Chapter 1- Travel Notes from a Space Nomad

It has been 8 months since I have departed from Mars. In my mission to chronicle the myriad journeys undertaken by the Pioneers who are traveling stars to stars founding new settlements along the way, I have sent my copies of consciousness across the galaxy, to be received by whoever that has a receiver and a vessel. Finally I have caught up with the fleet latest to leave the Sol system.

The fleet is lead by an earthborn lady by the name of "Wince". Ms. Wince, or rather Admiral Wince (if we go by the formal title) has 200 years of experience in a spaceship. 50 years as a crew member, 100 as a captain and 50 more as an admiral, leading passengers and cargo fleets. It may be that after 187 years spacefaring, she felt she had accomplished plenty in the Sol system, and she decided to leave for more adventures. As her fleet is closest to Sol, she will be the first one to test the Project Hermes. Or so I have been told.

I awoke in a small white room lit bright by an LED lamp above my head. As my senses slowly get adjusted, I see a man sitting in front of my bed, looking at me with curiosity. Not the admiral huh? I think to myself. The man seems to be around 197cm tall, an average height for a spacefarer. He has a bit tanned skin and a slight gray hair, but looked overall young. I am guessing he is around 100 years old. Of course, the most prominent parts of him would be his golden cybernetic eyes and an overly-modified cybernetic right arm.

After a few seconds of gaze, he greets me.

"Mr. Hermes right? My name is Siv. I am the deputy head engineer of Wahlen, the Flagship of the Titus fleet. I have been told to guide you through the ship system before having you meet the admiral. This is your first time in a pioneering fleet right?"

"Yes, that is so. But I have been in a few intra-solar system ships. And my name is Veric, not Hermes, that is just name of the project."

Siv- "Please excuse my ignorance. As for why the admiral couldn't meet you first, it was because it took 3 days to download all your necessary programs. She is currently asleep. It is rest time here in Titus group. To be precise, 02/24: 47/60 o'clock. 4869 proper days since the departure from Sol. Average cruising speed of 0.05c."

5% of the speed of light....time dilation factor of 1.00125 huh. Every hour here is 1 hr plus 4.5 seconds on Sol. It is rather 4875 days, not 4869 since departure, for the people back home. No wonder they needed to do a different time keeping on the ship.

I get off the bed, unplug the chords from my neck, and start walking where Siv leads me. We leave the white room and head into a hall way, around 4 meters wide and 3 meters tall. Though I couldn't grasp the length at a glance, it seems like it loops around like a hollow ring. We keep walking towards a door 15 steps away. His eyes keep wandering towards and away from me each moment. He looks like he wants to ask a question but keeps hesitating.

"How has the journey been since the departure?" I ask to be polite.

S- "Not that eventful I must say. Barring the fact that we had to scrap two of the malfunctioning ships for materials. So we are now a fleet of 48 ships."

V- "Two ships already malfunctioned just in 13 years of journey? I thought we would have sturdier ships after 2 centuries worth experience of interstellar ship building. How would it survive a journey of hundreds of years?"

S- "Ships had indeed become safer in the second generation. But with the third and the fourth, they have started to do cost cutting here and there. A lot of redundancies were removed."

V- "Hmm, it sounds dangerous. I will surely mention this to the press and the regulators."

S- "Please do. We did our own report to them, but surely they can't ignore a report from the Project Hermes. By the way, how is the body I prepared? Does it feel natural?"

V- "Yeah. I don't feel anything strange in this. All the 5 natural senses are here. But I do feel some parts of me are different."

S- "We had to modify the design a little bit. Couldn't procure some of the materials. We have limited resources after all. Each gram of everything counts before we reach another star system."

V- "I understand. Did you build your arm yourself? It looks quite unique."

S- "Oh yes. I did build it. It has become multipurpose tool rather than a body part."

Shiv answered while chuckling a bit.

His arm has a lot of rare materials that would require a special fabrication lab, and more materials for constant maintenance. Lack of materials you say... but I guess a guest doesn't deserve expensive stuff.

I conduct an internal body inspection while having conversations with Siv. We enter the door of what seems to be an elevator, and start moving up slowly. The light indicates that we were in Floor 19 and heading to Floor 16.

S- "So you might already know this but, we are currently in the spinning cylindrical compartment of the ship. This layer is 1g. As you move farther from the center axis, it gets higher in gravity, up to 1.2g. And as you move closer to the center, it gets lower, down to 0g. The above layer is 0.8g. Above that are 0.5g, 0.3g and 0.1g. The central shaft is 0g. But it is ill-advised to go there without a guide. "

"It is not that different from a regular inter-planetary/intra-stellar ships. Just the size is far massive." I quipped.

S- "Yes, that is the case. We had to cram a lot of stuff whether we needed or not just in case. We can't go back to earth after all."

V- "What is the population of the fleet?"

S- "Each passenger ship was designed to carry 25,000. We had 40 of them initially but now 38. So they got slightly crowded. We also have 5 cargo and fuel carriers, 1 agricultural ship, 2 industrial ships, 2 biome carriers and 1 recreational cruiser. The scrapped materials are now distributed among all the ships to keep the same mass all across the fleet."

V- "Are we not in a passenger ship? I don't see that many people here." In fact, I haven't seen anyone beside Siv.

S- "Yes, Wahlen is an industrial ship. The Admiral is not used to crowds. But she doesn't have free time to live in the recreational facility either. Most problems that appear, will appear in the industrial ships, so it is more efficient to live here."

