Commander Terence Brannock, American Empire Navy, paced uneasily in his cabin. He'd been assigned command of the Outbound Project six months ago by Navy High Comand, and had considered it a grand honour at the time, but second thoughts were creeping into his mind now. Of course, that could just have been the inevitable premonitions and anxieties just prior to the launch of any space vessel, but it was a growing concern with Brannock anyway, and he knew that a gut feeling of his had never failed him before. However, this was no gut feeling. This was a mere construct of the mind, an idle thought brought on by the imminent launch.
And what he was riding was not even the Outbound itself, merely a shuttle to ferry passengers back and forth between thes tation and the ship proper. His training, instincts and intelligence told him that all would be well.
"All flight crew report to shuttle bay five - repeat, all flight crew to shuttle bay five," Brannock hear from the loudspeaker as the shuttle engineers performed a final pre-flight check. Declaring finally that everything was okay, the engineers cleared the shuttle bay and let the flight crew into the ship, then sealed the shuttle's airlock and vacated the launch bay themselves. Another systems check by the flight crew, now (with equipment like this you could never be too careful) and then they set out to obtain permission to take off. This was an interminable ride, even before it began! But Brannock had been through this many times before, and he knew that the flight itself would not be boring. Only the wait for takeoff clearance was.
In his mind, to stave off boredom, he reviewed the principles behind the Outbound Project. As far as he could tell, it dated back to 2047 - shortly after John McCarmack's infamous defeat of the rogue general Devroe. The American president had decided that humanity was placing far too many fragile eggs in one basket, and so had begun this initiative, which involved colonization of several recently-discovered Earth-type planets (an initiative which would sadly take one hundred years even with the one-third light speed the Outbound could pull) in the hopes that this would prevent any possible disaster from taking out the entire race. For over twenty years this plan had been developed, and now it was to come to fruition.
Sudden acceleration. They were off, accelerating at one and a half gravities, making their way toward the looming Outbound which would be their home for the remainder of their natural lives, unless the new improved stasis chambers lived up to their impossible promise of two hundred years' perfect preservation.
The reason the shuttle ride was not boring was simple - Earth from space was beautiful. From geostationary orbit he could see the planet in its entirety, a glowing blue jewel in the pitch-black reaches of space. For the entirety of the fifteen-minute ride he sat there, staring at the Earth, beholding its majesty. This activity never grew old, at least not to him.
Anyway, the current President seemed very anxious to get the Outbound Project going immediately. Perhaps because of the advent of the Nova warhead - far more powerful even than the impact that had initiated the Mesozoic extinction. If we don't get underway soon, we may not get the chance, Brannock thought to himself, envisioning a brilliant white fireball replacing the space station, replacing cities, replacing the Earth - vapourizing them all. He knew this was highly unlikely to ever occur, but his idle mind was imagining terrible things anyway.
This ride eventually drew to an end, as well, and he stepped off the shuttle and onto the Outbound. As he did so, he ceased to be Commander Brannock and became Captain Brannock. And as he did so, a thousand Navy servicemen's arms came up in salute. "Captain on deck!"
"As you were. It is with great pleasure that I take command of this, the Outbound, our pride and joy."
"Captain," Brannock's first mate, Lieutenant-Commander Gerald Wise, interrupted, "you're needed on the bridge."
"Well, as much as I would love to spend my whole day here, the ship needs me." Saluting his Navy crew, Brannock proceeded across the ship's length from the shuttle bay to the bridge, noting the gargantuan beast of a ship's utter complexity. The ship, on the inside, was laid out like a - there was no term on Earth to describe it! An environment like this could only be created in free fall. There was no order. The residential area (for civilian passengers intending to live out their lives here) was cavernous - a gigantic, ovoid shell with level upon level of housing, laid out seemingly at random, drifting sedately along and occasionally bumping into each other. Brannock saw no logic, no underlying principle behind the placement of the houses. But to each his own, and Brannock's own was stock Navy quarters, which he also passed on this interminable, four-kilometre trek from one end of the ship to the other. They were the usual, Spartan affairs, which he expected and admittedly preferred.
Finally - after half an hour walking through this monstrosity, because the rapid transit was out of order! - Captain Terence Brannock reached the forward command bridge. He cast a glance about him, taking in the layout of the bridge - sensors to the port, communications in the aftward port, tactical to starboard (ha! In a ship without even faster-than-light travel, they still had plasma cannon and energy shields! It really told you something about where the research money was going), and the helm right front and centre, in front of the main viewscreen. Commanding officer's seats were situated roughly in the middle of all this, with a special subset of the communications console available only to the skipper situated by his/her chair. Brannock took this all in with a glance, not even revealing the fact that as he did so he was studying his bridge crew as well. They seemed capable enough, though they also seemed to lack originality and/or personality. This was a situation easily rectifiable, however, by the mere presence of a captain with personality. "Captain on the bridge!" he heard as they clued into his presence, and immediately twenty-five arms shot up in salute.
