The Explorer: Introduction
Introduction
Karl was a genius. He knew he was a genius. He had known from a very early age and so had his family. When he was younger he would do things that would puzzle even some of the smartest psychologists. While they made perfect sense to him, they baffled everyone else. Some of the things he talked about would stun and stump his teachers at school. As a result of this...odd behaviour, Karl didn't have too many friends and ended up being the butt of many jokes and was regularly beaten up and bullied. And he aimed to put an end to that. He ended up learning various martial arts to a high standard. He excelled in fact and was the pride of his sensei and Karl remained in training for nearly 15 years, reaching nearly the same standard as his teacher.
In class, he also excelled. He got straight As in every class that he ever attended, even shaming a few of his teachers when he pointed out, correctly, that some of what they were teaching was wrong. As he moved on to college, he started delving more into physics, science, cosmology and Astrophysics. He also had a keen interest in Engineering. His parents catered for all his whims. Being the Managing Directors of a chain of international haulage companies, money was no object to them. Karl of course, passed all his courses at college a full year early and moved on to university...where he started to really turn some heads.
Unlike most students at university who would sit there and absorb the information that they were given like sponges, Karl would ask all sorts of questions, sometimes hours after a lecture had ended. Questions that most of the professors couldn't answer completely. Several universities wanted him working for them from Harvard to Oxford to Cambridge. He wanted to stay in England however, and was keenly interested in Cambridge. As the last year of his course rolled around and he was looking to yet again gain his degree with honours, tragedy struck. Both his parents, close relatives and his siblings were killed on the way back from a family holiday. Their plane simply lost power...nose diving into a mountainside. Karl was given a year off from his course for compassionate reasons.
That year passed, the young man was devastated, but rather than clam up, he focused even more fanatically on his work at university. He passed as everyone expected, with honours. For the next 2 years however, he spent his time wandering around the world. He sold off the companies that he had inherited and liquidated all the assets that he had acquired, making him an incredibly rich person. When his wanderings were finally complete, he sat at home, wondering what to do with himself. Everyone he had ever cared about was dead, everyone he ever had known was now elsewhere, doing their own things. He felt utterly alone. And then one night he came to a decision. He was going to build it.
As a kid, before he was even old enough to go to school, he would spend hours at his bedroom window, looking up at the night sky, trying to count just how many stars there were. Was there anyone else out there had always been the most important question he thought anyone could ask of themselves. He always dreamed of being an astronaut, but when he was old enough to understand that the human race hadn't even explored its nearest planet, he got a little...upset. Now, he believed he had the knowledge and the wealth to be able to live that dream and he set about doing it.
He bought a massive area of land, in the middle of nowhere in the British Country side, making it all private property. He fenced it all off, built a massive hanger and equipped it. He then set to work on what would become...eventually anyway...the single most important secret project in the history of mankind. Over the next 2 years, and million of British Pounds later, the project was completed...and this brings us rather neatly...to the here and now.
It was October 12th 2012 and as one would normally expect, it was raining. Karl stood at the door of the hanger, looking out into the dark, surrounding countryside. Off in the distance he could see the headlights of cars, travelling along one of the many country side roads. He had had to close down several roads that led through the area of land he had purchased. Took a lot of convincing and greasing of palms to make that happen, but it happened none the less. He was 32 now, 6' tall, a good bit of stubble on his face, short black hair. He only had a very slight, but toned build however, probably one of the reasons the bullies at school saw him as an easy target. That changed...everything changes.
The rain kept coming and would for hours yet. Karl sighs, turning on his heels and walking back into the living area of the hanger he called home, swinging the door shut behind him. The interior was darkly lit by hanging, exposed light bulbs and the soft glow of dozens of computer monitors that were scattered around cluttered workbenches. Papers, tools and all manner of technical instruments joined that clutter, making the whole place seem like some mad scientists workshop. Karl wanders past them all, moving up a set of open, metal stairs to a room that overlooked a pitch black hanger.
