ursamajorstory

[ursamajorstory]

Look to the stars!!

started this while sick i am no longer sick

#art

[ursamajorstory]

Humiliating Barriers

[The Beginning] - [Part 5] - [Part 7 Coming Soon]

Word count: 2615

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"So you have a two rotation contract?" Lars questioned as they traveled the hallways together. "That's a long time, I'm really surprised. Why did you sign up for that?"

"Well, it's what he offered. It'll give me time to get on my feet, anyways," Ursa shrugged, "I don't mind it much if it helps me."

Lars glanced at him before looking forward again, "Alright, I suppose that means I need my own contract renewed for that."

"Huh?" Ursa glanced at him, "What do you mean?"

"Obviously I'm not going to let you just be on this ship by yourself without me,” Lars insisted this by knocking his metal leg right into Ursa’s shin.

“Ow--! Alright, alright I get it,” Ursa huffed as he recovered himself. Lars was a tiny robot, only coming up around Ursa’s waist in height, but that height was dominantly from Lar’s legs lifting him up. Hard metal directly into his shin wasn’t exactly the greatest feeling in the world.

They journeyed through the halls till Ursa saw they were back at what seemed to be the cafeteria he saw before. There were a few aliens eating at a few tables, each their own different species. The cafeteria itself wasn’t super big, but he saw there was a screen on the wall like a futuristic TV that the other aliens were all watching. An alien was on screen, seemingly a news reporter on a planet that Ursa could sort of see behind them. 

“Here on the planet of Gresa, we are here on this lovely taggie to talk to Kunal Chandra about the latest unit trades between the Mamitu Primians and the Iverians…” 

Ursa didn’t understand a lot of what the newscaster was saying, quietly just trying to take it in for a moment before he saw Lars walk ahead of him. He at least was familiar with the concept of a lunch line. Though, he watched Lars step to the side of hte line rather than join behind some of the other aliens.

“I’m not able to eat any of this because I’m a robot. But there’s a charging station right over there. Let me give you some of my units to get your food and then you can sit at the table right next to the charging station,” Lars explained as he opened the top of his sphere, a robotic arm handing Ursa a metal stick. “Just try to not get too much. Get the basic rations and then hand this to the fellow at the end of the line and it should cover it.”

“Gotcha, thanks, Lars,” Ursa nodded as he took it, “I’ll pay you back once I get my first paycheck.”

Lars stared at him for a moment before nodding, “Right. Your funny little human sayings. Paycheck. Gotcha. You're a weird little human. Right, I’m going to start charging.” 

Ursa laughed a bit and watched him go. Though, once Lars was gone, Ursa glanced at the line of aliens. They were all varying species that Ursa didn’t know how to approach in the slightest. He kept his helmet on for now, using it as his cover to just try to be quiet and keep his head down. Honestly, even in highschool he wasn’t the most outgoing with strangers. If he were more familiar, he was more willing to just grab someone and laugh with them. But right now this was all way too foreign for himself.

Though, just his luck that another alien came up behind him to try to talk to him anyways. “Hey, did we pick you up at the last landing platform? I don’t think I recognize you? Are you also an Athurian?”

Ursa glanced back, seeing it was a more bulky looking alien. He was green across his skin and had bulging eyes that stared up at him. Ursa noted that the alien had his own helmet that was filled with a purple liquid. Ursa can see his hands were webbed like a frog and his feet were flippers. 

“Oh, uhm, no, I’m not Athurian. I’m human,” Ursa explained shortly, unsure how else to answer right now when his nerves were so high. “But I am new on board. I’m just getting some rations.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen a human before. Are you from Dulou? I’m Frob, by the way. Maintenance team,” the alien seemed to smile, though it sort of honed in further the fish like appearance this alien had.

“The name’s Ursa. Custodial. Yeah, uh, I’m just really new to this all,” Ursa shrugged a little, hoping if he turned to face the line again, Frob might get the hint that he wasn’t super up for conversation right now.

“Custodial? Only robots do custodial,” Frob questioned him, “Are you a robot under there?”

“Nope, just human,” Ursa shoved his hands in his pockets as the line moved forward. 

Though, he cringed a little inside his helmet as the alien in front of him turned to look at him and Frob. It was another tall alien who looked almost like a bird with a large beak. His feathers were dark as his eyes were a piercing yellow. He stared down at Ursa before back towards Frob. “I didn’t know we picked up stragglers.”

“His name is Ursa and he’s apparently custodial,” Frob spoke up for Ursa, nudging Ursa forward a bit.

“I’m…Yeah, that’s me. I’m new,” Ursa tried to smile, wishing against everything he could make a better first impression.

“Quill. Weapons. Welcome on board.” The bird turned his attention ahead once they were closer to the front of the line.

“Don’t mind Quill, he’s always a little…” Frob teetered his hand, “You know? But he’s very friendly when you get to know him. He’s a friend of the maintenance team, for sure.”

Ursa nodded, taking a small breath in his helmet. If it weren’t for his helmet, he felt he may have crumbled in his nerves. “Yeah, sure. Look, I’m just going to get some food but it’s nice getting to know you, Frob.”

The line moved forward and Ursa took a slow breath. He just had to get past this. Keep working, and he’ll be able to save up enough units to get his own ship and go to Spes. He just kept repeating that in his mind as he got through the line. As he picked up what he assumed was a tray, he glanced at Quill, watching how he went about collecting his rations. Ursa watched Quill place his tray under a machine and pressed his feathers on a button on a screen that was connected to the machine. It absolutely took Ursa’s amazement as the machine began almost laser printing what looked like food directly onto the tray. 

As Ursa stepped up to the machine, he mimicked Quill. Though, he felt his stomach drop as he couldn’t read a single word on the screen. He swallowed thickly and randomly hit a button that changed over to a bunch of pictures of food. But even those had words under it he didn’t understand at all. He suddenly became very unsure what the “basic rations” were now. He stared at the screen, realizing even if he were to take a random guess, he had no clue what the hell he was even ordering. The foods on the screen weren’t familiar looking at all. He could guess some things may have been fruit or vegetable, but he had no clue how much they cost when he was on Lars’s money right now.

He felt utterly humiliated as he glanced back in the line to see other aliens in line staring at him, waiting for him to hurry it up. Ursa swallowed thickly and randomly pressed his finger on a few different possible fruits and wished he could bury his head in the sand as the machine printed his food out. As Ursa grabbed his tray to move on, he just felt so humiliated under his helmet from the blunder. He couldn’t even look the robot cashier in what was probably its eyes as he just handed off the stick Lars gave him earlier, barely registering it was speaking to him.

“Do you require a liquid refresher?” the robot beeped at him.

Ursa nodded a little, wishing he could just hurry this up as fast as possible as he watched Frob quickly go through the machine process. 

“And what do you wish for your liquid refresher?” the robot questioned him.

“I…” He almost asked for a soda, realizing quickly that earth drinks were certainly not going to be on the ship lightyears away from earth. Just like the food in front of him that he had no clue about, the drinks were also just as confusing as the robot pointed upwards at a board that had a bunch of writing he didn’t understand. “I’ll… just… I’ll just take that?” He pointed vaguely up at the board.

The robot stared at Ursa for a moment before looking back at the board at where Ursa was maybe pointing. It wasn’t really clear at all what Ursa was pointing at. “Are you referring to sonnan, rezal, or are you trying to get an ennes?”

Ursa drummed his fingers for a second as the robot was talking to him like he was stupid. He hated this as his eyes briefly glanced at the aliens behind him in line, getting impatient even more now. “I… I mean the uh… sonnan? Is that what you said?”

“Understood, what size do you want your sonnan?”

“Small. I’d like it small, please,” Ursa at least understood that concept. He could die right now.

The robot stared at him for a moment, its lightbulb-like eyes seemingly blinking on and off for a second before pressing a button beside itself. From another machine, it produced what was probably Ursa’s drink before handing it off to Ursa. Ursa felt defeated as he took the drink, staring at the pink liquid that had little black orbs floating at the bottom. Ursa took his tray with him after he pocketed Lars’s stick and felt he could finally breathe as he got out of line with his food.

He glanced around for a moment till he spotted what was probably the charging station where a few other robots were all plugged into. Ursa saw a table beside it, resigning himself as he tried to settle his nerves a bit. At least that was done and over with.

Ursa glanced down at his food, sighing as he had no clue what the hell he was about to eat. It was three fruit-looking foods on his tray. One of them was round in nature but had black spikes poking out from it. Another was a strange mix of orange with purple spots and long like a tube. The third looked more perplexing as it was simply a green cube. Ursa stared down at his food and realized he was deeply craving a simple burrito from home. His mama could make the best burritos after school.

“What in Nothumorus did you order?” Lars’s voice cut through Ursa’s thoughts. Ursa glanced up to see Lars climbing up onto the seat across from him, lifting himself upon his pincers to stare down at Ursa’s tray.

“Done charging that quick?” Ursa questioned with an unamused tone.

“I only needed a little refresh. What is that? I told you to get the basic ration. You just got… half a ration? That’s not even cooked. Are you going to just eat that raw?” Lars pointed one of his pincers at the cube.

“Yeah, actually, I am,” Ursa narrowed his eyes as he stared across at Lars. “I had no clue how to order up there, Lars. It was awful. I can’t read your language!”

Lars was quiet for a moment before finally speaking, “I suppose I forgot to calculate and anticipate that issue. I’ll order with you next time.”

Ursa felt even more humiliated about that. He just told Lars off earlier in the day that he could take care of himself. And now he absolutely couldn’t. It was just more sour on his day. “I just… I really gotta learn how to read the language,” Ursa sighed slowly to himself.

“That…is certainly something you have collected on your tray,” a familiar voice spoke. Ursa glanced up, seeing Quill there with Frob.

“Can we sit with you?” Frob smiled from inside his helmet.

“Yeah, sure, uhm…” Ursa glanced at Lars, “It’s not a big deal, right?”

Lars glanced at them before nodding, “Do you know these two, Ursa?”

“We met in line, but I figured you being new means you might have to eat on your own. No one should eat on their own,” Frob explained as he sat beside Ursa.

Quill sat opposite of Ursa and beside Lars, staring at the food Ursa had chosen. “Why did you order that?”

“Well, uhm…” Ursa drummed his fingers for a moment, “It’s just… You know? Really…curious about it all?” Ursa held up the green cube with a shaky laugh. He was debating in his head how much everyone should have to know that he genuinely is too foreign from everyone else. Would they care about his situation?

“I see.” Quill didn’t look very amused but picked up what looked like possibly a fancy looking fork to start eating his own food. Ursa glanced at his food, seeing what was considered “normal” to order. It looked like a bunch of mush with flakes sprinkled on top with a side of small yellow cubes. Ursa would argue that it didn't look appetizing, either.

Ursa glanced at Forb, curious how he was supposed to eat with the sort of fishbowl over his head. Though, he watched Forb open a lid at the top of his helmet before dropping his food right into the liquid he was surrounded by. The food itself were different collections of flakes and diced foods.

Ursa drummed his fingers for a moment as he looked down at his own food. It was in his head now that what he was about to eat wasn’t going to be good. Ursa’s stomach growled at him -- 7000 years of not eating due to being frozen in ice was not any help. He sighed quietly as he took his helmet off, setting it down beside himself on the table. He tried to ignore Frob and Quill staring at him as he grabbed the cube first to eat.

He took a bite and felt his body shiver in disgust. The texture was off putting with the way it had a grainy mush on the inside. The outside skin of the cube was just as grainy but more solid. The taste of it was bitter, as if he took a bite straight out of a lemon. He tried hard to hold his reaction to himself as he had to just eat. He needed to get this down so he could replenish himself.

Though, he glanced up to see more than just Quill and Frob staring at him. There were a few other aliens that were walking past that would glance at him. Ursa wished he could just crawl in a hole as the different species all stared at him. He had to just drop his eyes down to his food and keep eating. He had to get used to this. This was his new life. Nothing was going to let up on him about this and he was never going to have normality again. He was the alien in the room to them and he had to swallow that down just like the next bite of the cube.

#writing #science fiction #scifi #scifi writing #humans and aliens #original content #sci fi #original story #original writing

[ursamajorstory]

Martian Dust, part 5

<-Prev Beginning Next->

He was going to fix the ship just to fix it. It would be absurd to try and leave the Dome.

So it was just something he was going to work on. 

So Tim had been sleeping on the ship most nights. He liked the glowing stars on the ceiling, they let him imagine he could actually see them one day. He had to go out and see Dr. Moore every weekday until he went fully back to work, but despite it all, she was actually quite helpful. She helped him set up a schedule for mornings. He was able to talk to her about what she told him was anxiety, she gave him techniques to make everything easier. Despite all the help she had been, he avoided telling her about Geo or the ship at all. 

He was still figuring that out, despite how little there was to figure out. Everything with Geo was the same, except there was just more. When they sat next to each other their shoulders touched and when they sat across from each other their fingers laced together. It felt so easy. Holding Geo in his arms felt as natural as his chest rising and falling as he breathed. There wasn't anything necessarily new to it. They had always been partners and now that just meant something more. Tim liked that change.

Tim focused back on the ship and what he had to do.

The next thing he had to do for the ship to logically work and then be able to actually travel was space suits. They don't necessarily have to be fitted but that would be a very nice extra quality to them. But the more important thing was learning how to maintain the suits and being able to actually create suits that would work. Tim had found suits but he wasn’t sure how well they’d function. 

Which led him to where he was today. He’d told Dr. Moore during his morning appointment yesterday, said that he’d like to learn how to fix the exosuit. He went on about how he’ll be useful to maintenance but not have to be in maintenance, how this’ll be useful. 

Dr. Moore called Eliza and then he was told she’d teach him how to fix the suits and how they functioned. 

Now Tim was standing in the lab loitering by the door, Eliza worked with Geo. Eliza’s focus wasn’t on the suits but she was one of the only people who even knew how they functioned. Tim knew there were manuals in the database but he really wasn’t great at learning through books and this was too important to have any mistakes on. The limited amount of resources didn’t help either. Tim had found three suits and a dozen or so jumpsuits that seemed to be designed to go under the space suits. 

He wasn’t fully sure what to look for in the suits for whether they would be suitable for a vacuum. 

Tim fiddled with his hands before taking off his headphones. He should probably show that he was ready to listen to whatever Eliza was going to teach him. His head felt very light and empty without his headphones. Everything was loud, the lab wasn’t the busiest place but there were constantly things happening and Geo’s floor was always the busiest. Even though it was hard to tell for most people Tim could hear the buzzing of the lights. 

He tensed his shoulders and then released them. Dr. Moore said doing very big exhales and inhales would help make him realize it was okay. He didn’t know how much he trusted Dr. Moore but it did help. 

Tim took out his earbuds and put them in their case. He kept his headphones in his hands tapping the parts that go over his ears together. 

He was told to just wait at the door so Eliza could come get him when she was ready. 

Tim didn’t see Eliza anywhere but he did see Geo. Geo was in his own head looking at plant samples and then he would swivel his chair around to check on the hydroponic test plants, it was a cycle. Geo wrote down some notes and told one of the lab techs some information Tim wasn’t paying attention to. 

Geo was passionate about his plants. That was a law of the universe, 

While Geo was doing another one of his swivels back towards the hydroponics he noticed Tim. 

Geo waved and Tim waved back. Geo got up and made his way to Tim. 

“Hey Tim! What’re you doing here?” They were a foot away from each other and Tim’s hand slotted into Geo’s. 

