The Boy with No Name (Part 1 of 'A Tale of People and Apples' Trilogy)

Chapter 9: A New Home

63 years ago.

Nighthawk glided through the blackness of space, shining in sparse star light. The new colony had left their old home less than a day ago.

Most of the people were asleep in the thousands of cabins below the flight deck, after an entire night of partying and celebrating their recent escape. Felix and Gwenta, at the approval of their father, made their way down the ship to celebrate with their friends.

The flight deck, meanwhile, including Samuel and Mayla, hadn't the prolonged time to rejoice. The officials and scientists were working diligently, scanning for nearby planets and ready to launch into one at a moment's notice. Samuel was well aware that they couldn't keep burning fuel in the emptiness of space, and that they'd need to come across a system of planets sooner rather than later.

And so, Nighthawk kept creeping along the galaxy, fast enough to approach new planets but slow enough to not recklessly burn their fuel reserves.

The flight deck all breathed a sigh of relief when one of the officials stood abruptly from his seat around the glimmering lights of the monitors in flight command.

"I've found some," Said the officer. Mayla was over his shoulder instantly, her eyes darting across the screen which detected a system of planets circling a medium sized star. She tapped furiously on the screen as the officer stepped aside.

"The distance of these planets from the star is optimal for life... There, this one," Mayla said, pointing at a large black dot on the red screen as Samuel approached them. "This is our best chance."

Everyone in the flight deck were back to their stations, knowing the instructions that were going to come from Samuel before he uttered them.

"Excellent. Get the Ring system ready. Set our course on that system. Good work, everyone. This might be home."

As everyone settled back to their seats, discussing amongst themselves and reorienting the massive ship, there was an abrupt, large bang. Nighthawk shuttered, not seriously injured, but caused the flight deck to become quiet and their monitors to momentarily glitch.

Samuel looked at Mayla. "What was that?" He asked her, eyes wide. "Ship malfunction?"

Officials began running diagnostic tests, confusion washing over everyone like a black wave. Nighthawk was fine, no signs of system failure, no signs of damage, but the bang that echoed through the hull of Nighthawk echoed through everyone's minds, the shaking was palpable and unforgettable, probably even among the citizens in the rest of the ship.

"Someone, anyone, I need answers," Samuel pleaded to his crew, while Mayla shrugged her shoulders and frantically tapped on her monitor. "I need someone on the intercom ASAP, broadcast to the citizens that everything's okay. Meanwhile, will someone in this room tell me if we are actually okay?"

An officer relayed Samuel's message to the people, the intercom echoing in the hall outside of the flight deck.

"Asteroid?" An officer guessed, to Mayla's dismissive scowl.

"We would have detected it on our periphery scans," Mayla said aloud so everyone on the flight deck could hear.

"Maybe our peripheral scanner is down, and we didn't detect what hit us?"

This time it was Samuel who answered, "Scanner picked up the system of planets we are going towards hundreds of thousands of miles away, but not an asteroid that just hit us? I don't think so. Run diagnostics again, something must have happened internally."

Mayla shrugged her shoulders again, this time speechless. "Samuel, nothing happened on board. Systems are fine. I have no explan..."

As Mayla tried to finish her sentence, a giant white and blue light blotted out the front window of the flight deck in a snap. Every officer was shielding their eyes from the intense glow. Gentle flames began licking the sides of the front windows of the flight deck as Nighthawk began to speed up. All personnel were thrown backwards and were now pressed into the back of their control seats. As everyone's eyes adjusted to the white glow, Samuel's widened with shock.