull her close and kiss. She play-struggles and kisses me back. Arms hug me hard. “Hey, don’t worry. Nothing’s going to happen. Probably some big brass coming to see where the seven billion went this year.”

“Yeah, right.”

She can always tell when I’m lying, but what else is there to say? Honey, there’s a huge asteroid, or even a rogue planet coming at us. Sure, that would go over really well.

She pushes away and gives me a stern look.

“Okay. I’ll be back early.”

She nods and gives me a peck on the cheek, then heads upstairs. The cat follows her.

“Love you.”

“Love you too,” she says.

I head out the door.

Just a Little One

It is still raining when I get out of the car. Not heavy, just enough to make you want to pull your clothes in around you. A rain that makes you shiver even though it’s a mid-summer morning.

“Hi, doc.” The guard recognizes me, but as usual I can’t remember his name.

“Hi.” My voice comes out like a squeak. The badge I carry slides over the reader and my smiling face is projected in front of the guard. The holographic image is just one of those things I’m still not used to. And the capture they did is terrible.

“You’re here early.”

It’s like he wants to know something but is afraid to ask. He knows our facility scans space for threats but what kind, he’s not sure.

He opens his mouth and speaks again. “There’s a whole lot’ta guys upstairs.”

“Yeah, early. Just a routine inspection of the facility by some brass.”

He smiles at that. Guess I’m not as good a liar as I thought. The guard nods me through.

“Mr. Brodden is near the lift. Could you remind him not to smoke in the building?” He pressed a button and magnetic locks disengage allowing me to enter the facility.

Sam is in the lobby, pacing. He looks tired. Circles paint a bluish brown under his eyes. He sees me, stops, and comes forward.

“You took your time.”

I don’t let him draw me into the argument. “What is it we have, Sam.”

“A problem. Let’s get up to Big Ben.” He fishes in his pocket and comes up with a pack of cigarettes. A shaking hand fumbles one out and puts the cancer stick in his mouth. “Want one?”

“Thought you quit?”

His head shakes. “Who the fuck cares.”

Sam lights up, blowing smoke out and coughing.

“Those things will kill you.”

“Not fast enough.” He hits the call button and we wait for the elevator. I hope that it takes a while. Sam in the elevator is bad enough. He has a restless leg. The cigarette is the other. It’s been fifteen years since my last puff, and the smell usually makes me sick.

He sees me holding back and butts the thing out.

“Sorry, forgot.”

The doors open and we enter. He hits seven and the doors close. I’m happy they killed the elevator music last month. It took a year, but all the emails finally sank in.

“Tell me a little about what was found.” The silence is something I hate.

“I was told not to say anything.”

“If this is a surprise party…” The last one they pulled was over a year ago.

“No.” His answer is too short to be a lie.

“Then what?”

The elevator slows and stops. Doors open to the main room. At this time of the day it should be empty, but right now it’s full. Twelve people are packed into it. My thoughts about this being a drill left me right then and there. Even the director is there talking with a man wearing enough medals on his uniform to build a small car. The scent of sweat fills the air along with a stale cigar.

“He’s here,” Sam calls out. The room quiets, and Carl, the director, looks over and motions for me to join him.

“About time you showed up,” Carl says. “Looking for the dramatic entrance?”

The conference room doors open up. Julie stands there and looks over the group. Once her eyes land on me she comes forward. She looks worried.

“Hi, doc, everything’s ready,” she says, not a hint of the usual smile.

“What’s going on, Julie?”

She hands over a binder. On the front are the words “Little One”. My eyebrow rises. The code name is something I thought up.

Julie is standing there, nodding. I purse my lips and she turns, leading me into the conference room. Everyone follows.

Heat hits me as I enter the room. Big Ben must be working overtime. Air conditioners are throwing cold out, but processing power generates heat, and Big Ben has processing power to spare, or that’s what we were told two years ago when we started this project. Now, I look at the readouts and see he’s running at high capacity. It’s the upper limit, allowing for basic commands to be run when needed.

“Ben,” I call out. “What’s your status?”

