14 March 2056 AD

A shiver ran down Samuel Jennings’s spine during the final stages of the dock. The space shuttle he was riding in fired a web of reinforced nylon tethers, which clamped to the Near Earth Orbit Rig. The two spacecraft embraced each other four hundred and twenty miles above the Sirte Basin, North Africa.

There was a loud metallic clang followed by a pressurised hiss. The shuttle had connected. Samuel was soon to be a crewmember on the Rig. He was one of the many who would soon be involved in the big launch scheduled for the next day.

It had been a long day for him. His shuttle had launched from Cape Canaveral seventeen hours earlier and had fallen past the Rig three times already whilst ascending to its altitude. He had not slept the night before. Rivers of anticipation had been coursing through his veins. Now, he found his excitement unbearable as he looked out at the grand spacecraft that was nestled in the construction platform on the Rig. Even during their flybys, Samuel and his shuttle crewmates could see how incredibly majestic the spacecraft was. With it’s cylindrical Accommodation Module, the huge Command Module at the front, and the Cryogenics Module tucked away at the back.

Now they could see the tiny workmen crawling over the ship attending to the last minute checks. The Automated Maintenance Clamps followed behind them. Cleaning, checking and sealing. A well-calculated set of tasks, carried out with utmost precision.

It was a colossal operation, one that could be observed from the surface of Earth by anyone and everyone who had access to a telescope or a good pair of enhanced binoculars.

Larry - the capcom on the launch scheduled for the next day - tapped Samuel on the shoulder, snapping him out of his dreamlike awe.

‘Beautiful isn’t it?’

Samuel turned away from the view-port. He felt a strong sense of contentment, and he struggled to convert his feelings into words. Fixing Larry with a wide-eyed stare he said, ‘All my life, I’ve never seen anything like it. The Daedalus docked inside the Rig. Like mother and child. It’s so incredible. Has Mankind really come this far?’

‘Yes, and you and I are going to be the ones to launch that thing. We’re the ones the Foundation chose to send the Daedalus on its way.

It’s going to be a ground breaking three months.’ Larry said with a smile.

The integrity of the connecting corridor between the shuttle and the Rig had now been established, and one by one the crewmembers of the shuttle began to pull themselves through to the Rig. It was to be their new temporary home.

Samuel decreased the compression filter to reduce the muffled hum that permeated his earthbound transmission. Now, he could hear her more clearly. He lay back on the cabin bed, attached his suit tether to a hook at his side to prevent himself from floating away, and looked up at the camera.

‘How are the kids, Marie? I’m so sorry I didn’t get a proper chance to say goodbye to them on Thursday.’

On the screen, Marie smiled back at the camera. Her wavy brown hair was tied up in a bunch, stuck through with a small stick to hold it in place. Her green eyes possessed a radiant shine. She looked so alive. She was still in her bathrobe, and Samuel felt more than a little aroused by the combination of the sight of her and the knowledge that she was so very far away from him

right now.

The time delay on her return signal from Earth’s surface was almost two seconds.

‘Marcus is playing tennis with some of the boys from school. The teacher is dropping him home later. Katie has detention. She put a whole bunch of sanitary towels into the sink in the girl’s bathroom and flooded the place. Oh Sam, I don’t know what to do with that girl sometimes.’

Samuel laughed, and adjusted the brightness on the monitor so that he could see Marie more clearly, ‘I wouldn’t worry about it too much. All kids go through a rebellious phase at some point in their lives. And besides, it’s going to get worse before it gets better - I’m sure.’

Marie let out a sigh, ‘I don’t know how you can be so casual about it Sam, when you know deep down that you are the reason she’s acting so strangely.’

‘Marie, that’s not-‘

‘Honestly Sam. All that time you spent in astronaut training. If you were around more then things would be much more – normal. Promise me when you get back we'll take a vacation.’

Samuel stared at the monitor for a few moments. He had often followed Marie’s intuition when it came to discussing the children. She seemed so much better at the parent thing than he was.

‘Okay, I promise.’ He said, ‘I’ll be home in time for the summer. Why don’t you get some travel brochures and find something good for us. Involve the kids in the decision. I’ll go along with whatever you three decide.’

Marie was smiling, ‘Really? That sounds great. I’ll do that.’

Sam was silent for a moment. He found his mind wandering back to the overwhelming sense of wonder that he had felt as the shuttle had approached the NEO Rig.

