1 - ...and now I am become death
“But you said you were on leave for Unification Day,” She said to him.
“I know baby, I know,” He responded, fastening the clasp on the collar of his uniform. “But you saw on the news, they’ve lost contact with the Mars colony, they’re sending my ship to see what happened.”
“Your ship… Captain… still haven't gotten used to that,” She said, unnecessarily straightening his collar and dusting off the new Captain’s epaulets.
“You and me both, love you honey bee,” He told her as he exited the front door of their town house, where a flash of light on the horizon caught his eye. “What the hell?”
The front of the house faced west and it was still too early for sunrise, so the sight of the sky brightening to almost dawn before darkening, then repeating every fifteen seconds left him dumbfounded.
“What is it?” She asked. As he watched pale blue dot crest the horizon with twin shafts of light jetting from either end, he knew instantly what it was.
He grabbed his wife, using his body in a futile attempt to shield her from what he could never stop.
As the northern shaft of light descended down, everything that was alive was turned to ash in an instant.
2346 – Colony Ship Hope
Sol System Asteroid Belt
“What we're looking at is a computer model of how PSR J8324, what my chief astrogator is calling ‘Vishnu’, entered our solar system opposite from where we are now.” Captain Jackson Campbell told those gathered on his ship's control centre.
Amongst those gathered were the Captains of the two other colony ships and the crew of a mining freighter.
“You’ll have to forgive me but I failed my high school astronomy class, what is a PSR whatever it is?” The freighter captain asked.
“It’s a pulsar, or more accurately, a rapidly spinning neutron star.” Captain Campbell started to explain. “Imagine our sun, which is one point three million kilometres in diameter, scrunched down to the size of Texas. All that mass in such a small space creates incredibly strong gravity, heat, light, and deadly exotic radiation.”
The captain stood there silently, slowly letting what was explained sink in. With all questions answered, everyone watched the computer model play out.
‘Vishnu’ approached the solar system along the orbital plane of the planets at incredible speed, passing within a few million kilometres of Jupiter, it's gravity taking hold of the system’s largest planet, flinging it out of the solar system before slicing through the asteroid belt and slamming into Mars. Everyone gathered let out a collective gasp as the first of the pulsar’s deadly shafts of light and radiation pass over Earth repeatedly. As Vishnu passed Earth at a wider berth than it did Jupiter, the gravity could still be felt by the small planet as it ripped it apart, spilling the molten core out into space. In the corner of the projection was a clock, telling everyone that what they saw took place over less than a week.
“I’ve seen enough,” One of the other Colony Ship Captains said, walking over to the holographic projection and shut it off. “Now what?”
“We’ve been sending out broadcasts calling any surviving ships, and so far we’ve only received responses from two isolated mining platforms that are near us now, and this Captain’s freighter...” Campbell said, pausing so he could will himself to continue. “We’re all that’s left of Humanity.”
“Before we start saying that, I want to know how we missed this, why was there no warnings?” One of the freighter crewman asked.
“Despite all our advanced scanning tech, space is just too huge to monitor everything. Our analysis of the Pulsar, which is now locked in orbit with our sun, was first discovered two hundred years ago, and should be passing by our system harmlessly a light year distant.” Campbell told him. “Something out there, something massive, something we can’t detect, was able to divert a bloody pulsar towards us at a speed that would have made any warnings moot. I’d love to know why too, but we have bigger problems right now, on all our ships there's twenty-eight thousand, six hundred and twenty-three people. We need to focus on survival.”
Everyone gathered nodded in agreement.
“OK, Captain,” Campbell said turning to the freighter captain and his crew. “There’s enough cryopods for your crew and the miners, but you’ll have to be split up among the three colony ships, and you’ll have to leave your ship behind.”
“Do we have too, she’s a good ship,”
“She doesn’t have an interstellar drive, and there's no way to dock her with the colony ships, sorry Captain.” Campbell explained. “She will have a purpose though, we’re going to place a military grade transmitter on her and have her transmit a repeating message in case anyone else survived but were unable to contact us, telling them where we’re headed if they can follow.”
