The Eleusian Effect
Chapter 15 Lightspeed

September 20, 2169 1800 Hours

The crew met in the cantina. With a skeleton team on the bridge monitoring the last of the mission prep, Tanner called the meal to order. “I have called everyone here as well as simulcasting this to the bridge. I am proud and pleased to announce our new mission. We are headed to the Alpha Centauri B galaxy to not just explore but colonize a planet!” The crowd went wild. Tanner ordered Champagne and it went from dinner to a party. We ate and drank for a while. We laughed and congratulated each other and talked about what we were going to do on the first planet we found. Everything from building a mineral spa to an aerogel drone farm and more were dreamed up. The excitement of the night lasted for hours. I left for a little while and glammed up my look. Tanner, Tracy and several others followed suit and we partied for several hours. About midnight, things subsided and Tanner went to the bridge to initiate leaving orbit. We all returned to our duty stations for this event all though most of us were off duty. I accompanied Tanner to the bridge. She sat in her command chair and prepared to give the order to leave orbit. We turned on the ship-wide com so everyone could hear the command. I sat on the bridge at the medical console and turned forward. Tanner savored the moment. She turned and looked at all of us, one by one. She knew we were proud to serve under her and she, us.

Tanner sounded the Bosun’s Call.

“All hands, this is Captain Tanner. We are about to embark on the greatest mission, no-the greatest adventure mankind has ever faced. We will experience things no human being has ever seen and maybe never again. Let me urge you to document your daily lives, your work, your recreation and your emotions as we travel into the Greatest Unknown. May God have mercy on us and may we return with a greater understanding of ourselves and of our very existence. Our goal is to travel to the Alpha Centauri B galaxy and replace a planet to colonize. We will be conducting many smaller missions, mostly research and scientific but we have the unique opportunity to see another part of the universe that no other human has ever seen. And now I’d like to give you a statement based on an introduction from a centuries old television show about this very experience: Space. The last frontier. This is the second voyage of the United Star Ship Kennedy. Our mission: to travel beyond our solar system. Our goal: to explore new worlds and seek out new life, to preserve our own culture and discover the unknown. We hope that in the event that we meet alien life, we can not only communicate but establish common grounds and friendship. We travel into the depths of space and seek understanding of ourselves as well as the unknowable.

Godspeed, my friends. Take us out of orbit, Mr. Christian.”

“Aye, sir.” The navigator brought the ship out of orbit. We were still moving albeit slowly. We all held our breath. Tanner spoke calmly. “Set course for the Alpha Centauri system.” “Course laid in and set.”

“Light speed one. Engage.”

As we watched the main screen it was like a movie. The stars and planets stretched and caught up with themselves. We felt a slight amount of inertia as the Kennedy jumped to lightspeed. “FTL-1, Light speed achieved, Sir.” “Maintain course. Steady as she goes.”

“Aye.”

I spoke first. “Congratulations, Commander.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

I checked the console screen and everything was normal. It was then that I realized that myself and the Captain were still in party dress. I stood up and moved over to the command chair. “Are you going to change?” “Not yet,” Tanner was still staring at the view screen. “I still feel somewhat, celebratory.”

I stood there for a few minutes, experiencing what no one has ever achieved before, marveling at the fact we were traveling beyond our own solar system. We had achieved full light speed within our solar system for testing and short expeditions but never has anyone gone beyond Saturn. As amazing event as this was I decided to go to bed and be fresh for the next day. “I’m going to turn in.” “I’m going to stay up a little while longer.” Tanner was transfixed.

“Good night, Didi.”

Tanner finally broke her gaze from the view screen and turned to me. “Good night, Danna, and thanks.”

“For what?”

“For being part of this.”

I nodded and smiled. Didi did the same and turned back to the view screen. “Ensign, enhance magnification. I want to see more.” September 21, 2169 0700 Hours

I woke up more refreshed than I expected. I was excited because we were headed toward deep space. I wondered what we would replace in the Alpha Centauri System. I wondered what was there if we found any of the Theorites. I called Tanner on the com. “Morning Captain.” “Morning, Doc.”

“Have you been to bed?”

“I tried. Took an hour nap but I was too excited.”

“Well, tonight you should turn in early. You can’t explore space half asleep.”

