Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Fly Free ❯ Chapter 1

Fly Free

 

An original story

 

By Archaon.

- - -

 

As soon as the automatic double doors slide open, she can feel the journalists' flashes trying to blind her. She has managed to retain enough presence of mind to appreciate the small irony; the harsh summer sun hardly needs help to harass her optically.

 

As she moves forward mechanically, her mind tries to discipline her turbulent thoughts and doubts. She reminds herself she volunteered for her duty. She proved to be the best among hundreds of candidates and she endured intensive training for a full year. She throws glimpses right and left, her gaze ignoring the exited crowds that frame her path. Instead, she makes sure the rest of her team is following her lead. Their presence serves to ease her. She might be their captain, but the four persons behind her feel more like a family than subordinates. She assumes this is part of the reason she had to work really close to all of them during her training.

 

Her body stops by its own before a raised platform, placed next to the middle of her path. She turns to face the important people sitting under the white tent. They just give her orders; they do not gamble their lives like she does. The thought neither irritates her nor mortifies her. Instead she pities them for not coming with her. They will probably rot on their chairs before they can find excitement, she muses silently, fighting to hide a smile that strives to ruin her formal and respectable visage.

 

The man sitting in the middle touches the pad lying before him with his hand, making sure the speakers are working. Talking while nobody can hear you loud enough to care is bad for important people like him. “Captain Elissa Yokomundy” he starts, making sure to sound important enough. He recites his speech and she nods reflexively at the key points. No less than ten rehearsals before the actual ceremony can go a long way disenchanting the actual event. As he keeps talking, she does her best to tune him out. The burning sun is annoying enough without having to stand under it for long.

 

For some, her name is a curiosity. She has never minded her mixed ancestry, though. It even helps her in her mission. She has always been relatively free of specific national identity and so considers the whole planet as her home. She only has to say goodbye once.

 

As the important person before her concludes, she and her crew members salute even while the crowd applause. She does not crave the attention because she will not be here to capitalize on it, but that doesn't mean she cannot enjoy instant gratification. Fame is just a bonus for her, not her goal and that is one of the reasons she was chosen.

 

They soon reach the orbital elevator, the first leg of her journey. As they enter the wagon specifically reserved for them, she takes a moment to appreciate the construct. A behemoth of special materials, esoteric metal alloys and advanced technology, its tip rising higher than the eye can see. Half a century ago it was nothing more than science fiction, an abstract idea in the mind of brilliant people. Then again, so was she. She remembers her parents with fondness. Her father that died two years ago and her mother that did her best to support her decision, never trying to stop her, to keep her close. She squelches the guilt of leaving her behind, knowing her siblings will cover for her.

 

The trip upwards is quick. All five remain silent, each taking a moment to examine their personal resolve. They have told them they can resign any time. Their duty is too demanding to expect them to do it against their will. Elissa looks through the wagon's windows, towards the ever-shrinking landscape. Summer is fast replaced by the emptiness of outer space.

 

They reach Arcadia station and disembark. Many more important people salute them, their faces full of respect and awe. Perhaps some of them are jealous, although there is also pity on their faces. Elissa frowns at the pity. She knows well that home is what you make of it. It's her choice to leave her home behind.

 

It doesn't take long. The speeches of important people are merely a show for their audience, an audience encompassing the world. She made sure to say the real good-byes earlier that morning. Her friends and family deserved at least that. The important people finish their piece and leave, leaving only the various technicians around the five-person team. She is relieved. In the presence of important people many tend to wear artificial and too perfect masks.

 

The small procession passes by the normal shuttle bays. These are intended for people traveling to and fro the Moon and Mars colonies, laughable destinations compared to her own. Security doors open at their wake and the lead technician greets them. She is glad to see him since they know each other by name. Behind him she can see their vessel, outer colony ship Gaia-1. She resists the urge to snicker at the sight. After the science fiction hype of the last century that wanted spaceships to be as intricate and elaborate as fine works of art, the first manned mission outside the solar system uses a perfect sphere as a vessel. With a radius of one hundred meters and dull gray surface, it looks anything but.

 

“Right on time, Eli” chirps the lead technician, aware of how much that particular nickname irritates her. This time, however, she beams at him because she knows he is trying to distract her and reduce her stress levels. “You and your crazy crew had better embark now. Everyone else got on board days ago.”

 

Everybody present smiles at that. Apart from the five, another two hundred people will be coming along, two hundred humans currently placed in cryo-stasis. “We'll be alright as long as your little gray coffin keeps us alive, Terry” she replies jokingly. She laughs freely at the mock hurt etched on his face.

