Terra Nova

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Vivian and I were thinking the same thing as we were seated next to each other, on relatively comfortable seats, at least as comfortable as the ones on the old planes. She and I used to travel quite a lot together but we had never thought that one day we would be together on an interplanetary shuttle, on our way to an unknown world, at least until a few days ago. Flying into space had always been a dream of mine, but in these current conditions space was no longer appealing to me.

I have to admit that I did see this coming. Things were getting worse on earth: biological war after biological war, pandemic after pandemic, there were only a few million inhabitants left and another war would completely destroy the rest of what was left of life on earth… This one would surely leave a barren earth, devoid of life altogether. The only way out was to start a new life on another planet with those who had gone through the previous wars and diseases unharmed. Out of the millions left there were only thousands left to go. A limited number of shuttles had beed made and could withstand the length of the flight to Terra Nova. The scientific community had found a habitable planet and that is where we would be going. Terra Nova they called it. A New Earth. A rarity in itself since astronomers had looked far and wide for a planet capable of sustaining human life. This planet, located in our galaxy was still more than four hundred light-years away and the journey would still take at least a few years to arrive at our destination, even with the new super-ion drives on the spaceship. A recent discovery had also discovered a wormhole or passage to another area of space. Many tests had been conducted and it was found that, although this “wormhole” did not connect to the far end of the galaxy, it did save a few years of flight to Terra Nova. With the cryo technology on board the shuttle and the automated navigation system, we would feel as if only a few days had passed when we would have reached our destination.

The conditions of our departure were quite difficult. Everyone was pushing in the hallway leading up to the shuttle ramps. Every shuttle had enough space to seat (and congeal!) three hundred and fifty passengers. There were only one hundred and twenty shuttles made, spread out in the most important (and less affected) countries. The USA had the most shuttles, fifty, and the rest of the world would share the seventy shuttles remaining. Vivian and I were from Australia and the shuttles had been prepped around Alice Springs, which is far from anywhere in Australia, being in the centre of the country. Australia had fifteen shuttles ready as it was one of the country least affected by the biological wars. Thank God Vivian and I were able to stay together. I do not know how I would have been able to leave without her or have her leave without me. We had been married for more than fifteen years. We had not been able to have any children despite our desire to but that was a blessing in disguise considering the circumstances seeing how other families had been torn apart by the separation of the parents from their children. We were resigned to leave. She and I both had family to say goodbye to and those were heart-wrenching but at least we would not be leaving kids behind like our friends the Halding family whose three children had to board one of the shuttles with their uncle and aunt and had to leave their parents behind. It was certainly very hard but the most difficult for us now was going to be what would happen upon our arrival? Will the “wormhole” really save us a few years as the scientists had said? What will be assigned to do there? What will we find? Will it be exactly like earth or will it be a hostile environment? All of these questions were in our minds, not to mention what would happen if we hit an asteroid and ended up stranded in space? We were trying not to think too much at this stage.

So much wait before the shuttle would take off. This was obviously not a plane trip and so many more checks had to be done before the doors were closed and sealed for a lengthy trip across the galaxy.

The take-off seemed to be smoother than an actual plane flight! The ion engines kicked in after we had left the atmosphere. Our speed was ever increasing but the first leg of our trip would be the longest: 4 years. We would then reach the region in space where the wormhole was but we would not realise what was happening as we would be all fast “asleep” in our cryo-beds. It was expected that the wormhole travel would last 12 hours and that would take us to a point where we would need to travel another year to our destination. Our automated systems would “wake” us up (or more accurately, thaw us!) about 5 hours before arriving at our destination.

After approximately 15 minutes after take-off the captain of the shuttle started: “Ladies and gentlemen, I know that this journey is difficult for all of you for many reasons but I wanted to say a few encouraging words before we start the cryo process in a couple of hours. The first part of this journey went perfectly well. As you all know our trip to the wormhole will take 4 years, thanks to our proven automated navigation systems which have been thoroughly tested for the last few years. You will have felt the automatic system kicking in when we were faced with the comet Shoemaker and the system had made a course correction to avoid it and return us to our initial flight path. We will now go over the security measures on board the Mercury.”

From then on the crew demonstrated the security features of the shuttle. Obviously, since there are no water or firm landings possible, the only real safeguard was the oxygen masks which could only be useful if the people on board were awake… “Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space.

The pilot’s voice had sounded quite tense and emotional at the same time. Mayne he was leaving family or a loved one behind. Was he aware of something about the shuttle? Was the testing done to his satisfaction? It sounded like he had something in his mind but he wouldn’t be able to tell us. Admittedly the preparation of the shuttles had been rushed. How do you prepare and test one hundred and twenty shuttles for flight in less than a year? Some were murmuring that we would not make it through the wormhole and that the stress on the hull on the ship would be too much. But how would we know? If we were to die no-one would know except for the other shuttle, maybe.

Since we had a few hours before entering our “cryo-beds”, the crew would serve us drinks to prepare our bodies for that process. The only drinks available were bottled water. Anything else could interfere with the “freezing” of our bodies. After our drinks the humming of the ion engines was having a numbing effect and I started to fall asleep. I am sure that I would be awaken by the cryo announcement. That didn’t happen as I was only drowsy and barely fell asleep for 20 minutes.

There were no movies or entertainment on the ship. We had to make due with our books (we were only allowed one book on the ship) as all of our belongings were in the cargo. We had been allowed to bring a large luggage of up to 40kg, which was heavier that what I would be allowed to bring on my previous plane trips, but it was barely enough to start a new life on another planet.

After reading for a while (I didn’t realise a few hours had passed) the captain announced that the cry-beds would start automatically and that we would just need to place ourselves in our seats without moving. A shell started forming around each one of us. I glanced one last time at Vivian before we were sealed off. A few minutes later I could hear a hissing sound in my shell and then lost consciousness. Vivian’s shell had already been sealed and she lost consciousness just before me.