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The Second Journey
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"You are the children of a dead world, earthdeirdre, and this death we do not comprehend. We will take you in, but may we ask: Will we too catch the planetdeath disease?"
-- Lady Deirdre Skye, Conversations with Planet
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Withdrawal
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A lone spaceship hurtled through the inky blackness of space.
Behind it, a brown and red world was undergoing a great metamorphosis. Red fungus was blooming and dying, and people were succumbing to the awakening alien mind as it consumed the planet.
"War is horrible. Stupid, even," a man said to his companion in the spaceship.
"Indeed, Joseph." came the reply.
Joseph sat there and recalled the last events on Planet. There was only one faction building the Voice of Planet project, to give the god enough sentience to not undergo the metamorphosis. Then the Spartans came. Wanting dominance over Planet, not wanting the information being sent to planet to be "skewed and modified by Zakharov's demons," Santiago hurled a Planet Buster Nuclear Missile at University Base, destroying it and the project.
There wasn't enough time for it to be built again, especially with the nuclear war that was sparked by the event.
All the faction leaders died one way or another, and Planet was thrown in to anarchy at its most needy time.
Then the fungus started blooming. Its cycle. And Planetmind was going through its metamorphosis. Psi powers were killing people left and right, destroying their mind.
A hundred people took the spaceship P.C.S Reclaim off the world, avoiding the guns being shot at it. The P.C.S Reclaim was originally meant to recolonize and reclaim Earth, but the provisions necessary for such an excursion were not ready yet. So the Reclaim set off in the direction of a star believed to hold habitable worlds; Earth could not be colonized because the radiation shields were destroyed during the turbulent exit from Planet. Using the recently discovered Temporal technology, they were able to travel at not-much-faster than light speeds, and were expected to reach the star known as Hope to the people aboard in twelve years.
There were tears in Joseph's eyes. He was the de facto leader of these hundred people, which were again all that was left of the human race. And there were no cryogenic tanks this time, and the meager provisions which they brought aboard needed to be rationed from the start. Funny, in a way. Planets don't seem to like us. He forced a laugh.
"Well, Lieutenant, confirm we're on course. We've been traveling for - oh, how long -- a month now, correct?"
"Right, sir."
Only eleven months and eleven years to go.
"Dismissed."
Time passed.
A/N This is the first short chapter, really more of the prologue, to the greater story, which will be coming up as soon as I can write it. Enjoy it for now, the exciting parts (at least, I hope they'll be exciting) will come later. I think.