To the Stars Beyond - Part 1

Authors note: I wrote this story for a challenge two years ago when I was new to Vocal. It never received many reads as I had very few subscribers at the time (and it was a pretty long read). In my unbiased opinion (haha), I think the story is fun and wanted to rebrand it a bit. I’ve tweaked some things and broken it up into parts (5 in total) to make it easier to read. If you enjoy the story, let me know and I’ll try to continue it! Thank you!

Rose (aka Rosie) Sinclair of the human species

Explorer on the starship Divine

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space. That line pops unbidden into my mind as I climb into the seat of my pod, making me snort.

Flicking on the overhead controls, I rack my brain to remember the name of the movie that line came from. Something from the mid-20th century, maybe. My dad would roll over in his grave at the fact I didn’t remember that bit of information.

He had been an avid old world movie buff, science fiction in particular, and his love for them had transferred to his only daughter.

My work left me little time to keep myself brushed up on such things. But to be fair, now that I was actually in space, flying spaceships, it left a lot of those old movies feeling hollow.

Sucking in an excited breath, I continue my pre-launch inspection with an expert eye. My pod was one of six on the Divine and I’ll be the first to take it for a spin.

The Divine was an ultramodern, long range explorer craft, the first of its kind, and I was part of her six-person crew. Earth has come a long way since the era of those movies, thankfully in better shape than they often showed.

With a lot of hard work and cooperation, humankind has finally stabilized Earth's environment. Our ability to look past our hate meant we could focus on exploring the heavens. With a colony on the moon and one on Mars, we were finally making strides.

Now, with the fastest, most advanced ship to date, the opportunities seemed endless.

“Sinclair, your aft sensor array is a little hibbidy jibbidy. Get on that, will ya!” Bowman’s deep voice resonates through the pod’s communicator, loud in such a small space.

“Copy. Realigning said array. Compensating for the hibbidy as well as the jibbidy,” I reply seriously.

The snickers from the rest of the crew over our open comms, have me grinning.

Bowman was as strait-laced as they came, but he had a kooky side we all adored.

“Alright bean, this is all you. Make mama proud, my darling.”

Okay, maybe we had a few…offbeat characters on this ship; but I promise they are all brilliant.

I smile at ‘mama’ Virgil’s pep talk. He was our captain and very protective of his ‘beans’ as any of us who went out in the pods were called.

“Aye aye!” I confirm.

I suck in another eager breath as the Divine’s bay-doors open; her shields protecting the area around my pod from the vacuum of space.

“Just know, we all appreciate our sacrificial lamb, little Rosie.” The quip causes chuckles from the group.

“No problem, Nara. I’ll gladly take this one for the team,” I joke back. Nara was notoriously jealous of me being picked for this first contact mission, but she was still my bestie.

A lone craft presented a less intimidating presence for new contact. And, on the off chance it all went to hell, my pod would be the only casualty and would give the Divine time to escape. We had all clamored for the position.

I run the scanner sequence again, noting that the strange signal we had detected two days ago, and the reason for my excursion with the pod, hadn’t moved.

Earth’s space program had been monitoring for these types of infrequent alien signals for the past century or more. So far, the senders of these signals have never returned our attempts at communication. We're tired of being ignored.

This signal differed from those we have on file, but it was alien and oh, so tantalizingly close.

I shift in my seat as the synergistic visor initiates, effectively making me ‘one’ with the little pod. The light blue of its holo-readings bathes my small compartment in a gentle glow.

My pod hovers as its landing struts retract, and I position the craft for egress.

This is it! I’m doing something no human has done before. Let’s hope the signal stays put and whoever is behind it doesn’t blast me out of existence. I immediately stop that train of thought. I must believe other sentient beings are as eager for first contact as humanity is.

“To the stars beyond…,” mama starts.

“Then further on,” me and the rest of the crew finishes. The mantra was a familiar one, and the crew started each new journey with it.

“No heroics Rose Sinclair…you hear me?” mama Virgil admonishes.

“You got it mama. I’ll just be my insistent charming self, that always seems to work for me.” I chuckle at the groans that accompany my words. It was comforting to know the group would be ‘with’ me, at least via comms, the entire time.

One more fortifying breath for the road has my mind focusing and my nerves settling as my pod leaves the safety of the Divine.