ASCENT X50 BOOK I

The Beginning to the End: Part 1

                                                         STUFF OF IMAGINATIONS BOOK SERIES

By George Lamptey & William Yeboah Jnr

Copyright (C) 5th Oct, 2015

THE FIRST BOOK

(The book is segmented into three books; 1 , 2 & 3)

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

In 2050, the Ghana government in partnership with a Ghanaian privately owned hi-tech space Technology Corporation, Phlanterium Technologies launched a covert space mission sending hundreds of men, women and children on a century-long voyage aboard the starship AscentX50 on an experimental program to populate a new habitable planet Euporium.

CHAPTER ONE (APPERTAIN)

Bebey is dead. And that's not good...

Welcome aboard Ghana's first Orion Class Spaceship: AscentX50. They are 48 years into their 100-year journey through space and they've just had what appears to be their first murder, a boy named Bebey.

Before we go too far, note that this timeline is incredibly helpful for knowing all that has gone down before all this happened. When the body of Bebey turns up on the ship's "shore," the ship's Executive Officer William Yeboah Jnr begins his investigation at the request of Captain Akosua Bragoe. Then we learn that the last person to see Bebey alive was a woman named Anku Dela, who works in the sector B. Get used to that idea: Sector B means lower class, it' just how it goes aboard the ship.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, William Kwahin rushes to see his agitated wife, who has suffered a massive stroke. While at the hospital, Kwahin learns that there has been a visitor, an academic who asks about the AscentX50 project and seems to know too much already. Kwahin assures him that the program doesn't exist.

Back on the spaceship, some more of the key players are introduced. William Yeboah's girlfriend Gifty was Bebey's sister. And it turns out that Gifty's husband (yep, she has a husband and a boyfriend) is the ship's Security Officer. So, that's going to be awkward. Gifty does have some big information though, and tells William that her brother Bebey was dating a girl who worked on the sector B, a beautiful fellow named Hawa Yakubu. Also of note here is Ali Taha, who is the head of the ship's steward and also the Captain's husband. Ali Taha is a bit of a schemer.

The little girl who found Bebey's body was Joyce and right now, she's having a hard time when she wakes up from her shock-coma. Can you blame her? She's Bebey's little sister. And she's treated by Dr. Owusu, who is the ships Chief Science Officer. Also there? Prince Owusu, Dr. Owusu's son and seemingly a part time physician assistant. Prince sort of has the hots for Hawa Yakubu too, but doesn't know that she's a suspect in Bebey's murder yet.

William stops by the library to see Lizzy, the ship's librarian, who tells him that there aren't books about solving murders, but there are some great film noir movies with detectives in them. So, you know, that's kind of how the world works when the only literature you have is from before 2050, the year the ship you live on was shot into space.

Also important: The last thing that Bebey checked out from the library was a video card from Year 15. But he only returned the case, not the video itself. Where is it?

Oh, also important to note: William and Lizzy were in a massive fire that killed a lot of people in in Year 15, and they're the only survivors because they were saved by Captain Akosua. More on that later, but it's important.

Also when you live on a ship your whole life, it turns out that there's a thing that happens around puberty, where everyone goes through a crisis wherein they have to accept that they have a limited future, one that's been pre-destined by the ship itself. And Bebey's, by the way, was especially bumpy, according to Dr. Owusu.

Ali Taha, meanwhile, is having sex with Councilwoman Edna. See, he wants power, and right now his wife is the Captain, so he has it, but he also knows that he could be unseated by Councilwoman Edna and if that happens, he wants to make sure he's in the right place at the right time. When he next sees his wife, he gives her information about Edna. Ali Taha, he's playing both sides of the aisle. And as head of steward, he trades in information.

As William searches the sector B, he finds a book of Rilke poetry that someone has been using as a notebook to write down all the secrets to staging an insurrection on the ship. But there's no time for that now, a radiation storm is coming and everyone batons down their hatches, lies in a protective bed-place and puts on a hose to breathe through (this happens a lot on AscentX50).

Meanwhile, Hawa Yakubu and Prince Owusu decide to go looking in the shore for clues about Bebey, take off most of their clothes and jump into the water. They swim way down and find it, the video card that Bebey had checked out. Then they take shelter in a rover while the radiation storm passes. In their underwear. But there's no funny business. To be clear, though, Prince would be fine with the funny business.

While the storm is happening, someone creeps around inside Dr. Owusu's bedroom and steals the seahorse necklace he always wears. Dr. Owusu is comatose with the mask secure on his face but Joyce gets a full glimpse of the mysterious man. And when the storm is over, everyone raids Dela's headquarters and finds the gun in a sack of grain. Dela is taken off to AscentX50 jail. And Joyce hands William an even bigger clue: a compass that Bebey had kept from "his girlfriend."

After the funeral for Bebey, the cell to the door that Dela is being kept in is opened mysteriously and she escapes and goes immediately to the gun cabinet. She takes the gun out, and worse, takes Prince Owusu hostage. As William confronts the Captain with the compass, she is shocked to learn that the Captain did have an affair with Bebey. That's when Dela comes in. A fight ensues, and Dela tries to shoot William, but can't work the gun. Finally, Dela is sucked out the airlock.

And then the biggest shock of all! Dela lands on a pad and is taken away by some men. Wait, what? Yes, team, it turns out that AscentX50 is actually a gigantic spaceship kept in a large building. They only think they're in space. For 48 years, they've been watched over by William Kwahin and his wife. And now that Dela is out of the ship, there's going to be some trouble.