"As you were. I assume the urgency with which I was directed here means something."
"Yes, Captain," said the first mate, who'd followed him in. "We've been told to launch immediately."
"Immediately? I've barely even set foot on the vessel, which is in a state of disrepair, and we're taking off already?"
"I'm afraid so, Captain. I could show you the Presidential order, if you wish - it specifies that we--"
"That won't be necessary, Commander. I'll get us cleared for departure immediately." Brannock took his seat, a rather comfortable one despite appearances. "This is Outbound requesting clearance for departure; repeat, Outbound requesting clearance for immediate departure."
"Leaving so soon? You're not scheduled to go 'till Wednesday, or at least I thought so."
"That's what I thought, too, and everyone else, but the President thinks differently."
The space-traffic controller sighed. "It's always that way. Very well, be on your way then."
Smiling, Brannock closed the channel. "You heard the man. We're good to go."
"It suddenly strikes me that this date bears some sort of historical significance."
"Come to think of it, it does, but I can't for the life of me determine what, Mr. Wise. Helm, lay in a course for the first planet on our list, engage the inertial dampers at low strength and ease us out at two gravities." The helmsman complied, and slowly, gracefully, the mammoth Outbound slid out of its dock and into Earth orbital space, accelerating at 2G but only feeling the effects of a quarter gravity as the inertial dampers worked their magic. Once they cleared the dock, Captain Brannock rose out of his chair. "Alright, now have the houses secured, then adjust the inertial dampers to maximum power and pour on the gas. We're off to the races, ladies and gentlemen."
"Aye, sir." The obediant helmsman complied once more, and a short time later the deck felt to be one point five gees, though the external acceleration was far greater than that. Far greater. In fact, they would make it to point-three-repeated light speed in three days under this acceleration. "Captain," Sensors reported, "I'm picking up something strange."
Brannock gave a start. Already? We're barely underway. Where's it located?"
"It's actually located Earthward. I'm picking up multiple emission trails, and they're not ours."
"Bring it up on the viewscreen, and cut in a visual of Earth, too." The easily-forgettable man at the Ops station did so, and Brannock swore. "They certainly wasted no time on that one! Comm, get me the President, immediately if you will." The viewer shifted to a TeleComm picture of President Hall. "Goddammit, Mr. President, you're a bleeding idiot! Why the hell did you authorize deployment of the Nova warheads?"
"Because, Captain Brannock, it's time to wipe the slate clean. Your kind will be the human race. You can build a new future for our kind, and avoid repeating our mistakes."
"You did this just to get rid of China and India, didn't you?"
"I object to that statement, Mr. Brannock! China and India have significant representation in your civilian counterpart of the project!"
"Not humanly, politically. You saw them as a threat. I know it, you know it, game over, you all lose. The Earth loses." Brannock cut the comm.
"But it wasn't even my idea..." came the response which Brannock would never hear.
There was nothing left to do but watch. Watch as the brilliant blue glare of Nova missiles streaked across the globe, attacking targets in China and India and providing sufficient explosive force to crack the Earth open like an egg.
For five minutes they watched helplessly as the Nova missiles burned their way across the globe, accompanied now by the orange glow of 'conventional nuclear warheads' (a contradiction in terms!) rising up from both sides. Brannock and his crew counted down. "Ten...nine...eight...seven...six...five...four...three...two...one."
Impact. The glowing blue warheads struck land, tearing up the landscape and creating gargantuan impact clouds, some rising up beyond two thousand kilometres. Shockwaves circled the world, thoroughly fragmenting it, and a second found of Nova bombs fired shortly after the first sealed the deal. The Earth disappeared in a fiery explosion.
"Say, Helm, how far are we from Eartly right now?"
"Currently twenty thousand kilometres beyond Earth's geostationary orbit, sir."
"...Shit. We're too close. Here comes the debris - Sensors, how far away is that?"
"The largest object - also the closest - is five thousand kilometres away. --Four thousand."
"Shit, shit, shit! I need shields, damn it!"
"Rerouting necessary power from engines to shields," said the now-all-important Ops man.
"When the acceleration gets down to something reasonable, divert the power from the inertial dampers too. We need everything we can get."
"Three thousand kilometres, Captain."
"It's too close! Get those shields online!"
"Working on it, Captain."
"Two thousand."
Brannock dashed to the Ops console. "Dammit, faster!"
"One thousand... five hundred..."
"I don't have enough time, Captain! We can't get the power to--"
"Damn it! It wasn't supposed to happen like this! It wasn't supposed to end this way--"
None.
