Destination
Arrival
A lone man sat on his desk, typing on his touch screen keyboard on his desk while a transparent screen hovered in front of him. His office lit from long, rod like light bulbs embedded on the edges of the ceiling. A small mottle of planet Earth, slowly rotating on his desk to his left, and a framed photo standing on its one leg to his right; him and his wife smiling at the camera like there's no tomorrow.
"Entry#: 546
It seems we're in our new solar system. The star's a little bigger then our own, and we're closing in on the planet that is resting on its Goldilocks Zone.
To be honest, I thought we would never ever reach this system, but thankfully, we kept everything together, both ship and human's alike. All that hardship on Earth; blood, sweat and tears had paid off. I am forever thankful for those who did their job to create such a masterpiece of engineering.
May those we left behind, rest in eternal peace."
He finished typing and pressed 'Enter'. He then cracked his knuckles and sat back, tilting the chair back so he could look up at the white ceiling with a sigh.
The intercom beeped a couple of times before a feminine voice spoke out, "Captain West, we have arrived and now starting to adjust the ship to orbit the planet. We now wait for your next command." She finished.
He leaned in and pressed the glowing, blue button on the screen of his desk, "I will be at the deck, shortly." He replied kindly with a rustic voice, than the chair started moving back and twisted to the right so he could stand up. He walked over to a full body mirror to check himself for any imperfections.
In front of him stood a tall, proud man, wearing a white and grey uniform hugging his body neatly. His name tag shined in the light; his name and title painted in blue. His skin a pale white and a small scar permanently imprinted on his right, dark grey eyebrow. His hair grey of age and stress, with white streaks as he smoothed it out with his hands. He grabbed the captain's hat hanging beside the mirror and puts it on with a smile. His emerald green eyes staring back at him in kind, promising a better future for their last remaining species.
He went through the sliding, hatch door and out into the hall. People walking and rushing by him, nodding and saluting him in greetings and he nodded in return with a smile everyone seen countless times. He turned to his left and started walking down. As he looked ahead, he could never see what was always ahead of him past fifty feet or so, as the halls parallel to the structure curved up.
He looked to his right and out the windows. From his end to the other was three kilometers of homes, grass, dirt, trees and most importantly, his people, living and playing happily on the streets and gardens. All pinned to the outer wall of the large cigar shaped ship, ever slowly spinning to keep everyone on their feet. In the middle was an impossibly long, thick rod, imitating as their once, beautiful sun. Three thousand strong, enough to repopulate what was lost. They were no one race, his kind people came from every parts of Earth to keep diversity. It took time for everyone to warm up to one another, and to him, but time was all they all had at the time. Now, everyone practically knows everyone in this ship. Making them one big, happy, slightly dysfunctional family.
He reached his destination shortly after he returned his gaze at the curving hall and stepped into one of three elevators on the bow of the ship. As it closed, he felt gravity pulling down on his stomach, he never did get used to the feeling. The doors opened to him, showing him a short, spinning tube leading to another hatch, but rounded this time.
He stepped out of the elevator and spun a couple of times before he stopped himself by reaching out to a handle bar. His body felt weightless here, as it was one of the only places in the ship that didn't spin other than the docks and the engine room. He looked back at the trio of closed, spinning doors and then moved his gaze back at the hatch. He pushed himself towards it with a light grunt and stopped as he planted his hands on the cool surface of the entrance. He dragged himself over to a small screen and pressed his left hand onto it. After it scanned his hand, a ring of blue light on the face of the hatch turned green and opened for him with a hiss.
As he entered, he was surrounded by pilots and co-pilots alike, wearing tight full body suites with headsets floating around or sitting in chairs. The deck was filled with levers, nubs, buttons and touch screens in various colors, shapes and sizes in every direction. This one room alone made him think he was inside a large computer.
"Captain on deck!" a woman yelled to his right. Everyone halted what they were doing and saluted at him for a brief moment before they went right back to work to keep the ship in stable condition.
"Privet." He looked at the women, "A little push please." He asked nicely. She nodded, grabbed his right foot and pushed him towards the front. He stopped himself by grabbing onto the chair of one of the pilots was sitting on. "How is the diagnostics of Child of Earth, Pilot?" he asked.
"Child of Earths' main engines are off." The male pilot spoke as he worked the instruments in front of him. Suddenly, a holographic image of the ship flickered to life in front of them. "The stabilizers are working on making the correct orbit around the planet's gravitational pull. The fusion reactor is working at sixty percent power. Day and night cycle is still normal. Oxygen and carbon dioxide levels are at normal. The cycling barrel is still spinning, Captain." He answered.
The captain chuckled, "How about the planet?" he asked once more.
