Ensign Antares W. Smith, Expeditions Executive, stepped through the bulkhead door from the mission equipment prep hangar and walked down the hall at a brisk pace. He stepped into his office a few doors down to review several reports on his holo screen. Everything was in order. He fired off a few dispatches to several of his juniors. Tomorrow would be a big day. They were arriving at the first planet in a series of ninety-eight solar systems that had been mapped out. The excitement through the ship was palpable as soon as deceleration started. Everyone was grinning to themselves and the Captain had to make regular pep talks during musters to keep things on track, encouraging people to not loose focus for a second.

Antares glanced at his Breitling Mission One wrist watch. It was developed by Breitling for this voyage, and named after it as well. He was fifteen minutes past secure time. He got up, put a few more things in order at his desk, set the holo screen to lock, and walked out as the lights turned off behind him.

Three minutes later he walked into his berthing. He had made it ahead of his wife. She would be in shortly most likely. No reason to stay too late on post from what he knew. He pressed a button and table slid out of the wall. He pulled a bottle of raspberry water kefir from the small fridge along with some cheese and rise crackers. He set it all up then made sure he had an escape route ready if the kefir was too effervescent. He popped the bottle lid and it steamed and fizzed but it didn’t foam over so he didn’t have to make a run to the shower with it. He poured some kefir for himself and took a sip.

“Damn that is good. Jane, is my wife on the way yet? I don’t want this kefir to get warm before she gets here.” He said to himself and then questioned his computerized assistant he had named after the coolest character from Orson Scott Card’s Ender universe.

“Not yet sir, but from her recent pattern and the post traffic I have just analyzed she should be here soon. I don’t think the kefir will get too warm.”

“Thanks Jane”

“Any time sir. I do believe the Captain will also be visiting.”

“Before or after Hayley get’s here?”

“Most likely it will be shortly afterward.”

“Good to know,” he pulled out another glass and set it on the table, then walked over to the porthole in his room. He made a motion with his hand to turn off the blackout “curtain”. The galaxy looked amazing from deep space. The new space the ship was creating in order to travel such vast distances in such a short time was a true perfect vacuum and it seemed to help ever so slightly in viewing the stars. Maybe it was just the knowledge that it was there made it seem like there was a minute difference, but Antares was pretty sure it did help, and during deceleration the stars were not so streaky. He took a deep breath and thought about how amazing it was that all this came to be. It was living proof that Sci-Fi influenced the future like no other creative art did.

It all started when the current captain of the ship had started a fun game with his family of writing themed stories every week during a global pandemic that had most of the world in quarantine. He had then invited several of his close friends that also shared some skill with the quill into this little circle. They had all enjoyed the hell out of it and the now captain had decided to edit and publish the stories as a compilation for the hell of it during his spare time, not that he had much of it. That in and of itself was simple enough and didn’t really go anywhere particularly in terms of great popularity, but it did sell quite a few copies, the proceeds for which went to volunteer groups.
Then the current captain’s father, Bill, managed to somehow befriend the one billionaire on the planet that was validly attempting, and succeeding, to get mankind to inhabit more than one planet in this vast universe, starting up close and personal with Mars. They were having a passionate conversation about the issue of really getting out there past our solar system and Bill, who loved higher physics as a subject, was just trying to push his new friend to think in even larger orders of magnitude, which was something that his friend did far better than anyone else usually, and he pulled the published compilation off the shelf of his personal library to show him Antares’ short story under the the theme Vessels.

Bill had liked the story, and why not, part of the thinking that had gone into it was inspired from his own ideas about what gravity was (which ended up being spot on). So he showed it to his friend as a point that it was actually pretty workable theory and agreed with most of the current and most advanced ideas of matter, energy, space, and time.

Antares had put a bit of thought into it and really tried to make his space ship idea for his vessels short story something that might actually work. He loved stories that approached possibility and extended its boundary. Sure it was a stretch, but not too far off the mark most likely. He had actually stolen the premise idea from the now captain. With the captain’s knowledge and consent of course. The premise was that the captain, who at the time was not a captain, and all his friends at work managed to get on board the first manned vessel to explore other planets out of the solar system. At the time it was a damned silly idea, but loads of fun to think about, and Antares wanted to put the short story together as a glimpse. Why not? And why not put some educated thought into just how the ship would work and solve the various problems of interstellar space travel?

