NationStates Jolt Archive

The huge mushroom-shaped orbital cities dotted the nebulae. The cities have spent hundreds of generations in space collecting and refining fuel for passing ships and now for the first time since the Homeworld was destroyed, a few thousand lucky citizens will migrate to a new galaxy and be the first New Grunzian to set foot on soil and breath air.
"You 10,000 brave souls will travel farther than any one in our history. Our hopes are with you." President Agamemnon address to Voluntiers of the Great Colinization

Adimiral Barbarosa was assisting the last few colonists get shaved and bathed for cryosleep. They would be spending the next 345 years traveling across the endless black void between galaxies. Over that time the ships computer and telescopes will look to the galaxy picking out the most suitable planets. There were ten ships in the fleet each had ~1,000 passengers.

The Next Day
The ships finished fuelling. Adimiral Barborosa was rechecking the ship diagnostics making sure everything was perfect. Then he and his crew turned on the engines, activated the auto-pilot and said one last goodbye to their home and loaded into there cryotubes and slept for the next 345 years

345 years later. . .
Adimiral Barbarosa's eyes shot open. He gasped for air but inhaled a liquid instead. He relized that he was under water. He tried to swim but discovered that he was enclosed in a glass tube. Then he realized that he was in a cryotube. He laughed at himself. Barbarosa pulled himself out of the tank and fell over the side. He tried to stand but couldn't. Its the paralysis, the effects havent wore out yet. he thought. He than looked around the room. He saw dozens of bald naked people pulling themselves out of their tubes some stranded on the floor, some grabbing towls and drying off. He tried to stand again. He used a wall as a crutch and regained his balance.

"Diana bring me a towel"

"Okay"

Diana wrapped a towel around her naked body and brought another to him.

"Thanks, distribute them to everyone and help them stand"

"Yessir"

Everyone finished drying and put on their uniforms. After brief physicals to make sure nobody suffered heart attacks or strokes over the 345 years they all met in the command center.

"Connect holo-chat with Colonist Ships one through nine" commanded Barbarosa

Several figures were projected onto the table.

To be continued. . . . .

Soft sleep was the most pilot friendly thing to ease the passage of spacial folds for Phalanix fighter pilots. Lt. Rick Archer felt the shudder of his VBR-4R exiting the fold. Even in a zero-g enviroment he still felt the five point get pulled into his chest even before he could open his eyes. "God damn harness," he muttered as he raised his visor and brushed off his eyes and yanwing before he spoke again, "This is Spotter-5 to Shooter come in." "This is Shooter. Good to see that you woke up this time Archer," came a reply from the relativly small (275 meters long) escort frigate that had just defolded behind Rick. "Well I'm so happy to see you to," Rick replied before reaching for the kill switch for the com. "Kurai can you give me a full sensor sweep of the area for anything that shouldn't be here?" Rick asked his fighter's AI as he began to prepare the fighter for a fairly large boost. "Just a second I'm still getting used to the fighter after having to downgrade from the Demon Hunter...got it for you. It seems that there are ten ships with in the area and the logs have no record of them," she replied as she took up two of the smaller com screens, one with the information and the other with her image. "Alright I'm going for a quick fly by." Jsut as that was said between the two the VBR-4R roared forth in the soundless void of space twoards the ten ships. It activated it's ECM equipment to look like just a very fast sensor glich and began to preform long range scans moving up to more informitive close range ones as he got closer.

Barbarosa asked "How are your ship diagnostics?"
"All good" they replied
"What have the telescopes found? Anything promising?"
"Sir over the voyage the telescopes have identified 2,000 exoplanetary systems with 500 harboring earth class planets suitable for colinization" said Scientist Ajax
"Thats good to hear. . . "
"Sir Im picking up a sensor glitch"
"Its probably nothing, take us to the nearest habital planet so we can get a better look" ordered the Adimiral
"Yessir powering thrusters. Buckle up."

The fleet then burst out into the blackness

The fleet burst out of the blackness. The star burst out of nowhere its warmth, invisible.

"Its beautiful"
"Sir the info is coming in now"
"What have you found out"
"Well the planetary system has six planets, three gas giants, three terrestrial. The habital planet has a 932 earth-day year. It also has a 20 hour 34 minute day. Its average surface temperture is. . . 36 degrees but its winter there so its normal. Its water to land ratio is approximatley 4/5."
"So what does this all mean?"
"Well, there will be longer seasons and somewhat colder than we're used to but nothing major. But I suggest we get closer so we can take more detailed photos of the ecosystem"
"Ok well do that then. Prepare for high orbit. Oh by the way what should we call this planet?"
"We should take suggestions from the colonists, but for now we can call it One-Two. First star we visited second orbiting planet. One-Two."
"It'll do, for now"