The Last Thousand

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

Unless they leave, a mob of nearly two thousand of my fellow humans, people with whom I worked side-by-side for the last twenty years, will find out the hard way. This is an impossible situation, yet here we are, on the verge of a catastrophe of monumental proportions where all of us within our ship, Empyrean, will become either mass murderers or victims of mass murderers.

When people think about rocks and hard places, I doubt anyone would imagine the particular situation in which my shipmates and I find ourselves. Empyrean is the first and only faster-than-light, or FTL, ship and the last to leave Earth before our home planet completes its transition into Theria, now just a few days away.

"Chooks. Everyone's on board, the children of those who did not make the cut are safe and secure, and we're buttoned up."

"Thanks, Shaun. Jump seats for everyone until further notice. Things might get a bit bumpy."

Shaun is my Second Officer, and developed all of the closed system environmental and hydroponics systems on Empyrean. I belong to a very talented family.

"Yeh. We didn't get a lot of time to shake 'er down, did we?"

"No, but Empyrean's a good, solid ship. She'll get us where we need to go."

I close my eyes and breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth as my Sifu taught me. I relax my mind and allow myself to drift into the past, if only for a moment. Surely we have at least a moment, however long that subjective, undefined snippet of time actually is.

-X-

Twelve centuries ago, ETs dropped a meteorite on an uninhabited section of Earth. It released a retrovirus that mutated every living thing it touched, but it spread very slowly. Over the centuries, the biosphere changed into an alien but eerily beautiful landscape. At first, humanity fought against the conversion until my ancestors deciphered a message the ETs coded into the mutated DNA.

Old Sol was about to shift from infrared to ultraviolet which would end all life as we knew it. The Verrellsisha, the closest we could come to pronouncing the name of our benefactors, sent the retrovirus to help us survive the shift. The same thing had happened to their sun, and it nearly destroyed their race. They could not transport mass across interstellar distances, but they could project a form of FTL, energy to convert a local meteor into the tools necessary for our survival.

Many wanted to flee from the change, but the underground Moon colonies closed their borders to newcomers so that they could remain self-sufficient. The Mars expedition ceased terraforming operations, shut down all immigration, and burrowed beneath the surface in order to survive.

Tens of thousands cobbled together near-light generation ships to take their chances in relativistic space where a year for them could translate to a hundred for us. Others locked themselves into highly experimental cryo-stasis vessels to sleep their way through the deep dark to a new world.

We thought we had time to build enough FTL ships to rescue all three thousand of us in the Basin, but the fifty years we had shrank to five when Old Sol's UV shift went into overdrive. We had to rush just to finish Empyrean, but she would only hold one thousand, so we held a lottery. Not everyone was happy with the results.

-X-

Our parents are beautiful.

So are all the others who have decided to become Therians so they can remain on Earth, or rather, Theria, once the sun completes its shift into the ultraviolet. Their smooth, shiny, hairless bodies with iridescent skin will thrive in the new biosphere.

At least my brother Shaun and I were able to say one final goodbye before mom and dad crossed the threshold from the last of the Earth's original biosphere into the strange, beautiful, alternate reality we call Theria.

We'll never see them again because we're outsiders now and must leave before the change reaches us here in the Arapahoe Basin, an ancient ski resort near Keystone, Colorado.

I'll never see Leliari again, either. She was beautiful too.

I clamp down on that errant thought and shove it back into the corner of my mind where I keep all of the crap I'm going to eventually have to deal with. No time for regrets now. There are too many lives at stake

-X-

Anyone who doesn't know us would never believe Shaun, and I are brothers, especially if they compare my dark skin and black, curly hair to his creamy white skin and the shock of bronze that flows across his scalp. If you only count blood, we're not brothers, but despite that, we behave so much like twins we might as well be, and no one who knows us will disagree.

Shaun Quinn's parents adopted and ferried me to Scotland twenty-six years ago when my own parents decided to become Therians. I was fourteen at the time, and they wanted me to choose when I came of age. And they wanted a clean and final break to supposedly lessen the impact of their decision. It didn't really work out as well as they had planned. At least not for me. I was very thankful to the Quinns because they never treated me like anything other than family from day one.

That's how I acquired the unlikely name, Chukwuemaka Quinn, a blend of West African and Gaelic that loosely translates to God does great and wise things, bestowing me with a Divine mandate. No pressure there at all.

"Cap'n, we got a problem."

