Buttons #Project Constellations

Death to meetings

The meeting is the next morning (having a meeting is bad enough, but a morning meeting, oh why God?).  I'm there in my capacity as assistant head-pilot.  Slimy-face seems to think that my role involves carrying his shit to the meeting.  I do it, because one: saying 'no' involves talking to assface, which I determined was a bad idea our first week together, and two: I get to rifle through said shit.  In it he's got arguments for going to Apha centauri, the closest planetary system to us.  I might just misplace that page of notes.  Do us all a favour.

We arrive at the meeting room early.  Only the president is there before us.  One thing slime-for-brains is good at is sucking up.  I arrange our stuff and try not to listen as slimy-pants gets up close for a murmured greeting.  I hear polite tones from Brianna and what can only be whiny tones from stink-pants.  I'm so fed up, I knock over a glass of water onto stink-breath's notes.  Oops.

He comes running over all in a huff, and is desperately cleaning up his desk and papers as the rest of the team files in.

Olive: infinity plus one, Assface: zero.

Head of navigation, Ned, sits next to us.  Well, next to me.  Technically navigation calculates the routes, and pilots implement the instructions from Nav, but I've done too much work with him for him to think that's all I do.  Ned just has a tablet with him, and gives me a wink as he settles. From the look in his eyes, he knows I've been plotting possible routes from here.  Just as well someone else other than me has a brain in their heads when it comes to flying the remainder of humanity through space.  

Ned glances over at slimy-mouth, and sees what I've done.  'The ship take a jolt just now Olive?'

'Sure thing,  Nav Ned, somehow all the stabilisers turned off at once, and the thrusters accelerated.  Even though we've been in stable orbit for 2 weeks now.  Strange how physics takes a vacation around me sometimes.'  I say this all with a straight face, and don't look at assface.  He's bound to catch on eventually.  Right?

'So strange as to be unbelievable.'  Ned replies dead-pan, 'You have some time after the meeting?'

'I can make time for you Ned, even if this meeting piles us with work.  How are things in Nav?'

Ned glances around the room, the rest of the team is settled. 'After the meeting, Olive.' The remaining team present includes: three math wizzes (besides Ned and I, of course), the representative for the civilians (his title is Minister, though Sinister would be more accurate), the military commander, the head of engineering (he doesn't count as a math wiz, he just manages the engineers who are good at their jo... I mean, good at math), head of provisions and a team of three researchers. 

Brianna stands, and waits for quiet.  The room respectfully settles, and she starts, 'We are all now aware that there is no place we can colonise in this system.  Nowhere but Earth,' here she pauses painfully, 'was suitable for mankind to live indefinitely.'

The room sits grimly silent.

'We have a decision ahead of us, one that determines the fate of the remainder of mankind.  I have the final say in this decision,' team members fidgeted, and exchanged worried glances, 'but I will not decide until I have taken everything into consideration. I will listen to what everyone here has to say, and will consider every piece of information that you can bring to me, interpret for me, or analyse for me.'

Voices rise in quick obedience, 'Alpha-Centauri!' 'Goldilocks!' 'Yellow stars!' I maaaay have been the one shouting Goldilocks.  Shhh.  I usually know when not to shout out of turn (there are many who won't agree, don't listen to them).

'Not NOW!' Brianna shouts, 'This meeting is to assign your roles.  I will schedule appointments with those who want to talk.  Privately.' The President smooths back her blond hair (and looks ridiculously good doing it), 'I want ALL possible destinations listed, ranked three different ways: chances of successful colonisation, closeness to us, and a rank combining the two for likelihood of success. This is for our astronomers and researchers.' She nods towards the research team.  'Each destination should have a brief description saying why it has been placed in its rank, and all materials used to create these ranks must be available for my reference.'

'Pilots and Nav,' She nods in our direction.  She spends an extra second looking at me.  I think.  Or I want her attention so desperately I'm imagining it, 'Starting from the top of the ranks, calculate possible routes and time to travel to each destination.'

Ned and I exchange glances, Ned speaks up, 'Ms. President, I want you to be aware that proper and thorough calculations of possible routes to even one destination will take days to complete.'

'Thank you Chief Navigator, I should be more specific.  Could you get estimates for possible route times for the top 20 best destinations in four days time?'

Ned and I exchange glances again.  If he and I both worked on the routes without sleep for four days, we could do it.  Maybe, 'We could use the help of some strong mathematicians.'

'Travis?' Brianna questioned one of the math wizards, 'Could you three aid them?'

'Is that what you called us to the meeting for, Ms. President?' Travis asked.

'In part, to ask for you support in these tasks,' Brianna said, 'but also to ask you to calculate the odds of success for each destination, once ranked.'

'Can I take a minute to discuss with my colleagues?' Travis asked.

Brianna nodded and looked at head of engineering, 'Bob, I have a big task for engineering.  I need to know several very vital things.  One; how fast can we get those engines to go? two; how long can the engines last? three; how and when will we need to refuel? and four; how long can humans survive in these generation ships we've built?'

A worried look crossed Bob's face (and who goes by the name 'Bob' any more? he is sooo lame), 'I can get an engineering team on the first three tasks.  The fourth task would be better suited to provisions.' Brianna paused for a beat.  Then two.  Bob looked more worried. 

Brianna, 'Didn't engineers design these ships?  Don't they know how long they can last?'  

Bob, 'Ah, yes!  Well, the engineers that were involved in the designing and building, they are our founders.  None are actually on the engineering teams for keeping the engines running.  I think most of the founders were left behind because they were dying of radiation sickness.... Um.  So, there may not be any engineers left who designed these ships...' Bob trailed off, losing even the loose track he was following in his blather.

Brianna, 'That can't be true!  Some of the true heroes of this entire ordeal were the people who conceived, designed and built the generation ships!  What about Hotosaki?'

'Dead,' Bob replied, looking like he wished to be anywhere but here.

'Mitchell McRanigan?'

'Not on any of the ships manifests, it appears he stayed behind.'

'Mary Sinder?'
'She got shot on one of the last ship supply runs, was too injured to move on-board.'

'Elias?'

'Elias is a mystery, no one knows what he did once his vision for saving humanity was completed.  It appears even the name Elias was actually just an alias.'

'Oh for...ok, Bob, I need you to have an engineering team create a portfolio on the first three assignments, and create another team to hunt down anyone and anything who worked closely with the original people who made these ships possible!  Have them report directly to me, and have that team scouring the ships for any sign of Mitchell and Elias, and whoever the hell else!'

I may have had an idea or two about where the find the ships' founders.  But how I was going to act on those ideas and estimate possible routes to twenty different destinations within the same time frame was confounding me.

The meeting was concluded, the minister and the commander in chief didn't say much.  I have a feeling we'll have security looking real closely for the founders of our ships though.  Ned and I stayed behind, as did Travis and his team.  We had a week's worth of work to complete in four days.  Here goes.