*Where No One has Gone Before*

Live Long and Prosper

-LEONARD NIMOY (Spock)

EPOV

Today is monumental. As I'm waiting in the hanger being strapped into my gear the technicians are talking to me and my crew of best friends, their friendly and encouraging voices drowning through the filter of my ears. My thoughts turn to how we got here, with no idea how drastically things would change in just a few days' time. They say hindsight is 20/20, little did they know how very right they were. The only question I have for "them" is, is it good or bad? For that I may need some help to decide. I'll fill you in as you watch the monitors replay the start of our mission, and tell you the beginning of our story all the up until we get to mine and my buddies current predicament. So, sit back, relax, grab a drink and enjoy our story.

I will have to go back further than you'd like, but promise to make it as short as possible. It started when I was a child. My parents, Elizabeth and Edward Masen Sr would take us up north to the Pacific Northwest; the area was deemed to be kept as one of the last nature preserves in the world. No one but Native Americans was allowed to live in the area as they were observed to be no danger to the ecosystem. For a fee and background check a family could spend a week there on vacation. There were no more lights or buildings, nature had reclaimed the entire area. It was here the summer of my 14th year that would determine my fate for the rest of my life.

Edward Sr took me that summer, the adventurous kid I was and we sat under the stars where he intrigued my mind to the possibilities of life. NASA had been working on things; he was a financial advisor to the program and therefore privy to certain information. He pointed to the darkened sky and with the grandest smile on his face I think I've ever seen besides when he is with mom, he changed my fate forever. "Son, life on earth will end, maybe not now, but at some point. " He continues to point; drawing lines through what I assume are constellations he knows. "There is more out there than us old guys can figure out. It's up to you young ones, our sons and daughters to follow the signs that are laid out before us, and you should never doubt your gut, your feeling about following a thought. It's put there for a reason. We watch the monitors, not everything that's science fiction is fake. If it's a possibility in thought, it's a possibility in life. Never forget to take chances. "Taking my wiry framed shoulders in his large hardened hands his grin is ear to ear at me. "You are meant for so much more, you're the smartest and bravest kid I know. In the immortal words of Disney, keep moving forward, for out there, amongst the stars is where our future lays, live the possibilities son."

That summer changed my life. I had always been smart, but my dad... Laughs... He knew what he was doing. Just as hormones began raging in the teenage boy in me, he gave me an outlet other than girls, he broke into my mind and endless curiosity and instead of going out with my friends and their girlfriends, I dove further into my books. My brain was a sponge and I sopped up every piece of information I could. My summers spend in the wilds of our yearly camping spot. I learned how to rough it with nature in my endless quest to get closer to the stars. I watched all the NASA programs I could. I went with my dad to the launches of the capsules for the moon and the final missions to Mars. I was enthralled and enchanted and when I graduated high school, valedictorian and had places like MIT breathing down my neck to study there at their think tank, I promptly the next day after graduating signed up with the Air Force much to my father's happy chagrin.

Unfortunately, what I thought would be nothing more than a few years of training school in flight procedure to make my way to where I really wanted to go, got turned into something more, much more. A few months into basic training and flight school we were drawn into another conflict. A dictator in a small country that had refused to join the Pangaea Accord had started a rebellion. His country, poor and desolate, and he used that to garner the people into war. Telling them that the rest of the world was against them, like so many scoundrels before him, used his starving people that he created to fight his battles for him. What made this worse is that he had been secretly stockpiling weapons; they were in apparently nearly endless supply. Politian's fought by paperwork and red tape. Militaries fought with blood and sweat.

I was a good airman; I got my raptor in places that it should not have ever have been able to go. I used my engineering brain and tweaked my plane, made it nearly silent and impossible to see through radar. My brothers in arms followed suit. We became a crack shot air team and were sent on numerous secret missions. Most we won, some we did not, you cannot always fight a battle and win it when the other side cheats, and they nearly always cheat.

After four long years, we finally won the battle. Our soldiers were sent in for humanitarian aid, and were readily accepted. The people were ready for a new life and without the dictator; they happily signed themselves into the Accord, marking for the first time in world history, that there was truly Peace on Earth. I enjoyed my time flying, conflicts are hard, but it was useful the training and combat and need to educate myself further to survive. When my time and education was done within the Air Force, I applied to NASA. Much to my commanding officers chagrin, he was hoping to make a general out of me. A month later I was accepted.

Within the walls of NASA I trained; flight test pilot, astronaut, officer training within the program. It was long, tedious and hard on my body. It was here I met my two best friends, who became my forever flight crew. You see, NASA had decided by this time, that switching around crew became a safety issue, so once your crew was set, it was for life. You learned, trained sweated and bled together. You could nearly finish each other's sentences. They were much like family, or spouses depending on your viewpoint. My boys and I were the typical dream team. We were the only team of astronauts that were all bachelors, and as we enjoyed this status, we soon became very aware that we were put together for a reason. We were expendable, but the public loved us. We were good for funding and with the latest project nearly completed, they needed all the funding they could get. We were the perfect fit for their most dramatic space test yet. We just didn't know it yet.

My parents died a year after my entrance into NASA; they were killed by the very forest they loved so much. They went in off season. The snowpacks on the mountains are always awful that time of year. I have no idea what they were thinking when they went backpacking along the cliffs. My mother died instantly, my father at the hospital. His dying words to me will follow me to eternity "don't forget to live the possibilities son, you are worth so much more than you can possibly know, we love you" I was distraught for months, it was meeting my new friends that pulled me from my dim, dark place.

