/ Duel Universe
/ Author: The Cowboy of Oklahoma
/ Ch 10: Mars
/ word count: 2139
Earth Fleet, about twenty days out from the red planet Mars, three and a half months from Earth. The fleet was functioning at 2/3 capacity, full crew complement for each ship, all remaining were passengers. Engines were at top speed without burning up completely. Air filtration was set to 70% and the plants were handling the remaining 30%. Ship to ship communication was preset to be ready at a moment's notice. General Gregory Marcellus was elected head of the entire fleet. There was some opposition, claiming to have lost more, so they should receive more. What was left of the United Nations voted against it, the ones that remained were renamed as the Earth Council, and would serve as the middleman between the new leadership and the remainder of humanity. Suggestions and ideas would come by the Council, then viable options would be brought to the command of the fleet and then it would be decided to implement or deny whatever idea made it that far. Anyone vying for more power than what was needed, would be put down immediately. Many were given the task of farming in small pockets to grow extra food and tend to all animals so that their numbers could be multiplied for future food resources. Some began to hide certain grains and equipment to begin creating moonshine and other alcoholic beverages. They had only gotten a few weeks worth of work done when the operation was found and shut down. Everyone involved was sentenced to the brig for the duration of the months that followed. The time passed slowly for many of the civilians and military personnel. The scientists labored daily to find a way for the hypothesised hyper sleep to work. The technicians worked just as long to make the chambers to hold the sleeping bodies. It would take a few days to charge a power source from just one of the Platforms main reactors. An emptied cargo container was used to house up to 50 medical bunk beds. Three of the containers can be powered by just one of the new, smaller power sources, and by not having the containers hardwired into the main reactors, if the platform's powers ever failed, the hypersleep containers would remain functional. Now the scientists needed just a little longer to get the right chemical process to put an individual to sleep safely.
"Man! How much longer till we get to Mars!?" Civilians questioned loudly.
"Aw shut up already!! We were told that it would take a few months to reach Mars, and we're almost there." Others answered.
"I hate all this waiting! I wanna stretch my legs damn it!" Was spoken aloud.
"Me too! When are we going to get there already!?" Another added.
The civilians were becoming restless, as cabin fever is starting to show itself. We were still about a week out from Mars, but the morale is beginning to wane. We'll need that hypersleep option soon, otherwise these people are going to riot from sheer boredom.
Mars:
The fleet moved into synchronise orbit over the colony, radioing down that they will be sending landing crafts to transport everyone, gear and resources onto the platforms above.
"Who are you and what are you doing here!?" Doctor Reinhart, lead scientists and head of the Mars expedition, questioned the voice on the other end of the communication. "This is the Mars colony station, 'Bowie Base One', and we are not expecting any visitors nor are we going to be leaving this planet!" She stated.
A man's voice came on and it's commanding presence was unmistakable.
"Doctor Reinhart, this is Lieutenant Colonel Jefferson Eastwood of the Earth Space Fleet, and we are here to gather yourself and all other colonists currently on Mars surface, along with all forms of resources you still have. Further information will be given to you once you and your team are onboard." He said.
"Eastwood? But you're supposed to be back on Earth! What is going on here!?" Reinhart asked.
Three Cruisers came down to the colony, the Baddeck, the Suffren, and the Adelaide, then a smaller transport detached from the bottom hull of the Baddeck. The colonists had some words of not wanting to leave, but the director ordered everyone to gather their personal belongings and to make all other items ready for departure.
"Are we just supposed to leave everything behind?" One of the colonists asked.
"We are supposed to take everybody, every resource, every test tube and every nut and bolt. We'll be here for a couple of days to completely tear down this entire compound, and store it onboard the platforms above. If there is anything you don't want lost, you have 12 hours to make sure it gets packed." I explained to the colonists. Then turned to Doctor Reinhart. "Doctor, we have the Harbinger ready to take you to the Washington for debrief and to be given all the information about what is going on."
"What can you tell me right now." She asked.
I looked down, then turned away. "Earth is gone, and we will never be going back. Further details will be told to you aboard the Washington."
Washington Platform:
"What happened!? Why are you all here and why am I being told that the Earth has just been abandoned!?" Doctor Reinhart shouted her questions.
"Doctor please, there's no need for all that shouting. If you would please sit down we can calmly get through thi.." Eastwood began.
"Don't give me that shit! The Earth isn't gone! It's right out there where it's supposed to be!?"
"It's gone." A young feminine voice stated.
"What!? Who do you think you ar..?" Reinhart stopped when she saw who it was she was addressing. "Agatha!?"
Agatha Fleetfoot was standing with a data pad, helping the Colonel with paper work.
"Hello Sharon. How have you been?"
"Agatha!? What? But..Earth..your grandfather.." Sharon was flabbergasted, mixed thoughts kept her from forming a coherent sentence.
"Is dead." Agatha answered.
"What!? How!?" Sharon asked.
"A group called themselves 'The Brethren Collective' dropped a nuke on the last base, 'New Alamo', on Earth. My grandfather was the commanding officer there." Agatha explained, a tear forming from the fresh memory resurfacing.
