Survival of the Species

Prelude to Fate

December 4th, 2274

Michael O’Connor

This area of the moon was desolate and engulfed in darkness except for a dome shaped building which lights cast a dim glow, like that of a candle in a dark room. The worn letters of the words “Project Survival” hung on the main entrance of the building. The unrelenting cold in the absence of the sun and the merciless heat in its presence have had its effect on this building, which stood as a pinnacle of human presence on an unwelcoming rock, revolving around our home, Earth.
From this distance Earth took on a regal, breath taking view. A human can stare at this diamond in the midst of the vast darkness of space and wonder with his thoughts to a time when children enjoyed the moist air on the beaches of this world’s wonderful oceans. But that was a long time ago, almost two centuries ago. Now a third of the water on Earth have been polluted and many countries are inhabitable, as their children have been silenced forever.
In fact today would be the two hundredth anniversary of the great holocaust. Many must have seen it coming. How could they have not? The warning signs were clear: increased political tension between countries; the rise of terrorism; the surprise bombings of whole cities. Then the unthinkable happened; a nuclear attack against the most powerful country of all. This sparked a violent nuclear retaliation. Many lost their lives in both attacks and many more lost their lives as a result of the radiation and the inhumane living conditions.
During the fifty-year war, governments exhausted all their resources and became ineffectual bureaucratic systems, leaving the people to fend for themselves in an effort to survive. With almost half the earth unsuitable for living, the humans left started colonies on the far reaches of the earth, places that weren’t touched by the war and the radiation. The really wealthy few, who were able to maintain their wealth through these horrible times, went to the moon stations which were built for military purposes but then abandoned due to lack of resources. There they built a colony hoping for a new, more sanguine life.
At that time, however, no one knew what this colony would become. They didn’t realize that like a mother giving birth to a baby, this colony would give birth to a new movement. From among its domed cities and narrow streets would come forth an organized group of scientists, politicians and visionaries who will pave the way to humanity’s future. But no movement, no matter how noble it looked, remained unopposed.

Inside the Project Survival building a man in his mid forties walked through a long corridor, occasionally glancing around making sure his presence hadn’t been discovered. The corridor extended for one hundred meters or so and then curved left, lit dimly with only a few doors interrupting the smooth walls. The man didn’t know where he was going exactly. He was relying on an old blue print, which he was able to obtain at a great cost from an old architect who had a hand in designing this building.
“I’m warning you, Mark, they don’t like trespassers,” the architect had told him.
“My name is Michael.”
“You’re missing my point, Mark, if by a fluke you were able to get in, you won’t get out.”
“I don’t have many options. I have to find him.”
And that was one thing, Michael O’Connor, was absolutely sure of. He had to find his son no matter what the price was.

Michael O’Connor and his wife Sarah O’Connor were both university professors. They lived in the Antarctica Colony where the effects of the war were at a minimum. In fact many people had moved to this secluded area of the world in an effort to avoid the aftermath. The newly formed society quickly grew as more and more people found out about it. Great walls had to be erected to keep the unwelcomed out. Only the educated and high-class people were allowed to live in this colony. Crime was at a minimum. It was tough to see many people travel all this way only to be turned away because they didn’t fulfill the requirements needed to be a citizen of the Antarctica colony.
Michael sat on the board that made these decisions, and sometimes he would come back home and not be able to sleep because he couldn’t put away the faces of these people whom he interviewed and had to turn away. He knew that on the outside they were most likely going to die, out of hunger or because of the cold, but what he did was necessary for the greater good, for the security of his home. There was no place for them, no job for them to do, and if they remained idle, it was a logical eventuality that they would start criminal activities, and he wasn’t in good conscious about to let this happen. He already knew what the end result would be. A devastated world on the outside served as a reminder of a past that would not be easily forgotten.
It was December 4th, 2265. The day Sarah O’Connor gave birth to their first child, a healthy baby boy. Michael was in a lecture hall giving a talk on ‘String Theory’, when he got word that his wife had delivered the baby. He couldn’t remember that he ever moved that fast nor had his students ever seen him move that fast. He ran up the stairs of the two level lecture hall and was on his way to the hospital in a quick run.
Due to the extremely cold temperatures of Antarctica, the whole colony was built indoors. You didn’t have to go outside for anything, and thank God for that, because over the past century the temperature around the world had dropped sharply and no body knew why the sudden environmental change. Maybe it was due to the war or some external forces that no one had a chance to study yet.
As Michael ran through the streets of the colony, he had to occasionally slow down in order to avoid mowing people over and risk seriously injuring them. He was a big guy, almost six feet and three inches tall, slightly balding, with a hint of gray hair. The dreams he had for his knew born son flashed through his mind as he drew closer to seeing him. He would name him John, after John the beloved, who was chosen by Christ to see the future of the world. Michael hoped that God would give his son, John, the vision and the wisdom to decipher the future. He imagined how he would raise his son, the love he would show him, the wisdom of Christianity he would bestow up on him, and the knowledge of science he would teach him. All these vivid images flashed through his mind’s eye.
Finally he was at the door of the hospital. He took out his identification card and past it in front of an electronic eye, then placed his hand on a small scanner, which momentarily flashed taking an image of his handprint. The advanced computers of the hospital, which were networked with the main frames of the colony, quickly cross referenced his identification with his handprint and made a match. The doors slid quietly open. Before they were fully open, Michael was through them and in a few seconds was treading up the stairs going towards room 215.
As he approached the room, he instantly felt something terribly wrong. There were two Colony Security Guards located on either side of the door. There were strange activities, as doctors hurriedly ran in and out of room 215. As this suspiciousness registered in Michael’s brain, his heart beat faster and the adrenaline rushed through his body making him run faster. The only thing that was on his mind was Sarah and John.
Once the guards noticed him, they quickly drew up their hands, motioning him to stop.
“Sir, please slow down,” the taller guard ordered, his weapon already in his hand.
“My wife and my son are in there.”
“He’s the father,” the other guard said, without looking at the first guard, who put his weapon back in its holster.
“Please sir, I’d ask that you calm down,” the taller guard said, trying to sound as soothing as possible.
“What’s the matter? What’s wrong?” Michael was starting to panic, a sinking feeling in his stomach.
“Your wife is okay, sir. She’s resting now.”
“What about my son?”
Neither guard replied.
“What about my son?” Michael yelled.

I think I know where I am now, Michael thought as he made his way through a maze of corridors. The blue prints show the mainframe room to be in there.
Michael stood in front of a huge double door that looked formidable.
Now let’s see if all the education I had will help me get into this room.
In all honesty he felt small at the moment. The only thing driving him was the need to find the whereabouts of his son. He was no hero, no adventurer. He hardly took any risks. That was until three years ago. Today would be his son’s 9th birthday.
He wouldn’t even know who I am. Maybe I’m better off turning back now. Even if I find him, would he want to come back with me? Or will he think that I’m here to kidnap him. What would I say to him when I see him? Son… No. I will hug him, look at his face. He will know me.
Michael took out a picture of a young boy, six years of age. He was tall for his age, not smiling for the picture, entirely serious. His face looked like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. Michael replaced the picture in his pocket and took out a small handheld computer device, which had a keypad and a small color screen above the pad. The words “Waiting for Input” flashed on the screen in red.
Ok, let’s see what we can do.
He stepped closer to a panel embedded in the door and pressed the “SELECT” button. A menu of three choices appeared: Optical, Serial and Infrared. He selected infrared. The word “Connecting” replaced the menu. A second later the connection was established. The small computer in Michael’s hand ran several search algorithms, scanning the circuitry of the door and a moment later the following sentence appeared on the screen, “Search Complete. Security chipset located. Would you like to decrypt?” Michael pressed “OK”. Immediately a three dimensional representation of the chipset appeared on the screen. It had ten thousand and twenty-four Input/Output pins. The Decryption Algorithm proceeded to test each pin trying to determine the security encryption. Once this first layer was cracked, then it would be a matter of finding the correct electronic combination to open the door. Michael waited anxiously, looking around him every now and then worried that this whole process was taking too long, and eventually someone would detect his presence.

Three years had passed and they were not able to conceive again. With every passing day Sarah seamed to grow older, and so did Michael. The passage of time had been so tangible as if time was a current that was sweeping them away, and they had no power to swim against the tide.
They had been told that their son died shortly after birth; some sort of heart complication. The doctors blamed the case of radiation poisoning that Sarah had a while back, before she conceived. However, she had been treated for that, and the doctors at the time assured her that everything was fine.
“It’s my fault,” Sarah said. She was lying on the bed beside Michael. The light of the moon reflected off the snow of Antarctica and seeped through the windows. They were lucky. It was mainly due to Michael’s position on the Board of Directors, that they were able to get a condo with a view. Only the elite lived by the edge of the colony and had windows to the outside world. Most people’s condos were small and cramped with no windows. They were designed that way so that the colony could accommodate as many citizens as possible.
Michael reached for Sarah’s hand. “No it isn’t. It’s God’s will.”
“God’s will for us to lose our son?” There was a sharpness to her voice, that made Michael fall silent. He wanted to say that we don’t know God’s plans, and that God is all knowing and all good and everything he does is for the good of His people, but for the past three years he had been questioning this school of thought.
Look at the state of the world and the wars and the contamination and the death of billions, how could God allow this to happen? On top of all this, they had been praying for a son for many years and when they did have him then he was taken away from them. Where was God’s love and mercy?
Michael wanted to comfort his wife, but the words escaped him, so he remained silent. Sarah sobbed quietly. This happened often. It was bad at nights, and worse when she was alone. Michael slid closer to her and wrapped his arms around her, embracing her, feeling her warm tears wet his shoulders.

It has been six years now. In fact today was December 4th, so it was exactly six years since John’s death. Sarah was alone in the apartment. She still thought about John, more often than not, and she still cried. To her the pain of losing her son was a fresh wound that hadn’t healed yet, and still hurt every time the wind blew.
A knock on the door.
It awoke her from the trans she was in. She walked to the door and opened it only to see her husband.
“You’re back early,” she said.
Michael was looking at something in his hand. He walked in silently and sat on a chair near the bed. Their condo was really not that big. The bedroom was a couple of steps higher than the guest area, which had the kitchen attached to it; both were open to each other. The bathroom was off to the side. That was the whole apartment.
“What’s the matter?” Sarah asked worriedly. “Are you ok?”
Michael didn’t look up from the picture.
“I was in my office when I got this delivered to me,” his voice cracked and he had to stop to regain his composure. “This picture was delivered to me. It had a piece of paper with it.”
Sarah knelt beside her husband and looked at the picture. It was of a six year old boy, tall for his age, looking seriously towards the camera that had taken the picture. Her heart skipped a beat.
“What was written on the paper?” Sarah asked, her voice not higher than a whisper.
Michael took out the piece of paper and handed it to Sarah.
Sarah took it and read it. It had one line written on it.

• Michael, meet John *

“93% complete.”
Almost there, Michael thought to himself. Almost there.
He caught himself drumming the handheld computer with his thumb as he waited for the decryption to complete.
It didn’t make sense why there were Colony Guards at the hospital. Why would the doctors ask the Guards to come for a case of death? But that didn’t register in Michael’s mind at the time. Nor did it do so until he received the picture. They were hiding something from him and his wife. They didn’t want them to know that their son was still alive and well, on the Sovereignty State Moon Colony. Why his son? Why out of all the children in the world, they chose his son? He didn’t even know who had him. All he knew was that the information he needed was in this ‘Project Survival’ building.
There was a soft beep from his handheld device, followed by a loud clang as the door unlocked. The clang was louder than he would have preferred, so he snapped around afraid of the unwanted attention that it might attract. Everything remained silent.
As he stepped into the room, he had to stop and admire the view. This was the most advanced mainframe server room he had ever seen. Racks upon Racks of computers and flat screens lined up the walls of the room, which was probably thirty feet by thirty feet in size. But the computer in the center of the room dwarfed them all. It existed in a thick glass walled cylinder reaching up to the ceiling, maybe twenty feet high. Liquid hydrogen ran through tubes, which were wrapped around the critical, heat-producing parts of the computer to cool it down. The liquid hydrogen gave the cylinder its bluish appearance. There was a periodic pulse of light, and a constant hum produced from the main computer inside the cylinder container. Many keyboards and screens were neatly located on a circular table that fit around the cylinder.
Michael approached the central station and placed his handheld computer on the table beside the keyboard. Once he did that, the screen in front of him came alive.
“Wireless device detected. Authorizing” was printed on the screen.
“Oh crap,” Michael cursed as he reached for the handheld device. He fumbled with it for a second until he found the ‘off’ button and pressed it.
“Link lost” appeared on the screen and the screen went blank once more. Everything was inactive except for the constant unrelenting hum.
Michael breathed out in relief. If that computer had finished it’s authorization algorithm it would have detected that the handheld computer was foreign and probably triggered some sort of an alarm, but it didn’t get to that. At least Michael hoped that it didn’t. He proceeded to work on the computer.

Some how they got in touch with him. They were able to crack his computer’s security and leave him a message. Whoever hacked into his computer was a professional. It was an in and out job, and he left no trace that he was ever in the system. The message was clear. They wouldn’t set foot in the Antarctica Colony and insisted that he’d meet them several kilometers outside, in the freezing cold, out in the middle of nowhere. What would he give as an excuse to exit the colony? Hardly anyone went outside. Who would want to anyway? But they gave him no choice. So he took an appointment with the president of the colony to directly request permission for a temporary departure.
He approached the office of the president slowly. His appointment was at ten thirty in the morning. It was ten twenty-five. He took slow deliberate steps trying to review the excuse he would give the president, but what they told him kept distracting his train of thoughts.
“Do not trust anyone. You don’t know who is working for the Planners.”
He had no idea who the Planners were, but for now he was taking their advice. Remain quite about the whole thing, and see what they have to say about this whole deal.
Back to his excuse. It had to sound very innocent and practical, so as not to arouse any suspicion. He didn’t know why he felt so paranoid. He has lived in this colony and has been a respected member of the community for over nine years. Why would he fear that his status would change? For now, he had to put all these thoughts aside. He had to concentrate on the task at hand.
It was ten twenty-nine. Michael knocked on the door.
“Come in,” came the answer.
Michael entered the president’s spacious office. The office was larger than Michael’s entire apartment. It puzzled him that the colony designers would waste space with such a big office, when one a quarter of the size of that would have been entirely acceptable.
“Michael, I was expecting you,” the president said, motioning him to sit down. “What can I do for you?”
The president was a woman of fifty-five, but her face didn’t betray her age. She didn’t look a day older than forty. Her long black her and smooth olive skin coupled with her serious and professional attitude, gave her an air of authority, making it hard for anyone opposed her decisions.
“Umm… I was planning to take a university class that I’m teaching outside the colony, and I wanted your permission.”
“Outside the colony?” The president eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Why?”
“Well, although it’s a ‘Nuclear Physics’ course, I wanted to make the next class more of a philosophy lecture. I wanted to show them first hand the effect nuclear technology had on the world.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to show them footage of the war?”
“I’ll be doing that as well, but when they witness the aftermath of the war first hand… Well, there is no substitute to first hand experience.”
The president got up from her chair and went and faced the window. Outside a furious storm blew. Visibility was zero. All she could see was white.
“Better pick a clearer day,” she said.
“You agree then?” Michael almost didn’t believe it was that easy, but he tried his best to hide his surprise.
“I agree with you that there is no substitute to first hand experience,” the president faced Michael. “It would have been most beneficial if the aftermath of the war was seen by the leaders who waged the fifty year war. If we could only travel back in time.”
The president looked distant, in deep thought, and Michael remained silent out of respect for her.
“I’m glad you’re taking the opportunity to teach your students ethics.”
“Thank you.”
Michael got up.
“If you’ll excuse me.”
“Of course.”
Michael exited the room, feeling the president’s eyes follow him until he closed the door. Once outside he took a deep breath relieved.

Michael took a deep breath relieved. He was able to get into the data warehouse system without tripping any safeguards. His job now was to download as much information as possible. He took out a Laser Disk (LD) and slipped it into its designated slot in the computer, and hit download. A status bar appeared showing the progress of information transfer.
He didn’t know what his next step would be, but he was sure that once he and the rest review this data, things would become much clearer.
“Please insert an empty LD,” flashed on the screen, as the full LD was ejected. Michael replaced the full LD with an empty one, and pressed enter. Again the progress bar appeared on the screen.
Suddenly, Michael heard a loud clang as the door to the server room unlocked. He started to panic and pressed the eject button.
“Transfer not complete,” appeared on the screen.
He hit the eject button again, and the LD popped out.
The door was starting to open slowly.
Michael snatched the LD and put it in his bag, along with his handheld computer.
The door fully opened and a group of ten children entered. They were all dressed in blue overalls. They froze once they saw Michael. He did too.
“Who are you?” A girl said in an authoritative manner not matching her age. She was one of the tallest in the group. Her black hair was tied in a ponytail and her eyes were wide as they stared at Michael.
“I’m not here to hurt anyone,” Michael said trying to sound as calm as possible.
“I didn’t ask what you’re here to do,” the girl responded. She was clearly the leader of the group. “I asked who you are.”
Michael didn’t see any benefit to responding. He headed for the door. His clear size advantage scared the kids into parting and making way for him. He was almost out of the door when he heard the girl hit the intercom in the room.
“We have an unauthorized intruder,” she said over the intercom.
Michael broke into a run through the maze of corridors. He had only been here for less than fifteen minutes, and he already hated this place. It would be only a matter of minutes before they were able to locate his position. He was wrong. Only a few seconds later he heard a door, he just passed open and foot falls behind him. He looked back. It was a couple of security guards. He ran faster.
Michael was in a good physical condition and he was a fast runner, and thus he was able to lose them around a bend of one of the corridors.
Only a few more meters, Michael thought, as he rounded another corner. Ok, here is the airlock.
He entered it and sealed it. Once the airlock was sealed from the inside no one could open it. He started putting on his compression suit as quickly as possible.
A knock on the airlock door.
From a small round thick glass window he could see the two security guards punching the door and mouthing something at him. They were trying to tell him to unlock the door.
Like hell.
He finished putting on his compression suit and jumped into a small one man moon craft. The door of the craft closed after him, and there was a hiss as the environment inside the craft was adjusted. The controls of the craft were simplistic, some speed dials and pressure dials were lined up in front of the driver. A steering wheel with an accelerate and decelerate buttons under the left thumb of the driver, controlled the speed and the direction of the craft. A small embedded computer screen with a keypad under it were off to the right.
Michael pressed a key on the keypad and a connection was established with the airlock computer. A schematic of the airlock appear on the screen. Michael tapped the door of the airlock on the schematic and it was highlighted, and a menu appeared beside it, showing the options available to control the door. He chose open. The airlock depressurized and the door started to open. The whole process seemed to take forever.
Michael drove the car forward, anxious to get out of this place. The door kept opening, and now it was almost wide enough for the moon craft to pass through, but only almost. Abruptly, the door stopped opening. Michael knew instantly what happened. They overrode his link and were going to close the door. He pressed the accelerate button, and the car jumped forward, scrapping both sides of the craft as it exited to the moon surface.

Every part of their body was completely covered with heavy clothes to block out the cold. If they expose any part of their skin, it would freeze in a matter of seconds. Despite of the outrageous temperature, Michael’s students were enjoying themselves. Some of them were born inside the colony and this was their first time stepping foot outside and breathing natural air. The storm had subsided and now the sky was clear without a cloud in sight.
“God, this is amazing,” De’Jour one of the students said. All of them had small intercoms attached to their masks, so as to carry their voices to each other. Everyone could hear what the others were saying.
“Don’t get over excited and take off your mask,” Mary teased. “I don’t want to pick up your nose and ears and try to reattach them.”
“Snow fight,” De’Jour suddenly yelled. He picked up some snow, rolled it into a ball and threw it at Mary. She responded in the same manner. Soon enough snowballs were flying everywhere, and the student were laughing and having a good time.
“Ok kids,” Michael yelled to try and get their attention. “Gather around.”
Slowly they gathered around dropping the snowballs.
Michael took out a scroll and stretched it, revealing a transparent sheet. He touched the sheet and immediately it came to life becoming a transparent screen. The students looked through it and saw the endless snow, but there was text on the edge of the electronic sheet.
“What’s this?” Mary asked.
“This, my dear friends, is a window to the world,” Michael answered.
Michael tapped a sequence of commands on the scroll and suddenly the view seen through the transparent electronic sheet, zoomed in and before long they could see a far away devastated city.
“This is the city of New York. About two hundred years ago, this city was the central economic power of the world. Now it lay in ruins. This whole area is uninhabitable,” Michael zoomed out and an area around the city was highlighted in red. The radiation is at a dangerous level, that it could kill a human being in a few months. My wife and I came from just outside this red zone, and even though we were outside the danger zone, she contracted a case of radiation poisoning. If it weren’t for the doctors here, she wouldn’t have made it.”
Michael paused.
“You may wonder, what all this has to do with Nuclear Physics. Well, a great deal actually. Science is a great and wonderful gift we have. We can innovate and invent knew and amazing things. But we can also invent horrible weapons; weapons that led to the annihilation of forty-five percent of the human race. If the fifty year war continued, none of us would have survived.
“I tell you all this because you have to know, so that we do not repeat the mistakes of our ancestors; so that we don’t kill off our race. And I took you out here to show you first hand what the weapons of our minds have done. Global temperatures have dropped in the past two decades by five degrees, and our scientists are expecting them to drop even more over the next few decades. This could signal the beginning of another ice age. We are still trying to determine the root cause of this global change, but many of us believe it’s due to the war.
“Let me make it clear to you boys and girls, the human race has some hard times ahead. We now have to deal with issues that are very basic, like the survival of our species. There are colonies like ours around the globe, but not many areas are habitable now, so these outposts of human civilization are small and cannot accommodate many. What does that mean? Well it means that many are left stranded in areas, which are not suitable for human life, and won’t be for the next century or two, and they will die.
“So consider yourself among the lucky few. The fact that you live here, bestows on your shoulders an awesome responsibility. I want you to think about that. So the assignment for today is for each one to spend sometime alone and come up with a list of responsibilities that you must carry as a contributing member of this colony. That’s all I have to say.”
The students looked at each other. The somber speech had its effect on them.
“Okay, guys,” Michael resumed. “You have twenty minutes before we head in. So spread out and start making that list.”
The students spread out, and Michael took this opportunity to get on a snow vehicle and drive off for about five minutes. As he approached the rendezvous point, he saw three men waiting for him. He stopped his vehicle about twenty meters away from them and trudged the rest of the way on foot.
“That was quite a speech, Michael,” one of the men said. “My name is Joshua.”
“You heard that?”
“Oh yeah, over the intercom. I bet every one in the colony who tuned in would’ve heard it as well. That’s why you have to turn off your intercom.”
Michael reached for a button on the side of the mask where his ears are and turned it off. Now he had to scream in order for them to hear him and vice versa was true.
“You have information about the whereabouts of my son?” Michael yelled.
“Yes we do, but we have to make sure that you won’t reveal this information to anyone,” Joshua replied.
“I did what you asked of me so far, so you can trust me.”
“Maybe so, but I can’t take the risk.”
“So why did you bring me out here?” Michael was getting frustrated.
“To let you know that you have two choices. One, you can go back to the colony and live out the rest of your days teaching students, which is an honorable life. The second choice is to come to the Sovereignty State Moon Colony join us and find where your son is.”

