Atlantis

Atlantis
Jeff Pollard
Prologue

The object was detected quickly by the deep search radar. The waves of electromagnetic energy plunged into the darkness at the speed of light, and when they struck an object, a few of the waves would return to the source. The meteoroid was betrayed by its metallic rock crust, which became a glowing beacon on the large flat panel display. In a few seconds, the computers had enough data to plot velocity and trajectory of the as of yet unidentified object. Seconds later, the computer displayed a red warning sign on the screen in front of a controller, deep inside Cheyenne Mountain, this place, built to wage nuclear war, is relegated to overseeing the airspace of North America and observing space operations. UN-4876-H09 had just entered the realm of NORAD, and was summarily tagged and its trajectory for the immediate future extrapolated. The Master Warning was illuminated because the trajectory intersected with that of the International Space Station. Computers automatically flexed the NORAD workload around to expend more processor power on more conclusively determining the exact path of UN-4876-H09. Before the computers could offer a definite answer, NORAD notified NASA of the situation. A message was then sent up to the three astronauts aboard the ISS. The three spacefarers, dressed in blue flight-suits, not pressure suits, sealed off all the separate compartments of the ISS, then packed inside the Soyuz Capsule consigned to the role of lifeboat. They waited inside the cabin of the decade-old Russian spacecraft. They expected to get an all-clear from NASA at any moment. Back at NORAD, the big screen in the main control room displayed the now finalized trajectories of the two space-bound objects. They intersected nearly perfectly. Normally, in a close call of this sort, the astronauts would wait it out in the lifeboat. Since every compartment was separately sealed, even a strike against a few of them could not cause a total failure of the structure. However, this object was sufficiently large, and on such a trajectory that keeping the astronauts anywhere near the ISS was a hazard. The contingencies were clear and concise. They make these plans so that decisions don’t have to be made under pressure. They had parameters, and this situation fell under one set of parameters. The order was given, and the ISS commander flipped open the plastic cover, and pressed the red button, sending them home. The computer running the Soyuz capsule would take care of the rest. The meteoroid was less than a minute away, and the docking collar was released. Small Nitrogen thrusters propelled the craft away. The thrusters, angled at all manner of directions, oriented the capsule for re-entry. Orbiting at nearly nineteen thousand miles per hour, the rocket motor is pointed forward, in the direction they are moving. The object is closing on the station and the capsule, controllers on the ground watch the screens with increased tension. The rocket fires and the astronauts are jolted into their seats. The capsule accelerates away from the station. Strapped down into their seats, they cannot look to see if the multi-billion dollar project was about to become a billion pieces of deadly space debris. The meteoroid tumbled slowly as it closed in on the ISS, slowly growing in the distance. The two objects intersected as controllers watched their screens. They didn’t have a visual image, but a radar image. The first sign of impact would be a violent plume of radar return, millions of pieces and parts suddenly exploding into space. They watched and waited. The object came upon the station with an approximate closing speed of thirty-thousand miles per hour. A collision would release as much energy as fifty-thousand pounds of high explosives, but the object passed between the crew station and the large solar panel just a few meters outboard of it. It missed, tumbling by the station and it would complete another half orbit of the earth before escaping back out into the solar plane. Controllers breathed a sigh of relief, but the news didn’t come to the astronauts aboard the Soyuz. They had already made the de-orbit burn, slowing the craft down from orbital velocity, to one that would have them falling back to earth. When they hit the upper atmosphere, they would run into sporadic air molecules at high-velocity. As the air thickens, the craft is engulfed in flame and ionized gas, eliminating all chance of radio signals entering or escaping the craft. At the appropriate altitude a large parachute deploys, and prepares them for a hopefully soft landing somewhere in Europe. They couldn’t plan for the location of an emergency landing, and thus the controllers were scrambling to get helicopters to the landing site. Although it was technically a false alarm, the ISS was now uninhabited.

Ascension
The near loss of the International Space Station and dramatic evacuation of three astronauts became a quick news story, just a mention on the national news. After a few days, few would remember or care about the incident. But for seven people it was a very big news story. Another NASA contingency was set into motion by parameters and not present decision making. A new shuttle mission was needed to ferry three astronauts back up to the ISS, and that mission had to be put at the top of the schedule. The lucky seven were the crew for STS-126, originally scheduled for July 2010, they were now bumped up to October 2009, just five weeks after the near-miss, and re-designated STS-124. It was to be only the eleventh shuttle flight since the loss of Columbia in the skies over Texas in January ’03. They were also bumped from Space Shuttle Endeavour to Space Shuttle Atlantis, as the orbiters stayed in a constant service rotation. All seven astronauts received the news the day after they nearly lost the station, and their training cycle was hastened from nine months to five weeks. Though it may sound like a recipe for disaster, the seven people were very talented and well trained.