Sharon grabbed Agatha, pulling her into a hug.
"I'm so sorry." Sharon cradled Agatha in her arms, then turned back to the Colonel. "Okay, tell me exactly what happened. We've been out here for 18 months, left Earth just over 2 years ago, how could the planet have been destroyed in so little amount of time, and how come no communication was ever sent to us before now?"
The Colonel explained how the unknown 'goo' substance landed on Earth a little under two years ago, and how it literally spread across the entire planet, taking the oceans last. How in the final days, a radicalist group called 'The Brethren Collective' tried to commandeer all the remaining Earth's resources and even declared war on the rest of humanity. Admiral Fleetfoot was assigned the post at 'New Alamo' base and was there when the bomb hit.
"Okay, so where did this fleet come from? We didn't have it when we left for Mars 2 years ago." Sharon questioned.
"The fleet is literally less than 2 years old." Eastwood told her. "After the goo made landfall and we found in a very short amount of time, not even our most potent and deadliest weapons would affect it. It covered all of the continental Asia in just a few months."
"So you made ships to get out of there. That would still be one heck of a feet for the military to accomplish alone." Sharon noted.
"As soon as we knew we couldn't touch or stop the goo, we took control of every single tech company, construction company, every scientist, and every resource was grabbed up and then we made sure as many animals as we could bring with us were safe. The biggest problem was to bring what few sea creatures we could along with us."
Sharon's eyes went wide, "You brought oceanic lifeforms with you!?"
"Yes. There." Eastwood pointed to the largest ship in the entire fleet. It easily dwarfed any other ship here. "It's a super transport we named the 'Oceanica', on the reason that it literally is filled with sea water and marine life, save for a few we couldn't risk bringing in case a person or a mammal were to be killed and they'd go extinct forever."
"So what did you not bring with you?" Sharon asked.
"Sharks, and other large predatory life mostly. To feed them, we wouldn't have enough smaller fish to satisfy them on a daily nutrients need. So most of what's in that ship are harmless whales, dolphins, penguins, seals, and billions of smaller fish and crustaceous life. The whole of the ship, as is, is super self sufficient, massive air scrubbers, water filtration, with limited personnel to monitor the whole ship." Eastwood explained.
"And if an asteroid were to strike that ship?" Sharon asked.
"That ship has nearly 10ft of outer armor plating before a 30 foot mismatch of different damage resistant materials including kevlar, ceramics and ballistic jellies to keep anything inside safe. It is the most heavily armored ship in the entire fleet. However, it is also the ship with the least amount of armaments on it. As in none." Eastwood finished.
"And why's that?" Sharon questioned.
"Almost all of its available power is being used to maintain that ship. Less than 10% is being used by anything else, like hatches and living quarters. The ship doesn't even have an engine on it, it's being pulled by seven out of twelve tugs, which makes her the second slowest in the fleet." Eastwood explained.
"What's the slowest?" Agatha asked
"The platforms are the slowest actually. If we went full speed and raced the Oceanica, the Oceanica would win."
During the rest of the meeting, they worked out what colonists should go to which ship, for ethnic background or family reasons, and their resources were added to the stock of the rest of the fleet. Afterwards, Sharon and Agatha walked, heading for one of the greenhouses, and talked about all that happened.
"A greenhouse." Sharon noted.
"Yeah, each ship has at least one, the bigger the ship, the bigger the greenhouse, though the platforms need about three to help the air scrubbers. My schematics of the Oceanica says the whole of the ship could be considered one huge greenhouse." Agatha showed her on the data pad.
"Earth did this in just 2 years? I can't believe it." Sharon stated "Wait, how many people made it off the planet? How many different nations or ethnic backgrounds are out here now?" Sharon asked quickly.
"We lost nearly all of the African nations, most just didn't want to believe something was coming to kill them, others too small to get word to in time. We still have people of African descent, but they are now once again the minority of the human race, and not just for skin color this time. Russia, and Egypt have their own platform, the Chinese and the UK, what's left of them, is sharing their platforms with all the remaining respective countries from their ends of the continent, then there are the American platforms, 3 of them, the South American platform is a jumble of all the hispanic speaking cultures, but a few of them we're needed to be moved to other platforms, carrier's and cruisers. The Australian platform has a good number of their own animal species onboard, but with the smallest human count, though only by a couple thousand. Germany tried to make their own platform but the world governments forbade them that luxury." Agatha noted.
"Huh, guess that's why they moved my colonists to different ships." Sharon said. "So how many survived in total?"
"About 2.3 billion humans remain. The loss of most of the Asians and Africans took about half the world's population almost overnight. But since the goo started it's spread there, they lost more citizenry than anyone else, That's why there are more Americans than anyone else." Agatha explained. "Some people refused to leave their homes or too elderly to make the trip, anyone that stayed was given the option to be drugged or to just wait for the goo, most chose to live the last of their days free of anything. The world government even offered to let them go anywhere in the world they wished as a final request." Agatha finished, a tear in her eye.
Sharon and Agatha sat down somewhere quiet together, shared a few tears, and talked about the lives they lead before they left the planet, about lost loved ones and what they could try to plan for the future.