/ Duel Universe
/ Author: The Cowboy of Oklahoma
/ Ch 12: Lightspeed Death
/ word count: 1818
As the fleet silently slipped through the empty expanse of dark space between the terran solar system and the closest Kepler telescope identified planets, the few individuals currently awake began to feel a bit restless. There have been several rotations of hypersleep containers, and a large majority of them being scientists, engineers, and basic maintenance personnel. The few military personnel that are currently awake, were getting ready for their turn to go into hypersleep, rotate through the Oceanica, and generally just making sure all craft are still on course. Most civilians that entered hypersleep, signed paperwork that said they would remain asleep for as long as possible without causing any permanent damage. So every civilian was put on a rotation schedule of four months sleep and no less than one month awake, to let their bodies adjust slowly and be able to go back to sleep easier. Unfortunately, there were a few complications. The few elderly that survived, then went into hypersleep with the last batch. Each was asked to sit and record their life stories and experiences. To make new video wills incase of the worst outcome. It was supposed to be merely a precaution, but in the case of about 3,000 of them, it would be the last words they ever spoke. That wasn't even the worst part, most of their surviving family members were on different rotations, only a few had family scheduled to be woken up next. After the autopsies, and subsequent storage of the most important and potentially life saving body parts and fluids, the bodies were put into a storage room with the cold and vacuum of space to preserve them until their families get to say their final goodbyes. Along with the elderly that have passed away, a few malfunctions have caused other people to also perish while asleep. An entire container lost power for a day and all souls inside were lost. Other individual units malfunctioned as well, but some of them may be able to be saved. One such unit was inside one of the military containers, and the individual was someone no one was ready to lose.
Washington Platform:
Lieutenant Colonel Jefferson Eastwood was dying. Because of the malfunctioned unit and subsequent medical procedures, it wasn't anything that could be done to save his life. Corporal Brier stayed by his side throughout his entire ordeal.
"Corporal, don't you have other duties to be," a cough cuts his words off, "other duties to be performing?" He asked.
"My duty right now is to take care of you sir." She answered. "All medic personnel are busy or there are just not enough of them awake right now to monitor your condition constantly."
He groans and rolls his eyes, turning his head to look away from her.
"Corporal.." he began.
"Brier. Please just call me Brier." She said in a calm manner.
He coughed. "Brier, I want to be alone right now. I don't want to be disturbed."
"I'm sorry sir, but doctor's orders, which outranks your own." She slips her hand around his and gets his attention. "And I'm not talking about any doctor currently onboard sir."
He knew what she meant, his eyes began to tear up as his hand clasped hers tighter. His deceased wife of 37 years, Doctor Clarice Eastwood, died just before the goo made landfall. She never got to see how the world ended, and he was thankful for that. Corporal Brier was in his company back then, but only after his wife's death did she become his personal secretary.
"You spoke with Clarice?" He asked with a withered breath.
"Yes sir. I had some hard times back when I was with other Marine regimens, and she was my councilor or consort, of sorts. We became good friends and just before she died, asked me to watch your back." She explained.
"How did you come to know her." He asked.
"It was about four years ago, I was sitting in the chow hall and she was doing one of her weekly visits to your office. The men of my team were really getting to me by doing something rather unfriendly with my personal belongings at the time. I guess it was after she was done visiting you that she found me eating and I guess it was my demeanor or it was her 'woman's intuition' that she came over and asked me how I was doing. We talked then and about once a week after that, she helped me find ways to deal with my problems and we became friends." She explained.
"Is that when you beat up three of my men and we're put in the brig for striking an officer?" He asked.
"About the same time. It was my first time proving to myself and them, that I wasn't as weak as they supposed. She visited me while I was in my cell as well." She said.
"You became a hard ass is what you did, and it's why I was surprised when you volunteered to be my secretary after..she passed away. You had a bright future if you'd have stayed in the field." He noted.
"I said 'I'd watch your back,' and I couldn't do it if I was half a world away from you on missions." She laughed a little. "She sort of became my surrogate mother. And by that extension, you became a surrogate father figure to me sir." Her eyes teared up. "And I'm not leaving you for any reason."