Seven people, four women, three men, prepared for a trip to the stars. Mission Commander Julia Young, thirty-one, the second youngest Space Shuttle Mission Commander, married with no children. ISS Commander Jason Harrison, he would take command of the Station, but was technically just a mission specialist on STS-124, thirty-seven, married with a daughter. They were the leaders of the crew, both pilots by trade, by-the-book, methodical, exacting, compared to the other astronauts, a group known for just those traits. Daniel Gill, Co-pilot on STS-124, oldest crew member at forty-six, father of three, only non-white crew member, African-American. Micah Lawrence, youngest crew member, twenty-eight, single, bound for the ISS, astro-physicist/mathemetician. Abigail Norman, thirty-one, single, also bound for ISS, geologist. It was no coincidence that the single astronauts were chosen to spend several months isolated in space, they tend to hold up better than those that are married and/or parents. Ezra Thomas, twenty-nine, bio-chemist, Mission Specialist, married, mother of four. And finally, Hannah Torres, thirty-four, cartographer, married. That was the crew of STS-124, four scientists, three pilots, a combined eight PhD’s, four of those held by Micah Lawrence alone. They had little time for their families, spending that last five weeks on intense training, attempting to condense the months planned into a few weeks. Many of them had been up before, and this was just business as usual for an American astronaut.

And so it was that OV-104, Space Shuttle Atlantis, was pushed out to launch pad by a giant crawler, which takes nearly a full day. The Shuttle is hooked up to the pad, and to mission control through large bundles of wires connecting all kinds of instrumentation. Then the External Tank, painted orange, would be filled with liquid Oxygen and liquid Hydrogen in separate compartments. To keep the fuel in a liquid state, the tank must be kept at sub-zero temperatures. The External Tank is covered in several inches of insulating foam to maintain the proper temperature. This foam was the cause of the death of OV-102, Columbia. During lift-off, a piece of foam broke off and struck the leading edge of the left wing. More than two weeks later, during re-entry, the damage allowed the super-heated gases of re-entry to tear open the left wing and enter the internal wing, melting the titanium structure. The wing buckled and the orbiter went into a spin at several thousand miles per hour, breaking up in a fiery show that spread parts over five states. The astronauts are boarded onto the vertically oriented vehicle several hours prior to lift-off. The twin solid rocket boosters, or SRBs, provide the main thrust to the shuttle. Together, they weigh 2.6 million pounds at lift-off, and provide 6.6 million pounds of thrust. The astronauts are strapped in, technicians seal the orbiter, and the connections are removed. Before they can launch, a multitude of technicians must all give a “go” status. Many parameters determine if the shuttle will be launched, like weather for example. At T-Minus 30 seconds, the two igniters light up, showering the area beneath the shuttle’s three main engines in sparks. T-Minus 6.6 seconds, the three main engines ignite. Contingent on a good main engine startup, at T-Minus 0, the two SRBs are electronically ignited. Solid rocket boosters cannot be throttled or turned off, they will burn until they expend all of their fuel. The sudden thrust of rocket exhaust blows two huge plumes of smoke out the sides of the concrete ducts on either side of the orbiter. As the SRBs ignite, the Shuttle lifts off the ground and the four and half million pounds are thrusted into the sky by three of the most powerful liquid fuel rockets ever made and two of the largest solid rockets ever flown. It is just before noon, and the shuttle rises in the sky, leaving a white plume of exhaust in its wake. Some family members are present at the launch pad, and all who witness such a launch will never forget it. For the astronauts, it’s not much more than a bumpy ride. They don’t experience more than a few Gs, something you can feel on a roller coaster for a short period of time. The shuttle is essentially on auto-pilot. Twenty seconds after lift-off, the shuttle rolls 180 degrees and pitches back 12 degrees, angling to the east. The Shuttle burns its SRBs for two minutes before they run out of fuel and fall away from the shuttle. The Shuttle will still be powered by the three main engines, running on the fuel from the External tank. It will be another six minutes and forty seconds before the main engines are cut off, and the external tank is jettisoned. In less than nine minutes STS-124 has gone from sitting on the pad in Florida, to traveling nearly nine times the velocity of a rifle bullet over the eastern Atlantic. It truly is a marvel of engineering. The seven astronauts un-strap from their seats, and change out of their blue or orange pressure suits.
“You just have to be in awe of it,” Micah Lawrence muses to nobody in particular.
“Yeah, it’s pretty cool,” Ezra Thomas replies.
“Pretty cool?” Micah doubts her understanding of the ride they have just taken. “You realize, the fuel for the main engines is stored at negative 423 degrees Fahrenheit, and is expelled from the rocket at 6,000 degrees. That’s twice the melting point of steel. And it can operate at any pressure, between sea level and a vacuum. You show me another machine that handles such extremes.”
“I said it’s pretty cool!” Ezra replied, a little too euphoric about the experience to actually be mad at Micah for snapping at her. They ventured to the various windows in the cabin, except for Julia and Daniel, pilot and co-pilot. They still had to perform an OMS burn to place the shuttle into a stable orbit. Then they turn the shuttle around, and Atlantis orbits upside down and backwards, and the cargo bay doors are opened.
“Look at that…” Abigail Norman nearly whispered, looking down on the Western Pacific at dawn. It is quite a sight for anyone, but especially for a geologist. The sightseeing took their first moments of amazement, but then the zero-gravity environment became the next wonder. Although all astronauts experience zero-gravity in the “vomit-comet” prior to space flight, it is still an amazing, if not stomach turning feeling. They had a few minutes to get settled in. They get to work, pilot/co-pilot getting the shuttle ready to dock with the unmanned ISS, an event that won’t happen for two days because of the nature of their orbits, while the other five astronauts begin work on various zero-gravity experiments. The families, spouses, parents, children, and other relatives of the lucky seven are all going back to their lives. It’s T-Plus 2 Hours.

