Ch 1 There Were Devils Among The Angels

  The Earth was a crowded cesspool in the 2030’s. In the current year of 2128 it was a sweltering barren hellscape. The land had receded into the seas and oceans. The land was arid. Salt water leached life from the ground. Radiation covered the land and lives were short. It was no longer a home. It was a deathbed and a prison. The tools and machines that once tore the earth for its precious metal were no more. The materials humans needed to progress were locked beneath the earth too far for them to reach.

  Technological advancement couldn’t keep up with the growing population. Poorly made political reforms only added fuel to what was a burning wreck. The world was beyond repair. First world countries became third and third world countries disappeared. Everyone was fixated on helping themselves. Their neighbors warred and were swallowed up by bigger countries and rising tides. Eventually things regressed and resembled the warring states period.

  There was a time when fixing the earth seemed feasible. It would have been a better option than trying to terraform an entity's new environment. In the current time it would be better to leave to make a new home then to try and repair one that's already occupied by those who unwittingly seek to burn it down.

  It’s not as if an attempt wasn’t made. Many nations tried. Atmospheric regulations came online in the 2040’s. Within a few decades climate change could have begun to turn around. Year by year the estimates for how long it would take lengthened. The current turmoil created many countries with poor and poorer infrastructure. Creating and replacing nuclear plants was a non option. Many returned to fossil fuels and coal.

  Humanity seemed very determined to destroy itself. With everyone scrambling for resources and dwindling territory they couldn’t see the big picture. Countries fell and regulators were scrapped to make weapons of war. Why scrap them to make weapons? It's just what foolish humans do. It's better to save today than the future.

  Humanities outlook was very bleak. A few were wise enough to make an escape plan. They were labeled traitors and many were killed in their escape. Bombed out of the sky. They knew the world was irreparable and funneled everything they could into the only option the thought would succeed.

  In 2058 nearly two hundred ships took flight. Many were decoys. Nothing more than an empty hull of scrap metal on a rocket blasting mixed signals. Most ships never left the atmosphere. Decoys that ran out of fuel or genuine ships unlucky enough to be knocked down. Out of all the ships a measly seventeen made it past atmo, three decompressing from hull damages on the journey up.

  Of the fourteen surviving ships they shared a crew of thirty nine.. Three crew died on the way. An unlucky woman named Katya Tarasova was the sole survivor of her ship. Her copilot's harness came loose. When she came to. Her co-pilot had bled out from blunt force. their body tumbled into the back of the cabin. Her second crewman had his neck snapped after the first crewman slipped from his harness.

  The fourteen remaining ships traveled to the asteroid belt. For the next decade they processed tons of material. Cannibalized their ships. Destroyed the occasional satellite sent from earth. Then after many revised plans they made their way to Jupiter's orbit.

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  Earth was silent. No radio transmission continued after 2073. The last message was a simple we're sorry. To the crew it was a clear message. It was the death call for the last remnants of civilized humanity. All that remained were dictators and tribes fighting for scraps.

  Although their mission was safe from delusional vindictive men who no longer had the power to send their threats to space. It was mute. Knowing their peace existed because civilization. Their civilization. Had died.

  By 2082 they had captured hundreds of trojan asteroids in Jupiter's orbital path. They were ready to slow to join orbit around Jupiter. If anyone was still star gazing from earth. They may see a dim star shine in Jupiter's path. Hundreds of engines lit up the captured cluster in blue hues.

  In 2096 the fleet deposited the cluster in Jupiter's orbit on a collision course with Ganymede. The hope was that ganymede would be warmed in the collision. That its magnetic field would strengthen enough to support an atmosphere. Over the course of decades The melting ice added to the atmosphere and for the first time Ganymede had liquid oceans on its surface.

  During the decades that ganymede warmed. The fleet was actively studying the section of solar system they now called home. Processing materials and expanding the fleet. Their automation kept their growing fleet afloat.

  In 2116 station Scyphus was completed in orbit of Ganymede. Ganymede’s name was taken from Roman myth. Ganymede was a boy and the most beautiful of mortals. Zeus took Ganymede to Olympus to be the gods cupbearer. Scyphus station was named after the cups that the Romans used to drink wine.

  The current year is 2128. Ganymede's atmosphere is breathable with the aid of respiratory equipment. The surface is dotted with frigid seas and oceans. The sea floor consists mostly of ice and rock in scarce areas. Microbes brought from earth fill the soil. Habitats exist in small numbers.

  Most of Ganymedes population live in Scyphus station. The total collective population barely breaches twelve thousand. Thousands of embryos lay dormant preserved in cryo ready for when ganymede stabilizes. The future of humanity starts here.

  A collision rocks scyphus. Hundreds of men and women are flung into space. The blown section seals tightly preventing a greater catastrophe. Black sand flows out of the twisted metal on scyphus.

  There's a saying. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. In 2058 one hundred and fifty angels took to the sky. One fourth of those angels escaped the hell they once called home. They carried countless unborn lives on their backs. Among them however were devils.

  One of the fourteen ships carried an experiment, scientists and their research. They took with them their own plan. Their own idea of how to save humanity. Over decades they leached off the backs of others. They stole and stored snippets of dna from every species.

  In 2082 they cloaked themselves among the clusters of trojan asteroids. In 2096 they flew alongside the cluster away from the fleet. Their thrusters masked by the swarm of debris they traveled outward away from jupiter. hidden between a backdrop of stars and the black expanse of space.

