Cataclysm - Chapter One

Chapter One 

United Space Command Launch Facility

Houston, Texas

August 11, 2023

            A lashing, wind-driven rain fell across the vast complex of the United Space Command launch facility, located roughly thirty-five miles east of Houston, Texas.  The gathering darkness of twilight was amplified by the low, gray cumulonimbus clouds that moved slowly across the gloomy sky.  Peals of thunder rumbled ominously, and bright flashes of lightning lit the evening in strobes of violet and purple.  A strong tropical storm had moved into the Gulf of Mexico two days ago, and the various weather services were predicting that it would strengthen to a category four hurricane before the week was out.  They predicted that the weather system would make landfall somewhere near the border between Texas and Louisiana, which meant that it was possible the space center would bear the brunt of the storm.

            Commander John Cross leaned back into the plush leather chair and unconsciously drummed a pencil on the small desk in front of him.  The Thinslate™ reader lying on the desk was filled with various spreadsheets, reports, and complex diagrams.  With a sigh, he gazed out the large floor-to-ceiling window at the rain pounding against the glass.  He let his thoughts drift for a moment, losing himself as he watched tiny drops of water wander and merge into larger droplets on the pane of glass then slowly cascade down, again meeting and merging into ever larger streams of water.  Like small random events moving ever more rapidly towards some predetermined design, he mused.  Dozens of thoughts flickered through his mind as he considered the upcoming mission.  He wondered if he was truly qualified to lead such an endeavor.

            He glanced back down at the Thinslate™ reader and sighed again.  He slowly picked it up, weighing it in his hand.  It was as if the oppressive weight that he felt pressing down on his soul was physically contained within the small data device.  He pondered how he had come to be where he was now.

            Standing at six-foot-two and weighing in at close to 180 pounds, John Cross did not fit the typical profile for an astronaut.  He had grown up in a small rural farming community about 60 miles south of the domed city of Topeka, Kansas.  His father owned a 600 acre agri-farm which produced just enough bushels of Hard Red Winter wheat each year for them to pay the bills and put aside a little extra for a few occasional luxuries.  His mother had died of Kheldran’s Syndrome when he was very young, and he had spent his formative years helping his father work the family farm.  John had endured many lean years while he was growing up, but his father had instilled in him a strong sense of discipline along with the values of honesty, integrity, and hard work. 

            After he graduated from high school, John had enlisted in the Marines and accepted a scholarship to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.  There, he earned a dual degree in electrical engineering and computer science, graduating at the top of his class.  During his senior year, he spent the summer attending the ten week long Officer Candidate Class program at the Marine Corps Officer Candidate School in Quantico, Virginia.  Upon graduating, John attended The Basic School, also located in Quantico, where he completed his training as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps.  He then spent the next 16 months in flight school at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida. 

John was assigned to Marine Aircraft Group 14 in the 2^nd Marine Aircraft Wing, where he flew with Squadron 231, the famous “Ace of Spades” squadron.  He spent two tours of duty in the volatile war zones of Africa and the Middle East.  After his combat tours were over, he had transferred to the military’s Prototype Design and Flight Center in Carlsbad, New Mexico.  It was during his tenure there that he decided to undertake the pursuit of his ultimate dream – that of being an astronaut.  Nine months later, he was accepted into NASA’s astronaut training program.  After completing the one year basic course, he had continued on to the advanced training program.  Now, he was going to be the mission commander and pilot for the most ambitious space mission ever devised.

            A gentle knock sounded at the door to his sleeping quarters, but immersed as he was in his own thoughts, he didn’t hear it.  A moment later, he jerked at the light touch on his shoulder.  The pencil fell from his hand and rolled under the desk as he spun his chair around to confront the intruder.

            “Jesus!  Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

            “Whoa, sorry, John.  I thought you heard me knock.  I didn’t mean to startle you like that.”  He immediately recognized the low, silky voice of Allison Price.

            “Ah, hey, Ali.  Sorry for freaking out on you.  I’m just keyed up about the mission.  I didn’t hear you come in.”  He let out a slow, drawn out sigh.   “I can’t believe it’s almost time to leave.”

