<Phoning Home>
December 15 2035
Cleaning up the remnants of the birthday party for me yesterday, where I was once again reminded that I was only seven years from being over the hill I was putting the extra chairs back in the closet when I heard the beeping.
I blinked and for a moment I couldn’t even identify the sound, it had been a long time since I had heard that particular alarm tone, it had gone out of fashion years ago. Searching around the closet I found the source on the top shelf, a dust covered laptop.
Looking down at the old thing for a moment I wondered why it was beeping, or why we even still had it. The thing was from 2019 or something. Opening the shell I looked at the screen, and I felt my heart drop.
SIGNAL ACQUIRED
RENDEVOUS AT FOLLOWING COORDINATES
It was in Rogue’s language. After all this time she had the signal she had been looking for. Her people were reaching out to her, they were calling her home.
For half a moment I considered smashing the machine, or maybe even putting it back up on the shelf and ignoring it. Rogue was happy, she had her life on Earth with me. We had even started talking about adopting a child before the two of us were too old.
I looked back at the screen and slowly shook my head, if it were Earth, if it were humans calling out through the void after being nearly annihilated I would never forgive someone who kept that from me.
With a sigh I turned around and trudged back to our bedroom, the laptop in my hand. Rogue looked up from the book she was reading as I entered.
“What’s that?” she asked.
Slowly I turned the screen around to her.
For a moment Rogue stared at it confused, until I saw the comprehension slam into her.
“Is that!” Her voice went into a high screech, and for a moment her mouth simply moved with no sounds coming out of it.
Slowly I set the old laptop down. Scrambling forwards Rogue grabbed it and stared at the screen, I heard the plastic around the screen crack slightly as she gripped it.
“Careful! This isn’t a flex screen!” I said.
Rogue slowly loosened her grip.
She looked up at me, “Jon! They’re alive!”
Jumping up off of the bed she tackled me to the floor, “They’re alive!”
“Rogue look at the transmission!”
She hesitated and turned back to the old laptop, “What? Oh.” She trailed off looking at the information display over the message.
It had not been transmitted via the aliens FTL communication network. The signal had been sent out via classical radio waves. It was a feet of technology that the antenna Rogue had set up had been able to pick it up.
“The coordinates are only ten light years away though, so they survived the evacuation!” said Rogue.
I nodded in agreement, “They did, I just don’t want you to get your hopes up. A lot can happen in ten years.”
Rogue slowly nodded, her ears flattened and she turned away from me.
“Rogue, what’s wrong?”
She didn’t say anything for a moment, and took a shuddering breath.
“We have a life here Jon, we’re both happy here. Do we want to leave that behind?”
“Rogue, if we don’t go you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life, I’m going to regret it!”
“But we have a life here! Do you really want to leave that?”
Reaching out I grabbed her arm band, pulling her to me.
“Rogue, I don’t care that we have a nice home or life here. I only care that I’m with you!”
Rogue sniffed, “You want to leave Earth?” she asked.
I shrugged, “Like I said I’m happy so long as I’m with you. As for the prospect of flying around in a space ship going at FTL speeds? I can’t say I hate the idea.”
Rogue chuckled.
“Are you sure? We might not ever come back to Earth.”
“Rogue, you learned to live in my world. Its’ time I learned how to live in yours. Besides, I think that your people will need us more than the Earth.”
<Prep>
December 20 2035
“Food?”
“Check!”
“Computers?”
“Check!”
“Toiletries?”
“We have everything Jon, we can stop going over the list!” said Rogue exasperated.
I looked over the rather massive stack of supplies in front of us to her, “Fine, but if we forget something it’s your fault.”
She rolled her eyes, “We didn’t forget anything.”
I nodded in agreement, the supplies in front of us represented our life savings and our cashed out retirements as well as the maximum amount of credit on both of our accounts. I felt a little bad about that, and the fact we were leaving the house vacant but selling or doing anything else would just been more suspicious.
We had survival rations as well as what had to be almost an entire cow in steaks, fruits and other snacks. We had toiletries, clothes new and old, every bit of media we could get our hands on as well as several dozen shiny new media storage devices and half a dozen computers loaded with Wikipedia and every scientific article I could get my hands on, anything we thought might be useful to Rogue’s people.
Sitting on top of the stack was the small oak box holding what remained of Nakja, the cat had gotten cancer a few years ago and we hadn’t caught it in time. Rogue had cried over that aggressive little thing for a long time, even I missed the little bugger sometimes, not that I would admit to it.
Walking over to Rogue I glanced out at the sky, it was perfectly clear the air biting cold.