"Report, Selene."

The dark-haired, sapphire-eyed beauty is Shaun's wife, my First Officer, Empyrean's security chief, power systems specialist, and a genius in her own right. She developed our Zero Point Energy module using my theories on Quantum Gravity and how to apply them for interstellar travel. How she thought up the tangential track to develop the Zero Point process is a mystery even to me.

"They're coming, Skipper."

"Let them. With the new upgrades, our defense net is impregnable."

"Unless they have a Needle, Skipper."

I leap from my seat as my eyebrows bump against my hairline.

"That's impossible. We developed the Quantum Needle after the lottery, and we didn't share it with anyone."

"Yet they have one, Skipper."

I sit down hard as the bitter truth spills from my lips.

"Traitor. We have a traitor on board."

I can't deflate my lungs. If there's one, there may be others. But why? Because the lottery left behind a loved one?

I had to beach the love of my life because of the damned lottery and my own damned sense of honor...and hers. She refused to let me use my Captain's privilege.

We did our best to keep families and married couples together, but perhaps we missed some. We even accepted the children of those who missed the cut, even though it placed everyone on Empyrean in danger. If the mob succeeds, we will all die.

I close my eyes and remember our last night together.

Even though Leliari's skin looks like burnished metal, it is so soft and smooth, and she responds to my touch as she always has. It seems as though Therians are not that different from Humans after all, at least not in that respect. As we lay together in the afterglow, she speaks softly.

"If you love me, you must let me go. I have to let you go because they need you. I must do what's best for you, even if it doesn't include me."

Tears drench both of our pillows as we hold each other one last night.

I can't continue down that road right now. Too much is at stake, so I shove it back into a psionic recess with all the other baggage and lock them away in the psychic equivalent of a titanium vault. I'm going to be a basket case once I let all of those things out into the stark light of the Real, but for now, my people need me.

"Skipper, what do we do? We don't have a lot of time."

I bury my face in my hands. I never wanted the mantle of leadership, but they thrust it on me. I wanted to stay, but no one else knows the J-Drive like I do because I invented the blasted thing. I have to do what's best for them, even though it includes me.

The irony of using a revised version of Leliari's message is not lost on me, but I press on.

There are those who didn't make the cut and refused the change. So, how do I take the lives of so many with whom I worked for so long?

Because you have to.

I squeeze my eyes shut to hold back the tears.

"I know what you're thinking, bråthair."

I'm pretty sure he does, especially when he lapses into Gaelic. I love when he calls me brother. It's the twin thing. We're so much alike that it's almost scary.

"Empyrean cannot support any more people. Just taking on their children puts us in a dangerous state unless we find a mineral-rich source wherever we end up."

"But I..."

Shaun cuts me off. Whenever he's excited, his brogue deepens significantly.

"I know, bruvver. I couldn't have left the kids to die either, but let me finish. Ye've already lived up to your name by getting us this far."

I nod as tears blur my vision. I love my nwanne as much as I hate what I have to do to keep the rest of us alive. As Shaun lapses into Gaelic, I also lapse into my native language. Nwanne means brother in Igbo, one of the languages spoken in Nigeria.

"With those additional three hundred eighty-six mouths to feed and water, we'll have to ration. Any more, and we could lose everyone on board."

"I know, I know. I just. I wish."

Shaun hugs me and then returns to his station. I look around the bridge, and as my gaze touches each one of the women and men, they turn away, but not before I see the haunted look in their eyes as well. I am not the sole owner of this burden. I must always remember that.

"Chooks. They made their decision. We held the lottery as everyone agreed, and it chose the thousand to go. The others had plenty of time to undergo the change, but most of them refused. Their fates are on their heads, not ours. Follow your gut, not your doubt, bruv. It's not led us astray yet."

"That's why you all chose me."

"Right. We know you'll choose the right path. And we'll help pick up the pieces of your soul when we're safe."

I close my eyes for a moment and sigh. Time to sacrifice the first piece of my soul.

"Selene."

"Yes, Captain."

"Set countermeasures to full. Arm and deploy one-third of our Battleroids."

"Threat level?"

"Extreme prejudice, Selene. The Quantum Needle must be their first target. Place the ship on lockdown and patrol the passageways. I want no one but security personnel outside the required duty stations."

"Very good, Captain."