Fast forward another year and here my buddies, Jasper and Emmett sit with me. What a crew we are too. There is me, in my 6 foot 6 inch frame, full head of copper red crazy hair and a shaggy 5 o'clock shadow, which is evidence that they kept me up too late last night with their shenanigans. Emmett, my first officer, the crazy comedic fool he is; brave but foolish, a huge man standing nearly 7 feet tall and a good 300 lbs of pure muscle. NASA tried to put him on diet for capsule weight, but quickly learned best not to mess with Emmett and his food; to which he is actually an excellent cook and puts the strangest concoctions together. I mean really… dried brussel sprouts and apricots? You would think it's disgusting, but it's not. That is why he's also chief chef on our expedition. Emmett is a high school dropout. Surely NASA's lost its marbles right? Nope, you'll never find a more intelligent, resourceful and daring man anywhere. He was found living in the treetops amongst the Appalachian Mountains. Now, before you say so what, take into account, the treetops are now thousands of feet tall; do you know what the oxygen levels are at that range? Not to mention the lack of food and fresh water. Yet, there he was… not only surviving, but thriving. He was quickly brought here. Needless to say, we meshed well, and easily, him seeing this as just another adventure to have and conquer.

Then there is Jasper, my blonde haired, blue eyed stick figured friend. His lack of weight balances out Emmett's thick one for the capsule. Jasper is our shy, but fierce and strong, genius from west Texas. He did go to MIT but decided to quit because they questioned his reasoning on some quantum mechanics theory he developed. I believe the words he used to describe them were incompetent moronic backwater hickbillies. Whatever that means. So, he went home to west Texas, where only the strong live. No one volunteers to live in the barren desert. There he began to put his theories to practice. He developed a launching system that required no fuel until it reached the vacuum of space. So, after seeing a strange rocket enter the atmosphere, it traced back to him and NASA was jolly on the spot to bring him and his savant mind in. I laugh at remembrance. Jasper wasn't so easy to convince by the suits apparently, and they brought Emmett and I out to … encourage Jasper. We stayed a week with him, like a mini vacation. Not really. He made us sleep outside in the hot sand, with the spiders snakes and lions surrounding us. When Jasper walked out of his house one morning to find a mountain lion sleeping with Emmett, he was utterly befuddled and shocked. Carefully he shook him awake, not wanting to wake the sleeping creature beside him, and gave the semi-awake bull of a man a questioning look, to which Emmett said "what? It's cold in the desert at night, and all I had to do was give it a dead bunny I caught with a snare trap? Came to me just like a puppy, sweet thing isn't it?" He said petting the lions purring form. Jasper smirked of course and by the end of the week, we had launched an even bigger rocket into space, of course we had to encourage Emmett, not to put either himself or the lion inside. They came and got us quickly after that, Jasper included.

Mark another year later on your calendars and here we sit; in a bus taking us to our launch site. Now, I have to tell you to please get the image of what you're used to in space flight launches from your minds. Jasper continued to perfect the launching system. It's far more safe, accurate and effective now. Fuel consumption is a quarter of what it used to be. We pull up to the tower pad which sits below ground, walk inside the large door and look around the spherical cone each finding our seat inside, technicians buckle us down, before they leave and when they are clear, they raise our tethered ship and it's launch cage to ground level of its launch tower.

While we climb let me describe the look of our new launcher. The old days used to have strange carnival rides that many enjoyed and others feared in terror. Two arms with cables attached, they would strap you in a ball cage chair then hook it to a release cable on the bottom, stretch the two tower lines and release you like a slingshot, allowing you to feel true zero gravity. Well, the new launcher is similar only there is no bouncing back, once out of the atmosphere, the improved laser rocket boosters propel you to the next destination. There are 6 huge 500 feet high steel arms in a circular pattern; these arms are stabilized by circular steel tube rings attaching to every arm at 50 feet intervals. This reduces sway and ricochet of the launch vehicle. At the tip of each arm is newly designed steel that is stronger than building steel, light as a sheet of aluminum, but is as flexible as rubber and it's coiled tightly like a spring and covered by flame resistant material so the steel doesn't cut into the tower frames. These coils, attach to the launch cage, specially designed for the curvature of the space vehicle. All of this enhances the direction, speed and control of the vehicle. Of course there are safety procedures, but we don't really need to know about those now.

Our Mission is the first of its kind. Scientists found a wormhole; a true blue not to be confused with anything else wormhole. They have supposedly figured out how to send astronauts through it, and as Earth truly is dying, we are in a race against time to find a new world. We are the first ones going through. It's why we were chosen. We're expendable, but also enchanting. The world will be watching. We're to travel through the wormhole and return back through to end up at home and report our findings. Sounds feasible right?

We hear the hissing of the strain on the cables, aching to find their release of tension. The countdown in our ears; hearts palpitating nervously, palms sweaty beneath our gloves.

Here we go. Adventure of a lifetime. First of its kind.

Five, we glance at each other.

Four, we give each other a smirk and thumbs up.

Three, return our faces to watch our consoles and instruments.

Two, we each close our eyes and say a quick prayer to makers.

One, we take a breath and feel the surge of pressure on our chests, groaning against it.

What a rush.

*beep beep beep beep beep beep beep*

Emmett, Jasper what the hell is that?

AN* This is my first story ever, so please be nice, but I love constructive criticizm. I do NOT own NASA or any of it's part, I do NOT own STAR TREK or Leonard Nimoy or Spock, god knows I'd love to. I do NOT own Twilight. I just get to be in charge of this silly little plot.

I love science fiction and after reading so many wonderful stories thought I'd put this one out there, it's going to go chapter by chapter and I hope to update at least once a week. I'm thinking right now it's not going to be a long story or rated M? But anything is possible at this point.

This *should* be the longest author note, I'm always open to suggestions and if I use one of yours, I'll always include your name and a thank you ahead of time.

I hope you enjoy my first little fling.

HUGS!