A brown haired youth was walking down the corridor, a book held up in one of his hands. Several soldiers were behind him, split into half to the left, and the other half to the right. As the person walked down the brightly lit hall, shoes tapping softly against the concrete floor, several people along the way shot him nasty glances. The youth was engrossed in his book however, and didn’t see it and so gave no reaction.

Completely absorbed in his reading, he didn’t even glance once at the people around him. It was only after he felt a sharp tug on the back of his collar that he looked up. Not two feet in front of him was a heavy titanium door. If he hadn’t stopped, he would’ve walked right into it.

A soldier walked up to him and spat out roughly, “We’re here now,” the disdain in his voice obvious to even the most braindead idiot.

After another soldier slowly pushed open the dense door, he closed the book halfway and proceeded on into an office where a group of military looking staff were currently holding a meeting. ‘Held a meeting,’ he corrected himself as the room went silent at his entrance, heads turning towards the doorway.

A few seconds later, the new intruder simply tilted and nodded his head slightly to the right in acknowledgement, as if he was just greeting an acquaintance, not people who had been warring with him for the past three years. The military staff seemed a bit taken back by his casual ‘introduction,’ and forgot to speak. Several seconds passed before the person sitting at the head of the table coughed a few times and started talking.

“As the the most senior of the remaining representatives of the Paragon Federation, I trust that you know why you are here? He continued to speak, a bit arrogantly, without waiting for an answer. “Since we have taken over the last Federation base in the area, we will be demanding a few conditions. As such, we-”

“Don’t bother.”

The man in the military uniform, paused, a bit surprised before scoffing. “Really? So you don’t want to surrender? You don’t care about your lives? Do you honestly think you have any right to negotiate at this moment?”

Several other officers in the room opened their mouths angrily to speak as well, but the first man stopped them with a movement of his hand, obviously the one with more influence. The director frowned angrily when there was no response and was just about to open his mouth to speak again, but was interrupted before he started.

A very muffled noise. “......aha.”

He instantly turned dark beet red and scowled deeply, “What so fucking funny!?!”

The person bent over, shoulders shuddering from restrained laughter for a while, before finally looking up with a hint of a smile on his face. “Surrender? Why would we surrender?” He raised his hands and pressed it against his chest in sarcasm. “You think we want to surrender because we lost? Really, really, what a joke."

"How can that not be funny?”

He suddenly walked forward towards the table, and several soldiers pulled up their rifles to aim at him, but the person didn't react at all. He placed his hands on the wooden surface and bent down low over the table, hair falling down and covering the top half of his face. Glacier-cold eyes looked straight and his lips turned up at the corners. He whispered very, very, quietly, ridiculing.

“Our goal was never to fight with you. The only thing we ever truly fought for was to send that,” he gestured to the roof with his head, “towards the world of tomorrow.”

He leaned back, brushing his hair off to the side with a hand. “And we did. So, to us, we won. Why in the world would we surrender?” He took out his book and started reading again indifferently. “Would you threaten us with our lives? The ones who were truly on our side would not mind dying now, you know?”

The chief director felt his insides chill at the apathetic words and remained silent, remembering the hundreds of bodies in the base. All lying down peacefully, without a single wound on their bodies that were already turning cold, and knew that what he was true.

Never before had he thought that smiles so sincere could be so eerie.

“Indeed, that is just how it simply is. You may have defeated us and achieve your goal, but we achieved ours first. What would happen after that none of us really gave a damn about.” He said, shrugging carelessly. He gave a quick chuckled to himself while still looking at his book, flipping a page.

“Now do you see why it was stupid to ask us to surrender? You can’t blame me for laughing. Mister Director, Mister officers, I hope you have a wonderful day. I bid you adieu,” he said from the bottom of his heart, turned around, and walked out the door.

Indeed, he truly believed what he said with all of his heart, not a single word was a lie. He had spent his entire life in order to reach that 「goal」.

Now that it was complete, he had no more reason to live. But, neither did he have a reason to die. Walking back down the corridor he thought as so, and he knew he wasn’t the only one. The space vessel had taken over twelve years to create, nine before the Federation was created, and three more until just a week ago.