“I told Dr. Moore about how I wanted to be able to fix the exosuit and she told me today that Eliza was willing to teach me about how the suits function today.” 

“I think Eliza is helping Dr. Philips at the moment. They lost a few samples overnight and are trying to figure out the cause which could take a while.” 

Tim nodded. 

In his peripherals he noticed how a few of Geo’s lab techs were waiting for Geo to get back so they could finish something.

“I’m alright if you need to get back to work?” Tim offered.

“No, it’s alright we were at a good stopping point anyway.” Geo squeezed his hand. “How about we go for an early lunch? Eliza should be busy for another hour at least.” 

“As long as you’re sure.” 

Geo let go of his hand and turned towards the techs that were waiting on him. 

“I’m going for an early lunch, you’re all free to get lunch and be back here in an hour.” 

There were nods and a few responses before Geo led Tim out of the lab and they started towards the Cafeteria. When they were outside Geo bumped his shoulder into Tim’s. 

“So, how’d your appointment go this morning?” 

“It’s been helpful, in general I mean but she doesn’t really get it?” Tim didn’t know if he was making sense but Geo nodded. “I explain something and she needs more context and I know she doesn’t think like I do and doesn’t really talk to other people that think like me. She’s gotten better about questioning why I think certain ways and has accepted that my brain goes through different processes to connect things than her but it is still a barrier?” Tim gestured with his hand that was still holding his headphones. 

“I’m glad it’s gotten better at least.” 

“Yeah, I don’t know when I’m going back to working but I’m feeling better about it in general. The more appointments I have the more the goal is less getting me back to work and just getting me functional in general?” Tim felt bad about saying it like a question but Geo nodded understanding what he meant. “Having the morning schedule has been a huge help and I know it’ll change when I go back to working but exercising in the morning has been good.” 

“How’s morning exercise?” 

“Alright, moved up to bigger weights yesterday which was notable I guess?”

“Bigger weights? You’re scaring me Tim, you can already lift double what I can.” Geo joked, both of them knowing how Geo skipped working out more than Tim used to. 

“Good, I’ve got to have something on you, Dr. Harris.”

“You don’t need something on me, you’ve already got me.” 

Tim rolled his eyes and Geo took his hand giving it a quick squeeze before letting go of it.

“I know.” 

-

When they got back to Geo’s lab Eliza was still finishing up with the issue with the plant samples so Tim sat down outside of the lab. 

He didn’t want to put on his headphones and earbuds because he didn’t want her to think that he was just wasting her time. He wanted to be ready and alert but he felt weird not having his music when he was waiting around. Tim pulled his knees into his chest bringing up his watch on his knees so he could look through some files from the ship that he downloaded. The maintenance logs were very useful in getting an idea of what sort of things he would need to stock and check on. He found a tricky valve in the hydroponic system that would have sprayed water everywhere if he didn’t see it in the maintenance log. Luckily he got the hydroponic system functional, it still didn’t have any plants in it but he was able to cycle the water through and make it so it would be ready for any plants he decided to put in. For that he was going to get Geo’s help. Geo had already gushed to him about what specifics were in the hydroponics to make them miles more interesting than anything else in the ship. Of course that meant, only miles more interesting to Geo. Tim smiled thinking about him. 

He had already poured through all of the maintenance logs. He could read them while eating breakfast and he was able to hook it up to a text-to-speech program so he could listen to issues and what needs to be replaced while he worked out. 

He downloaded plenty of other files onto his watch after he went through old files. At the current moment he was just looking through footage from the ship’s voyage to the Dome. The ship started recording its voyage just as it got to earth’s outer atmosphere. Something about looking down at the planet he had spent his whole life in the Dome for felt comforting. Like they were out there still. He hadn’t gotten even thirty minutes into the footage but he kept replaying this part where you could see that it was night time on earth and there were all these lights from what Tim was sure were people’s houses. Thousands of little dots of light showing off how many people have lived on earth. 

He paused it, taking a long look absorbing everything that was earth. He could see the dark blues that made up the oceans, he was never good at studying anything so he never really learned about earth, but he remembers Geo gush about how they’re human and what earth is.

They didn’t have oceans or ponds or lake or any other body of water. They just had dust.

Tim turned off his watch letting his hands go to the grass at his sides. He knew Geo could talk for hours about how it was such an achievement that there was grass here but Tim couldn’t help but wonder what it was all for. Why did earth depend on them so much and why would they even try to make Mars habitable if they had a whole world out there for so many people to live in. 

Tim was told very briefly about humanity and how there were wars between different organizations of people and how some people feared war would bring the whole world down and make it inhabitable, but if that was the reason they were here then couldn’t wars just hurt Mars more? Or would everyone here be too focused on surviving and progress to have any wars. He knows that the Dome’s focus was always going to be progress. It was drilled into his head that the Dome was a symbol of human progress and with Mars terraformed then wound they have too much time where humanity would start wars throwing aside the move for progress that the Dome had created. 

Tim grumbled and buried his face in his knees. He didn’t understand. He wanted to figure it out but the more he learned the less everything made sense. 

Tim’s watch buzzed with an alert and his shoulders tensed up. 

He took a few deep breaths like Dr. Moore told him to when he got anxious. After what Time would describe as years he felt calm enough to check the alert. It was a message from Eliza.

“I’m too busy at the moment, bother me another time.” 

Tim grumbled, not feeling the motivation to move. Lunch was starting for most people and from where he sat he saw David, Casey and a few guys he couldn’t recognize leave from the maintenance dock. 

He put his head back into his knees. If he wanted to go to the ship and hide out for the rest of the day it was either now or when they got out for the night. Tim rocked for a moment before he swung up onto his feet. 

With no motivation to look professional even slightly Tim grabbed his earbuds and headphones putting them on and turned on his Geo playlist. Dr. Moore told him that if he controlled how his head was feeling. It would feel all full and heavy when he made things sad but if he kept listening to happy things and trying to be happy then he would feel lighter and better. Tim thought he could at least try. If nothing else he could call Dr. Moore a sham if it wasn’t helpful. 

So he listened to his Geo playlist.

When he finally got into the storage room he unlocked the ship’s door and made his way to the room with the big bed and flopped down, turning off the lights once he was settled. 

He knows Dr. Moore would tell him that getting up and working on himself was the correct thing to do but he didn’t want to. He was happy to- no that wasn’t right- he was mildly annoyed to have to listen to Dr. Moore but he could only do so much. He had eaten two full meals, worked out, spent time with Geo, and went to his appointment with Dr. Moore and did some work on the ship today. He had done everything Dr. Moore told him to do for the past week and a half, he could have one day where he got to just lie down and sleep. 

-

Tim woke up slowly and groggily. Truth be told he felt terrible. He pulled his wrist up to his face taking note of the time. Early morning, too early in the morning. He had two messages from Geo just of Geo telling him that he’s getting dinner and that Geo was going to spend some time with some people from the lab. 

Tim laid his arm back down on the bed. He blinked, getting some consciousness before making a few realizations. His music was still going, his shoes were still on and he was in desperate need of a shower. The Dome was perfectly climate controlled but the ship was not. It could be he just had to turn that on. Tim did not. He didn’t turn on the air pressure controls so there was the natural airflow, which was nonexistent but the only thing that meant was that it got cold and then hot easily. 

Tim grumbled. He was going to take a shower in a few hours anyway, so he kicked off his shoes and grumbled again when he had to curl up so he could take off his socks. He tossed them towards where he thought his shoes might be and wiggled, grabbing the blanket he was sleeping on top of a moment ago. It was getting cold and he took off his headphones and earbuds before he messed with his hair getting the parts that were covered by the strap of his headphones fluffed up like the rest of his hair. He grabbed the extra pillow and pulled it in close, hugging it as he curled up. 

He closed his eyes waiting for sleep to take him as he was comfortable in a space he felt safe in. 

Nothing happened. 

Tim grumbled, he wasn’t tired at all. He guessed this was a decent time to go ahead and get a shower in. 

Tim pushed himself off of his bed and went ahead and took off his watch, setting it on the bed. It always makes him anxious to have it off. Like he was missing part of himself. Everyone on the Dome wore one, it allowed for easy messaging and communication as well as for Tim and a few others who knew how to look, a wide array of music and interesting information. 

He rubbed at his wrist where his arm felt empty. 

Tim stretched, reaching down towards his toes then stretched up towards the ceiling. It was cold and Tim shivered as he went to the barracks with the bunk beds. On one of the bunks he set out a few of his jumpsuits. He’d need to take them back to his room soon as his pile of dirty jumpsuits was larger than clean ones. 

He grabbed his clothes and then hopped into the small shower on the ship. He liked the privacy of this shower better than the big communal showers. He had also found some soap that he quite liked the smell of. It was much nicer than the soap that he was given. That soap just smelled like sanitizer but this one had a sort of citrus to it. 

Tim took care in washing his hair, keeping the soap out of his eyes. His hair was fairly short but it started to get long enough to just tickle the inside of his ear which always freaked him out. 

He tapped at his wrist to make a note to ask Geo to cut his hair but realized his watch was on his bed. 

He shook his head and finished his shower. 

Freshly clean, watch in his hands, Tim stepped into the control room opening up the main console and turning on the display. 

He’d put on his watch once he had air dried a bit more. He used the controls of the ship to look through different files. He opened a folder and it was full of videos. Tim opened one and clicked play.

A young boy Tim guessed was ten years old or so was taking a video of himself, he was sitting on a top bunk, the one with the stars on the ceiling above it. 

“Hi! I’m Oliver Moore, but everyone just calls me Ollie. My Dad told me that I could do the Captain log videos. He said he was too tired to do them.” Ollie leaned into the camera whispering. “I think he’s just too sad. He misses Aunt Jen and Grandpa.” 

Tim curled his knees into the chest watching the video. 

“Dad says that moving is good for us and I”m really excited to meet everyone else who’s in the colony. Dad told me it’ll take a few years to get to Mars.” 

There was a yell coming from a different room in the video and it turned off. 

Tim scrolled through the videos. They were organized chronologically and he took a glance at the preview of each one as he looked. 

There was a preview that had Ollie in tears. Tim clicked on it. 

“Captain log number 92, Mom was crying when I woke up and she told me that Earth was gone now.” Ollie sniffled. “I knew it was coming but I miss them!” 

Tim sat up. 

“Mors would hit eventually but I just miss Aunt Jen. Aunt Crystal told me about how the Dome was going to be amazing and how I’ll love living there but I know it was just a distraction.” 

He closed the video with too many thoughts running through his brain. He quickly searched Mors in the file display and clicked on a mission statement of sorts. He skimmed through it taking in each new sentence until he got down to where it said Mors. 

As Captain of the Frontier it is your responsibility to lead the finishing of the Dome and continue on the colony. As most move towards Spes, humanity’s hope, it is your job to lead humanity into a new age as Martians. Keep humanity close to their birthplace as Earth might be destroyed but we won’t be kicked out of our home system that easily. 

Tim was going to be sick. 

Did that mean Earth was gone? 

Tim pulled up the footage of the voyage. Scrubbing through until he saw something just behind earth. The footage was already sped up so mere seconds were probably a collection of days. He watched the earth rotate as the Frontier rotated around it until something came to view. 

Mors.

He skipped more getting towards the end and he watched as earth’s atmosphere and gravitation was thrown off by the second planet. Havok seemed to reign as earth crumpled. 

Tim grabbed a waste bin and threw up. 

All those people! All those lives! Earth had been gone for centuries! 

No this couldn’t be true it couldn’t be real. Tim must have just been crazy. He must be delusional. He wiped his mouth and grabbed his watch. 

He needed Geo. 

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#friend writing #remywriting #martian dust #shared space

[ursamajorstory]

Deal's a deal

[The Beginning] - [Part 4] - [Part 6]

Word count: 2893

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Ursa was escorted to the captain’s quarters of the ship. It was certainly more spacious than the rest of the cabins he’s seen throughout the ship, properly decorated with star maps and shelves of alien trinkets. Ursa could almost picture it closer to that of a ship captain at sea rather than that of space. Perhaps that was simply the reality of this new age. As he entered, he saw Captain Vaughn sitting at a desk, his eyes glued to a translucent screen till they shifted over to stare at Ursa. That piercing gaze slowly softened, his tense jaw slowly curling into a smile.

“Ah, there you are. I was beginning to worry something was truly holding you up,” Captain Vaughn slowly stood from his seat, walking across his quarters to approach Ursa. “Is that what you were wearing before?”

Ursa swallowed thickly as he became aware of how the Captain spoke to him before. He was anxious to impress Captain Vaughn more than anything. “It’s a, uh… It’s a space suit fitted for my species. My helmet is letting me breathe better. Sorry to surprise you with it.” Ursa was beginning to feel unflattering in the space suit rather than proud to represent humans. The suit was frumpy and heavy, too thick to give himself any sort of figure he could impress the Captain with.

“Well, every species needs their accommodations, huh?” Vaughn nodded as he approached Ursa, tapping his claw on the top of his helmet with a short chuckle, “So be it, then. Come with me, I wish to show you something.”

Ursa followed Vaughn across the captain’s quarters, unsure what the Captain had in store for him. Captain Vaughn pressed his hand to a button on the wall, revealing the back wall were simply shutters to a large window. Ursa couldn’t help his gasp as he looked out into the depths of space. He realized it was his first time truly seeing space. 

And it was beautiful. 

Stars glimmered like diamonds as the voids of space were gradients of deep blues, purples, and black. He could spot they were within range of a planet that reminded Ursa of a marble from Earth. Varying colors that shifted in winding landscapes on the surface. Ursa wished he could pick up this “marble” and roll it between his fingers. 

“Wow…” Ursa mumbled, stepping closer to the window, glancing around as much as he could to take it all in.

“Indeed. I, too, was just as amazed on my first voyage. It’s quite the sight to see, yes?” Vaughn placed a hand on Ursa’s shoulder. “And with my help, I want you to see this sight as much as possible.”

Ursa glanced up at Vaughn, curious of what he meant by this.

“You see, I know you’re in a tight situation. Your plans you may have had for your life are now uprooted and drastically shifted. We were able to compare starmaps, able to get a vague sense of where you were attempting to go. The planet you named ‘Spes’... I do not think it is wise for you to go. We have marked that planet as condemned in the past. It is covered in a toxic poison and no species in the federation will be able to take you there,” Vaughn spoke with a small sigh and a shake of his head.

Ursa frowned, feeling his gut drop. Poison? He didn’t know how to feel, hugging himself as he thought about it. It’s been thousands of years. Maybe it really did collapse on itself since the humans were hopeful to go to it. After all, Earth had gone through its own multiple phases of trouble throughout history. There were once dinosaurs, an ice age, and eventually Mors. It wouldn’t shock Ursa if Spes had a similar fate of beginning, turbulence, hope, and then destruction. But man, it was still a gut punch of horror. There were going to be ships from Earth landing on Spes in another few thousand years if he predicted things right and they were going to step foot onto a dangerous planet that would not save humanity anymore.

“Are you… Are you sure? What if you have the wrong planet? I… We placed all of our hope on that planet. That's why it’s named that! Spes literally is the name of a goddess from my planet about hope. It can’t… really be all for nothing, right?” Ursa couldn’t help but doubt this, hoping against all hope that Spes was safe.

