Chapter 1: The Beginning of the Beginning

Attention all personnel: launch sequence is commencing. All crew to stations. Security to checkpoints. Attention all personnel: launch sequence is commencing.

The robotic female voice droned over the Genesis-1's intercom system, and suddenly her corridors were a frenzy of activity. Crewmen sprinted to their assigned substations, security guards checked the loads on their weapons or tightened their helmets. Families huddled close together. Young men and women shivered with excitement.

Momentum inhibitors disengaged. Maneuvering microthrusters online.

The ship shuddered as thousands of tiny chemical thrusters ignited at once, slowly but surely pushing the biggest thing ever constructed by humanity out of its space dock.

Standby to clear dock... Clear. Genesis-1 has disengaged and is ready for operation.

The cheers of twenty-five thousand people shook the ship from her engines to the bridge. Captain Robert Arthur made note of the ship's status, entered a few calculations, and ordered her helmsman to hold her here. He ground his teeth and got up from his chair. This was a big endeavor; there were speeches to make. "Mister Bleach, you have the bridge."

-Volitaire sat silently in his room, allowing himself to smile as he listened to the announcements over the intercom. It was slightly hard to hear over all the commotion and cheering. He couldn't help but feel the same as the rest. This was the opportunity he'd been so desperately waiting for. He not only was going to be part of one of the biggest landmarks in humanity but also part of something different, something more his style. Of course, he had some uncertainty. He was as clueless as the rest of the passengers as to what exactly they were getting themselves into. Overall, however, he was very excited. He remains sitting at his desk, jotting down a few notes in his journal. After finishing his thought he pushes the book aside, taking a sip of the nearby water. He had to admit, his room although small was very comfortable. He would go out and socialize once the ship had broke into actual orbit but decided until then to simply remain in his room and enjoy the landmark moments he and the rest of his race were about to make.-

All told, this colony project seemed to have turned out well for Dr. Burton. Thank God for Jimmy Baxter, he thought silently as he reassembled the body of a hull maintenance robot. That nerd's head was so full of robot-companion nonsense that he had given Burton arguably the best-equipped lab on the ship, even better than the agricultural one. As he reached in with his mag-tool to connect the final circuit and restore the robot's power, a sudden lurch caused him to miss his target and poke a hole straight through the delicate circuitry. "Argh, son of a bitch!" he said, and threw the now-useless husk across the room. As soon as it hit the wall, a cheer seemed to erupt from everywhere around him. "I take it the launch was successful... I've had enough of this for now. Time for a walk." He pressed a button on his remote and the large double doors of his lab opened, allowing him out into the corridor. "Let's see if there's a bar on this tub."

0530 hours, Genesis-1, Bridge

As Michael sat at his tac-comm station he spun his chair around to view history in the making.

"Mr. Bleach, take us out" said Captain Author as he crossed his leg over his other.
"Ay sir" replyed Bleach.

As Genesis-1 slowly built momentum small particles began to bounce off the transparent-aluminum view ports.

"Mr. Madison please engage the hull polarization", ordered the Captain
"Ay sir" replyed Madison has he pressed the touch screen on his tac-comm station.

The sun reflected every particle of ice as the electron field began to stretch across the ships hull. It was an amazing thing to see.

"Mr. Bleach, you have the bridge." said captain as he headed to his readyroom.

0600 hours, bridge

Everything was seeming to go right as the ship slowly began to gain speed so we could make our jump to warp. Captain Author walked back out from the ready room, "stop this ship, we need to make an adjustment course right now" ordered the Captain.

"Sir?" Madison asked, "We have a freighter full of construction crew that just sent us an encrypted message over Exo corp channels. They are running out of life support for whatever reasons. We are the only ship in range to help them and that's what we are guna do"

"This is your captain speaking. Hold on tight we need to make a small pit stop, this won't take long" said Author over the intercom.

He sighs as the previous statement rolls over the intercom. Not 5 minutes into their voyage and already they were making detours. Nonetheless, they'd made it into space. Now was as good a time as ever to walk around for a little while and check the place out more thoroughly. Volitaire stands up casually, making his way for the door. He'd decided to go simple with a outfit, fitting himself with a pair of simple worn blue jeans, a white t along with a black open button down shirt. He steps out into the hallway, immediately feeling the temperature raise slightly. He thought nothing of it however, 25000 people all filled with excitement and commotion would easily raise the heat inside of the structure. After taking a solid deep breath of the air, he began to make his way randomly around the ship.

After ten minutes of unsuccessful wandering, Burton stormed back into his lab in a foul mood. With the captain ranting something about a pit stop through the intercom, the wide-eyed morons roaming the halls, and the lights glaring into his eye, Burton really needed that drink. As he made for the unused storage cabinet where he kept his good stuff, he tripped over the sphere-with-tank-treads shape of the junked robot.

"You miserable little-" he paused in mid-kick. "You know what? I need something to do, so you're going to be my new pet project." He picked the machine off the ground and put it on his work table, rolled up his sleeves, and got to work.

We're turning around?

Although he was pretty young, only 31 compared to the captain's ripe 55, Lt. Bob Bleach had always been good friends with Captain Arthur. It was almost 10 years ago now that the Captain had sweet-talked the Human Resources department of Exo-Corp to letting Bob have a position on one of their sub-warp security escorts as a helmsman, despite what had happened a year earlier. But anyway, that's a whole other story.

It wasn't really the captain's style to just 'turn around', especially when there is so much at stake; specifically Genesis-1, and her mission.

"Location confirmed sir!", blurted Ensign Cera, the young sensor operations officer. "Coordinates 247.34 mark 17.09."

"Helm," the Captain started, "plot an intercept course for the freighter, three-quarters subwarp speed."

"Aye sir" I replied, and quickly began plotting an intercept course. After I activated the engines, the ship seemed to lerch much like it did in the spacedock, only this time, it was towards our first discovery.

what the hell is going on

"Whats happening?!' yelled Captain Arthur. "Sir, the we are engaging warp but...fuck i don't know!" bluttered ensign Cera. "Turn the engines off and restore...." The Captain stopped in mid-sentence as he looked up at the view port. A blueish-white vortex had opened and the entire ship started to move quickly toward the vortex.

Madison's life flashed before his eyes, he though of his family back on Earth and then realized that the greatest success of humanity will turn out to be her biggest tragedy.

The ship entered the vortex as it entered Madison was tossed like across the bridge like a rag doll after smashing into the operations console rendering unconscious. The lights of the Genesis went out into absolute darkness.