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MISSION: ARBOR

Prologue

Opening

May 15th, 2735

Hello?
Is anyone there?
Ok, good the screen is still working, it’s transmitting…
I am General Molîdent of the Hlödiån national army on an experimental mission gone wrong, no power and the asteroids are breaking through the shield…
There is not much time, so I will tell you what happened.

ONE

Jan. 26th, 2735
(Control Booth) “Alright Mol, all weather and systems are go, begin startup sequence.” (Molîdent) Mol Vilkonahc was shaking with nervousness and excitement, he would be the first man to test out the Quantum Influx Generator, kind of like the Mycelium Network from Star Trek, but this actually existed. It was able to transport absolutely anything anywhere with known coordinates, and – if all went accordingly – could move entire fleets completely undetected across millions of light years, all in less than a second.

He exhaled, took a deep breath. Then, from the command deck of the Influx, 400 kilometers from earth, took one last look before he pressed the button. If it worked. He would see planet AR-80r “Arbor”, their second base of operations since 2207, in less than 7 seconds.

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In the year 2189, there lived a man. This man was Louie Damann. He was a middle-aged man, he had green eyes and grey-silver hair. He was 5’ 9”, very polite but had a short temper. He has a wife, Paula, and 3 kids, Tommy, Everett, and Olivia. He was the owner of a company called -LOGIC Aerospace- he was a very smart man and ran a very cool company. They have made many new inventions- such as artificial gravity, quantum gigabit computer engines capable of making 1 trillion computations per second, or the Hydrogen-Carbon reactor. He was very wealthy and was happy, living with his family on an acreage near the Rocky Mountains in Canada.

He was living a normal life, going to work in Calgary's outskirts every weekday, until Wed, Oct.15, when he was called to NASA’s headquarters one day to discuss some things. He gave his workers the day off and went to Washington to see what they wanted. When he arrived, he was quickly ushered into a small sedan and was driven away. After a while, he sees the HQ pass by. “I thought that I was to speak with NASA” says Louie. “You are” replied the driver, “just somewhere else”. “If you say so” says Louie. After a while of driving, they arrived at the Pentagon. “What are we doing here?” asked Louie, “you’ll see” replied the driver.

He walked in, secret service agents lined the walls, guiding him to a meeting room at the end of the hall. He entered the room where many important people were waiting: the President of the United States, the prime ministers of Canada and the UK, and many others.
“Today we are gathered here to discuss some very important topics” said one of the Scientists, walking forwards from the corner of the dark room. “As we all know, earth has been warming at an alarming rate for the past century,”.
“Yes, we all know this, is there a way we could fix it?” Said the President. “Well, it is possible, and has a great chance to work, but it will be useless, as earlier this month, we spotted a meteor the size of Jamaica heading for earth. It is to big and moving to fast to effectively stop it with missiles or collisions.” Replied the scientist. “And what am I to do with this?” Asked Louie. “We have tasked you and 8 other companies to design a space station to find other habitable planets.” Said another scientist, wearing a name tag that read “Carl”. “What are the requirements for this space station?” Asked someone from a company Louie had never heard of. “It must be completely self-sustainable, and be able to ferry 10,000 selected participants, and carry enough resources and equipment to get started on another planet. Said Carl. “That’s impossible!” Exclaimed the president of France.

“That’s why we have chosen these companies” said the first scientist, “they are the best of the best, and have the work force to do it”. “What is the budget?” Asked Louie. “It is as much as you need to finish, but it must be completed within 18 years, so you can make the 4-year journey to Planet AR-80r and send a signal back in time so that we can launch the rest of the ships, once the planet is ready. All before the meteor hits in around 25 years” said a scientist from England, dubbed “Edward” by his name tag, sitting next to the prime minister of the UK. “Meeting adjourned” said the first scientist.

Dec. 15, 2190

After making arrangements with the other companies, Louie headed back to his plane. On the way back home, Louie started to worry, if they were not successful, humanity could go extinct. When he got back home, he told his family what had happened. The next day, he called a meeting with his whole company, and retold what their next plans were. “Workers from some of the biggest, most famous companies in aerospace aviation and technology will be joining us, including Boeing, Lockheed, BAE, and many more will be joining you until completion. They will arrive in 4 days, so ready the building for around 1000 more people, it's going to be a bit packed.” After all the workers arrived and received a briefing, the game had begun.

Finally, after many months of planning, designing and failed prototypes, they finally had a blueprint laid out: 3 compartments, encircling a command module 7x7 km wide, with a 50-meter gap between them and the command module. On his discussion with the other company owners, he announced that they could commence building in orbit once the final docking station was complete on the assembly track, exactly1 year and 2 months to the day when Louie got the message to head to Washington.

