Chapter 14: Launch Day!
It had been just over ten months since Alexi had moved to the ship. The neighborhood had swelled with population rapidly and she was now hard-pressed to see any unoccupied apartments. It had taken a while but she realized one day that there were no children aboard! She had known that none would be brought aboard and that only singles and colonists that had married other colonists were aboard, but the lack suddenly struck her as odd.
She had spotted quite a few pregnant women recently so the lack of children would soon end. She glanced at her own belly for a moment and missed Pieter again. She hadn’t found any men aboard that she had been attracted to yet, though she had had her share of dates. She just didn’t feel ready yet.
She had established herself at the nearby laboratory where she was working for an older woman geneticist. They were busy sampling the crops and animals aboard to establish a baseline against which to verify future generations. She had maintained contact with her family and learned that Pieter’s wife had recently given birth to a daughter. She cried herself to sleep that night.
She had been allowed to train to pilot the jumpers and so she would occasionally volunteer to take one out and assist the workers still working in vacuum. She would ferry materials or retrieve dropped tools, and, once, a worker that hadn’t secured his lanyard correctly and had floated off. When she wasn’t actually working, she would take the jumper through the framework sightseeing. She once headed to the area directly over the ship so she could see the entire thing at once. Traffic control had to call her twice to regain her attention, and had been reminded not to take a jumper that far away from the shipyard again. She didn’t regret the incident at all; the view had been awe-inspiring.
She had received a general broadcast on her pad and had seen the message posted on screens at kiosks around the area: the ship was scheduled to test the engines that day. The ship had been moved out of the shipyards so that they could test-fire each engine group. If the tests went well, they would be leaving within a week after the engineers certified the test results.
As the time neared, she gathered in the open area with thousands of fellow colonists. Every screen was displaying the same image relayed from a shuttle standing off to one side of the ship. The mood was somber; everyone hoped the tests were successful. Those associated with the tests had been inundated with requests for information from their neighbors and friends. All was reported well.
At the appointed time, the video feed showed a swelling brilliance emanating from each bank of engines and then fading away. They didn’t feel the ship moving so many people groaned, thinking the tests were failures. When the last cluster faded to black, the video feed was replaced by the face of the Commander. “The tests are complete. Preliminary data shows that all engines fired properly! Pending the final approval we will be on our way in a week! Congratulations to everyone!” The screen changed to display the ships logo and went silent.
People slowly dispersed, talking animatedly. Alexi returned to her apartment and found messages from her family say that they had seen the engine test and wondered if it had gone well. She broadcast an answer to all telling them that the tests had gone well. She added that she missed them all, her Father most of all. There was no message from Pieter.
She was seized by a bout of extreme melancholy that day. She didn’t know why but suspected that the reality of her leaving Earth forever was finally settling in. Up until now, everything had been exciting as she prepared and trained for this day. She had been too busy to really realize that the end result would be her never seeing her family again.
She wandered down the street from her apartment, not really wanting to be alone right then. She saw the little café she had visited her first day and stepped inside to find it filled with a boisterous crowd eating and drinking and talking excitedly about the tests and their up-coming launch.
She squeezed through to the counter and ordered a coffee. She looked around as it was being prepared and spotted a table near the window with two chairs but only one occupant. She couldn’t see his face but, since she hadn’t actually seen anybody aboard that could even remotely called ugly, she decided to meet him, or at least share his table.
Coffee in hand, she deftly maneuvered her way through the throng and approached the table. She hesitated briefly then asked quietly “May I share your table please?”
The man started and then turned haunted eyes towards her. She almost changed her mind when the light came back into his eyes and her stood and pulled out the other chair for her. She sat down and he helped scoot it back in. When he sat down again, he hesitated then reached a hand out to her and said “Hi. My name is Dean.” She shook his hand firmly and she saw a surprised look pass over his face. “Hi Dean. My name is Alexi.”
He looked thoughtful and then said “That sounds like it was shortened from something longer.”
She grimaced and said “It’s short for Alexandra.” She shivered. “I never liked my full name, so everyone calls me ‘Alexi’. I hope I am not intruding.” She asked quietly.
He shrugged and answered “You disrupted an unpleasant chain of thought, so, no; you are actually a welcome alternative.”