“I’m sorry, Ursa, but we think it’s a planet from a system we can’t travel towards anymore due to a star bursting out there. It’s far too dangerous now and the planet is, like I said, covered in poisons that no species is safe near,” Vaughn explained this with a small sigh, “I know how hard this might be to hear. But you must never travel to Spes.”

Ursa felt the energy drained from his body. It felt like this all wasn’t real suddenly. He must truly still be asleep in ice. This must be a nightmare of some kind. 

He glanced at Vaughn, grateful that the shading of his helmet hid his expression, silence simply sitting between them now. Ursa trailed his vision across Vaughn’s alien features, as if trying to break the illusion of this dream. He must still be asleep to have this sort of news delivered to him. In a few moments, he’s going to wake up, he had to keep his hope. He had to truly believe in the Goddess Spes at this moment.

He needed to see Spes for himself.

But how? No one was going to be willing to take him there, apparently. Just like Lars said, he had no identification, no permits, no ship to his name, not even money that is valuable to the alien species. He was just a dumb kid who was lost to time and space now. He really had nothing as he had to step up to take care of himself now.

“Ursa, if I may…” Vaughn tapped his helmet once more, bringing him back to reality. “I wish to help you. Your situation is very dire and I… I think I quite pity your situation and I am sympathetic to your problem.”

“Gee, thanks…” Ursa didn’t know how to feel other than a pain in his gut.

“Come, let's sit and talk for a moment,” Vaughn led him to what looked like a rounded sofa, the two of them able to sit next to each other. Vaughn was a large alien, taking up most of the space as he also sat with his legs spread to accommodate the way they bent in reverse compared to Ursa. Their knees were touching and Ursa didn’t know if he should move himself even further into a corner of the couch. Honestly, he just felt totally out of whatever mood he felt before. Though, he pulled back a little as Vaughn reached his hand out for Ursa. With how little room there was, he couldn’t really move back much as Vaughn took his helmet off his head. 

“There we go, now we can have a real discussion,” Vaughn smiled as he looked more directly at Ursa.

Ursa diverted his gaze, looking away as he craved to have the safety of the helmet to hide his emotions. He could hear his dad’s voice in his head urging him to be a man and face Vaughn, but it just made him feel more like a dumb kid all on his own. “Yeah, I guess so…”

“Ursa, you’ve been frozen in time and came from a very primitive planet that had no communication with the federation all this time. You don’t have a single unit to your name. Let me help you. Let me take care of you,” Vaughn urged with a hand on his shoulder, “The situation is bad, yes, but think of that feeling you just had a minute ago of seeing space.” Vaughn cupped his chin, turning it to look towards the window once more.

Right. Space. It was a wonderful feeling when he saw it before. “You’d… help me out?” Ursa glanced at him now, “What do you mean by that?”

“I will offer you work on my ship. And on my ship, you can be by my side traveling through space. We will go on many different routes and be able to visit all sorts of planets. Wouldn’t that be nice? You’ll be able to see how big the universe truly is. I will pay you for your work so you can buy the treasures of these worlds we journey to. This will be the start of getting you back on your feet,” Vaughn smiled wider now, urging him with a fist to his shoulder. “Won’t it be exciting to travel and explore? That’s what your species was doing already, yes? Traveling space to seek new opportunities?”

Ursa thought about it all. It seemed simple enough and certainly the exact thing he needed. It’s not like he had other choices, really. Besides, maybe it would actually be some fun to be part of the crew and work. “Thank you, that sounds like a really great idea. I’d really appreciate it, Captain Vaughn.”

"Of course, Ursa. Now, tell me, what was the job you were performing among your species? What do you specialize in?" Vaughn questioned him with a hum.

Ursa clammed up a little, thinking about how most everyone in the universe reacts when he tells them he’s just custodial. He wanted to be embarrassed now that he wanted to impress Vaughn. “I’m… I’m a custodial member. I’m really great with my hands and doing more hands-on work. So for my homeworld, I took the really essential position of a custodial member. I’d make sure there’s no debris and waste was disposed of correctly so it couldn’t cause future problems.” The problem was he hasn’t actually gotten a chance to do the full job, just the training and classes for how to emulate it on Spes. He was still just barely 18 when he was frozen in ice.

“Custodial? Is that so?” Vaughn’s tone waned a bit, the sign Ursa was really not hoping to see.

“Yeah! In my homeworld, uhm… they were essential. You couldn’t run a ship without custodial. If it weren’t for custodials, you’d have trash everywhere and people could catch diseases. It’s really important because of that.” Ursa slightly inflated the situation, but he felt that that was harmless.

“Ah, yes, of course. Tell me, how much was your average custodial member paid in your homeworld, then?” Vaughn waved off the concern on his face. 

Ursa thought about it, recalling how much he was paid back then. “Uhm, about $6 and 75 cents an hour. I’m not sure what that translates for you guys, though.”

“Well, even then, it surely doesn’t sound like quite a lot. You’re such an essential member of your crew, you should be paid far more for your worth. Our currencies might differ a bit, but I think you’ll find it far more preferable if I give you a decent pay by our standards. Don’t tell the others, but I think out of concern for ensuring you’re able to get on your feet again, I want to write you a better contract. Why be paid in single digits, you know? I’m going to offer you a hefty 100 units per trouge,” Vaughn gave him a warm smile, rubbing his shoulder with his hand.

Ursa’s brows raised in shock. Going from $6.75 to 100? He’s got to hope trouge was just their way of calling it an hour, the translator didn’t give him a normal word for him to work with. He didn’t know how much the translation of currency was, but he had to assume it was still quite a lot given how Vaughn described it. “That’s…really nice of you, Captain Vaughn. I really appreciate this, thank you.”

“Of course, of course. Let’s just keep it to ourselves for now, though. I think some of the others would be quite upset to know how much you’re being paid. But the thing is, they’ve had their entire lives to build up their own savings. You’re like a freshly hatched sprout with not a unit to his name yet is going to be expected to be able to provide for yourself soon. Let me do this for you, Ursa.” Vaughn cupped Ursa’s face, looking directly at him now.

“Thank you, really,” Ursa felt his chest tighten and swell with reassurance. His life was in tatters, but he could rely on Vaughn. He didn’t know what the hell Lars’s problem was with Vaughn. In a way, he really felt he could rely and trust Vaughn.

“Now, let’s get you a proper contract signed like all of my crew members,” Vaughn patted Ursa’s leg before pushing himself up. He moved to his desk, typing directly on the monitor in a way that was still a bit of a surprise to Ursa. “Now, all of my crew members are on contract for an entire rotation and they will have it renewed every new rotation unless they choose to disembark at the next landing platform we arrive at between shipments. I deliver cargo across the system, and you’ll have plenty of places to disembark at.”

Ursa nodded, figuring a rotation was basically a year. After all, the name itself sounded like what he’d describe a year to be. “Ok, yeah, that makes sense.”

“Can I sign you down for a 2 rotation contract? It will allow you to have plenty of time to build your units up and 2 years is plenty of time for you to settle yourself in the federation. During that time period, due to the fact I am indeed paying you quite high, I will ask for you to work a bit longer than some of the rest of the crew,” Vaughn explained with a gesture of his hand, “That makes sense, yes?”

Ursa nodded, understanding that point of view. If he’s getting paid extra, he guessed it was only fair that he worked for it. “Yeah, absolutely. That makes total sense. And in 2 years, maybe I’ll even know how to speak the same language as you guys,” Ursa chuckled a little.

Vaughn chuckled and shook his head, “I would not waste your time learning our language. It is better to preserve your own so long as you have your translator device. It’ll be fine.”

“Now, usually my workers will work about 45 trouges per troyin. With you being paid a hefty amount more, can I ask for you to work about 60 trouges per troyin? It’s not too much more, just mostly covering some of the trouges when the crew is sleeping, as well. Is this alright?” Vaughn explained, though his tone seemed more searching as his eyes stayed on Ursa.

Ursa nodded, not completely understanding but hoping he was following along. It was work, and he would earn his extra pay. His dad would want that from him. Granted, a part of him was really worried as he was more of a slacker in school, but maybe this was the kick his parents always wanted from him. He really hoped he could keep up, he really couldn’t turn this chance down. If he turned it down, then he really had nothing.

“Yeah, I think that works alright,” Ursa tried to keep his confidence up, trying to not let Vaughn know he was getting nervous about making him proud.

“Great, come sign this contract, then,” Vaughn gestured for Ursa, “You can give it a once over read before you sign, if it helps.”

Ursa stood, walking over to the monitor to look at the contract as it scrolled down. It was all written in the alien language he couldn’t understand for the life of him. All he understood was that it was a bit long. “Sure, uh… where…how do I sign?”

“Oh, press the green button at the bottom of this and it’ll scan your face to save it in our system,” Vaughn explained this with a simple gesture to a button at the bottom of the screen.

Ursa tried to hold back the cringe he held. More of this demand to have his direct personal identification rather than just him signing it. He didn’t like it much at all. But, he wasn’t in any position to talk about his concern as he pressed the button he was told to. The scanner danced a light straight down his face and he held back from scrunching his face in discomfort.

“Great! It’s official, then,” Vaughn stood from his desk, walking around to shake Ursa’s hand, “I’m so relieved you are staying aboard my ship. I hope you and I can get to know each other much better now.”

Ursa smiled in return, shaking his hand. “Yeah, I really don’t know what I’d do without your help, Captain Vaughn.” A deal was a deal. Ursa was going to take this chance to set himself up. He’s going to save his money for a ship and he was going to see Spes for himself. He’s going to figure this out. He needed to believe in Spes more than ever now.

#writing #scifi #science fiction #scifi writing #original content #original writing

[ursamajorstory]

Medical Station of the Endangered Species

[The Beginning] - [Part 3] - [Part 5]

Word count: 5389

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Ursa used to be really scared to go to the doctors growing up. He used to cry and kick when he was a kid. His dad used to have to hold him still just to get his shots. As he got older, he tried to get over it, but there was simply something intimidating about it still. When he was growing up, one of his parents used to always be with him. Even when he was doing prep for the Flagship, it was always with his parents and rarely was he alone with a doctor. Standing in front of the medical station, he swallowed down his anxieties to get through this.

The doors slid open and he was greeted with a room full of monitors and robotic arms moving through the room. In the center of the room controlling it all, was a singular alien. Their skin was a deep purple and their hair was like a fluffy blue cloud that fluffed up around their face. Their four eyes were a deep sapphire color that were illuminated by the screen monitors around them. They had four arms of their own, rapidly working around them on each monitor.

Ursa stepped into the medical station and hesitantly cleared his throat to get their attention. "Excuse me? I was told to come here?"

"Hm?" The alien glanced up at him before offering a smile with plush lips. "Oh, welcome. I think I got an alert about someone coming down here. What can I do for you?"

"Well, uhm…" Ursa felt his heart hammer in his chest as he worked out his nerves. "Captain Vaughn told me that, uhm… Well, so, like, I was frozen in ice for a seriously long time and now I'm not frozen. So I guess now I have to be registered?"

The other looked at him for a long moment before nodding a bit and gesturing for Ursa to come up to him. "My name's Rickev Trov, the ship's doctor, can I get your name?"

"Yeah, uhm, I'm Ursa Major. Like the constellation--I mean, like… Sorry, that's just a sort of… Anyways, yeah, my name is Ursa Major," Ursa shakily got out, moving towards a seat that Rickev gestured for him.

"Alright, it's nice to meet you, Ursa," Rickev's voice was almost like a song, rhythmic as he spoke to Ursa in a way that calms his nerves. Maybe it was intentional. "I'm guessing they wanted me to give you a check up?"

"Well, that, and register me? Apparently I'm possibly the first and last of my kind to you guys," Ursa tried to explain, "Captain Vaughn and Lars both kinda insisted I go get registered for my species."

"Is that so? Alright, that's not too hard," Rickev nodded as he walked around Ursa to look at him. "Tell me, what species are you? Where are you from?"

"I'm human. I'm from Earth. But it's possible that's not what you guys called us or my homeworld if it's on your system. I've been frozen for apparently thousands of years. So it's not super clear what's happened since then," Ursa explained to Rickev. Honestly, having to explain it so often again and again has made it set into stone for Ursa his dire situation like a mantra that's slowly becoming true. It's not great and he doesn't enjoy it, but it's all he's got to work with.

"I see, yes, I've never seen someone like you before." Rickev took his wrist, lifting it to observe him closely. "Why were you frozen?"

"For us, it was the one way to ensure we would make it to see the planet we were all trying to travel to. Captain Vaughn said something about our way of travel is a lot slower than yours. For us, we kinda expected the trip to take a long time so freezing us would allow us not really experience the time difference,” Ursa explained it with a small shrug to his shoulders.

“That’s a weird way to travel, but I suppose if you’re working with ancient technology, that would make sense,” Rickev nodded with some thought. One of his hands moved to Ursa’s face, feeling it for a moment, “Mind if I take a closer look at you, then? We don’t have many species who unfreeze after being frozen. In fact, generally speaking, most species die after being frozen.”

“Oh, I mean, yeah, I guess,” Ursa looked down for a moment before nodding, “Guess that’s why everyone insisted I get checked out.”

“Indeed,” Rickev nodded before pushing open Ursa’s mouth, “Seems you have smaller fangs than most on this ship, only one tongue, and I can feel that this is where you breathe from. I’ll make a special note of this for your accommodations. For the most part, I’m simply more worried about what precautions we must adhere to for you to live comfortably as well as ensure others on the ship are safe, too.”

Rickev moved to the monitors again, typing into it for a few moments. “Tell me, Ursa, do you have any specific things we need to be worried about for your species?”

Ursa thought for a moment, trying to think of what would be a specific accommodation for a species of aliens he knows nothing about the “norm” being. In a sense, he’s the alien here. “Uhm… for my species, we’re not that much of a huge danger to others, I think? I don’t know for certain. I don’t want to do anything that would be a danger to people. We don’t really have any sharp claws or big fangs. I’m pretty fleshy, really.”

“I see, and do you perceive anything being a danger to you, too?” Rickev typed away at one of the other monitors.

“I mean, I guess all the normal stuff that’s a danger to fleshy stuff? Like acid would kill me! Or, uh… like I need to breathe air to live. I’m really relieved that you guys breathe air, too. Though, I’m not going to lie, the air feels a little thin for me. At first I didn’t totally notice it, but maybe it’s just because I’m uh…” He clenched his fists for a second before releasing them again, “I get a little nervous about doctor visits, not going to lie.”

“You’ve got nothing to be nervous about. I’ll make sure you’re given proper care and treatment. Perhaps even better than what you may have had in the past,” Rickev gave him a smile and moved to grab a tool. The tool looked almost like a sort of silver gun with a chord attached to it and a large vial at the top. “Is it safe to extract some of your inner fluids for me to analyze for any diseases?”

“Oh, my blood?” Ursa could feel his stomach tighten in anxiety. Shots. Great. It’s not what he wanted to go through. He tried to keep his breathing steady, not wanting to pass out on thin air in front of someone he wanted to give a good impression towards. “Yeah, it’s uh… It’s safe. I just have to look away or I might pass out, I think. I, uh… I haven’t eaten or drank anything since I woke up, either, so uh…” He looked away as he rolled his shirt sleeve up, “Humans get their blood drawn at the shoulder here…”

“Thank you, Ursa. You’re doing a great job helping me understand your species,” Rickev spoke calmly as one hand held up his sleeve for him, one hand held his forearm, another rubbed his other shoulder, and the fourth one pressed the silver gun to his arm. “This might sting a little. But I don’t think you’re part of the species group that this is a deeply painful experience for.”