“If that’s what is going to happen to her, I can live with that.”
“Next question, do we tell the people already in cryo what just happened?” The third colony ship captain asked.
“Tell them now and it’ll just cause a panic, tell them later, at least they’ll have their new home to focus on.” Campbell said. “But this isn’t something that someone can decide unilaterally, I vote no, anyone vote differently?” Campbell stated, then looked his fellow Captains in the eyes, but got no response. “Ok then, Lieutenant Bhatia, arrange for the transport for everyone that isn’t staying on board to where they need to go, then contact engineering about that transmitter.”
Lieutenant Jasminder Bhatia nodded in acknowledgement of her order. Brushing a lock of jet black hair out of her eyes, she set to work.
It didn’t take long to get everything situated for their long journey to Wolf 1061c. In her cryogenic suit, Jasmine, as she liked to be called, to the great annoyance of her parents, walked along the long row of cryopods, stopping two pods away from her own.
Activating the status screen of the two pods, she checked the vitals of her parents, Rasleen and Akal Bhatia, which read stable and in the green. Satisfied, she went to the control station next to her pod and opened a com link to Captain Campbell.
“Everyone tucked in over there?”
“Yes sir,” She said, looking over at her sleeping parents and smiling.
“Ok, I'm going to activate my pod, the navigation systems of the Courage and Renewal, are slaved to your console.” He told her. “Jasmine, the fate of humanity is in your hands.”
“Don't worry, Jack, I got this, sleep well, Sir.”
“You as well, Lieutenant, Campbell out.”
She waited for her terminal to tell her that all souls were in cryogenic suspension before she started entering in the commands needed to plot their course to Wolf 1061c, but stopped short of entering in the final command.
While she didn't fully understand the technology behind the cryopod system, she knew that when under suspension, for all intents and purposes, you were clinically dead.
Technically, she was the last human alive, and that significance wasn't lost on her. Stepping away from her terminal, Jasmine walked over to the small rectangular view port. Through the polarised glass, she looked towards the sun, now with a tendril of plasma linking it with the pulsing blue dot that had snuffed out human civilisation as they knew it.
Glancing back to her parents, both devout Hindus, she wondered what they would say when she told them what happened, and what they would think that it was their daughter that inadvertently named the pulsar by quoting from the Bhagavad-Gita when she saw Earth torn apart.
Turning away from the window, she returned to the console and entered in the final command. It would take about eighty-three years to travel the thirteen-point-eight light years to their destination. Originally discovered in 2015, 1061c was thought to have been tidally locked with its parent red dwarf star because of how close it was to its star, and even if it had an atmosphere capable of supporting human life, would either be too hot on one side, or cold on the other, with only a thin strip of habitable zone on the terminator.
That all changed a hundred years ago when telemetry from one of the first deep space probes sent out into the black with the newly invented interstellar drive which made travelling between stars with generational crews possible. 1061c wasn't tidally locked, in fact, the temperatures were perfect, the atmosphere was breathable, even with its higher oxygen content. It even had a moon.
More detailed information wouldn't come though, as contact was lost with the probe before it could enter the system, but that was all that was needed to begin working on plans to colonize it.
Now, despite recent events, a century of planning and preparation was coming to fruition, but instead of making humanity an interstellar species, it would be its salvation.
Stepping into her pod, she attached the cryotubes to her suit and activated the suspension system, all the while cursing whatever God responsible for the near death of humanity.
83 Years Later
Equus – Ponyville
Twilight sat peered through her telescope into the night sky. This night’s target being a binary star that could barely be seen through the veil, a vast swath of exceedingly tiny dust particles that formed a belt between Equus and Conuus, the second and third planets in the solar system.