‘Marie?’ he said.

‘Yes Sam.’

‘I’m in space. Tomorrow will be the biggest day of my career. I can look out of my view-port and see the whole world below me. It makes me feel like a King, or an angel. And I realise more with every passing moment how much I love you.’

15 March 2056 AD

‘Ignition on module rotation is go in five, four, three, two, one. Ignition’

The pressure jets fired, and the Accommodation Module began to turn slowly inside the NEO Rig. It looked like a giant beating heart inside an enormous steel ribcage.

Twenty-four large robotic arms retracted slowly away from the module as the Rig released its motherly grip. Each arm was the size of a double-decker bus. It was a grand synchronised dance. The module now hung in space, no longer attached to the Rig, which had cradled it for so many years during its construction.

In Control Room Two, nestled in the upper part of the Rig, angled slightly forward, overlooking the module, Samuel loosened one of the straps that held him to his chair. It was stopping him from floating away from his desk, but the strap was tight around his shoulder, causing a dull aching cramp.

He could hear chatter over his headphones, asking for status updates, and he reported back to Control Room One that all systems were functioning normally.

The comforting voices of the pre-flight checks continued in his ears.

‘Increase the module’s rotation to one-point-five RPM.’ said the Flight Controller in his calm, easy Southern accent.

The module’s rotation speed increased. Samuel could feel faint vibrations in his chair, and as he looked out of the control room window, he could see the huge module easing lazily past.

He looked along the bank of computers. Further down the aisle he could see Larry, who was undertaking capcom duties today. As capcom he would be the single point of contact for the crew of the Daedalus. All messages and information intended for the crew had to be spoken by Larry. Larry was also harnessed into his chair, and was chatting to the ship’s Commander right now.

Beyond Larry, further along the bank of computers was Frederick - the Systems officer - correlating a palm device log file against the readings on his monitor. Over his headphones, Samuel could hear Larry reassuring the ship’s commander that the module’s rotation was well within the accepted vibration levels.

Something on one of the screens caught Samuel’s eye, and he leaned toward the monitor for a closer look.

He cursed under his breath when he realised what he saw and quickly patched through on a secure channel to the other control room.

‘Control One, I need you to look at Camera 71-Alpha.’

From across the gantry, three hundred metres away, the response from the Flight Director came back over the speaker.

‘Roger that. Camera 71-Alpha. I’m looking at it. What am I supposed to be looking at?’

‘There’s an Automated Maintenance Clamp still attached to the Accommodation Module. Did someone forget to remove it?’

For a moment the Flight Director was silent, and all Samuel could hear were the other members of the team talking.

‘Okay, I have a visual on the AMC. Aren’t those things supposed to remove themselves?’

‘It looks like this one didn’t. It must have malfunctioned.’

‘It doesn’t look like it’s still attached to the Rig, only the module It’s not going to be a problem. We can do a manual jettison from the module when the ship clears the Rig, maybe use the onboard EVA unit to-’

‘No!’ interrupted Samuel, bunching his hand into a tight fist, ‘the module hasn’t completed a full rotation yet. If we leave it attached it won’t clear the Rig. It’s sticking out a full 3 metres. That’s a lot more than we have clearance for.’ He glanced again at Camera 71-A.

‘That’s a negative. We have all arms retracted now.’ Flight said calmly.

‘No, you’re wrong. Shit! I can see it. It’s going to hit one of the xenon transfer cranes. Order a stop on the rotation now!’

Through the window in front and below him, Samuel could see the AMC unit bolted to the side of the large rotating module. It was bigger than he thought, and it was steadily moving closer.

‘Okay, okay,’ muttered Flight. Samuel heard a click as Flight opened the channel, ‘Systems in Control Room Two? I have an order from…’

His voice was cut short. There was an almighty crash as the AMC unit slammed violently into the xenon transfer crane below them, shattering the calm and drowning out Flight’s voice. The jolt caused the entire control room to lurch upwards. There was a deafening screech of twisting metal as the room tore free of it’s own mounting within the Rig, severing their power cables and oxygen pipes and rupturing the entry corridor to their room.

Everything went dark.

The three men were thrown upwards out of their seats with the force of the impact, ripping their restraining harnesses, slamming into the ceiling, hard and fast. Larry smashed his head against one of the ceiling mounted units. It knocked him unconscious.

Red emergency lights on the gantry arced round to shine through the window of the control room.