“Gee, thanks for the reassurance,” Ursa clenched his eyes shut. It felt like someone pinched him. He tensed up instinctively, clenching his fists tighter.

After a moment, Rickev finally let him go. Ursa unclenched his fists and glanced at Rickev, watching him go to one of the various robotic arms in the room to hand off the vial filled with his blood. “I’m going to do some tests with your blood to ensure it’s safe for you to experience certain elements that we use on a daily basis so you can be cleared to work. Did Captain Vaughn tell you yet what job you’re to have on the ship?”

“No, I’m supposed to discuss that with him later,” Ursa fixed his sleeve as he tried to unravel his nerves a bit. “But when I was on my original ship, I was supposed to be custodial on the other side. I was just part of the clean up crew.”

“Oh, hm…” Rickev paused for a moment as he turned to face Ursa again, “I am going to do you a favor that I do not think Captain Vaughn will do for you. He’s not too big about this sort of stuff, but I think it’s very important.”

Rickev moved to a different monitor, typing into it. “After I register your species, I’m going to send your identification information to the Federation Custodial Union. It is essential to join the union for your own safety and protection. Captain Vaughn might dissuade you about the fees, and I do not know if your homeworld had unions, but here they are essential for those not working in seated jobs.”

“Oh, yeah, my world had unions,” Ursa nodded a little, “I wasn’t part of one back home -- the custodial job was going to be my first job, basically. My, uh… My parents really would’ve encouraged me to join the union if they heard about it.”

“Is that so?” Rickev turned his attention towards Ursa before sitting down across from him, “As the doctor of this ship, I take care of not just physical needs of the crew but also electric needs. Do you wish to talk a bit?”

Ursa furrowed his brows, “‘Electric needs’? What does that mean?”

“Every species has a different name for it…When you feel happy or sad?” Rickev clarified with a gesture of his hand, “I can be here as a source for you to talk to if you feel like you’re having problems with your electric needs.”

“Oh, feelings. You’re talking about my feelings?” Ursa blinked as this further felt alienating to himself. He hugged himself with some thought, “Thanks, I guess. I think it’s just a lot going on for me.”

“It’s a very unique situation you’ve found yourself in. You know, we don’t come across a lot of nearly extinct species in our travels. And even then, it’s just as rare to find primitive planets these days. A lot of us are connected in our systems. You’re unfortunately from a completely different time and place than anyone else you’re going to meet from now on.” Rickev placed a hand on his knee, leaning forward to speak to him with concern.

“I mean… I’m not going to lie, this entire experience is a bit scary. I just don’t know how to adapt to everything. I mean, when we left my homeworld, we knew nothing about anyone else in the galaxy with us.” Ursa frowned, slowly sinking in his seat, “ I have to hope that the rest of my people are just on their ships asleep in ice still on their way to our new planet. But there was also supposed to be another colony close to our own planet and they should’ve carried on our species since then. Finding out I’m literally the only human any of you have met isn’t great to hear. It’s kind of…setting in more and more that they’re all just…gone. Everyone from my ship is gone. My parents are gone.”

His parents's faces flashed in his mind. He thought of his mom and dad smiling to him from their pods before it was time to sleep. He thought about the last hug he got to share with them both. They all knew the real risks of their travels, but there was a layer of genuine hope. He could've never have known that their fears were warranted or that he'd survive to regret it.

"Ursa, if I may be honest to you, you're someone who's in a very unique situation. Your entire species is now resting on your shoulders. It's a scary situation, and no one would blame you if you need time to yourself about it all," Rickev spoke to him with a sympathetic look. 

Ursa glanced at Rickev, letting out a slow sigh. “Maybe, yeah. I’m just kind of processing it all, I guess.” His leg started bouncing as he struggled to stay calm completely. 

“May I ask about what you’re doing?” Rickev gestured to his leg, “Is this normal for your species?”

Ursa looked up at him, a little surprised to have his fidgeting addressed, “Yeah, it’s normal for us when we’re kind of trying to calm down. Actually, can I ask about your species? I don’t know anything about anyone.”

“Certainly. I’m from the planet of Syrinx. In my culture, we contribute to the federation through the medical fields due to our extensive memory and calm temperament. Some of the more elite members of my homeworld are alleged telepaths, but I’ve never met one in person. But it’s helped us gain our position in the federation quite nicely,” Rickev explained to him simply, “Do you have any telepaths on your homeworld?”

Ursa raised his brows in shock before shaking his head, “Nope. If I’m honest, telepaths are sort of a thing we’d see in fiction. I didn’t know it was possible to be a telepath.”

“Well, I’m a little skeptical, myself, about it. But those who are able to hone it are quite powerful in our society.” Rickev shrugged a little with his top two arms before pushing himself to stand. “Ursa, you’ll learn a lot of the species on this ship are from all types of planets with their own different needs. Things you didn’t know were possible are indeed very possible if your galactic view is so small. I think it would be a really good thing for your electric health to get to know the crew and familiarize yourself. Though, I would at least warn you now that not all of them are as calm mannered as I am.”

“Yeah, Lars mentioned something like that. He’s such a wound up little robot,” Ursa pushed himself to also stand with a grunt, “He’s really high strung about anything I do and I’ve only been unfrozen for maybe an hour, tops.”

“Oh, yes, well, Lars is one of the more high strung of the robots. I’m not going to lie, he’s not exactly the most…upstanding robots out there, to put it nicely. He’s mostly just for inventory and archival data. So I wouldn’t take a lot of what he says to heart,” Rickev let out a short chuckle, “Not exactly the most calm of robots we have on board. Inventory and archive isn’t seen as a top priority on board this ship. The Captain is simply required to have him from the federation.”

“Well, I mean, yeah I can see why they’d require it,” Ursa furrowed his brow, almost taking offense for Lars, “Inventory and archiving is super important. Without that stuff, if something happened and you lost anything, you wouldn’t be able to tell what you lost in the first place. It’s important.”

“Ah, excuse me, I didn’t realize you had grown a fondness to Lars. I wasn’t meaning to sat it in a negative sense. I, personally, don’t mind having Lars on board,” Rickev held his four hands up in defense, “I am simply explaining what most on the ship already sense about Lars. The federation would charge a hefty fine if we didn’t comply with their demands.”

Ursa frowned and nodded. He supposed that’s why he took such a liking right away to Lars. Custodial men and inventory robots go hand in hand in essentials, yet are barely thanked by those around them. “Alright, well, don’t keep thinking that. Someone has to do that work. If you’re not going to, then it sounds like it’s important to have him around.” 

Ursa grabbed his dufflebag from before, resting it on his shoulders once more. “Rickev, it’s been nice meeting you, but I gotta get going. Captain Vaughn wanted to talk about my job on the ship. You said I should be ready to be contacted by a union?”

“Yes, that is correct,” Rickev nodded to him, “I’ll tell them to contact Lars since I assume you don’t have a comm.”

“Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll see you around the ship, I guess.” Ursa moved to leave the doctor’s medical station. It wasn’t the best note to leave on with a guy who was so captivating as Rickev, but he hoped maybe things could be better in the future about that. At least now he was set and done with that whole step on his checklist.

Ursa glanced around for a moment, remembering how he was able to convince Lars to let him search on his own for the storage area. He realized very quickly that that may not have been the best choice since he couldn’t read the language written on the halls. He could go back to Rickev to ask him for directions, but he sort of soured that note.

He wandered the halls of the ship, idly just observing it for himself. It was taller than the Flagship, perhaps accommodating taller species like Captain Vaughn. Ursa noticed a few things as he walked the halls of the ship as well; there weren’t much to say for windows as any sign of those were shut and closed, the lighting in the halls were dim or flickering, and he could spot that the halls were a bit dirty with clutter or possibly trash collected in corners. He supposed he was more needed than he realized on board.

As Ursa was wandering the halls, he wasn’t sure how to go about checking various rooms for the storage area. After all, it was all written in languages he didn’t understand in the slightest. It wasn’t even like they were letters that were just rearranged differently like English versus Spanish. They were symbols and characters that were absolutely foreign to Ursa. So, he had to go for the old fashioned route of just trying to open every door he could till he could find the storage room.

He found plenty of small cabins that looked like living quarters for one or two crew members of various needs. Though, most of them were empty of the actual alien in question. Ursa wondered if they were working at the moment. He eventually found what might’ve been a mess hall with a few aliens eating at a few tables, though Ursa was hesitant to call what he spotted as “food” to eat. That was something he’d have to take note of later.

Through trial and error, he eventually opened a door that was filled with various bins and boxes -- the storage room finally. He got to work trying to look around, attempting to figure out which bins had his family’s stuff inside. The storage room was dimly lit, making it even harder to quickly look around. He found some of the bins were locked with what looked like more digital monitors that were locked with strange symbols. For a guy from 1988, he was still trying to get used to the fact he saw very little physical buttons anywhere. Ursa tried to physically pry open some of the boxes, only finding no luck with that.

The doors slid open behind him and he heard the familiar tinking of metal legs on the metal flooring. Ursa glanced up from a box he was trying to pry open, seeing it was Lars there.

“Oh! There you are! I got a notice that you were done with the medical station. I was curious if you were going to make it here or not,” Lars spoke as he came right up to Ursa. “You were supposed to report to Captain Vaughn first.”

“Well, I will, but I need my family’s stuff, first. Where’s my stuff at so I can get it?” Ursa crossed his arms, “I need that stuff.”

“Alright, alright, what’s so important about it, anyways?” Lars spoke as he walked through the storage room.

“My family’s belongings are the last thing I have of them. I don’t know about you robots, but us humans like to hold onto things that came from our family,” Ursa explained, “Mostly so we can remember them.”

Lars moved past Ursa towards the back of the storage room. Ursa followed till he saw a group of containers that looked more likely from Earth with physical button locks and faded logos of the Flagship’s company. He could see burn marks on the outside of it, probably from the crash, and saw some boxes were absolutely dented.

“Ursa, if we can have a word real fast?” Ursa gestured with one of his legs for Ursa to come down to his level.

Ursa furrowed his brows before kneeling down in front of Lars, “What is it?”

“Captain Vaughn has ordered in the past usually that any and every salvaged items we find from crash sites belong to whoever finds the items. Salvage teams will claim things really quickly -- it’s why I was able to salvage you. But while I brought you in, Vaughn and the crew brought the most of this in. This technically doesn’t belong to you the moment we document in the inventory logs that this all belongs to the people who claimed it,” Lars explained this quietly, leaning closer to Ursa while glancing around for a moment. “But the thing is, I can’t document in the inventory logs what is here till we open the bins. But you humans have made a locking contraption that is hard to decipher. It won’t be long till they try to just physically force these open with their weapons.”

Ursa felt his stomach twist in worry. “So what does this all mean, then? This isn’t their stuff, it’s my family’s stuff.”

“It means you’re the only one who probably knows how to open these bins. No one’s been able to open them. No one knows what’s inside of them yet. No one… knows things about your species at all. It is again my own programming to say anything untrue, but I genuinely have no clue how to interpret certain items from your culture if I’ve never seen them before. Especially any chemicals, any weapons, or any tools.” Lars seemed to be hinting at something that Ursa slowly parsed together.

Ursa stood slowly, nodding in understanding. “Well, you need to warn the crew not to open these, then. Inside is a dangerous and poisonous substance called dust. If you breathe it in, you could get seriously sick if you’re not from my world. Tell them they shouldn’t even touch the stuff or it can cause agitation.”

“Understood,” Lars nodded his sphere, “And for metallic life like myself?”

Ursa knelt down to one of the boxes, pointing to the keypad locks, “Touch these, and you’ll get your batteries fried. No one is allowed to touch these boxes, robots or aliens. It’s extremely dangerous and can kill anyone who comes in contact.”

“I’ll report this in the logs, then. Though, I’m going to the other side of the storage room to ensure that I don’t… get ‘fried’, as you say.” Lars stepped away from him, moving towards the doors of the storage room.

Ursa watched for a moment before turning his attention back to the bins. He looked among them, seeing they were all given faded labels designating which family each bin belonged to. He didn’t know most of the people on the Flagship -- a lot of them were just his dad’s coworkers from the company. And even then, he highly doubted this was all of the cargo of the Flagship. He figured most of it was damaged and beyond saving. He hoped and begged he’d find his own family’s stuff, at least. It’ll take time to crack open the keypad locks of the rest of the bins since he didn’t know those passwords, but he figured he ought to find a way to crack those open eventually to salvage their belongings, too.

He nearly missed it, but he just barely saw at the bottom of the stack of bins a broken label that had “MAJ” on it. It had to be his family’s bin. It took some work and strength, but he was able to move the bins on top off to uncover his own family’s bin. Sure enough, it was dented and covered in scorch marks. But, he knew the password to the keypad. It was the same password his mom did for everything, his birth year. His mom probably would’ve had a lot of stuff stolen in the past if someone found out she did the same password for everything.

With a satisfying click, he was able to open the bin finally. It wasn’t too big of a bin, the Flagship had a weight limit for how much you were allowed to bring as well as a list of essentials you were required to bring. But, upon opening the bin, seeing his family’s belongings, he caught a whiff of their familiar scent of home. 7000 years in an airlocked bin, it held onto the scent of his mom’s perfume and his dad’s cologne. Tears brimmed in his eyes for a moment before he had to quickly wipe them away.

His family brought what they felt were essentials. Clothing, photo albums, utensils, his dad’s accounting books, his mom’s cooking utensils, and Ursa’s own music tapes. Ursa could cry as he lifted from the bin his dad’s large pilot jacket. His dad wasn’t ever a pilot, but his dad dreamed of being one if he weren’t an accountant. His dad used to dream of flying through space once they were on their track to Spes. Ursa hugged the jacket close to himself for a moment with a small sigh.

“Lars, can I ask you something?” Ursa asked as he started shoving the music tapes into his dufflebag.

“Yes? What is it?” Lars spoke up from across the room.

“I’m guessing the rest of the shit in here belongs to the crew, too, right? They all got their own personal bins that belong to them or wherever they’re going?” Ursa glanced around the storage room, seeing various different labels on those, too.

“That is correct. Each member of the crew is allowed to have personal storage in their cabin and a bin that is considered ‘oversized’ storage,” Lars explained as he moved through the storage room.

“Great, can you get me an empty one for myself? If these guys want claims on these boxes, then they can have the box, itself. But I’m going to need a box for my belongings.” Ursa picked up the photo album to tuck under his arm as he began surveying where he’d store what item. “And as for a cabin, where do you think I’m going to be staying?”

“As part of my cargo, you’ll be staying in my quarters. It’s a much better deal than staying in one of the actual crewmember’s cabins. I think you’ll prefer that option more.”

Ursa couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the insistence that Ursa, himself, was cargo. Robots were such weird things. He pictured it like how cats on Earth would treat humans like weird kittens. “Alright, do you care if I take up space in your quarters? I’m just trying to make sure I don’t miss anything here.”

“Yes, that will be fine so long as it’s not too much.” Lars tinkered his way towards Ursa, “I have a bin for you ready to store your belongings.”

“Perfect, I’ve got some work to do here, then,” Ursa started picking up what he could to start transferring his family’s stuff to where they belonged. As for the rest of the passengers on the Flagship, it would take a lot of time doing trial and error on their passcodes till he could pry them open before the rest of the crew got to them.