This binary star system had become something of a curiosity in the astronomy community when, some time ago, long before she or even her father were born, suddenly became dimmer than it already was thanks to the veil, and was joined seemingly overnight with a blue pulsar. Pulsars don't just appear out of nowhere, and the mystery has never been solved. It made for good stargazing, though. Twilight thought.
Almost out of her sight, she noticed a flash of light, moving her telescope slightly, she focused in on its source, the upper edge of the veil. Using her magic, she amplified the magnification of the telescope far beyond what it was originally capable and saw three silver tubes, two of which were breaking apart. The third was getting bigger, very very fast
“What is that?” She said aloud.
“What is what, Twilight?” Starlight asked.
“I don't know, but something is coming our way.”
Author's Note
That is the video that inspired this story. It's an interesting documentary.
I've tried to keep things as accurate as my limited understanding of science can muster, but as this A) a Sci-Fi, B) a Pony-Fic, some supernatural things will creep their way in.
Wolf 1061c is a real exoplanet, only discovered last year.
As for why the pulsar was called Vishnu, google "Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds"
Jasmine’s eyes shot open when she started to feel the warmth of the morning sun on her forehead. A wave of confusion came over her as she realized that she did not recognize the ceiling above her.
Sitting up she took in her surroundings, a small apartment bedroom consisting of a queen sized bed in its center, a small dresser with a few suits hanging from wall-mounted hooks above it in the corner, and two doors on the opposite wall, one leading to a bathroom, its light off, the other no doubt leading to the rest of the apartment.
Her face flushed when she saw the clothes on the floor, male and female, that made a trail from the door to the bed. “Oh, yeah, that’s right,” She mused to herself with a half smile. “I’m at Bill’s place... or is it Bobby’s... Oh shit...” she said, panicking from having realized that she had forgotten the name of the person she just had a one night stand with.
Getting out of the bed, she quickly walked over to where her bra and panties had been no doubt thrown the night before. Bending down to pick them up, her head decided at that moment to split open from what one would assume was an earned hangover, the pain from which caused her to sit down on the floor and hold her head in her hands.
With the pain subsiding for the time being, she grabbed her undergarments and while hastily putting them on, she noticed an ID tag hanging from a shirt strewn on the floor.
Picking it up she read the name ‘William Baptiste”, a health inspector with the city, and the photo didn’t do him justice, as it looked very ‘babyish’.
“Yeah, I hate that picture,” A voice said from the door. Looking up from the ID tag in her hand, Jasmine gave a weak smile as she saw its owner, A man with fair skin, brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard dressed in a blue bathrobe. “They won’t let me update it since I grew the beard.” He continued, walking over to Jasmine with a mug of coffee in each hand, offering one to her. “Just cream and sugar OK?” He asked, sitting down at the edge of the bed.
“Thanks,” She said, taking the warm mug in hand and taking a tentative sip. “It’s perfect.”
“So...” He said, the awkwardness coming through in his voice.
“Yeah,” Jasmine said, mirroring his tone. “Look, William, I don’t normally...”
“Billy, please, and I get it,” He said, almost too quickly. “I don’t remember much past the, god, I don’t remember how many shots we did.”
Jasmine laughed at that, drinking that much was another thing she normally didn’t do. “I did have a good time... I think.” She responded, flashing a smirk, which got a warm smile in return. “What time is it?”
“Quarter to eight.”
“I better get going if I’m going to be on time for work,”
“Can you at least stay for breakfast?”
“Even with my priority sky-pass, traffic is still going to be murder.”
“Can I pack you a lunch at least?”
“That you can do,”
“So, where do you work that gets you a priority sky-pass?” He asked. “Those only go out to emergency services, government types and the military,”
Picking up her pants, she tossed him her passkey, then put them on, followed quickly by her shirt.
“United Nations Space Agency?” He said, suitably impressed. “What’s ‘Project Homestead’?”
“You haven’t heard of it?” She asked, a little surprised. “It’s the program name for the W1061c Colony venture.”
“That’s cool, what do you do?”
“Chief astrogator.”
