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.
He gasped and pondered about the wretched and dilapidated planet Earth, which people so affectionately called home. It embodied everything for which he had an unaffected scorn. Austere beads of tears started to roll down his calloused face, but he quelled them thinking now is not the time to for a captain to be vanquished. The crew needed his leadership, the vessel needed his guidance but most importantly his family needed his sacrifices to not go in vain. He wiped his chisel jawed face and jaunted out of the command centre headlong.
A resplendent crew gathered around in the main hallway all donning crimson uniforms. It was an entire mural of humankind, with people of various shapes, sizes and color convened in one place. Amidst the clatter of incessant babbling the Captain evanesced from one end of the hall to the other and scoured his desirous crew.
“Good evening, my dear, comrades. This is your Captain Daly.”, an incongruous and daunting voice stood out. He said in alluring cadence with a glint in his eyes, “It has almost been a century since our departure from Earth aboard the USS Starfleet on our journey to explore and colonize the planet Eden-1. Research on Earth was more than sufficient to hint favorable conditions.”
“Now,” he took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of his heart, and with a desire to share his solitariness he said,” One more year and our mission will be complete. One more year and all our sacrifices will be worth it. One more year and our lives will have some meaning. You, I and everyone aboard this vessel lost something when we signed on for this expedition. We lost our families, our prior lives and our sense of living. Don’t let anybody tell you that you don’t mean something in the broader scheme of things, because you do." Despite the abrupt tonal change his morose yet moving words exquisitely wrapped under a blanket of exaltation seemed to have cast a spell on the attentive listeners.
“Back on Earth, the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite soldiers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators quietly run the show as they see fit. It is a dictatorship without tears, a painless concentration camp for entire societies,” in one breath he spewed all acrimony he had for the government. In a world of revolutionary deceit, telling the truth was a revolutionary act and this brazen effort was none like anybody on the vessel had ever seen before.
For years he had kept his rancor for the world clandestine and quietly did his job like others. But, now he had the chance and stage, he wasn’t going to hold back.” People have their liberties taken away from them, but they enjoy it because they are distracted from any desire to rebel. They love their servitude. People don’t rebel because they’re not conscious. The general population doesn’t know what is happening and it doesn’t know what it doesn’t know,” he burst out boldly.” You see, ladies and gentlemen, we were mere pawns in a game played by the higher class, but now, we are going to be the first humans to step foot on a planet outside Milky Way. Let the occasion be special and momentous, no, let’s make it such.” The captain exhorted with a new sense of appreciation for his quest.
A spectral silence broke out followed by a thunderous applause. Daly pacified the laudation and asked everyone to return to their stations. The malevolent weight of his past bad decisions were crushing him, but with this unrelenting tirade he was one step closer to extricate from its savage incarceration. He couldn’t be a good father or consort, but he could be a good captain. He could count for something, and if death may come he could valiantly and remain a cherished memory.
Months melted like ice and the meaning of time had changed for everyone on the vessel. No longer there were goals and headlines, no mandatory checks ins, the only important thing left was the final countdown. There were time displays in all the pods, but they were only there to govern the routine for the subsequent weeks.
Outside the lush and convivial vessel, brittle and ominous silence pervaded the large macrocosm. Over the course of a few weeks, the crew wafted along space over the musical notes of a serenade, emanating out of nowhere. Stars and other entities, like sequins on a gown, embellished themselves onto the humongous expanse of cosmos. Taking gigantic leaps, they ferried across the universe oscillating between stars and onto the divine pool of creation.
As ground-zero approached, Captain Daly personally greeted and thanked every crew member for their service. He inquired with a genuine smile plastered on his glimmering face,”How long until we reach Eden-1, Parker?”
Lt. Parker answered blissfully,” We’re right on time, sir.”
Daly’ grin shot up from a bleak place and illuminated his entire universe, bathing it in color, showing all threads of reality in a fraction of a second. The Captain was consoled, perceiving that fraction as an eternity. Only few more hours, few more hours until his repudiations were worth it, few more hours until he was liberated from the banality of the world. He’ll be the first person to step foot on Eden-1. One short step for mankind, one huge leap for him.
There were no prior caveats which alluded to what happened next. The speed gauge showed an error so incredulous that it evaded even the brightest minds on the ship. A deafening alarm resounded throughout the ship, rendering everyone disconcerted. USS Starfleet was traveling at a speed much faster than its theoretical limit.
Daly looked at the gauge in disbelief and a knot tightened in his stomach. It constricted even more and paranoia set in. The crew sat in dubiety. The shrill alarm grew dull as if it had been plunged underwater. His vision was swimming, the ground swayed under his feet and he felt as if walls were closing in on him while he frantically paced through one foggy memory after another trying to make sense of his life.
He awoke to full brightness, a light brighter than anything he had ever witnessed before. He couldn’t see or make sense of where he was. An alarm beeped in the background but it was different than the incessant pinging of the spaceship, it was more placid and calm. He had become intimately familiar to the stinging beeps of the spaceship. The emotionless sounds had been somewhat of a companion to him. He put his head up to survey the room. He wasn’t aboard the vessel anymore; there were broad white walls and inundating him. In this apparent juncture of seclusion, anguish creeped within him. He couldn’t stand thinking of his crew. It brought memories of companionship and love. It brought memories of the perceptible crash. He purged his train of thought and peered outside the dotted window.
The azure sky hung high, full of life, as if mocking his failure. He rubbed his gloomy eyes in disbelief. It looked like Earth, but less derelict. He saw neoteric houses erected in a proper pattern until the eyes could meet. On the periphery of these houses, were concurrent farms. He saw humans with a genial glow on their faces. He was in a quandary, a spurning stupor like no other. Questions cleaved his mind and answers eluded him.
Captain Daly beamed at the lifeless ceiling and led out an incredulous gasp. The room’s wall had a large double door, clad in steel with a viewing port on each side. He could see caricatures of people moving here and there. With a hiss of hydraulics, the doors unfurled and in came a woman who radiated in the light of his longing. She wore a long white apron, and carried with her a clipboard pressed against her bosom. An alluring smile marred her pale face. She approached the bed and held Daly’s frail hands in hers.
“Hello, Captain. This is Eden-1. We’ve been expecting you and your crew for 20 years now,” she chimed elegantly gaping right in his eyes,” During the span of your voyage, we invented faster means of travel and could thus colonized Eden before your crew.”
Her innocuous words seemed to have pierced Daly’s heart and tore it into shreds like a hound dog. He got a chance to consolidate his place in the universe and as soon as he was about to do it, it got snatched right away. His riotous excursions and glimpses into the uncharted corners of the universe, his life, and all his sacrifices now seemed futile. Despite traversing through the expanse for more than a century now, this was the first time he felt like he really was drifting aimlessly in this abyss, falling through space, a sense of ever looming dread rankling his senses and sheer enormity of oblivion crushing him down. His world was never beautiful, but only damned.