This room was much the same as what you would call the lab. It was cluttered, papers scattered here there and everywhere. On various low tables were laptops of various makes and designs, all of them on and all of them with some technical schematics or data on the screens, adding to the dim illumination of the room. Off to the right as he walked in was what would pass as a open plan kitchen, dirty plates stacked in the sink with grubby pots and pans stacked next to that. Thankfully, there was no rotting food stinking up the place, didn't seem that he was that unclean.
To the back of the room was an old, tattered but comfortable looking sofa bed that Karl called his home when he wasn't working. It was unmade and a mess with masses of pillows at the head, a large set of draws a couple of feet away from the foot. Atop of the drawers, which were old and wooden, sat a TV and Satellite box. Karl sets his cup down on a side table, before flopping heavily onto the bed. Years of work had taken its toll on him, his back wasn't quite what it used to be, evident by the groan and then sigh as he gets his weight off of his feet.
He snatches up a nearby remote, flicking the TV on before rummaging around the bedding for the second one, finally finding it with a delighted 'AHA!' and flipping through the channels. The world was in a bad state...but then what else was new. The economy was going down the toilet, fuel prices were soaring and the world was struggling to cope. Conflicts were starting to were starting to rage across various third world countries for dwindling resources and the first world was only fairing marginally better.
For decades doom sayers have been prophesying the end of the world as it was known. From 1999 to 2000 to 2012. Well, it was slowly starting to come to fruition, but in fits and starts, not in one foul swoop as most had predicted. Bit by bit, human civilization was falling apart. "Hell in a hand-basket." He sighs out, flicking the TV off and rolling onto his side. He stares long and hard at the alarm clock that sat on his side table, glaring at him in ominous red numbers. Tomorrow was the day. A Red Letter Day. Slowly, as the minutes drew on, Karl let his eyes drift shut and he fell asleep.
8am. Karl hated alarm clocks. He hated snooze buttons even more. Why the hell put a snooze button on something that is meant to wake you up? Seemed like a bad design to him. Its not like you had a snooze button on a fire alarm was it? What would be the reasoning behind that? We'll burn a bit? He had hit the snooze on the alarm four time already and was still no closer to pulling himself out of bed. At some point in the night he had gotten undressed and gotten into bed properly, his clothing piled on the floor. He finally hits the snooze button a fifth time, but a little too hard...and broke it. He hits it again, and again, and again...each time a little harder till finally the alarm clock fell on the floor out of reach...still blaring.
Well, there was nothing for it now. He sits up, scoops up the alarm clock and hurls it across the room, promptly silencing it. He spent the next half an hour sat on the edge of his bed, trying to rub the sleep from his eyes. Finally, he pulls his pants on having retrieved them from the pile on the floor, pulling a shirt over his head and slipping on his boots. He rubs at his eyes one final time before heading to the kitchen for the obligatory cup of coffee. This of course took some time in the tip of a kitchen, but he finally succeeds where others would have never even begun the attempt.
He wanders over to the window that overlooked the darkened hanger. There were no windows that looked in from the outside, and with good reason. What he was building here would raise far too many eyebrows and if it was discovered, would likely be taken from him and he would disappear. Well, maybe, maybe not. He was a bit of paranoid when it came to that sort of thing...and he would rather not take the risk. He takes a long drink from his coffee, before reaching over and flicking a switch on the wall. Slowly, the lights in the hanger flicker to life, illuminating what the darkness was hiding.
Taking up three quarters of a football field sized hanger was a black...ship...for lack of a better word. But this ship was clearly meant for flying through space. It was hardly the most...elegant thing to look at in the world, looking much like the Excalibur from the Wing Commander universe, only large and less...cool looking. For lack of a better word, it was a flying junk pile. Patched together by someone who had only a vague understanding of engineering. It would fly, but, how well was another matter. The joins on the armour plate were all clearly visible, roughly welded together with a mesh covering the entire surface of the hull for generating a shield...of sorts.
