Godspeed.

A short story.

                       

If an alien from a grotesque land is sent by his superiors to inspect and report on the current zeitgeist of our world; those poor, extraneous creatures wouldn’t possibly think that it’s going to get any worse. But, alas, it is in our blood to never shy away from a challenge.

Epochs from now, Earth was more damned than beautiful.  Humans, in a sempiternal trance, got what they wanted and never wanted what they couldn’t get. Their famished hearts longed for a better future and the totalitarian oligarchy fed them countless lies. Unbeknownst to them, their lives were hollow and trivial. The perception of a world with material comforts modeled their reality. Freedom was erased, the eraser was forgotten and lies became the truth. People, like mere robots, were unable to expurgate from the narrow confines of the intangible machinery mercilessly directing their servile lives from beginning to a subservient end. Tattered and torn between nostalgia of the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange, technology and love for servitude prevailed over humanity.

Far from Earth, in the cavernous backwaters of the universe, USS Starfleet drifted steadfastly onto its assured destination,’ Eden-1’, in mankind’s first effort to colonize the galaxy. The sanguine vessel nested valiant crew members, who with dreams as vast as the expanse engulfing them set out on an expedition larger than any of their menial existences.  The ship which composed of multiple individual pods within her gaping hull each carrying a cryo-sleep bed, winged briskly along the cosmos, year after year, decade after decade as the hope of a better future manifested itself onto mankind translucently. Inside its monumental structure, empty hallways shrieked of incoherent stories of the crew which coalesced with the eerie, strangulating silence of space and dissipated over time.

 The centre of the ship had a huge command pod; where the ship’s captain, Daly, was comatose in twilight sleep. An absolute goliath of a man, he stood 6 feet above the ground and had straight brunette hair, and brown eyes. As alarms blared throughout the ship and the fully padded cryo-pod whirled tawdrily, the Captain roused slowly and conscious thought returned to him after a century of sleep induced coma. An earsplitting squall egressed from his pod, and rendered his dormant mind muddled. With a murky vision, he slowly got back to his feet and entered the command centre in his slick blue uniform adorned with all his laurels.

“Greetings, Captain Daly. I’m Natalie, the ship’s artificial intelligence,” A salient, robotic voice from the monitor broke out. “The cryogenic sleep sequence is complete. The crew is awake and awaits further instructions.” Her raucous voice seemed to have startled the father of one.

“What is the estimated time of arrival?” Daly queried leaning in. “One year.” Natalie replied succinctly in a monotonous tone.

Daly sunk in his chair and wiped his bleary eyes forcing the last dregs of sleepiness from his system. His eyes ran circles around the room probing to find a mirror or effulgent surface to look at. Albeit, he wasn’t sure if he would be able to look at a man who jilted his family for what he thought was the greater good of humanity. He spent years of his life in sleep for a good cause—a cause that became infinitesimally easier after he accepted to lead the ship a century prior.

A gold plated locket dangled from his stiff neck that veered everytime he moved. A beautiful picture of his 5 year daughter adorned the otherwise useless string of metal. Anytime the locket caught his eyes, it brought memories of a forgotten past, a past he chose not to be a part of. For all the talks of how his mission will be etched in history forever with veritable gaiety, it dawned upon him how mighty stupid he was isolating himself from the warmth and comfort of his family. The command centre was brimming with state of the art technology, but without the tender laughter of his precious child resonating throughout the faddish walls; it seemed to him even bleaker than the brumal expanse he so unwaveringly was drifting in.