The ship then changed into an almost featureless globe, "After years of observations from the Black Knight orbiting the planet, Captain; the planet is at least five percent larger than Earth. Oxygen levels twenty percent higher. Twenty six hour day and night cycle. Sixty percent covered in water. It has its own magnetic field on the outer edges and an ozone layer to protect it from the star's corona mass ejections. It has mountainous areas, meaning it also has tectonic activity below the surface of the planet, sir."
"A big sister of mother Earth…" he whispered. He looked at the blocked windows, "Split the blast shield, pilot, uncover all the windows and fill every screen on this ship to show the image of the planet, now." He ordered and the pilot nodded. He reached over to a dome shaped glass, glowing green. He planted his hand on it and it flashed cyan blue.
The cigar shaped ship's thick sheet of metal, dented from years of meteor collisions started slowly splitting along the middle, a thin layer of ice breaking off was it finally moved. As it fully opened up, large, thick windows circling the front and sides of the spinning barrel opened up to show the new solar system, as well as the planet itself.
Everyone stopped, now just looking down at the windows and screens, staring in awe at the planet and its singular moon.
The planet was a display of colors, full of greens, browns, greys, and blues and even white at the poles. One land mass even reached from the very top to bottom, no ocean of water cutting through the middle but small lakes and rivers.
As everyone stared in awe, the captain himself was a little worried for the patches of grey that littered some of the land. He turned to another pilot, "You." He pointed at the woman. She looked at him as he floated over to her, "Zoom in on one of the grey spots on the planet." He said to her and she nodded.
She quickly tapped and ran her fingers on the screen in front of her as a picture of the planet came to life. She tapped a spot on the planet, a little target sign now displaying. She put both her hands on either side of the target and started spreading them apart, causing the screen to zoom in. After a moment, he and everyone in the room were shocked to see architectural buildings standing on the side of a mountain. Buildings and roads littered the streets, and even some kind of castle resting near the northern part of the odd, alien city. The co-pilot zoomed out just a bit and saw the whole picture of the city.
Captain West blinked and rubbed his eyes a few times, trying to see if he was hallucinating or not, and again, the structures were still there, plain as day.
"Captain?" he looked back and saw everyone was looking at him, "What now?" the co-pilot asked.
He looked back at the screen, reached out and started looking through the streets, trying to see if anything or anyone would show up… nothing. Where in the world are they? He thought to himself. After a moment of searching, he noticed some buildings and part of the castle were crumbled down. He leaned back and looked at everyone once more. "Now we investigate what happened to the locals." He said to everyone in the room.
On the planet itself, in the crumbled city of Canterlot, a bipedal, lone Princess stood on her tower's balcony, looking up at the sky in confusion. She wore an armor covering her whole body in gold and silvery colors, as well as a chainmail hiding under the sheets of metal. Her white horn erecting out from her forehead, sprouting out to the sky as she had her light rainbow hair done in a ponytail. Her holster strapped to her hip, holding her sword in place. Her tail braded to keep it from going everywhere when she fought in her battles with her subjects. Her large wings folded on her back with bits and pieces of metal covering them as well. Alas, her armor was not perfect. It was littered with scratches, dents and scares of battle; some old and some recent.
She squinted her gaze at the small, strange object in the sky, reflecting some of the light from her sun. To her, it looked like a long barrel of some sort, just hovering well away from the day moon. It was strange to her to see the rounded, plate like head of the thing to split and slowly moved back to reveal a little nub.
"Princess?" she looked back and smiled at the smaller, purple Alicorn standing in front of her, holding onto a telescope in her arms. She wore her own set of armor to protect her form, having a few scars and dents just like Celestia herself.
"Twilight, no need to be so formal with me when we're alone." she waved her over with a motherly smile. Twilight quickly walked over, looking up at her fellow Princess. "We're friends, and friends don't treat each other like royalty."
"I-I know Pri-Celestia. Habits die hard, I guess." she answered, and looked down at the telescope and back up at her, "So why do you need this? Did you see them coming?" her tone and expression began to turn into fear.
"No, Twilight. I haven't seen them yet, don't worry. I just need to use it at the moment." She answered, calming Twilight down and ran her three fingers on the younger one's cheek.
She made a sigh of relief and started setting up the contraption, "Where do you want it pointing at? The North? South? Maybe West?" she questioned happily as she adjusted the scope and looking through it, to make sure it was clear and clean.
"The sky." Celestia answered.
Twilight looked at her strangely, "What? In the middle of the day? What are you looking at?" she began to search the sky herself.
Celestia pointed, "Towards that thing, near the moon."
Twilight moved her gaze and lightly gasped, "What in the world, is that!?" she moved closer to the railing of the balcony, raising a hand to cover her eyes from the light of day.
