Beyond Light

The Eternity of Return.

With no more time to lose, Admiral William Frost moved to the red curtain where the dais waited for him. “Good luck, Admiral,” his assistant grabbed his glass of water and returned to the maintenance room.

William straightened his back and crossed to the curtain. White light struck his eyes on the other side. At least 100 of the most important military figures in the INSU stood valiantly on the ascending seat rows of the Valiant Horizons Space Station's conical structure, orbiting Earth.

He looked at the glass dome above; the light blue, dazzling surface of the planet, covered by irregular strips of white clouds was at its fullest. Its light crossed over and illuminated the ceremonial courtyard, giving the place little need for additional sources of light.

Unfortunately, he would still be suffering from intense lights shining on his face; two large lamps would always point at him to keep his presentation nicely lit, as well as a dozen drones from both private and public companies, retransmitting the ceremony to most corners of the solar system.

He almost wished for the ceremony to be over quickly; those lamps always gave him headaches, and on days like those he didn’t have much time to rest and sleep. He took a deep breath and stood on the platform of the wooden dais. A hidden screen was below it, at the level of his waist to keep him informed about what he needed to say. Instructions would come from it and his earcom.

The mature figure of President O’Donnell was in front, on the first row of seats some 15 meters ahead. He was the only one not wearing the white uniform. He wore his standard black suit instead, a design that had been on the run for more than six centuries.

It also fit the man particularly well; William could swear that the man was a direct descendant of the ancient American president John F. Kennedy. He looked a lot like him to argue otherwise. Fleet Admiral Emmerson Hopkins’s rough figure of pink face and hands, as well as other five other officers of similar ranks to him, stood next to him.

“Whenever you want, Admiral,” William heard the whisper on his left ear, taking him away from his distracting thoughts. He grabbed the edge of the dais and leaned to be near the extended microphone.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” he spoke. The people observing him in person focused on him and his smooth voice. Other billions of people around the system would likely be doing the same. “citizens and supporters of the Independent Nations Space Union, today is a day that will be remembered for whole centuries to come. Today is the day that every man, every woman, and every child of ours has been reluctantly expecting.

Ever since we were mere small tribes wandering through the warm surfaces of our motherly planet Earth, we always were fascinated, curious, and astonished about what the sky above and beyond holds. We have advanced, we have developed, and we have answered many questions about the universe that our grandparents always made themselves, but they could only speculate about.

But today is similar to a special day that occurred six centuries ago, in July of 1969, when Mr. Neil Armstrong put his feet on lunar landscapes. Today, we are not only putting our feet on a world outside of the cradle of our species. We are, for the first time in history, visiting in flesh and bones the mysteries of extra-solar space. We are about to extend beyond the marvelous and vast —yet limiting— borders of our solar system. After hundreds of years of dreams, hypothesis, and research, traveling Beyond Light is now a fully-fledged reality.”

He made a short pause, feeling everyone holding their breath. Not only the important figures surrounding him. The ones of the hundreds of millions of people watching him through the cameras too. If he was 15 years younger, he would be unable to keep himself calm due to the scenic panic.

“The planetoid Sedna was the last object we humans conquered. That was 45 years ago. Now, the most advanced and powerful spaceship ever built —the INN Eternity of Return— is about to make his first Post-Accelerated leap to a system designated as Hawking-616a or Vita Nova, located in the Perseus arm at 8096 light-years away. In a few moments, we will be connecting to Captain Jay Cortez and his crew.”

An assistant drone of four blue propulsors flew the way down to William. It beeped with its two blue lights that resembled the eyes of a cute creature. A holographic projector extended from its upper surface.

It was meant for him to watch and communicate, as everyone else would be watching the live point of view of the cameras on both Valiant Horizons Space Station and the INN Eternity of Return.

All screens tuned changed their image, and the figure of the massive dreadnought —three times longer and heavier than any spaceship ever built— appeared. The pair of hexagonal propulsors located at his stern compromised 1/3 of the size of the ship. They looked bigger than all of the smaller ships floating and moving around it.

The middle structure was covered by at least two large bays and 50 smaller, as well as six pairs of Hydra Rail Cannons. In the middle, a flat surface had the words inscribed: Eternity of Return.

The front part of the ship had an elegantly pointed shape full of structural beams, reinforced windows at its top, and armor plates over its nose and sides, making it a little bit similar to a fighter yet 200 times bigger. A giant, cylindrical device connected from the middle part of the dreadnought, ending on the nose with a sphere had a single cannon mounted.

