Mutationem
Page 1
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Fourty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy One
Chapter Seventy-Two
Chapter Seventy-Three
Chapter Seventy-Four
Chapter Seventy-Five
Chapter Seventy-Six
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Chapter Eighty
Chapter Eighty-One
Chapter Eighty-Two
Chapter Eighty-Three
Chapter Eighty-Four
Chapter Eighty-Five
Chapter Eighty-Six
Chapter Eighty-Seven
Chapter Eighty-Eight
Chapter Eighty-Nine
Chapter Ninety
Copyright © 2016 by Phoenix Jericho
Colt Creek Publishing LLC
1230 Peachtree St., NE; Suite 1900, Atlanta, GA 30309
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
ISBN-13: 978-0-9978266-0-9
LCCN: 2016954104
Cover Design by Damonza
Printed in the United States of America
Chapter One
“Good morning, everyone. I’m Patricia Kraft from the International World Space Association Office of Communications. Welcome to today’s briefing about the status of the deep-space mission to Alpha-64. First, we’ll have some opening remarks from the chief administrator here at IWSA, followed by a question-and-answer period. Please limit your questions to one per person to keep things rolling.
“His nomination was announced March 4, 3016, by President Juan Pablo Rubio, and he was formally appointed upon successful confirmation by the Unified Senate on April 1, 3016. Please give a warm welcome to Chief Administrator Jason Long.”
The room was packed full of reporters and television cameras. Everyone stood and clapped their hands as Chief Long stepped up to the podium. Behind him, mounted on the wall, was a giant red LED clock counting down the minutes.
“Thank you, everyone, please be seated,” he said in a quiet voice. “First let me say thank you all for coming today. It’s not very often that we can be a part of history and witness history being made at the same time. But, we are making history right now with the launch of this ship. This is the most ambitious space mission ever planned. With the support of all the world’s superpowers, excluding the Russian-Chinese Alliance, we are preparing to launch the largest spacecraft to ever leave Earth’s gravity. The primary mission is to be the first to colonize a planet like Earth. The most suitable planet for this mission is Alpha 64, located approximately one hundred Earth years away.
“This ship will be crewed by some four hundred elite international personnel. The ship will be self-sustaining, and the descendants of the current crew will be the first to colonize this planet. As with any voyage of this nature, there are numerous perils, which we feel our crew can overcome. The ship’s engines have the potential to push this craft to the speed of light. This is our goal, but the engines are new. No ship has ever gone the speed of light before, so this will be a learning curve for all of us. However, in our computer models during mockup, the electromagnetic engines have worked as designed.
“We are getting ready to run our first launch simulation today. Because of the size of the ship and its crew, we are training in rotations. These rotations are by sections—the ship has seven—and by gender. As you can imagine, the ship is a busy place with all four hundred crew on board.
“This will be the first space mission where men and women on board are encouraged to engage in conjugal relations. There will be married couples and children on board as well. Imagine going back in time to when the New World was about to be discovered, and a ship was leaving port to sail across the Atlantic Ocean. That’s what we have here, ladies and gentlemen. The largest ship ever built, with all the latest technology, sending an elite group of astronauts to colonize the closest exoplanet similar to Earth!
“Our goal is to launch IWSA-24 on August 29, 3017, at 0600 from Cape Canaveral—exactly thirty-one days from now. The good news is that we are on schedule. That doesn’t mean we are coasting to launch; in reality, everyone is working around the clock readying the ship for our expected launch date. It’s an honor for me to be the head of such a great organization.
“Now to your questions.” Looking over his shoulder at the clock mounted behind him, Chief Long focused again on his audience. “Please remember to be brief, as we have seven minutes before the simulation begins.”
Immediately everyone’s hands shot up, waving to get the chief’s attention. Pointing at a woman wearing a red presidential-looking pantsuit in the front row, Chief Long nodded his head.
“Yes, Mr. Long, my name is Barbra Sharp from Euro News. The question many of our viewers have is what chance this mission has of being successful and not just a one-way suicide trip?”
“Good question. There are many risks involved, but IWSA feels that this mission is very doable. Look, we aren’t just driving to the park and back. We woul
dn’t risk sending the most expensive and sophisticated ship with four hundred lives on board if we only had a slight chance of success. Still, the risks are real. Many of the crew are friends of mine. Next question? Yes, you in the third row, yellow shirt.”