Inferno
The man awoke and said a prayer, not a quick prayer, not today. Though he hadn’t been the perfect follower of his faith, he believed he would find himself in paradise when he died. He slowly, carefully, strapped on his vest, it was quite heavy, but he could handle the weight, and the bulk was built out roundly so as not to bulge in any one area. The only discomfort came from the unusual way his armpits came down on the rough fabric. He dressed for the cold weather, and checked out in the lobby. From there, he walked outside, the stadium just a few blocks away. He walked alone, those few blocks, contemplating the results of today’s football game. He arrived a few minutes before kick-off, and was patted down just like everyone else. Through security, he handed his ticket over; one after another, eighty thousand people filed into the stadium. He pulled the wallet from his pocket and dropped it into a trash can on the way to his seat, after a long, winding march up many stairs. He sat, pretending to watch the game. Heaven awaited, for he was fighting the great Satan. At the pre-determined time, he pulled a ski-mask from his pocket, which didn’t raise suspicion, after-all it was quite cold. He put the ski-mask on, and stood up, then, stepped up onto his seat, rising up above those around him. His hand extracted a ring of keys. What appeared to be a pepper-spray canister was attached to the ring. A few people, those whose view he was obstructing, took notice, wondering what he was doing. He pressed on the red button, and a radio signal was broadcast, traveling from his hand to the vest he was wearing. The vest was made up of a thin layer of high explosives, wrapping tightly around his body, and outside of this was a layer of metal strips, thin plates of iron, enough to be noticeable weight, but the outer layer of the vest was made of a fleshy padding that concealed the layers below. The radio signal was received by a small chip sewn into the lining of the vest. The chip sent an electrical impulse, traveling down the many thin copper wires in the lining beneath the explosives. The many small detonators exploded nearly simultaneously. As the high explosive is detonated, it turns chemical energy, energy of bonds, into heat and gas. The gases expand rapidly and heat up everything in the near vicinity. The metal strips are melted and propelled outwardly at high speeds. A ten-foot diameter area is nearly gone half a second after detonation, and the metal fragments travel outward, killing and maiming many more. Though he had never met them, he had hoped that all twelve men, trained in the same way, equipped with the same device, would all meet in paradise at the exact same time. Twelve strategic places in the crowd were to be turned into bloody craters. One of the twelve bombs failed to explode, and the man who was unfortunate enough to not blow himself up was quickly seized and knocked unconscious. A minute after the coordinated attack, five hundred people lay dead, another two thousand seriously wounded. Television broadcasts were interrupted worldwide, and soon everyone knew of the horror.

The news filtered all the way to the crew of STS-124. The cabin was extremely quiet, just the low hum of the ECS, Environmental Control Systems.
“Oh my god…” Daniel Gill, co-pilot, said, as they all floated in the mid-deck.
“That’s…that’s just unimaginable,” Ezra Thomas was stunned.
“Well, five hundred…really not that bad, I mean, if I were a terrorist, I would have flown a plane into a football stadium instead of a building. Or maybe a NASCAR race, they have 200,000 people some places,” Micah said calmly. The other crew members glared at him. “Just sayin’, it could be a lot worse.”
“Tell that to the mothers who lost their kids,” Hannah Torres protested to Micah.
“Well, how about you imagine a hundred thousand dead instead of five hundred, then come back and tell me this is a big deal,” Micah said.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Ezra demanded.
“Let’s just shut-up for a while, alright,” Commander Julia Young ordered. Although this is a civilian operation, the Commander is still in charge. The cabin goes back to near silence again, as most of the seven stare aimlessly down at the darkened earth below them.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t sit here and mourn five hundred people I don’t know…” Micah started again, to the obvious dismay of those around him, “thousands are murdered in the U.S. alone every year and we don’t mourn them.”
“God damn-it, would you just shut up Micah.” Jason Harrison tried to take control of the situation. Though it was saddening, none of the astronauts were personally affected by the tragedy, at least, not that they knew about. They went back to their duties, some experiments, and some exercise, to maintain bone strength and integrity. Though the first few hours of the mission had gone very well, the news had brought them all down quite a bit, but they had no idea what they were in for next.