I ask the ship's Adaptive Artificial Intelligence, Dorie, to run diagnostics on Empyrean's Drive and Jump systems first, then Environmental and Hydroponics next. We need to know if our traitor has crippled us and how long it will take to repair the damage.

"Shaun, cut shore power and switch to internals in five. Warn everyone, so no one injures themselves during the change to local gravity."

"Aye, and I'll pass out the anti-emetic bags as well."

"Good choice. Update, Selene."

"Needle neutralized, Cap, but not before they poked a small hole in our defense net."

"Crap. How much time?"

"They'll crack it in less than two hours."

My shoulders sag before my next question.

"How many dead?"

"Does it matter, Cap? They're all dead anyway, and they're just trying to take us with them."

Selene is right. It doesn't really matter. We brought on all of their children, and now they risk those lives as well. They ceased to be reasoning human beings when they formed their mob.

"Pull back, Cap?"

"No. Without your Zed Power device, we need the time to generate the Jump Field. Delay them as long as possible."

Lack of time prevented us from completing the containment protocols necessary for the use of her invention in a strong gravity well. The consequences would be catastrophic to our former home world.

"Therians are asking if we need help to quell the mob."

"No. Tell them to stay in the safe zone, nwanne. This is our problem. I'll not take any more lives than necessary. When we jump, everything in a half-kilometer radius goes with us."

"Cap. They have a second needle!"

I barely stifle the expletive before it passes my lips, but Shaun has no such control. It's one of the few traits we don't share.

Our countermeasures may or may not hold up, so Selene deploys our remaining Battleroids to take out the needle and slow the mob. Even with that, we only have a little more than an hour before they reach Empyrean. Our defenses take out the second needle, but they may well have a third. If it so much as touches our hull, we're all dead. Time's up.

"Red Alert! All hands to Jump stations. Set condition Zebra throughout the ship. Selene. Teams of three, go heavy. Guard access to environmentals and the J-Drive."

"Aye, Captain."

"Shaun. Prep Chem Rockets for launch, just in case. All available power to the J-Drive."

"The Chems won't launch us into orbit."

"No, but they'll help generate power to strengthen the J-Field, and they'll get us out of harm's way if we need it."

"Yeh, until we run out of fuel, then we'll drop like a log and crack open like a rotten egg."

"We'll have to shorten our jump so we can use a weaker field."

"Shorten it to where?"

"Edge of the Milky Way, close to the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy."

"That's short?"

"I wanted to jump straight to C.M.Dwarf-G because the Verrellsisha are from there."

"But that's 25,000 light-years. We can do that?"

"At full power, yes."

"Awa an bile yer heid, bràthair!"

"No BS, nwanne. It's for real."

"Well, how about Sirius? It's along the way, only eight plus light-years, will take a fraction of the power, and there are verified liveables in the cluster."

"My gut says no, Shaun."

"That's barry, bruv. Your gut hasn't steered us wrong yet."

I learned a long time ago to listen to my gut. It doesn't catch everything, but when it speaks, I listen. My gut warned me about the mutation acceleration. It led me to the breakthrough for the Jump Drive. It also guided us to the last normal place on Earth before anyone else had figured it out.

"I have completed diagnostics, Captain. They revealed anomalies in the J-Drive."

Shards of ice settle in my stomach and thrust fingers up my spine and down through my nethers.

"Report."

"I have corrected unauthorized changes in the command routines, but I cannot repair one focusing node. It has been physically altered."

"What does that mean, Chooks?"

"Even one node out of commission destroys any chance of controlling our jump. We never had the time to complete redundancies for anything except necessities for survival, such as environmental and hydroponics systems. All of the frames are ready, and the necessary components are in storage, but we planned to install them after the first jump while we collected the raw materials necessary for the next. We didn't prepare for sabotage.

"But what's it mean, bruv?"

"Dorie. Explain."

The J-Drive is a complex device, but in layman's terms, it's as simple as skipping rocks across a pond. Empyrean is the rock. The J-Drive is the arm that throws the rock, and the places the rock lands are massive gravity wells such as stars, singularities, black holes, and the like.

The difference between skipping rocks and leapfrogging gravity wells is that we don't lose relative velocity with each skip. We increase it. Because of the missing node, we'll keep skipping until the failsafe devices shut down the J-Drive.

Twelve focusing nodes are the minimum necessary for accurate navigation, and losing even one means that our destination may end up anywhere from thousands to tens of thousands of light-years away from where we planned.