Stillness, and silence, broken only by the fizzle-pop of a computer short-circuiting.

Frederick started to climb over to Larry, but he found that his foot was wrapped in a cluster of cables that had come loose from the wall. He fumbled at the wires, trying to shake himself free, but he couldn’t. Looking across at Samuel, he started to scream.

Once the AMC unit had hit the xenon transfer crane, it snapped free of it’s clamping and broke away from the module, momentum flipping it over and over as it flew upwards toward the control room. The module continued to rotate, the massive cylinder occupying the whole window as it surged upwards past them.

For a few seconds, there was silence. Then Samuel could hear sharp metallic clangs and bangs as the AMC bounced upwards, glancing off the mounting pillars and girders which held the fuel crane and the control room in place, spinning this way and that as it’s momentum was absorbed bit by bit into the Rig frame.

Samuel closed his eyes and prayed that the AMC would not hit them. He hoped that it would get deflected out of the way or become trapped between two pillars somewhere.

But his prayers went unanswered, and a second impact rocked the control room as the AMC smashed into it, ripping a massive hole in the floor.

The control room started to depressurise rapidly. There was a heavy popping sound as some of the control units caught fire, and a high pitched squeal as rushing air escaped through the hole into the vacuum of space.

Above the hissing noise, Samuel could hear the incessant beeping of the Class One Emergency Tone ringing out from one of the terminals. He knew what it meant. The pressure was falling. If they didn’t seal the hole or get the hell out of there they would be dead within minutes, or seconds.

Samuel knew he couldn’t save the others, they would have to save themselves. Working quickly he climbed hand-over-hand along the ceiling towards the spacesuit rack. Bracing himself against the wall, he wrestled one of the suits free of its mounting and began to fight with the rubber seal on the collar. As he tried to get it over his head, an explosion rocked the control room as the AMC that was wedged underneath them started to burn up.

The room bucked again, knocking Samuel - and an unconscious Larry - across to the opposite wall, and swinging Frederick in his cable harness downwards to smash his head against the floor. His screams were cut short.

The Emergency Tone shut off. The pressure reduction started to cause severe barotrauma in Samuel’s inner ears. He screamed in pain as the pressure imbalance increased to excruciating levels. He struggled to breathe, trying in vain to clamber into the suit. He could feel his eyes widening in tight fear. This was it. This would be the last thing he’d know.

I’m going to die. In a few seconds I’ll be dead. There’s no escape now.

Marie…

A second explosion ripped through the room, sending a searing hot fireball along its entire length, burning fast in the artificially

enriched oxygen environment. Incinerating everything in its path.

Just before the flames consumed him, he caught a glimpse out of the window. He could see the fragile Earth below. He could see the straight, clean edge of the north coast of Libya. The sun scorched browns of the Sahara, contrasted against the rich blues of the Mediterranean Sea. The planet looked so tranquil and serene from up here.

He knew why he was here. He was part of the bigger picture. Part of the big investigation. And maybe that was worth a few lives.

The men and women in Control Room One could only sit and stare in disbelief and horror as the events unfolded before them. They had seen the AMC unit also, just as Systems had called a halt on the rotation.

‘The module never would have stopped in time.’

‘Good God in Heaven!’

‘At least the xenon tanks didn’t blow.’

‘Even if we’d halted rotation when they asked us to. It still takes time for the reverse jets to counter the spin. It doesn’t happen

instantly!’

‘Sir we need a go or no-go on the launch sequence.’

‘Shit!’

‘Sir we need to stay in the launch window. Do we have a go on the launch?’

‘Sys…Systems, Flight. Give me a report on the integrity of the module.’

A moment later, ‘The module is fine. The AMC snapped clean off, but it didn’t take anything with it.’

‘Did the Daedalus sustain any internal damage?’

‘Negative sir.’

‘Then we cannot allow them to die for nothing.’

‘Sir, I repeat. Do we have a go or no-go on the launch?’

He took a deep breath, ‘Yes. Proceed with the launch.’

16 March 2056 AD

‘This is Commander Frank Chambers on board the spacecraft Daedalus. Mission Day Two.