            “I know.  I just finished my evening run, and I thought I’d swing by and see how you were doing.  If it’s any consolation, everyone else is nerved up too... including me.”

            Allison Price’s curvaceous figure was accentuated by a pair of black spandex bicycle shorts and a tight-fitting white t-shirt that had been cut off to expose her midriff.  With her fine chiseled, aquiline features Allison could have been a movie star.  Indeed, she had done quite a bit of modeling work as a teenager, and during her time in college she had graced the covers of all the popular fashion magazines.  With her long platinum blond hair, ice blue eyes, and full lips, she had become an instant icon. 

Allison’s passions, however, ran to the intellectual.  She had an insatiable thirst for knowledge.  Growing up, she had been a child prodigy – taking advanced courses in science and mathematics, while her peers were discussing the latest fashion trends and the newest teen idols.  After earning degrees in mechanical engineering and nuclear physics from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, she had quickly accepted a job with NASA’s Propulsion Laboratories.  Along with Dr. Jurgen Gundersson, a genius in the field of gravitronics and propulsion, Allison had been instrumental in developing the new Quantum Fusion Drive.  With the ability to warp gravity fields around an object, the new drive allowed a space vessel to generate holes in the very fabric of space, through which it could then travel.  A spacecraft fitted with a QFD could travel a light year in a matter of days; it was widely believed that this would usher in a new era in space travel and exploration.  The new technology and the theories behind it would soon be put to the ultimate test.

“I thought I was the only one with pre-launch jitters,” John chuckled quietly.

“You must be joking.  The entire crew has been going stir-crazy the last couple of days.  The weather’s not that big a deal, we’re launching from orbit, after all.  But the reports of these lunatic groups are scaring a lot of people.  They’ve been making lots of noise about this mission, especially in the last few days.”

“I think they’re all talk, Ali.  A bunch of looney bible thumpers who want their five minutes of fame on the nightly vid-casts.”  He subtly turned his chair around further to face Allison more directly, stealing a glance at her bare mid-riff.

“I don’t know about that, John.   A friend of mine with Homeland Security says that some of them are pretty well organized and equipped – like those Disciples of the New Scriptures.  They all think we’re blasphemers… that we’re trying to displace God in the cosmos.”

“Well, all I know is that we’ve been burdened with the monumental task of finding new worlds in the galaxy.  A new Eden for mankind.  I guess I could see where what we are doing could threaten religious beliefs.  Maybe in some ways we are challenging God’s domain.  If we do find another world, it will make a lot of people rethink their stand on religion.  The Bible certainly never mentions God creating more than one Garden of Eden.”

They were quiet for a few moments, each listening to the rain pelting against the window outside.  John rose from his chair, gently edging around Allison and making his way to the small refrigerator next to the bed.  He opened the door, reached inside, then turned to Allison and handed her a cold beer.  She smiled as she examined the red and white label emblazoned with a Canadian maple leaf.  The only imported beers that were widely available now came from Canada and Mexico.  Very few imports from the rest of the world made it into the U.S. these days.

“Let’s talk about something else, Ali.  Like how you managed to work in a run with this weather?  I think the rain shrank your top, by-the-way!” John chuckled.

“Ha, ha!  Very funny!  For your information, there’s a new indoor running track surrounding the gym.  And my top is just the way it’s supposed to be, thank you very much!”  Her eyes sparkled as she gave him a demure smile.

They spent the next several hours talking about everything from their childhood experiences to their ultimate dreams.  They had met in the astronaut training program, and they had been inseparable ever since.  They could have been brother and sister the way they knew each other’s history, but they were much more than that.  Although relationships between members of the opposite sex were frowned upon by the United Space Command, there were no explicit rules against them.  It could hardly be expected that consenting adults would suppress their raging hormones and libidos for years at a time in the cold depths of space.  Several hours and many beers later, they were both getting tired.

Allison rose from her chair and slowly stretched, her top threatening to reveal more than just her stomach.  “I guess I’d better get back to my quarters.  We have a busy day tomorrow.”

“I was kind of hoping you’d stay here tonight, babe.”

