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

Martisha Montemayor candidate Falfurrias Tx.

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

We are the crew members of the Voyager X; this mission could not have gone more south. We were right outside the Brimah galaxy searching for a new planet for humanity to inhabit. When suddenly, we were pushed through an electric emission nebula out of nowhere, we were surrounded by meteors. Crew ship Caption Valor Maxius said we were pushed into some type of transport vortex. I just remember spinning out of control we spun for what seemed like an eternity. Crew member Atlas Forbes projectile vomited all over our systems control panel. That’s when the alarms went off Beep! Beep! Beep! The red lights began to flash and the cargo of the ship Voyager X holding more than five thousand cryogenic frozen pods of our species started to malfunction. Crew member Lenna Thomson and I tried to override the system moving the vomit as fast as we could to save the legacy of humanity.

I didn’t want to be a space explorer, but my great-great-great-grandmother Vera Asherton at the time was the head of Science at Harvard University. She went on to achieve all kinds of accolades in human genetic testing. She joined the Space exploration program and signed a legacy contract devoting the next one hundred generations of her bloodline to the Space exploration program and by the law of the contract, we are not only to continue her blood legacy but also her life’s work. I see her holograph video every day and wonder why me? Why my great-great-great-grandmother? One day I asked her, and GG Vera told me it was a fluke. The colossal economic crash of 2024 is the reason she joined the Space exploration program at the time. She swore it was to protect her legacy from the death and famine on earth all those years ago. When the archives video showed how bad the earth got; the riots over food and water it wasn’t long until countries started to attack one another using biological warfare. Covid, monkeypox, monkeycovidpox the world was consumed. Until Tilon Rusk philanthropist, trillionaire, owner of the Space exploration program a man of science, and owner of Rusk Pharmaceuticals promised humanity a future through legacy contracts. I understand she thought it had been the best option to insure our survival. I just wonder what my life would have been like had I been earth-born.

I remember vividly when I was 8 years old my mother Mia and her parent partner Jaco came in from plant DemiusXC3 they brought in a sample of what our earth archives call “Grass”. It was the most beautiful thing I had seen in the known universe. I remember the red suits illuminating off the 5-inch-thick compressed Pyrex Plexiglass. There it was I had never seen real grass during my space life the kind of grass we had on our ship was artificial man-made grass. How the real grass stuck out in plain sight, the reflection of the lights had bounced off the glossy square container. Just as my parents were bringing in the sample of grass, we got a call from the command center on Lunar earth saying the biometric scan of the grass sample had come back contaminated as soon as the transmission had ended the grass had begun to move and grow. Getting larger and larger the green grass filled the container and caused the glass to begin to warp and splinter. Jaco had to put the contaminated sample in the incinerator before the entire ship was contaminated. I didn’t understand at the time, so I thought to ask my mother about real grass, and well she was space produced so she couldn’t tell me what it was, or what it did so, I went to GG Vera. I didn’t like talking to my mother’s mom Kia or my great-great grandma Ira they were all about GG’s work and not so much the family aspect of the bloodline Isa was the same way. Imagine feeling alone in a ship with four generations of your bloodline and not feeling a single connection. I had walked down corridor eleven and remember scanning my rental to see if GG was in her room pod. She came to the door, and it had slid up after the emotion detection scan. A teddy bear and a blanket were instantly made and had been given to me at the doorway. GG didn’t need the detection scan to know that I was confused and looking for answers. She had already had my ready-made toast with apricot jelly fresh out of the instawave. GG Vera always used to tell me technology does not compare to the love bond in being blood. She had often been able to see her generation’s bloodlines. My mom and her mom before her and good old GG four generations of her bloodline and vast knowledge were passed down to us. I had asked her about grass on earth and she smiled and told me that grass was soft and smelled like a summer day in the hills of California. She said sometimes grass had little bugs called chiggers that used to live in the grass, but the bugs were microscopic. They could burrow into your skin and GG said clear nail polish whatever that was it was the only solution to suffocate the bugs and have them fall out of your skin. GG Vera was the smartest person I knew and one of the last surviving crew members of the original Voyager X explorers.

In space, GG Vera was one hundred sixty-five years experienced twenty-four of those years were earth years. She and the other crew members had to undergo wildly experimental tests for DNA advancement back in the year 2025. So far at the time when I was 8, it was working just fine. When I was about thirteen years old the serum that Rusk pharmaceutical had provided started to fade, GG Vera died at one hundred-seventy. Since we live in a spacecraft the only way to take care of our dead is to incinerate them. First, we gather all the blood and major organs to continue our research on how we as humans can enhance our lifespan on the ship. The longer we live the more knowledge we can pass down from generation to generation. With the ashes of the fallen, we take them to the release door and let the ashes float in space. GG Vera’s ashes were strange because they had been purple. We believed it had been due to the experimental test on earth all those years ago. My great grandmother Ira was booted from the ship at the age of eighty-seven she no longer wanted to follow the legacy contract, so the entire ship voted and received approval from command to boot Ira off the ship. It was only after she provided an heir for the sake of civilization, and she had done that when she was thirty. She and every other crew member are only allowed two child units per generation, and it is as follows only one boy and one girl per generation in section 87D of the legacy contract. The only problem with our blood is that we could only bread women. As chance comes to play, we were only allowed one child unit since only girls were produced in the four generations of our bloodline, we cloud not produce a male subject. In the year 3001 Ira tested this theory without the approval of command. She went rogue and breaded thirteen female subjects and she even tried to genetically engineer the sex of the embryos and failed time and time again. After this incident command has kept an eye on my bloodline specifically for the last 100 years or so.