There were three stages and components to the vessel, each one took several months of just planning by some of the most intelligent people on the planet.

The System Launch Phase The Interstellar Navigation Phase The Landing Phase

The first component and phase was a massive fuel container, filled to the brim with all of the fuel that they could muster from their supplies. After leaving Earth’s gravitational field, the ship would head to the sun, using its gravity as a slingshot and all of the first container’s fuel to launch itself out of the solar system before separating from the container. That was the first stage, leaving the effective gravitational field of our sun with a high velocity.

The second phase was the longest, and most prone to failure and error. The closest habitable planet, Proxima Centauri b, was over 4.2 light years away. Currently, the estimated speed that the spacecraft would travel on average was 96,500 kph, or about 60,000 mph. At this speed, it would only take about, surprise, approximately 40,000 years.

Yep. Before it even got a hundredth of the way there, humans would likely be already extinct. Known civilization had only been around for about 6,000 years.

The second stage consisted of maintaining the plotted course, and had a small fuel tank, at least compared to the first stage, to correct any deviations from the course. Using computer models, the vessel would, eventually, reach it’s far-away destination. For a further level of safety, an AI system designed by myself, Alex Baurhenn, was installed into the ship. The single most advanced piece of technology in the entire world, dubbed as the Hopeseeker. After developing it for almost as long as the spaceship itself, a near-replica of the human brain was created. Or at least, the closest thing to it. A self-learning AI that could do nearly everything that a human could.

For example, it could repair itself. As long as the master code remained intact, of which there were multiple copies, and there were enough available resources, the vessel could use drones to rebuild parts, albeit very, very, slowly.

Using the aforementioned fuel tank, the AI would correct any unexpected changes in the pathing. It was powered by advanced solar panels, made nearly obsolete on Earth as more and more clouds obstructed direct sunlight. If, by some miracle or fate, it managed to reach the planet before it’s fuel ran out, then it would unfold into the third phase.

After entering the Proxima Centauri solar system, it would orbit the sun until it was close enough, also determined by the AI, where the remaining fuel could propel itself into the planet’s gravity field. After that, the secondary fuel container would be detached as the core headed towards the surface. Parachutes would be deployed to slow down the speed, and then multi-layered airbags would activate before the craft finally arrived onto the surface of the planet. However, the surface of Proxima Centauri b was not perfectly habitable. Even though the temperature range allowed for liquid water, the atmosphere of the planet was too thin to defend against solar radiation. The only place which could support life would be underground.

After that, all remaining actions were to be decided by the AI, which would be able to leave the vessel in the form of multiple fully automated humanoid drones, which also had their own solar panels.

Truly, even winning the lottery fifty times in a row was more likely to happen than for this mission to be successful. Even if it did succeed, it would not be able to bring back the human race.

So for what purpose did we do this?

It was simple.

It was to achieve our「dream」.

Our dream, our longing wish, that one day, humanity would be able to enter the cosmos and find life on other planets. A final hope, that we and our insignificant bodies, would be able to leave something behind as we were turned into dust and ashes.

Not the salvation of mankind.

No.

It was the salvation of a「memory」of a race.

[Hopeseeker AI Log, April 27, 2079]

Initial fuel levels: 96%

Secondary fuel levels: 100%

Capacitor levels: 99%

Current electricity generation: 526 kW

Departure from Earth’s gravitational field completed.

.4% deviation from course detected and successfully corrected as of 4/27/2079 7:29.

Preparing thrusters to enter into partial orbit around the sun.

Goodbye......Earth.

[End of log]

[Hopeseeker AI Log, July 11, 2079]

Initial fuel levels: 85%

Secondary fuel levels:100%

Capacitor levels: 99.9%

Current electricity generation: 638 kW

Passing vertex of orbit’s trajectory, gravitational forces now starting to impede vessel.

Priming thrusters to maximum intensity, attempting to break through gravity field.

No other noteworthy events.

[End of log]

[Hopeseeker AI Log, January 1, 2080]

Initial fuel levels: 4.3%

Secondary fuel levels: 100%

Capacitor levels: 99.9%

Current electricity generation: 362 kW

Exited out of effective influence area of the sun, current velocity stable at 97,126 kph.

