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Prelude and Day One

It all started ten years ago, the United States was sending up a new rocket that could carry only one person from one galaxy to the next, but in years not yet calculated by their scientists. Everyone waited for reports on the completion of the rocket and the time it would be ready to launch into space on its maiden voyage. The head technician of the rocket was a 24 year old Bill Noble, who had to make sure that the rocket was ready to launch on time. This was one of his specialties and everyone was waiting for a decision whether to scrub the mission or not. Bill knew what he was doing and in his profession, he was the one man, his superiors turned to for his kind of skills in times of great need. Bill knows about electronics, science, computers and a few others fields of expertise.

The rocket needed to be launched in just a little under a week and Bill was still working on the problem, finding mistakes here, there, almost everywhere. If they were not fixed properly, the mission would be disastrous for everyone involved with the mission and Bill found a couple things that would have shorted out in space, making the planned return impossible. Millions were riding on this rocket and Bill knew that nothing needed to go wrong. Bill knew people were depending on him to get the work done, but if they wanted the rocket to launch and work properly, they needed to wait while he worked things out before allowing the launch to happen.

There were five days left until the launch and Bill knew that he had one more day of work to do, so he camped out near the rocket. He gathered his belongings and put them in the elevator, securing them for the trip down after everything checked out for the best. He had all his tools and equipment testing the computers on board, getting ready to go. There was no sign of trouble, so he gathered his things and exited the rocket. He slept on the scaffolding that was attached to the rocket until launch time and he knew four days were left now. From where he sat, about a quarter mile off the ground, he had a perfect view of the sun coming up on the next morning, which was so beautiful to behold. There were no clouds, no storms in the distance, no rain and birds were flying back north for the summer, it was as if nothing was wrong in the world, nothing at all. He closed the door to the rocket, headed down for breakfast in the mess hall and went to the control room to tell them that the rocket was ready for lift. Bill was finished and went to the nearby hotel for rest and stayed there the next two days. No one went near the rocket for two days. During that time, a wire that was bare and overlooked, began to burn through to other wires causing an electrical fire that was not noticed until 3:00 p.m., when smoke began to the pour out of the ship. Bill was called back to repair the problem and he double checked that there were going to be no more problems of any sort, none what‑so‑ever.

That day was the last day anyone would ever see Bill Noble alive again because of an incident with a compositor in the on‑board computer which malfunctioned, turning on the self‑destruct mechanism inside the ship. Bill was unable to locate the self‑destruct device at the time and he ordered that the ship be sent into space, stating that he will miss everyone in his life. The scientists knew that he might be killed in the explosion aboard the ship or burned alive by the ship's engines when they ignite, if he made it outside the ship. Either way, he was a dead man and everyone knew it including Bill, himself.

The ship was launched into space and Bill hanging on for the ride. During the launching sequence, Bill managed to find the self‑destruct device, turn it off and found that he was trapped in space. Not knowing if he would ever return home to the ones he loved plus some very good friends. The ship's windows allowed him to see Earth slowly shrinking into nothingness and he saw a very unpleasant sight heading towards him not. What he saw was a space storm coming towards him and behind that was a black hole, something no one really knows about or successfully explored. The storm hit, Bill found that the temperature on board the ship was dropping very fast and everything was freezing, covering over with ice. He felt himself freezing as well, he rolled himself into a ball to keep himself warm and fell asleep right before being frozen in a deep sleep. He disappeared from radar and no one knew if Bill was still alive or not. They knew that if he was, he would be dead in a week, anyway and there is no way to help their missing friend at all. Bill was know frozen in a block of ice and if he was alive, no one would ever know, that knowledge hurt a lot of hearts. They built a small statue to salute Bill by stating that the launch site was where a man sacrificed himself for all his friends and that they'll always remember him, forever. No one wanted him to die in this manner, lonely and trapped, never to see his loved one's ever again. If someone was to look at Bill's cheek within the block of ice, they would be amazed at what they saw and that would be a frozen tear upon his cheek.