‘I know I speak for all the members of the crew here when I express my deep regret and profound sadness at the loss of three fine astronauts. Samuel Jennings, Larry Barnes and Frederick Beresford, who lost their lives during the unfortunate and dreadful accident which took place yesterday during the launch of our ship. They were a credit to the Space Foundation, and gave their lives to support its ideals. Frederick was a close personal friend of mine, who applied for this mission also. And I know that Samuel left behind a son, a daughter and a loving wife. And Larry, a wife and two sons. My heart - and those of all my crew – goes out to those families today, as we share in our thoughts, the sacrifices those astronauts made for the progress of

mankind.

‘In the quest for truth, we are all required to take a leap in the dark. This mission is one such leap, and we will carry their memories with us forever’

As the Earth swung past the view-port of the accommodation module, Frank could see the South Island of New Zealand creep slowly round to the dark side. The island was surrounded on all sides by the expanse of the South Pacific, and to the south he could make out scattered storm clouds, which churned up over the Antarctic’s ice fields.

On many of his previous missions, Frank had often spent his recreation time staring out of the view-port at the world below. The view of the Earth from up here was so mesmerising and radiantly beautiful that he could hardly take his eyes away. It was often the case with Earth orbital flights. He always started the missions fully intending to get some serious reading done, or perhaps begin writing his autobiography. But it always came back to the same thing. Recreation time was nearly always spent playing cards or staring out of the window. It was as though all the intense work he had done during his shift had left him with only enough energy for passive entertainment. Certainly nothing that challenged the grey matter too much.

As he stared at his home planet, it occurred to him that this could well be his last view of home, and he fought hard to prevent the tears from welling up behind his eyes. He had known this before the mission, but the idea became more poignant now that he could see the wondrous place from this hugely elevated position.

When the module’s rotation carried the Earth out of sight, the deep star field came into view. He pushed his face close to the view-port. Without the glare of his home planet to obscure the light of the stars, he could see the infinite expanse spread out before him. It was a beautiful sight, a clearer version of the image that populated the summer nights of his childhood. Except this time he was not seeing those tiny distant points of light though a telescope hampered by orange city lights and localised pollution. Now he was able to look directly into the past life of the universe, and see everything it had to offer.

Somewhere below him, a controlled thrust burst altered the trajectory of the Daedalus. The ship was beginning to break away from Earth’s orbit and would soon be out of its gravitational free fall, on a transfer orbit to Mars.

But that was only the first step on a much grander journey. Mankind had already set foot on Mars. The Daedalus would take them so much further.

Commander Frank Chambers and Captain Ian Byrne were the only crewmembers left awake when the Daedalus undocked from the NEO Rig in Near Earth Orbit thirty-six hours earlier. The remaining five members of the crew slept in cryogenic hibernation in the dedicated module at the back of the ship.

None of them would be aware of the accident that had taken place as they were leaving until they awoke from their sleep, many years from now.

There had been some talk of aborting the mission, but that idea had been buried quickly, especially after the families of the three astronauts had expressed their desire to see the mission go ahead. Many people maintained that Larry, Samuel and Frederick would have also wanted the Daedalus to continue flying.

So here they were. Going ahead as planned. Trying to forget about the disaster that literally shook the Rig. Continuing on as though nothing had happened, but always aware that indeed, something had.

Frank turned his thoughts to the mission.

The Daedalus was to be their new home for the next one hundred and fifteen years on the outward journey. His job for the next eleven months (along with Captain Ian Byrne) would be to monitor the systems up until the final abort window in Mars’s orbit. After that, Ian and Frank would join the other five members of the crew in cryogenic hibernation for the remainder of the trip

to Proxima Centauri. On arrival in the new system, the onboard computers would then wake the crew in preparation for a further two years of intensive studies. Then they would fall into a geo-synchronous orbit around the destination planet.

Frank sighed at the thought of how much planning, effort, blood, sweat and tears had gone into getting them even this far, with so much further to go. He was in no doubt that the Daedalus was going to go down in history as one of the great pioneering ships of this and the next century. Even if the voyage was unsuccessful and they all ended up dead in a floating metallic tomb,

tumbling forever through the void, they would still represent the height of human engineering. They would be the furthest travelling humans ever, as it would take a minor miracle to plan, authorise and build a ship that would catch them up using current propulsion methods, given that there wasn’t another Hohmann Transfer window on a trajectory to Mars for another twenty-five months.

That’s why they had to just leave. Escape the burning wreckage, catch the transfer window, and leave everyone else to clean up the mess back at the Rig.