Eventually as he began unloading his family’s stuff, he came across what was at the bottom, the stuff considered the “required” belongings from the Flagship. Among it all was his spacesuit he was given when they were getting fitted. He pulled it out, realizing it could help him combat some of the cold of the ship. On top of that, he spotted his helmet he was supposed to wear with the suit to help give him the air he needed. He couldn’t be more grateful as he was getting sick of feeling winded on the ship.

The space suit was a red color he was able to pick out, his personal favorite. It was a thick material made for the coldness of space. The helmet, however, he couldn’t customize as much since it was from the Flagship company. But, once he had it on, he remembered the helmet was shaded in case the sun of Spes was too bright for humans. It was a little disorientating inside the dim lights of the ship.

Once he had it all on, he stepped out towards Lars with a smug smile under his helmet. “What do you think? Now I look like a proper space astronaut hanging out with a bunch of you aliens.”

Lars looked Ursa up and down for a moment before his sphere did a little tilt of its own. “It’s certainly a unique choice. Is that normal for your species?”

“Sort of,” Ursa shrugged, “It’s normal for any of us who wanted to go to space to wear. It keeps us safe. We wouldn’t wear this on a day to day basis, though. I might just keep it since it keeps me warm. I’m just glad the speaker in the helmet still works. Maybe we can figure out how to program the helmet to do that fancy translator stuff for me, too, so it’s not uncomfortable to wear the earpiece and the helmet at the same time.”

“Well, it can be something I can look at later. Are you almost done moving your personal belongings? I do have to log it as yours in my inventory, after all,” Lars gestured at Ursa for a moment before looking at the bin.

“Yeah, I’m about done. This and my family’s suits were the last of that bin. But I’m going to have to come back here later for the rest of the other passengers' stuff. It’ll take too much time to crack those open and Vaughn still wants to see me, right?” Ursa closed his new bin, “How do I lock this?”

“Yes, Vaughn sent an alert roughly 4 ponks ago. I’ll walk you through the lock up. It’s with your optical units, that’s all,” Lars answered him, gesturing, “You’re organic, so you’ll just press the button and it’ll scan your optical units for the first time. When you unlock it in the future, you just press the green button and it’ll automatically scan for your optical units to open the bin for you.”

“‘Optical units’, do you mean my eyes?” Ursa gestured up at his eyes, scrunching his lips a bit in concern. “Why would anyone want a lock like that?”

“It allows for the most convenience, efficiency, and assurance that no one will ever steal your belongings,” Lars explained, “It’s simply standard use for most locks.”

Ursa shook his head, “Unless someone forces you to unlock it by just pressing the button and making you look at it. At least with our old locks, you got some plausible deniability. You got some way of keeping people out of it.”

“Incorrect, efficiency is more important,” Lars shook his sphere, “You will find this is far easier in the long run.”

Ursa frowned, wary about this for a moment. He didn’t think efficiency was worth his security, especially when his cargo is far more important. “We’ll see about that in the future.”

#writing #science fiction #sci fi #sci fi writing #scifi #original writing #original content #original story

[ursamajorstory]

Rickev, the alien doctor!

#art

[ursamajorstory]

Drifting off

#art

[ursamajorstory]

Goodbye to a World

redraw art of art I did in 2021 before Ursa was an OC

#art

[ursamajorstory]

backseat gamer

#art

[ursamajorstory]

weird fucked up cat

#art

[ursamajorstory]

Martian Dust

The world was one of dust. Static electricity kept the dust on solar panels and the dust got trapped in the gears of anything outside of the Dome. Inside of the Dome it was sterile, everything you would interact with had been cleaned thoroughly. The dust would build on any suits that were used outside and then it would keep on machinery, it was such a fine grit that it would break down anything that was hit in a sandstorm. Then when it occasionally got inside everyone had to wear respirators to keep from damaging their lungs with the dust. From what Dr. Mason had been telling everyone, the dust would cause cancer and unmendable damage. 

Seeing how the dust swirled and moved just outside the Dome, Tim couldn’t help but resent the storm that had been approaching for a few days. He had been on the maintenance team since he had been able to hold a wrench and fit in the outside suits. 

Tim felt like going into maintenance was a natural choice. He had always enjoyed seeing the mechanics of each thing they sent out and he loved spending all the time he could around all the inventions that would be made and being taught what he needed to keep up with and the basics of keeping everything running. 

Tim’s focus was maintaining the outside of the Dome and on the inside it was mostly work on keeping the farm’s pipe’s running smoothly. He’d go in and replace parts before they break and more often than not he’d end up having to go outside of the Dome and collect pieces or set up new barriers to make sure when the next storm came around any sort of equipment was well protected. This included cleaning off the solar panels, which he usually left to Sam who was almost always walking just behind him. 

Sam was the kid Tim was responsible for teaching. The Dome has been focusing on internships as opposed to schooling, Tim himself had been an intern but only because he was flunking almost every test handed to him. Sam was an intern because they had been changing the curriculum to focus on job training as opposed to rounded education. It made sense for the Dome to not go for training for all positions for everyone. Simply put the kids in front of a test to show what they’d be good at then sort them into a program to teach them how to do that job for the rest of their life. 

Tim sighed as he grabbed the second half of the sandwich he had slowly been working on. He stared out of the Dome towards the swirling dust that made his life millions of times harder. The storm was still a day out or so and most of the barriers had been set up and checked three times already. It was a waiting game to see what would get the most damage so Tim could go out and fix the barriers and clean for days on end. Geo, or Dr. Harris, Tim realized he should call him, had been working on something Tim could coat the solar panels and parts of the dome on to keep the dust from sticking. It was a side project that Dr. Harris had been making significant progress on, but his other projects came first. 

Tim finished up his sandwich and stood up taking his time to stretch as he prepared himself for the work ahead. 

There really wasn’t much he had to do today, the main goal of today would be looking over the barriers around the farm’s water system. That was the most crucial point in the whole Dome and although most water systems were located more centrally there was one large pipe that went just outside of the Dome and that had to have a separate barrier around it. He had checked on it two days ago but it was so crucial that it was protocol to check on it again.

Tim pressed a button on his watch to see if he had any messages, nothing new. Which left most of his day completely free. As Tim started the walk back towards the maintenance dock he went ahead and turned on his earbuds and slid his ear protection headphones over that. 

The Dome was large, having schools, housing, farms and then at the very bottom of the Dome were the mines. Most people lived near the top of the Dome, farming happened just under the surface and the research areas were vertically stacked, going from the entrance of the mines all the way to the surface layer of the Dome. The maintenance dock was just off of the research facility. 

Specifically right next to Geo, or Dr. Harris’s lab, Dr. Harris’s current project was working on continuing the terraforming efforts. Meaning he was the one making plants change so they’d want to live on martian soil. 

Something Tim had been promised is that after they finish with more atmospheric work the glaciers would start to melt which would help stick the dust and turn it into soil as opposed to the swirling mess it was. Geo also told him that once plants had started to pop up across the face of their section of Mars less dust would be able to get past the roots and leaves of plants. 

Tim wasn’t smart enough to get the work behind it all but Dr. Harris was passionate about his work and when Tim would drop by he loved having someone he could explain it all to. 

Tim jumped as someone tapped on his shoulder. He turned and Sam was waving at him. Tim let out a breath of relief after being startled. He took off his ear headphones and took out his earbuds. Putting them back into the small case he kept on his belt.

“Hey Mr. Tim! Today I woke up and decided that today I would be here early and I guess that means I ran into you! What’s on our schedule for today? Do we get to go outside of the Dome again?” 

“Mhm, we’ve got to check on the barriers for the farming water supply before the storm hits tomorrow.” 

Sam hopped in victory, pumping his fist into the air. 

“Awesome! I love getting to go outside the Dome! I’m totally going to brag to Cas when we get back. Are Cas and Mr. David working today?” 

Tim nodded. 

“Sick!” 

As they reached the door Tim slid his ID card across the panel and with a beep the door to maintenance slid open. 

The maintenance dock was essentially a large workshop, there were extra barrier parts lining a wall with the main workbench lining the wall that had the door they just came through. A large hangar door to the airlock was to the left of them. Tim walked towards an office space where he spent most of his time here. Most of the Dome was either automatic or it had been built to last, maintenance’s main purpose was just to make sure things don’t break. They existed to be proactive and thus never had to do much aside from checking on things and exchanging parts. 

Tim looked at the checklist on his board and saw that the only thing that was left was one last check on the farming pipes the day before any storm. Which was an easy task. Should only take thirty minutes or so. Which meant, like most days, Tim would sit in his office space simply taking up the seat. 

Sam stood fiddling with his hands just in front of his chest. Tim looked at him for a moment before nodding to tell him to say what was on his mind. 

“When can we go out?”

Tim looked at Sam. The kid had been working hard for two years now, he could handle this alone. This was simply going out and catching footage of the barriers, Tim knew they were up to date. This would be the first opportunity and probably the best opportunity for Sam to go get to do a solo mission for the next month since it’ll be more intensive fixes and moving of the barriers. 

“Go suit up, this’ll be your first trip alone.” 

Sammy’s eyes went wide.

“Really! I get to go out alone?” 

“Yes, now go get ready before I change my mind.” Tim shooed Sam off. 

Tim sighed. He knew this was the right thing to do. Hell, Tim remembers how his first solo trip outside the Dome was just a few months after he started picking up what was going on. Having the kid wait two years felt like the right option. Hell it was a year before Tim took the kid out of the Dome. He mostly spent time making the kid wear the big gloves and making him practice setting up barriers. Having him help set up barriers was something that had only started to happen a few months ago. 

This was just going outside and checking on something Tim knew was alright. He covered his eyes with his hands as he leaned back. He wanted to get a small brief ready, just so Sam knew for sure what to look for. Tim sat back up in his chair and pulled up footage of what to look for in broken barriers and what wear would show versus what he should test or look deeper for. 

Sam came back in his jumpsuit with all of the insulation padding he had to wear all set, a giant smile on his face. Tim got up and looked over Sam’s uniform, adjusting a strap to make sure it was safe. 

“You’re set, check over this footage that shows exactly what to look for and then you’re all good to go. I’ll release the exosuit from here after you get in so don’t worry about release. Let me know when you’re finished with that.” 

Sam gave a solute before moving to Tim’s desk to carefully watch over the footage. Tim kept an eye on Sam for a moment to just make sure he was alright before he sighed and moved towards his work bench. 

He sat down and there really wasn’t anything for him to do. The last storm was months ago and everything since then had been fixed, he’d focused on being proactive and everything to do with pipes in the farms is new or in very good condition. So Tim tapped his watch and opened the chat with Geo. 

They had been planning on getting lunch, or maybe just spend some time together but Geo had been busy with the terraforming project, it was a huge responsibility and took lots of late nights. Tim knew that, still it felt a bit lonely that his closest confidant was always too busy. 

Tim sank into the workbench, letting his forehead hit against the rock the workbench was made of. He tried to make Geo a priority whenever asked or just when he remembered Geo existed but at some point Geo seemed to miss that part of their partnership. 

That wasn’t fair, Tim knew that Geo was just a bit of a dumbass when it came to himself and what he wanted or needed. Geo would forget to eat if there weren’t set times to and wouldn’t sleep or go get the required exercise if there was no one to remind him. The same could be said for Geo’s little social contact. Tim isn’t like that but he will at least try to understand. He knows that others haven’t been near as understanding about him as Geo had been. 

Tim just supposed that he had to go and be that person for Geo, someone understanding and reminding him of the fact other people are there. So Tim sent a small message and turned off his watch. He was going to focus on work until Sam got back. 

-

Tim pressed the final button as Sam was fully situated in the exosuit. There was a small hissing noise as the exosuit sealed completely as did the Dome wall, then they separated. Sam’s tether made a small noise as it hit the side of the Dome. Tim went back towards his desk and pulled out his headset and turned on the camera footage to watch as Sam started out. The only sound was that of Sam breathing as he hopped around the Dome moving towards the site he has to check on. 

Tim let a breath he didn’t know he was holding in as Sam made it to the farm barrier. It was fine, perfectly so. Then there was an alert on his watch. He took a glance, assuming it was just Geo responding but it was bright red. 

Tim stood up. 

“Kid, you need to make your way back. this moment.” 

“Wha-” 

“The storm is rolling in quickly, too quickly.” Tim skimmed the alert seeing tat it was an emergency warning telling everyone to shelter in safe zones.

“Wait but I thought you said we need to check the barrier?” 

Tim raced to just next to the hanger door where the exosuits park.

“It’s fine! I’m pulling your tether in. Be ready to be jostled!” 

He slammed his hand down on the button hearing Sam grunt as he was quickly pulled back towards the maintenance dock. 

The door to the maintenance dock slid open as Mr. David ran in. 

“SAM you have to bring Tim in!” 

Tim turned back towards Mr. David just as the video and audio coming from Sam’s exosuit cut off. 

The tether came back. A large tear. Sam was gone. 

The storm finally hit their side of the Dome just as Casey came running in after Mr. David. Casey looked at Tim, then at the broken tether, then towards the hook where Sam’s jumpsuit usually was. 

Not a word was said. Nothing could go in or out anymore. The sand scraped across the walls as they all stared at each other, very aware of the death that had just occurred. There was nothing they could do. 

Sam was out there now. His oxygen would run out in the matter of hours. 

Tim looked at his hands only to see that they were shaking. 

Words felt like molten lava in his throat as he tried to find any sort of explanation for what had happened on what was supposed to be the easiest task in the whole Dome.

“It was his first solo mission.” 

#friendly content #remywriting #promoting this because people should follow to read friend's writing

[ursamajorstory]

Captain Vaughn

[The Beginning] - [Part 2] - [Part 4]

Word Count - 3719

--

Ursa held his bag close to himself as he followed Lars through the ship’s halls. It was almost straight out of the sci-fi comics. He saw doors lining the halls with odd noises coming from the other side of them. Honestly, Ursa didn’t know how to feel about the situation he was stuck in. He was forcibly coming to grips with the fact he was actually on an alien spaceship. Some part of him wondered if this was just a dream he was having, and that he was still actually on the Flagship frozen in ice. But he doubted that. There was simply a difference in feeling between dream and reality. This was unfortunately very real.

“Alright, so we’re going to meet Captain Vaughn. You’ll want to be very careful around him. He’s very dangerous and you have to be absolutely respectful or else you’ll make both of us look bad,” Lars warned him, his little metal pincer-like legs tinking on the metal surface of hallway floors.

“Oh, really? What’s so bad about him?” Ursa questioned as they walked together.

“Well, he’s just a bit of an unpredictable man. He’s got these long pincers that can stab through even the toughest armors, he’s got these large claws that can crush someone as soft as you without a doubt, and his fangs are bloody huge! Rumor has it that he has an entire tank of poisons under the ship’s cargo for where he throws crew members that underperform. You know what, why don’t you just keep a five foot radius at all times from him. It’ll be for the best!” Lars explained simply, “He’s a dangerous one, Ursa. He’s from Telmun, you know!”

“I don’t know what that means,” Ursa glanced at Lars, “I think I should tell you upfront that I’m flat out not familiar with anything alien in the slightest. Like where I’m from, all of this is science fiction. We didn’t know there was other life in space other than what we saw on blurry pictures of Spes.”

“That explains why you lot chose to freeze yourselves. Needlessly risky to do that, you know. Look, the short version is that Telmun is a dangerous place, too. You should just avoid all routes that way because the entire planet is full of guys like Vaughn,” Lars’s sphere shook back and forth for a moment, “Do you know what a Dracorum is? He’s like one of those.”

