Void Bound: Origin

Chapter 1: The Expansion

"The president of the Unification Enclave, now the United Republic of Earth shall hold his speech... please be silent."
A woman leaves the podium, as she gestures to her right. A tall man then walks onto the stage, he fixes his cuffs nervously as he stares into the sea comprised of thousands of people that have gathered to see this event. He steps up to the podium, clears his throat, and then speaks into the mic.
"My people... my fellow humans... today marks the end of a great and terrible war. One that was started by the greed of corporations as our initiative tried to unite humanity. They felt threatened by it... only concerned that they would lose money if we succeeded... but we won this war, and now we stand here, tall, proud, and unified."
The crowd cheers at that last bit.
"But this war has left many of us dead, starving, without shelter... we must work hard to fix the harm that the squabbling of our ancestors has caused to our world but first let us take a moment of silence... a moment of silence to mourn our fallen brethren.."
A silence descends upon the crowd, as the entire area mourns the loss of life cause by the great war... 
"While war is truly a horrible thing... it has always been the one thing that we as a race were particularly good at. For years we have waged it against ourselves, be it with spears, swords, axes, or guns.
Now we reach to the stars, a hostile, cold, unloving vacuum, that could take our lives at any moment. But space doesn't know what's coming for it. We humanity, have struggled, strived, and cried to get where we are. We are battle hardened, knowledgeable and most of all, we are NOT naive.
Tomorrow... we reach for the stars... but today.. we found our nation. A great republic, that shall span multitudes of planets. So I... as first president of the United Republic of Earth... declare November 6th, Unification Day. Cheer! Cheer my people! For today our voices cry out in harmony! The unification of our species, the restoration of prosperity, the mourning of our lost ones... and now that our goal has been accomplished... we can say that their sacrifice truly wasn't in vain."
The crowd is silent for a moment, before bursting in to cheers and applause,
"Thank you all! Citizens of the republic, I bid you a good night. Thank you for listening to my speech."
The man now known as the president, walks off of the stage, and the announcer comes back to the podium.
"That was President McRalph. That will be the end of this event, please leave in an orderly fashion."

<The Next Day>

Flashing buttons and blinking screens where everywhere in the bridge of the REV Explorer, Humanity's first extreme sub-light speed space vessel. It's also the first space vessel that isn't a missile with a cockpit strapped to it.
A man in Navy Blue Uniform walks into the bridge and immediately everyone not doing an important task stops to salute him.
"CAPTAIN ON DECK!"
The Captain walks onto a walkway that separates two trenches filled with computers, screens, and bridge personnel. This served as a command deck for the captain, so that they could see what their subordinates were doing. At the front end of the command deck, there was a viewing screen and a podium. This podium served as a control panel and desk for the captain of the ship. For maximum comfort during work hours, a deployable chair was placed beneath the floor panels of the command deck. As the podium served as a control panel for the captain, included on it where radio links to different parts of the ship, an integrated touchpad, a button that would bring up the ships demographics, and a button that would sound the alarm to abandon ship.
The Captain presses a button on his podium, before yelling.
"Sound off!"
The head officers on the bridge immediately respond.
"This is Head engineer Hodge, Engines are working without a hitch sir. The shields work like a dream, I was skeptical at first, even after hearing about their use on enclave power armor, but they're amazing."
"This is Master Gunnery Sergeant Lauren Williams sir, the point defense systems are good to go just a few minor calibrations are left. The main gauss cannons are online and ready to fire at your command."
"Head Communications Officer Takahashi Yamato reporting. Communications are green, and the quantum computational devices are all operating at one-hundred percent."
"Head Scientist Asad Abdullah reporting that examination and experimentation bays are green."
"Navigational Officer Miya Hernandez reporting, all scanners are green, and are in working order."
"Medical Officer Mia Schneider reporting. Medbay is stocked and in working order!"
A beep was heard as a voice came in from a radio on the captains podium.
"This is the Head of the Reactor Maintenance Staff the Cold Fusion Reactor is performing at 150% if the predicted power output. We haven't even turned power generation on to 50% yet."
The captain responds to the head of the RMS,
"Isn't that a good thing?"
The head responds,
"Yes and no... it means that we have a lot of excess power, and while we do have excess power storage banks on board, we will need to divert the power somewhere so it doesn't over load the systems and end up killing us all."
The Gunnery Sergeant looks to the captain,
"Can I add a suggestion sir?"
The captain nods
"Go ahead Sergeant."
The sergeant nods before typing a few things out on her holographic keyboard,
"Divert the power to weapons systems, it won5' do them any harm, rather it will make them more powerful, especially the gauss cannons."
The captain nods in approval of the plan,
"Divert all extra power to the weapons systems and any other systems that can take the excess power."
"Understood sir."
The radio link cuts out. The captain then presses a button his integrated touchpad and brought up his chair. He presses another button and clears his throat before giving a speech to his entire crew.
"Welcome my crew, to the maiden flight of the explorer. Today we embark on a journey to expand humanities horizons, to explore our solar system, to set foot on planets such as Mars and Venus, get an up close look of the asteroids... When we all signed up for this journey we knew how dangerous it would be... knew that we could be vented into the void of space... but we still took this chance, a chance to go where no man or woman has ever gone before! I am your captain, Red Evergreen, and I am happy to have you, my crew on board with me."
That last statement got cheers and whoops from the crew.
"Now when it comes to flight plans in about five minutes, we will prepare to embark with the space station that is being launched. We will meet up with the station, refuel, and then leave for the areas in our system."
The crew nods,
"Now let's get to work! I have to call in with command, so let's keeping things running in a well oiled manner."
The bridge crew went back to it's state of activity, keeping the ship running, making sure there weren't issues, and generally organizing the staff on board.
"Command come in, over."
Over the new Quantum Communications system, a voice is heard,
"Copy Over"
Captain Evergreen taps a few buttons on his console, before looking back up.
"We're ready for launch, when will the station be ready over."
"Space Station is ready to launch ahead of time. We'll be having y'all launch in two minutes, over."
"Understood, over and out."
Closing the comms to command, the captain turned to the bridge crew,
"Alert everyone launch is ready, and that we'll be preparing to touch off in 2 minutes."
The captain began to input commands into the captain's console, before starting to bark commands.