“Hello, doctor.” They programed a baritone voice into Ben, but his inflections are always off just a bit. “I’m operating at 87.23% capacity. CPUs 1–98 are calculating at 7.3 terahertz and the first seven banks of ram are dumping to disc. I’m 92% completed with the current calculations. Estimated time to completion is twelve minutes and thirty seven seconds.”

Julie guides me towards a seat near the head of the conference table and makes me sit down. There’s another binder on the table labeled “Out There”. My mind reels. The title sparks something in the back of my skull, and it is itching there.

I go to open the binder and spy Carl shaking his head; he points to the binder Julie had given me. Thumbing through the binder makes my head pound.

There is a plotted course. A projected path through the solar system is laid out. Size is estimated with a surface area of 17 million square kilometers. Mass at over 1.67 x 10²² kg. Basically, it’s the size of Eris. How did we miss it?

“Gentlemen,” Carl says. “As you know we have a 42 alert. A planet killer.”

Everyone starts talking at once. I scan through the binder for anything important. The heat is getting to me.

“Doc, you okay?” Carl asks.

I look up and see him staring at me. Concern is in his eyes.

“Yes, sorry. Just getting up to speed.” My feet are under me quickly. “We have a planet killer coming at us. Preliminary information tells us it has the mass and size of Eris, our tenth planet, if you include dwarf planets. I always have. A planet is a planet. The trajectory shows we have three months at the object’s current speed.” I stop, and pinch the bridge of my nose.

“Ben, how far are you on those calculations?”

“Calculations are now finished, doctor.”

Something tells me not to call them up. If it’s not confirmed there is a chance it will not happen. There could be an error in the initial course projection, or maybe it’s just a blob on the telescope.

No, I need to know for sure, and so does everyone else.

“Ben, display the data through the holographic unit in conference room one.”

The table top glows briefly. Images in the form of the sun and planets are displayed. Each planet has its orbit shown. The main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is also displayed along with the Trojan Asteroids, from the smallest rock to the largest boulder, tumbling in virtual space. Even the Kuiper belt encircles our solar system.

Just outside the Kuiper is a flashing dot. The date displayed is today’s.

“I will move the time index forward.” The days tick forward and the planets move about the sun. Little One moves forward through the Kuiper belt, striking several of the asteroids, spewing them into space. Thirty days and the rogue planet passes the orbit of Uranus, but the gas giant is on the other side of the sun. Thirty more days and the planet enters the asteroid belt, pushing its way from one side to the other, and making a tunnel through the orbiting debris field.

The asteroids from the Kuiper belt are striking planets and moons, throwing the small objects out of their own orbits. The planet wreaks havoc through the system. I shudder.

Three months, four days, nine hours and twenty-seven minutes later the rogue hits our moon. The display has increased in size to show the effects of the collision.

The moon pushes forward, the Little One having struck our only satellite square on. The collision slows the Little One slightly, delaying the strike, but the moon glances off Earth, taking a chunk out of the North Pole.

When the planet finally strikes Earth twelve minutes later, there is a cracking of the surface. Ben’s voice interjects, “I have extrapolated the course of every object. The strike will happen within the shown timeline. Each spatial object is tracked from the start to finish. The destruction of Earth is predicted based on current knowledge of the planet’s structure. I’m sorry, doctor.” The planets dissolve and the calculations display before us. Reams of information flows as the computer dumps memory to make room for the next function we will ask it to perform.

Out There

Seven people sit with their mouths open. One runs to the door, probably trying to get to the bathroom, but fails. He vomits just as he exits the room. I watch a tear drop from Julie’s eye.

“Doc,” Carl said. “How accurate is this model?”

I know what he’s doing. He wants a way out. Some type of possibility that the world will survive this disaster. It’s unfortunate something like this could not be disregarded.

“Sorry, Carl, there’s no mistake. Ben’s got the biggest processing power available.” I see my fingers playing with the binder labeled “Out There”, and wonder what it is all about. “Remember Halley’s comet? Ben’s the one that predicted its destruction while everyone else predicted its return.”

“I remember that, a few years before I came on board.”

My eyes won’t leave the binder now.

“Go ahead.”

I look up and Carl’s smiling. He’s inclining his head towards the binder. I pull it towards me and start skimming it. My eyes widen in disbelief.