In the story, the ship became possible because the character that was supposed to be Antares had unlocked a fundamental truth in physics. Science had more or less worked out that matter was really a condensation of energy. Antares’ character had put forth the theory that energy was really a condensation of space and space was further a condensation of time. Put that in your smoke hole and pipe it.

If such an immense amount of energy is available in an atom, how much space would be available in one, and how much time?

The theory Antares’ character had developed enabled the creation of machines that broke down small amounts of matter into incredible amounts of space. The key to creating a ship with the new technology had been in working out how to break it down and create space in a controlled fashion. And the billionaire that was actually Bill’s current friend had been the one in the story that was able to put the theory and testing into action. If one could create space within space it was possible to greatly shorten the vast distances between start point and end point. Not quite as good as teleportation but close. It also solved the problem of running into atoms and molecules or small random particles in space while traveling at parsec per nanosecond speeds when you had a new space with no matter condensed into it. And the ship in the story had energy to spare for propulsion as it could leave energy at the energy stage and use that to create thrust. All that and much more.

It was just a bit of creativity for fun right? Well, it was up until Bill’s friend read it. It had been a great fiction story, but it became an even better reality.

The next ten years after it was read by the right person had been an absolute rocket ride. The development breakthroughs in physics were astounding, and the processing and training that Antares and his friends had to go through to make sure they were going to make it on the crew list for Mission One on the vessel Apollo II were the most intense years of their already exciting lives.

And here Antares was, sipping kefir in his berthing just like he would have ten years ago before the rocket ride started. Except he was with his best friends hurtling through newly created space at unbelievable speeds towards a planet that was an unbelievable distance from Earth. And he didn’t really give a damn if he wasn’t the one who got credit for having worked out all of the mathematics and research that resulted in his theory coming to fruition. He was living a dream come true. He took another sip of kefir and had the brief thought about how Jud would like this stuff. Salt was definitely key in making it really hit the spot after a very long day on post.

Then Warrant Officer Hayley Smith, head of the Videographic Documentation, walked in. Antares turned and took in the sight of her. Her hair looked amazing, as was her hallmark. He hadn’t seen her all day so seeing her now had a welcome effect on him. They often worked together as her crew videoed everything that he did. It was part of the overall product of the ship besides harvesting enormous amounts of scientific data. There had to be enlightenment for the rest of mankind as to what all the money was going to. Plus they needed to inspire future generations to move off of Earth and populate other planets.

“Hey Baby!” He pulled her in with his left hand and gave her a kiss while holding his glass in his right.

“That was a long shift. Oooh! Is that the raspberry kefir? Is it good?”

“It is definitely the best yet. I added salt, you are going to love it,” he poured her a glass. She sniffed it a bit to make sure it didn’t smell off. Her adventurous husband often over-road what she felt were suspiciously bad smelling odors that resulted in occasional batches of his hobby probiotic drink. She detected nothing but fragrant and delicious raspberry. She took a sip and it really hit the spot.

“Oh, that is good,” she closed her eyes and savored the moment.

“Yep,” he took another sip of his own.

Hayley broke away from him and went and changed into her favorite summer dress. It was soft cloth and much more comfortable. Antares had purchased it for her after accidentally drenching her former outfit with a large ocean swell he had over-enthusiastically steered head-on into at full speed with a motor boat on one of their days off eleven years ago. Still fit perfectly and she preferred being comfortable in her own quarters.

“Jane, can you bring the temp up to seventy-four please?”

“Sure, Hayley”

“I can’t get over the fact they gave you a computer AI,” she was looking at Antares now.

“I know. Jane is the best.”

“Captain Marcus Benjamin Danube is at the door, sir” Jane interrupted.

Antares looked at Hayley for permission to open the door and she took a bit of cheese with cracker and shrugged a little. Then eyed the third glass, realizing what it was for.

Antares opened the door.

“Hello sir.”

Captain Marcus Benjamin Danube had just come down from the bridge after giving First Officer Blackwell the con. He looked very sharp in his uniform with his cap under one arm.

“Sorry to trouble you during off-watch hours, Antares.”

“Not at all a problem, sir. Hayley and I were just enjoying some kefir and cheese. Please come in and have some.”

The captain accepted the offer. He sat down at the not so spacious table and accepted the kefir that Antares poured.

