I remember the stars, clear and burning. The midnight airs chill as I walked on to the ships deck. The earth was my home but, suddenly I knew it wouldn’t be here anymore after tomorrow. I would never see it again. The blue skies and cold summer waters would never be seen by my eyes or touched by my hands ever again.
The tragedy of it all sent chills down my spine. I would never see any of it. Sudden guilt over came Bethany didn’t know I thing about what was to come tomorrow. She still thought I was at camp. “Camp” was the word my Uncle had said only three months ago. But, it wasn’t camp. And my best friend would never have realized that “camp” was actually a special name for a research facility in Nome, Alaska where my Uncle, his wife, and I had been selected to under go extensive tests to figure out if we were right for the once in a lifetime chance to be apart of Project Pilgrim.
Project Pilgrim was a project that NASA had been working on for over thirty years once they figured out that our sun was going to explode in the near future. Back then, the United States was the only country with the technology to know that it was going to happen. But, over the years Japan, Russia, and a lot of other countries realized the unforgiving truth of the matter and started to work with the U.S to find away to save our species and other species.
We’re one of over a thousand people that are going on this ship. “Alexandra… Come we must check in.” Michelle interrupted my thoughts. Something she always had away of doing when something bad was about to happen. “Okay…” I looked up at the stars one more time and followed my blonde curly haired Aunt who’s eyes were stained with tears.
“Please give us your name.” The check in clerk stated wearily. She must have been a little older then my Aunt. Who was pretty young compared to my Uncle Jasper who was ten years older. “Jasper and Michelle Sullivan and Alexandra Canon.” Jasper said presenting an active I.D card and handed to the clerks whose name was Karen as it stated on her identification card. “Your family is bunked in Sector 5 in cabin 23. You bags are already there, be sure to meet with the Captain as you are the Head Biologist on this ship.” Karen smiled and handed back the card. Jasper put the card back in his pocket and started to herd my Aunt and I towards the capsule train that was the only transportation on the ship. “Are you ready for this new adventure Ally?” Jasper said in utter joy. “As ready as I ever will be.” I looked out the window the capsule train as the inside of the enormous ship flashed by, Showing nothing but, the whirl wind of 80 miles and hour. “Ally your going to be the junior medical intern. You have a great responsibility on this ship. Please try to make the best of this very awful situation.” Michelle looked over at me. “I know. I know. Leave all your friends behind so that you can watch them all die an you live.” I rolled my eyes. I hated being rude to her but, she thinks this is a really good situation and it’s not. In less then a day my best friend will be dead and I’ll be on my way towards deep space in a cryogenic sleeper chamber and wake up to a new planet inhabited by aliens that we’ve only contacted with by radio signals.
Michelle looked away and stared off into the distance, pretending not to be hurt. “I’m sorry Michelle it’s just… I didn’t ask for this to happen. “She ignored my remark and kept staring out the window of the capsule train.
When we arrived at Sector 5 it was only half full. There were only a hundred teenagers on this shuttle so I wasn’t completely over run with new faces. Most of the people in Sector 5 were with me at training in Nome.
“Alex!” Cynthia came over to me as I walked up the stairs to our cabin. I looked at her. She was one of the only good friends I had made out of this situation. “Hey.” She gleamed in excitement. “Well here I am. How’s your brother doing?” Cynthia’s mother had given birth about three days ago before we started to board the ship. She named here son Titan Andrew Connors. After the discoverer of the alien radio signals, Andrew Johnson.
“He’s doing great my moms been going crazy trying to figure out if he’ll be alright during the cryogenic sleep cycle during hyper drive.” Of course her mom would Cynthia’s mom was the only person on this ship then worried for all of us two times over.
“He’ll be fine. It’ll be like a nap he is a new born you know.” Cynthia laughed a nervous laugh then started to walk with me. Jasper and Michelle were still in the capsule train trying to figure out were Michelle’s luggage had gone.
I kept looking up at the cabin numbers trying find number 23. When I came to it Cynthia was babbling on about some guy named Marcus that was supposedly “Smoking hot.”
I cast the door open and turned on the auto lights. The cabin was huge. There was a kitchen, living room, and stairs leading to second floor. “Your so lucky your Uncle’s the leading Biologist. My cabin is small with only three rooms.” Even through she looked jealous I didn’t see what a person could be jealous about. The earth is going to be impacted in a day or so and all she could think about was how small the cabins were?
“Yeah, I guess I am. I’ll meet you in a minute for dinner. I want to unpack and stuff.” I lead Cynthia to the door and tried to be nice with my hushed deception. I wasn’t going to unpack I just wanted to be alone and think about my new life here. “Okay.” She smiled and walked out. The door shut behind her.
I walked around the specious cabin that would be my home for the next week and then everyone would lay in there comfy coffin like cryogenic sleepers until we reached the alien planet where these so called “allies” lived.