"That's what I want to find out, dear Twilight. Now go and instruct the Stargazers in the observatory. I will be here if anyone needs me." She said to Twilight. She eagerly nodded her head and rushed down the spiraling staircase as instructed, her armor clicking and clanging as she moved.
Back in the Child of Earth, a lone woman sits under a large sphere, a holographic muddle of their beloved, once home planet. Surrounding the hologram were a few screens talking about said planet and how they built the interstellar ship. But the most popular and respected item they had in show was "The Wall of Memories". Basically a large slab of white, hard stone standing like an obelisk, filled with at least a dozen names of people whom passed onto the afterlife while on the ship.
The location brought various people to see the surrounding area, in a middle of a cross section, the elderly adults showing the kids on the sphere where they once lived on their home planet. The sphere, however, never showed where she must have lived on the planet. All it shows was a slowly spinning planet.
She wore a full body suite, much thicker and advanced then anyone had in the ship. Her fellow Peace Keepers wore the same suite as her, but her left arm was bare, not that she had a flesh and blood arm anyways. To replace that was mechanical one, 'much more useful than a normal one', she always amused. But getting it was a painful experience; she hopped to never go through it ever again. Like the rest of Peace Keepers in the ship, she had to go through augmentation to set up her body to do their tasks. They had their muscles strengthen to make them fast and agile, their bones reinforced to withstand stronger impacts, and their minds and senses doubled so they would be two steps ahead then their opponents. Basically, they were superheroes to the young ones eyes. But the first week, her and her fellow team had to stay on hospital beds to be monitored closely, not that she complained, she actually embraced it as her whole body at the time, felt like she went through a hail storm with nothing on.
She had her tools out and adjusting her other, 'lucky' arm on her laps. It wasn't exactly 'new' anymore, more of an antique now, but she couldn't let it go, after everything she went through to get to her position.
She looked down to her right and saw her own reflection on the dark, shinning floor. Her skin was tanned from staying out so many times to do her duty and who she was related to. She's also what you could call, 'a red head' as it showed her red, ginger hair put to a ponytail to keep it from getting in the way to do her job, which was patrolling the streets and halls for any danger, guarding secure areas and investigating possible dangerous areas. On her graduation day, she got the top marks, thus became one of the leaders of the Peace Keepers.
She smiled at her own reflection as her own green eyes smiled back at her, before she continued to work on the mechanical arm she hears a voice.
"Kelly?" her ear piece called to her.
"Yes, Captain?" he answered as she started to put her tools away in a small, black tool box and closed it with a twisting crank of a nub.
"I have a job for you. Meet me in my office." He said to her.
"Will be there in a jiffy, sir. Over." He answered, bent her lucky arm close with an audible 'Click!', picked up her small tool box and started walking to the nearest hatch door. It opened up for her, walked into the hall and looked to her side on a small six-man pod attached to the outer wall. She goes in with a couple other people, sat down and it wrapped a belt around her waist. She tucked her things under her arms just before the pod rocketed off to the direction of the ship's bow.
After a few moments of greeting a few familiar faces while going twenty miles per hour, she hopped off the transporter and started walking towards the office of their leader.
She knocked on the hatch and was quickly followed by a call from inside.
"Come in!"
The hatch slides open and she steps in. She moved her tool box over to her other mechanical hand and saluted with her free hand, "Reporting for duty, sir!" she called out and stood at attention with one of the best poker faces the ship ever seen.
The chair spins around as the Captain smiled at her, "Good to see you too, Kelly." He said back and leaned on his desk, "At ease." She relaxed and looked at him in the eyes, "I'm sorry to call you in on your few break times, but I have an important mission for you."
"Of course, sir."
"I need you to go down with someone and investigate what have happened to the local alien life down on the planet." He pressed a spot on his desk, activating a screen to show up in the middle of the air. The images showed broken buildings and streets in some sort of alien city. There were few scorch marks and what looked like to her, potholes from explosions. "If we're going to make a home on this planet, we might as well make peace first with the local natives. I need you and your charge to go and see if they're still there and search the area with caution. We must see if they're willing to make diplomatic relations with us, and maybe help them with whatever they need."
"Of course, sir. Do I need to bring any weapons for this mission?" she asked.
"Might as well, Kelly. We don't want one of our best to be defenceless on an alien planet." He answered.
"Okay, sir. When will I go?"
"Sooner, the better." He sat back, "Now go and get ready, I'll meet you at the Docking Bay One with your charge." He waved her off with a smile.
She saluted at him one more time before she spun around on one heel and went off as instructed.
Finally… something different to do, she thought with a tiny smile.
Authors' Note: I hope you enjoyed chapter 1 now that this fic is back from the grave. I hope you enjoyed it and the next chapter will be posted next week, Friday. So till next time, have a nice day/night, comment if you like and good reading, everyone. :)