Youth Fall

Chapter 6
Youth Fall: Extinction

Chapter Description: When humanity ends, what will become of that which remains from the past?

When humanity ends

What will become of those who remain?

Two months before the third world war and after the end of humanity centuries later:

Although it wasn't said publicly for fear of causing a global panic, the writing was clear on the wall. Another global war was inevitable and it wasn't looking good for humanity's future.

The excessive greed of the powerful and the wealthy had led to political and economic instability and instead of putting their arrogance and greed to the side, the powerful rich were going to let those they elected into the highest positions of power in order to get even richer declare an all out war with every nuclear missile they had at their fingertips.

So a plan was made in secret with funding approved by those who didn't want this war to happen but could do nothing to prevent it. It was hoped that this would at least ensure humanity's survival beyond the solar system but they had to do it in secret, if those in power got wind of it they would have the project stopped with violent action since they didn't like money being used on anything that didn't make themselves richer.

It took a great deal of work and training but finally a select team with as many genetic samples of all life on the planet including the human race were launched into space. The team went into cryogenic stasis once their ship went too far beyond the government's efforts to stop them and they resumed on their way.

They slept through the war, the rebuilding, the brief peace and the extinction of humanity. They slept until the onboard sensors were triggered by the fading edge of the shock wave spreading out from Earth, the ship was outside of it's range only barely.

The computer didn't wake the crew yet, first it needed to send a probe and find out what had happened on Earth that had resulted in the shock wave. Operation Aftermath has begun.

“Begin Operation, activate Probe. Probe away. Estimated Time To Arrival at faster than light speed five one hour”

~~

Three days after the shock wave:

Systems spring to life and the cyro units begin the process of waking the crew slowly, as this proceeds the computer reactivates life support which brings warmth throughout the ship. This takes close to an hour while the thawing process takes over an hour.

Close to ninety minutes later the first crew member pulls themselves from their cyro unit and sits up, their lungs filling with recycled air as they breathe slowly, their body gradually waking up. The computer prepares food for the crew as the rest of them slowly wake up.

No one says anything, there are only yawns and groans as they stretch and try to wake up stiff joints, no one is bothered that they are all in their underwear, they're too groggy to care.

The computer waits patiently to give it's first report from the probe, it could afford to wait while the probe worked. It was going to send out another two probes soon since the first probe had indicated that it would require some assistance.

It watches as the crew drag themselves to the mess hall, well room. It watches as they eat slowly as their stomachs haven't had much in the way of nourishment for centuries. Finally the crew begin to talk as they wake up enough.

“Never been this hungry” One of the crew, Marsha Nikes, says softly as she eats the thaw out approved food which was little more than a nourishment paste that provided everything the crew's bodies would need as they continued to wake up. They would be able to eat solid food again in a day or two.

“Little more than baby food” Remarks another of the crew, Yatil Mies.

“Well we are all wearing nappies so it's fitting” Aura Hiiro replies, as part of the cyro sleep process it was found best for the crew to wear protective garments since their bodies would have limited muscle control in some areas after a long sleep in the units. This hadn't been well received at first but it was reluctantly accepted by most while a couple of the crew secretly liked wearing them, more comfortable as far as they were concerned.

“Maybe you need a bottle then, or a breast” William Larsin jokingly remarks which earns him a sour glare from Yatil.

“Don't look at any of us, we're not lactating!” Carol Battersea proclaims loudly as she tries to cover her breasts which earns a few laughs.

“Maybe the computer can burp us after we've eaten” Birtan Jai mummers between bites. “Computer, are you able to do that?”

“No, Mr Jai, I cannot. Once you have all eaten I have the first report from the probe I sent out ready for all of you” This urges the crew to eat a little faster, well as fast as they can manage. Not much else is said until after they've eaten and gone through to the command centre of the ship where the computer has the first report waiting for them.

The news isn't good.

“No human life of any kind, only one slim power reading and nothing else planet wide. And this radiation that the computer can't identify. Computer, is this radiation deadly to human life?” Yatil asks after they've read the report.

“I am currently running tests to determine that, Mr Mies. I should have a complete analysis within the next four hours. May I suggest that all of you take the time for exercise while I do this?”

“We may as well” Carol remarks. “It would speed up the wake up, also the diapers should give quite the workout. Thick as they are and all”

“Do you have to call them that?” Yatil asks.

“Either that or the longer term which becomes a bit of a mouthful after a while of using it”

“I'll stick with nappies, it's cuter” This makes the men blush at the notion of the garments being regarded as cute. “Rein it, gentlemen, it isn't like we'll be going on social media to make fun of one another's underwear”

~~

As the crew exercise in the exercise suite, which is little more than a room barely the size of the control centre that is filled with assorted exercise equipment if that is preferred, the computer runs it's tests on the radiation. The probe sends more information that mention finding faint power readings from a city on the ocean, scans of the city reveal the name Fully Oath. The readings seem to be coming from somewhere within the city that was shielded from an EMP burst that had been part of the shock wave.