The Type-1 Focussed Beam Cannon, nicknamed the ‘Godmelter’. A superweapon that many considered a marvel of ballistic engineering, but others considered the beginning of the weapons that would make humanity doom itself.

It had a complex structure, but it operated on a simple principle. It accelerated kinetic titanium-tungsten alloy rounds of 300 kilograms, and then melted them through a nuclear fusion set of mini-generators, making them reach temperatures of 3200 Celcius grades —more than double the surface temperature of the sun.

The super-heated alloy then was accelerated through a magnetic field, making it reach the speed of 74’948 meters per second, or about 20% the speed of light. The result was a hyper-heated projectile capable of striking with a force of 6’245’667 Newtons, or about 210 kilotons of archaic TNT.

It was still a prototype, and it had not been tested on real warfare, but many argued that it was a weapon of hyper-mass destruction that deserved to be banned and scrapped by war conventions. If it was shot against a small moon or a planet, the results would be catastrophic for human populations. Some smaller moons would even become unhabitable.

The camera then made a slow sweep across the dreadnought; 16 Rosenkopf Anti-Fighter Guns were mounted all across the upper surface of the ship, accompanied by some small telescopes and antennae of communication.

The image unfocused and made the Eternity of Return look smaller, and something even bigger than it appeared on camera, floating above it amidst the black of space. It was a colossal ball reflecting an intense sapphire blue color with some white spots across its surface: Neptune, the last planet in the solar system. It only counted with 3 floating cities, but it was covered all around by docks and floating military bases.

There was a good reason why the Eternity Of Return was there; the dreadnought had been stationed around the orbit of the ice giant for more than 22 months ever since engineers of the INSU began to work on dismantling its standard, hydrogen-helium fusion engine to replace it with the new Engine of Post-Accelerating Leaps.

The ship’s retrofitting had been finalized just one month ago. Due to the INSU’s government’s and the INN’s pressure for the first manned leap to happen on May 1st, many feared that the engineers and scientists didn’t have enough time to make the necessary calibrations to make sure it was ready to leap, despite various claims of doubtful trustability stating otherwise.

The camera then changed to the interiors of the dreadnought. Captain Jay Cortez appeared on the screen. He was a man in his mid 40’s with a trimmed red mustache below his wide nose and strong lips. He also dressed in the same white and golden uniform as everyone in the ceremonial room.

“Royal Admiral William Frost, here Master Captain Jay Cortez reporting. We have everything ready to go. The engine is charged and ready to leap. Awaiting for orders,” he did the military salute.

William saluted too. The people watching them on screens would be watching the images of the two men next to each other, or the figure of the admiral becoming a small square on the corner.

“Those are splendid news, Captain,” said William. “is there anything you want to say before marking a before and an after in the story of humanity?”

“Yes, Admiral. Here in the Eternity of Return, the crew and I have some words that we want to tell to our families and friends, as well as everyone watching us accomplish this unbelievable task.” he cleared his throat. “We want to thank every one of the more than 15’000 people who have been working on this project for all these 31 years of development. This would be impossible without their dedication, hard work, and never-ending inventiveness. In the words of the admiral, today we are going to mark a new era in the history of humanity.

This is not only the achievement of us here on the Eternity of Return, neither of the scientists, engineers, or all of the other personnel who have worked on the project. This is also the achievement of every person in the system out there, whether they are watching us right now or not. This is the achievement of our parents and grandparents, as well as those generations before us who left us the necessary knowledge to make this dream come true. This is the triumph of every human that has existed in the history of our species. Today is a day of pride and joy for every person out there, regardless of their s*x, race, religion, or affiliation,” he nodded confidently, finalizing his words.

“Thank you for your words, Captain Cortez,” said Admiral Frost. “connecting with President Malcolm O’Donnell.”

The image of the President then replaced the one of Captain Cortez. He was before a smaller dais some meters ahead of Admiral Frost, wearing a laid-back yet motivated expression of seriousness on his eyes and smile.

Fleet Admiral Hopkins stood behind him on his right, carrying anger about to explode. At his right, Vice Admiral Jacob Weigh stood. He was an old man in his 80’s that looked like he could be as well in his 100’s. He was only at a pair of weeks from retiring.

William respected him, but he didn’t expect him to be shown on camera due to his controversial history. The man had been involucred in a long list of conflicts where death tolls weren’t small, and although he had always been found innocent in war trials, many people liked to say that all his medals and decorations were permanently blood-stained, just like his conscience.