I’ve been struggling a bit with my Shadows & Secrets story lately, so when The Storyletter announced a new writing prompt: Exploring the Unknown, I took the opportunity to switch gears and make a prequel to my Tales of Tuomi series. For those wondering, yes, I’m a Trekkie and proud of it!

A sigh escapes into the quiet room, followed by the creak of a well worn chair.  A figure is hunched before the glow of a monitor.  He is young, though the harsh light accentuates the lines of his face.  He leans back in the chair and stretches, glancing around the room.  The space is small, dominated by a sleek desk, its glass tabletop barely visible due to the books stacked in precarious towers around the monitor.  The walls are plastered with a mix of science articles and science fiction posters.  His gaze lands on one of the posters, its rainbow colors faded from age, and smiles.

“The human adventure is just beginning,” he reads aloud softly before glancing at the suitcases piled by the door.  “As mine is just beginning.”  He stands and begins gently removing the posters from the wall.  All save two of the articles are left untouched as he tucks the posters into a folder.  The first is dated 2016 and announces the confirmation of an exoplanet in Proxima Centauri.  The second is far more recent and announces a mission to Tuomi, the exoplanet now named after the Finnish astronomer that originally discovered it so long ago.

A knock sounds at the door and the man answers it.  Two officers stand waiting, their uniforms stretching over their heavily muscled frames.  A wave towards the luggage pile is all that’s required before they set to work hoisting the bags as if they weighed nothing.  The young man strides after them, the folder gently cradled in his arms.  The corridors are bright, the sterile white reflecting the energy efficient lighting, as they make their way along.

They enter the hangar space which takes his breath away as it always has.  It is not so much the glass domed building so much as the behemoth within.  A technological marvel of epic proportions sits waiting as engineers scurry along its surface like tiny ants.  It is just one of six ships that have been built across the globe, each headed by a collection of companies and countries hoping to make history.  The shape is not like the starships he grew up watching, but it is science fact rather than fiction.

A woman hurries over to him, her face a combination of weary and excited.  His own is a match, he’s sure, the research and planning of such a monumental undertaking followed by the building of it has taken decades.  His parents and grandparents worked hard to get him here, their dedication not only to their own careers in engineering, but to his own as well.  He saw the strain the second mortgage put on their family in his father’s eyes as he’d left for university.  His father is proud of him, he knows, having heard him say as much just moments ago.  He wishes they were able to see him off in person rather than via the virtual call on his monitor, but the cost to fly them all out here was just too much.

A small box is checked beside his name on the woman’s checklist and she escorts him up the ramp that leads up to the ship while the two officers take his luggage to a lower section.  The entry hatch is not large, but still manages to loom before him.  She is going over the protocols, but he’s heard and read them so much it becomes a blurred drone of words.  He feels his heart rate quicken in anticipation and butterflies have taken the place of his breakfast.

“Space,” he whispers, “the final frontier.”  The woman beside him smiles and he knows from its wideness that she too grew up dreaming of boldly going where no one has gone before.  He turns his attention to the hatch, now just a step away.  They’ve researched all they could, but it has its limits.  The unknown is still there, but he feels ready in spite of the nervous flutters.  There are generations of dreamers housed in the folder he carries and he feels he is far from alone as he takes that step into the unknown ahead.

TGIF and Happy St Patrick’s Day! Hope you guys don’t mind a brief intermission with my Shadows & Secrets story. There’s a section that is bothering me and I don’t want to post something halfbaked so this prompt was very well-timed.

In art news, TAE has finally received my art card donation. I was starting to worry my poor drawing had gotten lost or damaged. It made it in time to be included in the catalog too. You can learn more about the TAE at https://www.twitterartexhibit.org/

As always, I welcome comments, critiques, and questions on my writing!

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