She waited for him to elaborate and he seemed distracted so she sipped her coffee and watched his face out of the corner of her eye. He returned to looking off into the distance, wandering the paths of memory she wasn’t privy to. She didn’t want to intrude, so she sat quietly and turned to reflect a little on the past herself.
He apparently became aware that she was still sitting next to him and shook off the thoughts that had occupied him. He glanced her way and saw that she too was lost in thought. He took the opportunity to scan her face. She was pleasant to look at, with wavy auburn hair and hazel eyes. Her complexion was somewhat pale, but then many of the colonists still had the “Station Tan” they acquired from too long out of the sun. The light-bars for the station didn’t provide as much ultraviolet light as the sun did.
She became conscious of someone looking at her and flicked a glance his way. He flushed and looked down quickly. She returned the look with an appraising one of her own. He could be called handsome and he had better color than most of the men she met. His hair was pale and very curly. His eyes were somewhat odd in that they were an intense gray or very light blue. He glanced up and caught her looking at him and flushed again. She found that attractive as it meant that he was not a predator like many of the men she had met so far.
They slowly began to talk about their jobs and where they lived. Then they explored where they had lived on Earth and their families. They passed a pleasant hour or so until the café crowd began to thin out. He invited her to stroll in the park one level up and she agreed.
They walked beside each other and continued to talk. They found each other pleasant company. Alexi’s natural caution kept her from moving too rapidly, but Dean’s demeanor was non-threatening. He too seemed to be cautious so she decided that if he wanted to see her again, she would probably agree.
He accompanied her to her apartment but declined to come in. “I have to go on-shift shortly so I need to go home and get ready.” He started to turn away, then turned back and asked quietly “May I see you again?”
She smiled and held out her hand saying “Yes. I would be pleased to see you again.”
He flushed a bit but glanced into her eyes and seemed to see reassurance there. He gently squeezed her hand and then hurried off. Her eyes followed his retreating form until he turned a corner. Smiling to herself, she let herself in and closed the door.
Six days later, the Commander broadcast that the engine tests had been certified and they were cleared to go. “All shuttle traffic has ceased in the area and we have been pulled further from the yards. We will begin the count down once we have clearance from the Yard Commander.”
“We will bring the acceleration up slowly to check all systems” The Comm
ander hesitated and then added “The Chancellor wants to send us off with one of his rousing speeches. Those of you that want to hear what he has to say can tune in to channel 42.” She glanced to one side for a moment and then smiled thinly and added “according to the numbers I am seeing here, no one else is interested either. Oh well, I guess he’ll have an audience of one: me!”
“Congratulations to us all! We have all been told that we are the hope for humanity. As I have seen this project move forward and worked with many of you, I am assured that we are. Let the word go out that humanity is leaving the cradle of civilization and taking to the stars!”
The screen changed to a count-down, starting at ten minutes. Alexi shivered. She considered sending a message home but decided to wait until after they were underway. She called up the camera-feed from the shuttle that was stationed nearby. It showed the exterior of the ship shining in the sun, the habitats slowly turning.
At one minute to zero, she saw smaller engines fire up around the outside of the main engines. Once they were all firing, it looked like the burner on the gas stove at home. They were there to steer the ship, and to compensate for any off-center thrusts from the huge main engines as they came on-line one group at a time.
As the count-down hit ten seconds, she could hear thousands of voices counting along in a slowly swelling roar. When the count hit two, the outer two main engines flared to life, followed a split second later by the two closer in. At zero, the crowd roared as the four remaining engines flared to brilliant life. Alexi was slightly disappointed that she wasn’t feeling any acceleration. She called up a screen that showed the ships’ data and saw that the display for speed was slowly scrolling up. At one minute, they had only gone a hundred feet!
Then she found a link to the engine status monitors and found out that the engineers were being conservative: they were limiting the thrust to 5 percent. As she watched, individual engines began to creep higher and higher in thrust. At 50 percent power, she could actually feel the gentle acceleration.
Suddenly, two of the engines flared out. Puzzled, she didn’t see any reaction on the displays for the remaining engines. Then she saw that the engines to either side were throttled up slightly.
The Capitan’s face flashed onto the screen and announced “I need to report to you that two of the engines were shut down due to a fluctuation in their readings. The Engineers are simply being cautious as these are the most powerful engines mankind has ever built. Once they are checked out, they will be re-started.”