“When did this — ” I start.

“It was my last directorship.” Carl is grinning now.

“But when? How? Why haven’t I heard of anything like this before?” My head is reeling now.

“I started project ‘Out There’ ten years ago,” he says. “Each member of the United Nations has been syphoning money towards the project. Took us three years to get the plans drawn. Another four to build the facility. It surprised me how fast the parts came in. Some ordered through NASA, others from different country’s space exploration arms. It was quite easy, really.” His smile cuts through the cloud of people talking.

“Look,” I say, standing. My body is craving fresh air. “I have no idea what this project’s about. Really, the scale of this is phenomenal!” I’m waving the binder in front of me subconsciously. “How all of this was built without anyone knowing is just…”

“You skimmed it,” he says to me. “There’s no worry about it. Use the information and just follow the timeline on the last page.”

The chime rings and Big Ben calls everyone back to the conference room. My hand turns the chair towards me, the tall, black back invites me to sit and be comfortable, but the feeling running up and down my spine is nothing like that.

“The floor is yours, Doctor.” Ben turns off his speaker and I stand once again.

“It seems we have a way to survive, but not much time to do it in.” I then start to lay out the plan in the binder.

Getting Ready

I can’t believe how easily Julie transitioned from our small office to the big one in this new facility. The lack of windows unnerves me, personally. How people could work with the walls looming over them baffles my understanding.

Several other astrophysicists help me deal with all the details concerning the plan. This is beyond me. How did they think I could handle all the details involved? So much to do and so little time to do it in. Why couldn’t we have found the 42 sooner? It really wouldn’t have made any difference. We would have just pushed with less ferocity than we are now.

The piles of requisitions scream at me for attention. One finds its way in to my hands, and I read it with disinterest. Toilet paper, really? There has to be something else to ask for. Three tons, that’s how much they’re asking for. They must be elephants or something. What the hell would they be using that much for?

“Julie,” I call out, hoping to pass on the need to investigate.

“Yes, doc?” she says when her face pokes into the room.

“Here.” I hold out the requisition form to her. “Find out how many times section seven flushes the toilet and see if they really need so much ass-wipe.”

She grabs the paper from me and chuckles. “I’ll look in on it.” I can see the question in her eyes.

“What?”

“Are you okay?”

“We’ve worked together for about twelve years now, right?” My fingers run thought my hair, scratching at an imaginary itch at the back of my skull.

“A little over, I’d say.” Her eyes are full of concern.

“Have you even known me to be an administrator?”

She starts to giggle.

“Sorry, doc. It’s just that for the last few days you’ve shuffled more paper and administrated this facility better than anyone. There’s no one I could point to who would have done a better job.” She flourishes the requisition form in front of her. “Most would have just signed off on this without even thinking.”

My mind pictures Carl behind the desk with crates of toilet paper stacked behind him and I start to laugh.

“Carl, right?” Julie says.

“Yes. It’s stacked — ”

“ — Behind him.”

The headache starts to disappear. The levity is enough to break the ice. Standing, I make my way around the desk and take the requisition from her. “I’ll take care of this.”

She giggles her way back to her desk.

The hallway is inviting as a cave is to someone who’s claustrophobic. I keep getting the sense that the world is about to collapse, and it’s not that far off. We’re all surprised that no one has found out our little secrete, that of the 42. Maybe that’s what they needed the toilet paper for. Build a little bouncing point for the impact zone.

One door keeps me away from the head of software development. Someone had a sense of humor, taping ‘Super Geeks’ over the actual department name with a drawing of a classic geek with a cap blowing in the wind. The pocket protector is a cute touch.

I reach out and open the door. Seven people are grouped around the large window decorating the wall. It’s unbelievable that they have windows in their area and there’s none in my office. Things will have to change.

There’s a name on the requisition form. A Marcus Kollof.

“Who’s Marcus Kollof, and why does he need so much toilet paper?” My voice has the desired effect.

The group breaks up and each head for their chairs, all except one. The red haired gorilla just turns and scowls at me. A thick Russian accent breaks through his lips. “Who says I’m full of der’mo?”