“That means... oh...”
“Yeah,”
“So, asking you out for a date is probably out of the question.”
“If we weren’t launching next month, I would say yes, but I’m going to be leaving Earth and I’m never coming back.” She said, leaning up against the wall next to the washroom door. “I can’t afford to have any attachments.”
“I understand,” He responded as he got up from the bed. “I’ll go make you that lunch,”
As he walked past her, she pulled him into a passionate kiss. When they parted she embraced him and whispered into his ear.
“For what it's worth, I don’t regret it, thank you for the wonderful night.” She told him, then kissed his cheek and went into the washroom to take care of her hair.
A quick taxi ride back to the bar to retrieve her car later, she rapidly ascended into the priority air route and activated the autopilot and reclined back in her seat and looked out over the Toronto skyline.
“Give me the news,” She commanded.
Across the forward windscreen a holographic window appeared with the droning visage of a male news anchor.
”The Canadian councilwoman is garnering mixed reactions after yesterday’s heated criticism of the new immigration policy proposed by the United States Congress as a measure to keep terrorists from the Luna colony from entering the nation.” The anchor said before cutting to a woman with blonde hair wearing a black pantsuit.
“Not since the dark days of President Trump three centuries ago when he brought the world under the threat of nuclear war, has something so despicable been considered by your great nation. The Honourable Councilman from the United States, please take this message back to your President; should this discriminatory policy be enacted, trade sanctions will be strongly considered by the nations in the North Atlantic Mediterranean Trade Alliance.” The woman said before sitting down while the council chamber erupted into a mixture of approval and anger before the image abruptly cut to an incoming call from her father.
“Papa, what are you doing up? The doctor ordered bed rest after yesterday’s ERP,”
“Hush, little flower, I’m fine. I’m only calling to ask why you missed your breakfast appointment with your mother.”
Shit, Jasmine thought. “I’m sorry, I went out drinking with friends last night and got a little carried away, slept in,”
”Right, what’s his name?”
Jasmine opened her mouth to deny everything but opted to close it. Unlike her mother Rasleen, Akal Bhatia could read his daughter like a book, and knew when she was lying. “His name was William,”
”I take it by your use of past tense, there aren’t any issues?”
“No, papa,” She said, rolling her eyes. “He was actually very nice, if things were different... I don’t know.”
”Ok, I’ll smooth things over with your mother, where are you by the way?”
“I’m over Michigan at the moment, soon as I clear the mid east air-route, I’ll be in Nevada in about an hour.”
”Safe travels, daughter,”
“Rest well, Papa.” She said, closing the call and stifled a yawn. “Guess I’ll try and sleep too.”
“Welcome to this morning’s training exercise, I’m Lieutenant Commander Erick, XO of the Hope.” The man of African descent said, addressing the room of fifty individuals. “Please open the black bag on your desk.”
The sound of bags ripping open and the murmurs of confusion as the only thing in the bag was a towel and a bundle of disposable vomit bags.
“Today you’ll be going through the most painful experience of your life.” He explained. “Those of you gathered are crewmen of the three colony ships that have skills that are deemed essential should an emergency arise while in transit to Wolf 1061c. This exercise is to have you experience emergency reanimation from cryo suspension.” Erick said, pausing to let the room consider that, and was met with silence. “Questions?”
“What do you mean by painful,” One of the crewmen in the back asked.
“Exactly what I said, ‘most painful experience of your life’,” Erick said. “Commander Bhatia?”
“Thank you,” Rasleen Bhatia said before walking to the center to address the room. “I’m the Chief Engineer of the Hope, what Commander Erick said is true.” She continued, looking out into the crowd before eyeing her daughter, which caused her sink into her seat. “The Emergency Reanimation Process, or ERP, is highly dangerous. Test simulations on cloned human facsimiles show that one in a thousand that go through ERP do not survive.” She said with a serious tone. “That is why you all filled out the liability waivers when you signed on as crew.”
