Bridge Across the Stars: A Sci-Fi Bridge Original Anthology

by Rhett C. Bruno

  She scoffed. “Coffee is for sissies. I drink Scotch.”

  “Mairead,” he said, voice softer now. “Join me.”

  She gazed into his eyes, silent for a moment. She put down her wrench, climbed off the ladder, and sat beside him.

  He brewed the coffee, which he served in small porcelain cups. The drink was very dark, thick, and bitter. And, Mairead had to admit, it was heavenly. As they sipped, the corpses lay around them, smoldering, and ash rained from the sky. For a long time, they drank in silence.

  “Mairead,” Ramses finally said. “Are you all right?”

  Mairead cursed the damn tears that flowed down her cheeks. “No,” she whispered.

  Ramses put down his cup. Mairead tossed her own aside and embraced him, clinging to him desperately, crushing him in her arms. Her tears flowed. Ramses wrapped his arms around her and stroked her long red hair.

  “None of this is right,” he said softly. “I know. But we have to believe. That Earth is out there. That we’ll see her again. That we’ll bring everyone home.”

  Mairead sniffed. “I believe. Earth is real. We’ll find her someday. We’ll fly there together through blue skies over green hills. We’ll see all the places from the legends. The rolling oceans. The soaring mountains. The highlands of Scotland.”

  “The golden desert of Egypt,” Ramses said, “and the glory of the pyramids.”

  “Home,” Mairead whispered. “That’s why we fight, isn’t it? For home.”

  “For home,” he agreed. “Now let me help you with your cockpit. You’re a damn fine pilot, Firebug, but a horrible mechanic.”

  Normally she would have punched him. Today she laughed.

  They fixed her cockpit. They soared back into space, flying their Firebirds. They rejoined the Heirs of Earth, humanity’s only fleet. A group of twenty warships. A handful of starfighters. A few cargo hulls. That was it. A humble fleet, far from home. The last remnants of humanity’s ancient glory. A group of refugees, their homeworld lost in shadows.

  With bursts of light, the starships ignited their warp drives. They blasted into the distance, seeking a mythical star and a lost home.

  About Daniel Arenson

  Daniel Arenson is a bookworm, proud geek, and USA Today bestselling author of fantasy and science fiction. His novels have sold over a million copies. The Huffington Post has called his writing “full of soul.”

  He’s written over fifty novels, most of them in five series: Earthrise, Requiem, Moth, Alien Hunters, and Kingdoms of Sand. Learn more about his books at DanielArenson.com.

  Interview for the End of the World

  by Rhett C. Bruno

  142 Hours Until Impact…

  “COME IN,” I SAID.

  My office door creaked open. A security guard ushered in the Titan Project’s next candidate. I quickly downed the remnants of a glass of lukewarm whiskey in my liver-spotted hand to calm my mind, then placed it down behind my computer screen. The guard and I exchanged a nod and he bowed out of the room, leaving myself, and the candidate, alone.

  He didn’t make it more than a step before he stopped to stare out of my window at the tremendous spaceship docked in the center of my compound. It was at the pinnacle of my illustrious technical career, which had left me one of the richest men on Earth. At least until around two years ago when a massive asteroid was discovered hurtling toward Earth with no intention of stopping, and money became as useless as the paper it was printed on. People had given it a number of creative nicknames like “The Devil’s Fist,” or “Ragna-Rock,” but in my opinion, there was no reason to call it anything different than what it was. The end of Earth as we knew it.

  “Congratulations on making it this far, Mr…” I hesitated at his name. I’d conducted thousands of interviews by then and was beginning to lose count. I glanced at the resume open on my computer. He was Frank Drayton. Twenty-seven years old and already a world-renowned horticulturalist. Not the most exciting job, but a necessary addition for a colony on a hostile world. He was marked for likely acceptance, but nobody got a spot in the Titan Project without me looking them in the eyes first.

  “Drayton,” I finished.

