Ad Astra

         "Do you have to piss your poison all over the street," Isaac asked Becky, conscious that all eyes were upon them. She always did this when she did not get her way - shouting out his faults and weaknesses until he did what she wanted out of sheer embarrassment.

         "You don't friggin' listen unless I shout it," Becky steamed, her face red with rage.

         Isaac shrugged, realising he did not have much choice; this was probably the last time he would speak with Becky before the launch - maybe ever. "I am going to the stars. If you're not coming with me, we are over. That is the bottom line here." He knew in his heart what her reply would be before she spoke it. He loved Becky. They met working contracts like this one; both were excellent engineers. They were a good team, but this was bigger than both of them to him.

         "You are asking me to abandon my family and my friends. That's not happening. Look, we have money from all these contracts refitting the engines on this habitat and the others. We can live well on Earth - going to the stars is well..." Becky's eyes pleaded with his own; it was clear that she wanted him to stay with her, but she also was not going to budge on this. She needed to finish her sentence to give closure for both of them.

         "Well, what?" Issac glared.

         Becky stared back a moment and then, with tears in her eyes, finished her sentence, "Too much of a risk."

         Isaac's shoulders dropped; the time for rage had passed. Now, he felt the emotion of the split. "I am sorry that it had to end like this, Becky, but I am going. We have a shuttle prepared for you and your fellow dissenters. You can have whatever is in my account. I am going to the stars."

         Becky paused, made as if to speak, but no words came, and she turned away to join the others who had decided not to come. Isaac left. There was nothing more to be said.

         On the command deck of the habitat, Isaac met with Abraham, the CEO of the company he worked for and now the commander of the first interstellar manned mission. Abraham looked more like an accountant, utterly nondescript, but his record was impressive. He'd built his company from scratch, starting as an individual contractor and then expanding it to take on more and more ambitious projects until he hit the jackpot with the old Empire's habitat engine refits. The victory of the Earth Republic over the Empire of New Rome in the outer solar system also meant the capture of their habitats. These all had engines due to the gravitational demands of Saturn and Jupiter and all their moons. Most were now relocated back into Earth's orbit, where they were more accessible to Earth control and where they could be better integrated into the Earth economy. Relocation required upgrades to many of their engines. The Emperor's Palace habitat was brand new and was intended as a sort of yacht. It was always intended to move from planet to planet as the Emperor wished to bring his palace with him when he visited his domains. With the engine upgrades now fitted, by the same team that equipped many of the major military vessels in the Republic fleet, they had the extra option of interstellar travel.

         "I wonder what we will find when we get there?" Abrahams's question was a rhetorical one because, after all, who could answer such a thing? No one has been out there. It is a big blank, a mystery, and a new frontier.

         Isaac shrugged. "I do not know, but we have to find out for the sake of everybody. Somebody has to take the risk." He paused; he had the kind of relationship with his boss where he could share personal stuff. "My girlfriend's not coming. She says that with money, there is still a good life to be had here. But this is bigger than that, surely. She's right; we'd be OK if we stayed, but we'd be living in a Republic of mainly poor people. People living in shitholes and with nothing to hope for. If we make it to another planet, we can give them that hope. The hope of a normal life with space to breathe and grow."

         Abraham waved his hand at the view from the command deck of the full length of the habitat stretched before them. "It is an awesome sight, isn't it? The Emperor Tamerlane may have been a bloodthirsty dictator and mass murderer, but he had taste when it came to his palace and gardens."

         Isaac agreed. "It's nothing like the other habitats we worked on. They were just overcrowded slums, as bad as Earth, or those holes in rock that the Belters pretend are homes. This is 100 km long and 20 km across - that is more than 3000 square kilometers of vegetated space. We can run its fusion reactors for a thousand years with the team we have and the parts we have on board."

         "Of course, the Republic will try and stop us. This place is too big a prize to simply let go. Earth's elites are going to be so annoyed at us." Abraham never cussed, but Isaac thought this would have been a good time to use a stronger adjective to describe Earth's response.

         Isaac smiled. "They trusted us with the other habitats, and they are paying us well. They probably think we are committed to the handover. But we have a better plan for it than they did. I mean come on they wanted to build large estates for privileged arseholes on tour around the solar system while we want to conquer the stars and take mankind out there."

         "Let's hope they continue to trust us to deliver as expected. Are the defence arrangements in place just in case?"

