Explorers of the Universe

Chapter 1: Seeking the Origins; Search of the Prometheus

Earth

2184

Mountains of Scotland

Scotland, a country that was part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shared a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the East, the Atlantic Ocean to the North and West, and the North Channel, and Irish Sea to the Southwest. In addition to the mainland, Scotland was made up of more than 790 islands, including the Northern Isles and the Hebrides.

And one of the islands, where the mountains stretched back billions of years, a small archeological dig was being held at. American by the tents and the small claiming tent, a small team of adults and teen graduates were currently working on a dig. One digger was currently entering a newly fashioned cave, with only a flashlight and the backpack on her.

She was a thirty-five year old Caucasian female, with a slender figure, raven black hair, and brown eyes to accompany her look. Her skin was a bit on the pale side, and showed as she nearly glowed in the cave iwht her flashlight. She wore black pants, black winter boots, a blue winter jacket, and black archeological gloves. Her name was Martha Shepard, a graduate majoring in paleontology and archeology. She graduated top of her class in high school in biology as well. In truth, she was the smartest woman at her age. And today, she was gonna find the Discovery of the Century.

She stopped for a moment on the cave trail, the pathway lit up with lights from the dig team. She looked around, and stopped, once she saw something amazing, written on the upper walls of the cave. At that moment, her face lit up with a smile, as she whispered, "Oh, my God."

She ran out of the cave, as she stepped at the mouth of the cave, and shouted, "John! John! We found it!"

Once she was heard, somebody ran out of their tent, as he stopped to look up to where Miranda was at. He was a Caucasian male of forty-one, with a shaved military haircut of black hair, a stubble for a beard, blue eyes, and a somewhat arrogant cocky face. He was wearing a red winter jacket, open with a black turtleneck, blue pants, black winter boots, and brown fingerless gloves. His name was Jonathan Shepard, the leading head of the expedition, mastering degrees in archeology, mythology, astronomy, and was in fact Martha's husband.

After he and a few others, along with a few excavation drones, John had reached her. Once they entered the cave, she led him to what she had found earlier. There, on the wall, being lit up by lights, was an early cave painting. It showed a tall man leading individuals to a constellation in the sky. And out of all the drawings on the cave wall, this one was mostly important to those who painted them. And to Miranda and John, they appeared to be well sought out, as John was speechless at the sight.

"You've gotta be kidding me," John said, in disbelief of this discovery. He never tore his gaze away from the paintings, as he asked, "Did you date them?"

"35,000 years ago," Martha answered, her smile never leaving her face. "It could be older than that." She smiled as she asked, "They're calling to us, aren't they?"

John nodded, as he smirked, "Indeed they are." He pointed to the constellational figure, as he stated, "Look at this; the configuration of the stars the figure's pointing to. It's exactly the same as the others we found. Different places, different millennia, but they all have the same configuration of the stars."

Martha tearfully smiled, as she and John held each other's hand, their fingers lacing one another. "It seems like they want us to find them," she whispered. And then looked to John, "When can we start?"

"Immediately."

1 Year Later

New York City

New York City, also known as the Big Apple, but otherwise known as the biggest city in America.

New York City was located in the Northeastern United States, in southeastern New York State, approximately halfway between Washington, D.C. and Boston. The location at the mouth of the Hudson River, which fed into a naturally sheltered harbor and then into the Atlantic Ocean, which has helped the city grow in significance as a trading city since its development. Much of New York was built on the three islands of Manhattan, Staten Island, and Long Island, making land scarce and encouraging a high population density.

The Hudson River flowed through the Hudson Valley into New York Bay. Between New York City and Troy, New York, the river was an estuary. The Hudson separated the city from New Jersey. The East River – a tidal strait – flowed from Long Island Sound and separated the Bronx and Manhattan from Long Island. The Harlem River, another tidal strait between the East and Hudson Rivers, separated Manhattan from the Bronx. The Bronx River, which flowed through the Bronx and Westchester County, was the only entirely fresh water river in the city

In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the city's worst industrial disaster until the 9/11 World Trade Center disaster, took the lives of 146 garment workers and spurred the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and major improvements in factory safety standards.