  He blinked as if waking from a dream and hurried over to my desk. “Director Darien Trass. You can’t even begin to understand how much of an honor it is to meet you.” He extended a trembling hand.

  I shook it without standing. It was as clammy as a teenage boy’s on a first date so I quickly let go. I said, “I’d prefer we’d never have to meet at all, Mr. Drayton.”

  His lips twisted and his gaze turned downward.

  “Relax,” I said. “I only wish the world’s circumstances were different.” I gestured toward the hard, plastic chair set on the other side of my desk. “Please, sit.”

  He released a string of low, panicked laughs as he sat. His index finger immediately started tapping on the arm of the chair. I took that moment to study him. Heavy beads of sweat rolled down his forehead and he was in desperate need of a shave. The loose-fitting suit he wore was desperate for a decent tailor. Not that I could judge him for that. There were probably none left open on Earth to visit.

  His disheveled appearance didn’t surprise me. It was the same situation with almost every candidate who entered my office. After all, it’s not every day a human being has to interview for a chance to escape the end of the world.

  “Now,” I began. “There’s very little time left, so let’s try to keep this as brief as possible. In this room, your accomplishments are no longer in question. Extraordinary as they may be, they are no more impressive than the thousands of others who have stepped through that door. You’re here, Mr. Drayton, so that I can find out who you are.”

  “I…” He swallowed and took another deep breath. His finger stopped tapping, and he looked me in the eyes for the first time. “I understand.”

  “Good. I presume my assistant, Kara, already briefed you on the Project and showed you around the compound?”

  “She did.” He looked through the window. “I didn’t realize how big the ship was until I got up here though.”

  “Not big enough,” I lamented.

  This time I joined him in staring at the colossal ship propped on the opposite side of my half-mile-wide compound away from all the buildings. It tapered like a sideways skyscraper wrapped in bowed metal plates. A carefully selected workforce installed the final layers of radiation shielding for its imminent departure, when the only plasmatic pulse drives ever to be used non-experimentally would allow it to reach Saturn in two years.

  Mr. Drayton was awestruck, but the view made me want to crawl inside a bottle. My gaze first wandered to the pale mark in the blue sky—the asteroid growing closer every day to becoming a meteorite. Then I looked to the horde of people camped in the desert outside of the compound’s twenty-foot-tall concrete wall, hoping to earn a spot onboard. Armed drones and several dozen security officers kept the desperate mass at bay.

  Mr. Drayton turned back to me. “How many can it hold?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The ship. How many people can it hold?”

  “Three thousand,” I said. “Four hundred and six spots have already been filled by my remaining staff. Individual accomplishments aside, I assure you that they had to meet the same, stringent criteria as candidates such as yourself. They’re all that remains of Trass Industries. It felt wrong to ask anyone to help me construct the Titan Project without guaranteeing them a spot on it.”

  The conditions for selection were simple, at least in that they eliminated more than ninety-nine percent of humanity. Other than having to bear an appreciable level of expertise in a field that would benefit the new world, the simplest requirement was that every candidate had to be between eighteen and thirty-five years old. They also had to be in optimal physical health and clear of all chronic diseases. Kara administered the physicals, and nobody who failed ever made it through my door. Those who remained untethered by marriage were preferred, since their signif
icant others would have to meet the same conditions. Lastly, anyone with young children was eliminated. There were fears on my research team that an underdeveloped body would be ravaged by the trip through zero-g. I also wasn’t keen on taking anybody willing to leave their offspring to die alone.

  “Three thousand,” Mr. Drayton muttered after a lengthy silence.

  “Yes,” I said. “No more, no less. Every traveler will be kept in a state-of-the-art hibernation chamber for the duration of the two-year journey. The low activity state will allow us to conserve the limited resources we’re able to bring until we can establish an operating colony on Titan. It’s my job to whittle the list of more than one million suitable candidates to that minuscule number. Sneak in one extra and I might as well invite the mob camped outside of my compound.”

  He glanced nervously back out of the window. “Are those really all candidates?” he asked. “Everyone I passed out there claimed to have met with you.”

