Novis

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. However, one could only imagine the shear horror of what it would feel like to be sucked out into the cosmic void without a spacesuit, like all those passengers that lost their lives on that ill-fated voyage, Columbus 17. They were literally only days away from arriving at the newly terraformed planet Trappist 1e, now formally known as Novis, when a somewhat small, yet extremely destructive meteoroid crashed into a section of the passenger ship that was carrying over one-thousand people. They were migrating to a new world that had all the promise of a better life, while also advancing mankind.

Imagine The Titanic of the early twentieth century. The Titanic struck an iceberg and slowly sunk, taking many of its passengers down to the ocean floor for a final resting place in a watery grave. Yet, that ship remained untouched until it was discovered seventy-three years later, once man had advanced his technology enough to investigate it in those treacherous conditions. The ship was still there, broken in half, but was there none the less. The dead passengers…well, they were there too. At least what was left of them, of course.

Columbus 17 was a much different scenario. There will never be a shipwreck to discover, or a recovery mission. Everyone that got ejected into space will continuously float for millions upon millions of years, or perhaps forever. Their bodies will be petrified and will now be a part of the cosmic void. When someone is ejected into space, the blood begins to boil, the liquid water in human tissue turns into gas and expands, and the face and nose freeze. Sound is a mechanical wave, which means that it needs substance to travel through, such as air or water. In space, there is no air, so sound has nothing to travel through. When those passengers were screaming after being ejected, the sound wasn’t even able to leave their mouths. The worst part? It takes minutes to die, not seconds.

Unlike the Titanic, there will never be something to investigate since space just swallowed everyone up, and the pieces of the ship that were discarded will never be located, unless by blind luck, or some other advanced civilization comes across it which could be millions of years as well, if ever.

My parents were passengers on this ship. They had obviously survived, but dad has told me countless stories about what it was like when that meteoroid first struck the ship. The panic and desperation they witnessed was beyond horrifying as they were lucky enough to find an escape pod near their living quarters. Luckily for them, and me, they had decided against celebrating the arrival to Trappist 1e after such a long slumber in space. Mom wasn’t feeling good, and dad just brought up some dinner from the main area where most were celebrating a new life and home that was about to be a reality within days. That was where it happened. There had to have been at least several hundred people that were in that main area when the meteoroid struck and there wasn’t much time to do anything at all. They either burned to death upon impact, or were sucked out immediately. The part of the ship that had been compromised was immediately detached from the rest.

The oddest part of the tragedy was the fact that the protective shields somehow malfunctioned and became inoperable during impact. After travelling such a massive distance and considering all the obstacles that were overcome, it seemed unfathomable that such a tragedy can even happen. Dad theorized that the ships control systems had been compromised by some psychopathic crew member who enjoyed the havoc of what he or she had caused.

There were five hundred escape pods on Columbus 17, and of the five hundred, only four hundred and fifty-four had actually made it to the correct coordinates on Novis. The remaining pods were either lost in space or had landed somewhere else on the planet. The main problem with that is the fact that Novis is tidally locked with its host star, so one side of the planet is perpetually dark and extremely cold. The other side is always daytime, being extremely hot and uninhabitable. The only livable area for humans, for now, is in between these two parts, which would be the land of perpetual twilight. This is where the seventy-five mile long building, called “The Line” is located.

“The Line” is one giant building that is meant to house over nine million people. It is solar powered and completely self-sufficient. There is no need for roads or travel inside The Line. The Line's plan consists of two mirrored buildings with an outdoor space in between. The city is divided into nodes. All daily services are designed to be reachable within a five-minute walk. Mom and dad had been lucky enough to make it to the line when their escape pod entered the city. The Line only had about one-hundred thousand occupants at the time, so they were considered second generation one they had settled.

Humanity was to start over in Novis and continue the species. Earth had turned into an inhospitable wasteland, and Mars had become overpopulated, and war torn. My parents were excited and willing to slumber for the twenty-year period it would take to reach Novis, so they said goodbye to everything they knew and took that trip, as did all the other passengers.

What was supposed to be a fresh start for humanity became something else entirely. Novis hasn’t received new passengers in five years and there were supposed to be new arrivals on an annual basis. More people to help build a better world. More workers, more progress. Now it feels as though I may be part of a dying breed.

With both of my parents gone, I feel even more isolated that ever before. I also see it in the eyes of those I work with and my neighbors. There seems to be a lack of purpose in everyone's eyes. A lack of hope.

The only person that keeps me going is Dalia, who lives below me. She may not know how I feel about her, but I feel motivated enough to stay alive just to see her every day. She radiates beauty is such an angelic way. She reminds me that life is full of wonderful things too, and it isn't all that bad. We both work at "The Cube", which is an organization designed to piece to together what had happened on Columbus 17 on that fateful day in 2118 and why Novis had lost contact with humanity in other worlds. "The Cube" has all the top minds in the city working together to solve our greatest problem. The continuous survival of mankind.

It was this motivation I had to impress her when I discovered what had possibly happened and why communications seemed to be lost. I had come to realize that the same technology that we relied upon may have gotten too smart for the good of humanity. A.I. had helped mankind make leaps and bounds into new frontiers and was always an obedient servant. Now, it may just be what does humanity in. I was about to discover a far more sinister agenda that I could have possibly imagined.