Michael’s moon craft flew not a short distance over a small hill due to the low gravity of the moon, landed, and wobbled dangerously, before continuing on its way. Right at its wake another vehicle that bore the ‘Project Survival’ Logo followed. The ‘Project Survival’ moon craft was more advanced and more powerful than Michael’s and it was gaining on him.
Inside his craft Michael made sure that his suit was on securely. He looked nervous, glancing behind him to try and gage how far the chasing car was. It was too close for comfort. He swerved suddenly and changed direction. His car was slower, but at the same time smaller, which made it more maneuverable. The ‘Project Survival’ car had to slow down, and that gave Michael a much-needed break. He returned to his previous heading. Only another ten minutes and he would reach the Sovereignty State domes. He could already see them on the horizon. Once he’s there, those bastards wouldn’t be able to do anything to him.
His car shook violently as the chasing vehicle rammed it.
“Damn it,” Michael cursed.
He was going at the maximum speed and he already felt that he was losing control over the car. Driving in the low gravity environment of the moon was no easy task. He swerved again, and again the ‘Survival Project’ car slowed down.
Michael had the deep syncing feeling that he wouldn’t be able to make it. He hit the car’s computer keypad and dialed a number. A moment passed before his wife appeared on the screen.
He got rammed again.
“What’s going on?” Sarah asked worried.
“I’m in a bit of a pickle here. Listen I’ll transmit the data to you, just in case…”
“Just in case what?”
“Just in case they capture me. At least we would have gotten something out of this.”
“Promise me you’ll make it.”
Michael slid the first of the LDs into a slot under the screen and started the transmission.
“Receiving the data,” Sarah said.
His car shook.
“Michael,” the shaking alarmed Sarah.
“Hold on.”
Michael swerved violently and hit the breaks. The car came to a complete stop, and the other car shot by it. Michael accelerated again. He was now behind the chasing car.
“How do you like them apples,” Michael let out a laugh.
“Okay, I received all the data,” Sarah said.
Michael slipped the second disk in and started the transmission.
The ‘Project Survival’ car slowed down quickly, too quickly for Michael to slow down or avoid it. He rammed it so violently that his car bounced back.
“Michael,” Sarah yelled before the transmission was terminated.
Michael’s car stalled and he started it again. He drove past the other car, affording a quick glance towards it. What he saw made him jump. They were preparing their guns. Michael accelerated until he reached the maximum speed limit of the car. He put the picture of his son inside his helmet against the glass, and put on his helmet. Just as he did that a bullet hit his car. Instinctively, Michael swerved, but his speed was too great and the car momentarily rode on the two left wheels before flipping over, sliding for a few meters and then coming to a complete halt.
Michael lay there for a moment disoriented. Everything happened so fast and now he was left trying to think what to do next. One thing came to mind. Run. He reached for the eject lever and pulled it. The top of the car blew away and the pressure difference spat Michael out of the car. He got up and started to run. Behind him the pursuing car sped towards him. He looked around in panic. The terrain in this particular area was rugged with a lot of hills and a lot of sudden drops. Suddenly an idea came to him. He headed towards a hill with a sharp drop on the other side. With a sequence of strong jumps he was on top of the hill, the car hot on his tail. However, the driver of the car didn’t notice the sharp drop. Michael jumped aside avoiding the incoming aggressor and the car went over the hill and it too flipped on its side.
That evens the playing field a bit, Michael thought as he started running towards the domes of Sovereignty State Moon Colony.
He kept glancing behind him to see if he was being followed. For a short while he thought he had actually succeeded in losing them, but then he saw one of the security guards after him, with a gun in his hand. Michael increased his speed.
The ground beside his feet seemed to explode. It only took Michael a second to realize that the guard was shooting at him.
This is it, Michael thought. I never thought it’s gonna end this way. I wanted to see my son and my wife, but I guess it’s just not meant to be.
The ground underneath his left foot exploded as a bullet hit the ground.
Michael started running in a zigzag hoping to avoid the bullets. However, what he feared most happened. A bullet punctured his compression suit and cut through his leg, before coming out the other end. Michael was never shot before and the sudden pain was unbearable. He lost his balance and fell, reaching for the hole in his compression suit trying to plug it. But the air was leaking out into the vacuum of space at a frightening speed. He would run out of air in less than a minute.
Finally the guard approached him.
“Where are the disks?” The guard asked. He was also tired from running.
“In the car.”
“Who did you transmit the data to?”
Michael didn’t answer. He was having difficulty breathing.
“Tell me. I can save your life.”
But Michael wasn’t listening any more. His thoughts were of the after life, and where he would be spending eternity. After all he hadn’t prayed to God for such a long time. But with his dying breath, he did say one last prayer. He prayed for God’s mercy on his soul and he prayed for his wife Sarah and his son John. At the moment of his death, he had clarity of thought that he had never experienced before.

1 – Mission of Survival

December 4th, 2281

Joan Kuzak

Survival Ship was in orbit around the moon. Survival was not a sleek space ship by any measure of the word. It was not like what science fiction shows had illustrated in the past; quiet the opposite actually. It was massive and bulky. It was composed of five compartments that could be separated at a later time. The color of the ship wasn’t even constant. Each compartment was a slightly different range of gray. The bridge compartment was black. The midsection of the ship was cylindrical, and the biggest by far.
There were six engines in total, designed to propel the ship to speeds that exceed the speed of light; four rear engines and two front engines. The rear most compartment where the four engines sprung from, was the engineering compartment. Attached to that was the massive cylindrical midsection called the Belly Compartment. It contained the cargo holding area, the medical bays and the crew living area. The farm compartment, which was designed to grow different species of plants and animals followed, then the Transport Shuttle compartment and finally the bridge compartment was the front of the ship.
Survival was big enough to hold a crew of twenty thousand women and men, plus equipment, animals and plants. In short this space ship was the first of its kind. It was a colonization ship. It was Noah’s Arc.
Most of the crew was already onboard and going through their orientation checklist. They were already very familiar with Survival, since for the past three years they have been training onboard it. Prior to that they lived and trained for all of their lives on the surface of the moon, in the Survival Training Facility (STF). Only a few of the crew were still in the STF, but by eighteen hundred hours, everyone was expected to be onboard Survival.

Survival Training Facility – 17:00 hours

Joan Kuzak stood in her now empty room. Just yesterday it was decorated with flowers and two hundred year old nature pictures of Earth. There was a big fish bowl with exotic fish that were cloned in the STF laboratories, but they still looked great. Her bed covers were colorful and gave the room a vibrant feel. She had even painted the walls lime green. But now all this was gone. Even the painted walls have returned to their gray color. It was a surreal moment standing there. In fact at this moment she felt that she was in a dream. The events expiring around her didn’t register as real.
“I’m leaving this place forever,” she said to herself, reiterating a known truth. “Huh. I still can’t believe it’s happening.”
She knew it was going to happen all along, but deep down she denied it. She never gave this moment much thought. However, as she stood there staring at the empty room, denial had become pointless. She had to face the music.
Joan liked to analyze things. Although she was an engineer, she loved philosophy. Taking different perspectives and delving deep into topics was something she relished in. It was a field day for her when she got to argue philosophical points with her lecturers. These discussions went on for hours. Now, there was no deeper philosophical topic than leaving one’s home to save the human species, yet at this moment she had no philosophical thoughts. She drew a blank. She simply recalled the memories she had in the STF; her schooling, her training, her teachers.
“Let’s go. It’s time.”
Joan jumped startled. She turned around and found Catharine Mitch standing by the door, her backpack hoisted on her shoulders.
“Yeah, let’s go,” Joan gave one final look at the empty room, took a deep breath and walked out with Catharine.

They walked through a long hallway leading to the launch bay, where a space transport was waiting to take the last batch of the Survival crew up to their new home. Joan looked up and saw Survival through the glass ceiling. It orbited the moon silently, waiting to be driven into the unknown depths of space.
“Is everything okay?” Catharine asked. “You look a bit pale.”
Both women were beautiful, tall and in a perfect physical shape. Catharine had brown silky hair, and she looked part Asian and part Caucasian, while Joan was a redhead, with fair skin and blue eyes.
“I’m fine, I guess,” Joan replied softly.
Catharine simply nodded. They walked for a few more meters in silence. The Launch Bay was in sight now. As they drew closer, more and more of the crew joined them. Most of them were women, and the surprising thing was that not a single one of them was in less than a perfect physical shape. They were all tall. They were all beautiful and they were all very young. The average age was only twenty-one years.
The walls of the corridors pulsed with light in the direction of the Launch Bay, to guide the crew in the right direction, not that they needed it. Along the walls a few sentences would appear periodically, stay on for a while then fade away.
“You are Humanity’s Final Hope.”
“Survival is not enough.”
“Life beyond the solar system, it’s within reach.”
Joan read these words as they appeared, but soon she wasn’t paying attention anymore. The doors of the bay were right in front of them and the crew started filing in. Joan slowed down. Catharine looked back at her.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” Catharine asked.
“No. I’m not sure.”
Catharine walked back to her.
“You do know that we have no choice.”
“I know. It’s our destiny.”
Catharine and Joan locked stares for a second, before Joan looked away.
“Aren’t you just a little bit afraid?”
“Sure, I am. But we’ve trained for this all our lives.”
Joan nodded slowly.
“That we did.”
She took a deep breath.
“Let’s go meet our destiny face to face.”
They started walking again. Within fifteen minutes, everyone was onboard the transport. Joan took a window seat, and Catharine beside her. They put on their seatbelts, as the transport’s engines fired. They could feel the rough vibration, and Joan’s heart beat faster. The transport started rising up, slowly at first, but then it gained more speed, heading towards Survival. Joan stared at the STF building as it got smaller, soon she could see the domes of Sovereignty State Colony. For some reason, when her eyes glanced towards the Colony’s domes, she felt momentarily confused. She had never been in there before. There were strict rules against interacting with outsiders. All the people they knew and dealt with, were hand picked by the Planners. But for some reason, Joan felt that she was leaving some place she always wanted to be. This moment of confusion ended when the transport changed heading, as it prepared to dock with Survival. Bit by bit the moon went out of her field of vision. She felt a tear dropping on her cheek. She quickly wiped it away, making sure that no one saw that.
Now she could see Survival. It grew quickly as they drew closer, and soon she could only make out the docking hatch. Joan heard a banging sound and felt a slight vibration, as the docking tube latched onto the transport.
“Welcome to Survival,” a male voice said over the intercom.
The crew started getting up and filing onto Survival. Joan and Catharine got up as well. As they walked through the docking hatch tube, the artificial gravity disappeared, and they had to steady themselves on the rails, which were made for that purpose. They pushed themselves along, laughing as some lost their balance and bumped into each other.
Once Joan set foot onto Survival, gravity returned to earth-sea level. It was a disorienting feeling, going from no gravity to normal gravity. She had to steady herself for a second, then she moved on.
Joan and Catharine cleared the docking bay and were now in the Belly Compartment, walking through a long narrow metallic corridor, with rails on either side of them. The corridor was interrupted with a circular support bulkhead every twenty meters. They had to bow slightly in order not to bump their heads on the support bulkhead. The rest of the crew who came with them on the transport, started splitting up, going into different branched corridors, each one heading to their living quarters, until Joan and Catharine were the only ones walking through that particular corridor.
“Boy, it’s gray in here,” Catharine said absorbing her surroundings. Survival’s interiors were definitely lacking in color.
“Kinda depressing,” Joan said.
“We’ll get used to it.”
Joan just nodded.
They approached a thick metallic door. It was locked. Joan passed the back of her right hand on a small scanner, which detected the minute implant there. All the crew of Survival had them. The computers onboard could easily locate any of the crew and detect their vital signs through this implant. The door unlocked. Joan pushed it and it was heavy. They stepped through it and the view changed radically. They were now in an open space, walking on a narrow bridge, connecting two sections of Survival. There were twenty levels above them, and twenty below them. These were the crew quarters, and medical bays. To their right and to their left, above them and below them, were other bridges like this one, interwoven together. Stairs connected the different levels. If they hadn’t memorized the layout like the back of their hands, it would be very easy to get lost in this maze.
“God,” Joan said looking around wide-eyed. “I still can’t get over how big this place is.”
“Yeah, should be an interesting forty years,” Catharine smiled as she moved on.
Joan just stared after her for a minute. That’s how long it would take them to get to their destination. Forty years, just mind-boggling. Till now, she couldn’t wrap her head around this simple fact. It was true that through DNA therapy and advanced medical techniques, the expected lifespan of the crew was about one hundred fifty years, but still forty years. To her that was a life sentence. However, it was her destiny; her responsibility to carry on the human species, so she stopped thinking about it, and accepted it as fact.
Joan walked in a fast pace to catch up with Catharine.

Survival Colonization Space Ship

Patrick Taylor

Joan and Catharine walked past Medical Bay One.
Patrick Taylor followed them with his eyes from inside the Medical bay through the main glass doors, until they climbed up to another level and disappeared around a corner.
“They are hot,” he whistled. “Don’t you think?”
He was talking to David Moheshan. Both of them were only twenty years of age, and were in perfect physical condition. They fit in the mold of the Survival’s crew. David shrugged. He was busy setting up some equipment and wasn’t really paying much attention to Patrick. When Patrick didn’t get any response from David, he was a bit agitated. David did that often. Whenever he was busy with something he would ignore everyone around him. Patrick on the other hand wasn’t like that. He liked to watch everything happening around him, even if it distracted him a little bit, and what better thing to watch than a couple of fine specimens of the females of the species.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t notice these two,” Patrick tried to get David’s attention. “Ok, hold on, let me look them up, maybe we can find better photos in their profiles”
He took a couple of quick steps towards a conveniently located computer in the center of the Medical Bay. The Medical Bay was elegantly designed. All the equipment that a doctor or nurse would ever need were easily accessible. There were four patient beds lined in a row, located on the opposite side of the Medical Bay’s entrance. Above each bed was a screen, connected to sensors, which track the vital signs of the patient lying on the bed and display any relevant information on the screen. These sensors fed the vital data into the medical central computer for analysis, and since the central computer was networked to all other Medical Bay computers, this data can be shared easily with other doctors for feedback or help if the need arises. There was a fifth bed isolated from the rest of the beds by a glass incasing. Surrounded by complex equipment that hooked up to it, it was obvious that it was designed for a different purpose than the rest of the patient beds.
In the center of the room, was a computer station, which interfaced into the medical central computer, as well as into different segments of Survival’s main computer, including crew personnel profiles. Patrick accessed the crew personnel files. He had a special gift with computers. He could look at binary code and read it as easily as he reads English. Sometimes he joked that Binary was his first language and English was his second. Within a few seconds he had pulled up Joan’s file.
“Like I said she’s hot,” he said looking at the picture posted on her profile. He tapped a button and the picture took the whole screen. “David, look.”
“Can you please quit playing around and help me out with organizing this stuff.”
“In a minute,” Patrick said. It was his turn to annoy David a little bit. He returned to the notes on Joan, and quickly scanned them. “Oh.”
David looked up at Patrick surprised at the change in the tone of his voice.
“What’s the matter?” David asked.
“She’s my boss.”
David couldn’t help but let out a short laugh.
“And you didn’t know that she’s your boss till now?”
“Well, you know how the Planners are,” Patrick said as he exited Joan’s file and headed back to David. He climbed one of the patient beds and laid down. Immediately the screen above his head came to life displaying his vital signs. “As engineers we trained for all engineering levels. There are a hundred and seventy eight of us and we’re divided into several groups. I did some training with her, but we never really worked that closely together. I thought I was going to be a lead of one of the groups, but just two days ago I found out that I was going to be engineer level three. Level three, can you believe that? I know the systems onboard this hunk of metal like the back of my hand, and they put me as engineer three.”
“And you didn’t know that she was your boss till now?”
“Well, there was a meeting about that, but I kinda skipped it.”
“You skipped?”
“Yeah, it was the last week in the STF, I wasn’t gonna spend it stuck in meetings! What are you kidding?”
David shook his head. They stayed silent for a minute, before David looked up from his work.
“Does it bother you?”
“What?”
“That Joan is your boss?”
“Not really.”
“Oh, ok.”
“I don’t have a problem with women in superior positions,” Patrick said defensively.
“I sure hope not,” David smiled a sneaky smile. “Our Captain is a woman. Now will you help me with this stuff.”
Patrick got up reluctantly, “okay, okay.”
Patrick helped David put some medical equipment in their designated places.
“You know, I was the top of my class in all the engineering courses, and I scored the highest points in the Survival training practicum,” Patrick said. “So why should I be engineer three, and she be the lead engineer?”
“Are you sure you did as good as you say you did?”
“What’s that suppose to mean?”
“Nothing. Just asking.”
“Didn’t sound like nothing.”
“Nothing.”
“I don’t exaggerate, you know. When I say I was the top of the class, that’s exactly what I mean.”
“Don’t doubt it. Can you hand me this box over there?”
Patrick handed a silver box to David, who opened it and started placing the medicines inside it in their proper places, on a shelf.
“Either way,” David said. “You’ll have to get used to the fact that she’s your boss, cause that’s not going to change in the next long while.”
“Yeah, I know. Just forty years to go.”
“Don’t sound so down, I’m sure you’ll get along well with her.”
“I have a way with women, don’t I?” Patrick smiled.
David shook his head.
“Is that all you think about?”
“Well not all,” Patrick replied. “But someone as good lookin’ as Joan, deserves some of my precious attention, if you know what I mean!”
David threw his arms up.
“I don’t understand you. Just a minute ago, you were dissatisfied with your position and now you want to ask Joan out!”
“Like you said… go with the flow,” Patrick winked, spun around and threw David a small box. David caught it in a panic.
“Be careful. This is sensitive equipment.”

Norah Stone

Beep. Beep. Beep.
This periodic beeping sound echoed through out Survival’s bridge. It was octagonal shaped and consisted of two levels. The pilot’s station and navigational controls were on the lower level. Three steps up on the second level were the strategy table and numerous computer consoles to monitor and control the intricate and highly complex Survival electronic and mechanical systems. At any given point in time there would be fifteen individuals on the bridge operating the ship. Most notably an Engineer and a Medic had to be present at all times. The Engineer’s presence was obvious, but the Medic’s presence was in case of disaster, where immediate medical attention was needed. However, currently all stations were on automatic. The ship was functioning in standby mode, and the bridge was void except for one.
The only person on the bridge was Captain Norah Stone. She was twenty-five years old and that made her the oldest one amongst the crew. She had long black hair, which she tied back in a ponytail. Her eyes were blue and portrayed a determination uncommon for such a young person. Her skin took on a slight golden tan that made her look more like a beauty queen than a captain of a starship. Her build was muscular but feminine at the same time, and when she walked, she moved swiftly and silently. She dawned the official Survival uniform, a two-piece set, black in color with red stripes running down the sides.
At this moment she stood by a view portal off to the side of the bridge. She stared into deep space. Many couldn’t do that. The emptiness and unending view of the universe made some nauseous, and to tell the truth it scared her. Not the view, but the fact that she was about to lead a ship with a complement of eight thousand women and men out there. They knew their destination, but the best data they had about it had been from an unmanned probe that was launched five decades ago. However, she didn’t doubt for one second that the Planners had considered that and had taken care of every minute detail of this mission. All she had to do was live up to her role as Captain, and that was no easy task, she reckoned.
The number of individuals on this ship was going to increase to twenty thousand in the next forty years. She had to insure that the ‘Rebirth’ schedule was followed correctly. She had to deal with day-to-day issues. She had to make sure that the crew followed the Planners’ Rules and Regulations (or R&R for short). She had to oversee the usage of the resources so that they wouldn’t be depleted before they arrived at their destination, as that would be a disaster of unfathomed proportions. She had to oversee the maintenance of the ship; conduct the Colonization drills that would be carried out periodically, to keep the crew fresh as to what to do when they arrive; carry on governmental responsibilities like running the security force on Survival and be an acting judge in case of disputes, which were unlikely due to the highly trained nature of the crew, but with eight thousand crew onboard and increasing, something wrong was bound to happen. In short her job, was not just being a Captain, it was more like being a president of a whole society, and she was only twenty-five.
At this moment, as she stared the unknown in the face, she doubted herself, but then she quickly brought to her mind the training she had undergone. This mission was her life. She was separately trained and received special attention from the Planners themselves. She was ready to take on this role, no questions about that. And so she stopped thinking about that topic.
She turned on her heals in a military style and headed to the elevator.

David Moheshan

David listened to Patrick moan and complain about the unfairness of his position, then rant about how good he was with women and frankly he was getting sick of this attitude. What’s the matter with him anyway? He was surprised that after Patrick spent his whole life on the STF, he would still be so immature. But David realized something maybe Patrick wasn’t fully aware of. All of them were conditioned in a way to make them the perfect colonization officers. The human psyche, however, was a complicated thing, so it was expected that the conditioning on some occasions might not completely take effect for certain individuals, and Patrick was one of these individuals. He didn’t know it, but David did, and there was no way he was going to share this information. As a doctor on this ship he wasn’t only responsible for the well being of the crew, but of the future of this mission. And he was conditioned in such a way, that the mission had the highest priority over anything and anyone. That was his conditioning. He couldn’t go against it, and maybe this part, he didn’t fully realize yet.
Patrick was still going on about Joan. He just pulled up her personal profile. Patrick didn’t notice but David was watching him access the computer. It was impressive watching him work with computers, David had to admit. David had known Patrick for the past five years. It was odd how they ran into each other. It seemed almost planned out and maybe it was, but he wasn’t sure why the Planners would do such a thing.