“Dracorum? Like a vampire?” Ursa furrowed his brows as he pictured it in his mind.

“What’s a vampire?” Lars seemed just as confused as Ursa was about this before making an exasperated noise, “No. Dracorum! They suck the fluids right out of your body if you’re an organic! As for us robots, Vaughn is a jerk to us, too. You know, I’ve worked on this vessel for 10 rotations and I still don’t get the pay promotion of an organic? One time he pulled one of my appendages off because I miscalculated the time it’d take for us to travel from one system to the next?”

“I see…Well, I guess good thing I’m just a human, right?” Ursa tried to weigh the situation, “Did you have to fix yourself, then?”

“Yes, it was awful. Thankfully, now that I’ve got you, you’ll learn all the requirements of how to do mechanics and be a perfect assistant. I’ve decided this a bit ago, actually,” Lars spoke with confidence, walking ahead of Ursa.

“Assistant? Look, Lars, I thank you for saving me out there and unfreezing me, but I need to get myself to Spes. It’s where we were supposed to go,” Ursa tried to interject, “I don’t know anything about mechanics, anyways. I’m just a cleaning guy. That’s why I need my family’s stuff after all this.”

“And how do you plan to get to Spes without a ship, navigation, not even a flying permit? Yeah, you need me,” Lars turned his sphere to look at Ursa while he walked, almost giving what might have been a smug look. It was hard to be certain it was meant to be smug, his only form of emotional expression being a sort of lid that went up and down over the camera eye at the center of his sphere.

“Fine, fine, I get it. But, who knows, maybe I’ll butter up this Vaughn guy and he can get me to Spes,” Ursa grinned just as smugly, “I don’t think you know how good I am at convincing people that I have great ideas.”

“What?! Vaughn? You’re out of your mind,” Lars shook his sphere, “He helps no one but himself.”

“Well, first time for everything, right?” Ursa grinned as they finally seemed to come to a large set of doors.

“What? What does that mean? Is this another weird human thing?” Lars narrowed his eye, “Don’t say weird things like that in front of Vaughn.” Ursa couldn’t help laughing at that. Lars was such a weird little temperamental robot. It was kind of endearing to a degree for Ursa. 

The large doors slid open revealing it was like a large space deck like Ursa had seen on Star Battles and Star Voyage. He glanced around for a moment, observing the space as he glanced at computer screens, buttons, levers, and various aliens working back and forth. They were completely foreign in appearance to Ursa. If he had to rate them, they looked closer to the aliens he saw on Star Battles rather than how Star Voyage always had them somewhat humanoid. These aliens were drastically different from Ursa in appearance.

But his eyes stopped on one alien in particular who stood at the center of it all, the one Ursa had to assume was Vaughn. He was a tall alien, easily standing at nearly 7 feet tall. He was covered in scales that were a deep red that made him come across like a lizard of some form. He had two large horns that protruded upwards from his head and various spikes coming down his spine. Yellow eyes pierced their gaze right into Ursa as they stared him down from across the room. He had hands that had been clawed, the index finger having an especially larger claw than all the rest. His feet were also clawed, his legs bending back to further give this sort of lizard-like appearance. His tail swayed behind him for a moment as Vaughn seemed to be visually assessing Ursa. 

And then he smiled with a set of large, sharp teeth. “So, this is our precious cargo we picked up, hm?” Vaughn’s voice was a low, silky pitch. Despite the man being physically intimidating in appearance, his demeanor seemed to shift to come across more friendly, gesturing for Ursa to come up towards him.

“Yes, this is my cargo I salvaged,” Lars corrected Vaughn as he moved to stand between Ursa and Vaughn.

“Upload his data into the monitors, would you? I am quite curious about this rare little thing you’ve brought,” Vaughn was speaking to Lars, but didn’t exactly look at Lars at all. The whole time, Vaughn kept his gaze pierced onto Ursa.

Lars was quiet for a moment before glancing back at Ursa. After a moment further, Lars moved away, going up to one of the various screens in the room.

“What’s your name? What do we call you?” Vaughn stepped up towards Ursa, slowly closing in that 5 foot radius that Lars had warned Ursa about. It was getting close enough that Vaughn was able to easily extend his hand out, cupping Ursa’s face to turn it back and forth slightly.

“My name is Ursa Major. Like the constellation. I’m from Earth,” Ursa tried to explain shortly, unsure how to feel being examined so closely. Ursa was an average height man for Earth, so Vaughn towering him so easily was more intimidating than he was anticipating.

“‘Constellation’? What is that, if you do not mind me asking?” Vaughn questioned him, tilting his head a little, “I don’t think we have ‘Earth’ on our data ports, either.”

“Constellations… Uhm… It’s where we see the stars in the sky and we made pictures with them. My parents named me after one of them,” Ursa tried to explain with a bit of hesitation, trying his best to keep his composure. He gestured up to his forehead where his freckles had been, “I have these freckles and my parents thought they looked like the constellation.”

"Pictures out of stars? How unique…" Vaughn narrowed his gaze towards the freckles that Ursa had pointed out.

"Captain Vaughn, his data is on screen," Lars spoke up. "He still needs to go to the medical bay for official registration, though."

Vaughn stepped over towards the screen in question, observing it for a moment. "Organic in nature, yet a relic to time, I see…"

"I'm human, from Earth," Ursa spoke up, "We were supposed to be on route to a planet named Spes."

"And yet you're here," Vaughn noted, glancing at Ursa through the opaque screen, "You were frozen in time. We don't seem to have a planet registered on our systems named Spes. Tell me more about this mission of yours."

Ursa didn't know how to handle this. Lars made it sound like he was going to meet with a dangerous alien that was going to kill him. But Captain Vaughn seemed more curious than murderous. "We had to evacuate our home world. Earth was going to be destroyed by a massive meteor. It has this long Latin name I couldn't ever get right, but we just called it Mors. The guys at NASA -- this group of scientists from my world -- found a new planet that would be good for us. So that's where we were going."

"Interesting… And yet, unfortunately, we have no records of your species. Perhaps this is the confirmation of the end of your home world," Vaughn pressed a button on his screen, pulling up a window written in a language Ursa didn't understand.

"Yeah, I guess that's what it looks like…" Ursa glanced down at the floor for a moment, "But I do know that my people were also traveling similar to how I was traveling. I was on one ship of many. So they're probably all also on their own ships, traveling with frozen pods that are just sleeping."

"Ah, so you believe your species is still out there but simply asleep?" Vaughn stepped away from the monitor to approach Ursa again, "You all chose to freeze yourselves in space travel? Why? How old exactly are you?"

"Well, it was our only choice if we wanted to make sure us, specifically, got to get to Spes. I didn't have a lot of choice about it. To me, I'm 18 years old. But I guess on paper I'm apparently thousands of years old," Ursa shrugged a little, "It was our only option since we had to travel light-years away."

"According to the computer data I attempted to salvage, this species didn't have any jump technology. They were trying to travel light-years away on purely raw travel systems," Lars spoke up.

"I don't get what that means…" Ursa furrowed his brows, "Honestly, all of this is super foreign to me. When we were on Earth, the idea of aliens was just… science fiction, really. We had no idea any of you were out here. But maybe that's just what's changed over the last few thousand years, huh?"

"In simple terms, it would be like trying to walk the distance from one world to another. Except you were all attempting to do it across light-years of distance. You were all working on ancient technology, which makes sense given your circumstances," Vaughn explained for Ursa, "I see you're using the translation pieces. Turn that off, I want to hear your natural speech. Your extinct species gives me curiosity."

Ursa didn't like Vaughn calling humans extinct. He glanced at Lars for a moment who returned the look with a small nod. He nodded in return and pressed the buttons on the collar and ear piece. "This is English. Not everyone from my homeworld speaks it. I speak English and Spanish, though. Mi mamá habla español conmigo," Ursa spoke for Vaughn as requested. 

Lars started beeping at Vaughn and Ursa wondered if it was translation. However, Lars stopped to glance at Ursa, furrowing his eye at Ursa. "I don't understand the second part. Is that the second language you said?"

"Yeah, that was Spanish. The computer probably didn't have that in there. At home, they were weird about who speaks what," Ursa explained with a shrug.

Lars beeped to Vaughn who spoke in return to Lars. The language was nothing like he could describe at home. It didn't sound similar to any language he knew of. He had wondered if it would sound similar to a language he knew of at home, and yet it wasn’t anything close to that. It sounded like rumbles of noises that smoothed itself into different pitches of noises. 

“He said you can turn your devices back on, Ursa,” Lars glanced at him, nodding up and down to him.

Ursa nodded, pressing the buttons and listening to the slight buzz of the device in his ear. “So, uh, yeah, that’s my situation. I would really appreciate any help I can get since I’m really unfamiliar with the systems here.”

“It’s a very interesting situation, certainly,” Vaughn nodded as he moved to approach Ursa once more. He placed his hand on Ursa's shoulder, smiling down on him. "However, you will be a welcome crew member. I, personally, have a fascination with long extinct species. Lost knowledge we may never have known about otherwise is always valuable."

"Well, like I said, we're possibly not extinct. Just asleep," Ursa corrected him as a thought came to his head, "In fact, I kind of remember that there was a section of my kind deciding to make colonies on a planet near our own. After all these thousands of years, I'm sure they're thriving out there. It's on a planet called Mars?"

Vaughn and Ursa both looked to Lars, who simply shook his head. "We don't have a planet registered as Mars. But if I can restore the full starmap of your ship, we might be able to cross reference it to our own maps. I'm guessing you lot named planets on your own without registering the names to the federation and then went ahead and went extinct. I'm guessing if your Mars colonies are still going, it's under a different name given how long it's been," Lars explained as he looked at a monitor, "Probably why you mentioned a planet named Spes, but we don't have that planet on our systems."

"Oh, that's kinda hopeful. Yeah, maybe it's just all a bunch of alien names I was asleep for the renaming! Shoot, maybe even my species is registered but it's all just under different names!" Ursa smiled at the thought, hopeful that maybe humans were just called some new fancy name now. 

"Well, we don't know all that. Lars, get to work on cross referencing those starmaps. For now, Ursa, why don't you go to our medical bay to register your species. If it is the case that it's just a name confusion, your species should come up on our registry. And then… after that…" Vaughn pressed a claw to Ursa's chest, pressing his extended claw up and down his shirt. "I want to have a more private setting with you to discuss matters about your membership on my board."

Ursa stared down at the claw before looking up at Vaughn. His face slowly heated up and he didn’t know how to respond. In 1988, this was certainly something extremely taboo. But as Captain Vaughn was practically doing this in front of his entire crew, Ursa realized that the last few thousand years may have changed the mood a lot. Granted, that was a nice thought. But he was still quite flustered nonetheless.

“Uhm--Yeah, sure, uhm… Ok! Sure!” Ursa laughed nervously before nodding, “Yeah, I’ll be wherever you want me to go for this…private matter.”

“Great, I’ll see you then,” Vaughn stood back a bit to head for the monitors, “We will be headed for the Lixium system shortly. Try to be swift about this, yes?”

“Gotcha, I’ll be right on it,” Ursa nodded before beginning to move out of the main deck room.

“Oh! Let me show you the way to the medical bay,” Lars insisted as he quickly caught up to Ursa on his little legs.

Ursa nodded, allowing Lars to lead the way as they headed off together. Once they were back in the hallway with the door shut behind them, Lars and Ursa both seemed to slow down a bit in sync with each other. 

Ursa glanced at Lars for a moment before giving the robot a smug smile, “You know, I think that went really well. I don’t get why you are so scared of Captain Vaughn. He’s a nice guy, it seems.”

“Don’t count on it. He’s after something, I can tell. He’s not nice to others for no reason. You must have something he wants. Are you hiding something you aren’t telling me?” Lars questioned him as his eye narrowed.

“Well, from what I could gather, it seemed more like he was coming onto me. Uhm… In my home world, we were kind of weird about two guys getting really close and personal like that. Is that not the case around here?” Ursa decided to turn the questioning table around, “I’m not opposed to it! In fact, I mean… I’m pretty interested in what Captain Vaughn wants to talk about in private. But I just want to know what the mood is about this all.”

“I don’t think that should be your biggest worry. I’m more worried about why the Captain likes you to begin with. Captain Vaughn is still a dangerous guy. Just don’t trust him right away. Remember, it’s you and me who’s a team, not you and him,” Lars insisted this with a shake of his sphere.

“Well, I mean, we’re only a team because I’ve literally only met you and Captain Vaughn. I literally do not know anyone else on this ship and you happened to be the one to wake me up from ice,” Ursa clarified this with a gesture at Lars, “It’ll be alright, ok? I appreciate you being all concerned about me, but I can take care of myself, you know. I’m an adult.”

“I’m not organic like you, I do not have ‘concerns’ like that. I am just warning my assistant to not do something that is clearly deadly according to my calculations,” Lars insisted this with a stomp of one of his pincer legs. It didn’t feel all that believable to Ursa.

He couldn’t help but chuckle a little. “Alright, sure, gatito,” Ursa snickered as he decided to tease Lars.

“‘Gatito’? What does that word mean?” Lars questioned him, “Your translation device was programmed with English being anticipated, but if you say things that aren’t English or a programmed language, it sounds gibberish to us.”

“It’s Spanish, but I’m not telling you what it means,” Ursa grinned at Lars, “I’m allowed to have things for myself.” Lars narrowed his eye before seeming to rolling it. They continued on together down the hallway. Ursa couldn’t help but laugh a little again, patting the top of Lars’s head as they walked together. 

They stopped at a door that had a symbol on it, Lars turning to look at Ursa. “Alright, you’ll go in there and one of the medical crew members will assist you. They’ll do a bunch of nonsense I’ve already done on you. But the difference is I did it so I can actually figure out you, they just want to register that you exist in the first place with the federation.”

“You mentioned the federation before. Who are they? Are they like… the government?” Ursa furrowed his brows, trying to think of how this equated in his sci-fi comics. “I am just unsure what the point of this is.”

“The point is to make you exist on system files. Generally speaking, a lot of species don’t have to do this because they’re already widely known throughout the systems. But you’re an extinct species who just sort of popped into our time. It is alarming. I mean, you don't even have any identification numbers! We don't even know if you emit any toxic gasses at will, any diseases we're all not ready for, or if you actually are supposed to be living in different conditions!" Lars lifted one of his pincers, gesturing vaguely at Ursa. "You're very weird."

"Well, I can assure you I don't release toxic gas. Though, as far as living conditions go, it is pretty cold on this ship for me. Really can't wait to just bundle up in my blankets later," Ursa shrugged, "I think the weirdest thing you guys might find out about my species is that we lose our baby teeth and grow a second set?"

Lars stared at him with his eye wide before quickly shaking his sphere, "What?! Your species is so weird. Just go in there and tell them this stuff. When you're done, just wait for me. I'll be back in a bit and then I'll guide you to the Captain's quarters."

"What about storage? I still need to get my stuff. And also, why do I gotta wait for you? Can't I find this on my own?" Ursa furrowed his brows before tapping his finger on the top of Lara's sphere, "Worried about an 'organic' like me getting lost? Are you actually concerned about me?"

"What?! No! Absolutely not!" Lars shook his sphere quickly with a noise of frustration, "I'm not worried about you! I'm not organic, I don't have feelings like that! I just know you've had your head frozen for who knows how long and you've got ice for brains!"