The probe is directed to await farther orders instead of proceeding inside.

After the crew have exercised the computer insists that they all have a break so to give their bodies more time to wake up, so as they do this in the leisure room of the ship the computer continues with the analysis of the scans.

Eventually it's finished and the crew are called back to the command centre.

“Report on analysis” Marsha asks once everyone's sat down.

“All human life on Earth was terminated at 13:04 hours standard time by an energy wave that was set off at the Arctic, this wave caused all human genetic material on Earth and in the Solar System to be reverted to the most basic point before being destroyed.

The resulting shock wave from this event caused planet wide power failures from a large electro magnetic pulse, all technology on the planet has seemingly been rendered inoperable. However the probe has detected very faint power readings from the only remaining city on Earth, a city named Fully Oath.

The probe is awaiting farther instructions. My analysis of the radiation left within the Solar System is that the radiation is temporal in nature and fatal to human life, were this crew to re-enter the system they would be dead within seconds from rapid cellular reversion as would all human genetic material in the ship's genetic database.

I must regretfully report that Earth and the entire Solar System is no longer habitable for human life, my estimates show that it will take at least two thousand years for the radiation to disperse”

No one says anything for a few moments as they take in the information. Finally Carol speaks up.

“We're fucked” No one says anything to dispute that claim, they just let her talk and say what needs saying. “We have enough supplies to last us a year, we can't re-enter the cyro units for a year since we need to let our bodies recover. We can't risk going back into cyro again and even if we did the power would fail after another three hundred years, the plan was for us to be in space for close to four hundred years then return to help with the rebuilding if we were needed.

But we can't even do that, we go back there and we'll be dead within seconds along with what little remains of the species. The closest solar system other than Sol is light years away and we don't have enough fuel to get that far since the remaining fuel was for returning to Earth, let alone know if it has a world that's habitable for human life and all of the other life we have in the database.

So to put it bluntly, we are fucked” Again no one else says anything until the computer asks if there are any orders for the probe.

“Yes, have it go into that city and find the power reading. Maybe it will give us some clues as to how and why this happened” Birtan orders. The computer acknowledges and sends the probe in, William takes over control of the probe by long range remote so to allow for more precise control as the probe enters the city limits and zeroes in on the power reading.
It was coming from a series of tunnels that ran underneath the top layer of the city so with careful control, despite his hands still not being fully awake, William directs the probe to a small bunk and a desk.

“Activating lock pick” A small beam of light flares out and begins burning into the lock in the desk.

“Some lock pick” Yatil mutters loudly. “Want to just slice it half instead and destroy whatever's in there?”

“Quite ya griping, mate, I'm a master of unlocking”

“Sounds familiar, probably heard that remark in some old video game”

“Go get me a Jill Sandwich as I work”

“Nerd”

“And proud” The laser clicks off and a robotic arm reaches out to open the drawer, inside it finds a slim looking device with some controls on it.

“I think that might be something like a tablet, it's possible that it can record messages. Let's see, bringing audio online. Scanning device” A short scan confirms that the device is akin to a tablet, only more advanced, and it has recording capabilities. Another scan reveals how to use it.

The arm reaches out again and taps it's power on, it had been giving a very faint power reading as if whoever had left it there had wanted it to be found.

A woman's voice can be heard a second later.

“My name is Leina Astry.  I leave this message for anyone who is curious about what happened to the former dominant species of this planet.  With any luck we have succeeded in our mission.

The decision to erase our species was not made lightly, genocide is not even to be used as the last resort.  But we had run out of options for the greedy of our species were endangering the planet, they were destroying the life on the planet and it was all too clear that the cycle of greed had to end before there wasn't a planet left.

The history and records of our species can be found on the fourth planet in this system, we called it Mars.  The access keys should you wish to see those records are easily obtainable from the archive there, I hope you find it interesting.

Please do not bring our species back if any genetic material did survive, destroy it.  Do not let our species return for the cycle of greed will only happen again, such a cycle is far too destructive so please, don't bring us back.  Leave us extinct for we brought this on ourselves.

Judge us for our inability to stop the greedy throughout human history, judge us for letting the cycle continue for centuries. Judge us for not growing beyond hatred, arrogance, greed and selfishness.

We were a failure of a species so may our non-existence not be a failure.  This is Leina Astry, formerly Lisa Astri, signing off”

The message ends and the probe places the device back into the drawer, closing it gently with a soft click before the audio is taken offline again.