Despite its...junk style appearance, Karl was rather proud of what he had created...and despite how the outside might appear, the inside of the ship was a different story.
"Well, time to get ready."
He mused to himself for a moment, before finishing his cup of coffee and setting about his final preparations for take off. They took most of the day and consisted of getting every computer and bit of paperwork either on the ship or into the burning barrels that he had set up just outside of the hanger doors. He needed to make sure that when he was gone, no one would be any the wiser as to what had gone on here.
He had pondered leaving the technology that he had developed and used in the ships construction for everyone to make use of, but, soon realized that all would happen is the government would lock it up in a room never to see the light of day except for the use in the development of weaponry. No...they would just have to wait. He would come back eventually when this planet needed what he knew the most. But that wasn't now. By the time he had finished his preparations, it was getting late and the sun was setting. It was time to go.
He opened the massive doors to the hanger, before heading up the gantry that lead to the door on the side of his ship...about half of the way along the neck. The ship at the moment was being held up by 5 massive struts that would be retracted once the anti-gravity fields had been turned on. He stops just at the door to the ship, turning around and taking one last look around, letting out a content sigh, before turning and walking into the ship interior, the door sliding shut and sealing itself behind him.
The interior of the ship was indeed a stark contrast to the exterior. Just beyond the second door of the airlock he used to get into the ship, the floor was lushly carpeted as were the lower half of the walls. It had a very trek feel to it, but the lighting was far more subdued. The upper half of the walls were taken up by black panels of varying sizes, bolted into place via lock bolts that sat flush to the wall. It was a very smooth design that carried through out the ship. Karl walks in and makes a left, travelling down a long, narrow corridor up to the front of the ship. A door slides out of the way almost silently as he approaches, giving him access to a small, cramped cockpit. A domed glass canopy allowed him to look outside made of s super strong, transparent metal alloy that he had managed to design.
He flops down into the seat, turning it on the spot and sliding it forwards towards the control sticks and control panels, flipping several switching, turning a couple of dials and listening as the ship springs to life. Buttons and monitors spring to life as a low hum rumbles through the ship. He settles back in his seat, wriggling a little to get comfortable as he stares out into the night, the rain still pouring down. The leather of the seat creak and crack under his weight as he sits there, taking in long, deep breaths, his heart pounding in his chest.
This was exhilarating. Thrilling. Exciting. He was...if it all worked, about to go where no human being had ever been before and had only dreamed about going. With one final, deep breath, he leans forwards and slaps his hands onto the controls. The struts holding the ship up start to retract and for the briefest of moments the ship drops like a rock. For that moment, Karl thought he had screwed it all up and that the anti-grav wasn't going to kick in, but, at the very last moment the ship lurches and floats, levelling out about 10' of the floor, just low enough to get out of the door.
He pushes the control sticks forwards and the ship begins to move, easing its way out of the hanger and into the rain. The noise it makes pattering against the canopy of his ships cockpit was oddly soothing when combined with the low thrum of the ships engine. It took only a minute or two for the ship to completely emerge from the hanger, the doors closing behind him as they had been programmed to do and all the power cutting within the building. Well, he didn't want a huge bill when he finally got back...if he got back.
He settles back in his seat again, the leather making some pleasant and comforting noises of its own as he relaxes against it. He stares up at the sky for many minutes. Though he couldn't see any stars, he knew all too well that they were up there...waiting for him. That's when it hit him. He was scared. Terrified even of what he was about to do. It was so...massive, so huge that he all of a sudden felt very, very small and alone. He swallowed down on that fear, starting to wonder for the first time if he should go through with this.