  “Not all of them. You can thank whichever rejected candidate decided to break our non-disclosure agreement and leak what was going on here for that. I had to promise fifty spots on board to some of the finest soldiers in the world in order to keep the project safe. We’re lucky we’re in the middle of the Arizona desert; otherwise I’d need even more.”

  “It wasn’t easy getting out here with all of the airlines shut down, that’s for sure. It took me a day just to find a gas station that wasn’t abandoned or torn apart.”

  “Yes … I suppose I was crazy for thinking I could keep the Titan Project safe from the widespread, doomsday hysteria.”

  Ever since the leak, I couldn’t even leave the Trass Industries Compound without being hounded or having my life threatened. Rich, poor, it didn’t matter. People had begun to realize that the united efforts of governments around the world to divert the asteroid were futile, and that the only way to ensure survival was to leave Earth behind. There were other corporations developing space-stations that would orbit our homeworld or attempting to establish colonies on the moon. But with so many people being crammed onto them, an unpredictable percentage would likely suffocate before their populations leveled out to suit their life-support systems. The safety of my compound was indebted to a majority of Earth choosing to camp outside of those projects rather than crave a trip to an uninhabitable moon millions of miles away.

  I sighed. “It doesn’t matter anymore. In a week the asteroid will hit, and we’ll be on our way to the freezing plains of Titan.”

  “Why not Mars, or Europa, or anywhere else closer? Your message didn’t say.”

  “As you well know there is no second Earth in our solar system, Mr. Drayton. I chose based on potential. There is a wealth of resources and fuel on both Titan and Saturn which will make generating enough energy to stay warm relatively simple once we’re able to repurpose the ship into a settlement. The thick atmosphere also removes the issue of radiation from the list of concerns. We’ll need all the help we can get. Establishing renewable sources of food on any world not meant for life will take time.”

  For the first time since our meeting, Mr. Drayton’s eyes glinted with the confidence of a man who had risen to the top of his field. “I think I can help with that,” he boasted.

  “I’ve met with three other candidates who claimed the same,” I countered. I held up my finger before he could offer another predictable response. He slouched into the chair and allowed me to continue. “As I indicated earlier, your accomplishments are no longer in question. It was only your highly scrutinized thesis on vertical farming at Cornell that encouraged me to reach out to you as a candidate. I appreciate boldness. I can design all of the spaceships and facilities I want to, but without food they’ll be little more than oversized, metal tombs.”

  Mr. Drayton sat up. “You read that?”

  “I don’t take this task lightly, Mr. Drayton. I’m always thorough with my research.”

  “Of course you are.” He leaned forward and wrapped his hands around the rounded edge of my desk. “I’ve read all of your work,” he said. “Your 2021 paper about how you pioneered your zero-emissions, automated vehicular network to reduce traffic and eliminate accidents in Detroit was … well it was life-changing.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Life-changing. That’s new. Though it all seems rather trivial compared to what we’re working on here, doesn’t it?”

  All of the color drained from Mr. Drayton’s cheeks. I could see his lips twitching ever so slightly as his brain struggled to come up with a response that wouldn’t make him seem more foolish.

  “I appreciate the compliment,” I intervened. I folded my hands on my lap and established direct eye-contact with him. “Okay, as long I’ve answered all of your questions, I’m going to ask you a few of my own. I want you to be as honest as possible.”

  He nodded. His finger started to tap the arm of his chair again, but he held my gaze.

  “Okay,” I said. “Your information states that you’re not married and don’t have children. Do you currently have any manner of significant other?”

  Mr. Drayton shifted in his seat. “Not in the years since the Asteroid was discovered,” he said, clearly perturbed. “Divorced.”

  “Ah. I have had plenty of those walk through these doors, eager to get away. It’ll get easier with time.”

  He exhaled. “I hope.”

