“Yes, sir,” Commander Nuate said
before she began flipping switches on the jump drive’s interface.
“We’re now hundred seconds
from the jump,” Sopoaga announced to all the captains.
The ships jump countdown timers
were synchronized with that of the flagship. When the timers reached zero,
their jump drives were automatically activated. The five ships synchronously
jumped.
The jump always reminded
Sopoaga of the underground bridge that he passed on his way to aviation school
in Australia. One moment the bus would be travelling in an open road and the
next it would be travelling in a dark tunnel. The drive under the tunnel lasted
just over two minutes, whereas the jump took more than thirty minutes. There
were shops and apartment blocks on one side of the underground bridge and on
the other side of the bridge was a green open space, which made Sopoaga feel as
if the underground bridge had magically transported him into another world. The
jump made him feel the same. When they came out of hyperspace, they were
welcomed by the sight of many stars which looked like fireworks that had been
frozen in time. They could see more stars when they were in the Luz Cruz system
than they could when they were in the Solar System. They emerged from
hyperspace four hundred thousand kilometers away from an extrasolar gas giant that
they called Fuel Ball because its atmosphere was rich in the heavy hydrogen which
they used as fuel. The base was located in high orbit of Fuel Ball.
Sopoaga looked at the multi-function
display and saw the other four ships behind the flagship.
“Check the fuel levels,” he
ordered his engineer.
“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant
Commander Yamaha said, rushing to the secondary bridge. He switched on the fuel
console and checked the fuel in the ship’s six engines.
“The fuel level is at nineteen
point eight percent. More than enough to take us to Base.”
Sopoaga switched the ship’s
communication system to inter-ship mode. “Captain First Grade Sopoaga to all
captains. If anyone of you has insufficient fuel to reach Base, let me know and
I’ll ask Base to send us a fuel tanker.”
All captains reported that
they had enough fuel to get to the base.
Sopoaga went to his sleeping
cell, leaving Nuate in charge of OH64. He trusted Nuate to safely con the flagship
on the three-hour journey to Base. He lay on his bed, wishing he could bring Nuate
with him to the bed. He was bored and wanted something to spice his life.
Bedding the sexy Nigerian was the only thing he could think of. There were very
few women among the E Utopia pioneers. The Council had promised to bring more
women when E Utopia became habitable. Sopoaga and his fleet had been involved
in oxygen-harvesting for almost four years and he didn’t know how many more
trips it would take to harvest enough oxygen to make E Utopia habitable. Now there
were over forty fleets of Oxygen Harvesters and every day, at least six fleets
harvested oxygen from the Earth’s atmosphere
.
The Council and the
admiralty preferred to use small fleets of Oxygen Harvesters to reduce the risk
of detection by earthlings.
The base was located in high
orbit of Fuel Ball. Nuate asked for and was granted clearance to dock at the
base. When the fleet of five ships arrived at Base, Commander Nuate rang an
alarm to wake Captain Sopoaga. The Polynesian immediately woke up and walked to
the bridge.
“Thanks, Nuate,” he said,
rubbing his eyes.
“It was my pleasure, sir.”
He switched the comm system
to inter-ship mode and addressed the four captains of the ships in his fleet.
“Congratulations for a successful milking trip. You’re dismissed upon docking.
Be ready to come to work on short notice.”
All the ships docked. The
dock was cut off from the base’s air supply, so the crew had to put on their
spacesuits before they got out of the ships.
Sopoaga looked at Nuate’s
bulging breasts for one last time before he went to his bunker and put on his
spacesuit. All the crew quickly put on their spacesuits and entered the ship’s
airlock. They waited for the ship’s compressors to suck back into the ship the
air that had escaped into the airlock when the internal hatch was opened. Apart
from minimizing air loss, the process of depressurizing the airlock compartment
helped the crew to acclimatize to space conditions, preventing decompression
sickness when the crew walked out of the airlock. When the ship’s main computer
determined that there was no air left in the airlock, the airlock’s external
hatches opened and the crew walked onto the dock.