A few minutes later, Alexi saw first one, then the other of the two engines flare gradually back to life. As they regained their place on par with the other engines, the others were slightly throttled back. She watched enraptured and the engines continued to flare brilliantly.
She turned back to the ships’ status screen and saw that they had traveled several miles and were accelerating steadily. Another camera-angle showed the shipyard slowly dwindling behind them. The Earth was still a significant presence in the camera’s field-of-view and the moon was just in the frame, shining brilliantly.
Stepping out her front door, she discovered that many of her neighbors were wandering about. One man strapped on a pair of rollerblades and rapidly disappeared towards the back of the ship. Watching his receding form, Alexi hoped he would be as eager to fight his way back home against the acceleration.
She wandered to the café and sipped green tea and listened to her neighbors as they discussed the departure and their reactions to actually being on their way. When she finished her tea, she headed home, showered and went to bed.
Alexi awoke several hours later when her pad beeped and displayed a message from her boss. Apparently, she had slept through her alarm. Again. She jumped up, dressed and grabbed a bottle of vegetable juice and a breakfast bar form the refrigerator. Pushing the bike out the door, she allowed it to close behind her and then she pedaled furiously towards the lab.
She locked the bike into the rack and ran into the lab. Her boss was peering into a microscope when she pushed through the doors. She straightened and looked at Alexi with disapproval. Alexi shrugged and said “I over-slept again. I’ll set it to be louder next time. He boss nodded and turned back to her observations.
Alexi shrugged into her lab coat and rushed to her station. She sipped the juice and nibbled at the bar while examining a DNA sequence from a chicken. The computer had flagged this section of the sequence as new and Alexi was mapping the anomaly for posterity. They would keep this chicken from breeding and watch it grow.
Her overall job was to catalogue DNA sequences. They had indexed most of the live animals and were just starting on the frozen genetic material that had been brought aboard. The frozen samples were of nearly every species existing on Earth, excluding animals generally considered pests like rats and mice as well as many insects. Insects like ladybugs and a wide variety of bees and a few others had been brought aboard to help the farms. Large land and sea animals had had been included only as genetic samples as there was no room to actually have the live specimens aboard. Most salt-water and many fresh-water species had also been included only as genetic material.
Only the more familiar species of farm animals were aboard as live specimens. They were test subjects to see what effect living aboard in space would have on them. Strangely, no primates had been brought aboard live. She later learned that it was feared that primates might escape and cause problems should they manage to hide in critical areas of the ship.
She was grateful that the animals had been born aboard ship and would never know pests like flies, fleas or mosquitoes. The soil for the farms had been imported from the moon as sterile, coarsely-ground rock. Only Ship-board mulch was mixed with it along with a careful balance of nutrients. Earthworms and other beneficial organisms grown on the ship from carefully screened samples from Earth were gradually introduced into the new soil.
The soil project for the farms and the green areas of the ship had been one of the earliest parts of the project. Samples had been created near the start of the project on the moon and expanded later at the Lagrange shipyard stations. Several species of fast-growing grasses supplemented the atmosphere recycling aboard the space stations. These grasses had been introduced to the habitats soon after they had been pressurized. They absorbed CO2 and the out-gassing of the paints and other materials used aboard the ship. It amused Alexi no end to see someone riding a lawnmower on a space ship.
So far, no dangerous mutations had occurred in people or animals. In fact, the only thing anyone noticed was that skin cancers were occurring at lower-than-normal rates and almost everyone had good cholesterol-levels.
As Alexi took a break with her boss, they discussed their observations about their fellow colonists and her boss mentioned that there were no over-weight people aboard. Alexi hadn’t noticed but paid more attention to the make-up of the people living aboard. After a few weeks of casual study, she realized that there were no bald men and few people with any sort of skin disfigurements. She didn’t observe anyone with scoliosis of the spine or with disproportionate bodies. There were a few taller men but no one was less than five feet tall!
This brought to mind the Protocol she had heard of all her life. It had been loudly discussed by nearly everyone she had ever met. Those that criticized it most fluently were the ones that were not qualified. Strangely, many of people that had been selected seldom discussed it.
Since the ship had left the shipyard, the only conversations she had taken part in had either been about their work aboard ship or about friends and family left behind. As time had moved forward, Earth was mentioned less and less.