A Long Way Home

By Todd York

Kathryn “Rynn” Cochran takes an opportunity to travel to the interstellar Frontier on what should be a short trip to document the people who have settled on other planets. She is hoping for an escape, a fresh start on a new life after becoming a widow and seeing her twin girls off to college. But she soon finds that there is no escape on the Frontier and her old life is A Long Way Home

• Language: English
• Publisher: Todd York
• Release date: Dec 11, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466005570

Book preview

Prologue

The Department of Space Exploration and Settlement

Official Memorandum #679432SRJ

December 1, 2506

Frontier Documentation Initiative Notification

The human spirit cannot be bottled up; cannot be contained to one single blue sphere in a universe so vast.

~ Howard Lendel, 90th President of the United States

President Lendel began the Space Exploration and Settlement Program with the sole purpose of improving the future of the citizens of the United States. The world was just climbing out of the devastation of the Great China-India War and America once again was becoming a prominent member of the global community. President Lendel laid the foundation so that the U.S. could move forward with a focus on expansion and creating new habitable worlds.

With the development of the technology needed for such endeavors and the boundless energy and imagination of the world’s best scientists and engineers, President Lendel’s direction became reality. We, as a people, as a nation, established the first presence on Mars and blazed a trail for the creation of the interstellar Frontier.

Now the Department of Space Exploration and Settlement is looking for individuals to partake in a documentation effort of the cultures and civilizations that we have worked to create. The DSES will select five individuals who will travel to various locations and bring back the stories of those who live and work on the Frontier. The information gathered will be used in the authoritative documentary of what the DSES and the human spirit have accomplished.

Please look for information regarding the DSES Documentation Initiative in upcoming Notices to learn how to participate.

Morrow's Notes: The Frontier – Terraformed planets residing in habitable orbits around other stars (where else would they be?). Technically everything farther away than Mars is the Frontier, but in practice everyone considers the Santo System to be the true entry point. Mars was terraformed long before we unlocked the secret of true space travel, so when that inevitability came to pass humans began a great migration outwards. Governments, consortiums, corporations and even extremely wealthy individuals financed the trips all in an attempt to have their name plastered all over the destination they paid for.

George Santo was the first, but not the last. Now there are nearly two thousand planets and tens of thousands of sovereign nations and colonies out there and the numbers grow every day.

~ Excerpt from Dr. Morrow's Frontier Documentation Report

Morrow’s Notes: The Department of Space Exploration and Settlement – The body that the U.S. has formed to organize and execute all off-planet activities. These people are real dipshits. They have to read an instruction book just to jerk off. They waste more money than a cracked-out hooker (and I know some) and these documentation exercises are a perfect example. If they want to know what’s going on out there they should get off their lazy asses and go see. It’s nothing but a bureaucratic propaganda exercise.

~ Excerpt from Dr. Morrow’s Frontier Documentation Report (not published)

Frontier Documentation Initiative

Submitter #4: Kathryn Elaine Cochran

Current Location of Submitter: Unknown

Status: Incomplete

Date: March 1, 2508

Listed here are all Journal Entries, Activity Recordings, External Communications and Interviews pertaining to Mrs. Cochran’s time on the Frontier. All files were found on the transport ship Nadia; vessel was abandoned.

Journal Entry #1

December 28, 2507

When a baby is born we count his age in days, weeks and months until he’s big enough to get into real trouble. That is how I’ve started counting my age—I’m fifteen months old now, I have my legs under me and I’m ready to get into trouble. Thirty-five years ago my grandfather stood beside my mother in the hospital and told her that he hated my name. Kathryn is so old-fashioned, he said. So he called me Rynnie and that quickly evolved into Rynn. My mother still called me Kathryn when I got into trouble (which was rare), but the nickname stuck and I have carried it forward into my new life.

Just because I decided to start over doesn’t mean I have to throw out everything that existed before. My twin girls, Millicent and Lillian (talk about old-fashioned!) are still the center of my universe even though they made it through their first semester of college without really needing me (except for money). Their dad would be very proud, is very proud of them I should say, and I’ll bet he’s looking down with a big smile. I wonder sometimes what he thinks when he looks down on me, especially now.

None of this new-life stuff would’ve ever happened if he had not been killed fifteen months ago. It’s been over seven hundred years since the right to bear arms was inscribed in the Constitution and the one thing that hasn’t changed is what happens when people get their hands on those ‘arms’.

