#cosmo pilots: voyage further beyond

[mythropigman]

The most likeable character you'll ever set your eye upon once you see them more and more

[incognitoscribblings]

First Comes the Breakup, Then Comes the Destruction

From the Flash Fiction Challenge prompt over at Terrible Minds. 35 words over. Somehow I'll live the burden.

Jeana Merinov had no idea how warped her husband’s mind had become until he set her adrift in space.

The expedition had been going well, the experimental drive on their ship had allowed them to go further than anyone ever had before. Humanity, of course, had been seeping out into the cosmos for hundreds of years, but Jeana’s work promised new wonders and maybe the ever elusive dream of ‘first contact’.

Jeana’s work, her place among the scientific elite had been almost preordained. By five she was a chess prodigy, by fifteen she was already a scientist of some repute. Her star burned bright, charting a sweeping arc of achievement and endeavor.

In college, most people scramble and fumble towards an idea of who they are going to be. By then, Jeana had already decided and the entire world knew it.

Jeana and her husband, Rand, met at a symposium a few years later. She’d already begun research that would take humanity beyond the veil. He was ten years her senior, a famous explorer in his own right.

He’d fought in skirmishes with rebellious colonists and several planets and constellations bore variations on is name - a fact he was secretly proud of.

He never told anyone, not even Jeana, that it was this pride that spurred him on. Driven by the derision of a long dead father who told him he’d never amount to anything, he wouldn’t stop until humanity loved him back ten times over.

The pair met and sparks flew. At first, nothing could stop them. Her brains, his daring do. But before long, Jeana found she could pilot a ship, engineer peace and fire a pistol just as good as he ever could.

In the fickle eyes of the public her star grew brighter, casting a shadow over everything else in her orbit. It got worse when they married, his escapades became prologue to her ongoing legend.

Given the gift of hindsight, some would say Jeana was an expert on everything but the intricacies and pettiness of the human mind. So when Rand jettisoned her habitat module into the cold, uncaring vacuum, the smartest woman alive did not see it coming.

Rand had a vague idea to blame her death on a horrid accident, claim any glory for himself and finally be free to bask in the glory he thought he so thoroughly deserved. His own habitat module exploded as it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere. The universe is uncaring, but not without a sense of wicked irony.

Without oxygen, Jeana, didn’t last long. It was a quiet end for a life that mattered so much. The pod drifted in the black before it finally found the pull of a planet, an unassuming marble of slate gray seas and rocky coasts.

The pod, already brittle from its long journey, broke apart like an egg as it hit the water. It sank into the depths and what remained of Jeana drifted free of its tomb and out into the unknown.

The detritus of DNA from the pod swirled out into the world. Life did not yet exist there, but the conditions for it did. The crash provided that spark. It took time of course, as these things do, but everything was forever changed now. Life, born from death, had begun.

The burgeoning people of the world that became known as Gilmat were a hardy lot, grasping their way towards civilization under a stormy sky on land forever threatened by the mindless thrashings of the sea.

But they prevailed. They crawled out of the sea and onto a land they made their own. Like the rocks that littered the landscape they weathered every storm. They became a stoic but curious people, happy to endure their hardships but always looking for something better.

Time passed, as it always does, in the blink of an eye. Before long the quest for a brighter future turned towards the stars. It would be years before space flight was possible, but the ambition was there, a yearning to throw off the shackles fate had bound them in. Out of the countless millions that had thrust this civilization into the light, only two would bring this dream to fruition.

Carlotta Monteverde and Sigwalt Marik had lead this charge since they were children. Both had competed in the annual ocean race across the great sea that divided their continents.

It was during that race that a great storm descended throwing the competitors into disarray. Carlotta and Sigwalt’s ships drifted off course and ever closer. Carlotta’s ship had its instruments fried by the storm. Sigwalt’s was taking on water after a collision with a razor-shark. Mother nature played cupid, their ships pushed together by the mighty winds. They formed a pact, transferred the equipment from Sigwalt’s ship to Carlotta's and promptly won the race, coming in an entire day before everyone else.

During that voyage towards the finish line, love blossomed. They talked of adventures gone by and all the ones they hoped would come. They spoke of leaving Gilmat behind, spent nights dreaming of world beyond their own, never realizing how close their dreams were.

Gilmat was dying the elders said. A thousand years if luck held, a hundred if it didn’t. The people of Gilmat didn’t believe in luck. Dedicate enough resources to something and a solution will present itself. A great armada in space was built, part colony, part invasion fleet. This would be the home of the people of Gilmat until a suitable home was found.

Probes and scout ships were sent out from the armada, tiny tendrils looking for a shaft of light in the velvet black. Carlotta and Sigwalt lead the way, the tip of the spear so to speak. They spent their lives drifting ever further away from the fleet in the effort to find a place they could call home, a world they’d dreamed of since that night in the storm.

Decades into their search, mother nature, fate or just blasphemous blind luck lead them through the storm once again.

Through the viewing screen they looked at Earth. By hook or by crook the fleet would follow and it would make a fine home.