The apartment like cabin was a musty gray color. It looked like it was frozen in some old sci-fi film that Jasper had made Michelle and I watch when he was in his sci-fi faze. The only window looked out on the late September sky. That was mixing with the pink of the sun setting for the last time. The sun had already begun to burn a darker orange then usual. Signs of what was to come in the next two days. “I hope Bethany will survive.” I whispered to my self and the empty cabin.
I walked up the stairs exploring my new home. The upstairs was roomy like the downstairs quarters. There were two bedrooms. The master bedroom had un-tarnished new curtains covering the setting sun. I found this very ironic because we were only going to be awake for a total of a week before everyone goes to sleep. Why would the government go out of their way to decorate a ship’s quarters with homey fine living curtains, bedding, and other non important things? This wasn’t a vacation this was a save the “human race” type of situation.
“Alexandra?!?” Jasper called up from downstairs. “I’m here. There are two bedrooms up here...” I called back to him. Michelle made her way up the stairs that were just made of beams and metal.
“Isn’t it nice Alex?” She asked throwing her bags on the all white comforter that covered the large bed. “Yes but, isn’t it a little too much? I mean we’re going to sleep in less then a week.” She looked around the room for a minute. “Sort of but, no need to complain we should be thankful that we’re on this convoy and not staying here to die.” She always had some other way of putting things so that I felt guilty for what I said. “Yeah I guess…”I started toward the door when I almost collided with Jasper. “Ally, go unpack. I have a long day tomorrow. I need you to be ready too.” Uncle Jasper came in with a large box of our belongings. “
Just one box lay on my small twin sized bed. I had only chosen to travel with a minimal amount of my belongings. I wasn’t about to bring everything to some planet I knew nothing about except that we could breath there.
I opened the card board box slowly. My mother’s picture lay on the top of all my other things. My mother died when I was only three years old and my father left before I was born. Jasper is the only family I have. That’s why he made the people who scouted him for the Pilgrim Project take me too, because I’m like his daughter.
I set the picture of my lovely mother on the night stand next to my bed just like at home. I put away all my clothes into the small closest that was on the left side of my cabin. The cabin was small compared to Jasper and Michelle’s room, with only three pieces of furniture a bed, nightstand, and desk. All in the same musky gray color, I put my blanket on the bed giving the room a small amount of color. All I had left was a few posters and my high school graduation diploma that I wouldn’t need anymore because you didn’t need a diploma to be a refugee from some far off planet.
I decided to take a shower before supper in the cafeteria. Everyone on this ship would be there. We had one day of this week that we would be awake to spend on the familiar gravity of Earth and then we’d lift off and leave this planet top it bitter doom.
Doom. A word I would never have used until now. When I think about all the times I thought my life couldn’t get worse I found out the planet was doomed to be destructed by our sun.
The water trickled down my body as I laid my head back and let the cool rush of it flow down my long mid-back length brown hair. I had my mother’s hair or so of what Jasper said. He’s not really my Uncle though. He was my mom’s ex boyfriend at the time of her death. They had stayed close even after the break up. He took me in on account that my mom’s family was dead.
I heard the intercom come on in the hallway as I stepped out of the cool shower. “Attention crew. We have just been notified that we will not be leaving tomorrow as planned. Instead we will lift off in about an hour due to increasing solar flares that are entering Earth’s atmosphere. All crew are confirmed to meet in the cafeteria immediately. We are sorry for the short notice. Thank you.” The Captain’s voice was shaking with worry as the intercom clicked off. What did they mean we’re leaving early? The solar flares wouldn’t suppose to start until after we took off. What would happen if we took of after they started like they already had?
“Alex!” Cynthia’s voice rose out of the crowd of people rushing towards the cafeteria. I stopped and waited for Cynthia to catch up to me. “Did you here that? We’re leaving now. This is so exciting!” Cynthia caught up and we started to walk with the rest of the inhabitants of Sector 5. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Instead of leaving tomorrow we will be leaving tonight. Everyone is advised to stay in their cabins until further notice.” The captain spoke solidly trying to stop from shaking. He was probably in his late forties. I had met him only once when Jasper introduced me. His name was Carl Macintyre and was NASA’s chief astronaut, probably the reason why he got the job of Captain of the Hercules. He was tall but, a little chubby compared to the men standing by him. His outfit matched Jasper’s. Light Blue with a black name tag on his breast pocket. The Project Pilgrim emblem was embroidered on his shoulder just like everyone else’s clothes. The emblem consisted of the Earth with a star crossed over it. It reminded me of Star Trek or some cheesy astronaut movie.
“Will the solar flares impact us?” Jasper’s hand shot up before anyone else could ask a question. Macintyre cleared his throat before answering. “It’s been confirmed that they will impact our ship in miner ways but, nothing that we can’t handle. Everyone this is Jasper Sullivan Chief Biologist.” Jasper waved towards everyone and said a couple hello’s and nice to meet you’s.