         Isaac pointed to a console and pressed a few buttons to bring up an overview screen of the station's defences. "Yes, we finished the upgrades on the radiation shield to work against plasma weapons. You can see the extra power options here. The station canons are now enough to take on anything except their latest Battle Cruiser. We added a little to the weight to improve the armor. This tripled the defensive strength. We have tied the plasma cannons straight into the fusion reactor, so we are good to go. As you know, we converted about five of our twenty shuttles into military interceptors. Those have engines and weaponry that can match anything in the fleet. The only ship in the Republican fleet that has a hope of catching us and doing us damage is the Battle Cruiser Artemis, and that is on the other side of the sun right now, orbiting Mars. So this is the perfect time."

         Abraham nodded and replied, "I wonder how long it will take us to find a new home? I wonder if there even are Earth-like worlds out there. We have empty land here the size of Rhode Island to expand into, but if it takes too long, I guess we will have to have population controls of some sort in place."

         "Yeh, but that is not a problem for our generation; in fact, we may be the first in two hundred years that do not have to care about that."

         "You know I deliberately recruited an equal number of men and women for this contract. It was difficult to justify as most of the best engineers are still men. But I found a lot of underdeveloped female talent out there. You will find another girlfriend." Abraham slapped Isaac on the back and winked. Then, turning his gaze back out of the window, he asked, "Are the team onboard with this? What was the result of the vote?" Abraham pointed to the company village just below. People could be seen milling around the streets and talking in small groups there.

         Isaac joined him at the window, sharing the view of his colleagues below. "We have 402 with us and 12 who voted against including Becky, and those two government inspectors are in the brig. The plan is to put them all on a fueled shuttle without a radio, which we will launch from about two weeks distance from Saturn."

         "Why are they coming? Have you heard their reasons?"

         "Most of them just love the habitat and think of it as a home. Some like me are excited at the challenge and the adventure. This place and this mission combine a perfect home with the ultimate engineering challenge, which is something a team of engineers is always going to warm to. One or two are fleeing criminal charges back on Earth - you did not hear that from me- and none of them are a real risk to the mission. One is a fraudster; the other just refuses to pay his ex-wife alimony. I think some have not thought it through at all. They just like being with the team, some of these might regret their decision later, but by then I hope most of them will just try and make the best of it. We just have to stay busy, designing new equipment we can use when we get there and maintaining what we have, making plans and learning new skills from each other. You know idle hands... and all that."

         Abraham smiled and nodded. "So what were the AI results on optimal route planning?"

         "Proxima B was the original first choice, but as you know, the exo-planet there has no hydrogen and therefore no water and likely a runaway greenhouse effect in its atmosphere. So, the first choice is TRAPPIST-1e. Out of 16 earth-sized planets out there in the Goldilocks zone, we've identified three of them are in this system, and this one seems to also have water. The problem is that it is 40 light years away, so it will be at least eighty years before we get there."

         "It is going to need a new name. Perhaps we should run a competition on route. So it will be our grandchildren who see the place, and we will live out our lives in this paradise."

         "Yes, as plans go, this one is not so bad at all." Isaac smiled.

         "What about the Battle Cruiser Artemis? Did you program the AI to stop it from pursuing us later?"

         "Yes, we could not hack their engine controls, but we were able to get into communications. Their AI will receive entirely legitimate-looking communications and intelligence relating to a pirate raid on Mars just after we launch. That should tie them down several weeks longer, by which time we will be out of range of all their sensors, and pursuit will be impossible. We let slip to the dissenters that we were heading for Proxima B, and one of them is bound to tell on us. We can follow that route until we let the shuttle go and then turn onto our true course, just as we pass a comet trail that will mask our course change and when we are out of sensor range of the shuttle."

         "We are go for launch, Initiate engine burn on my mark." Abraham paused a moment as befitted the occasion and then said, "Let's go!"

Notes ▼

W/C: 1903
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The Science Fiction Short Story Contest  (18+) A contest inspired by the serious need for more good sci-fi #2140378 by BlackAdder

PROMPT: March 2025 Prompt: Distant Habitats

Hope springs eternal. Life finds a way. Pick your cliche, but despite Earth taking the long, slow train to the fall of the Roman Empire, there will always be a few brave souls who yearn to reach for the stars. I was one, a young, dumb kid who hitched a ride for Titan and the chance to build my fortune away from - well, everything. I didn't mind hard work, and I wasn't afraid of sucking vacuum: I was going to make it rich. And by God, I built this station! Half of it with my own hands. So don't tell me we have to evacuate because some Earthling is predicting a damned solar flare. Grab that blowtorch and follow me. Or fine, you can have your bot hold the blowtorch, but I want your ass in gear!


As Earth is weighed down by conflict, an aging population, shrinking resources, and the high cost of climate management and mitigation, some few reach for the stars, giving birth to a thousand stories. What's yours?

Land area of habitat - A=2πrh
2 x 3.14 x 5 x 100 = 3140 km2