They had a week off from the intense training. All the luxuries that one could imagine were available to them on the STF, so they need not leave the facility. David was planning a relaxing time. There was a man made lake inside the STF and it was absolutely huge. He planned to take a kayak out to the middle of this lake and just read. In the middle of the lake that far away from the beach, it was serene. There was nothing to disturb him. The only noise was that of the water gently brushing against the side of the kayak. He needed this relaxing time, but he wasn’t going to get it, not today.
David was about to hop into the kayak when an older lady, he recognized as one of the Messengers, came to tell him that he was needed in debriefing room three. The Messengers were the mouthpiece of the Planners. No one had ever seen the Planners except for maybe the captain, but no one was exactly sure how the captain trained in the first place. The Planners used the Messengers to deliver the rules and regulations and instructions to the crew. Unknown to David, he was about to have his first face-to-face meeting with the Planners, sort of.
David followed the Messenger to debriefing room three. Outside, the Messenger took out a mask.
“Please put this on,” the Messenger said.
“Why?”
“Planners orders.”
David took the mask and slipped it over his face. It covered his eyes, and he became completely blind. His heart beat faster. He didn’t like being blind folded, unable to discern events taking place around him, but he had no choice. The Messenger led him inside the room and he sat down on the single chair in the room. He waited anxiously. The minutes past like years. Finally he heard movements around him. He couldn’t control the sudden jerk that took over his body for only a moment.
“Don’t worry, David,” A voice said. The voice was neither that of a woman nor a man. To David’s ears it sounded like it was digitally modified.
“I’m not worried,” David managed to get out.
“Don’t lie, David. We know exactly how you feel.”
David didn’t want to respond lest his voice betray his fears.
“You’re thinking, why the blind fold?” The voice said. “It’s for your own protection. You are destined for greatness David, and we don’t want to compromise that. Do you understand?”
He nodded. David didn’t really understand. Why would seeing the Planners compromise his destiny? David didn’t understand a lot of things. He tried to think about them, but found that there were no answers.
“May I know why I’m here?”
“We wanted to meet you David. We wanted to tell you that you are an important part of the plan. We wanted to let you know that you are special, that we have a great purpose for you.”
David was confused, but somehow knowing that the Planners thought so highly of him, made him feel better.
“Thank you,” David said, and then paused for a few seconds. “What is this great purpose?”
“We can’t tell you that, David. You have to find it out on your own.”
“What if I don’t?”
“Trust us David. You will.”
David wasn’t entirely convinced, but he didn’t say anything.
“Do you trust us, David?”
He didn’t expect the question, and he stuttered while answering.
“Um… Yeah… Yes I do trust you.”
“Don’t lie, David.” The voice said soothingly. “We know that you don’t trust us completely. We know that you have your doubts.”
Suddenly David felt a warm touch on his cheek. It gave him an amount of pleasure that he didn’t experience before. His whole body relaxed and he was overcome with a feeling of complete surrender.
“We know that you have your doubts, and we asked you here to take these doubts away from you, David”

David awoke when someone nudged him gently. He opened his eyes slowly and saw the face of a handsome man looming over him. He was completely relaxed and didn’t feel like moving. He wanted to continue swimming in this ocean of peace he was in.
“Hey buddy,” the face said. “I’m hurt.”
David’s eyes focused on the person talking to him and he got up quickly. The guy was bleeding from a bad laceration to his left shoulder.
“You’re a doctor right?”
David jumped up to his feet then helped the injured man up. They were the only ones on the beach.
“Yes,” David said. “What happened to you?”
“I cut myself!” The guy responded and David could swear he saw a smirk on his face.
“Let’s get you to the medical bay,” David led the guy off.
They walked a few meters, before the guy stumbled and almost fell, if it weren’t for David who supported him.
“Stay with me here, buddy,” David said. “What’s your name?”
“Patrick,” Patrick said weakly.
“Ok, Patrick. We’re almost there.”
They stepped through a door and into a long corridor. They walked for another minute before turning into the medical bay. David helped Patrick on one of the patient beds and started treating him.

It was about three hours later. Patrick was sleeping and David checked his wound and found that it was healing quite well. With modern medicine, he could make this wound disappear in under a day. David was pleased with his handy work. It was his first real case he had to deal with, without being under supervision, and he performed well.
Wait a second, he thought. Was this a test?
He went to a computer station and started accessing the crew complement for a guy called Patrick. He had to navigate around a whole bunch of menus and databases to get to the crew profiles. For whatever reason, this part of the system wasn’t as user friendly as he would have liked.
“Are you trying to look me up?”
David spun around startled. Patrick was sitting on his bed, checking out his wound.
“Boy, you did a good job,” Patrick said. “The pain is gone, and the wound is almost healed.”
“I was trying to look you up,” David said.
“Okay. Want some help?”
“No, I think I can do that on my own.”
“Okay,” Patrick shrugged, and laid back down on the bed. “Let me know if you do need help.”
David returned his attention to the computer. Finally he was able to get into the crew profiles database. He typed ‘Patrick’ in the search field. A moment later Patrick’s profile accompanied with a picture of him appeared on the screen.
So he is part of the crew, David thought.
David turned to Patrick.
“How did you get wounded?”
“I fell on a rock or something.”
“There are no rocks in the STF.”
“Really? I do remember a whole mountain along side the lake.”
“Must have been a really sharp rock then.”
“I guess,” Patrick didn’t sound so sure.
David pulled up some pictures and sensor readings of Patrick’s wound, that he had taken before he treated him.
“There were traces of rust in the wound.”
Patrick got up interested, and peered over David’s shoulders at the pictures and sensor readings.
“That’s weird,” Patrick said. “How did that get in there?”
“I don’t know. I was hoping you could tell me.”
Patrick didn’t answer.
“Are you hiding something?”
“Me? No. Why would you say something like that?”
“Then why wouldn’t you tell me how you got that wound?”
“I did tell you. I fell on a rock. I was doing some climbing and I slipped. Next thing I know I’m asking you for help,” Patrick looked confused. “It was strange, I didn’t know how I got to you. But I knew you were a doctor, cause I saw you around the facility several times. So I thought you could help.”
“And you don’t remember how you got to me?”
Patrick appeared distant, trying to remember exactly what happened.
“Well, I guess, I walked. How else would I have gotten to you?”
David was finding this conversation mysterious to say the least, and he planed to file a detailed report on the whole incident as soon as he got Patrick’s wound completely healed.

“You know what the ratio of men to women on Survival?” Patrick asked as he packed up the empty boxes and put them into the disposal system. He pressed a button and the boxes were sucked up. Everything on Survival was recycled, even human waste.
“I’m a doctor. I’m familiar with the basic details of the mission,” David replied. But he knew in an instant that he hadn’t heard the last of it.
“One to three,” Patrick continued.
David was right.
“One man to three women. Now that’s what I call paradise. Imagine the possibilities. I think these forty years will pass by too quickly.”
“You do know that there is a strict ‘Rebirth’ schedule that we have to follow. This specific schedule has very strict parameters. Like who you’re going to be mating with. So it’s not up to your whim.”
“Details, details,” Patrick smiled.
“I suggest you go reread the Planners R&R, just to refresh your memories.”
David had long ago memorized the R&R. He could regurgitate them if he felt like it, and sometimes he subconsciously did so. The R&R was the bible of this mission. Every single rule had to be followed without question or modification, and from what he knew of the captain, she was going to make sure that happened.
“You know what they say!” Patrick said.
“What’s that?”
“The R&R is made to be broken.”
David looked up at Patrick.
What the hell is he saying? David thought. Is he crazy? How could he say something like this? If what he said is reported to the captain, or worse to the Planners, I don’t want to know what will happen to him. Idiot.
“Shut up,” David hissed.
“I’m joking, man,” Patrick held up his hand. “You gotta chillax. You’re too uptight.”
“You can not talk like this!”
“I just did.”
“You know what, let’s change subject.”
Patrick gave David a long look. David was annoyed at how he was being stared down.
What’s his problem? I don’t want to be part of any trouble that he might cause. Doesn’t he understand this simple concept?
“This mission is extremely important and you can’t screw it up.”
“You know what? You’re right. Let’s change the subject,” Patrick said in a low voice, obviously trying to control his temper.
David looked around. Everything was almost done. There was one more task he had to finish. He had to run system tests on all the patient beds, to make sure that they are in perfect condition. Come to think of it, this is why Patrick was hanging around, since he was the engineer assigned to take care of the maintenance of all medical bay equipment in this wing of Survival. If any tests didn’t run correctly, Patrick was suppose to examine the equipment and fix or replace them before they departed.
However, David knew very well that Patrick liked to goof around too much. He was constantly trying to inject humor in all situations and was always a cause of distraction to the people around him who tried to work. Honestly, David was a bit jealous, because that was one of Patrick’s charms. He was always able to capture people’s attention, and entertain them, while getting the job done. On the other hand, David was completely the opposite. He took his work too seriously and when he concentrated on some task, no one could break his attention. That made him a bit dull. Maybe that was one of the reasons he spent a lot of his free time on the STF alone reading some medical books, while Patrick spent his free time in social gatherings with mostly girls. It annoyed David that he couldn’t be like that, but he tried not to think about it.
“I guess let’s run the diagnostics on the patient beds,” David said. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“Yes, you’re right. That’s why I’m here. So let’s get to it.”

Catharine Mitch

The room was dark. She liked it dark. This way she could think without being disrupted by images her eyes transmitted to her brain. Catharine couldn’t understand why Joan looked so unnerved, but for some reason seeing Joan unnerved made her so as well. They grew up together, trained together, and lived together, but it had been a rocky relationship at best. Catharine didn’t like to question her surroundings. She had a job, and she did her job, and she did it to perfection. Joan on the other hand had this notorious habit of always questioning orders, and that was the source of a lot of problems between them. She just couldn’t leave things be.
Catharine was on her bed, staring into the darkness. Her room was like the rest of the rooms in Survival. It wasn’t very big; big enough for a bed, a desk and a small living area where there was a couch. There was nothing breakable in the room. All appliances and furniture were secured to the floor, nothing could be moved, so the idea of redecorating was out of the question.
Catharine didn’t think of the consequences of their departure until she met up with Joan on the way up here, now she felt unsure about the future. She got up and went to a single view port covered with a curtain. She moved the curtain to the side and stared. The moon filled her view and if she concentrated really hard, she could see the STF building far below. What did this building really mean to her? Again she wasn’t really the philosophical type. Who cared really? Why did the past matter so much to Joan? No one could change what happened in the past, so why dwell on it? That was Catharine’s philosophy, if you could call it that. She didn’t. Let bygones be bygones.
She walked in the dark avoiding the furniture obstructing her way. Photographic memory was her gift. She needed to only look at the thing once and she would always remember it. That was ironic, when she came to think of it. Here was Catharine, with her photographic memory, who could remember the distant past like it was yesterday, and yet she didn’t care about it. Catharine smiled at the thought, and tapped the light switch, turning on the light to half intensity.
Enough pondering on Joan, Catharine thought. I keep telling myself, I won’t let her get to me, but yet I let her. I should really learn how to ignore her. She’s not worth it. It’s enough that I have to take orders from her for the remainder of this mission.
Catharine went to her desktop computer and accessed her task list. All the crew task lists were updated regularly with tasks that had to be accomplished during the week. The officers would have to then write a full status report to their superiors at the end of the week stating the work that has been done and what’s left. Then for the following week, their superiors would update their task lists with new jobs accordingly. The item at the top of her task list was assigned to her by Captain Norah Stone herself. She was scheduled to start it before the send off ceremony, and guess what? She was working on it with Joan.
“Great,” Catharine said.
She really needed to get out of this zone of thought, and she knew exactly how to do it. She would go for a run. Catharine took off her uniform, revealing a nicely toned, athletic body. She put on a pair of shorts and a sleeveless shirt that had a picture of Survival on it. She went to a full-length mirror on the far left wall of the room to checkout how she looked. She liked what she saw. She was tall, in top-notch shape and she was definitely better looking than Joan. Many guys would attest to that.
Catharine exited her quarters and started off with a slow jog. As she passed a few of the crew she waved at them hastily. Soon she picked up the pace, almost to a full sprint now. She decided to run to the bridge and back, which should be a good way to get her mind off of things. Running was meditation for her. It completely emptied her mind of all thoughts and concerns.
Catharine ran through the spider web of bridges and up the stairs to another level then to another until she reached the top level. Ten minutes of intense running and climbing stairs had past, yet it didn’t look like she was the slightest bit tired. Finally she approached a circular door labeled “The Farm”. She passed her right hand by the sensor and the door unlocked. She opened it, stepped through it and closed it behind her. She was now in “The Farm”, where several species of plants and livestock were grown. It was immensely big, subdivided by thick transparent material into many sections. Access doors were available to go from one section to another. The division was important, because in each section the temperature was kept at a different level to replicate the indigenous environment of the plants being grown in that particular section.
At this moment Catharine was in a pretty warm and humid environment. It felt like it was about to rain. She could taste the moisture in the air. Ignoring the less than ideal weather, she continued running, sweat dripping over and into her eyes, causing her eyes to burn. Her shirt was now soaked, but she was feeling pretty good right about now. After fifteen minutes, she reached the other end and exited “The Farm” through a similar circular door. The temperature returned to normal. She approached another set of stairs. These stairs and an elevator were the only two ways to reach the bridge. Catharine decided to go up to the bridge and take a look at it. She knew it would be empty and that would be a good chance for her to check the captain’s chair out. She ran up the steps, a smile on her face.
The bridge was indeed empty. All stations were still on standby. Catharine walked around looking at the different stations. She was familiar with how to operate each one of them. That was a part of her training. Finally her curiosity got the best of her and she went to the captain’s chair.
Should I give it a try? She thought, then looked around to make sure no one was there. What the hell?
She sat down. To her disappointment it was a normal chair. It wasn’t even that comfortable. She thought there might be some gadgets attached to it, a nifty looking computer, something, but no, just a chair. She sighed.
“Hi Captain.”
Catharine jumped off the chair startled, and looked back. It was Joan.
“Oh, it’s you,” Catharine said.
“Don’t sound so disappointed,” Joan smiled. She was also wearing shorts and a T-shirt, and looked like she had been doing some running of her own.
“You look more relaxed than a few hours ago.”
Joan walked and leaned on one of the station chairs.
“You’d be amazed what a good nap would do.”
“Were you running too? Do you have to do everything that I do?”
“Well you’re my hero, Catharine,” Joan said sarcastically.
“Whatever,” Catharine paused, thinking something over. “You want to race back?”
“May the best runner win,” Joan smiled.
Catharine felt intimidated. Joan could be smug sometimes.
“On the count of three,” Catharine said. “Three.”
Catharine bolted, followed by Joan. They both flew down the stairs and ran through the shuttle area. They crossed a bridge, which passed over the shuttle bay, where many shuttles designed for transportation when they arrived at their destination, lay dormant. Joan was behind Catharine with a few steps. Every time she would try to pass, Catharine would block her way.
You’re not going to win this one, Catharine thought. You might have been chosen by the Planners to be the head of our Engineering team, but you won’t beat me.
They approached “The Farm”, and through the door they went, not even bothering to close it behind them. The competition was intense, Catharine leading by only a few steps, and Joan constantly trying to pass her. Joan gathered all her strength and stepped up her speed. Catharine could sense Joan closing in and she tried to move to block her, but she miscalculated. Joan wasn’t able to react fast enough and she tripped over Catharine’s feet. She tumbled forward instinctively reaching for anything to hold on to, and the only one within reach was Catharine. They both went down hard.

Patrick Taylor

Both Patrick and David worked in silence. What was David’s problem anyway? Since the day Patrick met him, David had been stuck up; always by the book; never took chances, and that drove Patrick nuts. How could someone play it so safe all the time? However, despite these feelings Patrick trusted David. He didn’t know why? Maybe because David stuck by him during some of the toughest patches of his life, and he appreciated that, more than he’d cared to admit.
Patrick had a problem with admitting many things. His pride wouldn’t allow it, so he found other ways of expressing his feelings of appreciation. He stuck around even when he was pissed off, like now. That, and he had a job to finish. It was going smoothly. Three of the patient beds had passed the diagnostic tests with flying colors and he was working on the final one.
Patrick was already planning what he would do next. First go take a shower and freshen up, then go to the recreation area. A few of his girl friends would most definitely be there. Let’s see if he could convince one of them to drop by his cabin. That was what he liked most about Survival, plenty of women and no moral obligations to stick by any one of them. It was a mutual understanding everyone had. This was the life. Actually come to think of it, this was the way they were brought up. There were no real families, at least not in the traditional sense of the family. There was no mom, no dad and no children. The Planners always emphasized the idea of one big family, the human family, and that’s how the next forty years and the New World would be. No families, no ties, no religion, no jealousy, no countries, nothing to fight over. The only thing emphasized by the Planners is personal respect. No one could take another or make them do anything against their will. These ideals were instilled in Patrick’s mind and in the minds of all the crew since he could remember, and he never questioned them.
Patrick’s handheld computer beeped as the diagnostic test came to an end.
“Alright, that’s it, Doctor,” Patrick said. “Everything is in working order.”
“Good, thanks.”
“I’m here to serve.”
There was a period of silence as David looked like he was thinking something over.
“Can I help with something else?” Patrick was being formal and cold. Although he didn’t enjoy being so, he found David’s attitude to be annoying and that was his reaction to it. Every action had an equal and opposite reaction. This was true in physics and just as true in human relationships.
“Listen,” David started but before he could finish the doors to the medical bay opened and Joan and Catharine entered. They looked beat up. Joan had her arm around Catharine’s shoulders supporting her weight so as not to put any pressure on her right foot. Cuts and bruises covered both of the ladies, on their knees, arms and heads.
The first thing that popped into Patrick’s head when he saw Joan was that she still looked striking even though she was injured. Once that thought flashed through his mind he automatically felt guilty. He just stood there and stared. David’s training on the other hand kicked in. He ran to them and took over supporting Joan.
“Patrick, some help here,” David said.
The calling for assistance, nudged Patrick into action as well. He moved hurriedly to David.
“Take her and help her on Patient Bed two,” David said pointing at Catharine.
Patrick assisted Catharine to the indicated bed. Once she sat down on the bed the computer screens came to life and the diagnostic sensors scanned Catharine. Within seconds a full diagnostic report was available. In the mean time David did the same for Joan.
“What happened,” Patrick asked, as he stood by Catharine not knowing what to do next.
Catharine and Joan looked at each other. Patrick thought that some unspoken, hidden messages were just communicated between both of the ladies.
“We just had a little running accident,” Joan said, putting a lot of effort into hiding the pain she felt.
“You have a strained ankle,” David said. “You’re lucky it’s not broken.”
“Are you alright?” Patrick walked to Joan’s side.
Joan looked up at Patrick.
“Oh, hey Patrick,” Joan tried to smile. “I’m fine.”
“You know my name?” Patrick sounded like a kid with a crush on a girl who just paid him the attention that he was longing for.
“Yeah, I know everyone who works with me. I was hoping to get to meet you in last week’s meeting, before we started formally working together.”
David walked to Catharine and examined the medical report the computer had displayed.
“You’re lucky,” David told Catharine. “Just a few cuts and bruises. I’ll take care of your friend there, and I’ll be right with you.”
“Take your time,” Catharine said.
David walked to the computer and reviewed the scans and reports in order to determine the best course of action.
“Do you want help taking off your shoes?” Patrick asked Joan who looked uncomfortable from the pain. He didn’t even wait for her answer. He just started helping her.
Joan leaned back on the bed and lifted up her foot with some difficultly.
“Thanks,” Joan said. “Appreciate it.”
Patrick helped Joan out of her shoes, but as he did so she moaned softly.
“Sorry,” Patrick said embarrassed.
“Last time I checked I was the doctor,” David said.
Patrick felt the blood rush to his face, as he suddenly realized that everyone’s eyes were trained on him. He stepped aside.
“Sorry,” he said again, then he met Joan’s gaze. He was taken into the depth of her eyes. Patrick felt that he could hear her voice in his head. He felt her telling him that she still appreciated his willingness to help and that he shouldn’t feel embarrassed, all that without saying a word.
“Okay, I’m going to ask you to lay back,” David said and Joan complied.
David took off Joan’s socks and started examining her foot, asking her if it hurt if he moved her foot a certain way, or squeezed in a certain area. Joan didn’t really have to answer, because when it hurt her, she couldn’t help it but let out a short “Ouch” or a pained moan.
David walked to one of the medicine cabinets, took out a syringe and filled it with some murky looking fluid.
“This is going to sting a little bit, but it should make your ankle as good as new within an hour,” David said.
“Define hurt a little,” Joan said nervously.
“You know I don’t like needles either,” Patrick said, moving to Joan’s side. “The best thing I find is to transfer the pain to someone else.”
Patrick held her hand.
“I volunteer to be the victim,” Patrick smiled. “You can squeeze my hand, until I’m blue in the face.”
Joan just smiled back, taking Patrick up on his offer.
“Are you ready?”
Joan nodded. David stuck the short needle in the side of her ankle and injected the fluid in. It hurt more than a little, and she squeezed Patrick’s hand, letting out a muffled yelp.
“Okay, done,” David said. “You should start feeling better soon.”
David walked to Catharine to attend to her.
“Can I help with something?” Patrick asked.
“Yes,” David said. “You can treat Joan’s cuts and scrapes. You know how to do that, right?
“Yeah,” Patrick said, eager to start. “I think I can recall my first aid training.”
Patrick thought that he saw from the corner of his eyes David smile sarcastically, but he ignored him, and took out some medical dressing and cleaning agents and started cleansing Joan’s scrapes.
“I hope you don’t consider a career change,” Joan teased.
“Oh, don’t worry, boss,” Patrick replied. “This is strictly a side business, to meet beautiful girls.”
“Okay,” Joan winced, as Patrick cleaned a cut on her elbow. “So you cause the accidents and then treat them.”
“No. More like hang around and wait for fait to send them to me.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Which part?”
“That you wait around.”
“Why?”
“Well, you see I took the opportunity to read your profile, and you don’t wait around for anything?”
“Eager beaver, eh?”
Joan smiled, “So you believe in fate?”
“Sorry?”
Joan looked at him and again he was drawn into her eyes. They had a quality that he had never noticed before.
“Fate,” Patrick said. “Maybe I believe in destiny more.”
“How so?”
“My mere presence on this ship proves that destiny does exist.”
“That we’re a part of a grand plan, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“The Planners plan.”
“I guess so,” Patrick finished up cleaning Joan’s scrapes and covering them with white jell. “All done.”
Joan got up to a seated position and leaned close to Patrick. He felt the warmth of her face close to his, sending a slight, hardly noticeable tingle through his body. She was so beautiful.
“Tell you a secret, but don’t tell anyone,” Joan whispered.
“Sure.”
“I think our destiny goes beyond the Planners.”
“You mean like, it’s divinely inspired?”
Joan shrugged.
“You’re not serious?”
Joan locked stares with Patrick for a moment, then smiled. She got off the bed and tested her foot gently to see if it’s any better.
“Wow, Doctor. You work miracles,” she said to David.
David looked up from treating Catharine who’s lying on the bed.
“Don’t put too much pressure on it. Give it an hour or so,” David said.
“I’ll walk you to your room,” Patrick offered. “If you don’t mind of course.”
“Not at all.”
Joan put an arm around Patrick’s shoulders and they walked together out of the medical bay. David looked after them as they left.

