Kennedy Space Center, North American Federation
Sunshine brightened the horizon in the distance, illuminating the morning haze of a humid Floridian summer. A rocket was propped up atop its launchpad, proudly standing against the soothing breeze that passed over the skin of thousands of onlookers eagerly staring at the rocket from a mile away. The sky was a clear blue, not a single cloud in sight. Conditions were perfect for the launch. It should have been something to celebrate, after all, nobody likes a delay.
Ka-thump.Ka-thump.Ka-thump.And yet Neil Siward's heart felt like it was about to burst from his chest. It seemed as though the tension was as thick as the air outside, as if the haze itself represented the nervousness of the crew. He had fought in the Yucatan War, hell, he'd become lost over the gulf without any way of knowing where he was during it. He had found his way back to Enterprise purely by following the algae it left in its wake, he had been engaged in close-range dogfights with aircraft twice as maneuverable and three times as deadly as his own. And yet, in all of his years, not once had he been as nervous as he was on that launchpad.
Below him was God knows how many tons of combustible fuel, all packed into a thin metal shell. Above him was a giant hulk full of even more combustible fuel and matter that could warp space and time. The fact that said giant hulk was the foundation of all of humanity's hopes and dreams just mad everything worse. A single mistake, a slip of the hand, an itchy nose that distracted someone just a little too much, and everything would be lost.
The tiny little shuttle in which they were residing was tipped up on it's back, and the six men and women at the front of the vehicle had been lying on their backs for well over an hour while ground teams ran through the final checks. In lockers beside them were the few personal items they had been allowed to take. An interestingly large variety of things were packed, some took pictures of loved ones, others their favorite wine. One had brought their late husband's ashes, to fulfill his wish of being laid to rest upon an alien world. In the back left of the cabin, there was a man whom had brought a cassette tape player. Completely obsolete, but still workable. He'd also refused to tell anyone why he decided to bring an ancient piece of equipment with him.
"Alright, I think it's about time to you to get that answer you were looking for."
Everyone turned to look back at that man who had chosen to bring a tape player instead of a picture frame or movie collection, who was already opening his locker. As silly as it was, they had been wondering about it for a while by that point. He had only denied answers, and never confirmed any. Given that one of those denied answers had been the first one (Oh, you wanted to bring your favorite songs!), the idea of the tape player being anything but had become a running joke.
"Ah, we finally get the answer to the big mystery!" Exclaimed the woman who had brought the ashes, in a particularly tongue-in-cheek voice. "My money is on it being a bomb that he built to prevent us from meeting aliens, like in that one movie."
The crew shared a chuckle, but still looked back to watch the man. Though they made plenty of jokes about it, they were still genuinely interested. Unsurprisingly, the man put one of the cassettes into it and hit the play button.
The static of a degraded cassette tape filled the cabin, and the woman muttered a joking "Dammit!" as she slapped her chair's armrest.
It's minus ten and counting, and soon she will be gone.The music was definitely at least inspired the Classical era, specifically, it was clearly some variation of folk or another. There were so many that it was hard to tell which were actually pre-Dark Ages. The accent of the singer, however, gave it away. Not a person on Earth could mistake that ancient, American accent from the mountains of the south.
That shining stub-winged angel that we've pinned our hopes upon.
And even as she waits she seems to strain to touch the sky.
It's minus ten and counting, and we wait for her to fly.
It's minus ten and counting, and time is passing fast.
It's minus ten and counting; will our next choice be our last?Some had opened their mouths to comment on the song, but none of them actually chose to speak. For a brief couple of moments, the static and music from the tape player seemed to overpower the constant whirring of the vessel's machinery.
It's minus ten and counting for the plan that gave her birth;
The plan that will determine if we ever leave the earth.
Will we choose to throw the plan away, forget our need to know?
It's minus ten and counting; will we stay, or will we go?
It's minus ten and counting for the world on which we live.
We're swiftly using all this lovely planet has to give.
The pressure builds, and soon the chance to escape will pass us by;
It's minus ten and counting: will we grow, or will we die?
It's minus ten and counting, and time is passing fast.
It's minus ten and counting; will our next choice be our last?"Did you bring that entire thing just to play that song at launch?" Asked Neil, turning back from his command seat in the front of the cabin.
"I thought we could all use some appropriate music during the mission, but yeah, mostly for the launch."
"Well it's a good thing that it's a big ship, because my disco would definitely clash." Said the woman.
"Am I the only one here who doesn't particularly like Classical music?" Asked another woman, a warp field specialist.
"Yes." Said everyone else in the cabin.
As the cassette tape moved on to the next song, a message came through the ship's radio.
"Mission Control to STS-297, ground team is clear, we have a go on all systems. Over."
Everyone snapped back into focus on the mission, and the man who had brought the tape player closed the locker to muffle the sound. Amusingly enough, they all checked their seatbelts, as if they had just gotten into the craft. Nobody wanted to go through a launch without restraints.
"STS-297 to Mission Control, our board is still green." Said Neil. "Over."
