In the year 2100, a combination of pollution, overpopulation and overuse of resources has made Earth literally barren and unsustainable to human life. In order to survive,humanity was forced to go venture out into space and find a new suitable world to live on. Several arks containing the last remnants of the people of Earth were sent into the vast unknown, to selected nearby solar systems, which were felt to have the best chance of having a habitable world. With the new recently developed lightspeed technology, these solar systems were now within reach within a lifetime.

Now the Mayflower, one of the Arks launched by Earth was approaching a very potentially suitable candidate. A world very much like Earth with oceans and continents. Now the intrepid crew of the Ark was set to explore and maybe even set up a colony on this new world. Little did they know that the supposedly uninhabited planet was indeed inhabited. And what they would find there would forever change the lives of the Mayflower Ark and the people of Westeros...

Sarah Lancaster and Caitlin Brown were best friends since childhood. Having lived their entire lives within the confines of the Mayflower, a vast starship with a small town in its underbelly, they were very different from each other. Sarah was the wild child, the partyer and most popular of the two while Caitlin was the good girl, disciplined one who was always never getting in trouble and at the top of her academic classes. How these two managed to get along, one only knows. Sarah may have been the most popular girl in her class but if anything she was not anything like a mean girl. She too loved academics, particularly science and math. It was the one thing both shared in common. They also shared a love of flying.

Both trained at Flight School to be space pilots piloting the Tomcat space fighter jets. They excelled in it and were both at the top two of their class. Caitlin was number one, though barely because she was better at academics. Now the two were wingmates and currently assigned to scouting and long range missions in the Mayflower's search for habitable worlds for them to colonize.

The two now were riding an elevator, taking them to the top levels of the Mayflower where the bridge and flight hangar were located. Sarah looked at her friend as she was just now arranging her auburn hair into a ponytail so it can fit under her flight helmet without getting into her eyes. The golden haired Sarah had the same problem since she herself had long hair that ran down to her shoulders.

"So have you asked him out yet?", Sarah asked.

"Who?"

"Peter Balinger? Have you asked him out yet."

Caitlin sighed and wished her friend would simply stop meddling in her social life.

"No not yet. I haven't had the time and quite frankly I am not interested."

"You know he fancies you."

"I know. It's just that he creeps me out at times."

Sarah just rolled her eyes at this. Seriously there were times when her friend could be so frustrating. So stuck up about men that she foiled all her attempts to play matchmaker. She knew that Peter fancied her and seemed a nice enough fellow. But Caitlin was a very picky and choosy person. And that did not bode well for forming relationships.

Before Sarah could respond though the doors of the elevator opened to reveal the vast bridge of the Mayflower. It was a huge, circular bridge with computer consoles and monitors throughout, monitoring every inch of the inside and outside of the ship. On a raised dais at the center of the bridge stood Captain Edward Brown, Caitlin's father and commander of the Mayflower. As always he continued to monitor the bridge staff as they operated and monitored the various consoles throughout the bridge. Both Sarah and Caitlin saluted and stood in military attention as the captain turned towards them. On the viewing screen was a blue and green planet with land masses and oceans.

"What do you think?", Captain Brown said, gesturing at the planet and talking to both Caitlin and Sarah like a friend. It was no secret that the captain favored, though as a proud mentor, Sarah and considered her one of his best officers save his daughter of course.

"Looks good. You think that might be the one sir?", Caitlin replied hopefully.

"Well from our scans and our scouting probes, it's atmosphere is identical to Earth. And it has the same mass and density and is very Earthlike in every way. Although the land masses are of course different. And the seasons tend to last for years instead of months given its very elliptical orbit. I'd say we have a winner for sure."

"So when do we send a landing party and check it out ourselves.", Sarah naturally asked.

"Not yet. We sent a probe down to the planet's surface to get a closer look at the surface directly, but something must have happened to it because it is no longer sending out messages. I would like you to do a reconnaisance mission and do a flyby of the planet itself. And try and locate that probe. It's locater beacon is still functioning. You should be able to locate it without problem."

"Do you know precisely where the probe is located?"