I step into the room and walk towards the window. “The one who approves your seat on her.” One finger of my left hand points to The Hope down below.

Very few people have ever seen The Hope. The ship is huge. Enough to hold five hundred people and all the supplies needed to make their trip to Gliese.

We have five such ships ready to reach out to the stars. Each with the same experimental drive system they claim will allow us to surpass the speed of light. The bulk of each ship’s drive system is already in space, hidden in a polar orbit behind large shields. If people look for them they will just see a black field.

The blunt nose of each ship arches back to the sleek body, and two large pods reach out from both sides. They collect hydrogen and transfer it to the engine for burning. The lines are bold enough to get lost in, but each ship has a Big Ben installed in its head. Nothing will stop us from surviving. Nothing, that is, except sloppy programming.

“Or better yet,” I say. “The paper here says you are.”

Marcus steps forward and snatches the requisition form from my hand. “Explain.”

“You’ve requested 3 tons of toilet paper — ”

“No, delo.” His finger jabs the paper, almost puncturing it.

“Tons. That’s what is says here.”

“Delo. See, you have to see the py.”

“Look, you’ve spelled it ton, and I can’t approve that much. Redo it and put it in English. See the top here? All requisitions must be in English.” I reach over and point out the instructions to him.

“Der’mo meshok!”

“What?” I say.

“Shit bag. Computer translates poorly.” He smiles now, the gap between his front teeth showing. “Me full of shit.”

“Just correct it.” I start to leave but his meat hook of a hand lands on my shoulder.

“You need to see.” He guides me to the terminal at his desk. “You Big Ben work good, but issues with calculation.”

“What do you mean?” Something is telling me this is important, but there is only so much one can do.

“I link all Big Ben together. Good spectrum here not used. New information shows planet speeding up. Time not much.” His smile is gone now, and the readout on the terminal is spewing out numbers.

“When one Big Ben made for American calculate, it make pretty picture for all to see. Not much time on real numbers, just lines in air to make happy.” I’m leaning in now, seeing the figures come to the correct assumption. We have less time then we predicted.

We Meet Again

I’m tired.

After a long four hours of analyzing the data Marcus showed there was no dismissing the information. The planet was speeding up. It’s our sun, and it took the combined processing power of the Big Bens to figure it out. No fancy graphics, just numbers. Numbers and the gravity well of our star.

Once everything was collated, a fast jet was prepared and my bags magically appeared in the passenger compartment along with a note from Julie. My wife will be waiting for me. It’s been almost two weeks since I saw her last.

I board the plane and find the nearest seat to the front. My ass hits it and before the plane lifts off the tarmac my eyes close.

It’s hard to know if someone else is on a plane with you when your eyes are closed. They don’t open up again until two hours later, and not even then until an attendant shakes my shoulder. I must say, the tumble of her blonde hair is impressive, along with her striking blue eyes. All that and a military uniform as well. Enough rank symbols have been flashed in front of my eyes for me to know she’s a captain.

“Doctor, we’re about to land.” She stops shaking me as my eyes open.

“Okay,” I yawn. “Is there any coffee, Captain…”

“Jesper. Sorry, I don’t drink coffee, and I don’t think you’d like to drink what would pass for my coffee.”

We hit turbulence and she moves quickly to the seat across the aisle. Her hands fumble with the belt before it snaps into place. With a tug, she tightens it.

“Fly much?” I ask. Her face is ashen.

“Last time I did we dumped into the Pacific.” Her hands are straining on the armrest.

“How long ago?”

“Four years, eight months and twenty days ago.”

“You keep count?”

“It’s the last time I flew.” She has an air sickness bag in her hand now.

I look around the plane. No one else is on board. “You’re doing okay. We’ll make it.”

“That’s what the pilot said. We’ll make it. Next thing I know I’m shooting out of the cockpit with a rocket blasting me into the air. Do you know how cold the water is right after a spring melt? I do.” Turbulence rock the plane.

The intercom comes to life. “We’re landing in ten minutes. Fast approach protocol is approved. Please tighten your belts.” The intercom snaps off.

“Fast approach?” I ask. Her eyes are closed now.