In the early 22nd Century, the city had been rebuilt with a new skyscraper system, as well as hover vehicle transit posts. Now modernized, it looked like a vision of technological wonder. Truly, the state of New York City was something to behold from above in the heavens.

But not every spot in the century was a sight to behold for those.

District 9

Peach Trees Block Housing

The Blocks within New York were huge and could be considered a small town in themselves. Each one would typically possess a hospital, gymnasium, school, and shopping district. A citizen can quite literally live their whole lives without leaving their block. Due to the high unemployment rate, boredom was rife among citizens – this, coupled with the high loyalty citizens develop to their blocks, along with a city-defence militia for most city blocks, led to many "Block Wars", or riots (more like small wars) between two or more blocks.

In short, it was a place for those to be thrown away with nowhere else to go.

Room 1408

The room looked pretty vacant for someone that was already living in it. There were papers and clothing strewn all over the place; someone had pretty much didn't both to clean around the place at all. But on a coffee table, were a few holographic photos of a couple with a young man at the age of seven with messy brown hair, and wearing an adorable army man costume, and a little raven black haired girl at the age of four, dressed in a princess costume. The couple was a man in his thirties, dressed as a cop, Caucasian, in his thirties with slick back brown hair, and the lady was in her late twenties, dressed for a ball and had long black hair that was silky to the touch, and went down her back. But there were more than just family photos on the table.

At the moment, someone was sleeping on the couch, sprawled on it, as his face was covered in a book, and he was snoring on it. He was a young sixteen year old boy, slim figure, Caucasian, and messy brown hair shown from the book's edges. He wore an aqua blue long sleeve shirt with sky blue shoulders, sleeve cuffs, and collar. He also wore black pants with a gray vertical stripe on the thigh's front and back, and white socks, and had a pair of gray sneakers set on the couch he laid on. He was Isaac Shepard, the son of Jonathan and Martha Shepard, who were currently away for a whole year.

Floating around was a disc-shaped droid, with two green flashlights for eyes, as it flew over to the boy, as it beeped, "Isaac Shepard. You are late for school. It is past the school hour."

"I'm home in bed. Sick," Isaac groaned under the book.

The door opened, as someone walked inot the room. It was a girl around sixteen, Caucasian, and slim figure, very attractive, with strawberry reddish blonde hair cut to her shoulders and her front bangs swept to the right and held by a pin, and had green eyes. She wore a black turtleneck dickie, with a light blue t-shirt with a blue cat design on the front exposing her midriff, a pair of ankle-less blue jean pants with white shoes and a white belt with a white chain dangling on the side. She also had a blue watch on her right wrist, and a large book bag on her shoulders. She was Gwen Tenalds, Isaac's cousin/sister figure in the world.

Once she set her book bag down, she walked over to Isaac's spot on the couch, and frowned, as she glared down on his downed body. "You've got a lot of nerve just sleeping in all day. WAKE UP!"

And then forcefully kicked him off the couch, causing him to fall down, groaning. His face was revealed to be handsome, with blue eyes. He got up on all fours, and glared at Gwen, "Do you have to kick me off my spot on the couch the whole time?"

"All's fair for you, pal," Gwen stated. "I don't see you pulling your weight around all the time."

Isaac frowned, as he got up, and headed to the kitchen, "It wouldn't kill you to be nice for a change, you know that, Queen Dweeb?"

Gwen sat down, kicking her shoes off as she let her bare feet rest on the couch, "It also wouldn't kill you to go to school. You've been absent for nearly four months now. If this keeps up, you might never graduate."

Isaac grabbed two carbonated water drinks from the fridge, and walked over to Gwen to give her one. "Well, it's kind of pointless if your parents aren't here to scold you on late absentees." He the plopped on the chair next to the sofa, as he took a huge gulp from his bottle. He then belched out, as he groaned, "Besides, I've been thinking about just being homeschooled."

Gwen sighed, "Ken Heels bugging you again?"

Isaac nodded, "I just can't seem to get him to leave me alone. He's been picking on me since the 4th grade. It's like with me, he's found a happy way to pass his time to torment me; to be honest, you'd think I'd be a waste of his time."