Norah Stone

Captain Stone sat at her desk in her room. The captain’s room was slightly bigger than the average one, but not by much. The basic design was the same. Stone was waiting for a communiqué from the surface. There were a mixture of emotions stirring inside of her, apprehension, anticipation, and more she couldn’t identify at the moment. She wasn’t looking forward to this communiqué. It was already bringing back many unwanted memories that she had been trying hard for a long time to forget without much success. This would be the last time she has to endure one of these lectures, for after today they would completely be on their own. All on their own. She had given this point a lot of thought, and till now every time it crossed her mind she would get a sinking feeling in her stomach.
Her computer beeped cutting her train of thought short. She reached to answer the call, hesitated for a second then hit the answer button. The computer screen came to life showing the silhouette of a person, and the memories came flooding back. Norah had a hard time keeping her eyes from swelling up with tears. Only through the sheer power of her will was she able to push back the tears. She was glad that her room was dark and probably she appeared as a silhouette to the caller as well. This way they couldn’t see the emotions playing on her face. The last thing she wanted was to show any sign of weakness.
There was a long period of silence. Stone didn’t say anything and neither did the caller. She was getting confused, not sure whether to say something or to continue this unnatural silence. She opted for the safe course of action; just wait and see what happens. Although Norah succeeded in remaining still and keeping a stony face, she was actually feeling quite nervous, like a child waiting for her punishment. There were periods in her training that involved very tough psychological games. She understood now that they were intended to strengthen her mentally and prepare her to face unexpected situations, but nonetheless they did leave an impression, that she new wouldn’t have been desirable to the Planners, and she made sure never to let these side effects known to anyone. She kept her insecurities bottled inside, and learned how to control them. Maybe that was the Planners objective all along. She simply didn’t know.
“Norah Stone,” the silhouette said, breaking the silence. Norah contained her anxiety. “Captain Norah Stone. The time has come.”
Norah’s mind blanked out.

Two hours to launch

Joan Kuzak

Joan and Catharine crawled through the internal arteries of Survival; claustrophobically narrow access tubes that could hardly fit one person crawling through it at a time. These tubes were mainly used to get access to hardware components, wiring and the sort. The rounded walls of the tubes were smooth to the touch, interrupted every twenty meter interval with light bulbs, which were motion sensitive. They would turn on as both ladies entered their field of motion, remain on for a few minutes, and once the source of the motion exited the sensor range, the lights would go off again. This design resulted in the tube being lit only for a few meters ahead of Joan and Catharine, then disappearing into utter darkness, until they enter the field of motion of the next light bulb. If Joan didn’t know any better she would have thought that the tubes stretched to infinity. It was quite an eerie atmosphere.
“One thing we’ve got to change is how the lights work,” Joan muttered under her breath.
“I hear ya,” Catharine said. “But we’re almost there. Twenty meters till Access Junction two-four-three.”
Joan nodded.
“Feeling better now?” Catharine asked.
“My ankle still hurts a little, but much better.”
“You know all this wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t try to pass me.”
Joan chuckled, “It was a race. That was the whole point.”
“Oh well, live and learn.”
Joan stopped in her tracks.
“Is there a problem?” Catharine asked trying to sneak a peak beyond Joan to see why she stopped.
“Well, sometimes it seems that you have a problem with me,” Joan said.
“A problem with you? Why would you say that?”
“I don’t know.”
“No offence Joan, but you’re not that important.”
“Oh, well thanks.”
She enjoys this, doesn’t she? Joan thought. Sometimes she just loves to put me down. I guess I should expect a little resentment after making it as the team lead. Wait, that can’t be it! She’s been like this from way before any ranks were assigned. I don’t get it. I just don’t need this right now.
“You gonna move?” Catharine asked. “We need to get this done before the sendoff ceremony.”
Joan bit her lip, suppressing her annoyance and started on her way once more. She was going to lead twenty engineers, so she had to expect many difficulties dealing with the different types of personalities. These difficulties were already surfacing in the form of Catharine. Patrick on the other hand was another story, presenting a different type of challenge for her. He was an exceptionally gifted engineer, but at the same time he was easily distracted, and the part that fascinated her most, was she sensed that she would be the object of his distraction. It made her feel good, that he’d be interested in her. Of course she wasn’t that vein that she would let such trivialities lead her life. She believed that everything had a time. Work had a time and flirting had a time, and if both interfered then she would be forced to deal with the situation quite sternly. She was the boss after all, and she had to step up to the responsibility.
The tube curved in one direction then another, and then opened into a small room; access junction two-four-three. There were about three computer access consoles and numerous circuitry drawers. All drawers were numbered for convenience sake. Essentially this junction was the guts of Survival’s internal sensors. The sensors could be controlled through software from any computer terminal as long as one acquired high enough security permissions. However, software functionality was limited by the hardware, and Joan and Catharine’s job required them to change the hardware configuration and install new firmware on some circuit boards.
“Alright, let’s get to work,” Catharine said as she reviewed her handheld computer for the steps they had planned.
Joan unlocked three of the circuitry access hatches and took out some fiberglass circuitry boards, which she started to scan with some tools she had with her. While Joan busied herself with her part of the job, Catharine went to one of the computer consoles, hooked up her handheld computer to it and started to download the new firmware into the memory banks.

David Moheshan

Meeting District twelve was at the moment over crowded. Close to two hundred of the Survival crew were congregated there awaiting the President of the New World ‘s(PNW for short) sendoff speech. The holographic image of the PNW would be transmitted live to this Meeting District, as well as the rest of the Meeting Districts where the rest of the crew were assembled. The crew was expecting an inspirational speech, which represented the last contact they would have with their home.
David walked into the Meeting District, instantly feeling a little claustrophobic. He knew many of the crew there and nodded in acknowledgment to some of them as he took his place. They all lined up in an orderly fashion facing the front where the holographic generators would transmit the PNW’s image.
He hated crowded places. David steadied his breathing and tried to escape with his mind to anywhere outside this room, even to outer space. So many people made him feel uncomfortable, and that’s one of the main reasons he didn’t like parties. He didn’t know how to act or what to say or how to approach people. Small talk was not his forte. Getting directly to the point and keeping chatter to a minimum was much more appealing. This way there was no confusion about his intentions and no time wasted in idle talk. However, his shortness caused his social life to, well, to go down the drain. Patrick tried to tell him that, and tried to get him to tag along with him as he flirted with girls and mingled with the crew, but David was just too much of a hard ass to go along with such a plan.
“Hey, did I miss anything?” Patrick squeezed in a space between David and another crewmember.
Speaking of the Devil.
“No,” David said then looked straight ahead.
“Will you look at that,” Patrick tiptoed. “Isn’t this Captain Norah Stone?”
David followed Patrick’s gaze and saw the Captain.
“Aren’t we lucky,” Patrick said with a hint of sarcasm. “Out of all the other Districts she chose to be in ours.”
“What’s your problem?” David raised his eyebrows.
Patrick didn’t reply.

Patrick Taylor

David must have said something, because Patrick heard some noise, which was carried through David’s voice, but he didn’t pay attention. His mind had already wondered somewhere else entirely; about three years ago in fact.

Patrick had just finished one full week of military training. During these seven days he had ten hours of sleep, uncomfortable sleep at that. He was bruised, tired and in a very bad mood. The only thing he was looking forward to was two days of sleep followed by two days of partying. What would happen next, was not expected nor wanted.
The compound was dead silent as Patrick headed back to his room. Everyone was already sleeping after a hard day of work. The draw fell on Patrick and a few others to clean up the gymnasium after their martial arts session, which happened to be the last session of the day. The others finished earlier, and Patrick was left behind, but now he was done and looking forward to get back to his room.
“Patrick.”
He turned around and saw Captain Norah Stone standing there. He didn’t understand how he couldn’t have noticed her before.
“Hi Captain. Can I help you with something?” He didn’t put any effort into sounding friendly. He was anxious to get out of here and it showed in his voice.
“I was observing the last training session, and I didn’t like what I saw,” Stone said coldly.
“Sorry?” He was flat out annoyed now. “Which part didn’t you like exactly?”
“Your technique was sloppy and your movement was heavy.”
“Really. That’s too bad.”
“I think we should go back and go through some of these sparring sessions again.”
“What?” Patrick said astonished. “In case you haven’t noticed, I haven’t slept in the past seven days, and I have no energy to do anything.”
“That’s an order.”
Patrick stood there staring squarely at Stone. He couldn’t read her. She just stood there staring back at him. Patrick had the urge to just turn and leave, but a confrontation with the captain was the last thing he wanted right now. He thought to himself that he should just do what she wanted and get it over with.
“Fine,” he said and headed back towards the gymnasium, Stone after him.
They entered the gym and Patrick turned on the lights then stood right in the middle of the gym. All the walls of the gym were mirrors to help the people working out to perfect their form.
“Speed can come later,” his coach had always told him. “The most important thing is to concentrate on your form.”
Patrick was still in his workout clothes. Stone came and stood in front of him, and took a karate-fighting pose.
“Show me what you got,” Stone said.
Patrick took a similar pose, assessed his opponent and attacked. He moved swiftly and lightly. He didn’t know why Stone said his motion was heavy. What a load of crap. Stone, however, was easily twice as fast as Patrick. She avoided his attack, kicked him in the guts and followed it by another kick to his legs, tripping him. He fell on his face, disoriented.
“Bitch,” he said under his breath. Why was she being so aggressive?
Patrick jumped to his feet, angrily. He had enough of this.
“Are you angry?” She asked.
Patrick didn’t reply. He moved kicking and punching, applying everything he learnt. In the next few minutes, he learnt one new thing, that he under estimated Norah Stone. She was an excellent fighter. Patrick was able to get in a couple of punches and kicks here and there, but she demonstrated skill beyond his. He ended up on his face again, but this time with a bleeding nose.
He got up wiping his nose.
“What’s your problem?” He asked. “We’re going on a Colonization mission, not an invasion.”
“But that’s your whole problem,” Stone replied calmly. “You’re fine with just getting by. You don’t want to achieve your best, and this attitude will be detrimental to this mission.”
“So that’s it? You did this to teach me a lesson?”
“Defend yourself,” Stone said and attacked.
Her attack was only one degree less than lethal. Patrick hardly had the time to retaliate. Before he knew it, he was on his back with an incredible migraine, and blurry vision.
“I hope you did learn your lesson,” Stone said then left.

“What’s your problem with her?” David asked.
Patrick looked at him blankly at first, then his mind processed the question with a noticeable delay.
“We just had a little skirmish a while back.”
“A skirmish?” David looked at Patrick in disbelief. “Is this a gift?”
“What is?”
“Being able to get on people’s bad side.”
Patrick didn’t reply, or possibly he didn’t have the time to reply. Captain Norah Stone stepped up facing the crew.
“The transmission will begin in ten seconds,” Stone said. “Order.”
The room fell in absolute silence. Stone took a few seconds looking at the faces of her crew then in turn took her position.

Catharine Mitch

Access junction two-four-three was now littered with circuit boards and wires connecting the computer consoles to the circuitry of the internal sensors. One of the screens was flickering. A picture of one of Survival’s many corridors would appear for a few seconds then phase out in a cloud of static.
“There is something wrong with the firmware,” Joan said as she moved in the tight confines of the room. Both ladies were sweating as it has become exceedingly warm after close to an hour of working.
“The firmware is fine,” Catharine said defensively. “Maybe it’s your hardware rewiring. Look at this mess.”
Why does she automatically assume that my firmware is the problem? Catharine thought.
Joan knelt by the computer console and pulled up the written program and started reviewing it. She didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Catharine stood behind her, looking over her shoulder. She desperately wanted the firmware to be flawless. She hated having Joan find problems with her work. Catharine needed to prove that she was better, especially better than Joan.
“You know,” Joan finally said calmly. “You’re more than welcome to review my hardware reconfiguration. Maybe I did something wrong.”
“Are you guilt tripping me?”
Joan let her head hang in a defeated gesture.
“I give up,” Joan said. “What do you want me to say?”
Catharine was angry. More angry at herself than at Joan. She was angry that she let her emotions out. She was angry at the truth of her constant competition with Joan. Why her? Why did she feel that she needed to always be better than Joan?
“Forget it,” Catharine said in a controlled voice. “You go ahead with your review. I’ll check out the sensor configurations.”
Catharine moved off to the new configuration and hooked up her handheld computer to an outlet in one of the circuit boards and proceeded with some tests.

Joan Kuzak

Once Joan observed the behavior of the sensors, she instantly knew the source of the problem. It had to be a firmware issue. She saw the whole logic of the program in her head. There were numerous sensors around Survival and all the data they picked up was being routed through this program in the form of binary data streams. Each data stream carried a unique identifier of the sensor it was generated from. This way the program could localize the data streams, but the complexity lay in what the program had to do with this data. Many types of sensors could possibly monitor one area of Survival: visual sensors, heat sensitive sensors, motion detectors, infrared sensors and many more. The data stream produced by each sensor would end up being sent to the firmware running on the main sensor control computer. The firmware would then have to create the big picture from all this data and render it into a real-time three-dimensional graphical representation of the monitored area. Safe to say that this was no easy programming task, and there could be many hidden bugs that would be revealed in the form erroneous behavior, or even system crashes. Joan knew that they would have to keep an eye on the software for the next while until they were sure that they had all the problems fixed. This was simply the nature of software. She understood the nature of software, but sometimes had problems understanding the nature of humans. Catharine’s reaction was one example.
Joan didn’t want to provoke Catharine, as she opted for a peaceful resolution to all issues and above all she detested stressful confrontations. She was just no good at arguing and fighting and that’s why she just fixed the bug silently without even telling her that she had already found it. She let her continue her review of the hardware configuration, leaving the realization that there is nothing wrong with hardware to dawn upon her in the appropriate time.
“There is nothing wrong with the hardware,” Catharine said in a low neutral voice.
“Okay.”
“Maybe we should reboot the computer and rerun the firmware,” Catharine was trying to be convincing, but Joan realized that Catharine already knew that Joan had found the problem and fixed it and was trying to make her position a little more bearable by giving some suggestions. Joan didn’t want to rub it in.
“Sure.”
They rebooted the system. It took only a few seconds for it to come back up again. Once it did, the screen displayed a view of one of Survival’s corridor.
“Here we go,” Catharine said. “Looks stable.”
“May I?” Joan said pointing at Catharine’s handheld computer.
“Sure,” Catharine unhooked her computer and handed it to Joan. Joan tapped a series of commands on the computer and it established a wireless connection with the control program.
“Logging in with root security clearance,” Joan said.
On the small screen of the computer a menu appeared with several choices to control the internal sensors.
“You know something, I’m just wondering if this is ethical,” Joan said turning away from her handheld computer.
“What’s ethical?”
“The fact that we are enabling this level of control over the sensors.”
“Don’t think too much.”
“You know the Captain can easily watch everyone on Survival? No one will have any privacy anymore.”
“The Captain has already explained her decision.”
“Yes, emergencies, but what kind of emergencies?”
“Look Joan everyone on this ship has a job. Ours is to carry out the captain’s orders and not to question them. So let’s get it done.”
“Why do you never question the captain’s or the Planners’ orders?”
“We have to trust the Planners.”
“I’m having a problem with that.”
“With what?”
“Trusting the Planners. Sometimes it feels that we’re being kept in the dark.”
“Trust me we’re not. So, can we please get this done? I would really like to attend the sendoff ceremony.”
Joan didn’t reply. There was no use in continuing this discussion.

Patrick Taylor

“…Accompany you on this mission, but there is no place for an old man like myself amongst you,” the PNW was in the middle of his speech. This man had been an icon for the whole Survival crew since they could remember. He had talked to them many times, and had spent so much time with every single person throughout the course of their training. It was a great accomplishment considering the number of individuals on the crew. However, despite this the PNW had made it a point to know everyone by name. To Patrick he was the only father figure he had known.
It was strange. Patrick was raised and trained to consider that the rest of the crew of Survival was his only family, and that having a father and a mother wasn’t an integral part of humanity. But he couldn’t shake off the comfort of having this man to look up to. The Planners wouldn’t approve of his emotions and that was why he kept them bottled up inside, which is something many would consider unhealthy. He guessed that it was a fleeting emotion that would eventually subside. He was wrong. Once he saw the holographic image of the PNW, the finality of the situation hit him hard. He would never speak to the PNW again. It was the closest he would get to losing family.
“I know everyone of you by name,” the PNW continued. His voice was full of pride mixed with sadness. “For the past twenty odd years I have seen you grow and turn into a capable, intelligent and vibrant young women and men. Seeing you leave is like letting go of my children, and in a sense I am. But it is necessary.
“It is necessary that you embark on this historic mission, and you are ready. You have been trained since birth for this task, and this task alone. It is your destiny. A destiny that holds the key to the future of humanity.”

Joan Kuzak

“Alright, I think we’re done here,” Catharine said.
“Almost,” Joan replied.
Why is she in such a hurry? Joan thought. It’s not like we’re going to hear anything new. Most probably it’ll be some feel good speech that adds no new information and probably won’t help us much on our journey. I could live without it.
“What’s left?” Catharine asked annoyed.
“Testing,” Joan said flatly. “We have to test the different channels.”
Catharine rolled her eyes, “Let’s get to it then.”
Joan typed a few commands on the handheld computer and the image on the screen started to flip periodically showing different areas of the ship. After a few flips one of the Meeting Districts came up with the image of the PNW transmitted in the middle with maybe one hundred of the crew standing around the image. Catharine reached for a button and stopped the automatic change of the channels then she turned up the volume.
“This mission is unlike any mankind has ever undertaken,” the PNW said. “It is not for the simple acquisition of knowledge, but to save our ailing humanity and to give us a future and a hope.”
“Come on Catharine,” Joan said. “Do you really want to hear this?”
“Yes.”
“You are our hope. You are our only future. You will redeem humanity’s mistakes and allow us the privilege of another chance,” the PNW continued.
Joan changed the channel.
“Why did you do that?” Catharine was annoyed to say the least.
“Sorry,” Joan replied. She had to admit that it felt good seeing Catharine off balance. It felt damn good to be in control. “We need to make sure the rest of the sensor channels are functioning properly. I don’t want to spend the rest of the afternoon cooped up in here.”
Catharine just turned away, went to another consol and commenced her own testing, not putting any effort into hiding her irritation. Joan smiled and continued flipping through the channels, then her smile dropped off her face and she felt a chill go down her spine. For a second she was completely paralyzed and didn’t know what to do.
“Catharine,” she said her voice carrying over the surprise and fear she felt.
Catharine looked at her in surprise. The change in Joan’s previously smug tone drew her undivided attention. She walked over to her.
“What’s the problem?” Catharine asked.
Joan just pointed to the screen. On the screen a man was working on some consoles in an access junction much like the one Joan and Catharine occupied. This in itself might not have been a big deal, except for two important facts. One, Joan knew for sure that no tasks were scheduled to any of the engineers. In fact all of them were ordered to attend the speech at the designated Meeting Districts. Two, this man was much older than any of the crew. He was in his mid forties. The oldest one in the crew was Captain Norah Stone and she was twenty-five. These two facts had quite an impact on both Joan and Catharine.
Joan looked at Catharine and to her surprise Catharine had a straight face on, that betrayed none of her emotions. This was of little consolation to Joan, because she was afraid and confused and hardly knew what to do next. However, she was the senior officer. She had to know what to do. How could the senior officer be so clueless? It just wasn’t right.
“We have to go investigate,” Joan finally said. For a moment, she didn’t actually believe that she just said that. But now since she did, she had to follow up on it.
“No,” Catharine replied. “We have to inform the captain.”
That sounded like a good suggestions, but Joan continued her string of thoughtless rambling. For whatever reason she just couldn’t stop herself. Maybe it was a little bit of pride. Maybe it was a little bit of stupidity, or maybe she just wanted to prove to herself that she had the guts to be a leader. No matter what the reasons were, she uttered the following words, “Captain is busy. It’s up to us.”
Joan didn’t wait for Catharine to agree with her. She entered an access tube to her right and crawled through it, heading towards the location of the unknown intruder. Catharine hesitated for only a second then followed her.
“What’s your plan genius?” Catharine asked.
Joan didn’t reply. To be completely honest she didn’t have one, but admitting that right now would not be of much help.
“You don’t have one do you?” Catharine said exasperated. “Great. We’ll just walk in and ask him what he’s doing. That should work.”
“Catharine, can you be a bit positive please? We have to find out what he’s doing here.”
“We need back up.”
“What if he is from the ground crew finishing something up?”
“You know as well as I do, that’s not true.”
They turned left into an intersecting tube. After a few minutes of crawling they arrived to three circular doors. Joan pointed to the right one.
“He’s behind this one,” she whispered. “On the count of three we’ll burst in.”
Joan could tell that Catharine wasn’t convinced, but there was no turning back now. Catharine had already made the decision to follow her. Joan counted on her fingers to three, and on the count of three she opened the door and they both jumped in.
Their sudden entrance must have come as a shock to the man, who looked up at them. However, this guy must have had military training because the surprise only lasted for two seconds. He then turned to the consol he was working on and started typing frantically.
“Stop what you’re doing and step away from the consol,” Joan ordered trying to sound as tough as possible. The man didn’t comply.
Genius, Joan thought. What am I going to do now?
She charged the man knocking him down. The man was a head taller than her, in good shape and was definitely in the military. Joan landed on top of him and tried to direct a punch to his face, but he was a hair faster than her. Her fist landed in his palm and he flipped her easily behind him. She landed on her back painfully.
The man got up and typed in a few last commands, before disconnecting a small handheld computer from the consol he was working on. Catharine charged. The man tried to move away, but he was only partially successful. She was able to grab his waist forcing him into the consoles. They both crashed and one of the computers broke causing sparks to fly. Catharine tried to drop him to the ground, but again the man was much stronger than her. Noticing that Joan was getting up in preparation to resume her attack, he grabbed Catharine’s wrist, twisting it in a quick motion. She screamed in pain, as her wrist broke under the pressure. The man then pushed Catharine forcefully towards Joan. She crashed into her and they both went down hard. Catharine held her wrist in pain trying not to scream.
The intruder put the handheld computer into his pocket and headed towards the entry of one of the access tubes, but Joan managed to reach and grab hold of his leg. That’s when he took out a gun and slammed Joan on the head with it. She sunk to the floor, her face covered with blood. Now, both Joan and Catharine were pretty much incapacitated, and the man was hardly injured in this little sprawl that just took place. He entered the access tube and disappeared around a bend.
Joan’s vision was tainted in red from the blood covering her eyes. She grew faint, and finally lost her consciousness. Just before that happened, she saw Catharine reaching for her communicator. Then she blacked out completely.