“Hi, I’m with SFOX News. Does the worldwide tension surrounding a potential war taint this mission’s success?”
“Listen, I’m not here to answer political questions. This program is about peace. Our goal is to find this other earthlike planet called A-64 and colonize it, period. We aren’t going to attack another nation and confiscate their wealth and imprison their citizens.”
Looking directly into the closest TV camera, Chief Long continued, “This ship is supposed to unite all mankind, not divide us. This talk of war doesn’t unite us.”
Just then, the building shook violently. For a second,
everything was quiet. Then the lights went out and the screams began.
Chapter Two
“This is no longer a simulation. I repeat, this is no longer a simulation. Sixteen, fifteen, fourteen. This is the real thing. Thirteen, twelve, eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven. I repeat, this is a live event. Six, five, four, three, two. Prepare for launch!”
The ship violently shook like an earthquake as all sixteen electromagnetic pulse engines came online at once. The explosion was deafening. Inside the ship, everyone’s teeth began to chatter. Their faces stretched and their cheeks flapped as if they were strapped onto a rocket sled. The engines had the combined thrust equivalent to the entire fleet of NASA space shuttles once used in the last millennium. Smoke billowed out from the explosion, and the extreme heat vaporized the oxygen in the air. The flames coming from each engine gleamed like candles in an evenly spaced ring, combining in the center to form one. The engines made a hot searing noise like lightning tearing through the sky, and the ship shuddered on its eight-foot-thick circular titanium launch pad.
The ship at first appeared suspended in space as the structure supporting the ship burned away, vaporizing as the engineers had intended. It was an ingenious feat of engineering, a steel magnesium crib built around the base of the ship, cradling the enormous eight hundred-foot-tall structure prior to launch. Now gone.
The ship lifted ever so slightly, Earth’s gravity trying to defy man’s creation. But the sixteen engines were too much. The ship streaked up into the sky like a giant blue meteor and disappeared across the horizon.
On board, no one moved. The shocked silence was broken by Captain Kriss’s voice. “Liftoff complete. All engines go. I repeat, all engines go. Houston, do you copy?”
The com remained silent.
“Houston, please confirm.”
But no voice responded. Just dead silence.
“First Mate, please bring up the aft sensors and monitors,” barked the captain.
The LED screen lit up, showing the beautiful blue planet of Earth suspended in the blackness of space.
“Houston, please acknowledge.”
This time Captain Kriss’s voice was penetrating, but her only response was complete silence.
Suddenly, the blue orb on the monitor imploded. Where there once had been a blue planet hanging in space was now blank, like a nightlight that had been unplugged.
With a loud hiss, Smitty, the first mate, yelled, “It’s gone! My god, it’s gone.”
Captain Kriss replied, “Focus! You have a job to do. Remember your discipline and training. This isn’t a drill. Smitty, I expect order.”
“Goddamn it, sir, the Earth is gone.”
*
“IWSA-24, this is your captain speaking. Please listen carefully. This, as you all know, started out as a routine simulation, then went to a full launch. I know that you are scared, but remember your training and why each of you was chosen to crew this ship. I want each section commander to meet me in the command module immediately. Captain out.”
It didn’t take long before all section commanders were assembled and anxiously waiting for news. Kriss was sitting in a large padded command chair in the middle of a circular table. The center of the table was cut out to make room for the chair, allowing the captain to freely spin. The chair spun automatically to the sound of a human voice, so the captain could always look directly at whoever was talking to her. As everyone began talking, the chair started to spin out of control.
Fiercely, Kriss barked, “Shut up, all of you! Silence. First Mate, brief the commanders on what we know.”
“Yes, sir,” snapped the first mate. “You heard the captain. Attention!”
In unison, everyone at the table saluted the captain and became silent.
“That’s better,” the first mate belted out. “Now listen, this is what we know. Earth is gone. Completely, utterly gone.”
A gasp of dismay traveled in a wave around the table.
“We knew that nuclear war was looming, but what world leader would be foolish enough to use nuclear weapons? Obviously, after World War III, arming the world with equal power was considered the final solution. Unfortunately, some shit-for-brains country has a leader that did the unthinkable, which then caused the domino effect of all nations systematically launching their own weapons. This is the only logical theory of what just happened. What we know for sure is that we are alone.”
