May Fortune Shine on You

To Nicki Johansen,

We are happy to inform you that Project Alpha is complete. You are hereby informed that you must report to the Interplanetary Transport Vessel, Hercules on April 25th, 2175 at 0600 hours.

If you do not report in at this time your position will be fill by your standby, and you will remain on Earth to die.

May Fortune Shine on You,

Melissa Marcus

I.S.O. Communications Director

It's been ten months since I received that confirmation email from the International Space Organization. Ten exceptionally long months. As I lay on my bed fidgeting with the locket around my neck, the gold heart shaped locket was the last gift my mother gave me before she passed away, I opened the locket, my mother’s face smiled up at me. I can still hear her voice in my head, encouraging me like she always did. “Nikki, you can go anywhere and do anything you want to in this life. Don’t ever forget that.” She always said I was going to go far. I closed the locket tight and closed my eyes in a small thank you to mom.

In 2023, Earth officially started to die. The scientists alerted the world, the damage had become irreversible. We had overpopulated the planet and ignored science and nature until it was too late. I’ve never known Earth as anything but an angry, untamed beast. I grew up on a farm on the land my family had owned for over a century growing what we could. Everything was brown & black, dirt and rock. I remember my mom showing me pictures of my Great-Great Grandparents at a place called Disneyland. It’s slogan, “The happiest place on earth!” The colors and smiles in the pictures looked like a dream. I had never seen anything so beautiful. I asked mom what happened to this Disneyland, and she said it disappeared when the storms came. Huge pieces of land just broke off and fell into the depths of the ocean. Millions of people perished. So did Disneyland. The fact was, WE caused the great extinction on earth. WE destroyed the rainforests and polluted the oceans till nothing could survive. Except cockroaches and Twinkies. Damn the movie were right.

Looking out my little window, for months all I could see were stars and blackness. No color. Nothing like the colors in that picture of Disneyland. But now, looking out my window, I see Alpha. It was green and blue and beautiful. From what I was told the gizmos that controlled Alpha’s H.H.S. (Human Habitation Systems) worked to perfection. It’s core temperature, atmospheric pressure, filtration, waste disposal and true gravity were all man made, and they all worked. Project Alpha was ready for the first great human migration. I noticed the clock on my wall. The Hercules was scheduled to enter Alpha’s orbit in approximately ten minutes. I consider for a moment, the Hercules was another first in Earth’s space program history, but it gained little attention in the all-consuming shadow of Alpha itself.

Hercules’ capacity is a maximum crew of 1,000, plus the colonist’s population of 24,000. It can sustain humans for the boarding, travel and orbit around Alpha. But it’s a one-way trip. Earth would be dead by the time we reached Alpha. We were all that was left of the human race. All said and done the humans aboard Hercules have been in space for a total of nine months, twenty-nine days, and twenty hours with only a couple of hours left to suffer. The food consumed and waste produced was staggering. Suddenly intrigued, I pick up my tablet and set out to do the basic math to figure out the amount of food, water and waste disposal a human needs to survive in space.

Let’s start with food. 1.83lbs of food per meal or 5.49lbs per day, per person times ten months including extra for emergency precautions, times 25,000 people equals… Wow! 41,724,000 pounds of food! That’s a lot of twinkies. Onto the water. Ten gallons of water per human per day, times ten months, times 25,000 people equals… 76,000,000 gallons of water… Hydration is key they say. Now for the fun one. At 123g per day, times 25,000 people.... 67,790,000 pounds of poop… Holy shit. Literally. That’s a lot of poop. I set down my tablet and let it sink in. The numbers are mesmerizing and terrifying (poop monsters from outer space). You would think the geniuses at NASA along with the other great minds of the world would have figured out a highly advanced way of dealing with problems like poop. They did not… They took the age-old scientific anecdote that the simplest answer was the best one. Their solution, it was shot out into space like pellets form a B.B. gun, I informally named the cannons (after my favorite holiday movie) The Red Ryder Poo-Poo Guns.