A radar wave ventured out through space. It struck a large object, and bounced off, reflecting its energy in a different direction. At this distance, the radar return isn’t powerful enough for there to be a return displayed. The object was closing though, and soon, it was close enough, coming out of space, to show up on the scopes of NORAD. Computer tracking tagged it UN-5819-J09, and on the next return, it had two locations at two times, and with that information, the computer calculates, velocity, trajectory, and with every new bit of information, recalculates. It takes just a few seconds for The Master Warning to pop up on the screen of every controller in NORAD. “Get him on the line now,” The active duty commander said, and General Lodge, head of US Space Command was quickly brought into the room.
“It could be a third-stage, possible MIRV.” A controller said to the general.
“What about KH-12, did we get a launch plume?” General Lodge asked, the appropriate controller responded.
“No sir, nothing from the thermal imaging, if it’s an ICBM, we didn’t see it launch. Running diagnostics.” The controller said, not waiting for the order to do so, knowing it was procedure.
“What’s the target?” General asks. “Get me the President,” He said to his aide.
“Looking at India,” Another controller said.
“Where the hell did it come from?” The active duty commander asked.
“Possibly Russia, China, North Korea…, but the trajectory isn’t right, short range, you wouldn’t launch it to that altitude.”
“Time to impact?” Lodge asked.
“Less than a minute,” A controller said. Then looked carefully at the screen. “Forty seconds.”

Atlantis was coming around, putting the United States in view for the first time since the news broke. The seven astronauts all watched the United States float by beneath them, in a vain attempt to discern a difference in the country from an altitude of six hundred kilometers. It looked as beautiful and tranquil as ever. They all found the city with their eyes, wondering what was happening on the ground.

UN-5819-J09 was classified wrongly by the computers at NORAD, and the computers quickly corrected their own errors once the object began entering the Earth’s atmosphere. UN-5819-J09 is in fact an asteroid, and its surface consisted of an alloy that was not known, but it absorbed much of the radar energy. The object was actually much greater in size than first thought. As it entered the atmosphere over the Asian continent, its true size was seen. Roughly forty miles across, and made of a dense mix of heavy metals, UN-5819-J09 was traveling at forty-one kilometers per second. Impacting harshly with the air molecules, it created a giant fireball that engulfed the entire object. The atmosphere of Earth is only one-hundred-twenty kilometers deep, at that speed and angle, it would take UN-5819-J09 only fifteen seconds from first encountering the atmosphere to striking the surface of the earth. NORAD’s radar data is automatically sent to NASA Houston, and from there to the Shuttle and ISS.

A specific tone sounded in the cabin, “We lost up-link,” Mission Commander Julia Young said, knowing every different tone that OV-104 could throw at her, as she quickly glided herself up to the flight deck and the “glass cockpit.” Co-pilot Daniel Gill arrived just after her, sitting in the right hand seat.
“We lost Houston. Check COMMs,” She ordered. The two of them ran through diagnostics, checking every piece of communication gear they could. “Houston, this is Atlantis….Houston, Atlantis…” Commander Young repeated over and over, checking every switch and dial, trying back-up after back-up.
The five crew members still in the mid-deck looked out the window morosely, not worrying about a minor glitch that the pilots were attending to. “What’s that?” Hannah Torres asked, pointing to the Western Horizon, somewhere between Hawaii and the western coast of the United States. They could see something.
“Looks like a shockwave,” Micah Lawrence said quietly, looking carefully. The Western Horizon, usually a blue line that melted into the blackness of space, became blood red, and blackness started to cover the land, moving eastward quickly.
“What the hell is that?” Abigail asked. All five looked on in wonder. They watched the white line moving toward the United States, and hit the Coast, moving inland at the same speed. The area behind the line turned yellow and red, followed by blackness. The fiery yellows and reds swirled with the black smoke and white vapor, boiling a stew of death.
“You guys better come look at this!” Jason Harrison yelled to the flight deck.
T-Plus 3 Hours 27 Min

“Death
And so it was, that on the Seventh Day, God unleashed the Heavens on the Earth. The sky fell, and sinners were judged. The good went to the paradise and the evil to the lake of fire. The earth was again barren, dead. God made it so. Man attempted to escape God’s wrath, by placing seven of his sons and daughters in the heavens. The raining fire and death could not touch the Saved Seven. None foresaw the end of days. The world stopped, and became black. The Saved Seven perched from the heavens, looked down upon the once blue orb, and saw Satan staring back at them. Black clouds and fire swirled in the skies of the dead Earth, and evil ruled her again. God did not judge the Saved Seven. God did not talk to those perched in the heavens. He left them to wait. And so they waited, watching the evil demons rule their home from which they were exiled.”

