Episode Five: A Hurried Departure
The crews ready the ship: the final piece of equipment is loaded, the remaining liters of fuel are pumped into the tanks, and the last crate of supplies is stowed. Ready or not, the USS Marius launches into the unknown.
The Space Cruiser USS Marius, CS-1
In orbit around Mars
November 2055
The last two days have been a blur of activity. Engineering teams completed the installation and testing of the engines and fuel tanks. Refueling ferries transferred the last of the propellant from the Schiaparelli to the Marius’s enormous fuel tanks. Heavy lift rockets delivered the remaining components for the weapons, which the teams stowed in newly constructed cradles aft of the bridge module. The pilots had moved the shuttles and construction tugs from the docking ring to their mooring sites, sandwiched between the gravity ring and the fuel tanks. The Marius was looking bulked up, encrusted with a hodge-podge of space-rated vehicles, storage modules, and fuel tanks attached like limpets to the central spine of the ship.
A constant stream of shuttles had launched from Mars to deliver the extra supplies we would need for our extended stay at Jupiter. Aunt Mavis even commandeered a few weeks of fresh fruits and vegetables from the hydroponics gardens. The tech guys whispered a rumor that somebody had smuggled up a dozen cases of vodka the team on Mars had covertly distilled from some hydroponics potatoes. They were looking forward to the first happy hour.
Working round the clock, we barely had enough time for catnaps to refresh. Last night, Captain Bullard sent the bridge crew to their quarters for a full night’s sleep before engineering braked the gravity ring rotation and locked the support beams in place, bracing it against the acceleration of the engines. We would need to sleep in zero-G until we were well on our way.
But none of us planned on sleeping. Everyone was excited, nervous, really, to experience the launch of this untried behemoth we would call home for the next several years. Sure, they had tested the engines, but the propulsion engineers looked a little tense when they left the nukes in standby mode and locked down the access tunnel to the engine module.
I was in the AI lab making some last checks on Lexi. The tech guys had secured all of her components when they brought them over from the Schiaparelli, but I needed to be sure nothing would fly loose when we left. Honestly, though, I was avoiding people, particularly Celeste.
Since the accident, I’d not found the courage to square things with her. So, I was hiding. We’d have plenty of time on the trip out when she was feeling better. At least, that was the excuse I was giving myself. I feared looking deeper and opening the door that led to remorse and self-recrimination. So, I avoided talking about it. The accident wasn’t the first time I’d found myself wishing Celeste would fail at something. I didn’t want to find out my role might have been more than missing a step on a checklist.
The announcement from the bridge interrupted my self-reflection.
“Attention all crew. Report to your quarters and strap in. The orbital tugs ignite in fifteen minutes. Bridge out.”
Typical Captain Bullard: no pep talk, no inspiring speech, just take care of business.
I arrived at my quarters and strapped into my acceleration couch. There were expressions of excitement and some worry on the faces of the crew I passed on the way to my quarters. But what did I expect? No one had ever traveled to Jupiter before, let alone engaged in a space battle or fought alien invaders.
We had no clue what to expect and no way of knowing what we hadn’t prepared for. Would the shield the Jupiterians said they constructed protect us? We’d sent details of biological life, but it wasn’t clear they understood. Would the weapons we built be effective against the alien intruders, who we knew nothing about?
But what choice did we have? Should we wait another twenty years? Would we be better prepared, and what would happen to the Jupiterians while we stalled and waffled? I certainly didn’t have the answers. No one aboard the Marius did. So, we’d launch ourselves into space and find out.
I set the monitor on the wall to show a split screen, looking forward past the bridge module, to the orbital tugs, and aft towards the engines. In our briefing, the bridge crew explained we’d feel a gentle, gradually increasing acceleration as the tugs pulled us out of orbit. There would be a brief return of weightlessness when they shut down and disengaged; then the big nukes would kick in. The engineers had modeled the launch dozens of times and briefed us on what to expect, but nobody really knew what it would feel like, another first for the Marius.
The remaining time crawled by. Who knew five minutes could last so long? Anticipation was nerve-wracking. Finally, the message from the captain came from the wall speaker.
“We are go for launch.”
A sudden push, a feeling of weight returning, a mild vibration, made eerie by the total silence of our departure. Having launched from Earth and Mars on shuttles, I knew the orbital tugs were pouring out millions of pounds of thrust, roaring silently in space, dragging the enormous mass of the Marius up and out of Mars’s gravity well into interplanetary space.
Then nothing. No vibration. No pressure against my couch. Just nothing.
I knew we were traveling thousands of kilometers per hour, but there was no sense of motion. No feeling that the ship was alive. Through the window to my right, I could see the stars hanging motionless against the black of space, like motes of crystal, cold and hard. We would be alone out there. Feelings of awe and smallness contracted my world to the ship, inadequate by any measure. What in God’s name were we thinking?
On the monitor, I watched the tugs depart and spotted a purple-ish light form at the aft end of the ship—the plasma ejected from the nukes. Abruptly, the gentle glow expanded to a fiery ball, churning and rippling, swelling and growing.
The ship began to move. Increasing acceleration forced me deep into the padding of my couch. I felt heavy, heavier even than I remember from Earth. Life on Mars had made me soft—I could barely lift my arms. On and on the pressure went. I forced myself to breathe against the weight on my chest. Tearing in my eyes blurred my vision. The sound of the nukes rattled through the ship—a dull roar felt more than heard.
I blinked to clear my vision. The plasma jet stretched for more than a kilometer behind the Marius. The force of its ejection propelled the ship forward at ever-increasing velocity. An immense, violet torch of power, dwarfing the Marius, pierced the dark, bright against the black of space, outshining the stars, finally fading at the distant end as the plasma dissipated, returning to the void.
Mars faded to an ever-shrinking red dot in a corner of the screen. I was leaving home—again.
I didn’t know how long I’d be gone or what lay before me. My only solace was knowing I was traveling with my family.
Maybe that was all that mattered.
Stayed tuned for the final episodes coming in 2024.