Jasmine listened as the next speaker, the Chief Medical Officer of the Hope, explained how our nerves will feel like they’re on fire and being ripped from our bodies followed by uncontrolled nausea and vomiting.
“Should an emergency arise, you will need to recover quickly and act quickly. The most important thing you can do is don’t panic.” The doctor finished, and walked to the door at the front of the room. “Now, if you’ll follow me, we’ll put you all on ice,” He continued. “Also, don’t forget your towel...” He said, very pleased with himself.
Several in the room chuckled, while others rolled their eyes, but most didn’t get the joke at all.
In the next room they found the cryo pods, where they were instructed to get into their assigned suits and got into the pods.
Jasmine set about attaching the required tubes to her suit like she was trained when her mother came over to her pod and started helping.
“Since you missed breakfast, I expect you to be at dinner.” She said with a wickedly evil grin.
“Mother, I don’t like that smile...”
“Oh, its just the thought that I’m getting a little revenge for that seventy-two hour breach birth you put me through.”
“Mother!” Jasmine exclaimed.
“Sweet dreams, sweetheart,” She said with a wave before activating her pod.
Not even previously experiencing it can prepare you for the experience of waking up, unable to move, your nerves on fire, every inch of your skin feeling as if was being flayed. All while not being able to scream because that part of your body hasn’t been thawed, a fact that you’re acutely aware of.
The whole process took only a few minutes as the chemicals that serve double duty of thawing the body and breaking down the antifreeze analog used in the cryo process into base proteins and sugars were pushed through her system.
As soon as Jasmine’s pod open, she dropped to her knees and wretched, her body expelling the non-existent contents of her stomach. The muscles in her ribs burned, making difficult to breath.
“Jasminder! GET UP.” Her mother yelled at her, who was also on her knees and fighting off the nausea, before getting to her feet and going to the console that was in front of her daughter’s pod. “Navigation and Flight Control are offline, reactor’s fluctuating; get to the bridge, I have to get to engineering to keep the reactor stable.” Rasleen ordered before running down the hall.
Getting to her feet, Jasmine accessed the terminal and pulled up the master status for the ship. An entire section of the ship was exposed to vacuum, the result of a collision with Renewal, the breach too large to be sealed by energy walls on that deck, forcing the computer to sacrifice the entire section and seal undamaged sections adjacent with physical blast doors.
“Don’t think, act.” She recited to herself to keep her mind on task and off the fact that there were two hundred cryo pods in that section, and ran towards the bridge.
Stopping just short of the ladder that lead to the bridge above, she found the lifeless body at the foot of a cryo pod, having died during the ERP. She didn’t recognize him, but took care to not disturb him as she stepped over him.
“Don’t think act.” She said again on the way up. Opening the hatch above her she climbed onto the deck and jogged towards the helm and jumped into the seat. Powering up the console and finding that flight control had been restored, she rapidly entered commands that would give her manual control of the ship, which she would need as soon as navigational sensors came online and told her just how badly they were off course. “Bridge to Engineering, what’s the status on the NavSen?”
”Should be coming online now,” An unknown engineer said.
The blood drained from Jasmine’s face as the data started flooding onto her screens. They were on a collision course with the debris field that was the Courage.
“Don’t think, act.” She muttered quickly before hitting the ship wide comm. “All hands, High-G maneuver! Brace Brace Brace!” She yelled before taking hold of the helm and pulling the massive ship into a tight eighty degree turn, narrowly missing the outer edge of the debris field
“Thanks for the warning,” a voice from behind her called out.
“Nice of you to join us, XO,” Jasmine said.
“Where’s the Captain?” Commander Erick asked.
“I checked the logs on the way up,” A new voice answered, this one belonging to Doctor Roth, the CMO. “His pod was in the section that was breached, the pod opened to hard vacuum.”
“Roger that.” Erick said in response. “Engineering, status.”