Jaws drop around the hexagonal Bridge, and Shaun drops another F-bomb.

"So it doesn't matter where we aim. We could end up anywhere."

"Or anywhen."

"What, bruv? What're ye sayin'"

"Losing one focusing node opens up that can of worms too."

I continue despite the next F-bomb Shaun drops. The nods around the Bridge tell me that everyone feels the same way.

"Selene. Time."

"Thirty minutes to breach, then another fifteen to cross the kilometer from the perimeter to Empyrean."

That's not even close to enough time to repair or replace the sabotaged node. If we deactivate the node to prevent any peripheral damage if it malfunctions, there will be zero impact to the surrounding systems. At least we have the Jump Beacon. It transmits through Aetherspace.

We didn't want to plagiarize the more familiar term, Subspace, because it, too, is an inadequate descriptor for this alternate dimension where time and distance have no real meaning. So, we borrowed from some old sci-fi authors, like E.E. 'Doc' Smith.

The J-Beacon will allow us to find our position no matter where or, in theory, when we end up.

"We need more power, Chooks. Field strength is only at fifteen percent, and that's not even enough to move our mass past Earth's gravity well."

"I won't use emergency power until we have no other choice. We may need it on the other side."

I address the Bridge crew.

"Thoughts, everyone."

I imagine the Bridge slowly filling with smoke as everyone cranks up their already overloaded brain gears into overdrive. They begin shouting out ideas, and I consider each one. Then the communications officer shouts out Solar Sats.

That's it!

Before they moved underground, Mars used Solar Sats to heat up the surface as part of the terraforming project. Now they use them for power. The moon still uses them to power its subsurface colonies.

The Europa Expeditionary Force from Mars Colony used Solar Sats to melt a hole in the surface ice. They wanted to explore the liquid oceans below to determine if they were suitable for colonization. Unfortunately, the sentient, bioluminescent, Basilosaurus-like creatures who lived there vehemently disagreed with the invasion. Only five out of the one hundred members survived to return to Mars. Word was that the Mars government continued attempts to establish a dialogue with them.

Earth also uses Solar Sats for power, and there are still five in geosynchronous orbits over Colorado.

Shaun points them all at our external power feed, and in fifteen minutes, our J-Field leaps from fifteen to fifty percent. At least enough to clear a few parsecs. Just in time, because the mob breaches our inner defenses and has a clear shot at Empyrean. And they revealed a third Quantum Needle.

"Dorie, prepare to jump on my mark. We have no choice but to aim at Sirius."

"But you said...."

"I know, Shaun, but we're out of choices."

I take a moment to suppress my emotions because, in the coming minutes, they will be a liability. A lot of people will soon die, and despite my regret, my job is to ensure that none of my people are among them. After it's over, whenever that will be, I'll take some time to grieve. Shaun's eyes meet mine, and the concern in them tells me everything. I'll be okay until we're safe because my brother and sister-in-law have my back and will be there if and when I fall apart.

"Listen up, everyone. We have a traitor on board, and we must leave before we're ready. Due to their interference, we do not know our destination, so we cannot even predict what we will face. I wish I could say that everything will be okay, but I can't. It will be a shit show from the beginning, and I have no idea how it'll unfold. I do know this, if we stay here, we all will die, and the human race will remain one supernova away from extinction.

"We are all witness to what can happen if we remain on one planet, in one solar system, one accident away from extinction, and we choose to stare into the unknown, to spit in the eye of the fates and tell them to shove their weaving up their collective butts. We control our destiny, not them. We still may not succeed, but it will be OUR choice, not theirs. This is OUR time, and they shall not take it from us.

"Everyone on Empyrean is the best of the human race. If we cannot handle the mysteries out there, no one can. We are the best chance for our race to continue in this universe, and it is long past time we left the nest and introduced ourselves to whoever is out there. We deserve our place in the cosmos, and we will forge a path for any who might wish to follow. What say you?"

Silence follows my speech for perhaps ten seconds. Then the entire ship explodes with applause and affirmations. I glance at Shaun, who shrugs his shoulders and points at Selene. She stands with her feet shoulder-wide, arms crossed over her ample bosom, one eyebrow cocked high, and a corner of her mouth lifted as though attached to the errant eyebrow.

My speech was meant for the bridge crew only, but she broadcast it on the ship-wide channel that we, as did the ancient Navy ships before us, call the 1MC.

