Home Away From Home: Earth 2

By Connie Simon

Earth, as we know it, is dying. Natural resources are being depleted to the point that wars are being fought over a water supply. Social structure is breaking down. Every man for himself. The powerful control what little resources still exist. The governments of the world decide to send a number of colonists to a moon just the other side of our solar system. The last valiant attempt to save mankind. This is the story of that moon and its colonists. Their survival, and what they did to preserve the legacy of mnakind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Simon
• Release date: Oct 3, 2018

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Chapter 1

Chapter One

I walked into the transporter area running a bit late. I had my bags and my transporter authorization. The area was full of other people waiting to transport to Earth Space Dock. I was in the fourth group. Three other groups of ten people had already transported. As I understood it, there were 100 of us all total.

My turn came to go and I stepped onto the transporter with my group. There was a sudden buzzing noise from the control console. The last thing I heard was the word energize. The next thing I knew I was standing on the transporter pad on Earth Space Dock. For some reason, ESD was crowded today. It was a Thursday. ESD was never this crowded on a Thursday.

We were being escorted to a room on the upper deck to wait for our transport to arrive. The room was fast filling up. Someone had not anticipated the amount of baggage 100 people might have. I had been specifically told to restrict my bags to two. That was exactly what I had brought with me. Apparently, some of the others had not been told the same thing. One woman had four large bags, and no one was telling her she could not have all four.

Our transport pulled into the dock at airlock number 12. The announcement came over the intercom that our transport was ready for loading at airlock 12. With that, we all gathered our belongings and headed over to airlock 12. The woman with four bags had to have help. That will teach her to observe the same restrictions everyone else is required to observe.

Each of us, in turn, presented his or her authorization to board the ship. The process was slow and tedious. For whatever reason, the computer was running like an old TI-99. I know that is a reference most of you will not understand, but it will make perfect sense to others.

We each had to share quarters with at least one other person. Some had to share with two other people. I was one of the lucky ones. I only had to share with one other person. We were escorted to our quarters and told to meet in the cargo bay in twenty minutes. The leader of the colonization group had called a meeting to discuss what we should expect when we arrived at our destination.

I, personally, thought the meeting was a bit premature. We had just left ESD. We were no where close to our destination. The leader wanted to brief the ones that had not responded to the RSVP communication, but he also, wanted to make sure we all understood what we had signed up for. I, for one, was quite sure of what I signed up for. I was leaving Earth to travel to a moon in another solar system to colonize that moon. There was a fifty-fifty chance we were all going to die. Either on the way there or after we arrived at our destination.

Our destination was a moon in another solar system. It had been discovered by the Hubble telescope a few years back. The government had sent an automated space craft to terraformed the moon a few months ago. They were satisfied that the terraforming had taken. I had heard a different story from several friends of mine. There was talk of a slight problem with the terraforming.

Once they had a moon to send someone to, they started to gather people that could make the colony work efficiently. It was plain to everyone on Earth that something had to be done. We had already colonized our own moon. That colony was doing well. Several of the planets in our own system had been explored and rejected for one reason or the other. The closest planet to colonize was Mars, but it had a number of drawbacks that made it a bad choice for colonization.

Then when Hubble discovered this moon just outside our solar system, the enthusiasm was rekindled. The moon needed to be terraformed first. As it was, it was basically a rock in space, but it was large enough to move several hundred people to. We were the first group to make the trip.

The meeting lasted almost an hour. It was the same information I had received in the communication I got as a result of when I RSVP’d. It was apparent that a good number had not responded to the communication. They were asking questions that were clearly answered in the followup communication when you RSVP’d.

After the meeting, we all returned to our assigned quarters to unpack for the first leg of the trip. We had to stop at the moon colony for an assortment of equipment that we would need once we arrived at our destination, if we arrived. Our first scheduled stop was Europa. There was a colony there that had some other equipment we would need.

When we left Europa, our cargo bay was full of equipment that our government thought necessary for our trip to the moon in question. Our next scheduled stop was Pluto. The colony on Pluto was small and was primarily an observation point. We were only stopping to switch ships. Pluto’s orbit would bring it into the correct position at just the right time for us to dock and switch ships. We had to hurry though. Pluto would only be in place for 6 hours. After that we would find ourselves fighting the slingshot effect to escape our solar system.

We made it to Pluto on schedule. The two crews hurriedly switched our cargo of equipment to the new ship. We had to gather our belongings and get checked in on the new ship by the time they got the cargo switched. This time the process was noticeably faster. I am not sure if it was a better computer or if it was just that our information was already programmed in. Either way, I was paired with a different person this time. We were escorted to quarters that were roughly the same size as the previous quarters, but these quarters had better beds. That was an improvement I could live with.

Our trip so far had only taken a few days. The last leg of the trip would take a few more days alone. Our new ship was equipped with hyperdrive. It was a low end hyperdrive, but it worked, and that made a difference in how long this leg of the trip would take.

Once we were outside our home solar system, the captain announced that we would be going to hyperdrive in 2 minutes. The announcement was meant to indicate that we needed to secure anything that was not, and find a seat ourselves before the ship jumped to hyperdrive. Granted, two minutes is not very long, but it should be long enough if everyone was ready in the first place.

A few minutes later our ship made a screeching sound and went to hyperdrive. That was a strange feeling at first. After a few seconds at hyperdrive your body adjusts to the higher velocity. You can then stand and walk with a little practice. I am told the same thing happens when the ship decelerates. Going from hyperdrive back to impulse drive produces a sense of time dragging when you try to move.

We would be at hyperdrive for the next two