“Means we’re aimed at the runway. He’s going to burn off the altitude soon, take us right into the airport.” She vomits into the bag.

The whine of the engines subsides and the plane’s nose dips. A small TV on the bulkhead reads out the altitude and air speed. One is decreasing and the other is increasing. My stomach tries to climb out though my nose.

“In front of you.”

I look over. She’s holding another air sickness bag and pointing to the flap in front of her. “I’m not there yet.”

We start leveling off, and a rumble shakes the plane as landing gear drops from the metal belly. My hands are now gripping the arm rests. The nose is up, the rear tires hit. It’s the worst sound in the world, the sound of tires ripping across asphalt faster than they should be.

The sun is rising. Gold reflects off the tower’s glass.

Once we’re at the terminal, they rush us off the plane and through a blocked off section of security. It’s the fastest I’ve been in and out of any airport. And before I know it, Captain Jesper has me by the elbow, moving us out to a waiting car. My bags are there. My wife is there. She rushes towards me.

She’s in my arms before I know what’s happening. The bear hug almost cracks my ribs. Her voice breaks the silence.

“I’ve missed you.”

We lean in together. Lips meet.

Jesper clears her throat. “That’s sweet.”

I pull back and look into my wife’s eyes. “I have a lot of meetings to go to, and the first one’s in twenty minutes.”

“Yes, I know. They told me. We get to catch up.”

“Doctor, I’ve been assigned as your liaison with the brass,” Captain Jesper says.

“Who are you?” My wife is looking over my shoulder.

“Captain Beatrice Jesper, you can call me Bes.”

I’m surprised. “Beatrice?”

“You can call me Captain Jesper,” she says, looking at me.

“Hi, Bes. I’m — ”

“Sarah Fergus. Age thirty-seven. Doctorate in abnormal, cognitive and social psychology.”

“You know a lot about me, it seems.”

I turn towards the captain. “Well, if you must come with us…”

She nods and we all climb into the vehicle.

The driver gets us on the highway, then to the military base. Sarah has never liked fast moving vehicles. She tries to keep her eyes on me, but they wander to the road. I just try and hold onto her attention while lead foot moves us through traffic. Ten minutes later, we’re pulling into the base, and it’s guarded like Fort Knox.

Medals is waiting for us. He’s wearing even more ribbons and dangling icons then the last time I saw him. Maybe a bus worth this time. Not one of them appears to be from combat.

The smile is plastic, his hand limp. My opinion of him is dropping by the moment. His badge hangs from the coat pocket. Billington, William. He’s a General.

Jesper gets that ramrod look going as she salutes. Billington returns it with a limp hand. Sloppy. He reeks of stale cigar smoke and scotch. Must be nice.

Sarah takes the man’s hand and I can see she’s profiling him. Calculating eyes smile as her hand drops to remove his form her elbow.

“Welcome to Washington, doc.”

“I have a lot of work to do. It would have been better to just come to the facility.” Something tells me this man doesn’t go anywhere for anyone.

“You live here, and so does your wife.”

“We could have given her clearance to join me. Actually, that’s a good idea. I want her to have clearance.”

He smiles. “That’s why she’s here.”

Sarah looks at me. “What’s this all about?”

Billington puts his finger to his lips. “Not until you sign some papers.”

I nod.

He leads us into the building, past more armed guards.

“They’re a little paranoid here,” Sarah says.

“You have no idea,” I whisper back.

Into another office and we are directed to sit. Jesper just stands here, ramrod straight. A couple of MPs come in and take Sarah away. Billington tells me he’ll make sure the interview goes well and to stay here. He leaves.

Jesper relaxes and looks at me. I shake my head.

“You do that a lot,” she says.

“What?”

“Shake your head.”

The statement bounces around in my skull. “I think it’s better to shake my head then his.” I cross my eyes. A little trick inherited from an aunt.

That gets me a smile.

“Do you report to him directly?”

She walks over to the chair next to mine. “No, thank God. I almost choke when his booze soaked breath hits me. He doesn’t own a toothbrush from what I hear.”

I chuckle.

“Did he earn all those medals or are they just for show?”