“The shuttle’s entered the atmosphere!” said Rogue looking down at her tablet where she was controlling the thing.
“Over the ocean right?” I asked.
She nodded, “It’s replicating a natural re-entry as well as it can. Once it’s flying the stealth systems will activate. It’s about ten minutes away.”
I nodded, and turning back around looked at our home.
Rogue followed my gaze and slowly the two of us began to walk through it. We had already packed everything we wanted to take with us, but still the house had been ours for nearly two decades. Looking at the wall of the bedroom I saw the indent in the plaster where I had tripped and slammed my head into the wall because of the cat. I saw the stained patch of carpet where Rogue had spat out a glass of red wine from laughing to hard. Looking all around I could see small scars like the ones on our mating bracelets.
“I’m going to miss this,” said Rogue, looking around the bedroom.
I nodded in agreement, “Me too.”
I felt a slight rumble, like a small earthquake or a strong wind shaking the house.
“That’s the ship, we should hurry,” said Rogue.
“Right.”
With a deep breath I turned away from the bedroom and quickly made my way to the back door of the house. Against the darkness of the night and the cloaking aspects of the ship I didn’t really see it as much as sense that it had landed in our back yard until the back cargo door slid open like a ramp.
Slowly my curiosity getting the better of my sense of urgency I stepped on to the ramp and walked up into the ship. I had looked at schematics of it and pictures that Rogue had of the interior, but it was different to actually be inside of the thing.
Stepping into the forward cockpit I sat down at the co-pilot station and looked out over the controls. I had studied the documents in Rogue’s tablet for years, I knew what every little thing did. I let my eyes wander of the control panel, I was sitting in an honest to god spaceship.
“You done salivating?” asked Rogue somewhat bemused.
“I get to fly around in a space ship, I’m going to be freaking out over this for a while. Let me.”
She rolled her eyes and grabbed my collar dragging me out of my seat.
“Ow!”
“Later, we need to pack everything in here and get away before the USAF shows up!”
Grumbling I grabbed the first crate and began to haul it onto the ship. She could be so bossy sometimes.
<Ascent>
“Ready?” asked Rogue.
“Yes!”
Rogue smirked and slowly pulled back on the controls in front of her, the shuttle made a crunching noise and tilted forward its nose going into the ground. I heard several of the crates of supplies slide forwards.
Rogue said some rather unpleasant things in her language which had no direct English translation.
“Don’t say a thing,” she hissed.
I held my hands up, “I’m not saying anything!”
Slowly correcting herself Rogue manipulated the controls and the shuttle rose up into the air.
“There we go, had to remember how to do that.”
“You sure you can fly this?” I asked only half joking.
Rogue turned to glare at me and then punched the controls. The shuttle let out a roar that probably woke half the city below us and we rocketed upwards into the sky, the small un-aerodynamic brick of a transport simply forcing itself through the atmosphere.
“Yes I can fly it.” She said coolly.
“Yes you can!”
Rogue suitably smug continued upwards through the Earth’s atmosphere.
Looking out the side window of the shuttle I watched as the horizon quickly receded and the blackness of space took hold. Beneath me the lights of the cities mixed with the light of the stars, and still we continued to rise.
“We’re as high as the NISS,” said Rogue.
“Already?”
She nodded, and despite knowing I wouldn’t see the New International Space Station I still looked out over the horizon for its familiar form.
“To bad we can’t turn the gravity off,” I said.
“Yeah, I’d have liked to do that. It’s passive though. Probably for the best. It’s going to take a few days to get to the rendezvous coordinates. I’m fairly certain it would get old quick.”
“Probably.”
We continued to rise up through what was left of the atmosphere, and Rogue carefully rotated the shuttle around, giving me a perfect view of the Earth just as the sun began to rise and illuminate the East coast of North America.
For several moments I just stared out at my home as it slowly shrank below us.
I’d seen pictures, movies, and I’d viewed it through virtual reality goggles. Still none of it seemed to have actually captured the full glory of the Earth, just hanging in the darkness of the space around it, a small sanctuary in an otherwise desolate void.
“Jon?”
I broke myself out of the reverie and looked over at Rogue.
“You’re crying.”
Brining my hand up I wiped at my eyes.
“Yeah, I am. Seeing the Earth like this, it’s messing with my perspective a little.”
Rogue nodded, “we can stay here for a while.”
I looked back down at the Earth and sniffed, “No, for me the Earth is the past now. Let’s go meet your people.”
“You sure?” asked Rogue.
“Yeah.”