With the advancements that had been made by GG and the women after her, my great-great-grandmother Ira, my great Grandmother Isa, my grandmother Kia my mother Mia, and myself Ria. We expanded the human lifespan by three hundred plus years. We reverse engineered the function of the appendix to gather and produce more estrogen, DHEA, and melatonin growth hormones. Which are hormones that promote longevity and youth in one’s life span we engineered a medication Asherverdol which is used to release the gathered hormones throughout one’s night cycle in time increments of every three hours. We also provide stimuli across the ship using herbs and situational tactics to make our crew members produce these hormones naturally, we are on the brink of immortality.

System failure! Cryogenic Malfunction! Error code Red! Once we manually overrode the control panel and all the chaos settled Captain Maxius looked up. I saw from the reflection in his eyes a new planet. We were approximately ten miles from the gravitational pull of the rock. It was beautiful the generations of women before me. Had sent sky link texts to my arm reader asking if I am seeing what they were seeing. A beautiful planet surrounded by sliver water, the most beautiful orange and yellow in the atmosphere. There was a huge waterfall structure going into the planet. The water cascaded down like silk. It was a silver color almost transparent in appearance. Once we had gotten close, we realized the water was a shield that stopped us from seeing what had been right in front of us. Three silver beings that had no mouths or noses appeared on our ship. We were motionless and speechless as well. Without saying anything the beings were able to communicate through brain waves. They had asked us what our mission was and if we were there to inhabit their planet. Maxius could not speak at all he was stunned our first in counter with another species that had been far more technologically advanced. So, I decided to speak. I told the beings that our ship was damaged, and that humanity was at stake. I tried my best to convey sincerity in my words. The beings then spoke back to me in my head and said that we could land, and they would help us with the voyager. The beings then vanished but one stayed. We slowly glided past the silver silky water, and there it was the most beautiful vibrant scenery I had ever seen in my thirty years of life. The earth archives did not compare to such beauty. All the archives and all the in-depth photos of nature, the highest mountains, the rain forest, and jungles on earth are not as beautiful. The ship ran a biometric scan of the landing site all results came back clean. So, we landed the ship on what seemed like an island. We got off and started running diagnostics on the voyager the being that stayed behind us had a scanner form out of his left arm. He didn’t scan the ship though he scanned me. The being turned yellow and touched my stomach. I was pregnant. The ceremony of bounding all artificial, I did not think it had taken. I was not feeling signs of sickness or hunger other than average. My parent partner or the one who does the planting of this Sperm into the egg using the intrauterine insemination process. That man is selected to be your father and it isn’t even his sperm. We gathered enough from the earth back in 2024 when the ship left the space station. All males that are space born are stripped of testosterone. In the last one hundred and fifty years, men have not had one percentage of testosterone in their bodies. My parent partner Caption Valor Maxius and I had no idea, but we could not be immediately happy. We were worried about the cargo on our ship. The being sensing the worry and frustration of my mood turned the being purple and he told me it was a boy.

I began to cry the feeling of joy overcame me. The first boy in our bloodline in over four generations and has had numerous failures. In that split second, I knew I needed to work harder I needed as much time with my son as I can possibly have. However, Caption Valor had different plans just as the beings repaired our ship. The biometric scans of the oxygen levels and support of life forms which are automatically tested when we arrive at a new plant, came back all one hundred percent habitable for human life. The beings still connected to our thoughts surrounded our Captain and instantly vaporized him with their finger. Devastation struck me in an instant, from pure joy to utter sadness. Valor and I were going to be companioned after the pregnancy was confirmed. Things like this didn’t happen in space, and then in an instant, the being stopped the mind manipulation. It was fake, but it felt so real. The being told me to talk to Valor because the being knew that Valor wants the planet for the future of humanity. I stood there staring at Valor he seemed different, so I scanned him with my sky link arm reader and realized his testosterone levels have jumped drastically since we met the beings and found out about our son in just these few hours we had been on this plant. So, I did look at him differently. He is now a man in my eyes. Never in the last one-hundred years has a man produced his own testosterone until now. He will make a great father. The being was distracted focusing on me and my thoughts on Valor. Without even thought I imagined my son, what he would look like, and what I would name him. I imagined all the smiles on the faces of the women in my bloodline before me and the praise I would get for finally producing a male in four generations while reaching for my atom disintegration gun, I killed the being. Then I rolled to the floor and shot the other two their bodies disappeared. Valor didn’t understand until he realized we were on the same page. We are a power couple. This planet would be ours.

Three months later…..

Things on the island are good, I am three months pregnant. I could not be happier until the waterfall of silver silk stopped flowing into the planet.