Back To Earth

Captain Carmen Parma glided to the front of her one man spaceship. The effort of pushing against the bulkhead to propel herself into the cockpit made her wheeze. Already she is exhausted from her spacewalk earlier. Nine weeks into her return journey from Alpha Centauri, she was well inside Pluto's elliptic, and yet no signal from the station on one of Uranus' moons. She had ventured outside, alone, to see whether her antenna was still functional, going against all her training. The on-board computer persisted to claim it was working perfectly, but she had to go see for herself. Sweeping in from the small lavatory she positioned herself in the chair. Looking out the small window, she could see a small sliver of Pluto. Absentmindedly she touched her face. Five years on Alpha Centauri's small planet, Glana, her complexion was perfect. Gone was the small wrinkles and blemishes that marked her as above fifty. Eyes the color of Pluto's surface, short blond hair so as not to be a discomfort in zero gravity, her lips were a natural full red and a body any woman would weep for. Training, hard years of exertion amidst the primitive beings on Glana, and a well balanced diet, has kept the weight away. Buckling herself in, she twisted the headphone microphone, switched on the Emergency Signal button and prepare to do the worst. ES broadcasts on all frequencies, commercial, military, public, at full power. It was shied against since an ES call scrambled all communications for a few seconds. Yet she didn't know what to do anymore, the observatory at Uranus has yet to answer her call, which she made a full hour ago. The green light blinked on, and with a commanding voice spoke, 'This is Captian Carmen Parma calling from Spaceship Vėrnil. I am receiving no broadcast on any frequency. Please respond. This is an emergency. 'She flicked the switch, turned the knob that would signify an incoming transmission and settled down to waiting. After two hours she programmed the spaceship to take her just outside the gravity of Jupiter. With a sigh she glided to her bed and settled down to well earned rest.  1

The on-board computer ignited the twin eon thrusters at the precise time to continue the journey to Jupiter. Mindlessly it opened pathways and enabled switches that would scan the space outside for any harmful material coming towards the Vėrnil. At precisely two hours and seven minutes, when the ship was halfway between Jupiter and Saturn, the radar signals bounced of a metallic object. The computer calculated it's course, compared it to it's own and saw the danger.  2

The incessant buzzing of the ships computer woke Carmen from a restless sleep. Opening her eyes, she saw that the status lights allover the ship had gone red, indicating trouble. Reflexes kicked in, and she was in the cockpit in the blink of an eye. Fingers gliding over the keyboard she called up a 3 dimensional heads up display, the unknown object clearly marked, 3 kilometres away and coming in fast. She traced her own path with the objects, point of contact in three minutes. Gasping, she ordered the computer to decrease speed, changing the course so as to see the object as it passes. She grasped her small telescope, switched on the sun filters and gazed in the objects general direction. Soon she found it. Lowering the telescope, she stared, and looked again. The shape was clearly a spaceship thruster. It wasn't the thruster that concerned her, it was the location of the rest of the ship that worried her. Somewhere a spaceship has exploded, something she could not fathom. Deep into the twenty-fifth century, human technology has gone beyond all expectations, and spaceships just don't explode anymore. She didn't even want to think about the other alternative. Attacked. Dismissing the piece of metal, she settled back into a daydream of her friends on earth. She hasn't seen the planet in a long time, and homesickness was overwhelming. The fact that she would see Earth in just over thirteen hours only heightened her own hastiness. There was Marcee, her friend since Trainee Camp. They had a bunch of laughs the two of them, it's a pain to know that Marcee is on Lunar Duty, which is a pain to do and every spacefarer would avoid it at all costs. That's why Carmen elected to map Glana for future colonization. Her mind's eye drifted over green valleys and mountain ranges she has only seen from aerial photographs. Sweeping into cities she marvelled at her own imagination. Blasting up she was in space, looking down at her planet, her home. A ball of blue hanging in nothingness, the center of the human race. With images of earth still in her mind, she glided of to sleep.  3

With a yawn she awoke only to find that she had slept the best of ten hours away. That didn't bother her though, it only meant that she was three hours away from home. Stretching, flipping switches she queried the computer for any received transmissions. The computer replied there was none. She frowned, settled back into the pilot's chair and opened a pack of coffee. Three hours away, that would put her well away from Jupiter, a small pang of regret for missing the view flashed through her, and well within mars' orbit. A pity really, mars is way on the other side of the sun. A glimpse of the red planet is said to bring good luck. 'Oh well', she thought, 'at least I'll have time to catch up on my reading'. Getting her book, she tapped commands out to increase her Ship Beacon and to continue the sweep for radio signals. Getting all restless because Earth has failed to reach her was beyond her ability. Cool, calm, that's how she has survived the weeks of loneliness anyone is bound to face travelling in space. The pages flipped as she read, and the hours melted away.  4

After what seemed like hours while she was lost in the world of her book, she glimpsed out of the window, only to find herself staring at the moon. She flapped the book down, which started to float away behind her, and scanned her instruments. Earth should be behind the moon. With a quick tap she ignited thrusters, taking her away from the moon and into sight of the earth.  5

She gazed upon a blue world, a hive of life, of creativity. The sheer joy of seeing her home was ecstatic. Unknown to her, the years on Glana has changed her, sounds and images filled her mind as she stared. Images of Earth's earlier days. She gazed mentally in wonder at the massive upheavals of fire and lava as they shaped the continents. She listened to the roar of a thousand thunderstorms as glaciers broke away and melted at the still forming ocean bed. She cried when it rained, and rained for millennia, until a small animal clambered to the surface, gasped for breath and lived. She screamed in terror as a meteorite slammed into her planet, destroying life, but also creating new. Wonder filled her as the first human grasped a bone and used it as a makeshift tool. Here was born mankind, the greatest of Earth's achievements. Empires rose and fell in the blink of an eye, man made war, and built great things. Earth sang, the sweetest melody she has ever heard. It filled her with joy as pure as sunlight. Opening her eyes she looked at her home and knew, here is the place of my birth, I'm at home, I'm back to Earth.6