  By 2128 the crew had died off. The ship left waiting, its processors aged but still functioning. seventeen launch tubes open with Seven inoperable. Twenty four canisters fire. Seven break in their launch tubes free to cannibalize the ship. Hull breaches spew black sand into space. The decompression spins the ship.

  Seventeen canisters fly. Their trajectories for Ganymede, Callisto, Europa and Io. Four canisters fly for Ganymede. One rips into Scyphus. One rips into a ship of a fleet in orbit. Two make it to the surface. One in the ocean and one on the land.

  The Star Farrer 022 was struck. Its hull breached. Black sand drifted out of the wound. The decompressed space was sealed and pressurized. Of the ship's twenty crew. Six died on impact. From the camera feed inside the ship the sand seemed to spring to life. It crept along the walls and the crew. The blue paint of the interior was ate away at a visible rate. An unlucky survivor writhed under a carpet of black. The deceased crewmen were lucky. Their bodies were broken down in minutes.

  After a quick debate over the poor man's life. The safety of the ship came first. The room was evacuated. The poor man and the foreign black sand drifted away from the ship. The remaining black sands deconstruction of the hull slowed dramatically in the vacuum.

  Somehow he found himself in a metal box flying on a pair of blue jets. He hoped he wouldn't find this to be his coffin.

  The box was a ship name life bringer. A fitting name for the mission the ship was made for. Many names were given including Gaia and the names of many heroes and gods. Naming it sparked many arguments and many felt uncomfortable. It was decided for the benefit of all parties involved that religion and folklore as choices be left out. Best not to step on each other's toes.

  The life bringer had a moderately small crew mostly made of engineers scientists and programmers, the smart types. Then there was security who had the safety of the crew in mind. Always ready to break up a fight or restrain someone who's gone a bit loopy. Space sickness you know how it is.

  Our lead was not the strong type and would not have gotten a second chance to join the mission. But some did, however. Blessed with both a great body and mind, unfortunately not smart enough but good to have around as an extra hand who knows what they're doing and can actually throw a punch.

  The mission was to fly out to Jupiter's moon Europa. There they would deploy a swarm of nanites and drop various technological marvels. virtually untested outside of a lab, but marvels nonetheless.

  The nanites would carve level ground for the devices to rest. The deconstructed material would be made into more nanites exponentially increasing their progress. Excess materials that wouldn't be converted to nanites would be deposited at a designated drop site.

  The ship carried a small number of livestock. When a pressurized space could be established crops would be planted and the animals fed. Hopefully, their descendants would be feeding the crew and whoever came after.

  The design of Life Bringer was made jointly by several nations. Some designers believed having animals on board would lower stress as well as get the ball rolling when they got there. Expensive and unnecessary but the crew would differ. What could beat snuggling baby animals in space?

  Until the launch, most governments and agencies complained about it. Saying on a loop we have the ark we don't need animals. As ironic as that sounds, it was the truth.

  After naming the ship they wanted to rename the nanites saying the name was too techy or it didn't roll off the tongue. What's wrong with Tree? Terraforming repository engineering engine. Okay on second thought it was bad. But the ark really. All that fighting and deciding on no religious naming and then. The ark. To be fair it's really fitting.

  The nanites not only deconstruct and reconstruct materials. They also store the genetic code of thousands of select flora and fauna. Minus humans. Something about whether clones had souls and although not clones they were still artificially made.

  Now if they're so great why not send a batch of them and forgo the crew and machinery entirely? The nanites hold the genetic code but can't produce cells on their own. They also can't process materials quickly. It's much quicker for a dedicated machine to pop out iron pipes and such than a swarm of tiny printers going a little at a time. They are good at breaking stuff down for use.

  In the final hour, our lead headed down to cargo to prep the ark for the drop. Sweat dripped into his eyes and it smelt. Wiping it clear his sleeve was streaked with blood. He shuttered and froze for a moment thinking the nanites had attacked him.

  With all the stress and the sheer focus he had on his task, he never noticed someone walk up from behind. They poured the blood on him. After a moment the nanites leaped up his arm and engulfed him in an undulating wave of black.

  In mere seconds he was unrecognizable. His body was mutilated and not a patch of skin was left before the nanites abruptly stopped.

  One of the three core rules of robotics was to never harm a human directly or indirectly. And the ark just broke it unintentionally. A fault in its recognition identified the blood as coming from a deceased animal and that animal being him. To prevent disease it chose to break it down. Seconds later it had identified that the body was fresh and coming from a different animal. It re-identified it as human.

  If this happened to a fresh animal it would then be cut up and scattered for scavengers. Everything down to helping life in a burgeoning ecosystem thrive was considered. With so much data and expectation mistakes were made. If something could go wrong it will. If this happened to a live animal the programmers would have had a fit and fixed the issue in hours.

  It had never happened until now and had been exploited at a prime opportunity. The nanites after their brief pause continued the break down the body until nothing was left except a puddle of ichor and piles of assorted materials they could not use. Then the killer left.

  The nanite's brief pause was triggered by a failsafe. Just encase something did happen. Stop. Assess damage. If minor apply pressure and call for aid. If severe, apply pressure and clot the wounds, maintain blood flow breathing, and call for aid. If catastrophic, maintain blood flow to the brain, and record identity.

  When the nanites continued they removed every unnecessary component, kept the heart beating, and flooded the brain. There they recorded every synapse neuron and nerve. The chemical composition, the structure of the cells their position, and orientation. If they could not save the body they would save the mind