Milky Way Out

“Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.”

Becca read these words aloud as she stood in front of the display, titled “Memorium of the Lost Travelers”, at her local museum. She never understood what it meant though. In the virtual world, ships and satellites would make loud booms and clangs when they exploded — or at least experienced sort of damage. But in all her 15 years in the colony, the elders never explained to her it was fake. That those were merely added for effect.

The Memorium was a special dedication to all of the travelers who lost their lives — or, in some cases, became space debris — when humans were sent to colonize the outer rim of the Milky Way galaxy in hopes of keeping their origin alive. Their home planet was already dying due to atmospheric deterioration, thanks to politics and archaic beliefs inhibiting any societal and technological progress. Due to limited technology of those times, no one was able to notice the star at the center of their solar system was also dying much faster than anticipated.

So combine super-powered solar storms with a thinning atmosphere, it was only a matter of time before the entire planet was destroyed, with the solar system following soon after. Luckily, the majority of the nations on their dying planet put their best scientific minds together in time and built a series of giant transport ships.

Unfortunately each ship could only hold about a hundred thousand people and they only had enough resources to build 10 ships.

It was a scaled-down model of one of these ships that was on display for the Memorium. They had a sleek, yet spacious design. Each transporter looked like an upside down trapezoid, a dull green in color with gray stripes along the port and starboard sides. Becca counted seven thrusters on each side of the ship. There were dozens of tiny painted windows, and a big window on the front near the bottom of the ship.

In front the display, Becca saw diagrams and various text displays with bits of information about each section of the ship. However, it was the gaping hole in the lower port side that caught her attention upon her initial approach.

According to the infographic next to it, this hole was caused by a random meteorite, its trajectory overlooked by a sleep-deprived engineer. A tiny clay sculpture was held up next to the hole by pins and wire, and then painted a dark brown to portray the villainous space rock. The infographic said that most of the passengers were able to evacuate using escape pods, but there many who had been lost by getting sucked through the hole into space, floating forever. What was once known as The Great Expedition had been turned into The Great Disruption, thanks to this scaled-down meteorite.

Her eyes were taking in all of the information, so much so that she didn’t hear her grandfather calling her name.

“BeccaRae Starford, if you don’t respond—!”

His voice was louder that time, practically in her ear, which snapped her out of her daze.

“Sorry, Grandpa!” she exclaimed. “I just thought this was so interesting.”

Her grandfather, Ray Starford, clenched his jaw. "It's understandable," he said. Lowering his voice, he added, "We need to keep moving though. You're holding up the line."

Becca looked back and saw some people, a few visibly impatient, waiting a couple meters behind her. The Museum of Human History had a rule in place that stated patrons must stand a specific distance so as not to overcrowd the displays and result in yet another accident.

She looked up at her grandfather, grabbed his hand, and nodded that she understood. With his other hand, he waved at the people behind them and mouthed the words "I'm sorry" before they moved onward.

"Hey, Grandpa?" Becca said as they walked away.

"Hm?"

"Do you know much about The Great Disruption? Other than what the Memorium has on its display?"

Ray thought for a moment, then shook his head. "No, sweetie," he replied, "I can't say that I do." He looked down at her and added, "Why do you ask?"

Recalling what she read earlier, she answered, "Well, I saw a passage written on one of the travel log transcripts, and it said 'Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say', and I was wondering if that was true, and why it was included in that travel log."

Being a retired engineer, Ray was a little familiar with how the vacuum of space works. Every so often, he still did some consulting work with the Colonial Space Agency, his former full-time employer. He never talked about his work much, so Becca figured it was probably top-secret. So answers pertaining specifically to The Great Disruption were usually avoided, but he could speak to generics — in this case, how travel logs worked.

"Well," he said reluctantly, taking a deep breath, "a travel log is basically like a journal for the captain and commander of a ship, no matter the size. They can also be backed up to a database if one is connected. An escape pod, for instance, would be ideal if one is still attached to the main ship." Using his thumb to gesture back to the display without looking, he added, "That experience would be a prime example. The travel log was most likely backed up into the commander's escape pod before evacuation was complete."

Becca considered responding to his non-answer with more questions, but was interrupted by a sudden wave of rhythmic chimes in dozens of pockets around her. Because minors under the age of 17 were not allowed to own Personal Pocket Communicators (much like the flip-phone devices of our current modern-age, but everything is displayed via hologram), every adult in possession of one was now holding it in the palms of their hands, the Colonial News Alert logo spinning in a crimson red glow.

At the same time, her grandfather's pocket communicator played a different jingle, signaling an incoming call. Reading the situation, Ray's face immediately from confusion to a scowl and pulled it from his pocket. He held up a finger to Becca, signaling her to stay put, and stepped aside to answer it.

With all of the commotion, Becca couldn't hear what he was talking about, but she didn't need to. Overhearing the closest PPC next to her, it was not good.

"...from the CSA, who refused to be identified, has made allegations that the public is being deceived. While refusing to go into detail regarding the source of the claim, the anonymous whistleblower had this to say."

The hologram then changed to a recording of a person in a mask that looked like a species of primate that has long been extinct, due to the ancestors leaving them behind during the Great Expedition. There was also evidence of a voice modulator, unless some colonists had an unusually deep voice that Becca had never heard before.

"Your government is lying to you," the recording began. "While you go about your daily lives, working your menial jobs, enjoying your mundane hobbies, the Colonial Space Agency has discovered that our future in this colony may be less certain." Some gasps and "Oh my!" reactions immediately followed, as the masked hologram continued.

"Some data has come to light that our galaxy is moving at a faster rate than anticipated. With current calculations, in the next thousand years or so, the Milky Way galaxy will collide with another galaxy, NGC 6822 – otherwise known as Barnard's Galaxy. This collision will cause the greatest cosmic event this pocket of the universe has ever experienced. Nothing is expected to survive."

The sounds of panic were less subtle by this point. Becca's grandfather was already at her side, his jaw clenched and eyes narrowed. His look of hatred towards this anonymous masked figure was unyielding. Becca could tell by that look on Ray Starford's face that something big was going down.

The Milky Way galaxy, her home and the home of her entire ancestry, was about to be destroyed. And in the vacuum of space, no one else could hear the colony's screams.

Or so they say.