Press PLAY, then read along...
So I'm cruising thru the Delta Quadrant in my C class spaceship the other day... Or was it night? I get stardates mixed up these days.
I see this black hole forming on my long range sensors. my droid assistant is going all 'DANGER WILL ROBINSON' batshit crazy about keeping my course set in that direction. I'm calm and in newly minted deep thought because I'm thinking to myself: what can possibly happen if I get caught up in that implosion? There has to be something on the other side of time and space intertwining into nothingness, right?
I have a right to check these sort of things out... Don't I?
Well after asking my on board computers to calculate the possibility of the ship and I becoming anti-matter if we get sucked into and become inanimate intergalactic trash, I decided to have the sensors zoom in, record the phenomenon onto the hard drive so I could watch it later. I need to see how close I could get to one of those things. I marvel at and wonder about what happens if I could survive the force and anti forces and get to the other side of a black hole. I personally think they are wormholes to inner space.
My gut tells me that there is more to all of this than just... THIS. Maybe I'll meet God.
I wish I could overstand things further.
I am bored. This much travel from Mother Earth has made me long to be back on the lakefront on the south side of Chicago, watching the sisters in the lycra outfits get fit to rhythms only they can hear and the joggers and bikers navigate the trails and paved and painted paths while enjoying the gentle lake breezes and sunshine. But I chose this. Hyperspace travel puts me too far to turn around. It's just me, a one man travel cruiser and a pretty decent food replicator heading to a planet we think has humanoid life and resources similar to ours.
I'm all by myself. Well, I have a droid and his humor is dry. He's a fucking droid, so...
All I need is the simple food generated and water formed from the moisture space provides. I have terabytes of data, entertainment and recorded memories loaded onto a cache of indestructible hard drives that I occasionally view to keep me grounded, to keep me... Human. I'm not supposed to be here, but after realizing that Earth had nothing to offer me in a mate, children or family that actually give a damn, the selection process unsnagged itself when I just plainly volunteered and signed all of the waivers.
So now I float thru deep space, chasing a signal that probably isn't one. The day we received coherent transmission from someone not of our own kind, we felt the need to respond. initially, we couldn't track the direction of the signal and remained skeptical of a frequency that seemed copied and sent from somewhere out of nowhere, but the world's collective space programs quickly put together a exploration program and needed someone to man the craft in following through to have first contact with extra-terrestrial life not of our galaxy. I wanted to go. I wanted to see how much my body and mind could take being alone in the vacuum of space.
Human contact had boycotted and then left me years before I went thru the training program. My commander referred to me as one 'of the droids' in drafting the mission plan he submitted to the powers that be. i was approved unanimously to go. I was thought of as the perfect subject for the Earth to lose.
I'm not insulted.
So now my 'days' begin with some bland tasting nutritional goo and kinetic movement. I create a morning brief via webcam from various angles to display my physical readiness for the mission and give the ship's condition and fuel levels to send backward to command. I receive transmissions of the goings on of the world about six weeks late from current time, and it gets later the more I travel towards the designated spot offered by the unknown alien committee. They now prepare my briefs on news, sports and pop culture in the old Movietime News format for a change of pace. Also added are female correspondents wearing low cut tops to keep me on my mental toes. Tit shots in space... Not bad. I manage though. Like I didn't bring a stash of my own porn. They say out here in space, no one can hear you scream. Very true.
Managing the ship's operations on the mission is the least of my concerns. Command made the vehicle easy to operate by incorporating a lot of 'driving' features which helps navigation by familiarization. The unit is solar powered and also has some nasty nuclear stuff at its core to make it travel faster than jet propulsion could ever push me. The five years I've been confined to the ship without space station porting actually feels like three. At some points, I've encountered turbulence that I thought would engulf me and rattle the ship to its core, but I survive and this little thing just pushes on.
The ship has four levels with a lounge and 'entertainment area' that I can retire to to observe incoming transmissions, any of the many movies, concerts and sporting events I have stashed away or family memories recorded for me. It helps to have space. It hurts to watch my nephews and nieces get grown and accomplish teen and adulthood without my hand.
The reason I get my dates and times mixed up is because I try to memorize the history script as I try to put the ways of the world out of my head. Cheeseburgers, politics and shit. Relationships. People irking the shit out of you. What to wear to a wedding. Hailing a taxi. The clog in the kitchen sink. Stepping in dog shit. I know we all must die, but to know that the world still turns, the stock market churns either with or against our economy and the White Sox still play ball games without me physically being on the planner but am still alive kills my spirit.
I have no idea what I'm getting into. Some think that the signal sent is no signal at all. Others think it's a trap. There are a chosen few that say that God Herself spoke to us in that transmission. Either way, we ended up building a long term travel vessel that I'm utilizing to go to where they've requested us to go. We have no knowledge of the way of life, features or intent of these beings deity or not, but because I deemed my life on Earth useless, I decided that my eyes should be the first to view either the friend or foe from the other side of the universe. We have time capsules for them chronicling all of our planet's history, research and triumphs.
There is also a presentation from the world league and our president, who was deemed to speak for the world with China's leader selected as second voice. We're assuming by the sophisticated nature of the transmission received that they are able to understand us. I also have monologue to recite in our extension of open arms, peace and good will.
I'm not afraid. I've studied the map and at least in the eye of danger or death will know where I end. I have no idea where this either begins or ends. I'll be on this ship traveling east towards the actual edges of the fringe of the universe to meet something I know not of what the outcome becomes. But I was the only one without reservation... A recycled piece of trash being used as a possible conduit to the other side of the immeasurable vast thing that we call space. If these beings don't want me, then my theory is confirmed.
Unwanted is unwanted, even in service to the damn universe. C'mon ship, hurl me to the unknown. I'm ready to get this over with. I'd shit a brick if they reveal themselves as little green men with big melon heads. I need a good joke right now anyway. The droid is dry, corny and has no timing.