2 – What Lies Ahead

Patrick Taylor

“I’m sure that you’ll do every human on Earth and on the moon colonies proud,” the PNW was finishing up his speech. “We will never meet again, but you will be in our hearts and prayers. Godspeed.”
With that the image of the PNW sizzled and thinned away. Everyone stood motionless. Patrick in particular was pondering the last words uttered by the PNW. Prayers, Godspeed, this way of talk was foreign to him. Religion was never promoted in the Survival Project. In fact it was identified as the source of many conflicts and wars. It has been decided very clearly by the Planners that the New World will not allow for religion to create divisions between humanity, where one group of people belonging to a certain system of belief would be considered superior to another. No god who commands his people to kill all others unless they join the clan. The only system of belief that had been taught to them and instilled in every pore of their being is Human Will, and that was what must be propagated. For this reason Patrick didn’t understand why the PNW would use such unfamiliar language that was forbidden by the Planners.
Finally after long moments of silence Captain Norah Stone moved from amidst the group and faced them. She looked at the faces of her crew and for a second Patrick thought that she had locked eyes with him. He hated to admit it, but he was a little bit scared of her, and wanted to stay away from her path whenever possible. At the time he didn’t realize that this was simply not an option.
“This ship will set on its journey in five minutes,” Stone said. “The computer has been programmed accordingly. I know this must be difficult for some of you, but this is our future. Please, I’d like everyone to…”
Stone’s communicator beeped insistently. She picked it up and listened for a few seconds. Patrick felt bad for whoever interrupted Stone, because they would get into deep shit. He wondered who it could be. Practically, he knew that he could never guess, because it could be anyone out of eight thousand individuals. But for some unknown reason, he felt a strange emotion that he couldn’t understand. It pushed him to know what Stone was talking about and whom she was talking to. It drew him towards an unidentified fate.
Stone finished with her communicator and put it back into its grab. Her face betrayed no emotions.
“Everyone is hereby ordered to their active duty,” she ordered. “Dismissed.”

Norah Stone

Stone was in the middle of giving her speech when her communicator beeped. A flash of anger heated up through her veins. Didn’t they know not to bother her now? Then the flash of anger subsided and was replaced by a logical process. Whoever was calling must have known that she would be busy right now, so they must have a very good reason for this interruption. This whole thought process took place in a split second, then she picked up the communicator, turning slightly away from the crew giving her full attention to the caller.
“Yes, Stone here,” Stone said.
“Captain,” Catharine’s voice came over the communication link, distant and engulfed in static. “We have an intruder onboard.”
This was going to be one of many obstacles along the road, Stone realized. Although this new development was not expected, she was handling it quite well, maintaining her cool and composure. The next step was to get the situation under control.
“Where is he heading now?” Stone asked.
“Last I saw him, he was heading towards Junction two-forty-five.”
“Are you alright?”
“No ma’am,” Catharine admitted. “Both Joan and I were injured when we tried to confront him.”
“Sit tight,” Stone ordered. “I’m on my way.”
Stone turned to her crew.

Patrick Taylor

Something was clearly wrong. There was no doubt about it, and Patrick wanted to know the specifics. He liked to be in the middle of everything important going down. Some people found that to be a bit pushy, but that’s how he moved up the ranks. He always took initiative and requested the more difficult tasks that others shied away from. And now he wanted to do the same, but the only difference this time around was Stone. He had to deal with her. A task he wasn’t looking forward to.
As the crew filed out of the room, Captain Stone stopped three security officers, telling them something inaudible to Patrick, but he surmised she must’ve told them what was told to her a minute ago over the communicator. Against Patrick’s better judgment he approached them.
“Captain,” Patrick said.
“What is it?” Stone asked without looking at him. She was looking at a small handheld computer. Patrick caught a glance of what was displayed on its screen. It looked like blue prints of Survival, but there was something more to it. There was a red moving dot on the schematic. It was heading down an access tube. Patrick put two and two together. They must have some sort of an unwelcomed guest onboard, and the captain was planning to flush him out.
“I’d like to help track the intruder,” Patrick said.
Stone locked eyes with him, and he felt that she was reading his mind, but then he rationalized his thinking, as that wasn’t possible anyway.
“Report to your duty,” Stone said coldly. “This doesn’t concern you.”
She turned to the security officers motioning them to follow her. They headed out of the room, leaving Patrick behind.
That was a set back. What was he going to do about it? He really had two choices, and only two. He could go to work, like the captain ordered him to. Or he could follow them and see if he can render a hand anyway. The first option was the safest, but the second option was much more interesting. It wasn’t that hard of a decision. He headed after them.
As Patrick approached the door, David stopped him.
“Where are you going?” David asked.
“I’m going to see what’s going on.”
“Didn’t you hear what the captain said?”
“Sometimes you’ve got to bend some rules buddy,” Patrick replied and then left David behind. He had no time to deal with David’s insecurities. That guy was dull.

Joan Kuzak

Joan must have been out for only a few short minutes, because when she came around again she could hear Catharine talk with the captain, telling her about the intruder. At this moment she didn’t oppose it, since it was obvious that they couldn’t handle it on their own. But her ego was hurting her. This wasn’t supposed to go down the way it did. In her mind the intruder gave up and she got a commendation from the captain. Things never work out the way you imagined, she realized.
She wiped the blood off her eyes, feeling the place of the injury. It was swollen with a nasty gash that was still bleeding. Catharine was holding her wrist, resting her back on the wall, not really looking at anything in particular.
“Are you alright?” Joan asked.
Catharine didn’t reply.
“Listen,” Joan started, hesitated for a second, but then pressed on. “I’m sorry. It was a bad decision.”
“You think,” Catharine said through clenched jaws, more due to the pain, than anger.
Joan had this deep push to right the wrong she did, but how? The man was already gone, and the captain was in charge now. This wasn’t how she wanted it to turn out. Damn it. She had to do something.
“I’m going after him,” Joan said in finality, and got up.
“Don’t you know when to quit?” Catharine said, but Joan didn’t hang around. She picked up the small handheld computer she had with her and headed through the same access tube the man took just a few minutes before her.
Joan kept on stopping every couple of minutes to check out her computer, which had been tracking the movement of the intruder. She was sure the Captain was doing the same. The intruder wasn’t that far away from her current position. It was obvious that he didn’t know where he was going, as he kept stopping and backtracking and taking different turns. That gave Joan the advantage when she saw him take a turn that she knew would lead to a dead end. She decided to block his way. In the back of her mind she knew that this would be a bad idea, since he was armed and she wasn’t, but to tell the truth she wasn’t thinking straight. She just wanted to prove herself, and so she went on with her imperfect plan.

Patrick Tailor

The corridors were eerily empty, as everyone busied themselves at their job. Patrick felt a bit out of place, knowing that he should be attending to his duties, but wasn’t. Despite of that feeling, something was drawing him into this little adventure of his, and he was not about to give up.
He had lost track of the captain and the three officers a while back, so now he was flying by the seat of his pants, but he felt that he was close to something. He couldn’t really explain why he was so sure. It was strange, almost like a psychic connection, but he didn’t know to whom or to what.
Gun shots.
He jumped in shock. Gun shots! What the hell was going on? There were no lethal weapons onboard.
Another two shots. Again he jumped. It was coming right from on top of him.
Sounds of struggle. Muffled screams. More shots. A sound of crashing, then someone broke through the roof and fell on top of him. Patrick had only a split second to react to this sudden development. His first instinct was to move away, but something inside him made him stay right in his place and catch the body that fell through the roof. He lost his balance under the sudden weight. It took him a second to realize that it was Joan and that she had been shot.
“Are you alright?” He asked urgently, putting pressure on her shoulder where the bullet wound was. To his horror she wasn’t awake. Her body was limp in his arms. His mind screamed at him, confusion over powered him. She could die right here in his arms.
Then some man came through the ceiling, a gun in his hands pointing it at Joan. Patrick did the only thing he could do. He protected her, using his body as a shield between Joan and the armed man. His eyes locked with the intruder’s. The moment seemed to extend to infinity, the gun firmly trained at them. Patrick’s eyes carried a look of pleading, begging the man not to shoot, not to harm Joan. To Patrick’s astonishment, he wasn’t thinking of himself, but of how to protect Joan. He didn’t know why but for some reason beyond his comprehension he felt deeply connected to her. Then the man just left them and ran.
Patrick turned his attention back to Joan, whose face was now pale, her lips losing their color.
“Oh God,” Patrick held Joan tight. “Please someone help.”
Not more than five seconds had passed before Captain Norah Stone and the three security officers came running around a bend in the corridor. Captain Stone stopped and checked out the injured Joan, not paying any attention to Patrick.
“Take her to the medical bay,” Stone ordered one of the security officers and before Patrick could say anything, she was in pursuit of the man.
The security officer lifted Joan up in her arms and headed towards the medical bay in a quick jog, an impressive display of strength indeed. Patrick was left behind.
Patrick stood their lost in a mesh of emotions that were giving him a headache. He wanted to go with Joan and make sure she was alright, but at the same time he wanted to go after this assailant who intended to kill Joan. Then some images overwhelmed him, so much so that he felt he was about to throw up. They were images of this intruder. He was running, and in Patrick’s mind’s eye, he could see a tragedy unfold, so much blood, dead bodies, Stone breathing her last. Patrick didn’t know what these images were or what their source was. He just knew he had to act on them. He broke out into a full out sprint, surprisingly heading in the direction opposite to where the man went. He mysteriously knew where the man was going to end up and he knew a short cut.
Patrick ran through the corridors, through a door and into the maze of bridges, up the stairs climbing a couple of levels up to more bridges. As he ran he could see the captain one level below him. They had taken the long rout. Finally he went through a gateway into an area labeled ‘Safe Haven’.
There were many ‘Safe Havens’ around the ship. They were areas with reinforced hull. Incase of a breach they were sealed off, and the occupants were thus safe from any events occurring outside the ‘Safe Haven’.
This particular ‘Safe Haven’ Patrick entered was attached to the Cafeteria, and used as the kitchen where meals were served to the crew. Immediately he caught a glimpse of the intruder trying to find a way out. But there was none. The only way out was the way in. Patrick slowed down. Now that he was here, he didn’t know what to do next. For some reason he knew the man wouldn’t hurt him. Was it intuition? No. The intruder had the chance to shoot both Joan and him, but he didn’t. He was going to shoot Joan, but when Patrick blocked the way he didn’t shoot. Why?
“There is nowhere to go,” Patrick shouted at the man. “Give up.”
The man spun around aiming the gun at Patrick, but then he lowered it. He was sweating and out of breath from the effort, but so was Patrick.
“I’m doing this for you?” The man said.
Patrick looked at him in surprise. What did he mean by that? Was he just trying to buy time? That didn’t make sense. The man could shoot him and get it over with, but he didn’t do it. Was the man speaking the truth? This was not making any sense. He almost killed Joan.
“The hell you are,” Patrick shot back. “You almost killed Joan and you want me to believe you.”
“Listen,” the man said waving his gun around. “All this… All this is a lie.”
“Give up now and no one will get hurt.”
“I knew your father,” the man said and then aimed the gun right at Patrick. “I don’t want to do this, but I will if I have to.”
At this moment Stone and the two security officers burst in, their stun pulse guns out and ready, aimed at the man.
“Put the gun down,” Stone ordered in a firm voice.
Patrick hid around a curve. He was the only unarmed one, and frankly he didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire. All weapons were ready to cause injury or death. It was ironic. This was exactly why they were about to embark on this journey. It was because violence and hatred had ripped apart Earth, so much so that it had become a dying planet. And now history was repeating itself on the very ship that had been labeled Humanity’s last hope.
“This is your last warning,” Stone threatened.
“My gun kills. Yours doesn’t,” the man shot back.
“You can’t take on…” Patrick started but Stone interrupted him.
“Stay out of this,” Stone ordered. “Do what I say or I will open fire.”
The man didn’t respond. Moments stretched and the intensity of the moment wrecked havoc on Patrick’s nerves. He didn’t want this to end up in blood shed, like in the images he saw in his mind. What could he do to prevent a tragic ending?
“Okay,” the man finally said.
He started lowering down his gun. From Patrick’s position he could see the man reach into his back pocket, taking out a small handheld computer. This in itself wasn’t a very threatening move, but then Patrick locked eyes with him for only a second and instantly knew that he had no intention of giving up.
The man was still lowering down his weapon, all the time his eyes never left Stone and the security officers, and the weapon never really left his hand.
Patrick frantically scanned the room with his eyes, trying desperately to formulate a plan to counter act the man’s impending attack. There were several heavy metal tables in the immediate vicinity with an assorted set of kitchenware arranged neatly on their top. Patrick thought if he could flip one of them on its side, it would make a good distraction as well as create an obstacle to hide behind.
Time was running out. A sudden acceleration, as the ship jumped into high speed, caused everyone to lose their balance. It was at this moment that the man made his move. At the same time Patrick gathered all the courage he could muster and lunged from his position. The man dived to the side bringing up his gun and taking aim at Stone. At the same instant the shot was fired, Patrick had shoved Stone far enough, that the bullet only grazed her shoulder, but still causing a nasty cut. She fell to the floor, Patrick beside her. The other two officers moved trying to stay out of the line of fire, shooting their guns, but their stun guns did seem like toys compared to the gun that the man wielded. With the man busy exchanging shots with the security officers, Patrick rolled until he reached the closest table and with all his might he flipped it over. It landed on its side, the kitchenware on it scattered allover, clanging and making a loud noise. This move effectively barricaded himself and Stone from the intruder. The man swung his gun and fired in the direction of the noise. This gave Stone the window of opportunity she needed. She slid from her position, away from the table and fired at the man. Direct hit. He flew backwards and was stopped by the wall. He crashed to the floor, but still was not unconscious. He tried to raise his gun and resume his attack, but the two security officers followed by a series of shots that brought this gun battle to an end. Unbeknownst to any one, the handheld computer the man had in his possession slipped away, and fell through the metal grid of the floor, coming to rest unseen in a crack between two floor beam supports.
Stone got up and walked carefully to the man, still aiming her gun at him, until she was sure he was out cold, and then she lowered her weapon. Her wound was bleeding and causing her a great deal of pain, that she tried to hide.
“Time to get off my ship,” she said in a dangerous tone.

Joan Kuzak

A sensation of pain woke her up. It started in her shoulder then it spread through to her chest and down the left side of her body. She felt a pinch in her left arm, not long after the pain was quickly driven back to a dull ache. Although her mind was awake, none of her extremities functioned and she couldn’t really open her eyes. It was an unsettling feeling, being completely paralyzed like this. In fact it was extremely terrifying.
Joan decided to keep her mind occupied instead of letting her fears overwhelm her. She tried to recall how she got to this current dilemma, but for some reason her memory took her back four years ago.
She had just turned sixteen, but birthdays weren’t such a big deal in project Survival. They were acknowledged of course, but not much emphasis was put on specific ages. All this was done in a concentrated effort to focus the attention of the crew on the undeniable fact that what they were a part of transcended them and any of their own personal gains or comforts.
However, on this day Joan felt an overwhelming need for self-discovery. The reason she was a part of Project Survival had lately eluded her. When she closed her eyes and thought about her future, she didn’t envision herself in deep space for the majority of her life. Her desires and dreams lay far away from this predestined future of hers, but she dared not share them with anyone lest the Planners find out about them.
Her mind drew a blank. What were her desires? She remembered that she wanted something so much, but now she couldn’t recall what it was. The harder she tried to recall the more distracted she became. Her thoughts seemed to shatter around some specific memory and never cohesively form a lucid image. Finally she grew tired. So tired indeed that she wanted to go to sleep. That’s when her eyes opened. Control of her body returned in one shot, or so it seemed to her. She moved her hands, wiggled her toes. It felt good being in control of her body again.
Her awareness of the outside world came in waves. First she regained her motor functions, then her senses. First of all her sense of touch. Maybe this was the first sense to work because of the warm hand that held hers. She looked to the side of her bed. It was Patrick sitting on a chair by her left side, holding her hand gently. When her eyes focused on him, she realized that he was asleep. She looked around trying to get a bearing on her surroundings. The lights in sickbay were dimmed, and the only two present were herself and Patrick.
It was awfully nice of him to hang around, she thought, but then she didn’t remember how he knew she was injured. It was a big ship, so news couldn’t travel that fast. Wait a minute, how long has she been out? She strained her memory once more to remember what lead to her injury. It took a minute for the memories to come flooding back. She was indeed successful in cornering the guy, but that didn’t do much good. There was an unfair fight then she heard a loud gunshot then she woke up here.
She gently slipped her hand from Patrick’s and slowly sat up. With this motion a renewed pain overwhelmed her that she had to lay back down. The pain was concentrated in her left shoulder. She stayed there for a minute catching her breath, and waiting for the pain to ease up. When it finally did, she decided to try again. This time she rolled on her right side and dangled her legs off the side of the bed, using her right arm to lift her torso up. After much effort she was finally in a seated position on the bed. Why did her shoulder hurt so much? Joan decided to go look at her reflection in the mirror. As carefully as she possible could she slipped to the floor, a wave of dizziness over took her that she had to steady herself on the bed. Like the pain, it took the dizziness a minute to subside then she was able to walk again.
Joan walked carefully to a glass door that separated the doctor’s office from the rest of the medical bay. The lighting in the room was just the right brightness and shone in just the right angle that the glass door became partially reflective and she could see herself. She wasn’t in too bad of a shape. She was topless except for a braw and bandages, which covered her wound. There was a scar running down her forehead to her left eye. As she looked closer she could see the scar healing. It was quite strange. She must have taken a drug, which increased the healing process.
Her memory like a jigsaw puzzle came together. The man overpowered her the first time Catharine and her tried to surprise him, causing her this nasty cut on her forehead, then he shot her when she tried to corner him. She didn’t really make the smart choices today, did she?
A loud cluttering made her spin around in surprise. The sudden movement renewed the pain and the dizziness. She steadied herself. Patrick was on the floor, on his hands and knees. He must have fell off his chair. He was breathing heavily, as if going through some sort of a panic attack, waiving his hands in an attempt to move an imaginary persona out of the way; his eyes looking at nonexistent people. Joan walked to him.
“Are you okay?” Joan asked in a concerned tone.
Patrick didn’t reply. He continued to breath heavily. His eyes were not focused, looking around him in fright, seeing things that weren’t there. He didn’t even seem aware of her existence. Joan reached for his shoulders and shook him lightly trying to get him back from this strange trance he was in.
“Patrick,” she said a bit louder. “Patrick can you hear me?”

Patrick Taylor

It was dark and a loud thumping noise filled his ears. But it wasn’t coming from some external source. Soon he realized that it was nothing but the beating of his heart. Was it the beat of his heart? He wasn’t sure. Where was he? The darkness was so intense that he couldn’t tell his surroundings. It was more than the darkness. He couldn’t tell where he was because he felt he wasn’t really there, but detached somehow, feeling another’s emotions and experiencing another’s life; like a dream. A dream that he wanted to wake up from, but couldn’t. It gripped him with full force and pulled him even deeper into this strange realm.
A strobe of light shone into his consciousness revealing a bit more information on his whereabouts. He was walking through a long corridor, unmarked, metallic, gray corridor. He tried to look around, but again couldn’t. The events in this alleged dream were driving him. He was completely out of control.
Abruptly a flood of emotions overpowered him; fear, anger, resentment, resignation. The emotions ran so high that for a second he couldn’t breath. He even had to put a conscious effort into not throwing up. What was going on? Then he looked down at his hands. It was an involuntary motion. His mind didn’t order him to look down, but he did anyway. This wasn’t his hand. This hand held a gun. This hand belonged to a woman. He was looking through the eyes of a woman. How could this be? He wanted to wake up. Why wasn’t he waking up?
“Patrick,” he heard a faint voice that sounded like it came from thousands of miles away. He couldn’t respond. His lips wouldn’t move. He wanted to answer, to seek help, but couldn’t.
This gun, it looked familiar. It was the intruder’s gun. What was he planning to do with it? He concentrated hard to try to let go of the gun, but to no avail. He looked up, and had the sudden realization that he wasn’t alone. He was pointing this gun at someone in front of him. The picture was coming together. Someone led the intruder along a corridor at gunpoint, but where were they going?
Like only in dreams, he had arrived at his destination in an instant. The intruder wasn’t with him anymore, but locked behind a door, a thick metallic door. He was saying something to him, but Patrick couldn’t understand him. The words were jumbled and didn’t make sense. The man was scared. Another flood of emotions overwhelmed him, mainly disgust, guilt and surrender. He could feel warmth on his cheek, droplets of tears wet his face, but it wasn’t his face.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
His heartbeat grew louder, and faster until it deafened him. It was the only thing he could hear. Fear gripped his heart with iron clamps. His hands, but not really his hands moved. His eyes never leaving the face of the man, who was becoming exceedingly horrified, screaming something, pleading maybe; but all Patrick could hear was the thumping of his heart. His hands felt something and pressed on it hard. Then in an instant the man was gone. His face suddenly disappeared, replaced by the darkness of space.
Hollow. So Hollow.
He fell to his knees. Some part of him, but not really him, died just now. The tears fell freely down his cheek. What just happened? What did he do? Why did he feel so much shame, so much guilt and regret and helplessness?
“Patrick,” the same voice called, but it was closer this time. He felt a touch on his shoulder. “Patrick, can you hear me?”
Yes. He could hear her.
“Yes,” to his surprise, that was his own voice. He just spoke.
He woke up.