 

“For your information, my baby is anything but a coffin. Do you have any idea how tough it is to contain a self-sustained biosphere in so little room? Do you have any idea about the sleepless nights my team had to endure to align the gravity module and...”

 

She sighs happily as he continues to rant about subjects she can barely comprehend even after her extensive training. After all, it's not her place to understand. For the first time she turns and looks directly at the rest of her crew. Her second in command and security officer, always serious beyond his years, dependable and regal; The ship's mechanic, her bubbly attitude belaying her outstanding capabilities; The medical and biology expert, easily exited and dedicated to his trade with fervency that borders on obsession; And last but not least, the unspecified duties officer, the `spare' as some call him behind his back. A jack of all trades ready to take over should anyone of the rest becomes indisposed.

 

“...supersonic relays! And all that in a little more than a year. Are you even listening to me, Eli?”

 

Said captain sighs again in resignation. “Whatever you say, Terry, but shouldn't we be moving along? It's already a bit late.”

 

His panicking and frantic face is a work of art, she decides. At his signal, part of the mighty sphere unravels to reveal the entrance. They walk inside with little fanfare since the time for public show is over. They concentrate on what lies before them, trying not to think of what they leave behind.

 

Elissa's thoughts are interrupted as she spies the ship's biologist trying very had to refrain from hopping up and down excitedly. “What's the matter Harry?” she asks with more than a little interest.

 

“It's amazing, captain” he chirps, his eyes glued to one of the screens. “I mean, we all knew we have them on board, but confirming it is something else!”

 

She replies with an adequately blank stare. “Elaborate, Harry.”

 

“Why, I'm talking about the one million cell samples from many kinds of flora and fauna we possess in triplicate, of course. We will be able to recreate them as soon as we reach our destination. Can you imagine so many species contained in so little space? It's amazing, I say, simply amazing. Noah's ark has nothing on us!”

 

She can only shake her head in amusement. Perhaps, she thinks, it's a good thing her partners are anything but boring.

 

- - -

 

Elissa sits at her desk, staring at her screen absentmindedly. The launch was nothing special since they were already outside the Earth's influence. The whole procedure was completely automated, too. She looks around her, for once glad that as the captain she is the only one entitled a private room. The colonists at the bowels of the ship are packed like sardines, their frigid coffins needing little space and even her four subordinates are already hibernating in suspended animation. She will soon have to join them if she wants to stay alive long enough to reach their destination.

 

She once again peers at their target, a planet as similar to Earth as one could possibly find. Gaia-1 only has minimal terraforming capabilities, after all. As soon as they land, it is designed to open like a flower bud and form the first building on the planet's surface. They are to establish a small town around it while slowly reviving the rest of the colonists from their frozen slumber.

 

The captain almost frowns at that. Shortly after she falls asleep, the ship's main engine will ignite, an engine capable of cheating the universe and propelling them with many times the speed of light. Even after creating a new physics branch around hyper-light travel, it will still take a couple of centuries to reach their destination.

 

Elissa has been thinking about that ever since her first briefing. There is always the distinct possibility of finding their target planet already colonized. Perhaps the scientists back on Earth will find a way of travel much faster than that. Perhaps another colony ship will beat them to their target by years.

 

In the end, she laughs at her thoughts. Would Columbus, the great explorer, abort his trip to the new lands if he knew that some centuries later human would invent airplanes? Would he shy away from his visions and forsake his destiny? Elissa knows the answer is no. She decides she'll just have to cross that bridge later.

 

Her hand absently brushes against one of the desk's few ornaments, a snow globe with a tiny Santa Maria, Columbus flagship, inside. The glass is cracked at one side and the tiny flag of the ship is flying half-mast, a testament to the object's age. Still, it's a relic of her childhood and as such a relic to be cherished.

 

She can faintly remember the first time she felt the need to explore, the need to fly free of her world. She must have been a little older than three, tugging at her mother's clothes and pointing at the sky.

 

“Look, mom, it's a funny bird!” she had exclaimed.

 

Her mother had patted her on the head, offering her one of the smiles mothers usually have. “That's an airplane, sweetheart. People use it to fly” she had replied and the little girl's eyes had doubled in size.

 

“Can I fly with it, too, mom?” she had asked excited.

 

“When you grow up, you will be able to fly as much as you can.”

 

Elissa wipes an errant tear from her smiling face while rising to her feet and stretching. She decides it is high time she slept. The ship's computer will make sure to wake her and her crew once every fifty years for security and maintenance reasons. For her, the trip will only last a couple of weeks.

 

Before she allows her body to be frozen, she sends a last silent goodbye to her home planet, her friends and family. She falls asleep with a smile on her face, the smile of a pioneer and the smile of a little girl that can now fly as much as she wants.

 

The End.