“Yes, Doctor.” She smiled a wry grin.

“You hungry?”

“Yes, actually. Breakfast?”

“Twenty Minutes.”

“Done.” The com screen went dark and I got dressed. I decided on a slightly pronounced look for the day. Not sure why but didn’t give it too much thought. I went to sickbay to check the day’s tasks. No one was sick so I decided to look into the Eleusian drive analyses progress. It had been several weeks since I worked on it so I recapped a little. We still needed to know why the Mars archive upload caused the Mars explosion. Since the funeral service for the victims, GASA has given us a lot of room to deal with it. They were concerned about bad publicity and raising the ire of the Anti-space advocates. They can be more than a nuisance (especially when it comes to funding) so GASA treads carefully. The science lab team made significant progress during my absence. I spoke with Tracy and she said Jamie Braddock had made some significant discoveries. I had only seen Jamie in passing in the past few weeks. She had immersed herself into the Eleusian Data and was now the foremost expert. She looked a little tired but she was in good spirits. She was an attractive girl. Sometime after her gender change she had changed her hair color. She was a light brown brunette, but now she was a platinum blonde. “Nice hair color.” “Hey Doc. It’s been a while. Yeah I’d forgotten that we hadn’t seen each other for a while. I got using to being a blonde.” “It looks good on you. What’s the latest on the drives?”

“You wouldn’t believe it. We’ve found cures to all sorts of diseases. Did you know that chicken pox was a weapon? The Eleusians didn’t realize that over time we would build up a resistance to it. By the 20th century, it was a mild nuisance. Children could overcome it with a little care. I guess they expected the children to carry it a lot longer so it would sterilize them as adults but it was a failure. Cancer could have been eradicated 130 years earlier if we had this data.” “That’s amazing. Too bad we didn’t get to Venus sooner.”

“That’s only the surface. There are exabytes of data that had the Eleusians ruling the Earth for thousands of years. If they hadn’t fought among themselves, they’d probably still be around. Also, we would have traveling the stars hundreds of years ago.” “All that time wasted. Just because of foolish pride.”

“Do you know what the real tragedy is?”

“Do tell.”

“This gender change thing? You’ll never guess why it was created.”

“Why? Is it another weapon?”

“Not at all. It started off as a super soldier program. Their females were far more durable physically than the males. The males were the equivalent of our best male specimen; the females were better. They literally dismantled their own female genome and reengineered it. Then they tried to enhance their natural born females, but they rejected it. They could not rewrite the original female genetic code. So a small group of male Eleusian scientists tried it on themselves and were successful. Too successful.” I was fascinated. “Let me guess. It got away from them.”

“Well, in a sense. They did end up turning themselves into enhanced females like us. Once that happened, they viewed it as a gift. But something else happened. They accidentally created a super-virus that carried the genetic formula to change male to female. They also created the cure. But as we already know, it has to be administered within thirty days or they became female permanently.” “Fascinating.”

“Would you like to hear the kicker?”

“Absolutely.”

“It was a prank.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“The final administration of the virus was a prank. Ares was Aphrodite’s lover but Zeus was jealous. For some weird reason, Ares wanted to mess with Zeus and tried to turn his armies into women. Zeus thought women were still inferior for some reason. Ares thought the female soldiers would embarrass Zeus when they met the men on the battlefield. Ares was correct and Zeus was furious. The problem, however, is that Ares never told Zeus he could change the women back into men. The pheromone levels were so high that the enhanced women’s libidos were completely out of control and not only that,” I interrupted Jaime because I knew what was next. I continued her sentence. “The men began change into women spontaneously.” “Yes! How did you know?”

“Because it can still happen. I’ve done it.”

“What?”

“CPO Barton. On Mars. He turned into a woman when I flirted with him really hard.”

Jaime was shocked. “You did that?”

“I pretty sure that I did. I didn’t mean to. I mean he was gay and I was wondering how my pheromones would affect him, if they did at all!” “So he was gay, and you flirted with him? Why?”

“It was an informal experiment. I knew that we had the heightened pheromone production, but I never thought it would turn him into a woman.” “You flirted with him and then what happened? How did he react?”

