The Ark Diary of Dylan De Rovia Book One of De Rovia Diaries

Life in Space Isn't What You Think

Thursday August 17th, 2149

The idea that someone 100 years from now will want to read about my life is comical especially when 100 years from now there will be more interesting people then me. I guess I should start with why I'm writing this diary. At the height of Earth's power, they sent a great colony ship into space. It was called the New Dawn, a ship the size of an island. Everything needed for the hundred plus year journey. The destination is a planet named Gillespie 29-b some two light years from earth that this planet orbits a main-sequence yellow star called Gilesi. Two light years sounds short but we've been traveling for a hundred years now and there are still a few billion miles left to go.

Launch happened on a sunny day in January of 2057, the ship itself was built in space but the bulk of the passengers launched from earth. Ten thousand of them were the most diverse group of humans ever assembled. They're all dead now the Originals are gone but the shuttles are still in the transport bay. What brought my great-mother here as a child will take me and my children to the surface of the new planet.

It sounds nice right I'm sure in the beginning it was back when we're able to talk to Earth. The plan was to send this ship into space. We'd launch and while we travelled a second ship would be built so when we'd been on the planet for hundred years a whole new group of people could come. But, that didn't happen, we really don't know happen we just know the ending. The best guess is that there was a quickly escalated war that ended with a nuclear exchange. That was way back in 2078 we estimated that about ten bombs but we don't know. Earth the beautiful place in history books is gone. The Originals were all that was left of the 10 billion people that from the planet called Earth.

They mourned the loss of their home. It was the first generation of space babies that gave them hope this place was all they knew. They were the hope of humanity and our ship wasn't the first of many. It was a lifeboat, the Ark of Humanity.

All of that happened so I could be here sitting in my room. I looked out my window at the endless darkness of space. My great-grandmother was the last Original I was five when she died the same age she was at boarding She left earth as part of the Great migration with her Father who was cop. I remember her face wrinkled and pale with deep sapphire blue eyes trying to remember open spaces and blue sky.

My teacher gave me the assignment. I said I could copy and paste one entry for a month at least. It got a big laugh from everyone but my teacher. He said he would look every carefully at my entries. So, here I am sitting in my tiny room sitting on my tiny bed looking out the tiny window at the big wide universe.

Nine years ago when Gran died we all felt more alone untethered since our last connection to earth is gone and Gilespie is still ten years away. All that was so long ago that even those people are gone leaving us their descendants to go on. Ten years from now...I'll be a full citizen by then settling into my own career and with a spouse and most likely children. They say we're the last generation to travel.

In all truth I can see my in ten years with clearity, my life like everyone else's life is planned and not planned at the same time. It starts at thirteen, when everyone is given the Vernon-Huff test. A series of tests and elevations that measure intelligence and mental fitness. At the end of the testing everyone is given a list career choices. Then at fourteen the vocation hours where you work part time in any or your career choice. You have till the age of fifteen to pick or it's chosen for you.

I tested high in general intelligence and have good mental fitness. My list was varied. I could be a teacher or a nurse,maintenance mechanic, or farmer. Farming was my first choice. I liked the idea of having my own small plot of land to work. But, I found it was too simple for me. I needed to be able to solve problems. Nursing was a better fit until I learned quickly that I didn't like the site of blood. Teaching little kids is fun and I'm seriously considering it. But, mechanics is great too and I'm good at fixing things from electric circuits to big farmland tractors.