Frank had once described the Hohmann Transfer concept to a group of hungry journalists in Washington DC. In fact it was only six weeks prior to the launch, and the question of how the Daedalus would get to its destination was raised.

‘To correctly understand a Hohmann Transfer trajectory,’ Frank said into the cluster of microphones in front of his face, ‘one has to imagine that the Daedalus is already in solar orbit before it has launched from the Rig. Therefore, to send it on it’s way to Mars, it merely has to be given a push in the right direction at the right time. The ship will then glide around it’s solar orbit to intercept Mars when Mars is passing by, or rather just miss it so that we can slingshot past, using it’s gravity to send us on to the next planet, Jupiter. It’s simple physics. If you can understand how planets revolve around the sun, just think of our ship as another planet. The whole process saves us a lot of fuel. If we’re lucky we can get to Proxima almost for free.’

That press conference had lasted over an hour, and had won him a standing ovation. It had been his moment in the spotlight.

Frank moved away from the view-port and settled onto the bed. He was light-headed from staring out the window. He kicked off his rubber shoes and swung his legs up onto the bed. He had spent most of the day with Ian testing uplink frequencies with NEO Rig Control (what was left of it), and helping out with the accident investigation, sharing his knowledge of AMC’s with the other members of Control.

But now it was time to get a few hours sleep.

The centrifugal force of the spinning accommodation module created a light gravitational effect that enabled basic tasks such as going to the toilet and sleeping to be performed much more easily. So although he felt light on the bed, the sensation was not so far removed from what he was used to on Earth.

He struggled for a while to ignore the incessant noise of the internal systems on the Daedalus. He remembered one of the trainers on the ground telling him that people tolerated noise more if they knew it was necessary. Before long his mind would learn to forget that the noise was there, but he had not reached that stage yet.

As he closed his eyes in the darkness, he saw occasional streaks of light dancing on the insides of his eyelids as tiny interstellar radiation particles penetrated his retina.

Frank let out a deep breath. He was a spaceman again, on a voyage full of new things. He knew nothing would ever be the same again.

Only a few minutes later, spinning in the Daedalus accommodation module, hurtling though local space on a trajectory for the stars, he temporarily joined his colleagues in their slumber.

Frank grabbed onto the swing bar above the door, enabling him to hook his legs through the gap into the central axis corridor of the spinning module. Ian Byrne was floating five metres in front of him. He was holding a palm device, and was using it to check the backup routines on the emergency electrics monitoring software.

‘Good Morning Ian, how’s it going?’ Frank shouted over the machinery hum.

‘Fine Frank. I’ve just been checking the ISOE and we’re due for the final Trajectory Correction Manoeuvre in about two hours.’

The ISOE (Integrated Sequence of Events) list was created in advance of the mission by the spacecraft team on the ground. Its purpose was to plot anticipated events in the mission so that they can be correlated against real-time events. This assures the flight crew that all aspects of the mission on the ground and in the Daedalus are happening according to plan.

‘Will the TCM be the final burn to set our course to Mars?’

‘Yes, to steal a little of its angular momentum’

‘Then straight onto Jupiter for another gravity assist,’ Frank added. ‘We don’t have the power to turn back now even if we wanted to.’

Ian laughed nervously, ‘We have another abort window in eleven months when we hit Mars proximity, and that will take up nearly three-quarters of our fuel to break back into an Earthbound orbit. But once we pass Mars, we can’t get back until we perform the photovoltaic scoop at Proxima Centauri in a hundred and fifteen years time.’

‘I’m still wondering if that’s going to work.’

‘Whether we’ll ever wake up?’

‘That also, but I’m talking about the scoop.’

‘Don’t go having doubts now, Frank. We’ve practised the procedure over fifty times in the simulator. The real thing won’t be any harder. Most of it’s automated anyway. All we have to do is extend the panel arms and make sure the software is running smoothly. In fact we’ll have frustratingly little to do. The only thing I can think of that will possibly go wrong with the procedure is if micrometeorites knock out all eight solar panels while we’re scooping. The probability of that is about ten thousand to one.’

‘Thanks Ian, you’re scientific probabilities always put me at ease. Will we even remember who we are after a hundred years in a cryogenic pod?’ Frank said laughing, ‘More importantly, have you got time for some breakfast before the burn?’

‘Let me finish these checks and I’ll follow you down.’

‘Are we going to have another beard contest this time Frank?’