  I turned to my screen for a moment, trying to make it look like I was reading something so I didn’t rush things. After countless interviews, it was difficult for them not to feel rehearsed. “So, where were you when you heard about the asteroid?” I asked.

  He continued looking in my direction, though his stare grew unfocused. I could read the struggle all over his face.

  “Mr. Drayton?” I said.

  “Sorry.” He shook his head and reestablished eye contact. “I was with my ex-wife. I suppose you could say we didn’t agree over why the asteroid is going to hit Earth. She turned her complete attention to our church and trying to repent for her sins so God might reconsider his judgment. It was like she completely forgot about our…” He paused. It took him a few seconds to gather himself so that he could continue. “Anyway, I tried to go along with it while I could, but eventually I decided that I’d rather take a chance at living.”

  “We all responded differently.” I remained indifferent on the why’s. The only thing in the world that mattered to me after I found out that a rogue asteroid the size of a small moon had somehow been re-routed toward Earth was getting humanity’s best and brightest off it. A branch of Trass Industries had been focused on commodifying space-travel at the time, so it seemed like a logical transition … my next real challenge after effectively eliminating car accidents throughout the United States.

  “I’m glad you didn’t hesitate,” Mr. Drayton said. “You were the only one smart enough to consider running far away from this place before wasting time on anything else.”

  “The value of a clean slate is lost on many of my peers.”

  He was handling himself well enough, so I decided it was time to find out what I really wanted to know. I stared at my computer for a few seconds, again so I didn’t seem impatient, and then asked, “Why should I choose you to join this venture to our new world?”

  Mr. Drayton leaned back and took a deep breath. “Because I’ve dedicated my life to understanding living things, sir,” he said. “We’ll need much of the life we take for granted here to blossom if we ever hope to make Titan feel like a new home.”

  I used my hand to mask a slight grin. There was no doubt he’d practiced that answer in a mirror plenty of times, but I could tell by his eyes that he meant it. It was one of my more favorite responses yet. Most candidates couldn’t help but list their achievements or mention their will to survive.

  “Well said,” I admitted. “I think I’ve heard everything I need to. Thank you, Mr. Drayton.” The interview was briefer than usual, but after administering thousands I could size people up quickly. “Please proceed to the
waiting area. I will personally inform you of my decision as soon as possible. If you are accepted, you’ll be escorted to the safety of an on-site dormitory where you will remain until the Titan Project departs at exactly 8:00 AM on September 30, 2031—six days from now. If you aren’t … well then Mr. Drayton, I hope you’re able to find peace in whatever way suits you.”

  I stood and extended my hand. He immediately sprung to his feet, almost slipping, and grabbed it.

  “Thank you, sir,” he said twice as he shook it vehemently. “At least, either way, I’ll have accomplished my dream of meeting you.”

  I released his hand and allowed myself to visibly crack a business-like smile. “Good day, Mr. Drayton.”

  He backed away slowly, his eyes darting between myself and the Titan Project out the window. Then the door opened and one of my security officers came through. He placed his hand on Mr. Drayton’s shoulder and escorted him out of the office.

  As soon as he was gone I slumped back into my chair and exhaled. Even the good interviews took a lot out of me. I closed his information on my computer and the screen reverted to my list of candidates. I had to strain my eyes to keep all the text from looking like one big blob. Like Mr. Drayton, I’d selected every single one of those people. There were doctors, theoreticians, physicists, engineers, artists, self-made billionaires and anything else you could imagine, from every country around the globe.

  I scrolled down the list. As many as there were, I could remember the face of everyone I’d talked to—accepted or rejected. I always did it personally, though with a cohort of armed guards for rejections. There was no telling what desperate people would do. Only four hundred interviews remained as I checked off Mr. Drayton. Five of those were experts in the same field as Mr. Drayton who were coming in later that day—so I couldn’t be sure if he made the cut yet or not—but I had a good feeling about him.

  Ninety-three more were all I could take. With barely a week left until the doomsday clock struck zero, I knew I was cutting it close. But I had to be meticulous. I owed them all that much at least.