Rogue looked at me for a moment, and nodded.
“We’re going to have to jump through at least three beacons to get to the coordinates.”
“How long?” I asked.
“Seven or Eight hours per jump.”
“So enough time for me to be the first human to join the Light year high club?”
She rolled her eyes, “So moments after you see your world floating in space your mind jumps to that?”
I shrugged, “Priorities.”
Rogue sighed, “I’m going to initiate the first jump, ready?” she asked.
“Yep.”
Rogue punched away at the console in front of her and the ship shuddered slightly, I watched in amazement as the stars around us shifted into a Doppler effect, some going red and other blue. All of it beautiful.
“Wow!”
<Happily Ever After>
December 21 2035
Rogue and I were cuddled up in the copilot’s chair staring out at the stars around us. We were at the last beacon until we could make the jump to the coordinates that Rogue had received. One more jump and we would hopefully be with her people. The FTL drive still needed another few hours to discharge though so we were just waiting.
Strangely the mood inside the shuttle was less tense then what I would have expected.
“What do you think people are going to say, you showing up with an alien?” I asked.
Rogue let out a chuckle, “I have no idea. I don’t think it will be too bad. Your ears might take some getting used to.”
“Now I get to play fish out of water, it should be interesting.”
Rogue slowly turned over in her seat and looked at me, “Hopefully not too interesting.”
I chuckled, “Hopefully.”
She was leaning down to put press her lips to mine when an alarm went off.
Rogue immediately jumped out of my lap, and back into the pilot chair.
“Jon!”
I sat up and looked around, “what?!”
“The Aliens! A ship labeled as the [Singer] just dropped out of FTL at this beacon!”
She swung the shuttle around, and I got my first glimpse of the aliens who had attacked her world.
“Not good!”
“I know that!” said Rogue.
The ship looming in front of us was elegant in design sweeping curves without harsh angles. It only made the thing more imposing, like a deep sea predator moving in on its prey.
“They’re transmitting demands for our surrender, they know the shuttle is stolen!” said Rogue.
“Fucking hell!”
The massive ship’s engines flared and it began to move towards us, ominous against the backdrop of the stars.
“They’ve given us ten seconds to surrender!” said Rogue.
“They can’t have the ship Rogue! We’ve got the coordinates to Earth, and your own people in the computer!”
Rogue slowly nodded, “Yeah, and if they get them,” she trailed off.
“Fuck.”
She nodded, “Yeah.”
I glanced back at the alien ship as a thin beam of energy shot out from it towards us, a warning shot that barely missed us.
I looked back at the countdown timer and then to Rogue, “can we go to FTL?”
Rogue hesitated, “The engines have a high probability of burning out. We didn’t give them enough time to cool down.”
“It’s a better option then hanging out around here.”
Rogue looked out at the ship, “It is.”
I looked out at the ship, it represented what Rogue’s people had fought against and lost too. It represented what humanity might face in the future, what we would have to overcome if we were going to have that final dream of spreading to the stars.
“Let’s do it.”
Rogue nodded in agreement, “Let’s make sure they have something to remember us by though.”
Taking the controls she punched the joystick forwards, the small shuttle accelerated quickly enough that I was thrown back into my seat several g’s taking hold of me.
Our small commandeered shuttle rocketed towards the larger ship, the main guns turning to face us.
“Now!” said Rogue.
I hit the panel and a beam of energy lanced out from our small shuttle hitting the small protrusion on the top of the ship, the bridge. The shields held but that hardly mattered we had gotten our point across.
I was violently thrown to the side and I heard an alarm going off.
“We’ve been hit!” shouted Rogue. Looking back I could see the small tear in the cargo section of the ship, just a small pinprick of light from the stars outside. Reaching back I punched the door control sealing the aft cargo section. The breach sealed I turned back just in time to see the capacitors reach maximum charge.
“We’re jumping!” said Rogue.
With a crunching hum the shuttle once again slipped onto a stream of tachyons and we accelerated forwards completely bypassing light speed. The stars outside the view port shifted into their red and blue patterns.
The small shuttle let out another whine as we continued to fly, “I’m pushing it to the max, we might make it!” said Rogue.
The floor began to vibrate, and I groaned.
“Rogue!”
“We’re fine!” she said even as her teeth chattered. I had no frame of reference, but I could tell we were moving faster than the earlier languid pace we had taken between beacons. The shuttle was on her last legs but she would not die without a fight.
“We’re fine!” repeated Rogue.
I stared out at the stars as the blues and reds began to bleed together, and I closed my eyes.
We would make it, we had to.