Apocalypse
T-Plus 1 Day 19 Hours. “Is anyone alive down there?” Hannah Torres asked the window. Only Ezra wasn’t looking out the window, the only mother of the crew.
“I hope so,” Daniel Gill said in almost a whisper.
“I doubt it,” Micah Lawrence said calmly. “I looked at the data, I don’t think so.” They had found the data from NORAD about UN-5819-J09, and Micah had analyzed it. “At that speed, that angle, the size of it…and the density number it says, which is extremely high, but it is probably accurate…and it hit a mountain range, that is the worst combination possible basically.”
“Why does it matter now?” Hannah asked.
“I’m just saying. With those numbers, velocity and density etc. We are talking about an impact an order of magnitude beyond anything we have ever seen before.”
“I don’t know, I mean, how can that kill EVERYONE?” Daniel asked.
“Okay. You have the fireball, from the impact, like a nuclear bomb detonating, it is so hot that it radiates heat, it’s like being too close to the sun. I would say that anything that had line of sight to the fireball as it rose from the impact, was probably burned beyond recognition. Then there is the seismic effects. Probably at least a magnitude 15 earthquake on that entire hemisphere. That’s about a million times more intense than any earthquake in recorded history. Probably a magnitude 12, or 13 on the far hemisphere. Then you have tsunami’s on every coast, even on lakes, from that big of an earthquake. The pressure wave, the expansion of gas, that’s moving at three or four times the speed of sound, an overpressure of five or six atmospheres, and it won’t get weaker as it expands, it’ll actually be strongest at the exact opposite point on the globe. The overpressure will easily burst everyone’s ear drums, knock down skyscrapers, and that hits after the earthquake, which might be going on continuously. It’ll probably make a crater about a 1000 kilometers wide, put so much ash and dust and smoke in the air that it’ll choke anyone, you wont even be able to run a car. The ejecta will be falling everywhere, rocks, debris of all kinds…people, at extreme temperatures, will be raining everywhere. Every volcano on the planet is probably erupting, of course that’s just my theory, we don’t exactly have a lot of examples to study. That’s just the direct effects. Then you have all the pollutants, gas lines, chemical plants, explosions everywhere, leaks everywhere. I’m sure some, if not most, nuclear plants just went Chernobyl, so you have fallout most places. So if the hundred mile wide fireball doesn’t burn you alive from thousands of miles away, and the giant shockwave doesn’t blow you away and blow your eardrums out, or drop a building on you, and the largest earthquake in history doesn’t affect you, and you aren’t hit by that molten rock that is falling out of the sky and you are lucky enough to not be near a chemical or nuclear plant, and you aren’t near a coastline to be hit by a tsunami, or a volcano, and you can learn to breath sulfuric acid and carbon monoxide, and adapt to a twenty degree increase in temperature and no sunlight, then yeah maybe you could survive.” Micah finished his monologue of death and destruction. “What about an airplane?” Hannah asked.
“Blown out of the sky by the shockwave, or if they have line of sight to the fireball, they melt or explode.”
“Submarine?” Jason asked.
“Submarine is tricky, we don’t know all that much about what would happen underwater, however, the shockwave would travel through the water just as it did in the air, actually it would go faster, and I think anyone in a submarine would definitely be jolted pretty good, and probably thrown on shore if they are anywhere near a land mass…giant tsunamis and all. And even if you survive that, the ship is probably damaged, and who knows what kind of sea conditions there are right now, I think submarine is probably the best possibility for survivors, but I’ll say it’s still not all that likely.” Micah Lawrence spouted off more analysis of the situation.

T-Plus 2 Days 5 Hours. Daniel Gill and Commander Young were quietly conferring on the flight deck. “I don’t know that there is a more stressful situation out there. I think we need to stay busy, do the experiments, keep exercising, keep our minds occupied.”
“I don’t know what else there is to do,” Commander Young whispered quietly.
“We need to keep an eye on Thomas, she might be losing it,” Gill said sternly, referring to Ezra Thomas, who presumably lost all four of her children.
“Keep everyone busy,” Julia young said in agreement. “Okay, now let’s not foul up the docking.”

Atlantis was coming up slowly on the International Space Station, a name which now seemed inappropriate to the crew, how can it be international if there weren’t any nations left? Pilot and Co-pilot handled the docking from the cockpit. As the last few minutes passed, the rest of the crew stopped what they were doing to monitor the docking. The hatch was pulled away, and the seven astronauts floated up the tunnel into the empty ISS. It was a somber atmosphere in the ISS. The previous occupants had dropped what they were doing and evacuated, leaving behind personal belongings, and work was sitting out, in progress. It was like they had vanished into thin air. The crew went through their procedures, moving their personal belongings into the crew compartment, moving the supplies into the ISS, putting the modular experiments into place in the ISS lab. Ezra Thomas found her way into the Cupola, a viewing area designed for operating the external robotic arm, which served now as a large viewing area looking down on the black Earth.