He didn't have a clue what he was going to find out there. What if he accidentally blows something up that he wasn't supposed to...like a star or something. What if he met a really grumpy alien race and accidentally got the whole human race wiped out. Well, that last thought caused a smile to crack his features. He reaches out, touching the canopy, before finally swallowing that fear down, steeling himself and sitting forwards.
"Well now...lets see, if you will actually fly shall we my dear?" He was talking to the ship more than to himself.
With the flick of a few switches and a tug on the controls, the ship shot up at a staggering rate or knots, clearing the low hanging clouds in a matter of a few seconds, the ship he had built screeching into the nights sky. Within a few minutes, he was already punching a hole in the planets atmosphere, not literally of course, and hitting low orbit. The sight took his breath away. He had to stop there for a moment, putting his craft into a high orbit so that he could look down on the world. Earth. He had never really...apart from pictures...seen it like this. It...was stunning. The lights of all the cities were clearly visible...a storm approaching the east coast of the USA was also visible, little flashes of lightening seeming so insignificant from all the way up here.
Well now...there is a sight." Karl was almost breathless as he spoke, standing up slightly in his seat to get a better view.
He finally flops back down into his seat, letting out another sigh, though this one was a little more shaky than previously. He turns his head away from his home, looking out at the vast expanse of black, speckled with little spots of light. "Small steps." He muttered to himself as he took hold of the controls again. He turned his ship after taking one last look at the world he called home, heading out to the rim of the Sol System. On the way...he managed to confirm a few things that scientists had mused about. Like a few things about the Kuiper Belt and a few of the proto-planets that were scattered on the farthest reaches of the solar system. Finally...after about an hour of travelling, he was at the very edge of the system. Staring out into the abyss.
He sat there, for hours, just...staring out into the void. He could never really grasp just how...massive the universe was from books. Sure...they said it was big, huge even. But, until you are actually faced with it...any description just doesn't cover it. And out there, spattered on that black canvass were millions of tiny little pricks of light. Stars...and each one could very well have planets and maybe even life around them. He knew that him finding any in his life time was a long shot, but, he could hope. Even if he didn't find anything...this would all have been worth it.
With a shaky hand, Karl starts to plot a course for the nearest star, Proxima Centauri. It only took a few moments for the computer to let him know that the course had been locked in. He swallows hard again, before reaching up and finally bringing power to the FTL drive that he had spent most of his adult life dreaming up. Through College and University. He wasn't even sure when or where the idea for it came from...it just popped into his head one day and wouldn't go away. But now...was the big moment. Three things could happen.
The first of these was that the FTL Drive worked just as intended and in a few short hours...he would be in the Proxima Centauri and in the history books, or at least he WOULD be when they all found out about this. The second thing that could happen is that it just wouldn't work. It would make a funny noise, or no noise at all and he would just float there like a right pillock. The final thing that could happen is that the drive would explode and he would die almost immediately. He hoped it would be almost immediately anyway.
That last option was...least likely. He hoped. He had done a lot of simulations and had gone over the maths in his head and on paper multiple times. Millions of times. He looks at the lever that he would have to operate in order to make the 'jump'. He chuckles to himself as he plucks up the courage to pull the leaver. "This is so Trek." With that, he tugs the leaver back and...acceleration the likes of which he had never felt before. Sure...he had inertial dampers but he could still feel this acceleration. Thankfully...he wasn't a smear in the back of the ship.
And there were star lines, for just a moment all the stars he could see stretched out like brilliant silvery white threads. It was...far more beautiful than he had seen in any film however. As soon as he broke the Light-speed barrier though, there was nothing but blackness.
Karl couldn't help himself. He jumped up out of his seat, screaming, yelling, laughing, punching the air, nearly breaking his knuckles on the canopy. He pulls his fist to his chest, letting out several long hisses of air as he cradled it. But eventually, the smile returned as he turned to look back out the cockpit. The controls confirmed that he was in FTL and was approximately 12 hours from his destination. He let out another delighted woot...and that, is when the engine...exploded.
To be continued...