I met Robert when I was fifteen. He was my first everything—first date, first kiss, first boyfriend, first you know…first and only true love. He was the new kid in school; tall, lanky and, well, socially awkward is putting it nicely. But it was love at first sight. We were a little too much in love and when I was sixteen I had the grand experience of telling my parents that I was pregnant—with twins.

Robert and I got married and lived with my parents and then his, then mine again until we got on our feet. He made it through college first and landed a good job at a bank and then it was my turn to hit the books. As the girls started school so did I and by the time they finished their primary grades I was out and in the work force as a secondary school history teacher. That thrilled the girls to death since I was at their school and everything they did got back to me in a hurry. Nothing will wear you out like keeping tabs on two teenage girls. But that life, Rynnie 1.0, ended one day when a man took aim at his ex-wife on the street and pulled the trigger.

Robert and his boss had just exited the bank on their lunch break, both of them laughing hysterically about something according to eyewitness accounts. That’s not hard to believe, Robert was always playing practical jokes. The man hunting his ex-wife stood in the street and shouted something before he started shooting. He was a horrible shot—he fired six times and hit four people, none of them his ex-wife. He killed one: Robert Lloyd Cochran. Robert never made it to the hospital; in fact—if I believe the doctors—he never made it down to the sidewalk. I like to believe he never felt a thing, that he never had last horrific thoughts, pain or fear. That’s what I like to believe. I think about him constantly but I don’t get as lost as I did a year ago.

I was lost when I set all this up, but now that it’s actually happening I’m excited. Yes, it’s an escape, but it’s also an exclamation point on my new beginning. Three months after Robert passed I was a borderline schizophrenic insomniac and I dove into anything that would occupy my brain. I found a ‘Frontier Documentation Initiative’ announcement that offered a grant to qualified people so that they could travel to any of the numerous worlds that we occupied and tell the story of the lives there. I was awake in the wee hours of the morning as usual and filled out all the forms in one sitting. I didn’t think much of it after that day. I later found out that some other people (PhDs, published authors, syndicated reporters) who submitted for the grant spent six months or more completing each section in painstaking detail—only to be looked over for the widow who rarely got out of her pajamas and spent most days and nights crying into her pillow.

Imagine my complete stupefied shock when I received the communication two months ago notifying me that I was one of five people selected. A week after I got the letter I got another announcement that provided me with access to my grant: five hundred thousand dollars (I can’t believe they give away free money like this!) that could be spent anyway I chose just as long as I ended up with two deliverables: a book documenting life in the ‘frontier’ region, and a documentary on the making of the book.

I flew to the headquarters of the Department of Space Exploration and Settlement in Meriwether and had to endure two long days of briefings: what to do, what not to do, what was acceptable material (just about everything), what wasn’t, and how to account for the money we spend. This documentation initiative is the second go round for the DSES. The first was done a few years ago by Dr. Constantine Morrow, Dean of Anthropologic and Cultural Studies at Pinestill University. The issue with Dr. Morrow is that he suffered from alcoholism and his documentation is, well, questionable. He traveled extensively for two years but the DSES couldn’t publish most of his work. They did give us a copy of his notes, the famed Morrow Notes, but we all had to sign a document stating that we would not release them to anyone for any reason.

I also picked up a new computer. I got my first wearable when I started working, it was a must. All the kids have them. But this one, holy cow, it’s so thin I can’t even tell I’m wearing anything, neither can anyone else, it’s on the back of my ear and out of sight. Unlike the solar powered devices that have to constantly be reapplied to your skin, this thing stays in place with natural electrostatic forces and is powered by me. And the contact lenses (‘goggles’ the guy called them), the colors are so much better and the holograph view is so much bigger. I’m no techie, but this is cool.

Once they calibrated the system I could move the cursor with my eyes and select items just by staring for a moment, and I do mean a moment, it is crazy how this thing works. The units you can get at the store can’t hold a candle to this thing. They tried to get me to move away from my holograph backup keyboard but I wouldn’t do it. Robert got that for me and I can’t part with it.

The lenses also serve as cameras. The tech guy told me that they will catch everything that I see—audio and video—and transmit it back to the computer for storage. I don’t have to worry about capturing notes on my handheld which is a relief. He told me to go over everything that had been recorded at the end of each day and add commentary so I didn’t forget what happened. So someone, somewhere, will get both a full version and a converted text version of everything I see and do. I will try to explain things as best as I can for you (whoever you are) and I will try not to leave anything out. I’m not a scientist, a poet, or an explorer; I am just a fifteen-month old starting out and ready for whatever comes next. I wonder what Robert would think of that? I hope he’s smiling down on me.