Patrick looked up and saw Joan standing there with a concerned expression on her face. The dream was fading fast from his memory. The details were becoming blurry and the confusion became more intense. Finally, after a minute of silence, he couldn’t remember what he was so confused about.
“What’s the matter with you?” Joan asked.
Patrick was still on the floor.
“I’d offer to help you get up, but I wouldn’t be able to,” Joan continued trying to lighten the mood a little.
Patrick smiled as he got up and slumped back on his chair exhausted from whatever he just went through; if he could just recall what it was.
“I’m fine,” he finally said. His voice sounded distant. “I think. What happened?”
“I was about to ask you the same question,” Joan said. “One moment you were sleeping peacefully, the next you’re on the floor fighting off imaginary monsters.”
“Really?”
“You betcha.”
Patrick fell silent, still trying to remember what the dream was about.
“Sorry,” Patrick finally looked up at Joan, who sat down on the edge of the bed. “I really can’t recall anything.”
There was a slight vibration. The normal person wouldn’t have noticed it, but to two engineers intimately familiar with the functionality of the ship, it was as clear as the stars of the night.
Joan looked around then placed her hand on the edge of the bed. She could still feel a very slight vibration, which ceased momentarily.
“What was that?” Patrick asked.
“I don’t know,” Joan said. It was such a minor issue that didn’t require immediate attention. “I’m sure we just started on our journey and the hull of the ship is still adjusting to the velocity.”
Patrick looked at her in surprise. She didn’t know.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Joan asked.
“You don’t remember?”
“Remember what?”
“You’ve been unconscious for a week.”
This bit of information must have come as a shock to Joan.
“Excuse me,” Joan smiled. It was such an absurd concept that she couldn’t do anything else but smile. “And you’ve been by my side the whole week?”
“No,” Patrick replied with as much a soothing voice as he could muster. “I have been coming after work to check on you.”
“A week? No. Impossible.” Joan waved the idea off.
“The bullet contained a very specific poison that was quite fast acting,” Patrick explained. “If it wasn’t for the smarts of Doctor David, you might not have made it. That’s why it took such a long time for you to recover. He had to keep you sedated for your body to repair itself, with the help of a few drugs.”
Joan stared at him blankly. It still didn’t ring as true, it sounded too far-fetched. Joan laid back on the bed looking at the sealing, rewinding what Patrick had just told her over and over in her head.
“I guess I should count my lucky stars,” Joan whispered then fell silent.
Patrick didn’t say anything, respecting Joan’s silence. He felt that he should give her some space to absorb the situation.
“Well, I’m going to head off to engineering, to check up on the status of the ship,” Patrick got up. “David said you should be up and about in another day.”
Joan still didn’t reply. Patrick waited there for a second then decided he should make his exit now. He turned on his heals and headed to the door.
“Thanks for staying with me,” Joan finally said just as Patrick was a few steps away from the door. He turned around.
“It was nothing,” Patrick smiled. “I enjoyed your company tremendously.”
“I’m sure I was quite a blast out cold,” Joan smiled. “But it was kind of you nonetheless.”
Joan paused for a second.
“What you did reminds me of someone who showed similar kindness a while ago,” Joan’s voice trailed off. “If I could just remember who.”
“Relax,” Patrick smiled. “I’m sure it’ll come to you with time. I’ll leave you to rest now.”
Patrick walked out.
“You’re right. I’m sure it’ll come to me with time,” she said to herself, but deep down she doubted that she would remember.

3 – The Problem

Catharine Mitch

One Year Later

Catharine Mitch was the second in command after Joan in her engineering unit, but for the past year she had been feeling like the third wheel. A romance had blossomed quickly between Patrick and Joan, which had professional consequences. Joan always favored Patrick’s advice. She allowed him to attend all high-level design meetings between the engineering chiefs, even though Catharine wasn’t allowed and she was of superior rank. It was getting ridiculous. Catharine didn’t really care about what Joan felt for Patrick or vice versa, but she was deeply opposed and was offended by how this romance was carrying over to their work. At one point she considered talking to the Captain about it, but then backed out.
The lights in her room flickered for a moment then returned to full power. They have been trying to track down this power glitch for the better half of the year. There were no major repercussions, but they did notice a very slow and systematic deterioration in the ship’s peripheral subsystems, nothing threatening. Despite of that their engineering unit in its entirety had been assigned to get to the bottom of this problem, and it had been extremely difficult. The behavior was random and unexpected and when they checked the hardware of the systems that displayed this erroneous behavior, they found no problems. It was quite frustrating indeed. All their work thus far had been with no results, and Captain Stone had been getting edgy with them, and even threatened to reassign the problem to another team. But of course, Joan wouldn’t have any of that, promising the captain to have the problem figured out in five more months. Catharine on the other hand felt that a new team with a fresh look at the problem would help. That sounded very reasonable to her, but not to Joan’s ego. Catharine was also convinced that Patrick had a big part to play in Joan’s decision to press on with this investigation.
Catharine was on her bed revisiting the clues that they had on this problem when she got an idea. The ‘glitch’ as they called it, had always manifested itself as a hardware issue, and thus their investigation had been more hardware oriented than anything else. They tested the ship’s numerous circuits and computer hardware, as well as the mechanical parts, but had always come up with nothing, and since running detailed diagnostics on all the hardware was a humongous job, it had taken them close to six months and they still have not finished. Catharine thought, what if it wasn’t a hardware problem at all? What if some how it’s a software issue? They have examined this idea early on, but the whole team had to be dedicated to the hardware investigation. However, now as Catharine thought of the different types of problems they have been experiencing; the power glitches, the waste disposal malfunctioning, the water system glitches, it all seemed to somehow point to a control issue. For example, the water would temporarily cut out from one or two areas of the ship, and when they investigated it they would find that the software control system was sending the correct commands to the hardware, but the hardware wouldn’t respond. They went as far as taking apart a malfunctioning water pump, but they didn’t find any problem. That was one of the reasons they thought it might primarily be a hardware issue, because the software seemed to be doing it’s job. However, they only examined the high-level control software. What about the firmware? Could the firmware be malfunctioning?
Every single hardware part on this ship had firmware running on it. Firmware was the low-level software that would accept commands from a client control program and execute it. In the case of a water pump, the firmware would implement the functionality of opening and closing valves. It would send the appropriate electrical signals to the motors that control the opening and closing of the valves. The firmware would then provide interface function calls to the control program, like openValve() or closeValve(). To the control program the water pump was basically a black box. It would have knowledge of what the water pump did, but it wouldn’t have knowledge of how it did it. All it knows is if it wants to get water pumping to a specific area of the ship, it would call the openValve() function with the number of the valve to open and the RPM of the pump. The water pump’s firmware would receive this function call and then execute it.
Catharine got up and went to her computer. She entered her access code and was immediately granted privileged access to the ship’s systems. Since the water pump firmware was one of the simpler firmware code, she pulled it up and started reading the code. She must have spent the next two hours going through thousands of lines of code. Once in a while, she would have to refer to the design documents explaining the reasoning behind the software design. After reading the whole firmware specification and the actual code of the program, she didn’t find any bugs. She slumped back in her chair disappointed. She had hoped that she would be on to something; apparently it was just a red herring.
At this moment her doorbell rang.
“It’s open,” Catharine said, knowing who would come in through these doors.
The door opened and Joan entered. She closed it behind her and threw herself on the bed. Although Catharine didn’t agree with many decisions that Joan made, they were still on good terms. They even established a tradition. At least three times a week Joan would drop by Catharine’s room after her shift was over and they would just spend an hour chatting about work problems. For some reason, they never talked about personal issues. All their discussions revolved around the ship. It was an unspoken deal between them; keep it professional.
“So anything new with the investigation?” Catharine asked.
“Nothing substantial, there are little clues here and there but we still haven’t gotten to the bottom of it,” Joan replied. “All the new findings are documented in the investigation’s daily digest.”
Catharine had already opened the daily digest and was scanning it.
“You’re still pretty adamant about the hardware investigation?”
“It’s not that,” Joan shrugged. “We’ve already seen that the software is behaving correctly.”
“But we haven’t dug deep enough,” Catharine insisted.
At this moment both Joan and Catharine felt a rough vibration that lasted for only a few seconds before it subsided. Joan sat up suddenly alert.
“What the hell was that?” Joan asked.
Catharine didn’t reply. She had a bad gut feeling about this.
Joan’s mobile communicator chimed. She picked it up.
“The ship’s engines had a glitch,” Patrick’s voice came over the wireless link.
“Damn it,” Joan cursed. “Did we get any useful data?”
“No,” Patrick sounded distracted. In the background Joan could hear many discussions engulfed in mechanical beeps and the insistent computer hum. “Ok, I just got some preliminary feedback form the engines.” Pause. “Shit. Doesn’t show anything wrong.”
Joan got a second line. It was the captain.
“Patrick, I’ll get back to you. I have Captain Stone on the other line.”
Joan switched the call.
“Report Joan,” Stone ordered in a cool manner.
“I don’t have anything to report yet, Captain,” Joan said.
“Get to it then,” Stone still maintained her cool tone. “I think this problem is getting to be a bit more disruptive than we anticipated, don’t you think?”
Click. Stone hung up.
“Man,” Joan got up. “This is going to be a long trip.”
Joan headed for the door, Catharine at her tail.
“I think we should pursue my idea in a bit more detail,” Catharine said.
“That’s fine,” Joan said. “Why don’t you come up with a detailed plan for how you want to approach this investigation and we’ll review it?”
Catharine didn’t like this. Review it? Too much red tape, but she decided to play along, for now.

Patrick Taylor

There were seven engineering rooms on Survival, but this one that belonged to the team Joan lead was a busy bee nest. Engineers were running around, checking the engine readings, running test diagnostics, interpreting data, in short trying to get to the bottom of the problem, that had suddenly jumped in priority. Before, it only affected marginal systems, but once it had made the leap and started messing with the engines, it had become a totally different ball game. Patrick wouldn’t be surprised if Captain Norah Stone decided to get other engineering teams involved in the investigation. So far Patrick had been able to convince Joan to keep the investigation restricted to their team. He mainly wanted the credit when they figured this beast out, but now as the problem started to take more of a serious turn, he would be glad when it was solved, period.
Joan walked in, followed by Catharine. Patrick and Catharine exchanged a quick, but meaningful look, before Catharine went to her station to get herself up-to-date with the current information. Patrick followed Catharine for a moment before returning his attention to Joan.
“Report,” Joan went to the command center. Three engineers, including Patrick surrounded her. Each of the engineers started giving her a status report. It didn’t take a genius to tell that no body really knew what was going on.
Patrick watched Joan as she absorbed the information. He had great admiration for her. She had a sharp technical mind, but at the same time the human aspect of engineering was not lost to her. She understood that she was dealing with people who had feelings and ambitions. It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that 99.9% of the engineering team appreciated Joan’s leadership. The 0.1% left was Catharine.
Catharine, in Patrick’s opinion, was the polar opposite of Joan. She cared only about one thing, getting the job done at any cost. Patrick didn’t really appreciate that. He even had a couple of confrontations with her, and let her have a piece of his mind. It was safe to say that she didn’t take these confrontations kindly.
At this moment a rough vibration shook the ground they stood on.
“Damn,” Joan said. “It happened again.”
The activity in the Engineering room jumped a notch.
Catharine walked to Joan, Patrick and the other two engineers.
“I really think we should take a more serious look at the suggestion I gave you,” Catharine said. Her tone was different. It wasn’t a suggestion any more.
“I already told you we will after you write a development plan,” Joan replied coolly.
Patrick looked from one to another, not really knowing the suggested plan.
“There is no time to write a development plan,” Catharine shot back defiantly. “Do you want to be the one to explain to the captain why we haven’t explored all possible options?”
“I think that’s a great idea.”
Patrick snapped around and so did everyone within earshot. Captain Norah Stone stood there.
“I think it’s a great idea to explain to the Captain the status of this investigation,” Stone said.
Joan started to speak, but Catharine interrupted her.
“Captain,” Catharine started. “Sparing you the technical details, Joan and Patrick have decided to concentrate on investigating the hardware on this ship, an enormous effort I might add, and they did a good diagnostic job, but their investigation has led to nothing so far. I’m suggesting we examine the firmware on this ship, starting with the engines’.”
Stone looked at Joan, expecting a reply.
“The firmware for the engine controllers is extremely complicated, ma’am,” Joan countered. “It will take months to do a thorough code review, and I don’t believe it’s the correct avenue to take.”
“Why is that?” Stone asked.
“We don’t know the problem,” Joan replied. “Looking at the code, will be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.”
“Then it’s obvious what the next step should be,” Stone said. “I’ll assign engineering team three to help you. The investigation will still be under your command, Joan. I expect results, and I don’t want to see this problem get any worse.”
“Yes ma’am,” Joan replied.
Stone turned on her heals and exited the engineering room. Once she closed the doors after her, Joan turned to Catharine, who shrugged.
“I guess you got what you wanted,” Joan said.
“It’s not about what I want, Joan,” Catharine replied, a hint of pride in her voice. “It’s about what’s good for this mission. I’ll start organizing the code review with engineering team three, with your permission of course.”
“Go ahead,” Joan said.
Patrick waited until Catharine exited the room, “You do know that it’s unlikely there is anything wrong with the code. The firmware was written by the brightest human minds, tested and retested again and again. Am I making my point?”
“I have an idea of what we should do next,” Joan said.
Patrick looked at her expectantly.
“Let Catharine do the code review. She could uncover some problem that was over looked. These things happen. But one thing I know is we need to find out the exact reason why the ship shakes like this. This has to be our top priority. Once we have determined the source of the problem, we can develop a solution. But without really knowing what the problem is, we’re flying blind.”
“Agreed,” Patrick replied, then zoned out for a moment.
“What are you thinking about?” Joan asked.
“I think I know how we can gather more useful information,” Patrick said, a gleam in his eyes.
“How?”
“The probable cause of the shaking is extra stress on the hull of the ship for one reason or another. At the moment of the shaking we need to measure the stress on the hull at various points on the ship. When we compile this data with the myriad of other information we can gather from the various other sensors, maybe it’ll point to something that’ll lead us to the problem.”
“Excellent,” Joan addressed the other two engineers. “Please, work with Patrick to put together the necessary equipment and set it up as soon as you can.”
They nodded and headed off to work.

Norah Stone

The bridge was quite. Everyone was doing their job silently, and Stone sat on her command chair reading through pages and pages of reports from all over the ship. This past year had been busy for her. There had been twenty incidents of violence onboard, thirty filed complaints on the medical system on the ship, five educational programs started, one hundred or so complaints of people who didn’t enjoy their jobs and wanted to switch with others, and most importantly twenty unscheduled blossomed romances. After doing her research, Stone found that the cases of violence were all related in one way or another to the unscheduled romances, and to add to the complexity 97% of these cases were instigated by men.
Since making this observation Norah Stone had gone to tremendous trouble to study the behavioral changes that was occurring onboard. She had assigned several psychiatrists to study these changes and report back to her. The behavior of the citizens of Survival was within the acceptable limits set and predicted by the Planners; however, the factor of violence related to romance was not included. This was something she had to address.
Stone got up and stretched walking around with a computer pad in her hand still reading more reports. This particular one was from one of the psychiatrists with regards to the romance issues. Stone had asked her to keep a close eye on the twenty different couples onboard, without them knowing, and this report was talking specifically about Joan and Patrick. As she delved deeper into the report, Stone found herself more and more concerned about this relationship.
Up till six months ago, Patrick was pretty much similar to all the other men onboard. He did his job well, and found his pleasure by sleeping with more than one woman, but then as his relationship with Joan deepened he stopped his intimate relations with all the other women. This in itself might not have been a big deal, but the curious thing was that he had never been intimate with Joan. This was unique compared to the other nineteen relationships, and it bothered Captain Norah Stone tremendously. It bothered her on two levels. The first level was the obvious and blatant disobedience of the Planners’ R&R. The second level was almost subconscious to her and thus she was not completely aware of its existence. Norah Stone was envious of Joan. Of course she could never admit this to anyone, even to herself, and so her mind unknowingly pushed this feeling of envy deep into her subconscious.
Stone knew that relationships if left unchecked could unduly complicate their mission. The rebirth schedule had to be followed very closely and she feared that with couples onboard some might feel that they only wanted to have children with their loved ones. This would be a disaster on every level. All the Planners meticulously crafted strategies would be shot to hell. She preferred not to leave the situation get to this critical level. She needed a way to solve this problem now, without making a big fuss about it. If she used too strong of a tactic, she would risk raising the rebellious nature of the crew and before long she could find a civil unrest in her hand. She had to tread very carefully. All her actions had to be explainable, defendable and logical.
Stone could of course order the couples to break off their relationships, and she was within her complete right to do so backed up by the R&R, but she didn’t want to take this step yet. She wanted it to come about almost naturally, which meant she had to help nature along with some of the medical advances available on the ship. This meant that she had to enlist the secret help of one doctor, and she had an idea who to depend on. In fact the Planners had some how arranged for unexpected circumstances, by assigning certain individuals on the ship who could be depended on in these kind of cases. The Planners truly planned for every contingency.
Norah Stone walked to the elevator, which was already at this level. She took it and headed down. In less than a minute the elevator stopped and the doors slid open silently. She walked to her living quarters, which was only a few meters away. Her room was not with the rest of the living quarters. It was situated close to the bridge, so she could get to it in the shortest time possible.
In her room she sat at her desk and plugged in her computer pad into a specific slot. Once she did a flat panel display rose up from the desk. It displayed the document she was reading. Using a keyboard embedded in the surface of the desk, she scrolled through the report, only concentrating on the interesting parts. She finally stopped at a paragraph, which read as follows:
Curiously Patrick Taylor has been experiencing extreme feelings of guilt lately. The fits of guilt could be so strong sometimes that he would lock himself up in his room for hours crying. Click here to see a video of such an event. Also after further observation it has been discovered that Patrick and Joan’s relationship has affected their professional life and work decisions. Joan on several occasions have preferred Patrick’s opinion over other engineers for the sole purpose that he is her partner.
Stone stopped at this paragraph and pondered the implications it suggested. There were really two main issues here. One, the clouded judgment resulting from the intoxicating hormones. Two, the feeling of guilt that Patrick was going through. This wasn’t suppose to happen. The Planners had made sure that the men on Survival would behave in a specific way. They would do their jobs, remain uninvolved emotionally and obey every order the captain gave with no hesitation. Such strong feelings raised the question of what went wrong? And what would these feelings lead to? Human emotions were such an untamable beast, the Planners had discovered. They could drive a person to achieve great victories, or they could drive a person to commit the most horrid atrocities. This was particularly true with male emotions, since after a lot of study it was discovered that males had less control over raging emotions, than females, and from historical facts the most horrible wars and acts of terrorism were carried out by men. On Survival Norah Stone had to make sure that history would never repeat itself, and she was given full authority to take any steps necessary to make sure this goal was achieved.
The captain decided to view the video included in the report. She was interested to see what the psychiatrist found so important as to break the privacy law beyond what Stone permitted and capture a video of Patrick. She clicked on the link and a video window opened. With a few clicks of the keyboard the image took the full screen.
Patrick was balled up in the corner of his room, crying softly. The timestamp at the corner of the screen showed that the video was taken at two in the morning. After a moment Patrick got up and walked to his desk, opened a drawer and took out a picture of Joan. He passed his hands over it a few times, then put it back. Slowly, he sat at the edge of his bed and started rocking back and forth, before finally lying down on the bed and falling asleep.
The video ended.
Something is not quite right, Norah thought.
She rewound the video and started to watch. Once she got to the part where Patrick walked to his desk, she paused it. Stone then typed a few commands and zoomed into Patrick’s face a few order of magnitudes. To her astonishment, Patrick had his eyes closed. He was sleepwalking. Stone started the video again, and then paused it when Patrick was rocking back and forth while sitting on the bed. She zoomed on his face. His lips were moving, eyes closed. What was he saying?

David Moheshan

It was a pretty mild day. Only three patients came in today. David had felt over the past year that he has been acting as a moral support rather than a doctor. Every now and then there would be the odd injury like a broken limb while on duty. But these cases were rare. Most of the time people came in because they were bored. They needed the company. They would be stuck in remote areas on the ship for the whole day doing their lonesome jobs and sometimes they would have enough of the seclusion and the silence of space, and decide to come and complain of a mythical disease. To make them feel better, David would examine them and then let them go, assuring them they would be fine. He couldn’t wait until the Rebirth schedule started. That’s when the real medical fun began.
He would use his cloning techniques, genetic manipulation techniques; all sort of fancy equipment, that the state of the art technology could afford to make sure the Rebirth parameters set by the Planners were met. He would occasionally have a fleeting thought of why the parameters were the way they were, but then, this thought would fade away as quickly as it appeared in his mind. It was quite strange how he couldn’t think about certain things for long. But it was better this way. His job was to make sure the Rebirth parameters are met, and not judge the morality behind these parameters. Morality. That was a strange word to use in reference to the Rebirth parameters. Why did he use this word?
David cleaned up the medical quarters and arranged everything neatly. His shift was almost over. Dr. Ionella would be here any moment to take on the night shift. Not that there was night and day on Survival. There were round the clock shifts and no drop in the number of working personnel at any moment. Survival was complex enough and important enough that this type of painstaking care was needed.
David was about to leave when he decided at the last moment to do a quick diagnostic on the “History” machine. He sometimes liked to call it the time machine. Of course, it didn’t transport anyone back in time, but when someone was plugged into it, this machine could put them into a different world, or a different time, and the plugged in person would never be able to tell the difference between this virtual reality, and ‘real’ reality.
He entered the glass room where the machine was isolated. He circled around it, unconsciously running his hand across its smooth surface in an almost affectionate way. The machine was attached to a bed, which the subject would lie on. The subject would then be hooked up via several wires to the machine then sedated. Once under the influence of the machine, there was an elaborate procedure to bring the subject out from this new reality. If rushed, or anything went wrong, it could result in permanent brain damage or even death.
David had operated the machine only in simulation, but he knew the time would come when he would operate it in a live situation. Deep down, he wanted to visit the reality of the machine. As he studied its operation more and more, he realized that as a side effect of being under the influence, dormant memories that could have laid locked in his subconscious could be awakened again. This of course was not listed in the manual, but using his outstanding medical expertise, that’s what he surmised. Thus he was curious what type of memories this machine would awaken in him.
With a few strokes of the keyboard, the diagnostic started. It only lasted for a few moments and then showed a perfect result as usual. He didn’t even know why he ran this particular diagnostic so often. It was scheduled to be run only once every three weeks. He ran it almost weekly. Maybe that showed some repressed desire he had to be controlled and told what reality was. It was an absurd thought.
David exited the glass room and was about to head out when his communicator chimed. He took it out from his pocket and looked at a small display indicating the caller. It was Captain Norah Stone. For some reason he panicked. What did she want? He hesitated for a second, during which the communicator chimed twice. He pressed the speak button.
“Dr. Moheshan here,” he said trying to sound professional.
“Doctor, Captain Norah Stone.” She knew that he already knew that it was her, he realized, but maybe she was just playing along with this pretense.
“Captain, how can I help you?”
“I realize that you just got off your shift and you must be tired,” Stone said, her tone uncharacteristically soothing. “But do you mind dropping by my room.”
“Sure. I’m on my way. Anything urgent?”
“My arm is bothering me a little, and I’d like you to take a look at it.”
“I’ll bring my medical kit and be right there,” David was actually excited. He’s got work.
“Thank you, Doctor.”
She hung up.
David returned the communicator to his pocket, headed back into the medical quarters, grabbed a mobile medical kit and made his way to the captain’s quarters. Due to the enormity of Survival, it took him just over twenty minutes to make it to the captain’s room. Once there, he knocked on the door and waited anxiously. He was a bit surprised when he got the call from the captain with regards to her arm. He was not the doctor who treated her for that wound, which she got from the gunfight with the intruder a year ago. So it would’ve been more appropriate for her to call the doctor who treated her. Aside from that, the wound was over a year old, how could it still bother her? Strange.
The door opened and Norah Stone stood there, dressed in her uniform.
“Ah, Doctor, come in,” she said as she left the door open for him and walked to a chair. “Please close the door behind you.”
David closed the door after him. Norah Stone motioned him to sit at a chair opposite her. David did so.
“Would you like me to take a look at your arm, Captain?” David asked.
“Right to business,” Stone smiled, as she took off her top, revealing muscular yet feminine arms.
To David’s surprise, there was still a scar in the place of the injury, and the skin around the scar was a bit reddish. He took out an examination instrument and knelt beside Stone.
God, she’s attractive, David thought. Once he came in close proximity to her and could smell her scent, he was overwhelmed with feelings of attraction. To the extent that he believed that whatever she told him, he would do in hopes he could be even closer to her. It was a strange sensation to him. He was not usually driven by his emotions, but now defied all he knew about himself.
Norah Stone caught him staring at her face, which he was doing for the past few seconds without really realizing it.
“That bad, eh?” Stone smiled.
“Umm, no, no,” he stuttered and brought up his examination tool and started scanning her wound. “I’m just surprised you still have a scar. We could remove this for you.”
“It’s okay,” Stone said, her smile faded away and her face turned cold. “I’d rather keep it.”
David didn’t dare ask why, and the smile returned back to Norah’s face.
“How long has it been bothering you?”
“For a few months now.”
“A few months!” David was surprised. “You should’ve said something sooner. I’m detecting slight traces of the poison that was contained in the bullet that grazed you. That’s what’s causing the irritation. But just to be safe, I’d like to have you at the medical quarters tomorrow morning, to run some more thorough tests.”
“Do you think that’s necessary?”
David was struck by the question. In actuality he didn’t think it was necessary. In fact he knew that he could probably treat her now, but he wanted to be close to her, and bringing her to the medical quarters was just an excuse.
“Umm,” he stuttered. “Well, actually… umm…”
She kissed him, a long passionate kiss. The medical scanner fell from his hand. His whole body was throbbing with excitement. Norah got off her chair, while her lips was still glued to David’s, and tackled him, bringing him down to the floor and she on top of him. David felt completely out of control, and that excited him even more. He felt that he would do anything to always be with her.

