Chapter 15: Watching the End from Afar
They crossed the orbit of Mars a week after launch. The ship was continuing to accelerate at point-one gravities without a hitch. As a result, they had now reached over 1.3 million miles per hour. They needed to continue accelerating for a year to reach their desired speed of just over 0.1 the Speed of Light. The engines continued to work flawlessly.
As the ship approached the asteroid belt, The Commander ordered the course changed to leave the plane of the solar-ecliptic a few degrees. While the asteroid belt was sparsely populated, the chance of hitting a significantly-sized boulder was too great to risk. The plan was to continue this course until they were clear of Jupiter’s orbit nine days later before turning towards their first planetary system.
The ships’ launch had been planned so that they would avoid all of the planets in the solar system. Mars was a ways ahead of the Earth and all of the planets beyond Mars were currently not anywhere near their projected course.
They passed beyond Neptune’s orbit a bit over one month into their journey. Communications with Earth was more difficult because the Sun had become even more unstable in the interim. Solar flares had made communications spotty.
GenStar two launched six months after they had left the space-yards and was heading out of the system at higher acceleration than they had used. GenStar three was only a basic frame. GenStar four hadn’t been started when things on Earth became untenable.
Earth was being scorched by the unstable Sun. Millions were dying daily as drought shriveled water supplies and devastated crops. Most of China and India were depopulated as people either died or fled. Survivors were migrating towards the mountains and to the extreme northern and southern latitudes.
They had received reports of mobs trying to storm the Malaysia Space Elevator. The armed forces had orders to shoot anyone trying to enter the area around the station that didn’t have a colonist’s implant or were not station personnel. Seeing soldiers with tears in their eyes as they defended the station was heart-wrenching.
The efforts to finish GenStar Three ended when the Malaysian Space Elevator failed. The elevator in Kenya had been abandoned and no other elevator was even off the ground. The authorities on Earth decided not to attempt to replace the Elevator as conditions on Earth had deteriorated too far to support it. Midway had been pulled away from Earth by the counter-weight. It was heart-breaking to hear those marooned aboard Midway sending messages to their families. The commander detonated the reactor core once they were well clear of the shipyard’s orbits. The flash of the detonation lit the night-side of Earth brilliantly.
The Ship-yard commanders evacuated as many women and young men as they could to the moon. It had been decided that they should be allowed to survive as moon colonists. Both stations shipped as many supplies and materials as they could and urged the commanders of the Moon bases to quickly build barracks for the refugees.
Some older women refused to go, and many of the older men on the stations stoically accepted their fates. They agreed that the younger people deserved the best chance to survive, even if they could never go home again. Once everyone that would go had been evacuated, the ship-yard commanders’ ordered several shuttles to tow the stations beyond the Earth’s orbit. Once they had gained enough momentum to carry the huge structures beyond any possibility of returning to Earth, they too detonated their reactors. The glowing debris-fields were visible for many hours.
Quiet reigned aboard GenStar One. Sobbing and cries of protest could be heard throughout the ship. Sad messages of condolences were transmitted to a grieving Earth.
Direct communications with GenStar Two failed soon after. Their ID beacon continued to transmit for several days, and then it too went silent. Speculation ran the gamut from simple equipment-failure, to disaster. The only clue they ever had was a faint flash of light from their vicinity, recorded on an automatic camera.
As they neared their one-year anniversary of launch, the Sun launched a huge plasma promontory toward Earth. A satellite orbiting Mars relayed the images and data to GenStar One. Because of their distance, the images came in on a low-speed channel. They had to wait several days for the transmission to complete.
When the entire sequence had been downloaded, the Commander silently sent the series of images out as a general broadcast. Everyone watched in dismay as the images showed the plasma ball grazing the atmosphere and then curving ever so slightly to impact the Moon squarely. All communications from the automatic transponders on the Moon ceased transmitting. As the flash of the impact faded, the side of the Moon that had been hit was glowing bright yellow. Fires were visible over one half of the Earth where the plasma had glanced off of the atmosphere. All clouds had fled and the remaining atmosphere was rapidly filling with smoke.
Stunned observers remained frozen where they were, watching with disbelieving eyes as the surface of their beautiful Earth slowly blazed with countless fires, and then was cloaked with darkness as the smoke from the fires obscured the surface. Since this had happened over a month ago, all aboard knew now that the Earth was dead. If anyone had survived, it hadn’t been for long. There were no communications from the Moon either. One of the bases had been on the side away from the impact-site, but their survival was doubtful.
The Commander had the lights in the Habitats dimmed to half-level for 24 hours. All activity was suspended except for essential services. People gathered in small groups in open areas or in public places and mourned the dead. Many people hugged or wept openly. No laughter was heard for several days. It was an ominous awareness that they were now the only surviving humans.
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About the Author
Glenn Erickson is a business-owner in Clearwater, Florida. He has been an avid reader since discovering the printed word at an early age
“I decided to start writing what I termed “Speculative Fiction” as it wasn’t really science fiction or just plain fiction. I wanted people to not only enjoy the story but to ‘speculate’ on the ideas or concepts presented.
“I may never earn a dime writing, but I enjoy the thought-movies my writing inspires. I hope I write well enough that the reader ‘sees’ the same or similar thought-movie”
“The best books I have ever read, regardless of genre, were those where the writer painted word-pictures that allowed you to ‘see what he (or she) had seen as they wrote. I would become so immersed in the story that I no longer really saw the words, just the images portrayed.”
His advice to others that aspire to write: “Just do it! It doesn’t matter if it is well-written or grammatically-correct, (at first) just get your thoughts and visions on paper or into a word-processor. You can clean it up later if you think it is worthy of being read. Describe what you ‘see’ in your story and add to it as more becomes visible to your mind’s eye.”
“Read your story back to yourself out loud. Make changes that make the story easier to say out loud, and you will go a long ways towards a credible, readable story. Let the English Majors wring their hands in agony as you mangle the syntax and dangle the participles. It is YOUR story, not theirs!”
“Read books on good writing AFTER you have done some writing. Use their advice to ‘clean-up’ your stories. Re-read your stories afterwards and see if they are not even better! With continued practice, you will be able to write better stories the first time out. Writing is a learned skill. The more you do it, using what you have learned, the better you will become!”
“Just go for it!”
Connect with Me Online:
Glenn Erickson
Clearwater, Florida
9-25-2016
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Escape to the Stars! Page 16