Building the UE Explorer was long and hard work, especially that it took one worker an hour to get ready just to go build it. Also, it was very costly to send millions of tonnes of equipment and resources to orbit.
For Christmas 3 years into building, the ISS docked with the one and only completed compartment that had life support, and gawked of how massive it was. Working continued, but I only to the frustration of the third segment, that half had been built upside down. “What should we do?” said the project overseer. “I propose a mind-blowing idea”, said Louie, standing up“flip it over.” Much more work was done, and the companies had made an agreement: work for 3 months, take 1 off. It kept up their spirits, and also allowed everyone to visit their family.
14 years in, and they were almost finished. Most of the station was up and running, now they only needed the engines and the Hydrogen-Carbon reactor. T-minus 2 years to launch, they had found a planet better than the first, it was bigger, about the same size as earth, and seemed to already have some wildlife as evidence was seen from the probe they sent. This goldilocks planet was planet AR-80r, aka Terra Arbor, as almost all of its landmass was covered in trees.

May 5, 2205

In exactly 2 months, the Explorer would start its journey to their new home, and many of the selected 10000 people had already showed up and were just settling in, including his family. He saw them arrive at the docking bay and ran up to them to give them a big hug, as he had not seen them in 2 years.

As they had been observing their new home planet, they saw many more details: 4 continents, 5 oceans, and it had 4 seasons it was almost perfect, besides that there was almost nowhere this massive ship could land. On the day of launch of the final rocket with supplies, it had been 17 years since he started. He could not believe that they were going to be on their way later this week. He was sad to leave his home, but he was excited to be one of the first on not a moon, but a whole other world 97 light years away, but with this new engine they’d make it in just 4, with enough time to set up and call earth, to send as many transports as they had available.

One month later
They had been traveling for 27 days now, everything going according to plan, everyone settling down into their living modules and exploring the ship. Louie had finished the last safety check for the ship, and after a while, everything seemed normal. Time seemed to pass quickly, June, July, August, September, October and November flew by.
On Christmas, they had their newfound neighbors and friends over, everything was fine…

-Jan. 3, 2207 3:04 AM, universal standard time (UST)

BOOM! - an explosion rocked the ship, his module shook with impact, he dashed outside. Sirens wailing and alarms blaring, distant explosions could be heard as he went to the hallway that led to the command module from his area. “What’s going on?” Thought Louie, “had the engines failed, power core overload…. Aliens?” The possibilities were endless. He made it to the door, pressed the open button. Nothing, the blast door was sealed. “What? Is this a prank?” Said Louie turning to the window, opening it, he gasped.

Meteors. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of them. “I thought we plotted a course to avert them” thought Louie as he watched one smash into a compartment. How had the computer not detected them? But that was not the main issue. As others from the near empty engineering area watched the main ship drift away. The strike had destroyed the plates holding them in place. As the ship drifted ever further, they saw go-0d-13c slowly appear, so close, yet so far. His hope lifted as he saw many emergency ships head to the less destroyed parts.

He and the disappointed crew of his module wondered what would happen to them, what would happen to the rest of the UE Explorer. After a while of trying, they made contact with the main module and told them they were drifting away to the nearby moon, a small, cold, desolate piece of rock orbiting the planet with a small atmosphere and weird lumps emerging all over. The main ship replied: HAVE JUST LANDED, WILL SEND HELP AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. HOLD TIGHT.
Around an hour later, the computer warned of a collision course with the moon. They would have to land their module before setting up the generator and the more powerful radio antenna to communicate.

3 HOURS, 47 MINUTES LATER

They landed with a soft “bump”. “Ok everyone” says Louie “let's get set up and explore the surface”. But before anyone could move, a loud cracking sound started. WARNING, UNSTABLE SURFACE! Said the computer. The lump opened up and swallowed them into its depths.
When they all woke up, they found out that the ‘bubble’ they had landed on was hollow, warm, and best of all, full of plants, with a breathable atmosphere. Some of these resembled those that Louie had seen on earth, others were, well, alien-like. After exploring, one of the group members found out that the ‘bubbles’ were connected by a cave system that stretched on for miles on end. “This does not seem natural” thought Louie as he looked into the dark cave.
2 weeks later, they had fully set up and set up a crude camp site, and had just sent a message, telling the Explorer about the moon. At last, after almost 22 years, they had found a safe haven for others to stay. 1 week later, a rescue ship came with supplies and people to set up a permanent residence and explore even more. Within 6 days, they had a landing pad to ferry stuff between here and Arbor, as they were calling the planet. They had heard from command, that 32 ships had been launched, and many more to come within the next 4-5 years. To compensate for this, they started planning a small city. Months passed, progress came in leaps and bounds. Arbors largest city, Andor, had grown to 7000.

June 8, 2209

A year and a half until the first ships arrived, the scanner re-activated. One of the workers went to see what it was. The screen read: Warning, 3 objects approaching. “Must be supply ships” said the worker, walking away. Suddenly, the radio came to life reading “HELP, LOW FUEL AND OXYGEN RESERVES, BADLY DAMAGED BY THE ASTEROIDS, IS ANYONE OUT THERE? THIS IS CAPTAIN Mol OF THE Influx, Earth SYSTEM. THE SHIP IS BREAKING UP, HELP!”

-THE END-