Chatterbox: Inkwell

In 2742, citizens from the burned-out world of Earth arrived at the distant sun Kaepria Alpha-Gamma in their intersteller spaceship, the UEG Unity. They awoke from their cryo-sleep chambers, as they had seventy-seven times before. They surveyed the system quickly, knowing that either they would go back to the cryo-sleep chambers without feeling ground beneath their feet, or they would find a planet suitable for life. They surveyed seven planets before coming to the last two.

The last two were twins, orbiting like each other's moons. The first was seemingly uninhabitable, though it looked almost like Earth, burned out by a long dead civilization. But the second planet. . . Goldilocks would have been proud to see such a just-right planet. The seas were blue and deep, and clouds filled the sky over lush, green fields and forests. The colony ship drew closer, the inhabitants wondering if this was just a dream. But in their half-sleeping minds, they forgot to check for hostiles.

As they drew into orbit around the inhabitable planet, a streak of flame shot from nowhere, striking their Antimatter drive. The captain looked opon the scene with horror, jolted out of her reverie, and quickly ordered the seperation of the main engine module. However, they now only had their Ion boosters, which could not get them out of the blast radius in time. The captain ordered that all shields be raised, but knew it would not be enough. In a strike of genius, she ordered that the shields on the Antimatter drive be raised, and ordered they make an emergency entry into the atmosphere of the planet. And then the matter and the Antimatter finally touched. An explosion rocked the Unity, blowing out all four boosters and sending them hurtling into the atmosphere at seventeen times the speed of sound. The captain issued a final order before being struck dead by a flying shard of metal. "Leave, all of you!" she screamed, "My heart is with you!". Fifteen escape pods flew from the unity. Only four made it to the surface. Even as the Earthens stepped out onto solid ground for the first time in three hundred years, they cried. Even as they saw the sun rise, they cried.

For seventeen months after the landing, the sixty-nine survivors (the pods each carried twenty people, but eleven died after the landing) eked out a meager existance, only barely surviving. And indeed, some didn't. An extra eight people died from sickness

To Be Continued