“He was flustered for sure. He had a partner, so he was somewhat confused. I backed off and I felt really bad I messed with him.” “Did you feel any changes when you did that?”

“I felt a little warm, I mean not like amorous, just a slight rise in body temperature.”

“I never guessed that was something we could control. I’ll need to run some tests.”

“We need to keep this under our hat; only you, me and Tanner know. Barton has no idea about the Venus mission or anything.” “Okay.”

Just then Cleveland crossed my mind. “Jaime, what did you do on furlough last month?”

“I went home to London. I told my mother about the change. It took a few weeks for her to deal with it. My dad died last year so I am all she has. She’s okay now.” “That’s good. Did you have anyone visit you unexpectedly? From GASA?

“Come to think of it, there was a guy who contacted me. His name was Cleveland, I think.”

“What did he want?”

“He wanted to talk about the Venus Mission and what happened. I didn’t end up meeting with him though. We talked briefly over comms and I claimed I couldn’t discuss it with him. My mom was having a hard enough time as it was.” “Did he have a wife with him?”

“I don’t know. He called me from his office. He didn’t mention his wife.”

“Okay. If you remember anything about him, let me know. It’s very important.”

“Will do. I have a lot more to tell you about the drives so we’ll meet later?”

“Sure.”

Captain Cleveland is very persistent. I thought I should ask the same question of the commander. I went up to meet her for breakfast. She was already at the cantina studying her pad over fruit and some tea. I sat down. “I have to tell you something.” “We have much to talk about. You first.”

“Did a Captain Cleveland contact you during your furlough?”

“Yes. Why?”

“He’s contacted a bunch of us. His name isn’t Cleveland either. It’s Romulus Rood.”

“He told me he was with JAG office.”

“He’s a spy. He knows what happened on the Venus Mission and he’s been pumping a lot of us to get more information.”

“Interesting. He seemed very interested about biological data. He knew we found something on Venus but he didn’t seem to know exactly what.” “I got the same vibe. Any ideas on what we should do?”

“Well he can’t get to us out here. I’d put it on the back burner until we get back. Maybe he’ll lose interest.”

“I don’t think he will. Not since he’s gone to great lengths to replace us.”

“Still, unless he stowed away on this ship, he can’t get to us.”

“True. I guess I can forget about him for now.”

“Seeing we are on our way to another galaxy, I think that’s a great idea.” Didi smiled.

“So, moving on to other things I just had an enlightening conversation with Lieutenant Commander Braddock.”

“She’s been tireless on the drives. I almost had to order her to take some time off.”

“Well it hasn’t been for naught. She has some vital information about the drive data.”

Didi shifted in her seat. “Give me the Reader’s Digest version.”

It seems that the gender changing serum was a prank gone wrong.”

“You have to be joking!”

“I wish I was. Such a crime for all of that technology lost to the human race because supposedly superior beings were acting like immature children.” “Can you imagine?”

“Braddock says we would have been out here 175 years earlier, if the Eleusians kept their crap together.”

“That makes me kind of pissed. We could have done so much more with their discoveries. Avoided war, poverty, disease, it’s the ultimate diss.” “Well there’s more.” I proceeded to tell Didi everything. About the flirting with Barton, the subsequent gender change and the pheromones. She was amazed. “We are extremely lucky Barton wanted to transition. You could have had a catastrophe on your hands.” “That’s true. I just felt bad that I had messed with him. If I had any idea that this would have happened, I never would have tried it.” “We are in a unique position. I guess it will take some time to fully understand our condition. For now, keep this under wraps. We don’t want any more informal experiments. Plus, the men on the ship won’t have a snowball’s chance if we let this slip. Even I’m struggling not having my man around me.” “The pheromone balance vapor should be sufficient to keep everyone on an even keel. I have an alarm set if the pheromone balance starts to tip.” “Okay that’s good. Let’s move on to landing party protocols.”

September 21, 2169 1430 Hours

The morning had been productive. We worked out landing party protocols and now they were circulating through the ship’s sections for edits, acknowledgements and suggestions. I grabbed a late lunch and headed up to the bridge. I’ll be spending more time there as we travel towards Alpha Centauri. As Chief Medical Officer, there wouldn’t be much to do until we got to the first planet. Ensign Thornton, bruised his shoulder playing racquetball and there was a minor Gallium gas leak in the fiber optic array; otherwise sickbay was relatively quiet. I spent more time in the science lab with Braddock learning about the Eleusians and their technology. We decided to synthesize as many cures for diseases still active on Earth in order to bring them back. We can say we developed them in the process of colonization and new gather data from another planet. That would ensure that no one would connect the data to the Venus Mission, keeping our secret.

