Luminal One

Chapter 1
The year is 2047, the polar ice caps have long since melted. The world’s oceans of rose almost seven feet since scientists first noticed the anomalous melting of the ice back in 2011. All of the major coastal cities have been flooded and their inhabitants evacuated in land. The world’s population is over a staggering 14 billion souls, hurtling through space on this rock. Our scientists have determined that we have less than five years to correct the damage that we’ve done to our planet. We inadvertently sped up global warming by burning all these fossil fuels. We released all of the CO2 warming our atmosphere exponentially. The end result was the melting of the polar ice caps releasing all of the freshwater into the ocean.

The rapid change in salinity is caused the Earth’s oceans to no longer transfers heat effectively from one region to another. The Earth has begun cooling at an alarming rate. The people of Earth have already begun heading towards the equator in hopes to buy some more time before the planet freezes solid. The present of the UN has tasked me John Hartley and 19 others with the most important mission that humankind has ever undertaken; the evacuation of planet Earth.

It was about 27 years ago when the United States Germany France and Japan began working on a top-secret program. The mandate was simple; faster than light travel at all costs. The implications of failure were all too great. We need the greatest minds the world had to offer working on this project; humankind’s salvation. The world was cooling fast, its people starving in succumbing to the elements.

About six weeks ago our German counterparts had a major breakthrough, small craft fitted with the prototype engine was assembled in great secrecy. If our mission fails the world will never know, it just a few years’ time our warm life-giving planet will become inhospitable ball of ice. This is where I John Hartley come in. I was commander of the ship horizon, a science vessel outfitted to terraform Mars.

We spent three years on the lifeless red rock before we even figured out that the core was completely solidified. There was no way we could restart Mars’s magnetic field and therefore no chance that we can terraform the planet into our new home. The word of our failure traveled fast; by the time my five crewmembers and I made it back home to Earth, martial law was implemented worldwide. The world was in a police state headed by the UN. Rioting pillaging and murder were among the most prevalent issues that the people of Earth had to face.

Today I received a piece of video mail, it simply stated to report to the UN to be briefed on an urgent upcoming mission. I arrived at Cheyenne Mountain Colorado, the capital United States of America. I was fully briefed on the status of the planet and the five-year window to evacuate earth. They also introduced me to this new craft that they had been building secret. It was now ready to test, and that’s why they brought me here. A pilot, copilot and 18 scientists that worked hand-in-hand on the project were picked to test this new craft and engine.

The scientists received a crash course in basic space travel, as well as full mental evaluations. They all passed with flying colors not that that matters much, people of Earth are depending on us to find a fast method of transportation between the stars. The new experimental craft luminal one was towed to near Earth orbit where it was docked with the international space station. All of the initial preparations were done before our arrival. My copilot Nick Fletcher and I were the first to board the craft and get familiar with our surroundings and functionality of the ship.

When I first seen luminal one I was hit with a wave of nostalgia, she looked just like the
Horizon, my previous craft on the Mars terraforming expedition. Sleek slender and very fast looking, but that’s where the similarities end. This new craft lacks the heat shielding that the Horizon had, so she’s definitely not made for reentry. The powerhouse of the craft’s three neutrino ion generators while on paper were impressive only seeing is believing. She is supposed to be capable of traveling 1.3 times the speed of light. I sit here in the captain’s chair waiting for the scientists to arrive, my copilot Nick and I enjoying a nice conversation, drawing parallels between us and the Wright brothers. They pioneered the way for modern aviation, and here we sit getting ready to be the first humans in modern recorded history to travel faster than the speed of light.

The international space station is limited docking capabilities, and the shuttles can only bring up four scientists at the time. While it’s only an eight minute flight from ground to Earth orbit, the shuttles are crewed by comparison to the luminal one. Still powered by liquid hydrogen oxygen,
they take quite some time to refuel and prep for launch again. I sit here waiting on the edge of my seat for this monumental moment in human history. Normally these kinds of experimental flights would be done unmanned, but there are too many questions to be answered and time is not on our side. Luminal one is full now, scientists have had the tour of the facilities and are as eager as I am to find out what kind of muscle this girls got.

A broadcast comes in over the ships radio, “ground control to luminal one mission go”. At that very moment I felt my heart stop for what I thought was an eternity. I got the ships PA and made my preflight announcement. Ship wide “we are here to save humanity, were here to find a new home”. My announcement cut short because I received a data burst from ground control in Houston. It appeared to be predynastic Egyptian and their technical translation, way over my head but the two linguists on board knew exactly what it was. I guess I was never fully in the loop, but I was filled in by the team of scientists onboard. They were the lost scrolls from the library in Alexandria, never really lost but safeguarded by the Knights Templar. What they really contained with the plans for a light speed drive whose name translated from Egyptian means fountain of youth.

Our docking port sealed, umbilical cut, we push off from the international space station. The twin Russian built nuclear reactors are brought online as we prepare to disembark from Earth’s orbit. We powered up our main drives in the ship used forward, slowly accelerating towards Pluto. Everyone and I mean everyone on board let out and enormous cheer as the moon passes the starboard viewports and ends up astern.

I see a few things that need correcting. I feel like i need to keep moving forward with this book of mine.

This is just flowing naturally from my brain.

Chapter 2

As we leave earth's gravity well and start out on this amazing journey, there comes an announcement over the ship's intercom.

"Ship wide, This is senior project scientist Martin Lloyd. I would like to thank all of you for this undertaking. Should we succeed here today, we will save humanity from its certain fate. The data we collect on this trip will be relayed via buoys back to earth in real time. No matter the outcome, the data will be indispensable for those back on earth. If this mission fails and leaves us stranded or worse, it will not be in vein. Thanks for your courage and selflessness in the face of our uncertain future."

That speech was chilling I commented to Nick, he agreed and added it gave his Goosebumps. I don't believe that any of us aboard Luminal One have fully grasped the magnitude of the mission, nor the complexity.

Lloyd makes his way through the passenger compartment to the bridge of the ship. He's holding a flash memory storage device in one hand and a set of orders in the other.
He hands copilot nick the storage device and me the orders.

We are to head to Jupiter station and wait for further instructions. Nick inserts the device into the navigation console and updates our flight path. After what seemed like an eternity we arrive at Jupiter station in one piece.

So far so good. We managed to reach two hundred forty thousand miles per hour in the first leg of our journey, and didn't have any complications. There however was one anomaly to speak of. We arrived hours ahead of schedule. Was it that Nick is so good at his job that he optimized our path to that extent? The com rang, it was Lloyd. "You have no doubt noticed the time discrepancy. That is actually why we have been ordered here. We have the opportunity to not only save humanity but to test a theory we have not been able to until now."

Right then we receive another data burst from earth. It's just a bunch of code to me, but there is one thing that stands out above all else. One hundred eighty six million miles a second. The universal constant, the speed of light. Lloyd calls the bridge again with new orders when it hit me.

The scrolls, the secret orders, all the buoys, the new light speed drive and the time discrepancy. Our first flight was the precursor to what is to come.

We are to take the Luminal One out and around our solar system dropping those buoys to monitor our speed from the outside while being synchronized with multiple atomic clocks onboard and outside the ship.

We are testing Einstein's theory of relativity. We are to accelerate to the speed of light and measure the effects of time and speed on the human body.

I'm no scientist but I have a rough understanding of what we are doing. The faster you travel toward the speed of light, the less time you experience.

Thoughts ideas feedback?

Stay tuned for chapter 3.