Lars started to quickly walk away from Ursa, "Find your own bloody storage, then!" 

Ursa smugly smiled to himself. That's what he hoped for. A bit of independence was what he craved more than anything.

#writing #scifi #science fiction #sci fi #aliens #robots #space #original writing #original content

[ursamajorstory]

Weird little freak has entered the chat

#art

[ursamajorstory]

URSA MAJOR

new lil OC fella yes he's from my love of amogus but that's besides the point

#art

[ursamajorstory]

Awakening

[Beginning] - [Part 3]

Word count: 5011

--

Ursa Major held his parents' hands as they stood in line together. They were selected randomly to be part of one of many groups in a rescue project. Ursa didn’t know much about it. He only knew one important thing. His life was going to take a serious turn. 

In the early summer of 1966, scientists spotted an alarming and terrifying object hurtling a direct course for earth. There were many attempts to stop it. But it was of little use. Astronomers described it as the size of a moon. Some newspapers called it “Mors Desuper '' or also known as “Death from above”. The layman who didn’t have enough time to debate what to call it simply called it “Mors”. It was set to crash into earth by 1999. The world collectively fought over what to do. Finally after many debates on television between firing missiles at it and risking Mors shattering into a thousand pieces and making it a shower of asteroids or perhaps praying God would use a golf club to smash it towards Venus, world leaders came together to make hard decisions. 

The first decision became apparent. Stay on earth and accept the end of man, or try their damn hardest to find a new Earth. There was discussion about colonizing the Moon finally. However, the issue became apparent that once Mors collides into Earth, the explosion of the Earth could shatter the rotation of the Moon and make it unlivable for humans. There was also the possibility that the Moon would be hit by Earth’s debris. So the astronomers of the world looked to Mars. Mars seemed like a safe decision. However, Mars wasn’t developed. It had little water to speak of other than ice caps found here and there through the planet. However, when Mars became a questionable location, some astronomers questioned, “Why stop at Mars? Why not look further?” 

The UN decided to split allocations. Huge expenses were sent to two main objectives. Objective one: colonize Mars. This meant terraforming and genetically breeding plant life and animal life to hopefully survive on Mars by the deadline of 1999. The other project: figuring out where else to flee to in space and finding how to get humanity there as soon as possible. It would’ve been such a success if both projects could work together and succeed. One would assume that the looming threat of Mors would mean that the countries of the world should come together and realize that humanity was more important than lines on the ground being ruled by a select handful of humans. 

However, this is Earth. Earth is full of humans. And humans are full of issues. 

In 1970, years after the discovery and confirmation of Mors’s threat to Earth and humanity, NASA felt confident in a possible candidate to send humanity to. They were of the idea of looking further away than just Mars. Mars was simply too far from being acceptable for living conditions and the USA feared that Earth’s explosion would spread debris further than just the Moon. The possible candidate was a planet that was part of a further section of the Milky Way. The planet in question was still trying to find a proper name. But most felt that the name “Spes” was a fitting name. Spes was the Roman name for the God that was the spirit of hope. Humanity looked to Spes for exactly that: hope.

Spes was a lush planet. Blurry photos of 1970 featured various pictures of Spes as a planet that had plant life, some animal life, and plenty of water. Spes was part of a 15 planet solar system, rotating around a gas giant and was the 11th planet back from the gas giant. Spes had photos plastered all over common American television and newspapers. Comic books released on mass from 1973 to 1975 featuring the amazing Sergent America saving the animals spotted on Spes, the great Superbman visiting Spes for high speed adventures, and even the incredible Y-People had a character claiming to be an alien from Spes. There was a cultural boom in the media with the photos of Spes. 

It was the true purpose of naming the planet Spes, it gave humanity hope. 

But there was one problem. Spes was 10 lightyears away.

But never underestimate humanity. Astronomers jumped swiftly in technology. There was a boom in technology to figure out how to get humanity to Spes. NASA worked furiously. Thankfully, since 1966, technology was already swiftly growing thanks to the discovery of Mors. Science had boomed greatly. The moon landing of 1969 proved that it was possible to get man on the Moon in a reasonable amount of time. Humanity would not be stopped by time or distance. 

Some Governors suggested creating space stations where generations of humans could live on till the end of the journey. It wasn’t a bad idea at first. But those voices were hushed after just a couple of television interviews. No citizen understood why. It didn’t seem like a bad idea. Let humanity live out the days on a space station for generations till they reach Spes? It seemed viable and safe. But there was a sudden push about how the sanctity of humanity would be tarnished with time, memories of Earth would fade away with each passing generation. Those who were more conservative insisted how important it was to keep a grasp on the “American Way of Life”. 

So it became a question of how to let humans who were currently alive see Spes one day. That’s when humans sought a new solution. Just like Sergent America, a human could be frozen in ice and awaken in a new world years later. It became the biggest push from the Government. Perhaps it was because the president of 1981 realized he wanted to be President in Spes, as well. 

Astronomers and Scientists got to work. In the great year of 1985, years of hard labor came to fruition. With Mors now looming in the night sky with the stars, humanity was ready to flee. It became a sort of space race of a new kind when other countries heard what NASA was up to. Soon, countries all over the world fought for their ticket off of Earth. There was debate about the wealthy fleeing with all of their cash. The top 1% of the world on the best pieces of equipment. 

That is, until humanity watched a ship of wealthy celebrities explode in the sky when they just barely passed Jupiter. Back to hard work, the wealthy were now more cautious about who to send up there. There was a question on if only the good Christians of the world should be saved or if the risk of death should be tested more to lower class citizens. Humanity once again fought amongst themselves on who to send to space. Many ships were sent to the stars only for many of them to fail. Some landed on the wrong planets, killing their passengers inside due to the wrong resources. Other ships collided right into Mors, herself. Other ships simply just didn’t work correctly. 

And yet, humanity eventually came to the consensus with each passing year that it was worth the risk to try to flee Earth. Attempt after attempt to reach Spes, only a spare few ships were able to leave the Milky Way, leaving the fates of those inside to a mystery to those left on Earth. Mors grew closer with each passing year. Soon, the image of Mors in the sky was the same size as the Moon. Humanity needed to hurry. 

Boarding groups became less about wealth to some space ship companies and more of random selection raffles. Companies would hold a global raffle to select a number of families from all across the globe in the hopes of getting anyone off of Earth as quickly as possible.

That was why in 1988, in the sticky season of July, Ursa Major stood nervously in front of the spaceship that would take his family to Spes. 

It was Christmas in 1987 when they found out they won the raffle. It wasn’t much of a surprise, though. Ursa’s father was an accountant for this company. He had worked with the company since the discovery of Mors. But now that they were given their tickets off of Earth, they knew it was time to act. Their family had condensed all their personal belongings to the necessities. Photo albums, music, any cultural references to Earth that they could keep were stored on the ship. Anything nonessential was given away to humans who had decided to stay on Earth for the end times. They sold their home, transferred their money to the new fancy intergalactic currency, and said their goodbyes to everyone they knew and loved.

The ship that was to take them was named Flagship. Ursa thought it was dumb but didn’t question it much. All he knew was that it was a rigorous amount of training and testing leading up to July. From Christmas to the 4th of July, the Major family was one of many that had blood work done, vaccines boosted, and a handful of week-long tests of sleeping in ice. There was even all of March that they had to test being completely asleep in ice. 

On top of that, the family had to decide what jobs they were to fill once they awoke 10 light years away.

Ursa’s dad stuck with accounting. He spent months studying and understanding the new intergalactic currency that was being pushed globally that would be the main currency in Spes. It was a currency that about 99% of countries were transferring to. The 1% was Russia, China, and North Korea. They were not invited to that meeting due to global tensions. But, the intergalactic currency was what was going to be used by most citizens of Spes so the accountant pounded the dirt to understand the conversion rate. 

Ursa’s mother decided to take a culinary track. She was no means a professional chef, but she was a curious chef. She was eager to be part of the culinary team of the Flagship, hoping to learn the multiple possible foods that were native to Spes. She had to study the life photographed on Spes and attempt to figure out what foods would work and wouldn’t work with a team of other eager mothers. 

Ursa, turning 18 in May of 1988, had to figure out what kind of job he wanted to dedicate his entire future life to. It was a tough choice to make. He wasn’t skilled in a lot of things at school. He was a slacker in every regard. In the many tests he had to take to be ready for Spes, anything textbook he’d flunk. But, he did come to find that he was better with a more hands-on approach to learning. Eventually, he saw the easiest route for himself. 

Ursa signed up to be a janitor. Granted, it wasn’t the most thankful job the Flagship offered, but someone had to clean up the trash that humans created. It was a small team of maybe 15 individuals for the Flagship out of the hundred-some that had been selected. There were scientists, astronomers, biologists, engineers also on board, but Ursa felt that those should be left to people who actually enjoy that stuff. Ursa felt more comfortable working with his hands and just keeping busy if he had to be busy. 

When Ursa stepped onto the Flagship, he gave one last look at Earth. A duffle bag clung tightly over his shoulder filled with last minute belongings that would be stored into his freezing pod. One last moment to listen to the sounds of Earth. He was honestly terrified. He’d seen on television that fateful first ship exploding into a million pieces. When he told his class that he was going to Spes, his teacher sat him down to cry over his departure. Even his Principal wanted to hear final words Ursa may have to add to a memorial that was at the school for other students who had been selected to go only to perish in the cold vacuum of space.

Once inside the Flagship, he had to be fitted into a skin tight suit that would keep his form once frozen so his body wouldn’t deform from laying down for lightyears. He gave his parents one last hug and kiss as they got suited up as well. Honestly, Ursa didn’t know without a doubt if he’d actually get to see Spes, or if he’ll be part of the death toll numbers on the race to space articles. But he did know that he wanted his parents to be with him. 

“Ursa, when we get to Spes, we’re going to have the biggest dinner you’ve ever seen,” his mother said to him, “I want to make you your favorite. I love you so much, papi.” Her eyes were full of tears as her hand held his face. 

“Ursa, we’ll make it. Don’t you worry!” his father smiled at him, patting his back, “It’ll just feel like when you sleep in on Sundays! You’ll probably crawl out of your pod with your bed head and we’ll already have camp ready. We’ll make sure you’re taken care of, boy.” 

“Yeah! It’ll be so great,” Ursa nodded to them both, smiling the best he could despite his nerves. “I’ll see you guys on the other side.” 

Ursa was laid down among the many service workers. He had his air supply hooked up and took one last breath of Earth before he began to breathe the air of the Flagship. He was glad that his possible space coffin at least had a soft pillow. He kind of wished he had a blanket, but his blanket was stuffed into his duffle bag stored in the bottom compartment of his pod with some of his other stuff, such as his good luck charm. He signed one last waiver form as they took a sample of his blood.

Ursa watched as the pod slowly closed. The shot they gave him slowly was pulling him to sleep. The ship wouldn’t take off till everyone was on board and asleep. He watched the lights dim on deck and he gave one last glance back and forth to his parents in their pods on either side of him. His mother gave him a smile, pressing her hand to the glass. His father gave him a wink and a smile, his smile shining in the small lights of buttons and screens in the ship. 

Soon, Ursa was gone in his sleep. The ice slowly took his body and the Flagship fled Earth. 

It had a straight navigation path serviced by computers and robots. The Flagship had a 99% chance of success as advertised on the pamphlet the Majors read. 

And just as Ursa’s dad promised, Ursa woke up suddenly feeling like he just slept in on a Sunday. He woke to bright lights aimed at him and machines wiring around him. He could only blubber some dribble as his first words after sleeping who knows how long. 

Finally his eyes adjusted and he realized something jarring. He was not on the Flagship. The room he was in was sharper in its angles and seemed to be a lab of some form. Ursa looked around to see that there were no other pods around his pod. 

He looked around till he heard something beeping at him, glancing over to find himself staring at what looked like a robot straight from a sci-fi book. Its main body was a sphere with a light in the center, possibly acting as the eye of the robot. The robot had 3 limbs it was on top of, looking to Ursa almost like a spider of some form. 

It beeped at him, almost like it was talking in a language that Ursa didn’t recognize in the slightest. When Ursa didn’t respond, it tried again, adjusting its speech pattern, “Yuu-ri-sah?”

“Are you trying to say my name? My name is Ursa. Ur-sa,” he tried to iterate with a hand to his chest. It felt stiff to move his arms, but he tried his best.

After a long moment, the robot shook, beeping for a second. “Ursa. Ursa. English?”

“Yes! English!” Ursa urgently nodded before looking around the room again. He could see the room was filled with machines and wires, various screens lighting the room. “Where am I? Is this… Is this Spes?”

The robot’s eye blinked as it seemed to try to understand what Ursa was asking before speaking once more, “No. This is not “Spes.” You are aboard the Vortai ship. My designation is LARS. It is an acronym that does not translate in English for you. I own you now.”

Ursa whipped his gaze down to the robot as he tried to understand his situation. “I was…I was on a different ship. How did I get here? What am I doing here?”

“Your ship was found in a wreck site. It is unclear what happened, but we discovered you among the crash site when we were salvaging it,” Lars explained to Ursa, moving across the room on his legs. Ursa watched a robotic arm come out from the top of Lars’s head, pressing a button on one of the computers in the room. 

The screen showed a picture of the Flagship in pieces in space. Ursa’s stomach dropped in horror. There’s no way anyone would’ve survived it. He glanced down at the pod he awoke in, seeing it was covered in dents from the outside.

“Was I the only one you saved?” Ursa questioned in worry, his mind drawing back to his parents. His parents. God, he felt sick thinking of the worst case scenario.

“Indeed. It seems all the other pods you were all stored inside were damaged and broken open. Yours had damage, too, and I had to physically pry your pod open. We found our ship drifting in pieces and we attempted to salvage supplies and items from it. Our salvage team spotted your sleeping chamber and we were able to rescue only you,” Lars explained simply. The screen showed another window, lines of information quickly scanning down the window. “I downloaded what I could salvage from your ship's computer to understand who or what you are. Very rudimentary stuff, if you ask me. I don’t even know how you all got off the ground from your homeworld to begin with.”

Ursa didn’t care about any of that, sinking back into his pod as the weight of understanding was slowly coming down on him. He was nowhere near Spes, his parents were dead, and he was the only one they could find. “What year is it? I fell asleep and… it was 1988. You’ve gotta tell me how long I’ve been asleep for.”

“By what calendar standard? Your home planet? According to your ship’s clock, it is well past that. I think the computer’s clock at the time of the crash stopped at Ju-li 4, 70-56,” Lars answered him.

Ursa realized that this also meant Earth was long gone, probably. Mors would’ve crashed on Earth so long ago. “Where’s… Where’s our stuff? That stuff belonged to us. I need to get my stuff and my parent’s stuff. I gotta… You said you salvaged our stuff, right?”

“We can go to the storage area later. Tell me, could you clarify what your job description was supposed to be on board? Perhaps an engineer or a mechanic? The data is a little corrupted…” Lars tried to move past the grim facts to keep Ursa’s focus.

“U-uh… janitor. I was a janitor…” Ursa got out, “I … I was to help clean the trash. I clean trash up… My mom was gonna be a line cook and my dad was an accountant…” 

“You clean trash? That’s… all you do?” Lars seemed disappointed for a robot, looking down for a moment. “That’s disappointing. We were hoping you’d even be so much as even a teacher to give us clarity about where you’re from or what you are.”