Interview #1

January 2, 2508

My first interview is with, of course, my daughters: Millicent and Lillian. I don’t know what they did for New Year’s and I don’t want to know, but I only have a couple of more days before I leave and they are all mine until I get on that shuttle.

Rynn (Me): Girls, what do you think about your mom hitching a ride to the stars and ambling out and about on other worlds?

Millicent: I still can’t believe you’re actually doing this. It’s like, like a crazy dream or something.

Lillian: And it’s not you at all! I mean just three years ago you were afraid to go through the haunted house ride at the fair and now you’re going off-planet for like, ever.

Me: Two months, tops, don’t be so dramatic. I’m sure you will find someone to do your laundry for you.

Lillian: But not like you do it!

Me: Seriously, tell me what you think, how you feel about this. I want to know.

Lillian: I’m Dad’s girl, I don’t have serious talks, you know that.

Me: [I gave my baby daughter, she was born second, a ‘don’t be like your father’ look.] Spit it out or you’re out of the will.

Lillian: What? Now who’s being silly?

Me: Who said I was joking?

Millicent: That shit-eating grin, that’s what.

Me: Millicent, language. How many times have I told you I don’t like that language?

Millicent: Sorry, Mom.

Lillian: You know you’re likely to hear a lot worse out there. We’ve all heard the stories about things happening out there: pirates, smugglers…warring cannibals.

Me and Millicent: Warring cannibals?!

Lillian: Could be, you never know, I’m just trying to warn you.

Me: Your uncle has put me with his roommate from the academy. This guy is a former SMIG officer and runs a humanitarian non-profit now; I’ll be perfectly safe from pirates, smugglers and even those tricky cannibals.

Millicent: Ooh, maybe you’ll hook up with some hot pirate out there, and you could–

Me: Okay, interview’s over.

I edited out the rest of Millicent’s ramblings, but trust me, you’re not missing anything. Two more days to go and there’s still so much to do. Good night (whoever you are).

Morrow’s Notes: The Sozen Military Group – A group dependent on money from numerous governments, corporate entities and insanely wealthy individuals. The SMG, pronounced ‘SMIG’ by everyone from housewives to prime ministers, is the highway patrol so to speak. Everything between two planets or systems is their territory. They are not tied to any sovereign nation and claim not to show favoritism.

I find them to be repulsive, arrogant, and incompetent—especially since they caught me with booze of questionable legality and made me get rid of it. If you see them, go the other way, they will confiscate your stuff.

Journal Entry #2

January 4, 2508

The girls saw me off before the sun was even thinking about coming up this morning. I kissed and hugged them and asked them to please stay out of trouble. Hopefully they will listen. As soon as I waved goodbye I was herded into a room where SMIG personnel, and civilians with proper credentials (me!), waited for a ride to the transit station hovering up in the thermosphere. And we waited. And we waited.

The first time, the only time, I have been off-planet was for mine and Robert’s fifteenth anniversary. We rode up to the transit station in a plush commercial shuttle and then got on a yacht where we had people nearly begging to do something for us. This time it was me begging, begging to get back to the ground. Holy crap!

It was almost noon by the time we boarded a shuttle and I kid you not this thing was as tiny and cramped as anything could be. No one helped with my luggage and the little guy flying it, he looked no more than fourteen, took off before I was even sitting down. The shuttle jerked and lurched and I fell directly on top of some young SMIG soldiers and they laughed at me! Wait until I tell my brother about this! He is a SMIG colonel and he will set them straight! When we landed at the transit station I was the last one off and after I fought with a port authority guard about my non-regulation bag (which no one told me about) I nearly missed my ride to the Commonwealth System—the newest addition to the terraformed galaxy.

Now I am onboard the big commercial liner and we are making our way there. The ship is full, overly so, but I have met a few interesting characters and I am hoping to score my first official interview with one of them after dinner is served. So, my nameless and faceless friend, I will have more later.

Journal Entry #3

January 4, 2508

(second entry of the day)

I’m such an idiot! I have one trump card to play in this entire fiasco and I already used it. My big claim to fame is that my great, great, great, great…(you get the picture) grandfather was Joe Thompson. Name ring a bell? How about Skeeter Thompson? Now I can only imagine the smile on your face.

Yes, my dear old great granddad is the South Georgia hick (he wore overhauls under his lab coat) who put antimatter back on the map as the prevailing source of power for everything from regional substations to small space faring