T-Plus 3 Days 9 Hours
“We called this meeting to tell you that we need to stay busy, we don’t know what’s going on down there, but we need to keep ourselves occupied,” Commander Young said to the rest of the crew, they were all in the Unity Node, a central piece of the station that serves as an anchor for six components. It constitutes the largest open space in the entire ISS.
“I think we need to have pressure suits on all the time, and we need to keep compartments sealed as much as possible,” Micah Lawrence said, nearly taking control of the meeting.
“Why?” They all wondered visually.
“Look, we are all that is left of humanity, we don’t even have NORAD to tell us if we have a meteorite or space debris headed our way, and with that impact, surely there is rocks and debris up in space now, we take a hit and de-pressurize…that’s it for humanity, we need to think about survival in everything that we do.”
“But we want to re-iterate, that we need to keep ourselves busy, keep exercising.” Daniel Gill said, trying to return to the speech he and Commander Young had come up with.
“Actually, I think we need to nix the exercise, we need to stretch out the oxygen as much as possible, we need to just sit and wait as long as possible before going back down there,” Micah again interrupted.
“You really think they’re all dead?” Abigail Norman asked.
“Yeah,” Micah said matter-of-factly.
“Oh come on, you don’t know that, you’re just guessing, you can’t tell us you know that, or that we can draw those conclusions,” Hannah Torres argued.
“I bet you a billion dollars that we are all that is left of humanity,” Micah said. “I don’t think my children are dead, I still have hope,” Ezra Thomas said quietly.
“Hey, you guys can be fucking delusional all you want, I’m telling you, they are dead, they are all dead.” Micah said forcefully. Ezra started to break down, turning away from the others.
“Get out of here,” Jason Harrison, ISS Commander, said, pulling himself and Micah off into the Zarya Control Module. “You need to be more careful, she lost her kids, her husband, I lost my daughter, my wife, just keep these things to yourself.”
“Hey, no offense, but I’m not talking about fucking psychological problems, I’m talking about the survival of our species. We all need to move the fuck on, and do it now, because if we sit up here waiting for a radio signal, for the clouds to clear, we will all go nuts. We have to start thinking about staying alive, not our families, this is the family, this is it, right here.”

“He’s just…” Commander Young tried to comfort Ezra Thomas, “He’s talking on scientific levels, and you are thinking about hope. I think we should find a healthy balance, I don’t think we can assume everyone is gone, but we shouldn’t be hoping too much.”
“My kids are alive, I know it,” Ezra Thomas said to Commander Young. “When we go back, we will be re-united.”
“No, you won’t,” Micah Lawrence said, coming back into the Unity Module from the Zarya. “We have to move on, and start doing it right now. We need to be thankful for the lack of gender discrimination in NASA, because things would be much worse if we were a group of seven guys, I’ll tell you that right now. We will stay up here, conserve everything as much as possible, try not to die, and in a couple months, a year, whenever we run out of supplies, we go back down, and we have to start over.”

“Revelation
And so they saw, Earth was dead, and Man was gone from her. The Seven Saved saw their fate. They were the last scions of mankind. They must survive. They must return to Earth when she is ready, and once again life will thrive on the scarred planet. God would let them return, to begin again, a fresh start for the world. But for now, they circled the earth, waiting patiently for her to be fertile again, and ready for their return. She was black as night, and they waited for the ash and fire to clear, before they could see the land. They had to live, live in the heavens, hope god was on their side, hope they could survive, hope they could return, hope they could bring life back to Earth, for they were the Seven Saved, and they were all of humanity.”

Purgatory
T-Plus 16 Days 20 Hours
The crew settled into the routine. They went about their experiments slowly, methodically, it was something to occupy their minds. They rarely slept, and never at the same time. The station was large enough that they tended to isolate themselves. Micah Lawrence and Abigail Norman floated in the Cupola, looking out the large windows out toward Earth. “I didn’t want to say anything, but I was just waiting for an alien invasion, following up on their sneak attack. Of course, they could be waiting still, or on their way.” Abigail laughed a little, about as much humor as the situation could really allow.
“You look at every angle don’t you?”
“Just imagine, in a couple hundred years, some aliens start receiving our TV signals, and they get them for about seventy, eighty years, and then there is five seconds of everyone saying ‘oh shit’ and the signals stop. That might be interesting to watch… If there is a god, we should all be thanking him for NASA, put a man on the moon, now they saved the world, and they weren’t even trying.”
“I don’t know if there is a god now,” Abigail said quietly, both still looking out upon the Earth. “I thought there was, but, I don’t know now.”
“I never thought there was, and this certainly isn’t going to make me believe it. I mean, is there anything in the bible about astronauts saving the world? One thing is for sure…won’t be too many astronauts for a long…long time.”
“Wonder what the family trees in about a hundred years will look like. Arkansas or something.” Abigail joked.
“You know…we could go ahead and get a head start on re-populating,” Micah said, winking at his female companion.
“Yeah no…besides, we don’t know what implication a zero-gravity pregnancy would have on a baby.”
“Yeah I already thought about that…I just wanted to have sex in space. Never been done…unless Neil and Buzz have a few secrets they never told.”

“I think we need to find something productive to do, these…experiments aren’t doing it.” Daniel Gill said to Jason and Julia, a meeting of the unofficial leaders of the group.
“Maybe we should have everyone keep a journal, get their thoughts out of their minds, might be good for us,” Julia Young said.
“I agree, that’s a great idea,” ISS Commander Harrison said.

T-Plus 16 Days 22 Hours
“We called this meeting, for umm…we think everyone should keep a journal, just to, we think it would help us, keep us stable.” Commander Young said, quietly struggling with her words.
“That’s a good idea, but I think we need to take it another step further.” Micah Lawrence jumped in. “We, the seven of us, have knowledge of great depth in many areas, and this knowledge may only live with us right now, I think we need to get everything into writing we possible can; Chemistry, Physics, History, Biology, Medicine, everything we know, we need to put down in writing for future generations. We have the computers, we can download all the data onto Atlantis before we disembark, take it all with us back down.”
“That’s a good idea, we will have to educate the next generation. Hopefully this won’t set us back to the stone age,” Said Hannah Torres.