Patrick Taylor

Dr. Ionella was sitting at her desk quite impatiently, when Patrick walked in the medical quarters, carrying a bulky piece of equipment that was two feet in height and must have weight at least thirty kilograms.
“Oh, hey doctor,” Patrick smiled. “How are you doing?”
“Good,” she replied without any interest.
Patrick thought that attitude was because he had ended a fling with her a while back, but he couldn’t be sure. She was very attractive, and he was sure that she wouldn’t miss the company of a man for long. He at least expected a couple of questions on what it was he was carrying, but no interest whatsoever.
“Isn’t David supposed to be here by now?”
“He’s late, and I don’t know why.”
Patrick set down the piece of equipment beside a view port, which showed a view of the passing stars. Every period of exactly one minute, the view of the stars would go out of phase in a strange effect, speed up in a sudden acceleration and then return back to normal. Patrick knew that this was a side effect of how the Survival traveled.
“What’s that?” Ionella asked pointing at the piece of equipment Patrick just set down.
Finally, I thought that the question will never come.
“Well,” Patrick started. “As part of the investigation that we’re doing, we’re setting up these sensor modules at the peripheries of the ship. They are constantly gathering data, so that if another glitch happens, we can gather enough information to hopefully figure out the problem.”
“Why here?”
“This medical quarters is on the edge of the ship. So I thought it would be a good place to set it.”
“I see.”
“Did you try calling David on his comm. unit?”
“I have.”
“And?”
“No answer.”
“That’s unlike him!”
Patrick went to the computer at the center of the medical quarters, and typed in a few commands to gain supervisory access to the internal sensors. He scanned for David’s locator, an implant planted in the bone of the left hand. It could be used to locate and measure the vitals of the carrier. It took the computer a few seconds to locate him. He was exiting the captain’s quarters. He typed a few more commands to show the history of David’s movement, but the computer denied him access. He furrowed his eyebrows. He had supervisory access so he should be able to do anything he wanted. Patrick decided that it might be a bug in the system. He exited supervisory access and requested to enter it again.
Access denied.
That was strange.
He was about to try again, when the doors to the medical quarters opened and David entered, looking serious as usual. At this moment confusion had the best of Patrick. Not a minute ago the sensors showed David just leaving the captain’s room. Now he was here. It should have taken him about ten minutes to arrive.
“Hey Patrick,” David said. “Dr. Ionella.”
“You’re late,” Ionella said.
“Sorry, I over slept,” David smiled.
“I rang you several times. How come you didn’t answer?”
“It’s kind of embarrassing. I turned off my comm. unit.”
“That’s convenient,” Ionella was not impressed.
“Sorry.”
Ionella got up and started towards the door: “Medical quarters is yours.”
She exited.
“So you over slept?” Patrick asked, unable to keep the suspicion out of his voice. “That’s unlike you.”
“I guess,” David pointed at the sensor. “Is that the new sensor you guys have been working on?”
“How did you know?”
“Word travels around. This is supposed to answer all our problems right?”
“Are you being sarcastic?” Patrick narrowed his eyes. “You’re just out of your usual character today!”
“I should stop talking, before you think I’m an alien.”
“Hmmm,” Patrick appeared to think.
“You’re not serious?”
“Just pulling your chain, Doc.”
Patrick went to the sensor and started the process of setting it up.
“It’s not going to solve all our problems, but it will at least point us in the right direction.”
“I hope so. I hear the captain is getting impatient.”
“Right.”
A few minutes passed in silence as Patrick and David each went about their own work.
“Can I exercise Patient/Doctor confidentiality?” Patrick finally broke the silence.
David looked up from his computer, on which he was reading some documentation.
“Sure. What seems to be the trouble?”
“Not really trouble.”
David spun in his seat to face Patrick.
“Don’t tell me the great Patrick Taylor is having girl problems.”
“What’s the matter with you today, man. You’re looser than you usually are. Are you on drugs.”
“Let’s not forget who’s the doctor here. So what did you want to talk about?”
“I have just been having these thoughts.”
“Go on.”
Patrick stopped his work and stepped closer to David, lowering his voice, as if afraid someone would overhear him.
“Well, I have been thinking about this mission and some of the Planners’ R&R.”
“And?”
Patrick hesitated.
“Just lay it out,” David encouraged.
“To be plain I have been having second thoughts about the validity of some of the Rules and Regulations. We’re asked not to have any relationships, but this just seems to go completely opposite to how we are. I’ve come to believe lately, that humans are built to get married and have children, and be a family. What we have been taught in the STC about the one big family concept just doesn’t seem innate.”
David looked thoughtful, contemplating what Patrick just said.
“Do you say that, because you’ve been falling for Joan?”
“Partly, I guess. But it just seems a bit more.”
“You do realize that we are part of a big picture here, that neither you nor I can see. We’re a part of the plans set forth by the Planners. They have laid down the roadwork for us, and all we have to do is follow it. I think it’s normal to have these thoughts, but let’s not make a big deal out of it. Let’s concentrate on what’s more important, on the greater good, which is not your comfort or mine, but the survival of the human species.”
And so just like that David shutdown Patrick completely. Patrick had wanted to discuss his feelings, but he had gone to the wrong person. David didn’t care about people. He cared about the R&R. He cared what the captain thought of him. He didn’t concern himself with the intricacies of the mission. At least that was Patrick’s analysis of him.
“Great,” Patrick put on a fake smile. “You’re absolutely right. What was I talking about? I should really think carefully about what I say.”
“I think that’s a great idea,” David said, then turned back to his work.
Patrick in turn returned to configuring the sensors, which took him ten more minutes to finish.
“Well,” Patrick said. “I’m all done here. I’m gonna get back to the R&D lab.”
“Have a good one,” David said.

Patrick floated in his room. He had successfully disabled artificial gravity as he usually did when he wanted to relax. It was an amazing feeling, just effortlessly floating around. Obviously what he had done was not particularly legal, but he wasn’t really a law-abiding citizen of Survival. He enjoyed breaking the rules, one of them being the relationships rule on Survival. Both Joan and him had talked about it before. They realized how dangerous it was to make their relationship public. If the captain found out about it, she wouldn’t be too happy. She’d probably order them to breakup. So they decided to keep their relationship a secret, or at least they tried, unsuccessfully. Everyone in their engineering team knew, but no trouble had surfaced yet.
He knew that the rules wouldn’t change, so he wanted to enjoy what he had for as long as he could have it. Deep down he realized that all good things must come to an end. He just didn’t know what his reaction would be when they did come to an end. It was depressing, knowing that he could never change his surroundings. This was another thing that was starting to bother him about Survival. He had no power over his environment. It was shaping his future, while he felt that he should be shaping his environment according to his dreams.
These thoughts were dangerous. He knew that it could lead him to rebel against the Planner’s system, but he didn’t really care. As far as he knew, he didn’t choose to be a part of this mission. He didn’t have a say in the rules and regulations. If he wasn’t empowered and made to feel that he was an active member of the community, why should he care about it?
He heard knocking on the door.
“Come in,” Patrick said. “It’s open.”
A few seconds before the door opened, he floated to the floor and tried to steady himself, to look like he was standing up in normal gravity. The door opened, and Joan stood there.
“Hey, you,” Joan smiled warmly, and took a step forward into the room then she lost her balance, and floated in, spinning around uncontrollably.
Patrick pushed off to the door and locked it quickly, before any passerby would realize what he had done. Then he pushed off and steadied Joan who was giggling like a child despite herself.
“You always like to do these unpredictable things,” Joan smiled.
“Well you know me,” Patrick held her hand. “Would you like to dance?”
“What?”
“Dance.”
“How?”
“Follow my lead.”
They started spinning around and pushing off the walls and the floor and the ceiling, rolling and laughing as they bumped into each other and into the furniture in the room.
“God, I didn’t know that breaking the rules was that much fun!” Joan said.
“Of course it is.”
“You made me forget what I was here to say,” Joan said. “I was going to ask if you finished setting up the sensors.”
Patrick spun her around, then pulled her into his arms.
“Really,” he smiled. “You came all the way over here to ask that? Couldn’t you just have called or something?”
“Well, I believe that face to face discussions are always more beneficial.”
Their faces were only separated by inches.
“Funny,” Patrick said. “I believe the same thing.”
“You know what they say.”
“Great minds think a like?”
“Exactly.”
Joan kissed Patrick.
He allowed himself to absorb her scent, and to get lost in the beauty of her eyes. The touch of her lips sent shivers down his spine. Then he pulled back. So suddenly in fact that it left Joan perplexed.
“What’s wrong?”
He pushed off to his computer.
“Better get over the bed,” he said, and looked back to make sure that Joan did what he told her to.
He pressed a couple of buttons and gravity returned to normal. Joan fell on the bed.
“What’s wrong?” She got off the bed and walked towards him. He wasn’t looking at her, so she gently turned his face towards hers. “Tell me, please.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Come on, Patrick,” Joan led him to the bed and they sat opposite each other. “We both know it’s not nothing. We’ve been seeing each other for over six months now and we haven’t been together yet.”
“I just don’t think it’s the right time.”
“Is this really it?”
Patrick looked away, and this time Joan didn’t push it. She just fell silent as well.
“Can I be honest with you?” Patrick finally said, his voice not higher than a whisper.
“Always.”
“You know that,” he hesitated. “That I’ve been with other women before.”
She nodded.
“You know that, but what you don’t know is that after every time I had sex with one of them, even though my body was satisfied, yet I felt there was a deep emptiness in my heart. Such a big void, that sometimes I felt nothing can fill it and so I had more sex. But the more I was with other women, the more this void became darker. It was always there. I felt it lingering there when I was working, eating. It was there all the time.”
Joan was looking at him concerned.
“Then I met you,” Patrick continued. “I met you and I felt a deep connection between you and I, and I stopped seeing other people.”
“And you don’t want to get intimate with me because you’re scared you’ll feel the emptiness again.”
“I don’t want anything to distance us,” he paused. “But it’s more than that though. This void inside of me is still there. I can still feel it. I try not to think about it too much, but it pushes me to think that there is something more to life than what we have here on Survival. I don’t know how to explain it.”
“It’s okay, Patrick,” Joan smiled then hugged him. “You don’t have to explain it to me.”
They pulled apart.
“I understand if you decide to exercise your right of mating under the R&R,” Patrick said as he got up and faced the wall, hoping with all his being for an answer that would give him some peace.
“Right of Mating. I almost forgot about it. Thanks for reminding me.”
Patrick’s head hung in disappointment, so what happened next made him jump in surprise. He felt a smack on his butt.
“Idiot,” Joan said, as Patrick turned towards her. “That’s your answer.”

Catharine Mitch

Catharine had been working for over fourteen hours straight. She had organized the code review with the twenty engineers of the third engineering unit, and they have all been at it, but so far they found no problems. Now it was time for some rest. Her brain wasn’t functioning properly any more. Deep down, she was afraid that all this effort was for nothing, and she would be proven wrong and Joan right. She didn’t want this to happen. That would be humiliating. So really, she had two options; one, to abandon the effort now and admit that going through the code wasn’t the brightest idea; two, to continue on. In her mind, she chose the second option.
She looked up from her computer console, and saw that there were only two other people in engineering room three. She got up and exited the room, heading to her living quarters and looking forward to a few hours of sleep. However, apparently this wasn’t in the cards. Her communicator chimed twice. She looked at it. It was Captain Norah Stone. She activated the link.
“Captain,” Catharine said. “What can I do for you?”
“Can you please come see me?”
“Sure captain. I’m on my way.”
The call ended, and Catharine changed direction and started her way to the Captains quarters. She kept thinking what could the captain possibly want from her. But whatever it was, this was an opportunity to get in with the captain, to secure her on her side, so that if push comes to shove and her opinion was put against Joan’s opinion, Catharine would have the captain on her side. This thought excited her. Maybe it would turn out to be a good day after all.
Catharine arrived to the Captain’s quarters and rang the bell. Captain Stone opened for her.
“Catharine, come in,” Stone said as she returned back to her desk. She continued looking at her computer screen, not giving Catharine much attention. Catharine in turn just closed the door behind her and stood there, waiting for further instructions.
Captain Norah Stone finally tapped a couple of buttons on her computer and then diverted her attention to Catharine. She seemed surprised that Catharine hadn’t taken a seat.
“Please, take a seat,” Norah Stone smiled.
Catharine, still feeling uneasy, took a seat opposite the Captain.
“How can I help you ma’am?” Catharine asked carefully.
“What do you think of Joan’s performance?”
That was an unusual question. Joan was the one that was supposed to be asked that question about her. This boosted Catharine’s confidence. However, she couldn’t bad mouth Joan, or else she would look bad in front of the Captain. At the same time this was an opportunity for her to voice her opinion and objections on Joan’s decisions. She had to be careful of what she was about to say.
“I think Joan is an inspired leader, Captain.” Catharine started. “She knows her stuff. She deals with the engineers fairly and I think everyone likes her.”
“That’s great,” Stone interrupted, seemingly uninterested in what Catharine was saying. “Let me rephrase the question. In your opinion has Joan’s behavior changed since her relationship with Patrick started?”
That took Catharine by surprise. She paused.
“Don’t be afraid,” Stone said. “Whatever you tell me remains confidential.”
Catharine shifted in her seat in discomfort.
“Well,” Catharine said, then paused trying to compose her thoughts. “It’s really none of my business what goes between her and Patrick.”
“That’s entirely true. However, it is my business. So, please answer the question.”
“I think, maybe a little.”
“Define a little.”
“She does seem to favor Patrick’s opinion over others on occasions.”
“Is it justified?”
“Not all the time.”
Captain Stone sat back in her seat looking at nothing in particular. She remained silent for a moment, before she suddenly got up and went to the view port in a couple of long strides.
“Catharine,” she finally said without looking back at Catharine. She still gazed at the stars and the endless space. “You understand this mission, right?”
“I do, Captain.”
“You understand that I can not let anything compromise this mission. Things that might seem trivial to you, are not trivial to me, because every small thing builds up to a bigger event, changing the outcome of our future. There are events that push us to our goal and there are events that push us away from our goal. This is why we must control the environment and only allow what drives us to our goal to take place. Everything else, we must…” Stone’s voice drifted into silence. The silence continued for a moment longer. It almost seemed that Stone reconsidered what she had been saying, but then she continued. “Everything else, we must eradicate from our midst, from our thoughts. This might seem radical at times, but this is no ordinary community. This crew will form the bases of the next human society. We are the seed from which the tree of humanity will grow. We cannot risk hurting this seed or cause its eventual death. Do you agree with me?” Stone turns to face Catharine, a blank expression on her face.
“I guess so ma’am.”
“That’s not good enough. If you are not with me, you are against me.”
Catharine is taken aback by the sudden confrontation. She now felt that she must choose sides. But from her point of view there were no sides to choose from. They were all on the same side.
“I don’t understand, Captain.”
“It’s very simple. I need to know that you will support me in my decisions.”
“Of course. There is no question about that.”
“Do you think Joan is on our side?”
Here was the word side again. Why was she implying that there were sides?
“Aren’t we all on the same side?”
“We all started on the same side, but unfortunately I see that divisions have started to enter into our midst. Radical thoughts that are not of the Planners. Thoughts that could have disastrous implications for our mission have surfaced.”
This was serious. Disastrous? What happened that was so grave?
“Do you mind telling me what these thoughts are?” Catharine dared to ask.
“All in good time,” Stone sat back down. “All in good time. But I am glad that your loyalties are in the right place. Isn’t that true Catharine?”
“Captain, I am behind you all the way.”
“Good. I have confidence in you that you will always make the right decisions.”
Stone paused, returning her attention to the computer screen. Catharine remained silent, not knowing exactly what to think. This was a strange meeting. She, of course, was trained to follow the captain’s orders all the time. This was how she grew up. It was part of her morals; always obey the Planners; always obey the captain. This was how the crew was brought up, so for the Captain to reiterate the obvious something serious must have happened or was about to happen, but it didn’t seem that the Captain was about to share this bit of information with her. However, it was obvious to Catharine that this meeting was far from over. It didn’t make sense to her that the Captain would call her up here just to give her this speech. There must be something more. She was right.
“I have something for you to do,” Captain Norah Stone started again.

Joan Kuzak

Both Joan and Patrick sat each on their consoles examining the stream of data that was being transferred constantly from the devices they placed through out the ship. However, there was nothing new in the data, mainly because there had been no further incidents. It had been three months and no progress. But Joan didn’t feel too bad. She new that she was doing her best to try to figure this problem out, and Catharine hadn’t figured out anything either from her code reviews.
“Anything new?” Joan yawned and rubbed her eyes lazily.
“Nothing,” Patrick said. “It’s very strange. All the symptoms that we have been noticing stopped. Everything seems to be running perfectly now.”
“I don’t know Patrick,” Joan replied. “My gut tells me this is the calm before the storm.”
At this moment Catharine walked in. She sat at her consol, which was near Joan and Patrick’s. They both fell silent as she walked in.
“I’m not interrupting anything, I hope,” Catharine smiled slyly.
“Nop,” Joan said without looking up from her consol.
Patrick got up and took a couple steps away, then looked back at Joan.
“Hey Joan,” he said. “Do you have a minute? I wanted to show you something with one of the sensor devices in medical bay one.”
“Sure, let’s get to it.”
She got up and headed after him out of engineering. Once they were out and the doors securely closed behind them, Patrick turned to Joan.
“Don’t you think Catharine has been acting strange lately?” Patrick asked.
“How so?”
“She has been acting too nice with me. Coming on to me. Strange behavior like that?”
“Oh really,” Joan said with a hint of jealousy.
“Now, now. No need for jealousy. You know I only have eyes for you.” He nudged her meaningfully. Joan smiled, but deep down she knew that something was off. Catharine was not the type of person who would show interest in Patrick. She had too much pride for that. For some reason, unknown to Joan, Catharine’s views have been growing negative of Patrick. She explicitly voiced these opinions to Joan, but Joan was determined not to let her ruin her relationship with Patrick. And now she heared that she has been trying to be “nice” to Patrick, what was all that about? What were her intentions? Over the past few months Joan has noticed a change in Catharine. Previously, Catharine was only concerned with doing her job. She had no hidden interest that Joan could sense, but now things were different. Catharine was different. With every conversation they had, with every action she did, Joan could tell that there was something under the surface. As if everything Catharine said or did, was an act she put on for Joan’s sake. She wasn’t like that with the rest of the crew, only with Joan and Patrick. Why?
Joan got extremely curious and that pushed her one night when the night shift was on, to enter into the arteries of survivals; the access tubes that only a few entered, for maintenance purposes. She crawled to access junction two-four-three, where the guts of the internal sensors were located and hooked her handheld computer to the main terminal there. She made sure to cover her tracks well, so no one could find out that she ever accessed the system. Her intention was to download the tracking data on Catharine. The computer, via the micro implants in each of the crew’s left hands, kept a log of their movement through out Survival. Joan downloaded the data pertinent to Catharine, and quickly ran a scan for common patterns. It looked like Catharine had visited the Captain in her quarters five times in the past three months. This was very odd. Norah Stone was not the type of person to let anyone too close. She was always on her guard, keeping everyone at bay. So for Catharine to visit her privately several times raised much suspicion. Then while she was pondering the reason for Catharine’s visits, she decided to see whom else the Captain invited over, so she downloaded the record of everyone who entered Norah Stone’s quarters. There were only three that ever entered her quarters; herself, Catharine and David Moheshan. What was going on?
Catharine knew what she was doing was unethical, but something felt extremely wrong. It was a strong feeling. She had no evidence to go on, but she wanted to obtain such evidence. She decided to go further along the path of unethical conduct and download the conversations the Captain had with Catharine and David, but when she tried this she found that all records had been completely erased from the main memory banks, and from the backup systems as well. Damned odd. Survival’s internal system recorded every single thing that happened onboard survival. The memory banks assigned for this surveillance task could accumulate ten years worth of data, before it would overwrite the oldest records in the database, and obviously it hadn’t been ten years yet. So why would the audio and visual records be erased but not the statistical records? The only explanation is that the one who got rid of this information didn’t do a through enough job. The only name that came to mind was Catharine. She had enough access to the system to accomplish such a task, and Joan knew that Catharine tended to miss the details, and beside all this she was one of the individuals the computer affirmed to have communed with the Captain several times. Too many unanswered questions.
Joan, in turn, erased all records of her activity over the past couple of hours, including statistical records, making sure she didn’t make the same mistake as Catharine. However, she went one step further and created false records in the computer to show that she was in her room during this time.
“Are you okay?” Patrick asked.
She looked at him a little startled.
“You zoned out for a minute there,” Patrick continued.
Should I tell him? Joan thought. No. There is no need to start a problem over something I cannot prove.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Joan said. “I was just thinking about how we could solve this problem.”
Patrick looked at her for a minute. He knew her too well, and he knew that she was hiding something, but he let it go.
“Unless the glitch happens again, I find it doubtful that we’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“Yeah, I’m not sure if that’s going to fly with the Captain.”
Patrick shrugged.
“Whether it flies or not, the facts are the facts.”
At this point Joan’s communicator beeped. She looked at the caller display. It was the captain. She exchanged a quick look with Patrick before she answered.
“Yes, Captain,” Joan said.
“I would like to see you in my briefing room now, please,” Norah Stone said coldly.
“Captain, Patrick and I were just about to go…”
Captain Stone cut her short. “Good, bring Patrick with you as well.”
The line went dead.
“What is it?” Patrick asked.
“The Captain wants us to go to her briefing room,” Joan answered, unable to keep the uneasiness out of her voice.
This didn’t feel right. Something was about to come down, and she was sure she wasn’t going to like it.
“Do you know why?” Patrick asked.
Joan simply shook her head.
“Well, we better not keep her waiting,” Patrick smirked.