Gwen could sympathize with Isaac's dilemma; Ken Heels was the bully of the school who got away with things, simply because his family worked with Wayward Industries: a company that specialized with terraforming and planet-cracking, a process that mined the planet of rare ore and mineral samples for Earth's resources. They were also the people Uncle John and Aunt Martha went to about their discovery they found in the caves. They had been gone for almost a year now, but had to leave the kids behind. But they were well taken care of by their Robo-Nanny/Housekeeper.

At that moment, the door knocked, getting their attention, as Gwen got up, seeing that Isaac was just plastered to the seat. She opened the door, and spotted a Caucasian man in his thirties, neatly combed brown hair, slim figure, brown eyes, and wearing what appeared to be a jumpsuit of some kind.

"Yes," Gwen asked. "Can I help you?"

"Gwendolyn Tenalds and Isaac Shepard? Is this the residence," he asked.

"Yes," Gwen replied.

"I'm Christopher Samuels, I'm with Wayward Industries," he replied. "I'm here on behalf of the situation on the Prometheus. The ship that your aunt, uncle, and Mr. Shepard's parents were on." Isaac sat up, seeming to take interest on that, as Gwen let him in. "Thank you."

"What's wrong with the Prometheus?" Isaac asked.

Gwen looked worried, as she asked, "What happened with Aunt Martha and Uncle John?"

"Well, we're not certain ourselves," Samuels explained. "The ship reached its destination after a year, and things had been working like clockwork. But then all of a sudden, we lost all transmissions after a few days. Until now, we received a transmission, and then everything stopped."

The two teens seemed interested on what was going on, and then Gwen asked, "What's been going on for the past year on Aegis 7?"

Samuels looked to the children, and replied, "That's what the rescue team is going to find out. A commercial Planet-Cracker, the USSCS Ishimura is going there in a week." He then hopefully looked at the two teens, and asked, "And I was hoping… you two would come along."

Gwen's eyes went wide with surprise, feeling a sense of hope to go after the only family she and Isaac had left. She shot up on her feet, as she replied hastingly, "Yeah, we'll go, we'll go, we'll go!"

But Isaac stood up, as he huffed, "Count me out." He then walked to the window, looking outside at the overcrowded advanced city.

"Isaac! These are your parents we're talking about here," Gwen defended. "They're also family to me too."

"They practically abandoned us, Gwen," Isaac huffed, crossing his arms, as he leaned on the window sill. "They could have brought us along for the trip, but they decided to leave us behind. Claiming they'd be back in no time. But as soon as their research comes in, this happens."

Gwen frowned, "That's not true, Isaac."

But Samuels kept her from going, as he silently stopped her, "May I?" Gwen, not sure of what would happen, nodded, as Samuels walked over to Isaac. "Isaac, look. When this case came across my desk, I read the case history, as well as looked up the family relations to those on this mission in case something like this happened. I know why you're skipping school, and avoiding contact with anyone else. You're waiting for them to come back, aren't you?" Isaac was silent, but still looked away. "I've been cleared to offer you two a place on the Falcon if you want to come along. Maybe there'll be some… closure for you both."

A moment of silence came from Isaac, as he suddenly spoke up, "Going into outer space, visiting a faraway planet from our system, and maybe finding aliens?" He then turned to them both, smirking, as he replied, "Sounds like fun."

1 ½ Year Later

Deep Space

Drifting through the blackness of space, far away from the Milky Way Galaxy, rode two ships heading towards their destination. The ships were the Falcon and the Ishimura. Both funded and built by the Wayward Industries, a separate technology firm, that was more of a cult. They believed the advancement of mankind to a higher evolutionary calling, founded by one man, Michael Orgman. Since then, Wayward had become the largest supplier of Space Travel and building the colonies among the inner circle planets of the Milky Way System: Venus, Mars, the Moon, and even Saturn and Jupiter, or at least many of their moons. And they were also the main benefactors of the exploration team now.