‘You know that competitive pastimes are not encouraged in space.’ Frank said as he attached the hook on his suit to the door of the pantry, ‘It encourages inter-personal conflict. Besides, you won last time.’

‘Come on, it won’t be competitive. Whoever feels the need to shave first loses. Simple as that.’

‘Okay, but what does the winner get.’

‘The loser has to run the cryo pod checks for six months.’ Ian said, beaming his broad Scottish smile.

‘Six months! I think we should let the computers do it. After all, we’re expecting them to keep us alive after we put ourselves to

sleep.’

‘But we can’t be sure they’re completely fail safe yet. Besides, you might win the contest Frank.’

‘I guess these pods aren’t as simple as in the “Cryo Dude” movies.’

‘Oh yes, Cryo Dude. What was it again? “Chuck Flame is Cryo Dude III: He’s Cool”.’ Frank laughed.

‘Something like that.’

‘Chuck Flame. What a terrible actor.’

‘Alright, you’re on,’ said Frank, grinning, ‘a beard contest it is.’

‘Okay,’ said Ian, then his smile faded slightly. ‘Are the cryo pods your biggest concern about this mission?’

‘Not my biggest concern, no.’ Frank said as he sipped fruit juice out of a foil pouch through a clear tube, ‘The possibility of problems with the interstellar winds when we hit Proxima’s heliosphere concerns me greatly though.’

Ian considered this for a moment, ‘I’m not so sure about that,’ he said finally, ‘We’ll have the solar panels docked prior to that.

Besides, Pioneer survived it.’

‘Yes, but Voyager didn’t. We have no idea what effects the termination shock will have on the ship.’

‘We don’t know that Voyager didn’t make it. Earth just lost contact with it. If the antennae on the Voyager probe were knocked out of line by even the smallest fraction of a degree then the downlink would have been disrupted. That’s probably all that happened. Voyager wasn’t designed to take the enormous buffeting it would have experienced when it hit the remote heliosphere, but I doubt it broke up. The Daedalus has been designed with that in mind.’

‘I always get nerves at the start of a mission.’

‘On a mission like this there are so many ifs and buts. So many variables that we can never be expected to cover every eventuality.’ Ian said, ‘We knew the risks when we entered into the program. The chances of us returning to Earth are pretty small. Even though we’ve covered so many aspects of the mission in the preparation, we knew deep down that the risks were immense. But you-’

‘-I know, Ian. You can’t let it hinder your professional conduct. Welcome to the edge of human endeavour.’

‘My concern lies more with the crew.’ Ian said, ‘We are dealing with the longest crew confinement exercise known to man. I realise that extensive studies into astronaut behaviour over extended periods in confinement have been undertaken, and that although there were a few relational problems on the manned Mars mission, there was nothing that couldn’t be ironed out. I think there’s so much more to learn about lengthy confinement. Man was never meant to be in space. Our bodies didn’t evolve in a confined weightless environment. Not enough zeitgebers’

‘Zeitgebers?’

‘Aspects of human evolution on Earth. Little reminders that enable our biological clocks to stick to a twenty-four hour rotation. Like day and night for example.’ Ian explained.

Frank thought about this for a moment, ‘I was under the impression that most of the animosity on board the Mars mission was directed towards the ground crew.’

‘The crew switched off the communications computer for several days because they resented the ground crew for monitoring all their conversations. They were severely reprimanded for it though. It could have jeopardised the mission,’ Ian said ‘But it was far healthier for the morale of the crew that their discomfort over being confined was directed at the ground rather than manifest itself as internal disagreements.’

‘Ian, when we get to Proxima Centauri, we won’t have the ability to communicate with the ground crew. It will take years for them to even receive a downlink message from us. Any problems will have to be resolved internally’

‘That’s my concern, Frank. That’s exactly what I’m worried about,’ Ian let out a deep breath, ‘Your leadership skills precede you Frank. But this will be your biggest challenge yet.’

‘Please explain to us Mr Chambers, exactly what the heliopause is?’ asked a beautiful young reporter in a shapely burgundy trouser suit.