“John Cross!  These running clothes are sweaty, dirty, and there’s absolutely no way that I can sleep in them!”

John looked into Allison’s eyes and gave her his most charming smile.  “I was hoping you’d say something like that.”

He ordered the computer to dim the lights and gently pushed Allison down onto the bed.  They both giggled like school children as the lights went out.

* * * * *

It was the most ambitious venture ever undertaken in the history of man – bar none.  A coalition of allied nations, led by the United States, had spent trillions of dollars on what was being called the “last hope for the future of mankind”.  After eleven years of non-stop, round-the-clock construction, the USC Ulysses had finally been completed.  Due to the enormous size of the vessel, it had been constructed in the cold, dark expanse of space.  Working from two large space stations orbiting the Earth, hundreds of human technicians and scientists, along with thousands of engineering and construction robots, had worked feverishly to meet their tight deadlines.  From bow to stern, the Ulysses was longer than three Nimitz class aircraft carriers and weighed a staggering 250,000 tons.  The newly designed Quantum Fusion Drive had recently been installed and would be powered by five enormous fusion reactors.

The importance of the successful completion of this mission was lost on no one.  The USC Ulysses was a deep space exploration ship, and the mission of its crew was to find new worlds – inhabitable worlds that could be colonized and settled by man.  Failure was simply not an option because the evidence was impossible to refute - the Earth was dying.  Many believed that Mother Nature already had one foot in the grave.

It would be impossible to point to any single cause for the deteriorating state of world affairs.  The population explosion of the last half-century had pushed many nations into bankruptcy; and the gap between the “haves” and “have-nots” had widened beyond all expectations.  The majority of the world’s people now lived in poverty and squalor.  Starvation, disease, and the predations of man were rampant throughout the world.  The depletion of many of the planet’s natural resources had led to vicious fighting, and small brushfire battles in third-world nations threatened to erupt into all-out global war.  The industrial juggernauts of the East and West were adding to the slow death of a once lush planet.  The pollution of the oceans and skies had contributed to the extinction of hundreds of species in the last two decades, and the greenhouse gases that were destroying the ozone layer had raised temperatures dramatically.  This, in turn, led to the disruption of crops, which led to a reduction in the food supply, which led to starvation for millions of people.  And so the cycle would continue… continue until mankind rode the downward spiral into chaos, anarchy, and death.

Leading the charge towards global extinction were the two remaining world superpowers.  The United Democratic Coalition was the last major voice of freedom.  Comprised of the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and the British Isles, the UDC led the world in scientific advances and industrial power.  Its citizens still enjoyed the religious and cultural freedoms that their forefathers had died to provide.  But even these great nations were not immune to the growing pressures of population and scarcity of resources.    Although the UDC had the most technically advanced military in the world, the very nature of its democratic form of government meant that it was slow to respond to a crisis.

The Eurasian Co-Prosperity Sphere, made up of the former nations of Europe and Asia, had returned to the dark roots of Communism and tyranny.  The people of the ECS lived under an iron fist, crushed into conformity and obedience by a powerful military dictatorship.  Led by the charismatic General Illyin Breshenkovich, the economic and industrial might of the ECS had been focused on creating a huge, modern military.  No expense had been spared, much to the detriment of the average citizen.  Forced labor factories and communal farms were the norm, not the exception.

Adding to the chaos and instability created by these two diametrically opposed entities was a relatively new Middle Eastern empire, the Islamic Federation, whose goal was world domination by those of Islamic faith.  Ruled by a small cabal of fanatical religious extremists, the Islamic Federation had declared a new Jihad – a Holy War to end all holy wars.  The Mullahs had whipped their followers into a religious fervor, and they regularly called for the execution of all non-Muslims, carrying out horrific acts across the globe using an extensive network of terror cells.  Upon its bloody inception, the Federation had closed its borders to the rest of the world, and there was no clear picture of what was going on inside that region of the world.

And so it seemed that mankind was destined for annihilation.  Unless.  Unless the USC Ulysses and its indomitable crew could find a new world for man to inhabit.  A new Eden.  A new utopia for humans to put their mark upon.  A place with room for mankind to grow and expand.

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