Funded and conceived by the Wayward Industries, like the Prometheus, both the Falcon and Ishimura were revolutionary starships that were the most advanced and expensive faster-than-light space exploration vehicles of its day. It was billed as an official United States Commercial Starship in 2091. It was a huge prospecting vessel, now rebuilt for both prospecting and exploration. The Prometheus was powered by four nuclear ion plasma engines capable of VTOL thrust hybrid vectoring in atmospheric and interstellar conditions. Individual cranes in the engine's outer shell lifted the heavy titanium caution-colored landing legs back into the engine. The ship carried over twenty vehicles in tow along with crew weaponry composed of flame units, advanced pistols, shotguns and other weaponry used by mercenaries in charge of security.

The main control room housed a primary holo-table which received the signals fed by the three-dimensional holographic scanning spectagraphs. It also carried seventeen hyper sleep chambers, with holographic display to the ship's mainframe to monitor metabolic conditions ot suspend cell function; they were programmed to initiate, maintain, and terminate hyper sleep stasis of human crew, depending on the length of the mission and percent FTL travel. The ship's equipment included an RT-01 Exploration Rover, which could house 20 occupants. An ATV NR6, which was a two person transport vehicle with 4-tread, track-belted wheels able to negotiate near-vertical terrain carrying small payloads; they had about ten of them. Class D escape module, which was designed suitable for the Prometheus as well as the Falcon, and could allow one occupant 50 years of breathable air with or without hyper sleep.

The other vessel was the USSCS Ishimura, the flagship of the Concordance Extraction Corporation, a partner company of Wayward in mining planets with fresh natural resources, and the first Planet-Cracker class ship. The Ishimura was also the first vessel of its size to be utilized for large-scale commercial and deep space expeditions. The length of the ship was roughly over 5,300 feet (Nearly one mile, or 1.6 kilometers) long from stern to bow. The width remained unknown, with a height of roughly 1,550 feet (0.47 km). The ship itself was a portable space station.

The two were headed to an unknown and classified location at the moment. The last known sector of where the Prometheus had disappeared.

Onboard the Prometheus

Hypersleep Chambers

The hyper sleep chambers were as quiet as ever, even for a year and a half. The chambers were held horizontal, and were yellow casings, keeping the crew in stasis sleep, making them nice and comfy, as well as fresh and the same age as they left. The chambers' holographic displays were up to date on their vitals and such. Four of the Chambers had the names Isaac Shepard, Gwen Tenalds, Jeff Carter, and one Ken Heels, each separated from the others. But despite the fact that the crew was safe, asleep, and alive, the whole place was a tomb.

However, that wasn't the case anymore, as the chamber room doors hissed open. Someone stepped in, as they observed the area. The person was a female, sixteen years of age in appearance, pale white skin, with a beautiful slender body frame, blue hair that was cut above the neck, and blue eyes. She was dressed in a skin-tight black and silver body suit; the boots were black from foot to thigh, with a one-piece turtleneck frame, with sleeves and black gloves. She was Rei 8, a synthetic android, as well as the caretaker of the crew, while they were in hyper sleep.

She walked over to Isaac's pod, and typed in a few commands. Afterwards, a pair of specs had retracted from the side of the chamber; she then took the specs and placed them on her face. Once that happened, she saw a scene directly from Isaac's memory; the specs allowed anyone to view into the other's memories. And at the moment, she was looking at a distant memory.

The memory was far back, when Isaac and Gwen were both only ten years of age, and when Gwen was adopted into the family. Jonathan Shepard was working on a dig with his wife as they were in Africa, and took the kids along for the ride. There, an African funeral was being processing, as young Miranda was observing them. She then asked her father,"What happened to that man?"

"He died," Isaac answered her, as he turned the page of a book he was reading.

"Why aren't we helping them?" she asked her uncle John for an answer.

"Oh, they don't want our help. I think they'd find our ways in funeral to be different from theirs," their father answered. "They're God's different than ours." He shook his head, as he corrected, "No, they're God's not different than ours. God's the same everywhere; he's just viewed differently in different religions."

"Why did he die?" Gwen asked.

"Sooner or later everyone does," he answered.

She blinked in confusion, as she asked, "Like my parents?"

Jonathan paused for a moment, and nodded sadly, "Like your parents, sweetie."