As we talk, my feet get lighter. My sensors are telling me we are at 0.8g. Nothing strange found in the body except for a radio signal emitter. I am guessing this is a tag that is monitoring my position. I notice that the elevator has stopped moving. The doors open with a bell chime. The opened doors reveal a person clad in blue uniform. I recognize it as a captain's attire but since we are in the flagship, this must be the admiral. She smiles at me and says, "Welcome to Titus, the fourth pioneering fleet. I am Wince, the admiral of this fleet. We are glad to have you here, Mr. Veric."

She seems to be as tall as I, around 190cm. But her air of authority makes her seem even taller. Looking at her closely, the uniform seems a bit wrinkled. She might have slept in those while waiting for my arrival. Her eyes are still sharp without any fatigue, and the irises deep dark, as if they are there to judge my soul. But the lips are smiling. She extends a hand to me and I shake it.

V- "Nice to meet you admiral. I heard you were resting. I feel bad to have woken you up to greet me."

Wince- "Oh don't mind. I got up as soon as I received a thought message from Siv. I will take over the duty of showing you around from here. So what would you like to see first?"

V- "The interstellar space I must say. I know the view would be boring. But unlike the trillions of people in Sol who have never left the influence of the Sun, I would be one of the select few who get to do it."

"Sure. We can arrange something. Let's head to the central shaft and towards the stationary compartments. Siv, would you wake up the engineer at Sector 3 ? And have him prepare a cab.....So, Mr. Veric, how was your travel from Mars to here? How does traveling at the speed of light feels?" She asks me as we walk back into the elevator we just came out from. She chooses the floor that has a symbol of "0".

V- "Haha, it was nothing as grand as that. It would feel the same as falling asleep in one place and waking up at another, with no dreams or lucidity in between."

Siv stands still for a few moments before giving us the OK signal to let us know the cab is waiting for us. After that, he salutes Wince and leaves without saying anything.

The admiral nods slightly to Siv and gets back to the conversation. "Interesting. But it is still a fact that you travelled in 8 months the distance we travelled in 13 years. Do you have a copy back on Mars?"

V- "Yes, but I would not call it a copy. I am the copy and he is the original. We will merge our memory when I leave here. But currently he is in sleep mode."

W- "Will you leave a copy behind in this ship?"

V- "Unfortunately, no. I would like to. But the project is designed in such a way that I don't leave any copy behind. Legally speaking, I am still the same individual as him as long as the copies send their memories to the original and don't operate independently for a long amount of time."

As we move up, my feet get lighter and lighter until I float. There are handrails on the side of the elevator wall to keep me grounded.

W- "Ahh that's too bad. Oh, we have arrived in 0g shaft. I will guide you how to move around in here. Unlike the passenger ships, the zero gravity section of industrial carriers are crudely designed."

We leave the elevator and enter a short tunnel. The tunnel transitions from a rotating rectangular one to a stationary cylindrical one. I can hear the faint sound of surfaces grinding against each other. I move slowly grabbing the handrail on the right-side and stay close to the wall. Wince moves as though she is swimming through air, but not too fast to leave me behind. Her shoes have electromagnets in them which she switches on after we reach the end of the tunnel. There are a few pairs of them stuck to the wall leading to the exit. I grab a pair and put them on my bare-feet. There are also some devices I don't know the use of. Until I look out of exit that is. A few steel tethers connecting the exit to the other side that was so far away.

Around 800 meters? This is a pretty long ship. I think to myself.

Wince picks up one of the devices and latches it on a tether. I follow her instructions closely and hook myself to another. The device starts moving me along, accelerating slowly towards the other end.

W- "We could have also used the electric pods on the lower floors but I prefer using these. They are fast, energy-efficient and fun."

I couldn't agree more.

We reach the end pretty soon. Wince looks at her phone to check some messages. It seems unlike Siv, she doesn't have neural chips for thought messages.

W- "Our cab is ready. Follow me."

We reached the air lock at the end of the tunnel. This tunnel was pretty massive compared to what we just past through at the start. May be it needs the space for hauling large cargo.

After Wince sends some messages, the air lock starts opening. We can see some space suits and 5 to 6 crafts with different sizes around the room. The smallest has enough space for 2 and the largest has for 10. But I could also see another locked metal door to the left of us, where they may keep their bigger ships.

We get on to the one that fits 4. The craft is symmetrical front to back. The roof opens upwards revealing 4 space suit, folded neatly, one on each seat. We put on the suits and they start shrinking tightly around our body. Like an adult wearing kids' clothes. We also put on the headpiece, but keep the visors open. The admiral takes the driving seat, and I take the seat beside her.

" I feel honored to be chauffeured by someone of your stature, Madam Admiral"

Wince smiles but says nothing to my comment. The craft is sealed airtight. In a few seconds, the latch on the floor opens to reveal the deep dark interstellar space. Some distant lights in the deep space started to appear. The vehicle slowly moves as it is pushed by an electromagnetic track. The ion thrusters are ignited, and we leave Wahlen.

As we get further ahead, I can see the whole Titus Fleet in its full glory. Massive leviathans swimming in a blackwater with a few red eyes throughout their bodies blinking periodically. The most numerous were those that look like cylinders with sharp cone at the front. A few were rectangular shapes with a cylindrical bulge in the center. Wahlen was one such ship. Its mouth was still open after spitting out our dingy spacecraft. Although it is called 'the flagship', it is still behind 5 more behemoths. These were the longest of them all, enough to be measured in kilometers. They must be the cargo ships.

Wince turns the ship slowly towards the direction where most fleets are visible. There in the background of all the ships, we see a star, brighter than all the others but still appearing as a point with no measurable size. Wince's eyes turn serious. In a somber tone, she says:

"That is our Sun. The place that gave birth to the human race. Both majestic and unassuming at the same time. In the galaxy, it is one among many. But for us, it is the one and only. Farewell, the most radiant one."