“Thanks,” he was letting some of the formality go. He and Antares went way back and here in Antares’ quarters he had people he could confide in. There were few he could, good friends as they all were. He was captain after all.

“All of your operations are in order I suppose, I don’t usually have to worry about you two.”

“Yes sir, all well in hand. Brave and I have it all taped,” Antares used Dave’s nickname.

“Same here, Drew and Stefan are staying a little late tonight to handle a few things, but they should be done in about twenty minutes. Drew is going to call me if he needs any help,” Hayley pushed the plate of cheese towards the captain. She and Antares knew how much he appreciated good food.

The captain took a sip of kefir.

“Damn that is really good. Did you put a little salt in this?”

“Sure did,” Antares smiled. Captain had good taste.

“That was a freakin good idea. It really hits the spot.”

“Ya it does.”

“So I actually came down here looking for Wayne. You know where he is? Blackwell can’t get hold of him.” He knew that Antares had a way to get hold of him when no one else did. Antares knew that it was because Wayne almost always had music going in his helmet when he was topside, and external ship maintenance was his favorite work. Nothing gave the same rush as traveling near light speeds in a perfect vacuum of new space with nothing but a space suit between you and the void.

“Jane could you locate Wayne for me? I need to contact him on the intercom.” Jane liked to hack Wayne’s computer to turn off his music so that he would hear the intercom. It was a game they had.

“Done sir.”

“Echo, Maverick,” Antares used their old radio call on the intercom attached to a button on his uniform.

“Damn, she did it again.”

“Yep, figure out some better code bro.”

“I will talk to Jaratt.”

“Do that for sure. In the mean time, Captain needs you to contact First Officer Blackwell on the bridge.”

“Ya will do.”

“Maverick out. He will get it done sir.”

“Thanks Antares. Well I’ve been up for forty-six hours so I’m going to get a few hours of sleep before the big day.” He drained the rest of his glass and reached for one more bit of cheese for the way out. “Damn, that is good. Night.”

(Wayne contacting First Officer Sir Inkswitch Blackwell)

“Echo, Bubblegum.” Several of them had old radio handles that stuck.

“There you are.”

“You know where I am?”

“Smart ass. Get over to the gravity lensing detection equipment, topside. Pilot navigation tracking on the nearest singularities have gone off by one degree.”

“Brynn is tracking it that closely? You know that our path doesn’t go anywhere near any of them right?…Sir.”

“Not one piece of equipment will be any slightest bit out of alignment during my watch on this ship. Especially not anything to do with something as important as navigation.”

“Okay ya that makes sense, I’m already half way there.”

“Wonderful. Report back.”

“Copy”

Wayne's mag-boots engaged and disengaged easily as he hiked over to the equipment in question. He had finished his modification of them last week and they were working like a damn charm even if they didn’t look quite as slick as brand-new. He walked the outer hull of the ship like he was taking a Sunday morning jaunt for coffee. Not that Wayne would ever, ever get up early to walk somewhere for coffee.
A small window opened up on the lower right hand side of his helmet plate.

“You coming home soon?” It was his wife, HR Correction Officer, Jenny. Wayne had installed a personal comm system for just the two of them, so she could reach him when he was magnetically attached to the side of the ship.

“Just wrapping up a little tweak. Should be there soon, wait up for me.”

“So it’s not an all-nighter? Thank god. Okay see you!” She waved and was gone from the plate.

(back to First Officer Dorsey)

“Engineering, this is the bridge.”

“Ryan on deck sir.”

“Excellent, Hoo-Ra. Increase deceleration rate by five percent per three hours. We need to be at full stop and in normal space within

twenty-four hours.”

“Aye sir.”

(Chief Technical Officer Lab)

There was a muffled explosion and then a muffled impact sound as a potato hit the projectile catcher going two-thousand feet per second. Bill, the aforementioned captain’s father and now Chief Technical Officer, made several notes on his glass tablet. He looked to a holo projector on his desk for a one-hundred thousand frames per second playback of the ten feet between the canon breach and the catcher maw. Then he opened the side hatch of the projectile catcher and dug through the stuffed rags to find the potato. He extracted it to find that it had lost all structure and was pretty much a goopy pile of starch. He smiled. He was pretty sure this was going to work. He needed and atmospheric planet to test it with to know, but the mathematics behind it all was checking out, at least that is what his junior Noel Maxim was saying. It was one of those ideas that was just crazy enough to work when no one would ever think so.