"Where do they go," Gwen asked. "Where do we go when we die?"

Jonathan shrugged, "Well, everyone has their own word for it: heaven, paradise. Whatever it's called, it's someplace beautiful. Peaceful. Amazing."

"How do you know it's beautiful?" she finally asked.

Uncle John just smiled to her, as he replied, "Because that's what I choose to believe."

She then looked to her cousin, who was still reading, and then she asked, "Hey, Isaac, what do you believe?"

Isaac stopped reading for a moment, and then looked to her. He blinked, and looked away, thinking for a moment, and then looked up in the sky.

Rei ended the show, as she took off her specs, and placed them back. She remained quiet for a moment, and tipped her head, as she stated, "Interesting."

A Month Later

All along the month passing since that day, Rei had kept herself occupied, while maintaining surveillance on the sleeping crew. Recently, she had gone to the Recreation Center and had played basketball, while riding a bicycle. Afterwards, she took a dip in the pool, but lacked the swimsuit to do so, so she went in with nothing at all. After that, she sat down on the couch, with nothing but a towel underneath her, and a towel on her shoulders, eating a bowl of ramen, watching an old film on file, Lawrence of Arabia.

She was currently watching the scene in which she identified the character, William Potter, played by Peter O'Toole, attempting to mimic the main character, Lawrence's, attempts in snuffing out a match with his bare fingers. Potter flinched, as he licked his wounds, and had to ask, "How'd you do it man? What's the trick?"

Lawrence simply answered, "The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts."

"The Trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts," Rei mimicked, and then turned the broadcast off. She cocked an eyebrow, as she asked, "Not minding that it hurts. Curious."

However, she stopped as she heard a beeping from the Recreation's remote computer from the Main Helm Deck. She uncrossed her legs, and stood up, allowing the towel on her shoulders to fall off, rendering herself completely in the nude. She walked over to the computer, and switched it on. Just at that moment, the ship shook a little, as the ship's main computer spoke out, "ATTENTION. MAIN DESTINATINO THRESHOLD. MAIN DESTINATION THRESHOLD"

Rei stood there for a moment, and typed in a few codes into the console. On the Bridge, everything lit up, and activated, as she switched onto a ship camera, looking at the destination. The world was called Aegis 7, a remote and desolate planet: the perfect place to be left alone and unseen.

Rei smirked at this news, "We're there."

Class-D Module

Rei, now fully dressed, walked into the Class D Module, to awaken the occupant that was in there. However, once she had reached it, she found the hyper sleep chamber empty, but found wet footprints leading to the bedroom. Once she got there, she saw a woman doing pushups to fight the prolong effects of Hyper Sleep. She was a Caucasian, physically fit, nude in only workout underwear, and dampened medium length blonde hair. Her name was Meredith Vickers, an executive of Cerberus, as well as a skeptic and someone who desperately wanted to control the situation. Once she was done with her exercise, she stood up, and headed to the closet.

But not before Rei bowed her head, and expressed gratitude, "Good morning, Miss Vickers."

Not caring much for an android, she scoffed her, and asked, "How long have we been in hyper sleep, Canner?"

Ignoring the insult, Rei simply answered, "1 year, 4 months, 18 days, 36 hours, 15 minutes…"

"Okay, enough," Vickers ordered, and Rei stopped. As she robed herself, she asked, "Any casualties?"

Rei tilted her head in confusion, as she asked, "Casualties, ma'am?"

"Has anyone died?" Vickers asked, slightly annoyed.

Rei shook her head, "No, Ma'am. Everyone is just fine."

Vickers then shooed her out, ordering rather impatiently, "Well, then wake them up, like a good little robot."

Rei was quiet for a moemtn, staring at Vickers as she was getting dressed. If one pondered what was going on in her head, it was like she was glaring in hate at the blonde. Vickers turned around and shooed off again, almost yelling as the tone of her voice went up, "What are you waiting for? An invitation? Go!" Rei nodded, and then turned to leave, as Vickers whispered in satisfaction, almost feeling superior, "That's a good thing…"

Next Chapter: Arriving to Aegis 7; the Message and Landing