Selene tosses me a 'whassup' nod as that lifted corner of her mouth sprouts a twin on the other side. I just smile and shake my head. Inside, however, fear grips my innards, and I hope that whatever we face won't kill the spirit in all of us.

Shaun, raise shields around hydroponics, power conversion, and environmental."

"Done."

"All hands! Prepare for immediate dust-off. Confirm condition Zebra is set about the ship!"

Confirmations from all watch stations that all airtight hatches have been closed and dogged arrive in less than a minute. I have a great crew.

"Dorie. Mark!"

The lights on the bridge extinguish for a second, then my skin begins to tingle. I experience a moment of dizziness, then every HUD on the bridge goes dormant. Three seconds later, the lights return, the dizziness evaporates, and the HUDs come back to life. Before, the forward screens looked out upon the Rocky Mountains of Earth, but now chunks of mountains orbit Empyrean, the most significant gravity well in sensor range. One of the bridge crew loses what's left of their breakfast as the vacuum-exploded bodies of our would-be attackers splatter the forward screens.

They seem to fill the void between us and...what? I see a whole lot of nothing out there in the deep dark. Where ever we are, few stars dot the cosmos in any direction. I suddenly release a breath I don't remember taking as I stare through the screens into the absolute definition of Space. I look around the bridge, and everyone to a person is wide-eyed and slack-jawed. No one utters a sound. Only the chattering of the sensor contacts fills the air on the bridge, as though no one dares even to breathe.

"Dorie. Status."

The sound of my voice causes half of the bridge crew to jump, and Shaun's predictable expletive evokes nervous laughter from everyone.

"Jump complete with no damage to either ship or systems."

"Selene, We can't afford any more sabotage. Handle it. Your discretion."

"You got it, Skipper."

She slips her comm device into her ear and barks orders as she exits the bridge. One less thing I'll have to worry about for the moment.

"Shaun, sound the all clear, handle environmental, find homes for the children."

"On it."

"The rest of you, deploy the Ramjet and find us some space junk, or we'll become a generation ship that won't even survive a single generation. We need raw materials."

The bridge crew snaps to and handles the business of survival. That leaves Dorie and me to figure out where we are and repair the Jump Drive. I plug in my own comm unit and direct a message to the engineering team to change out that focusing node. I hope the ship will be safe, but it will be better if we can bug out if necessary without traveling halfway across the cosmos to do so.

I bring the Zero Point Generator online to build a new J-Field. It will take less than an hour to fill the capacitors. Then I take a moment to close my eyes and breathe deeply. A calm, balanced mind will get us out of this, not a fractured, chaotic mass of emotions. When I open my eyes again, I look through the screens at all the bodies floating in the deep dark, orbiting Empyrean. A thousand or so tiny moons to our dark star, in a section of the universe nearly devoid of light. Curiously, they begin to move away. Something's wrong with that, but my guilt distracts me.

You did that, Chooks.

I tell my subconscious to go screw itself and let me get about the job of saving the lives I can.

"Bruvver? You okay?"

"Yeah, Shaun. Why?"

"You just told yourself to go toss off."

Shaun's stupid joke breaks the spiral my Id tries to spawn, or is it my Ego? Psychology is definitely not my strong point. My little brother's ploy brings a smile to my face, but I see the cloud behind his eyes and his smile.

He knows I'm close to my limit, and he will continue to be my rudder, steering me from the madness until such time as I can fall apart without endangering lives. I'll keep it together, though. Too many people depend on my stability, if not my sanity.

"Where are we, Dorie?"

"The cluster of light thirty degrees to the nadir is galaxy M31, 2.12 million light-years distant."

"Great, so we're still relatively close to the Milky Way."

M31 is a bit over 2.5 million light-years from the Milky Way, so I don't think we've traveled as far as we could have. Dorie blows that right out of the airlock.

"No, Captain. Our position is in opposition to the Milky Way in relation to M31. We are 4.72 million light-years from the J-Beacon."

Just after my jaw drops for the second time in the last hour, Shaun follows up with his signature expletive, which sparks another wave of nervous laughter among the Bridge crew.

The proximity alarm claxon overpowers their laughter, and everyone turns to their respective HUDs. That's when it hits me. There's only one reason for the bodies and debris to drift away from us. A gravity well larger than ours approaches.

Just then, a massive, dark shape fills the front screens, brushes a fan of light up and down the hull, then opens a port facing Empyrean, revealing a rapidly increasing glow of energy.