The men and women of
Harvesting Fleet 4 walked to one of the many airlocks doors on the base and the
scanners on the doors scanned their irises and finger prints before the doors
opened and admitted them into the airlock. Inside the airlock, they underwent
DNA scans before they were admitted inside the base. Anyone who failed the DNA
scan would be locked in the airlock.
The dispatch team immediately
began transferring liquid oxygen from the Oxygen Harvesters to a supertanker
that would transport it to E Utopia. Supertankers were probably the largest
spaceships ever made. Each supertanker had the capacity to carry cargo
offloaded from ten Oxygen Harvesters.
Sopoaga took off his
spacesuit and scooted straight to the base commander’s office for a debriefing.
On the way he exchanged salutes with several junior officers. The majority of
the people at the base were engineers and Oxygen Harvester crews. Only around three
thousand five hundred people could be at the base at a time because of the
base’s limited air supply. Air management was critical and the admiralty
tightly controlled traffic to and from the base in order to regulate the base’s
population.
The base was more or less an elliptical
prism whose bottom surface was roughly the size of forty football pitches. The
oxygen levels and the composition of the air at the base were controlled by a
life support system that comprised several oxygenators. The food that nourished
the base came from E Utopia and when the bodies of the base’s inhabitants burnt
the food, they used up the base’s oxygen, producing carbon dioxide and water.
To maintain the equilibrium, the life support system at the base split the carbon
dioxide into carbon and oxygen. The carbon and the excess water were shipped
back to E Utopia. The life support system also removed acetone and ammonium,
which people and animals produce in minute quantities.
Some of E Utopia’s scientists
had argued that it was better to split the excess water into hydrogen and
oxygen using solar-powered electrolysis plants and then combine the hydrogen
and waste carbon to make methane, which could then be dumped into space. The
scientists argued that transporting carbon and excess water back to E Utopia
was a waste of ship space. The Executive Council did not agree with this school
of thought. If the excess water and carbon waste were not returned back to E
Utopia the amount of water and carbon on the planet would diminish, which was
tantamount to going against the Executive Council’s principles. The Executive
Council was so obsessed with conservation that even the human waste was incinerated
and returned to E Utopia.
The base commander’s office
was located at the centre of the base. Sopoaga knocked and the base commander
answered. He entered the four-meter-by-four-meter office, saluted and stood at
attention.
“Sit down, Sopoaga,” said the
base commander, Vice Admiral Andrew Frankson, a stocky Negro ex-marine, with a
face that always had a hint of a frown.
“Thank you, sir,” Sopoaga
said, taking a chair opposite the base commander. Sopoaga’s chair was much
lower than the vice admiral’s chair. It was obvious that the differences in the
height of the chairs served to remind those who sat on the lower chair that the
vice admiral was in charge.
“How was your milking trip?”
“Perfect, sir. Everything
went on smoothly.”
“You and your men have earned
yourselves a two-day leave.” Although they were far away from Earth, they measured
their time in Earth days, seconds, hours and minutes. “Report for work the day
after tomorrow at seven a.m. Base time. You are dismissed, Captain First Grade
Sopoaga.”
“Thank you, sir. Can I ask
something, sir?”
“Yes, Sopoaga. At ease.”
Sopoaga relaxed. “How long do
you think we’ll continue with oxygen-harvesting before E Utopia becomes fully habitable?”
“The Council thinks it will
take at least a year.”
“The longer we take the
greater the danger of the Earth’s powers finding out what is happening.”
“You’re right about that, Sopoaga.
The Council is cognizant of that fact. The President ordered an increase in the
rate of manufacture of Oxygen Harvesters to speed up the process.” Andrew
Frankson sighed, looking at Sopoaga. The base commander was grateful for the
conversation. His job was a lonely job. He lived at the base with junior
officers who were too awed to have small talk with him. “We have been entering
the Earth’s atmosphere without resistance from the Earth’s powers and we want it
to continue that way until we finish our mission.”