”Cryo systems nominal with the exception to pod section one-alpha. That stunt helm pulled put a lot of stress on the reactor, I have to babysit the levels manually to keep it stable. You need to get us into orbit so I can vent the reactor to repair the control mechanisms. Everything else is ten-five as can be. What the hell happened?” Rasleen asked.
“Helm?” Erick asked.
“Far as I can tell from the logs, this system has a micro asteroid belt that we hit at sublight. Courage took the brunt and broke apart, the Renewal is dead in space and in no danger of making planetfall, but I can’t raise them on comms.”
“We’ll deal with the Renewal after you get us into orbit. Engineering, soon as we’re in orbit, do what you have to do, then prep a repair team to head over to the Renewal.”
”Roger that,”
“Doc, tend to the injured and get me a casualty list ASAP.” Erick ordered, getting a nod from the doctor, who then slid down the ladder to the lower deck.
Getting into orbit was the easy part, having to maintain a stable orbit with just maneuvering thrusters while the main drive reactor was offline was difficult.
But not as hard as trying to accept that there was life on the planet below. Millions upon millions, all over the planet. Mankind had always asked the question if they were alone in the universe, and here it was, the answer handed to them on a silver platter.
“So, what do we do now, sir?” Jasmine asked Erick.
“I don’t know.” He answered, looking out the forward viewport of the bridge at the blue-green jewel of a world.
“Captain, I have the casualty list. Everyone in section one-alpha is dead, either through life support failure in their pods, or... anyways, two hundred and eight in that section. We lost three crew to the ERP. If we ever figure out how to go back in time, remind me to kill the bastard who came up with that one in a thousand statistic.” The doctor reported, anger coming through in his voice. “I’ll have more for you when the repair team from the Renewal gets back,”
“Speaking of which, I should be joining them.” Erick said.
“What?” Both Jasmine and Dr. Roth said in unison. “Captain, with all due respect, you need to stay on the ship.” Jasmine continued.
“The repair team needs a computer systems specialist, and the only two on the crew didn’t make out of cryo, that leaves me.” Erick stated. “You’re in command, Lieutenant, I’m going on that repair detail, understood?”
“Aye, sir,” Jasmine said, straightening her shoulders. Erick nodded, then descended the ladder to the lower deck.
“If you out rank me, why aren't you in command?” Jasmine asked.
“Because I’m an army Major, and I don’t know two shits about commanding a ship, you’re the Naval officer.”
“Well, Major, I need you to go wake some more of the crew up, with the repair detail off ship we can’t run the ship for long with the few we have.”
“Yes, Captain,”
After a few hours, one of the flight control staff that had been awoken from cryo relieved Jasmine, around the same time, word came from repair team that despite damage from the collision, the ship was in working order, and that its own crew would handle further repairs.
So Jasmine waited on the Hope’s small flight deck to welcome the skiff back, which was just leaving the Renewal.
With the flight deck doors open, the only thing that stood between her and the vacuum of space was an occasionally shimmering field of energy.
It also afforded one of the best views of 1061c. Seriously have to come up with a better name, she thought. With only a few minutes to go before crossing the day/night terminator to the day side, Jasmine could see the lights of the cities below.
It didn’t take long to figure out that the civilization below had yet to develop even rudimentary space travel. They were at least picking up radio broadcasts, but understanding the language was proving to be difficult. Papa’s going to have a field day...
Turning from the planet, Jasmine swayed her body to the sounds of one of the musical broadcasts, a string duet that sounded almost the same as a cello and a violin. It was beautiful, and it only served to further her desire to get her own cello out of storage as soon as she could. Seems music is something we have in common.
That train of thought came to a crashing end as her world suddenly became white with a searing pain in her eyes and a shrill sound filling her ears. It took a moment to realize that it was her own screaming as she sank to her knees, her hands covering her eyes.
“Jasmine!” Roth called out as he ran onto the flight deck. “You were looking right at it...” He said as he slowly pulled her shaking hands away from her face to be met with unseeing eyes.
“I can’t see!” She cried out.