Bill had been looking for a material that could launch his new experimental spores into high atmospheric wind currents. It would need to separate evenly when detonated with a very mild explosion created by powder rapidly turning into pressurized gas. Such a material would have to be very very evenly structured. He didn’t really want to use anything plastic as the fragments would last too long and it would be far better if whatever carrier shell he used turned into dust after a week or two. True, there were more expensive options that might work, but he really wanted to be able to precisely place spore clouds, and it was always better when scientific data was gathered with no harm to the environment or at least no irreversible harm.

He had been thinking about how to launch his new experimental spores into primary atmospheric air currents for two days. Then he sat down to dinner and put his knife through a baked potato and it clicked. He sat there for a few seconds in stunned disbelief, staring at his baked potato. Then he scooped it off his plate and sprinted towards the lab. His wife, Chief Medical Officer Lesley Bambam, placidly went on eating. Such outbreaks at the table weren’t exactly new and unexpected. She knew Bill better than her stethoscope so she knew what was happening in essence.

Bill ran over to his computer and made one last adjustment to the 3D model of the potato form he was going to use as a cartridge for his air current spores. Then set another spud on the five axis CNC machine and let it rip. He pressed a button to intercom with Noel Maxim. “Is the data being fed still adding up?”

“Ya, computer ballistic calculations still checking out. Keep feeding it.”

Lesley walked in with his plate of food, including a new baked potato, and set it down at his desk. She kissed him on the cheek and started walking over to her equipment that would feed the ship data about all of the microbiology of the planet they were about to survey. She would have to use that data to inoculate the crew against any possible infection or disease.

“Don’t forget to eat.”

“What? Oh, ya thanks!” Bill came out of his fervor and went to work on dinner while the CNC cranked out potato canon shells. He was smiling to himself at how funny it was he was going to use a potato canon for inter-solar system planetology. But it really was the best material. Flash freezing the outside of them in liquid Nitrogen would make it so that he could probably use double the speeds and get themto the proper heights before detonation.

A message popped up on his holo screen. He had a dispatch from the Expeditions Exec. Antares said that he thought the spores were absolutely genius and wanted to know if they were on track for being deploy-able for the first expedition landing. Well! Bill had an answer for him now!

(Next watch)


Antares was walking over to the equipment hangar closest to his office with a latte from breakfast in his hand. Noel was playing 80’s hair-metal just a touch too loud out of the speakers on his admin desk, which meant that he was in the equipment racks. Antares turned and saw the slim Bostonian walking toward him. He always looked like he was walking that fine line between kinda pissed off and “I dare you to piss me off”. Antares cracked a slight smile.
“Spada!”
“What?” He said it with the usual attitude but with a smile on so Antares knew he was in the better “I dare you” mood.
“Bill answered my despatch. All of the first stage data collection probe equipment is set to jet.”
“And?”
“Can you and Caroline get with Brave on what vehicles you are going to use so he can prep them with fuel and all that shit? There won’t be any delays unless microbiology posses a good enough threat to our immune systems.”
“Sure.”
“Great.” Antares turned on his heel with latte in hand and went to his desk in his office.
Caroline walked over to Noel when she saw Antares walking away from him.
“What was that about?”
“He wants us to talk to Dave.”
“On vehicles?”
“Yeah.”

(Antares’ Office)

Jud walked into Antares’ office and sat on the corner of his desk. “Your latte art sucks compared to Jaratt this morning. You can do better than that.” Jud was doing a good job keeping a straight face.

“First of all, good morning. Second of all, go to hell. I already drank half the cup, you should have seen it before!”

“No excuses!”

Both Jud and Antares broke into grins and started laughing.

“You and Paul going to have everything ready for landing in five shifts?” they were getting back to business as the Security Chief and Expeditions Exec.

“We have a full list of security perimeter equipment and armament ready to roll. Paul and the rest are going through it all for the third time and adding the magic touch.”

“Stellar. There is something else I need to show you as soon as Captain and First Officer get here.”

The captain and first officer walked in after a few minutes. Captain was beginning a fresh shift and the first officer was about to end his. After the preliminary greetings were done Antares went on.

“We got more data from a scouting drone. Jane, please seal the office.”

“Done sir,” she reported.