“Sir, what do you think will
happen first, the end of life on Earth or the attainment of an optimum
atmosphere on E Utopia,” Sopoaga said, thinking about his friends and family on
Earth. The Council had promised every E Utopia pioneer free passage to E Utopia
of one hundred relatives and friends. Sopoaga, like all his comrades in the E
Utopia pioneer force, had already made a list of those he was going to save.
Frankson bit his lip,
thinking about his beloved ones on Earth. “E Utopia is slightly bigger than
Earth, which means that we need to milk Earth’s atmosphere for as long as
oxygen concentrations there are high enough for our milkmaids to fill their
tanks within a reasonable amount of time. I think life on Earth will end before
we can have an optimal atmosphere on E Utopia.”
“I heard that they’re
constructing more oxygenation plants on Earth. Won’t the plants prolong life on
Earth?” Sopoaga asked.
The base commander shook his shining
bald head. “They won’t build the plants fast enough to replace the oxygen we’re
taking. You know how Earth’s governments are. They’ve got too much bureaucracy
even in times of crisis. Besides, El Monstruo caused a worldwide recession.
Most governments are cash-strapped.”
“Are there enough ships to
evacuate the loved ones of pioneers to E Utopia?” Sopoaga whispered, thinking
about his parents, brothers and sister, the five people at the top of the
hundred people he wanted evacuated to E Utopia.
“There are enough ships. We’ll
begin the evacuation before the situation becomes critical. Your family and
friends will be safe, Sopoaga.”
“Thanks for the assurance,
sir. I can’t wait to see my loved ones breathing E Utopian fresh air.” Sopoaga
sighed. “You know, sir, when the Council first briefed me about The E Utopia Project,
I was skeptical. I didn’t believe that we could suffocate Earth.”
“Me too,” Vice Admiral
Frankson said. “When the Council first told me about the plan, I didn’t think
it was feasible. But when Hitchcook explained to me that one liter of liquid
oxygen occupies a volume of more than seven hundred and ninety-nine liters as a
gas at STP, I realized that the plan could be feasible. By taking one liter of
liquid oxygen, we were taking away oxygen that was found in almost four thousand
liters of pre- El Monstruo air at STP.”
“That was a very ingenious
plan,” Sopoaga said, feeling much better. If the Council could orchestrate such
a daring plan to steal Earth’s oxygen, he couldn’t see them failing in the
simple task of evacuating his family to E Utopia. “It was nice talking to you,
sir.”
Frankson nodded.
Sopoaga saluted and left for
his quarters.
Vice Admiral Frankson sighed
wondering how this whole thing was going to end. He was a soldier and he had
been involved in many dangerous operations during his time in the marines. The
E Utopia Project was the most dangerous operation he had ever taken part in.
Although he didn’t face any immediate danger, he knew that humanity could face extinction
if the pioneers failed to carry out their plan.
He came from Manchester, a
neighborhood located in Houston’s east side, which had the unenviable
distinction of being the most polluted neighborhood in the city. Capitalists
had setup oil refineries right next to Manchester and they wantonly churned out
smoke into the neighborhood as if the residents were pests whom they wanted to
gas out of the area. The situation was so bad that most of the people had a
form of sickness that could be attributed to the pollution. Many people
complained of respiratory ailments, nosebleeds, sore throats, chronic headaches
and skin sores. The incidence of asthma among children in Frankson’s
neighborhood was much higher than in the rest of the United States.
Frankson and his friends
campaigned against the pollution but nobody listened to them save for a few
journalists who were looking for stories. Those who could afford to pay rents
elsewhere left the neighborhood but most of the residents simply couldn’t afford
to move.
Frankson founded the People against
Pollution movement and campaigned tirelessly against the industries that were
pouring carcinogens and other toxins into the neighborhood. He had joined the
marines and fought for his country, he paid his taxes and he was a law-abiding
citizen. He couldn’t understand why his country was treating him like that.