The Captain dismissed us in a matter of minutes telling us all to go back to our cabins before they started lift off. “Alex? Can you bring Michelle with you back to the cabin? I have to go talk to the Captain for a moment.” My uncle looked unmorally calm. “Sure.” I picked Michelle out of the crowd on account that she was the only person hysterically crying. I walked over to her and calmly grabbed her hand. “Come on Michelle we need to get to our room now.” She nodded and got up.

“Are we going to die?” Michelle whispered as we walked toward Sector 5.
“Michelle I really don’t know. But, I’m pretty sure this ship can handle a couple solar flares.” I looked straight ahead not looking at anything else except forward. “I hope so. Because I’m pregnant…” She walked faster to catch up to me. “What do you mean…Pregnant? When…” I stopped in mid stride. “Does Jasper know?” How could she not tell him I mean we might die…“Not yet I was waiting until we get to that other planet. So he wouldn’t worry. You know how he worries.” She ran her hand over her stomach. We came to cabin number 23.

“You need to tell him. Do you know how far along you are?” I looked at her. Pregnancy was one of the key factors in cryogenics. I read the handbook over five times. “I think about six weeks. I wasn’t pregnant when we had the physicals.” She looked down, realizing that she really needed to notify people.

“I never thought that hiding it would affect anything.” She looked up at me. “It was supposed to be a surprise after how long we’ve been trying.” Yeah. They had notified me three years ago that they wanted to have a child. Even though I was like Michelle’s daughter she wanted one of her own. I didn’t think they were still trying right now in all the panic of these three months.

“Is anyone here?” Jasper walked into the cabin in mid conversation. He saw Michelle’s hand on her stomach and went completely pale. “Jasper… She’s pregnant…” I got up off the small couch and looked up at Jasper who was having a miner heart attack. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you…” Michelle looked at him with bitter regret.

“It’s alright.” Jasper snapped back in a joyous smile. “What do you mean? What about cryogenics. She can’t be pregnant!” I looked at him. “As long has she has a doubled dose of nutrients the baby will be fine. She’ll be about six months along when we’re at the checkpoint.” I sighed in relief. If she couldn’t be pregnant when she went in to cryogenic sleep the baby would have to be terminated.

“Now we better brace ourselves Macintyre said that we’ll be experiencing a lot of turbulence.” Right after Jasper stopped talking the lights went out in our cabin. Michelle screamed as the shaking started. “What is that?!?” I yelled over the loud crashes. “That’s the engines are beneath us. Sector 5 is right on top of them. The captain warned me that Sector 5 is the most dangerous sector. I didn’t think it was this bad! Brace yourself Ally.” I held onto Michelle make sure to tell her everything was going to be fine.

All of the boxes that were in the kitchen of our cabin started to fall I heard them tumbling around. I felt the ground underneath me start to shake harder and the noise pierced my ears. I closed my eyes not even realizing it because of how dark the cabin was without the lights on. Michelle whispered quietly a prayer “God almighty keep my family safe from harm bless my family for save passage to the stars.” Her Georgian accent was the only thing I recognized throughout all the noise that surrounded me. I looked towards the lone window. I saw the trees beneath us. Ironically we were lifting off during a storm. I could see the trees shadows moving through the wind. This would be the last time I would see a tree on Earth. I stared at the trees whispering goodbyes as they twisted and glided with the rough winds. “Michelle look at that!” I saw the most amazing thing. Birds flew around the sky as we increased altitude. They knew what was coming in the next moments. I thought when we lifted off the world would still be calm. But, I realized that wasn’t the case at all. The animals sensed something that every other human didn’t know.

They world be ending in only a matter of hours. Our son would be blowing up sooner then expected. We didn’t have time to say goodbye to anyone. Father’s would lose their parents. Other kids would lose their best friends. I wasn’t the only one. I hadn’t thought of that until know. Cynthia was probably losing her best friend too. The captain was probably losing his family too. Everyone on this ship was losing someone. Girlfriends were losing boyfriends. Everyone on this ship had something they were losing. Why did we have to leave like this? I shut my eyes again. I felt tears take over my face, streaming rivers that flowed along my cheeks silently finding their place over my clothes.

I thought of the only other person I was losing. A stranger in fact, someone I had never met but, had given me life. His name was Michael. That’s all I knew. My father’s name was Michael that’s all Jasper had told me about him. He was somewhere probably sleeping not realizing he was going to die. Should I be happy? I don’t even know. He left me. But, should I be happy that he’s dying? At some point during lift off I fell asleep.

“Ally, it’s time to wake up…” Michelle’s southern voice interrupted my dream. That consisted of fire. Fire taking all the trees all the people… “Is everything okay?” I asked opening my eyes slowly. They adjusted to the lighting in the cabin slowly and I couldn’t open them up all the way. I saw Michelle’s shadow. “Yes, everyone’s fine. Jasper’s with the Captain discussing the cryogenic procedures.” Michelle looked happier then ever because her eyes were clean with freshly applied make up and her hair was neater then it had been in days. There’s no time to brush your hair when you’re going through simulation after simulation.

“What happened?” I looked over at the window that was the only access to where we were located. “Well, after the engine started the captain came on the intercom, turns out that the solar flares weren’t as strong as expected. We made a clean get away. We’re passing by Jupiter right now. Thank god for hypo-speed.” She smiled and handed me a cup of coffee.