I think I have rambled on way too long about human feces. Even though this is a momentous event in the anal’s of human history, let’s talk about me! I am Nicki Johansen; I am part of the crew aboard the Hercules and will be one of the last humans to step onto planet Alpha. May fortune shine on me. My official title on the Hercules is Executive Public Relation Liaison to the Colonists. This officially means that I am the go between for the colonists and the crew on the ship. For nine months, 29 days, 20 hours, 33 minutes and 28, 29, 30 seconds I have had to deal with the bitching, moaning and utter stupidity of humans. I despise this job, but it got me off Earth and to Alpha so I am grateful in that respect. My new assignment is scheduled to be sent to me in 12 hours’ time. It is almost painful to wait that long, but what is a few more hours in comparison to a new life on Alpha.

I look to my multiple screens I have in front of me and shake my head at the people. Everyone in a drunken, triumphant victory dance that began upon entering Alpha’s orbit. I turn off the screens. It was unequivocally underwhelming for me since I am one of the last ones to leave the ship. With all my things already packed, I was going to sleep for eight hours, then do my duties for my final couple of hours on board, receive my new duties, and then wait ten more hours for my transport where I will begin my new life. May fortune shine on me. In routine fashion, I check my email to confirm that there are no pressing matters that I must address for the colonists on the ship. To my chagrin, 32,245 unread emails greet me. This does not come as a shock to me, I stopped opening and responding to individual emails, (unless they were an emergency) ten days ago and changed my tactics to mass emailing the entire population of the ship. Every single question posed to me by the colonists was covered in great detail in a booklet that every passenger received when they boarded. But with thirty plus thousand emails sitting in front of me, it seems booklets were never opened. In all truthfulness, I’m necessary only because humans need to be able to blame someone, that someone is me. May fortune shine on me. I log off and crawl under my covers for the last night of my boring old life.

I wake up to my alarm buzzing. “Beeeeep, beeeeep, beeeeep”, progressively getting louder the longer I ignore it. It is a malicious little thing, designed with no snooze button. The only way to turn it off is to get out of bed and step on a button in the shower. This button also sprays you with ice cold water for a brief second before turning warm. And no, you cannot outsmart the alarm or dodge the jets of water. I truly cannot comprehend why this was the solution to force people to wake up on time, it was deviously cunning. After my shower I get dressed for the day and check my email, only 2,000 new emails. I guess my emails about the BOOKLET that EVERYONE received finally got thru to them. For the next couple of hours, I do my boring job hitting refresh hoping to see the only email I desire. Three marked as emergency, refresh. Two hundred marked urgent, refresh. I sigh, I will not get thru them all, but it is my last day on the job, so I trudge along absently mindedly.

You must be wondering how myself and 24,999 other people were chosen for Alpha and not death on Earth. Well, I do have some time to kill, so I’ll explain. One must be physically, mentally, and spiritually fit, which I am. One must have obtained, in their personal life three skills or qualities that can translate into services that can be used on the ship and on Alpha. My skills that qualified me are, a master’s degree in psychology with a double minor in sociology and communications and my service in the military as a grunt turned squad leader. But honestly, I think it’s my skills in woodworking and carpentry that make me an ideal candidate for Alpha. On Earth, I built my house and all the furniture, I rebuilt yard equipment and machines with expert skill. You see, the crew of the Hercules will become the first government, public safety officers and public servants for the planet. Allowing the colonist’s, the ability to live freely and safely to create their new world. Woodworking is my passion and this will be my new job on Alpha. I am going to help build a new world.

I twirled the locket in my fingers, dreaming of the beautiful homes I was going to build. My email pings, I glance over. The all-consuming moment has finally arrived! I open my email and notice one titled “THANK YOU FOR NOTHING ASSHOLE!!” I chuckle to myself. I hate my job. So, I agree with you Mr. Tollerby, passenger #1963, I am indeed, an asshole. I hit refresh…New email from: Captain Kilgore, My heart quickens, the moment has arrived. I quickly move my mouse over the subject line and click…

To: Nicki Johansen

Dear Ms. Johansen,

It is a great pleasure I send you this email regarding your new position on the surface of Alpha, the greatest endeavor man has ever achieved.

You are hereby informed that your new duties on Alpha will be: Executive Public Relation Liaison to the citizens of Alpha.

Thank you,

Capt. Kilgore

International Transport Vessel Hercules

P.S. May fortune shine on you.

Shit.