Hannah Torres : T-Plus 22 Days : November 16th, 2009
I just have to wonder if god exists. My first thought was that there is a god, and we are here for a reason, but now I don’t know, I keep thinking that we are an accident, and we aren’t supposed to live, we should have died, maybe we will die. I don’t know. If we do survive, and start over, I think that god will have helped us through this entire thing for a reason, we were chosen for a reason. I guess I could be comforted with the idea that we are the chosen and we will survive and we will start over on earth, because god is with us. It might be true, it might not.

Abigail Norman: T-Plus 24 Days : November 18th, 2009
It’s my birthday. I didn’t bother to tell anyone. Today was supposed to be the day that Atlantis, along with Julia, Daniel, Ezra, and Hannah, would return to Earth, and leave me Micah and Jason up here. But that obviously isn’t happening. It just sort of dawned on me that the entire future of humanity depends on me and three other women bearing the next generation. A fourth of the population of the world for the rest of history will be my direct descendents. For the guys, it’s a third of the future population. I wasn’t really thinking about that, the re-populating. I guess we will have to pair up, but that will leave one woman without a man, and that’s assuming we can make three viable couples, which I don’t know if that will happen. I guess we have to be like good catholic women, and squeeze out a dozen or so kids, something I am not exactly looking forward to. But what about Ezra, she already had four kids.

Daniel Gill: T-Plus 31 Days : November 23rd, 2009
I hadn’t thought about this until just now…I don’t know why it occurred to me. I am the only black person alive. The future of mankind will be 1/7th black. Of course it’ll be 6/7th’s white. Not sure what to think about any of this. That’s all I have.

Micah Lawrence: T-Plus 32 Days : November 24th, 2009
I am THE smartest man alive. Makes me feel good. Well, still no alien invasion, so that’s good news. And if it wasn’t for Gill, I would have to suggest a KKK conspiracy, but that seems unlikely. One thing I don’t think they have thought about yet, Art. We just lost all art ever. Say all you want about Da Vinci or Monet, I just want to watch Star Wars, but that won’t happen. Maybe we can find some Blu-Ray discs when we get down there. Of course, we won’t really have electricity or Blu-Ray players or TV’s for a while, so that might be a problem. All the literature, the novels, poems, all movies, paintings, music, everything. It’s all gone. All except for the few things we have with us, which doesn’t amount to much. I am pretty down that there aren’t going to be any Super Bowls or World Series or Stanley Cups for a while. Probably a good long while. Or flight for that matter. Imagine if that last flight of human history is us in Atlantis, surviving for a year in space, come down and crash into a mountain and kill us all, that would be quite an ending to humanity. Although I am more worried about re-entry, I didn’t want to bring it up and bring those people down more, but I think this whole event probably did quite a bit to the atmosphere, who knows what kind of changes might have occurred. Anything at all significant, we may not be able to re-enter, or the computer might be thrown off, skip off back into space, or burn up. And with all the ejecta, we may not have a good heat shield. I do have good news though. We only have one religion aboard. We have a few variants of christianity, well protestants, and an atheist, and a few who are contemplating god now, but think about all the conflicts in all of history, now, we don’t have religious conflict. We don’t have ethnicities and social barriers, no class structure, one language, we are united. The future of mankind comes from the DNA of seven really smart individuals. It’s quite a pedigree to come out of any two of these people, but for the entire future, they will be descendants of astronauts, and they don’t let just anybody be an astronaut. A future of intelligence, of education, of unity. It’s rather inspiring I must say. Think of that great future I just described. And think of all of that, millions, thousands, billions… a lot of years of human civilization, wiped out by a two inch rock that happens to hit our heat shield in the year we are up here, and that’s it for humanity.

Ezra Thomas : T-Plus 39 Days : December 1st, 2009
I have taken it upon myself to write a new book of the bible, one that will put this whole thing into the picture of faith and Christianity. I will have to address many things. I guess I shouldn’t write too much until we return, to really tell the story. But I might as well get a head start with all the time we have to kill up here.

And so it went, they slept in the sleeping bags in different quarters, they tried to avoid each other for the most part, just trying to pass the time, not get too upset. The fresh food had run out, they were now on just the packaged food. It wasn’t bad, but it didn’t taste great. No one complained though.

“Purgatory
And so they waited, in the middle place, floating in nothing, between heaven and earth, out of reach of the evils below, but not any closer to god. They just sat there, floating in nothingness, staying alive, keeping sane. Kept alive by machines built by the dead. Alive because of the efforts of thousands of those that had been judged. They were chosen by the dead to represent them, to start over. God had chosen them, they had faith, though some of them hadn’t been fervent believers, not one of them belonged to a wrong faith. The world and the future belonged to them and them alone.”

