Buttons #Project Constellations

Quest: Save humanity. No biggie.

So, hi. Yes, we destroyed the Earth, and left it behind before it's final death-throws made us join the death-by-radiation party. Forty generational ships left the Earth, with just over fifty thousand healthy, fertile passengers. Plus tens of thousands of the dying. 

My name's Olive. The name's appropriate. I'm small and tart and can take some getting used to. Like the young olive I am, experience with me may leave you wanting to wash your mouth out. Well, my mouth out probably. But, I'm told I'll improve with age. Or a pickling of experience. Or maybe you just don't like olives of any form. I'm cool with that too. 

I was, as you've figured out by now, one of the fifty thousand-odd passengers. I was going to get included in the manifest no matter what - I'm 14 you see. A young healthy female and therefore prime breeding stock (ew). But I like to think I would have been invited on to the ships regardless, because I'm very useful. A prodigy they say. They also use other p-words when describing me. Precocious. Pain-in-the-ass. Pest. Punk.

I can add to that list: pasty-skinned, purple-haired, pierced and pale-eyed. It's possible I went the purple haired pierced route so that I could be the Prodigious Pierced Purple Pilot. Unfortunately, I'm the only one that calls myself that. I understand it is a mouthful, so you can call me P-to-the-fourth-power. Or Olive. Never Ollie. Call me Ollie and I will other-P-word you. 

To be clear, there are a few p-words that do not describe me at all. I am NOT patient, placid nor particularly palatable. That whole, young tart Olive thing, remember?

The skills that make me useful are two-fold: I've got mad maths skills and I'm a damn-near perfect pilot. I was top of the charts in all the piloting games before the age of eight, and programming my own games before the age of ten. Because, how many good piloting games do you know of? Right. So I made my own. And beat those too. So I'm on the lead generational ship, assistant-head pilot. Only one person other than the fleet's President can boss me, and that's the head pilot. Unfortunately, the head pilot's an ass. Even more unfortunately, the President is sleeping with said ass. I don't like mentioning his name, but don't worry, you'll know without any doubt when I am talking about him. 

So. Our journey started off pretty well. When we left Earth, we hoped to only have to go as far as Europa, and colonise it, as it had the most requirements for supporting human life. Unfortunately, Europa could not support human life. Same with Mars, and all the rest of the planets and planetoids and moons we investigated. Microbes yes. Humans no. 

My story really starts when we'd stopped at Pluto. I mean, how desperate do you have to be to think about living on Pluto? Not as desperate as we are. We are very desperate for a hospitable planet to live on. Now, predictably, a frozen ball of carbon dioxide is not hospitable to human life. So Pluto is out, and that's where all the trouble really begins.