Norah Stone

Norah Stone sat at her desk, reviewing what she was about to carry out. To some it might seem unfair or even unethical, but it was for the best of this mission, and ultimately for the best of humanity. She had ordered a detailed report to be written about Patrick and over the past few months Dr. David Moheshan, Catharine Mitch and another psychologist have been tracking Patrick, using all the surveillance systems available on Survival, and what they reported was not comforting. She firmly believed that if she left this situation unattended it would lead to an undesirable outcome.
As Norah sat quietly waiting for Joan and Patrick to arrive a thought presented itself to her. What was so undesirable about the fact that Patrick occasionally spoke against the Rules and Regulations set out by the planners? He hadn’t done anything to break the Rules and Regulations, but the reports clearly indicated that there was a high probability that he would eventually break them. Could she in good conscious let this happen? But at the same time how could she react to something that might or might not happen? To be completely honest she sometimes entertained notions of a world free of the restrictions of the Planner’s Rules and Regulations, but she quickly reminded herself of her role on Survival many light years away from Earth. It wasn’t her role to question, but to carry out; to make sure that she accomplished her mission to the fullest.
She struggled with her actions. One part of her felt the necessity of her impending actions, and another part felt that maybe Patrick had the right and freedom to do whatever he wanted. Freedom, she thought, was a good thing as long as it didn’t jeopardize the outcome of this mission. This mission’s importance was beyond a single man’s freedom to think, act or believe. This thought ended the struggle.
There was a knock on the door to her briefing room.
“Come in,” She said as she sat up on her chair fully alert.
Joan and Patrick entered, and stood in front of her respectfully.
“Sit.”
They both started to take a seat, but Norah Stone motioned to Patrick, “You stay standing.”
Patrick looked at her. It was obvious that he was taken off guard by that order, but he obeyed. This brought some measure of satisfaction to Stone, and when she saw the expression on Joan’s face, this satisfaction was furthered, but neither of them dared to say anything.
“I’m completely dissatisfied with your performance,” Norah directed her speech to both of them.

Patrick Taylor

Anger was rising up in Patrick’s throat, and he had a difficult time keeping it out of his face. Who did she think she was to treat him like this? Sure she was the captain, but that didn’t make him any less of a human, that she would treat him so insolently. He fought back the urge to jump over her desk and pound her to the ground. That wouldn’t accomplish anything, except maybe make him feel a whole lot better; beside she knew how to protect herself. It would be a fierce battle. What should he do? Should he just let this pass or should he respond? The wise action was for him to take the insult. But his pride rejected this course of action. For as far as he could think, Stone was constantly in his face. He knew that she didn’t like him, but he didn’t know why. He constantly kept his distance, and tried not to interact with her, but she was the one who got in his way. What was her problem?

During the past few months he got the distinct feeling that the Captain was closely monitoring him. The day consisted of three eight hour working shifts. Each engineering section scheduled their engineers to rotate between the three shifts. The rotation lasted for two weeks at a time. The schedule was planned this way in order to not overburden the engineers. Just last week Patrick worked the night shift and he was tasked with checking over all the hull sensors. It was a routine checkup, just run some diagnostics and make sure the sensors were working optimally. These sensors were fundamental to figuring out the problem once the symptom occurred. They were designed to measure the stress on the hull and perform several calculations designed to pin point the reason for the increased pressure.
There were fifteen of these sensors placed all over the ship. Patrick had already checked on ten of them and was on his way to check on the next one on his list. As he walked towards Medical Bay One where he knew David would be on duty, he made notes on his hand held computer on tasks he would like to carry out for the rest of the shift. He kept adding notes, as he entered the medical bay.
“Hey Dave,” Patrick said without looking up from his handheld computer as he headed towards the sensor.
To his surprise, Dave didn’t reply, which made Patrick lookup.
“What’s the …” Patrick started, but cut himself off. Stone was standing there beside David, and it looked like they were in the middle of a serious discussion before Patrick came in.
“Sorry,” Patrick started quickly. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“How’s the investigation going?” Stone asked in a flat tone.
“There is no break through yet,” Patrick responded, eager to get on with his job. “If you’ll excuse me, I have five more sensors to get through.”
“Whose idea was it to add these sensors?” Stone asked.
Patrick frowned. The captain new exactly whose idea it was.
“Joan came up with the concept, and I put it in implementation, Captain,” Patrick replied.
“I agreed on the concept because it was sound, but I’m starting to think that the implementation is flawed. It has been three months and no results yet.”
Patrick was getting frustrated.
“It’s not magic Captain,” Patrick replied sternly. “This is a complicated problem and it is expected that it would take a long time to resolve.”
“That’s true, but the problem arises when the length of time is due to human incompetence.”
“What are you implying?”
“I’m implying that you do your job thoroughly. It’s not in your best interest to slack off.”
Stone gave him a cold stare then turned on her heals and headed out of the medical bay.
“I’m doing my job well, Captain,” Patrick started, but he didn’t think that Stone heard him.
He stood there stunned. What was all that about? This was an explicit threat. Figure out the problem, or else.
“What’s her problem?” Patrick turned to David, who was going about his business casually as if nothing happened.
“You know how she is.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that she’s the kind of person that’s not easy to get along with.”
“Since when are you against the Captain?”
“I’m not. I’m simply stating a fact.”
Patrick looked at David suspiciously.
“So what do you suggest I do?”
David didn’t respond right away. He went about his business for a minute, looking like he was trying to formulate a response.
“It’s none of my business, man.”
“I’m making it your business, David. What do you think I should do?”
David left his work and walked closer to Patrick as if scared that someone would overhear what he was about to say. He stopped just mere inches away from him.
“Look, I think that you need to be assertive with her. Don’t let things pass. Be tough. She’ll be forced to respect you when she realizes that you won’t back down.”
Patrick kept looking at David for a minute. He didn’t believe what he was hearing. It was quite unlike him to say stuff like that.
“I’ll think about it.”
David shrugged and headed back to his work. Patrick looked on as David went about his job; a feeling starting to gnaw at him that something was off. He then headed towards the sensor and continued with his work.

“This is completely uncalled for, Captain,” Patrick said intending to show enough anger in his voice to send his message across, that he will not take this attitude any longer.
The response from the captain was swift and sharp. She pounded the desk with her fist and got up staring squarely at Patrick.
“I have previously told you that you have to get your act together or else your attitude will have consequences.”
“What attitude, Captain? I have done nothing but my job to the fullest.”
“I would beg to differ. I have been following your progress on this investigation and it has been… lacking.”
“Captain,” Joan tried to intervene unsuccessfully.
“Without me this investigation would’ve been a lot more behind than it is right now.” Patrick said.
“That’s not what the reports have been saying.”
“What reports?” Joan asked, obviously displeased that the captain is going behind her back. She was the chief engineer and it was her responsibility to report and assess her crew. “Captain it’s my duty to report on the performance of the people who work under me.”
“Do you think I could trust your reports on Patrick?”
“What’s that suppose to mean?” Patrick asked roughly.
“You know exactly what I mean. I do not wish to bring personal matters into a professional situation, but both of you have left me no choice. Your relationship with each other is affecting your work. Joan, you’re letting your feelings for your subordinate to overshadow your judgment, and you,” Norah Stone turned to Patrick. “You are taking advantage of Joan’s feelings for you to further your own agenda.”
“Agenda,” Patrick said infuriated. “What agenda is this?”
Patrick was staring to lose it. Stone on the other hand was maintaining control over her emotions and the situation.
“I don’t know what your agenda is, but it will be apparent sooner or later, you can be sure of that,” Stone said coldly as she sat back down.
“I can not allow you to direct these accusations at me,” Patrick shouted back. “I am a hard working honest member of this…”
“You’re under probation,” Stone interrupted him. “You’re dismissed.”
Patrick felt that his words have just been shoved down his throat. He stood there unable to respond.
“Get out,” Stone said.
It took Patrick another few seconds to absorb the situation. He turned and stormed out of the briefing room.

Joan Kuzak

Joan was completely shocked at what just went down. Captain Norah Stone had put Patrick on probation. She didn’t even know what that meant. No one has ever been put on probation before. What would happen if Patrick failed his probation? This was uncharted territory. What was the reason? There were so many unanswered questions. Should she stand up for Patrick? She figured she owed him at least that.
“Captain,” Joan started a little shaken. “Do you really think it was necessary to put Patrick on probation?”
The captain didn’t respond right away. She sat there motionless staring at the closed door of the briefing room.
“Yes,” she finally said.
“But Captain, truth be said he has been doing his job. I’m not sure whose reports you’re relying on, but it’s not true.”
“Joan,” Stone started sharply. “You don’t know the whole truth. You don’t know what he’s capable of, and let me tell you; the day will come when you will know him for who he really is. On this day you will turn against him and will realize that he’s not worth risking this mission for.”
“Captain, I beg of you, this is not the way to deal with this situation.”
Stone leaned forward and clasped her hands over the desk.
“I have given you your final warning Joan. He is a risk to this mission, to you and to everyone onboard Survival. I have given him another chance. If he decides to take it and amend his ways, I will put all this behind me and move forward; however, if he insists on continuing on this path…” Stone trailed off and fell silent for a moment, “well, he’ll decide his own fate.”
“Please…”
“Joan, I have said what I wanted to say, please continue your investigation of this issue. I want a resolution to this problem as soon as humanly possible. Dismissed.”
Stone sat there for a long moment just looking at the captain, wanting to continue arguing with her, but in her gut she realized that this would be fruitless. She had already made up her mind and there was no turning her back. Joan got up.
“If you’ll excuse me, Captain,” Joan said with a slight tilt of her head.
Stone waved her off. Immediately, Joan turned and left.
Joan walked for a few minutes until she was sure there was no one around and then leaned on the nearest wall and let go of her tears. She loved Patrick, and she felt guilty. It was because of her that this happened. It was because of her that Patrick’s attitude changed. He constantly spoke about how he wanted to spend his life with her and only with her, even if that was against the Planner’s rules. It was her fault because she didn’t put an end to their relationship right then and there. Maybe if she did then he would’ve forgotten about her and returned back to his old self.
Joan wiped away her tears hastily. This was no time to indulge in self-pity. She had to figure out a way to deal with this mess. She thought about how, and finally came up with a solution. What the captain did was obviously wrong, but the captain had the support of most of the crew, and Joan and Patrick alone would not be able to stand against her. So the immediate solution was to satisfy her. Give her what she wanted. Joan got up and headed towards Patrick’s room.
It took her a good ten minutes to get there, but before approaching and knocking on his doors, she knew that she needed absolute privacy, and that meant she needed to disable the internal sensors in this area to ensure this privacy. She got out her handheld computer and typed a few commands, after which she gained administrative access to the system. With a few confident strokes, she gained access to the internal sensor subsystem and quickly selected the grid Patrick’s room was located in and she disabled the sensors. Once she was sure no one was watching, she approached Patrick’s doors and knocked. There was no immediate answer. She repeated the knock. Patrick finally opened. She slipped in silently and closed the door behind her.
“Listen,” she started. “We’ve got to not see each other for a little while.”
“So you agree with her?” Patrick asked troubled. “You can’t agree with her Joan. You know me. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt anyone. And I certainly don’t have an agenda.”
“I know that, but I don’t know what she’s up to.”
“She hates me. She’s been on my back since before this mission started, and I don’t know why.”
“That’s why we can’t give her an excuse to find an occasion against us.”
“So you just want to let this go. Don’t you see what’s happening, she’s dictating how we should live our lives, and she’s willing to threaten us if things don’t go her way.”
“I think she might see this mission under a different light. You know how she was trained separate from the rest of us, since she was a baby. She was clearly chosen for this role.”
“And is that fare? I have been thinking about this quiet a bit lately. Is it fair that the planners would… would predestine each one of us? They decided that she would be Captain. They decided that I would be an engineer. Where is our free will in that?”
Joan didn’t find the words to reply. She sat down heavily on a nearby chair. She knew that she felt exactly the same way as Patrick, but a part of her also realized that this mission was far more important than one individual’s free well.
“But do you think it’s worth risking this mission because of one person’s free will?” Joan finally asked. “And beside it seems that the majority of the people on Survival are content with their living conditions. There are only a few who feel the need for a change.”
“So then it’s okay to ignore this few. Let me tell you Joan, speaking from the point of view of these few, it seams oppressive to be treated in this way. I know that all the training that we had in the STC is suppose to take over, but it’s not.” Patrick fell silent. “There just has to be more to life that this; than us following a set of rules and regulations.”
“You said that before. What do you expect out of life? I mean our mission is the most important mission in the history of mankind. We are continuing the human civilization. So I have to admit, I don’t understand what you mean when you say there is more to life.”
Patrick paced around nervously. It was obvious to Joan that he was having trouble verbalizing his internal struggle.
“I don’t know. I can’t put my finger on it.”
He paced some more, but suddenly stopped dead in his tracks and turned to Joan.
“Okay, it’s like this,” he said with a sudden burst of clarity “You say we’re on a mission to save mankind. That’s great. But what happens when we’re dead? Who’s saying that a hundred years from now, two hundred years a millennia that humanity wouldn’t be back right where it started.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, that eventually we’d be back to killing each other off. We’d be back on the path to extinction. Then all our efforts, our sacrifice would’ve been for nothing. What’s it all for? It’s all vanity.”
“But this is just the cycle of life. No one can predict what would come after us. Our job is to make sure that we pave a road for those who come after us.”
“That’s exactly it. We toil, we build we plow the future, not knowing if those who will come after us will be worthy of all this effort, or if they will just plunder all the provisions that we’ve prepared for them.”
There is a period of silence.
“Don’t you see Joan? What does all this matter if all our work is wasted after we’re gone, it would’ve been better if we didn’t do the work in the first place.”
“If everybody thinks this way, then no one will ever do anything,” Joan replied. She was surprised at the way he was talking. Maybe the captain was right; maybe she didn’t really know Patrick as well as she thought she did. Then she pushed this thought away. She did know Patrick. He was a decent, honest and loyal human being. He was loyal to her. Since their relationship blossomed he hadn’t seen anyone else. This only can be said about very few relationships on Survival. In fact on Survival, to be in a relationship was abnormal. It was against the Rules and Regulations, which made it illegal. But Captain Norah Stone seemed to let it pass, up till now. So Patrick took a great risk continuing this relationship with her, and she felt good being with him. What she felt even better about was that their relationship was unlike any other on Survival. It wasn’t dominated by the physical attraction, not to say that the physical attraction wasn’t there, but they kept it under control. She felt that this gave them the opportunity to connect at a deeper level; almost a spiritual level. So Joan wasn’t about to throw all this out of the window because of something Norah Stone said. That would be unwise.
“Listen Patrick,” Joan approached Patrick and held his hand gently. “What’s going on?”
“I told you. I just feel that there is something missing here. I don’t know what it is, but I can feel the emptiness. Don’t you feel it too?”
Joan thought about it. Sometimes when she was completely alone, which wasn’t often, since she was always busy at work, she did feel a sense of darkness in her life, but she got better at ignoring this feeling and the more she ignored it, the more it became a fading feeling, a dissipating echo of a long gone call.
She turned away from him and headed to a view port, showing a view of the passing stars, phasing in and out momentarily, due to the nature of Survival’s faster than light travel.
“Sometimes, Patrick,” she finally said. She turned back to him. “But that’s normal. Everyone has moments of downtime. We shouldn’t take something fleeting as that and make it a bigger deal than it ought to be.”
Joan tried to sound sure of what she just said, but she didn’t convince herself and it was obvious neither was she successful in convincing Patrick.
“Maybe,” he shrugged.
A moment of silence passed each one of them drowning in thoughts of an uncertain future.
“Patrick,” Joan started. “I really think we shouldn’t see each other as often, until things blow over.”
Patrick nodded in defeat, “whatever you think, Joan. Whatever you think,” he paused for a moment. “Anyway, I don’t mean to sound unappreciative, but I would rather be alone right now.”
“Okay,” Joan nodded and headed out of his room.

4 – Changing Tides

Patrick Tailor

Three Months Later

Patrick was alone in the gym. He has been running on the treadmill at twelve miles an hour for the past hour and twenty minutes. His shirt was soaked wet and the sweat was dripping from every pore in his body. That was all he could do to get his anger out. Every time he remembered the meeting with Captain Norah Stone, which took place over three months ago, he could hardly contain the rage that welled up inside of him. From that time forward he felt like he was under scrutiny every minute of his life. It was an unbearable feeling knowing that he was being watched twenty-four-seven. It made him extra cautious and made him second-guess himself at every turn. His self-confidence suffered because of this, not to mention his pride. If he had done something wrong, he could accept this blame, but he has done nothing wrong. Then why was the captain against him, and lately it hasn’t been the captain only, but it seemed that everyone in Engineering has been treating him differently; as if he was some how inferior to them. He wasn’t inferior. In fact, if anything, his mastery over the ship’s systems and over the engineering theory made him superior to all of them, even Joan.
The treadmill beeped as it hit the hour and a half mark, then it started to slow down gradually. It took it five minutes to stop completely. Once Patrick stopped running, the adrenaline pumping through his buddy subsided and the exhaustion from sprinting for an hour and a half hit him hard. However, he fought the urge to sit down immediately and did some stretches to cool down his body. Once he was reasonably cooled down he grabbed his water bottle and gulped all the water that was in it, then filled it some more from a water dispenser located in the corner of the gym and quickly gulped all of the content again. Now feeling refreshed, he filled the bottle up again and set it aside on a nearby bench, then dropped on the floor and started a sequence of pushups. But they weren’t regular pushups. He would go down in a pushup then, pull in one knee, then another pushup and pull in the other knee, then another pushup, then would jump up, then drop down and repeat the routine. The sweat started dripping again.
At the twenty-fifth repetition of the exercise the door to the gym opened and David Moheshan entered. He was dressed in his work out cloths. He got on the treadmill that Patrick recently vacated and started off in a slow jog, eyeing Patrick as he continued his exercise. Patrick on the other hand didn’t really pay attention to who entered. He was completely in the zone right now. His mind was finally clear from all the negative thoughts. All that occupied his mind right now was completing his exercise set. At repetition forty he stopped. Not willing, but rather from complete and utter exhaustion. He collapsed on the floor, breathing rapidly.
“Feeling better?” David said, while he was running. He was running now as fast as Patrick was running, yet his breath was steady.
Patrick flipped on his back and looked at David.
“Yeah,” Patrick said as he got up and grabbed his water bottle. “A lot better.”
“How’s the probation going?” David smirked.
Patrick gave him a fiery look, but didn’t reply.
“Sorry, man,” David raised his arms in a friendly gesture. “I’m just trying to lighten the mood.”
“Well since you brought it up,” Patrick said sharply. “It’s because of you that I’m in this mess to start with.”
“Me!” David hit the stop button on the treadmill and it slowed down rapidly then stopped. “What did I do?”
David got off the treadmill and walked to Patrick, who was now holding two larger than average black metal buttons, one in each hand. He stood on a special pad that increased the weight of these button-like devices, by manipulating the artificial gravity in relation to these devices. He programmed the pad to simulate forty-pound weights and started doing curling exercises.
“What did I do?” David repeated the question, when Patrick gave no answer.
“Your great advice about not backing down.”
“I didn’t tell you to tell her off. Beside, aren’t you able to make your own decisions? It’s not fair to blame this on me.”
Patrick stepped off the pad, and the devices returned to their normal weight. He put them back in their designated location.
“You’re right. I was an idiot to listen to you.”
“Look, Patrick. If you really think about it, what were you suppose to do? She was blaming you for something you didn’t do. Were you supposed to just let it go?”
“You’re back at it again.”
“Well, answer me. What else could you have done?”
“I could’ve kept my mouth shut.”
“Oh really?”
Patrick looked at him.
“Yes, really,” Patrick said.
“This is just not you, man, to let someone push you around, no matter who that person is.”
Patrick sat on a bench and took a drink from his water bottle.
“What are you saying?”
“Nothing,” David said and headed back to the treadmill. “I don’t want to get blamed again. You go ahead and do whatever you think is right.”
Patrick got ready to leave the gym.
“I’ll go ahead and do that.”
Patrick opened the door to the gym and prepared to exit, but David stopped him.
“You know,” David said, and Patrick turned to him. “You’re not the only one that’s in this situation.”
The engineer looked at him questioningly.
“I have heard that there are a few others who are under probation as well.”
Patrick continued looking at David, who started up the treadmill once again and was sprinting. He just couldn’t decide what were his intentions. Was he trying to help him? Or trying to screw him over?
“Thanks for the info,” Patrick nodded and then exited and closed the door behind him.