Page 13 of A Million Stars and Shadows

I groaned. “Really? Purple?”

He opened the door and said, “Welcome to Jana’s Castle!”

I looked inside and grinned. “This isn’t so bad.” The purple Dr. Herbert was talking about was an interchangeable light color scheme that I could switch out to another room color easily. I stepped inside and was immediately transported into a resort oasis on a beach with sparkling blue water, white sand, and palm trees. “Not bad at all,” I said.

“So that’s where you’d like to be,” Dr. Herbert said. “The room has a mood and setting mind reader device that instantly adjusts to the setting you’d like to be.”

“Cool,” I said. “A smart room.”

“That it is,” Dr. Herbert said.

I walked outside of the bungalow-type house to the white sand of the beach. The sand was fine like dust underneath my boots. “This feels so real,” I said.

“The room is very smart,” Dr. Herbert said. “It adjusts to the very minute details that makes your setting appear real. So real, even your mind might get fool to think you really have visited Bora Bora or someplace you’ve dreamt of going.”

“Wow,” I said. “How many settings does this room have?”

“All the rooms on board Red Genesis have almost a million settings,” Dr. Herbert said. “And, my dear Jana,” he smiled, reaching into his pocket to pull out a pendant. “In here, there is a database of the settings and more.” He handed the pendant to me. “You’re now in charge of this database. Along with the ones you will find in the next room I will show you. As the Engineer of Red Genesis, you will be in charge of maintaining the database no matter what happens.”

“Sure,” I said. “I know all the systems and protocols.”

“Then you will be able to build the right environment to house the database when we get to New Earth,” Dr. Herbert said. “You’re an architect as well.”

“Yes,” I said. “I know how to build a structure that would protect the database as best I can.”

“Good,” Dr. Herbert said. He looked around at the beach, the palm trees, the blue sparkling water.” He sighed, “I miss Earth already. I’m glad you have this picturesque setting of Earth in your memory. Someday it may be the only setting linking us back to Earth.”

The more I gaze at the waves and calmness of the beach setting, the more I could see the pixels and fabric of the façade against the walls of my room. New Earth was known to be barren, dry like a desert with no beaches, palm trees, and gentle breezes. The atmosphere on New Earth was harsh and almost inhabitable thus my job as the Engineer would be to help create an underground colony for our human population to live. “I’m going to miss Earth, too,” I said. “But it’s better than having the entire human race face extinction.”

SIX

JANA - Three Months Later

Hello Journal, in case you’ve forgotten who owns you, I’m Jana Gee.

It’s been three months since I’ve written in here because I have been incredibly busy. Non-stop busy and constantly on-the-go.

With a population of nearly 2000 people on Red Genesis along with about twenty-thousand animal, plants, birds, and aquatic species; being the only Engineer onboard who had some knowledge of the climate requirements of all the species and even fussy humans; had been one ordeal after another.

Then there was the monitoring and slight repair work of the ship itself which was almost an entire job. The atmospheric pressure on the ship was rougher than anyone had anticipated, which caused instruments to erode faster. But thanks to the remarkable expertise of the cockiest Captain across the Galaxies, Captain Thomas, we were able to utilize less fuel and more gliding, lessening the impact overall.

When it came to Thomas, I had to admit, he was a surprise. Still cockier than anyone I’ve ever met, but more competent, intelligent, gifted, and charismatic than anyone too. He was a mystery to me, and someone who just seemed to have the talent to push my buttons more than anyone could.

“Hey Bunny,” he said, walking by as I looked over some instruments at the lower deck. I haven’t seen him in weeks, and when I did, he was always busy talking to the passengers, organizing and hosting socials for them, holding meetings with the Officers and Crew, reading reports. He seemed to be everywhere and anywhere when I’ve seen him, and always surrounded by people, especially women. Young and old. The ladies couldn’t seem to get enough of him, always asking him for help or to join them for something or another.

“Hi, Thomas,” I said, intentionally leaving off the word, “Captain” which he had once told me was unnecessary. “Fancy seeing you down here in the Engineering area. What’s up?”

He was alone for once, and it seemed so unlike him. He looked around, as if he was checking things out. “I wanted to check on the fuel,” he said.

As if he didn’t know where to look and as if he didn’t get the daily reports on the level of fuel we had, I pointed to the screen on the side wall, which gave a reading on barometric pressure, fuel, and whatever we needed to monitor for Red Genesis to run smoothly. “Is there something you needed to know?” I asked.

Thomas frowned for a second and said, “I wonder if we sped up the ship a bit more so we can arrive at New Earth half a year earlier than what we had planned, how that would affect the ship.”

I did the calculations and said, “It can be done, but it would increase the usage of everything, causing us to deplete whatever we have stored completely. In other words,” I said. “We have better land on New Earth right on time or we may run out of fuel completely in space.”

“I see,” Thomas said. He frowned again, shaking his head. I could see whatever he was thinking about was really worrying him only he said nothing for a while.

“What’s going on, Thomas?” I asked moving close. “Do we have to try to land earlier than planned?”

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