Eastwood sat back and sighed, one thing he and his wife were never able to do was to have children. He was sterile. "So this is what holding a child's hand feels like."
Two years ago:
Before the fleet ever made it to the outer edges of the solar system. Scientists and engineers worked tirelessly to figure out some form of faster than light engines.
"The ships are running on engines and power supplies that will last for an estimated 300 years with constant usage, but that is only about half the distance to our current destination." One of the scientists said.
"So we need a more viable engine, the only thing is, we have to be able to use the current engines and the current speeds we are going to create these new engines." An engineer added. "If we slow down, even a little, to work on or replace the current engines we have, it could add years to our travel."
Looks and nods around the meeting room shared this sentiment.
"Alright, during each rotation of scientists and engineers, we have to make sure we are making extremely detailed notes. So the next group doesn't have to ask very many questions and we don't have to be awake for very long to hold anyone else's hand." The head scientists said. "Every quirk, good or bad, every tweak, every time we add or remove something, it gets written down! Leave nothing to chance! If we here and now can't think of something, or we missed something, someone else may very well find it. And if it comes to light, that anyone, and I mean anyone, awake or asleep, is found to have hidden any notes, will not be participating in any more of the research and development of the new engines! They might even find themselves in a cell of one version or another when awake and asleep!!" The lead scientist threatened.
Present day:
The process was slow, painfully slow, and it took two years of rotations to accomplish a feat no one on Earth had done. Every ship's engine was retrofit with new components, and new crystals that multiplied their power output by thousands. Every ship, especially the Oceanica, was considered to be in danger of severe inertia. Thankfully, one of the scientists thought of this possibility and worked to create powerful inertia dampers. With these new reworked engines, the Oceanica was now the slowest ship in the fleet, but that wasn't really a problem to be concerned about. It's overall speed was only 0.003% slower than a platforms, a margin that can be overcome. Now the time to reach the new planet has been cut down to only a few years, so the rotation schedule is still in effect.
The Baddeck:
The new speeds made the stars outside the view screen look like streaks of light. However, if anyone stared at it for long, they'd get a headache for trying to follow each of the individual lights. So looking at it was limited to only for a few minutes at a time, and only from the main viewer. The cruiser's current crew complement were the first few skeleton crew that have been with the Baddeck ever since Canada, except for Michaels. The Executive Officer, who stood beside the Captain's chair, had her arm draped over the Captains shoulder. After the little argument that they had almost two years ago, and that was heard by all that was present at the time, some of the crew were quite surprised to find out that those two had become a couple.
"I don't get how those two hooked up." Crewmen were whispering to each other. "And on top of the Captain and XOs relationship, I heard that the two technicians that became a couple broke regs and went and got pregnant!"
"No way! But isn't it dangerous for anyone that's pregnant to enter hypersleep!?"
"Yeah. So she's been awake for nearly 3 months, and her husband has refused to enter hypersleep without her. And boy did the Captain give them an earful for doing that. Heck, I'm surprised they were able to wait this long before they broke down."
"Not only that, but I heard that Lee's Mom also refuses to sleep until the baby is born. 'I won't sleep until I know my grandchild is born and healthy!', she said."
The talk and gossip were somewhat keeping the crew's morale up a bit, and the Baddeck wasn't the only ship experiencing this particular problem. Reports of about two dozen women have gotten themselves pregnant. One of them being in her final trimester and the baby would be born before we'll even reach the first planet. Besides these recent developments though, most people did manage to keep their hands to themselves for two years, scientists had to work tirelessly to temporarily sterilize both men and women. Along with a way to re-fertilize everyone so that further children can be born when we are good and established in our new home.
A few dozen light-years ago:
When the entire fleet activated their new collective lightspeed engines, with a resulting wake of residual energy left behind, a small shimmer of light was seemingly hanging there, in that exact spot, alone. The little shimmer slowly began moving in the same direction as the fleet, then it started picking up speed.