‘Well, without going into too much detail,’ smiled Frank, blinking against the camera flashes at the press conference, ‘the heliopause is one of the many things the Daedalus will be investigating on its journey. I’m sure many of you already know what solar wind is. It’s what gives comets their trails. Invisible solar flares, thrown out from the sun. Ionised particles that shoot out across the solar system, bombarding everything in their path. The Aurora Borealis - or Northern Lights - is a visible case in point. The winds travel very far very fast, but even they have an outside influence. Places where they cannot escape the gravitational pull of the solar system. So we are encased almost in an invisible sphere, the heliosphere. Beyond the heliosphere is the heliopause. Part of the interstellar medium where no solar winds exist, because there are no stars. The Daedalus will travel beyond the heliosphere, through the heliopause, and into the heliosphere at Proxima Centauri. It’s unprecedented, unless of course you talk about Voyager and Pioneer, the manmade probes which ventured beyond our solar system many years ago.’

‘Mission Control has uploaded some photographs of the damage to the NEO Rig. Would you like to see them?’

Frank sighed, ‘Not really. The whole incident fills me with a profound sense of guilt.’

‘I know it’s not what you want to hear, Frank, but this mission is bigger than any one person, or even three. You of all people should know that. What else could we do? We had to continue with the mission.’

‘I know. You’re right. But all this death. In my mind, the module, it’s tainted with the blood of three men.’

‘I’m only emulating the opinions of the Foundation when I say this, but we couldn’t shelve the whole mission just because of a faulty AMC unit that, miraculously, didn’t even jeopardise the integrity of the Daedalus when it broke off.’

‘Maybe we’re jinxed.’

‘Maybe we’re lucky. What better way to humble us and make us realise that these things are not to be taken lightly. That mankind is not the master of all he surveys.’

Frank stared at him, ‘I think, if anything is going to teach us that, it will be this mission.’

20 July 2057 AD

Frank floated past each of the cryogenic pods. Using a small palmtop computer, he initiated a routine that queried the pods for

information about the vital signs of each sleeping member of the crew. He also ran a diagnostic program on the pods themselves to ensure that they were still in perfect working order.

Monitoring the cryogenic status of the crew was a necessary part of the mission up until Mars orbit. Storage of humans on ice was still a pioneering science, and it wasn’t very often a set of subjects could be studied for a long period of time. So the vital statistics of the sleeping crew were downlinked to Earth on a regular basis, to aid the progress of cryogenic science.

After Mars transfer, Frank and Ian would be asleep, and the onboard computer - after a series of dry runs - would automatically downlink all information to Earth. But after they crossed Neptune’s orbital path, even that would stop. Then they would be truly alone, for the journey to the edge of the solar system was but a mere fraction of the journey to Proxima.

Frank arrived at Harold Gunther’s pod. His vital signs were perfectly normal, as always. The science officer lay peacefully in his icy bed.

Harold was born in Munich in 2009. He lost his parents at an early age. His father died during the factory strike riots of 2017 and his mother died of cancer in 2021. Harold was taken into a childcare facility at the age of twelve. His circumstances forced him to become a very introverted child and he soon retreated into books. Eventually he won a scholarship to the Berlin University of Astronomical Science, and joined the space program in 2040. To Frank, Harold was the embodiment of triumph over adversity.

Harold would be responsible for carrying out all the chemical, biological and physical experiments in Proxima Centauri. His theoretical viewpoint on all matters of natures laws would no doubt prove invaluable throughout the course of the mission.

The second pod in the line belonged to the Canadian born Norwegian named Jake Harding. Jake was thirty-four years old. Though by the time he woke up he would be one hundred and forty-nine.

Jake was a child prodigy. By the age of eleven he won his PhD at Toronto University, and by fifteen he owned a pilots licence. He turned his attention to the field of low to zero gravity medical facilities and entered the astronauts training program at the age of eighteen.

Prior to his acceptance on the Daedalus mission, Jake’s most famous contribution to the space program was his invention of the ‘Freefall Doctor’ which he designed and – quite literally - rolled out during his year-long stint as medical supervisor on the NEO Rig. The Freefall Doctor was a small spherical artificial intelligence unit that was a perfect aid to a medical officer

in a weightless environment. Jake had made a lot of money from the invention, which was now used on eighty percent of all space missions, including the Daedalus.

Harold and Jake would be the first two men to wake and see the dawn of a new solar system. A new dawn in Proxima Centauri.

The three other pods belonged to Navigation Officer Loretta Pearce, Medical Officer James Clarke and Bio Monitor Janice Taylor.

Frank traced his fingers lightly over one of the pod’s frosted glass surface, and thought to himself how lucky he was to have such a talented and special crew on his mission. In fact, he was travelling with some of the best scientific minds in the world.