"Roger that STS-297, beginning final countdown. Good luck up there. Out."
Neil keyed the code for a standard automatic launch profile into the shipboard computer, then placed his hands on the controls. The ship was designed for an automatic launch, in fact, it could carry out a full orbital mission including docking with other craft all on its own. However, on any manned mission, it was operating procedure to have a pilot prepared to take control of the vessel at any time. Though computers usually operated perfectly, nobody was about to let a glitch kill half a dozen people.
"Ignition sequence start." Said the computer in its robotic monotone. Neil was counting down the seconds off of the systems monitor situated in front of him, in absence of any voice recording to inform the crew.
"8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2..."
The final number was drowned out by the thunder of the rocket's engines as it ascended into the clear blue sky above it.
A tiny flicker passed through the space above Earth as it circled the blue-green pearl of a world. It was nothing more than a nearly invisible speck in the distance, but to the people of the planet beneath it, it was far more. It was the dreams of millions of children throughout history, it was the far-off fantasies of grown men and women who were waiting for someone else to make them reality, it was the culmination of all human labor up until that point. It was Terra's first starship, floating there as if it was just another star in the vastness of space.
"I've gotten the trajectory calculated, Commander!"
Within the hull of that ship, three men and three women were scurrying about making the final preparations for what would go down in history as the most important event in human history. Two of them were sitting down in the cockpit, Neil Siward and Rei Kimura. Neil because he was the navigator and Commander of the mission, and Rei because she was a linguistics and diplomatic mission specialist, so there wasn't anything for her to do aside from tying everything down. Which she had done so amazingly quickly.
"Ah, good job." Said Neil, reaching for the small data stick that the man who had spoken was holding out for him. Sebastian McCoy, the vessel's combat operations officer as well as resident Classical era eccentric. He was the one who had brought the tape player, which was playing a song about Queen Isabella. Why it was describing the progressive Queen of 28th century Madagascar as a religious fanatic who funded naval expeditions, only Sebastian seemed to know.
"You'd better not have screwed up." Said Rei. "We're calibrating the particle tractor with this data."
"I quintuple-checked the equations, they're flawless. We won't be releasing a gamma ray burst in front of our bow."
"There's also the aft, you know." Said Neil with a smile on his face. "If we're facing the wrong way, we might give everyone back home a sunburn."
"They're right, you demanding bastard."
Sebastian sat down in his seat on the right of the bridge (referred to as the cockpit by the crew), which was situated in front of a console that was displaying a 3-D hologram of the surrounding space. He deactivated it, letting him get a better view of the planet below through the gigantic window that stretched across the bridge. While he sat there staring out into space, Neil keyed in the trajectory calculations. His own station was in the middle of the cockpit, with most of his equipment being holographic in nature. He also had a retractable console piloting, just like the fixed one Sebastian had. During combat control would usually be passed off to Sebastian, but as it had been during the first moon missions, the Commander was the true pilot.
As time went on, the rest of the crew came back from their duties. By 1200 hours exactly, they had all reached their seats and strapped in. None of them wanted to delay the breaking of the light speed barrier. Somewhere along the line, however, somebody had turned off Sebastian's tape player. Non-ship electronics had to be shut off during the activation of the warp drive, for fear of somehow causing interference. Not that there was any reason it could interfere, but once again, there wasn't any margin for error.
"Well, this is it." Said Neil, looking around the bridge at his crew. "If we die out here, I'm blaming McCoy."
"Hey, I'm a combat ops specialist, not the Commander. It'll be on you, buddy."
Everyone laughed at what was perhaps the only reference to Classical art made by Sebastian the entire crew would actually understand.
"Well if you're going to place the blame on me, I'll have to put some more effort into it."
He reached over to the set of buttons on the side of his command chair, and pressed one of them. A console rose up from the floor below him, putting a set of controls at his fingertips. In the compact bridge, he didn't need a holographic display to show him a more direct view of the space ahead like in some of the more spacious starship designs that had been submitted. He linked the console with the ship's computer, and activated a short autopilot sequence to correctly orient the vessel with the target star. A few seconds later, he flicked eight switches to allow the negative mass to flow into the warp rings attached to the hull. The high-pitched whine that came afterwards told him and the rest of the crew that the warp drive was functioning perfectly.
The ship slowly began to move away from the Earth. It was barely noticeable at first, but as more and more negative mass flowed into the warp rings, the ship began to go faster and faster. Soon, had they turned back, the only glimpse of Earth they would have gotten would have been similar to the famous pale blue dot picture from so many centuries ago.
"Commander, we've passed the light speed barrier."
Neil didn't really process who had said it. All he could think of was that simple fact. They were the fastest-moving humans in the history of the entire universe. He had no idea how to react.
"If Sebastian had the radar, does that mean he gets the nude scene?"
Sebastian broke out into a laugh, while the rest of the bridge crew just tried to figure out where the humor was.
"At least Sebastian got the reference." He said, turning his head to stare out into the soothing, blue-shifted image of the universe before him.