“I’m from Earth. I’m human. I--...” Ursa didn’t know how else to explain it, “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but yeah, I’m just a human. Shit, I’m really not up to play 20 questions with you. Where’s the storage area? I’ll go and get my shit.” He tried to stand from his pod, finding his legs wobbly as he tried to pull himself up and out.

“Woah! Please wait before you move,” Lars quickly moved to intercept Ursa, “You were frozen for a long time. Honestly, we were all really confused why you all chose to freeze yourselves… It caused damage to your joints and made them very stiff.”

“Then give me some crutches. I need to get my stuff and my parent’s stuff,” Ursa insisted, looking down at his pod. He knew in his pod was supposed to be his duffle bag, spotting the compartment underneath was dented. He tried to kneel down, grunting in pain as he knelt down to it.

“Oh, the box underneath the pod. Can you open it? It’s password protected and I had difficulties breaking it open due to the damage done on the outside,” Lars tried to push himself over Ursa’s shoulder.

“Back off,” Ursa shrugged him back, “Yeah, I can open it. I set the password. Why were you trying to open this? It’s my stuff.”

“Well, I own you, so I was seeing what you had,” Lars answered simply.

“You mentioned that earlier and I think you’ve got the wrong idea about this all. I don’t belong to anyone,” Ursa shook his head as he pressed his password into the keypad attached. 1970. It’s his birth year so he was shocked that some fancy little robot couldn’t guess it. He heard the lock inside the compartment make a heavy chunk noise, but the compartment didn’t open right away. He guessed this was where the damage had set in. He used his strength to try to pry the compartment open with his hands, grunting as the metal ground against metal. Lars’s robotic pincers came next to Ursa, helping him pry open the compartment.

When the compartment finally popped open, it was enough force to throw Ursa and Lars back. Though, Ursa saw inside was his original duffle bag from before he fell asleep. He was relieved, grabbing it quickly to open the bag. It seemed mostly undamaged thanks to the fact it was protected in the compartment box. Ursa was able to pull out of the duffle bag his tape deck, a change of clothes he had tossed in his bag, a blanket, and best of all, his good luck charm -- a tiny flocked bear that he had snatched from a craft store. He held it up between his pointer and thumb, taking a look at it. Seems it really was a good luck charm given Ursa’s circumstances.

“Is that all that is? What a load of junk,” Lars was disappointed as he tried to look at Ursa’s stuff.

“Nope, this little bear is why I’m alive right now,” Ursa insisted, “It’s a good luck charm.”

“‘Good luck charm’? What’s that supposed to mean? Is it nuclear or something?” Lars leaned back a bit away from him.

“No, no, it’s an Earth thing. It gives me good luck -- like this little guy made sure nothing bad happened to me. Through luck,” Ursa explained to Lars. When he saw Lars still give him no real response, he tried to think of a different way to explain it. “Like uh… Do you robots got luck? Like uh… Fate? I don’t know how to explain it to you. The force? Like from Star Battles? You might not know that one, actually… uhh… Whatever, it’s not important, actually.” 

“Right, well, looks like junk to me,” Lars shook his body as if he were to shake his head. Lars then moved away from Ursa, heading back towards the computers. “How about for now you try to unstiffen those joints and then you have to go meet Captain Vaughn Belmont since he wants to meet you. After that, you need a second medical assessment -- which is very frustrating since I gave you one already -- because they need to register your species in the database.”

“No, I gotta go to storage and get my family’s stuff.” Ursa pulled out the shirt from his duffle bag. Good old Pizza Rocket t-shirt. “Do you care if I change my clothing here? I’m not going out in this space suit I just wore for the last who knows how long.”

“Well, I do know how long. If I computed the numbers right, it’s been--” Lars tried to correct him, turning to face Ursa before quickly backing away, “Oh! You’re just shedding your skin right now!”

Ursa was unzipping the spacesuit down the middle, trying to peel it off of his body, “No, it’s not my skin. I don’t shed like--These are my clothes. It’s a suit. I know you’re a robot, but you gotta know what clothes are.” He got the suit off to pull on the pizza rocket shirt, tugging it over his head. He grabbed the jeans from his duffle bag next, tugging those on. “Hopefully later I can find maybe a proper space suit. But that space suit was literally just so my body doesn’t get weird in space. I don’t like it very much.”

“Alright, well, you’re a weird little human creature. Again, you have to go to the captain soon and--” Lars tried to insist this further till Ursa cut him off.

“I’m going to storage. You’re going to show me where that’s at, right? You’re responsible for me or whatever, right?” Ursa rolled his eyes as he slung his duffle bag around his shoulders, “Where’s storage? I’m going to just wander around till I find it, so you ought to just show me.”

“What?! Look, look, you don’t even--” Lars quickly moved to get in front of Ursa again. “Just stop right there!”

Ursa sighed, crossing his arms. “Why should I meet your captain first? I need my parent’s stuff. Even better if there was a proper space suit among all the stuff you guys stole from our ship.”

“It’s not stolen! It’s salvaged! Very different terms, you know,” Lars tried to correct him, only for Ursa to roll his eyes at that. “Captain Vaughn was very serious about demanding to meet you as soon as you woke up. So we’ll go there first, then the medical staff wants to make sure you’re not sick and you get registered in the database, and then we’ll go to storage. Deal?”

“Fine. Deal,” Ursa pinched the bridge of his nose, “But I’m going to be really mad at you if you don’t actually take me to my parent’s stuff.”

“Good! First, let me get you a translator equipment. It’s standard for all organic beings to use these since us robots just naturally translate what we can. It was very hard to understand your language when I downloaded it from your computer,” Lars moved to one of the shelves of machines on the wall. He plucked up what looked like an ear piece and collar with a robotic arm, moving back to Ursa to hand it to him, “This will help you understand. Though, you’re on your own for reading.”

Ursa pictured it being like one of the fancy devices he saw on Star-Voyages. He placed the earpiece in and put the collar around his neck. “Like this?”

“Correct. Now, hit the button on the earpiece and the collar at the same time. This will allow them to sync to each other. Language will automatically translate into your ear to what you will understand as well as your own words being automatically translated through the small speaker on your collar. I can tell you now no one speaks English,” Lars chuckled a little as he explained it, “You know, it’s such a primal language, English. It’s very rudimentary. Nothing like what we currently have. Everyone generally speaks Vorcilla.”

“Mhm,” Ursa was vaguely paying attention as he got to turning the device on. He wasn’t too sure how it all worked, but figured this was just alien tech that he’d have to get used to. He wasn’t sure how he was going to get used to alien tech, but he figured this was at least convenient. Once it was on, he tried to test it by speaking, curious of how it sounded. 

“Hello? Does it work?” His voice sounded grainy through the speaker, giving him a small headache as he spoke. He didn’t hear himself speak alien, just hearing it come back to him in English. He wondered if maybe that was the catch of the ear piece. Translated his alien speech just right back into English?

Lars shook for a second, blinking as he did when he first met Ursa. “Yes! I am currently speaking to you in Vorcilla and you are also speaking Vorcilla. So it works. But it probably doesn’t sound like it to you because the device is translating rapidly.”

“Cool, ok, then,” Ursa shrugged, “I guess it’s time to go meet Captain Vaugn then, right?”

“Right! Yes. Ok, heads up, the other crew members may say some silly things, but just ignore all that. They just don’t get opportunities like this to meet rare and near extinct species like yourself!” Lars explained with a quick nod of his sphere.

“Mn, is this more about me or you? Because I have a feeling you’re quite the popular guy, huh?” Ursa suspected as he made sure his duffle bag was on his shoulders right before moving to follow Lars.

“What does that mean? Of course I’m popular! I’m plenty popular,” Lars insisted as he opened the sliding doors of the room. “Just shut it and let's go!”

#writing #science fiction #scifi #sci fi #sci fi novels #original content #original story #space

[ursamajorstory]

The End of Earth

[This is the beginning] - [Part 2]

Word count: 1531

--

Earth was destroyed by Mors. The Earth year was 1999. The explosion was recorded for all of those across the galaxy to see. According to the Earth calendar, Earth’s death date was that of December 25th. This became the day of mourning to many who watched. According to the records of those who had to stay behind on Earth, the death toll was around 3 billion.

Those who were left behind had many backgrounds of problems. Their health issues wouldn’t be compatible with the jostling of traveling in space. Perhaps financially they couldn’t afford to buy a boarding pass. They probably couldn’t afford the health insurance that some countries were enforcing on their citizens if they boarded the ships to space. Maybe their country had no funds to send others to space due to larger, greedier countries sapping all resources necessary. Third world countries had tried to work together against 1st world countries, sending many of their women and children off to space. There were plenty of crisis organizations that banded together to throw out costs to send as many people off the planet as possible. Some countries were requiring all humans boarding to pay off Earthly debts, crippling the wallets of those who were far too in debt. 

But perhaps some humans stayed simply out of fear. Fear of the unknown in space. Fear after watching so many humans die in the efforts to jump away from Earth. Perhaps some humans stayed due to age. Some countries were cutting off the ages to send to space at 85 due to limited resources. Other humans stayed simply because they couldn’t imagine leaving behind what their entire family line had created for them. Perhaps the graves of loved ones were on Earth and they couldn’t dare depart from them. A few humans simply decided that religiously, they should not leave the world that their God had created for them, deciding that if Mors was to kill them by God, then so be it. 

The USA was the first country to decide that non-violent felons would be boarded onto prison ships. Meanwhile, those who had life sentences were sentenced to stay on Earth. Though, this came into question the moral ethics of purposely leaving humans behind. Talk show hosts battled it out on television in 1989 about whether this was acceptable or not. After that, it was widely protested to release non-violent felons from prison to settle what they could before Mors crashed down onto them. Europe had decided those who committed crimes would be boarded onto prison ships to be listed into two categories: labor on new colonies to pay off debts, or be test subjects for scientists to try different types of freezing. 

The world was at odds about how to decide who gets to go and who gets to stay. What right did humanity have when they were formally so divided? Were countries about to go to different planets and spread their country onto an entire planet? The European Union decided to go to the same destination, deciding that they were stronger as a union rather than individual countries. Eastern Asia countries had a similar mentality, banding together to figure out the best destination and work treaties out to decide what resources of land would go to who. 

But it was the USA that caused a serious question. How much land does one country deserve on their destination? Most countries were looking to the prime candidate of Spes. It was rich with lush greens and plenty of water. But the formation of the planet wasn’t clean cut lines like Earth has had established for the past few decades. The USA realized quickly one major goal: get to Spes first and claim as much land for themselves as possible before the other countries got there. The USA had sent their militia as quickly as possible to space, sending them out in droves to forcibly claim land the moment they all arrived. 

Some countries were looking to Mars. It was the most economically sound choice. Countries that didn’t have fancy technology to send humans lightyears away settled for Mars and attempted to keep peace just long enough to get boots on Mars. Though, there were no clear cut plans about who gets what land. Mars didn’t have oceans of water separating the land to make easy borders. It was similar to the Moon, making it miles upon miles of nothing but land till a river or ice caps that used to be oceans would be seen. 

Mars became that of a more “Wild West” planet swiftly once humans settled upon it. The first humans landed in the Earth year of 1996 featuring plenty of intelligent scientists who worked as hard and as quickly as possible to prepare Mars for humanity. But, because the laws of Mars were murky when humans arrived, many humans decided to become nomads across the land of Mars till a group of humans could come together to make villages and homes to establish a new way of life. Those on Mars had a single consensus: Earth was not Mars. Countries of Earth were not countries of Mars. As Martians, they would create new countries and new civilizations. 

Meanwhile on Earth, humans were swiftly registering to have their dual citizenship for multiple countries to be allowed to board with any ship they could to get off of Earth. As 1999 crept closer, the more desperate humans were. In 1997, humans decided that any planet would be satisfactory as long as it had enough water to sustain humans. Humans were willing to adapt for a planet, not the other way around. Humanity did everything in their power to flee in mass flocks. The night sky in late 1998 would feature the large Mors above them with the Moon beside it. Around the two, the night would be littered with satellites and ships lighting sprinkling the darkness with lights. 

It was fairly common for families on Earth to watch ships take off. Parties would be hosted featuring humans joining together to celebrate the end times. They’d gather at launch sites to send their farewell to other humans. There was a boom in humans dedicating time to collecting as many Earthly memories as possible. Vacation spots boomed with travel in 1998 to get their last Didney trip they could before the end. The art world boomed with humans attempting to depict the looming threat of the end coming near. 

On New Year's Eve in 1998, the parties were booming with humans desperate to enjoy the last bit of Earth they knew they had. Mors loomed over the parties and fireworks, staring humanity in the eyes. It was fairly common for college students to rush as much as possible their final degrees they could in the spring semester of 1999. The writing was on the wall to leave to die from Mors. 

Many humans decided to pull their children from school to focus purely on studying space and their future planetary homes. Many humans decided to simply not have children in the year of 1999, realizing that infants in space travel had a very low survival rate in space. There was a mass boom in both religion and atheism. Many humans called to God for help, begging God to bless their safe travels. Many humans decided that God wouldn’t truly do this to humanity, questioning why a God would create such a grim end to the world. Others decided simply that science was just far too past religion at this rate. 

In the summer of 1999, those who were gone were long gone. Those who were still there barely were holding together. By July of 1999, many world leaders were gone. The UN left behind computers to communicate to those on Earth still. Though, humanity could only bitterly laugh as the spaceship that held the President of the USA exploded into a fiery death on television. The humans of Earth by September of 1999 had begun to realize that their best bets were to band together and take care of their own. Eventually power went out in many places. By October, humans had decided to focus more on families and care than the menial jobs of the world. Many cities were reduced down to humans willing to focus on food and shelter instead of selling the latest bath scrubber. 

In November of 1999, Mors was close enough and large enough to Earth to drastically affect weather conditions. Humanity huddled together in abandoned buildings to sing quiet songs about the old days. 3 billion humans were still on Earth. 3 billion humans hugged each other, fed each other, sang together, and held each other as it felt like any day Mors would crash down. And in December of 1999, humanity decided to spend the entire month celebrating humanity. Celebrating the lives they lived. Celebrating what was left of humanity. Large week long binges of partying would take over entire cities and states. Fairs were quickly assembled for those who were left to band together one last time. On the Christmas of 1999, humanity stared into the sky as Mors would crash down onto them.

#writing #science fiction #sci fi #sci fi novels #scifi #dystopia #original content #original story

[ursamajorstory]

About

This is a blog dedicated to posting writings and content dedicated to my story, Ursa Major.

Ursa Major follows the story of the last human in the galaxy, thousands of years after Earth's destruction of 1999. Ursa Major was frozen to time as he rode through space with dozens of other humans who were all traveling across the galaxy to a planet they hope to colonize. However, unfortunately due to being unable to anticipate the worst, his ship crashes midway in the journey, destroying the pods of all the other frozen humans except for himself. Fortunately, his pod is saved and he is unfrozen by a robot named LARS. Ursa Major now must navigate a galaxy filled with other aliens as the last human in the galaxy.

Ursa Major is rated Mature due to dark themes such as:

Manipulation

Violence

Horror

This content also features themes of surreal horror, body horror, and existentialism. I would not recommend young children to read the deeper the story goes. I will not be toning down content other than to abide by Tumblr's TOS.

However, there may be uncensored content in the future on other platforms if this project yields eventually opening a Patreon dedicated to the story. For now, however, this is just my personal fun project.

The Beginning

#about