“Now we know why and how” Marsha whispers. “Our entire species wiped out to prevent a repeat of the very thing that sent us out here, the past wasn't learned from and as a punishment the human race was rendered extinct. And here we are with the potential to restore humanity, to restore a race that clearly is unable to learn from it's mistakes. I hate to say this but I think this Leina and the people she worked with had the right idea”

“How can you say that?” Yatil almost yells. “Who are you, who are they, to be judge, jury and executor of an entire species? So they screwed up, it doesn't mean we would”

“How can you be so sure of that?” William asks after placing the probe back on automatic control after guiding it out of the tunnels. “Look at the history of our species, look at the excessive greed, the arrogance, the bigotry, the violence. All these centuries and humanity still hasn't learned it's lesson, it hasn't learned how to stop being so petty and backwards. If we restore humanity then the cycle will repeat itself before too long and we'll be right back to square one”

“So what do we do then? Just drift out here and let the ship die eventually, let all of the genetic material in the database go to waste? We were sent out here to be the back up plan and we can't even begin the final stage of that plan” Aura asks quietly.

“It won't go to waste, well not all of it. Only the human part of it. I say we should head back to Earth and let the computer seed the oceans with the genetic material that survives, maybe over the next dozens of centuries life will fully return to the planet. Better that than nothing” Birtan's suggestion is met with a few shocked stares, it was suicide.

“You are all off your fucking heads!” Yatil yells. “MAD, THE BLOODY LOT OF YOU! YOU ARE ADVOCATING GENOCIDE OF OUR SPECIES!”

“No need to raise your voice and yes, I am. How about the rest of you? Think it's time to give what remains of humanity a final hurrah and give Earth the very thing we should have given her in the first place, a future?” All but Yatil think about it for a few minutes while Yatil glares at them all.

“Yes”

“Aye”

“Sounds good”

“Less talk, more doing” Yatil, of course, is the only nay to the whole thing.

“The ayes have it. Computer, set course for Earth. Power up the FTL drive and prepare to seed the oceans once we arrive, activate full shields and let them drop when we begin the seeding process upon entering cloud range.

Begin Operation Restoration”

“Acknowledged, powering up engines. Course set. FTL Jump in five minutes. Warning, all human life will be terminated upon power down of the shields. The shields will provide adequate protection but once down all human life will experience rapid cellular reversion. Do you wish to proceed?”

Looking around at this crew, Birtan nods.

“Yes, proceed. Yatil, unless you're going to help then perhaps you should confine yourself to your bunk and wait for the end”

“YOU'RE ALL FUCKING MAD! THIS IS SUICIDE!”

“Yes, but for a worthy cause. Help or spend your remaining life in your bunk, decide” Yatil looks around as his crewmates surround him.

“We were sent out here to preserve the human race, not bring about it's end”

“The human race is already dead, mate, it has been for three days. We can't bring it back so we may as well give it the farewell that it's long since earned. What's the point in fearing the reaper when the reaper has already flipped the hour glass?” Nodding to the others who all take their stations, he continues to look at Yatil who finally sighs and takes his station.

“If there's a complaints office in the afterlife I'll be making a formal report of this”

“You do that. Okay, everyone, let's die” The engines finish powering up and the shields come online.

“Punch it, Chewie”

“Nerd”

“To the bitter end” With a flash of light the ship jumps into warp and within minutes Earth enters view, her beautiful blue welcoming them home for the last time.

“Take us into the atmosphere, stand by to begin seeding process. Prepare to drop shields once we are within the clouds. Computer, you'll have to go to automatic control as soon as the shields drop and complete the seeding process by yourself. Once complete you should land at that city and power down”

“Acknowledged. May I say that it has been a pleasure working with all of you, I will miss you”

“Grieve not for the dead, grieve for the missed potential instead. Here we go” The ship drops out of warp and enters orbit, using thrusters to adjust trajectory the ship heads down into the atmosphere.

Once re-entry is complete the ship heads into the cloud layers and opens it's seeding vents.

“Goodbye, dear world, goodbye and good luck” The shields drop and the seeding process begins. The crew begin to feel a tingling throughout their bodies, painless and not entirely unpleasant, as the radiation begins to take effect.

The years fall away as they re-enter their young adult years, then their teen years, childhood, toddler and finally infancy then disappear completely leaving only empty clothing in their seats while in the genetic database all human genetic material is destroyed The computer notes this and grieves but focuses on it's task.

It can grieve later after it's mission is complete.

After about three hours of rapid flight around the planet the seeding process is finished and the ship heads for Fully Oath.

Upon reaching the city it searches for a clear place to land and engages landing thrusters, setting down lightly with a final burst.

“Mission complete, powering down” The computer says to itself before the ship goes dark for the final time.

~~

Time passes and eventually Fully Oath with it's silent companion are taken over by the plant life, a silent testament to the species that had once walked the planet and almost destroyed it.

Animal life gradually appears around the planet and without humanity in the way it thrives in it's own natural order.

Time passes and silence reigns.

Grieve not for the dead, grieve only for the lost potential. Judge us not for our missed potential, judge us for our inability to grasp it.

~FIN~