“Last shift I was reviewing the data it collected. I wanted to get fresh data and compare it to the survey done two years ago. I also was able to send this drone a bit closer since we had the target planet located and didn’t have to survey other likely planets in this system. This planet is populated. Jane, pull it up.” Jane pulled up the various spectrograph data, charts, and several photographs that were clear, but not as close up as Antares would have liked. He was going to have to organize handling that for the next planet. It was a stupid oversight in the programming not to closely photograph what looked like group dwellings.

“Oh shit.” Jud put his hand to his jaw thoughtfully. Inkswitch’s eyes got a little wider. Marcus didn’t seem perturbed in the slightest. So much so that Antares wondered if this was not new data to him.

“There aren’t any signs of space craft or satellites which is good. There have been on other initial unmanned inspections, as you all know, and all of those planets are not on the plotted course for Mission One,” Antares continued “From what I can see it’s a civilization that is something like what ancient Greece was, or thereabouts in terms of development. They have fire and they have stone structures.” Then pointedly to Jud, “Based on metallurgical magnetic readings they probably have figured out how to make metal as well. Which means there is a good chance at this stage in their development, assuming they engage in the aberration of war, that they could be fantastic at close quarters combat. That planet has more gravity than Earth, which our current studies indicate would give them a larger body and probably considerably more strength, so without a mech suit we would potentially be an easy kill. But that is a lot of speculation without getting a closer look.”

“We can adjust security protocol for hostile intelligents. We are a fully equipped vessel.” The gears were turning in Jud’s mind. He already had the list fully worked out.

Inkswitch jumped in here, “Mission One objective, and Phase one of the expansion plan, is to harvest data and footage to be able to accomplish secure colonization without invasion of any native intelligent species. Friendly takeover of what would basically be neutral ground. Engaging any other intelligent species makes everything way more complicated. The most important thing for the human race right now is seeding as many planets as possible to create secure bases from which we can expand safely. It also makes it incredibly difficult to wipe us out if we inhabit so many planets. You know that intelligent species contact is part of Phase Three development.”
“What is your proposal Antares?” Captain asked.

“Continue as planned sir. As we were given full charter to determine what is best for this mission, and I think that it would be good information to have. Just the fact that this pre-surveyed planet is actually populated by an intelligent species is of vast importance in the grand scheme of things.” Antares knew that he was pushing it and going out on a limb, but based on the captain’s response to the situation he was pretty sure he had this in the bag. “There will be minor adjustments to landing sites. We could potentially still collect all of the data that we need about this planet, including its population information, without a stir or harming a hair on anyone’s head.”

(Later On The Bridge)

Captain Marcus Benjamin Danube was sitting on his captains chair looking through the viewports. He touched the intercom that transmitted to the entire ship.

“If you are not mid something important you should be watching the Command Deck viewscreen. The first planet of Mission One is coming into view. It is not very large just yet, but it will be filling your view within two minutes.”

Traveling in foreshortened space caused interesting visual effects, but it primarily made things go by a lot faster. Consequently, what would have taken a much higher true velocity was done in less time for one tenth the energy expenditure. The crew all finished up and logged into their holo screens and looked on excitedly as the planet came into view.

It was absolutely beautiful. It looked a lot greener than Earth did from orbit, and the ocean a lighter shade of blue. Part of it was in night, shadowed from the star it orbited, and they could see shorelines glowing with phosphorous of some kind. They looked on at what people might one day soon call home. If everything went according to schedule in ten more years colonization would be well on its way. The excitement on the ship was electric.

Captain Marcus addressed them all as they watched. He spoke the last lines of his parting speech from when they left Earth.

“This ship carries the duty and responsibility of the future security of Mankind as a species. Our fate is not to be bound to a solitary planet in the vastness of this universe. Our species and our technology can be preserved, spread among the stars of this sector and beyond. This mission is not early, it is not late; it is timely. It was not driven by war or famine or disease, but by the creative impulse and dynamic drive of Man. Our physical sciences have put us in a position to spread our influence among the stars. We must do so responsibly. And if we never loose sight of our humanity and compassion for life on all worlds, if we realize that life is precious and worth living, that happiness and its pursuit is a game for all sentient beings. Then our conquest into they physical universe is worth while, and the species that is mankind will cast its light into the void and, like the stars, help light the way for other species that we may find.”