"No but we can give you a general direction and just follow the signal. We do know that it was last spotted over land and probably malfunctioned there."

Both women nodded.

"Be careful. Dismissed."

After both women saluted, they began to head to the elevator when a slender, black haired young man with green eyes approached them. He gave Sarah a computer pad and said, "Here is the layout of the land. This should help you locate the probe. It's not much but it's a start."

"Thanks Peter.", Sarah said.

After curtly nodding to Caitlin, he quickly and somewhat nervously returned to his console on the bridge. Sarah gestured to Caitlin to say something but she simply headed towards the elevator and entered. Rolling her eyes and shaking her head, Sarah joined her.

Lisa Brown was not hard at work with the other mechanics and engineers helping to prepare the Tomcats for takeoff. The durable, sleeker and somewhat smaller version of the older F14 fighters of Earth's past was her pride and joy. Although for a different reason than her older sister. While her sister enjoyed flying them, Lisa enjoyed building and maintaining them. Since she was a child she always loved tinkering and building things. And now she was one of the top engineers on the Mayflower. It was a dirty and somewhat hectic job but someone had to do it.

"Hey sis. Is she ready for launch?", her sister said as she approached the fighter.

"Yep. All spit and polish and ready to go. So I hear you are heading down to the new planet."

Caitlin nodded as she climbed into the cockpit, "We lost one of our deep space probes there and the captain wants us to locate it."

"Well just make sure we do not need to worry about locating you. I put a lot of effort into maintaining these aircraft and it seems they need more of my attention whenever you and Sarah use them.", Lisa said with a bit of sarcasm and playful sisterly annoyance.

"Honestly have we really let you down?", Sarah Lancaster said mischievously as she passed by and headed to her own Tomcat.

"Frequently.", Lisa said as she rolled her eyes and went back to her work.

Once the pilots were properly installed into their fighters and all systems checked, the Tomcats were raised on their platforms into the launch tubes installed in the flight deck, leading to the outside of the ship and the void of space. As soon as it was safe and the hatch underneath them was closed, both women launched their fighters.

The journey to the new planet was uneventful and both women were awed by how incredibly Earthlike it was. Although neither had experienced being on Earth at all. They were both born in space on board the Mayflower. So this was truly an entirely new experience for them. As they entered the atmosphere, they engaged their heat shields to protect them from the heat of reentry. The advanced metals that made up the Tomcats were strong enough to take the heat and protect the pilots. Once it was safe to do so they disengaged the shields. Unfortunatlely what they found as they got lower and lower and below the clouds was a snowstorm, not too heavy but heavy enough to make visibility a problem.

"Oh wonderful. Now I can't see a thing. What about you Sarah."

"Not much luck on my end. My cameras are showing forests. We definitely have a winner here."

Caitlin felt a sigh of relief and a feeling of hope. Finally they had found a planet to live on. A vibrant living world that might well be able to sustain them. Humankind had a chance.

Caitlin was snapped out of her thoughts by something that was frightening her. The fighter's computers were sounding an alarm, getting louder and louder by the second telling her to pull up immediatly. Caitlin tried to squint her eyes ahead of her to see what it was talking about.

"Sarah my computer is telling me that we are on a collision course with something but I cannot see ahead much. What about you."

"Same here. I think we should do as it says."

Caitlin shook her head and looked to her friend then ahead of her and was caught aghast at what she saw. A literal wall of ice.

"Sarah look out! Wall straight ahead!", she said as she pulled back on the throttle. Sarah did the same.

Both fighters cleared the Wall, just barely. Caitlin gave a sigh of relief as she tried to compose herself.

"What the hell was that!", Sarah said, "Was that a wall of ice?"

Lido was on duty for the Night's Watch on the top of the Wall when he heard it. At first it was a low humming sound, then it got louder and louder. He looked ahead, trying to peer through the snow to locate the source of the humming. The something flew overhead so close that he had to duck to the point of hitting the floor. As whatever flew by, he could hear the vibrations as the floor shook violently under him. And then it was over. He looked around and tried to see what had passed over the wall but with the snowstorm and the speed at which whatever it was was travelling, he could not make out what it was.