A nervous chill went down everyone’s spine as they heard the first mate’s words, and the table remained silent as the words sunk in. The captain slowly rotated her chair and looked directly into the eyes of each section commander. She then spoke in an unusually soft voice.
“We are all that is left of mankind. Go back to your sections and rally your crew. Right now this colony depends on everyone pulling together and doing your duties as rehearsed. We all knew we were going to leave for Alpha-64, but we have left prematurely—thirty-one days early, to be exact. As fate would have it, we only have a partial crew. As soon as we get a stat report on each section, we will begin immediate cross-training. Understood?”
All heads nodded in agreement around the table.
“Very well, pull it together. Human existence is on our shoulders, and our shoulders alone. You are dismissed,” snapped the captain. “Smitty, I want a tally of the crew and their designated training on my desk ASAP.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the first mate.
“Also, I want the chief science officer sent to my personal chambers immediately.”
Captain Kriss floated towards the rear exit and kicked off towards the crew quarters. As she approached a large stainless steel door with her name written over it in brass, it silently opened and closed behind her. The locking mechanism sensed Captain Kriss’s personal electromagnetic field, which acted as a unique fingerprint.
Kriss seated herself in her gravity chair behind her desk. The chair worked by pulling on the metal fabric woven into a belt all crew members wore around their waist. The belt had just enough of a magnetic pull to keep the crew seated.
A clumsy knock came from the door.
“Come in,” bellowed the captain.
“It’s Chief Science Officer Connie Boskind reporting, as you requested, Captain.”
“Yes, come in and sit,” responded Kriss.
The stainless steel door closed as Connie sat down. “What is it, Captain?”
“You know the gravity of our situation?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, I don’t want to state the obvious, but it is a huge problem, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it sure is,” replied Connie.
The captain opened a drawer in her desk and pulled out two iron-ringed crystal glasses. The iron ring held tiny magnetized ball bearings with positive and negative charges that repelled each other, spinning the inner and outer glass. This spinning motion created a gravity-like pull on the fluid inside and kept it from floating out. She then pulled out a large bottle of Macallan scotch.
Connie’s eyes grew large. “How in the hell did you get that?”
“Commanding your own ship has a few privileges,” Kriss said with a wink.
“But, Captain, I thought all alcohol was banned and destroyed after World War III.”
“A case of this scotch has passed down from generation to generation in my family, and this last bottle is it. I found it in my dad’s personal belongings after he died.” Kriss poured a shot into each glass. “Here is to stating the obvious. The whole crew is made up of women. Not a single man on board, and Earth is gone. So what are we going to do?”
“Captain, I have already been thinking about that.”
“Okay, well, fix it. You are my chief science officer. If you don’t come up with a solution, this is a ship of walking corpses.”
Chapter Three
Susanna unstrapped herself and climbed over her seat to look into the infant pod secured beside her. Her vision was still slightly blurred, and her heart was beating so fast that she couldn’t hear anything. In desperation she looked into the pod for her baby. Seeing nothing but a black space, she feverishly ran her hand over the pod. This action lit the interior with a faint blue glow and revealed, nestled inside, a perfect seven-and-a-half-month-old baby wrapped in a quilted white thermal blanket with an unruly mess of blond hair sticking out around her chubby face.
Susanna sighed with relief and patted the pod affectionately. Her little Elizabeth had survived the launch. Elizabeth, Libby for short, was in a special pressurized atmospheric chamber. The infant pod was designed to keep the rib cage from collapsing during the launch’s excessive g-forces. As the infant breathed, moisture from each breath could be seen inside the capsule; inhaling caused the moisture to disappear. But, as soon as she exhaled, the moisture reappeared, making the baby invisible as her breath coated the lens. Knowing that her baby was safe caused Susanna to relax, and soon she nodded off to sleep herself.
Another set of eyes was watching this miracle, and it wasn’t human. These were the eyes of an eighteen-pound orange male tabby. As the image of the baby flickered back and forth like an old black-and-white television set, so did the tip of the cat’s tail. With curiosity, the cat inched forward until it was standing with both front paws pressed on the circular glass capsule. Staring down into the pod, the cat’s image was magnified to almost twice its actual size, and at just that moment, the baby opened her eyes. As the strange whiskered face came into focus, Libby reached up with her hand and pressed it to the glass. With just one breath they were bonded.