Destiny
The Destiny module became the home of Micah Lawrence. He just claimed the module, and moved in, locking himself inside, to avoid the others as much as possible. Most of the others did the same, claiming some piece of the station as theirs, Ezra spent a lot of time staring out the window or listening to the static noise of the radio, Micah chose one of the few modules without windows. He had no real time cycle, none of them bothered to look at a clock. Micah usually slept three or four hours for every thirty he was awake. He spent most of that time writing detailed notes and background about Astronomy, Physics, Mathematics, and History. The rest of the time he wrote in a journal, or worked on his story. He was writing the story of the crew, of Atlantis, of the end of the world, and of the time in space, their return to the Earth, and the future of mankind. He formed theories, and ideas of the future of the planet, all while they still floated in space.

“Destiny: Part 21
by Micah Lawrence
Though it was once thought that the future of mankind would be tranquil and a reality of reason and enlightenment, it turned out to be quite the dystopian nightmare. It held such promise, no religious conflict, no ethnic, racial, or social conflict, and an educated population determined to seek peace and scientific advancement. But they had failed to realize that civilization started with a small group of people, of the same background, of the same religion, committed to a successful society, and yet conflict arose and wars were fought. Why should this version of Earth be any different? In the generations after Atlantis returned to Earth, the religious debates raged. The obvious conflict; Was there or was there not a god? Those who believed in God believed that the Earth was judged for its sins, and that god was vengeful, after-all, if you are the children of the apocalypse you might be pre-disposed to believing in a wrathful god. Those on the religious side were determined to have all of mankind follow the tenets of faith set out for them. Those on the non religious side were heavily against the force of religion. It was a society of reason and science, so how could a belief be forced on these people? There was a non religious majority, leaving a minority with the belief that they were responsible for spreading the word of god, and preventing a second judgment of Earth. It is not hard to see that the tensions would come to a boil, and conflict would arise. They thought they could have a society without weapons of war, without bombs and death and destruction. They were wrong.”

Julia Young : T-Plus 69 Days : December 31st, 2009
How do you approach new year’s? strange to think, six billion people saw New Years Day 09, seven people will see New Year’s Day 2010. We should try to use this as a way to cope. Maybe it will help us move on, being able to write a different year in our journals. I haven’t seen Micah or Ezra in a few weeks. The air is getting stale, and the water doesn’t taste quite clean anymore. The recycling mechanisms in Node 3 are performing quite admirably. The station is designed to support up to ten people, seven people should last six months, we are going to try to stretch it to a year at the least. It won’t be long till we are recycling recycled air and water, and then recycling it again. When we go back, I will be flying, trying to land the shuttle, which isn’t an easy task under favorable conditions, and I will have to do it without a landing strip, and if that isn’t enough pressure, the future of all mankind will rest in my hands. I imagine I will have nightmares about failure.

Ezra Thomas : T-Plus 78 Days : January 9th, 2010
What place will we have in the future, what will we be. Why is it that god chose believers and non-believers alike for the future. Why an atheist? To challenge us? To challenge faith? Perhaps there is no place for the non-believer in the future. How can you deny god when all but seven people are judged at once. How can you deny god when you survive miraculously. Perhaps he is a test for me. Perhaps we shouldn’t be here at all. The world has ended, and perhaps we should have perished with it. I may be an instrument of god, the one most in tune with faith. I must follow what I am told, whatever I feel should be my divine inspiration. I need to keep working on my biblical texts.

“Purification
And though they were saved, they denied god, only one truly believed, the others held varying degrees of contempt for their savior. The future must be one of obedience, of faith, of atonement, of religious conviction. For we have been warned. We saw the fire rain from the heavens, and all killed, judged. We watched as the fire spared us, only the Seven Saved, only we were saved, miracle by God’s hand. The Seven Saved, given paradise, for they would return to find a new Garden of Eden, a new Earth, with new animals, and a new Man, they would be this new Man, and they would change their form, for mankind had seen God’s wrath firsthand, and would make changes in the way men lived. And those who still denied God, would be punished by those who had faith, for they would never again allow the sins of many to judge them all.”

Micah Lawrence : T-Plus 112 Days : February 12th, 2009
I have always been a proponent of the theory of evolution, even more-so than most in an age of acceptance to the theory. I believe that society, that is to say, the society that existed 113 days ago, was not one of evolution. Survival of the fittest. Civilization had advanced to a point that survival wasn’t a test anymore, now it was success. However, the ability to reproduce and the number of children people had was actually inversely related to their success. Those in the lower classes reproduced more and younger, while the upper classes waited longer to have kids, and had fewer. This leads to an imbalance in the success/class structure. The lower and less successful, less fit for a modern world, would procreate more than the ones that were successful. If you apply this over a long enough timeline, we end up with the genetics of the lower class defeating the genetics of the upper class. And therefore the future would be one of the lower rung of genetic descendants. However, evolution has apparently found a way around this terrible situation. The solution was quite simple. And its name was UN-5819-J09. The gene pool was wiped clean, all except for those who could survive the cataclysm, those seven who had risen up through their peers to become astronauts, they were intelligent, and capable, and they would become the genetics of the future, and this is how mankind would survive, throw off its ancestral beginnings, for a new one, a purified beginning. For the ancestral genetics were of the strong, the war-like, the fighters, and now the genetic structure is that of intelligence, and understanding, and thus the future would reflect these traits.


-No thats not the end...writing.com has a limit on length, so if you want the end, e-mail me