I called Bill once I was done with my duty day and we chatted. He had no more information about our friend Cleveland and I didn’t press him. “How’s Mom and Dad?” “They’re great. Your Mom has adopted me and your Dad has had me golfing 3 times already. To be honest with you, I’ve met some interesting people on the golf course. I may even open my own practice.” “Really? You never mentioned that before.”

“I never really gave it any thought until recently.”

“Are you going to do it?”

“Not right now. I may give it some thought after you get back.”

“Okay.”

Bill paused for a long time. “What is it?”

“I guess I never thought about a private practice. It’s a risk.”

“Well stick with the firm until I come home. Then I can get a job as a doctor somewhere and you can get your practice started.” “You’re okay with that? I mean you’d leave the service for me?”

“Let’s save that answer for when I’m coming back. I might have had enough of the service when I’m done.”

“I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

“One more thing: It may be tough to make these calls once we leave the solar system. They may have to be recorded and sent subspace.” “I understand. I’ll have to call you a lot more often until then.”

“You’d better.”

Bill smiled and the screen went dark. I really hadn’t given a lot of thought to my post mission plans. I thought I would spend a lot more time in GASA but now I wasn’t sure. I decided to put off those thoughts until I could act on them, one way or another. Before I got up, Tanner called and asked me to come up to the bridge. “You’ll want to see this.” “On my way.” I moved quickly to the bridge and moved towards the medical console. Tanner motioned me to the command chair. “Doctor, I present to you, the Alpha Centauri system.” She gestured toward the view screen. I saw a myriad of unfamiliar constellations, gas clouds that splashed a thousand colors. “It’s beautiful.” “Breathtaking. Not only that in less than an hour of long range scanning, we’ve found three theorite planets with an almost sustainable atmosphere. Colonization will be a lot easier than we thought!” “Incredible! I never thought it would be this fast.”

“The first planet is one we’ve been able to learn a lot about from Earth over the last 200 years, known as Alpha Centauri B. It’s relatively identical to Earth with a 15 month orbit around the sun, slightly cooler global temperatures and possibly an atmosphere.” “Could it have an ecosystem?”

“Scientists have theorized that there is a 87 percent chance of some type of vegetation and animal life on the planet with a temperate climate in the higher latitudes and warmer towards the planet’s’ Equator. I have to believe that it’s too much to hope for intelligent life.” “At this point anything is possible. How long until we achieve an orbit?”

“About 48 hours. We started scanning about four hours ago and we have only received atmospheric data so far. Nothing about the surface, yet.” “I will keep an eye on the scanning. I want to know what we’re going to face on the surface.”

“Okay Doc.”

I left to check my console and the headed to the science lab. I hadn’t spoken to Jamie for a while. We would need to be prepared to shuttle down the surface of Alpha Centauri B. I was excited to think about what we would replace. I entered the lab and found Jamie working on a pressure suit. We use them to do space walks, exterior ship maintenance (a rare occurrence) and they are designed for surface exploration. The suits are equipped with comms, waste filtration system and propulsion. Jamie wanted to make them lighter but it was not a high priority. As enhanced females, we are 400% stronger than we were as men so the original weight of the suits was negligible. Still, Jamie wanted every advantage due to the risk of exploring a new world. They were impressive upgrades. “How goes it?” “Great. Using the Eleusian data, I’ve been able to increase the jetpacks’ output by 47 percent. I redesigned the under-suit and used micro-hydraulics to increase efficiency levels with the cooling systems and waste filtration. It’s been a lot of fun!” “I’m glad you’re having a good time.” I said that tongue in cheek but it really has been a blessing to have the Eleusian data to help us. I spent the rest of the day in the lab and then broke for dinner. I decided I’d take the next day off and relax. I’m sure there would be a lot of work to do when we got to Centauri B. Little did I know what an understatement that would be.