“Earned them, as far as being able to wear them. Most are from just being safe at the base when others went out to fight. All he had to do was be there for two weeks.”

“And he gets a medal?”

“Ya, he gets a medal. Most soldiers don’t wear theirs, but he does. All of them.”

It’s chitchat. We keep talking for a while, exchanging antidotes. I tell her how Sarah and I met, she tells me about her cats. Thirty minutes go by and Sarah comes back into the room, shaking.

She sits beside me and Jesper shoots up as booze breath comes into the room.

“She’s legal,” he says.

“You okay?” I take her hand.

A tear is in her eye.

“I-I can’t believe it.”

I reach for her hand.

“We have a few things to talk about.” Billington sits behind the desk. “Jesper, relax.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“So, your supercomputer’s not that super. Fudged the time frame by a month.”

“With all due respect, General. Big Ben only had two hours of data to examine. Not much to tell the velocity of the 42, let alone know it was accelerating.”

He nods. “Okay, doc. I’ll give you that one. Are the ships ready?”

“No.”

“Ships?” Sarah asks.

“There’s a number of things not covered in the briefing, Mrs. Fergus.”

“Project ‘Out There’ has five spaceships in the final stages of completion. We’ve been trying to finish everything off over the last few weeks.” Sarah is staring at me. “Each will carry five hundred men and women to Gliese G. Everyone will be in suspended animation.”

“And you’ve been involved in this for how long?”

“Only the two weeks.” She squeezes my hand.

“How far?” she asks.

“20 light years. Gliese is in the constellation of Libra. Gliese G is in the zone.”

Her eyes widen. “The Goldilocks Zone.”

“We don’t call it that. The habitable zone. Anyway, there are three planets that could sustain us, and it all depends on what we find when we get there. If we get there.”

“What will stop us?” Sarah asks.

“Experimental drive systems, radiation, suspended animation, the unknown. Lots of issues. Hell, this is all a crap shoot anyway.”

“But we’ll survive.” She is full of hope, anyone can see it. I’m no longer smiling, neither is Billington. Sarah is looking between the two of us. “We’ll survive. Right?”

“The strongest have been picked for the trip,” Billington says. “Couples in the right age and demeanor. All of them strong and capable of surviving off the land.”

Sarah turns to me. “We’ll survive. Right?”

A lump forms in my throat. I force a swallow and look down at the ground. “The human race will survive.” My eyes meet Sarah’s. “But we’re too old to be picked for the flight.”

Job Well Done

Two months have spun past so fast. We finally got the last of the ships ready. All the couples are now safe in suspended animation pods. Our five ships, all powered up and ready to go, sit upon the rail system. We’ll get them up to Mach five before the chemical rockets ignite.

We’re cutting it close. Only one week left. The 42 is visible in the sky now, both day and night. It was visible about two weeks ago, and the night Sarah saw it, she took her own life. No note. Nothing. She was living at the facility when it happened. I came home to our billet and her feet swung a foot off the ground. Tears streaked my face for a long time. Julie found me the next day, holding Sarah and rocking back and forth.

She helped me. Cleaned me up. Got Sarah ready for the MPs. We buried her at the base of the rail system. Jesper was there, along with Carl and Billington. The service took thirty minutes and we returned to work.

The countdown hits three and the power going through the rail shakes the whole countryside. Black smoke is pouring out of the fifty generators built on the site. Just enough power is generated to get the ships moving and keep the lights on.

My stomach flips as the five ships start moving down the ten kilometers of rail. At the end, the chemical rockets ignite and the ships arch to the heavens. Cheering rises from the control room.

We watch as the ships make their way out of the atmosphere, connect with the main drive systems in orbit and flush the first ton of hydrogen to accelerate. I say a silent prayer.

Two months. That’s all it took us. Over a thousand technicians, welders, electricians and programmers have made it possible.

Hubble tracks the ships as they speed away. Their image becomes fuzzy as their speed passes the fastest man has ever gone before. Then nothing. No light is traveling fast enough to bounce off them. They have hit light speed.

Humanity has reached the stars. Hopefully, we will survive.

Find out more about the author on his website — https://daowen.ca

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