Last Trip

Curiosity Kills the Cat but Feeds the Dog…

The year was 352 A.G.W. (After Global War). Humankind had technologically improved so much, that space travel to Mars could be achieved in a few hours. Earth had space stations all the way at Pluto, since many parts of the Earth was uninhabitable, due to the nuclear radiation. Terrica, or what America is now called, was one of the only places on Earth to even have breathable air, though the air in any one of the cities was just like in Mexico City in the year of 2002 A.D. Scientists were coming up with newer and newer ways to purify the air, although none of them had been patented so nothing was for sure. Space travel was the big thing of the time since the Earth was nearly used up and a new Earth had to be searched out. The Centurion, a brand new spacecraft was to find this new Earth…

Currently on the Centurion…

"Rocket command AB-23, we are now approaching Pluto Station X," said Dercham, our captain.

We had been in space for over 3 months, most of which we were traveling to Pluto Station X, the last space station in our system. Our fuel and food supplies were pretty low since we hadn’t reloaded in a long time.

"Docking station B14 is open if you want to land there," announced the air trafficker. "Refill-bots will be waiting for you there."

"Thanks, we’re coming in".

There hadn’t been a lot of conversation between our group, which consists of a geological expert, John Barker; a technician, Joseph Trey; our captain, Jake Dercham; and of course me, Edward Aji, the supervisor/ veteran space-traveler. We had been cryogenically frozen for all of the three months, so we didn’t know that much about each other. We docked and most of us went our separate ways. I first went to the latrines, seeing how I had over 3 months of biological waste frozen inside of me. After I got my personal business done, I went over to the food counter.

"Excuse me, do you have any food that’s not been frozen for a few years?" I asked.

The employee looked at me funny but gave me what seemed to be a homemade potpie, a bagel, chicken wings, some milk, and some coffee. I was happy for any food, even if they were so unevenly matched. I saw an open table and sat down. Trey came over and sat down next to me and started talking to me.

"Hey, Edaw (a strange nickname they gave me), how ya doing?

"Fine, Trey, fine. So, is our engine in fit enough shape to get us to the next inhabitable planet?"

"Well, let’s just say it’s still good enough to carry us for a few more light-years. Anyways, did ya hear? Them scientists back home came up with a new way to travel very quickly in space."

"Really, how?"

"Well, they call it hyperspace, like in those really old movies. It can go about twice our speed."

"Well, why don’t they send a new ship with this hyperspace engine installed?"

"Errr, you see, they don’t have a strong enough ship to carry the engine. The ship just explodes at top speed."

"Well, that’s pretty useless then, eh?"

"Yeah, it is."

After a few more minutes of friendly banter, Trey and I took our separate ways. I went over to a bookstore, while Trey went in a maintenance shack. I guess our ship had something wrong with it. It didn’t really matter, since we had a few days left before we leave to find a new Earth.