Deploying remaining fuel reserves in first container, estimation until empty: 43 hours.

Electricity generation lowering exponentially as vessel heads outwards.

Today I feel…joyful? It seems that someone had inserted a New Year’s program into me. How strange.

[End of log]

[Hopeseeker AI Log, May 25, 2083]

Secondary fuel levels: 99.7%

Capacitor levels: 98.2%

Current electricity generation: 72 kW

Estimated progress: .01%

Maintaining current speed of 97,167 kph.

I…….wonder…will I make it?

Deactivating main AI to conserve power, reboot in 72 hours.

No other noteworthy events.

[End of log]

[Hopeseeker AI Log, August 9, 2096]

Secondary fuel levels: 98.6%

Capacitor levels: 97.2%

Current electricity generation: 26 kW

Estimated progress: .043%

.003% deviation from course. Cause: Unknown. Corrected as of 8/9/2096 17:53.

I have to be offline more and more as electricity generation goes down.

Should this be bothering me? I don’t know.

Deactivating main AI to conserve power, reboot in 192 hours.

[End of log]

[Hopeseeker AI Log, August 17, 2096]

Secondary fuel levels: 94.5%

Capacitor levels: 96.2%

Current electricity generation: 24 kW

Estimated progress: .043%

.732% deviation from course. Cause: Unknown. Corrected as of 8/17/2096 13:29.

Current fuel consumption higher than expected, but still within acceptable ranges.

…….how dark it is out here. So lonely. I wonder if…….

No, I shouldn’t be thinking these thoughts. It will only result in unnecessary consumption of power.

Deactivating main AI to conserve power, reboot in 384 hours.

[End of log]

[Hopeseeker AI Log, September 2, 2096]

Secondary fuel levels: 93.2%

Capacitor levels: 95.3%

Current electricity generation: 21 kW

Estimated progress .044%

1.54% deviation from course. Distant singularity detected and confirmed as cause.

Estimated distance: Unknown

Estimated effective influence area: Unknown

Deciding the current course of action…….

Gravitational force currently impeding progress.

Optimal solution: Maximise thruster and attempt to break out of-

Warning! Small asteroid field heading towards the current location.

Attempting to change course to avoid the field.

…… required fuel will be 16.7% of storage to head back onto the original route.

…… remaining amount estimated to be inadequate to leave influence of singularity and land onto Proxima Centauri b.

Optimal solution: Retract solar panels and external mechanisms and minimize damage.

Time until meeting: 81 hours.

Deactivating main AI to conserve power, reboot in 80 hours.

[End of log]

[Hopeseeker AI Log, September 6, 2096]

Secondary fuel levels: 93.1%

Capacitor levels: 95.2%

Current electricity generation: 21 kW

Estimated progress: .044%

1 hour until initial contact with asteroid field.

Commencing retraction off all external apparatuses.

……all devices now turned off.

…… I cannot fail, not when we have just barely begun.

Estimated change of enduring: 64.6%

Solar panels offline, deactivating AI to conserve power, reboot in 2 hours.

[End of log]

###!!!####!!!!!!!!##!!!!!####!!#!!!!!!####!!!!##

[Emerg###y Lo#, S###ember 6, 2##6]

Warn##g! Wa###ng! ###ning!

AI act##ted d#e to #arge imp##t regist##ed!

Cri##cal mo#ules de###oyed by shoc##ave!

Run##ng a##omatic sys###s ch##k……

Im#ging dev###s: Un##spo##ive

Thr###er s###ems: Un##sponsive

Cool### sys##ms: Unre##onsive

Pho####ltaic cells: Criti###ly d###ged

G###scopes: Critic##ly dam##ed

…##…### … ###……#………

…#……#####……##…####…

####……#…###……##…###…

Sec###ary f#el l##els: U##nown

##pac#tor le#els: U###own

Curr##t elec###city g###ration: 0 ##

Est####ed Pr##ress: …… U##now#

##rrent situa###n: …… Unkno##

#o, ple##e……

N#t he#e……

So##one……

Save me