The Oasis

Chapter 12

Ch 12

Jake immediately opened up a file share with Bogs’s COM, saving all files he accessed automatically. Whatever he discovered, people would need to see it. With a secret like this, it’s always best to back up your answers.

                  He opened the first flight day’s transmission log back to Earth from the transport ship.

                  “Origin, this is Ares VII. Initial flight path is set. We are initiating main phase burn at 03:24:14. Over.”

                  “Roger that, Ares. Should be smooth sailing for several months. Let us know if anything interesting happens.”

                  “I sure hope it doesn’t. ‘Interesting’ in space usually doesn’t bode well.”

                  “Ha, ha. Well in that case I hope you have 31 months of absolute and complete boredom.”                 

                  “Thank you, Origin. Judging by how things were when we left the place, I wish the same to you guys down there.”

                  “I know what you mean. Seeing as how you guys are supposed to be the best and brightest humanity has to offer, just promise us you won’t build a second planet on the brink of global war.”

                  “That’s a promise I’d certainly like to keep, Origin. We’ll talk to you guys in a couple months.

                  “Roger that, Ares. Good flight.”

                  “Thank you. Oh, and Origin?”

                  “Go ahead.”

                  “Don’t forget to send us mail.”

                  “Affirmative, Ares. Origin, over and out.”

                  The audio logs remained silent for a long time after. As the transport ship got further and further away from Earth, the radio lag would only get longer. Jake suspected that there was no real back and forth between the ship and Earth after this point, but he knew what the line about “mail” meant. On long voyages, data bursts were sent periodically from Earth to the outlying ships full of news articles and recent activity to keep them apprised. Though it had been several months for the crew members of the flight, for Jake, it seemed like only a couple days ago, he had left Earth’s extremely tense political state. From what Jake remembered last, several countries were at each other’s throats ever since the emergence of a global internet.

                  A confederacy of several Asian countries set up the satellite array that gave internet capability to practically every location on the planet. A great idea for the development of growing nations, but quite a controversial one as well. Within days, countries had started accusing one another of espionage, illegal information trading, censorship, and a myriad of other crimes. The day of Jake’s launch into space, the UN was supposed to have brokered a treaty with many of the Middle Eastern countries who had been fired up because “dangerous western ideas” were now accessible to every citizen in their heavily controlled nations. Months of arguing lead to an armament equivalent to a second cold war. If nukes weren’t bad enough, several unstable countries had threatened to use their legions of experimental biological weapons which they said had been kept secret for just such a day as this.

                  Jake had just assumed that it was blown out of proportion in order to keep the stories more interesting, but given what he knew now, he wasn’t so sure.