Earth 2.0

It was finally the day. The day we woke up from hyper sleep. As my eyes slowly began to open, I could see the flashing lights of the sleeper pod’s glass control panel door before me. I smiled to myself as I reached up and took off my respirator mask. I pressed the button inside my sleeper pod that opened the glass panel door.

           “Whoohoo!” I was greeted by the sound of my crew mates cheering excitedly. I floated out of my sleeper pod and stared in awe at the beautiful sight before me. A large blue and green planet was visible outside of the large bay windows of our spaceship. It was like looking at Earth, though this planet was three times the size of our home planet.

           “We finally made it. Welcome to Earth 2.0.” Our captain, Ethan, said as he headed out of the sleeping pod chambers. We followed him through the ship and to the cockpit of the ship. “Alexis, start making preparations for us to land.” Ethan instructed me.

           “Right away, sir.” I responded as I headed over to my computer panel. I scanned the planet before us and began computing the data required for us to land. “I found a great spot to land. A large field between a forest and a mountain range. There appears to be a fresh water source nearby as well, in a river that cuts through the mountain range.” I reported.

           “Then let us get ready to land.” Ethan commanded. We all became even more excited as we prepared to land our ship. Our spaceship had been named The Ark because it included the DNA of every species that ever existed on Earth, including human embryos that were designed to be grown in the laboratory within the ship. Our crew only had twelve people on it. Six men and six women. We were considered the smartest and most promising humans of our species when we were chosen, and they hoped that keeping an equal ratio would promote us creating offspring of our own to live among the lab-born humans we were tasked with creating. However, it was not required that we pro-create. While we all were top-notch astronauts and engineers, we all also possessed the skills needed to successfully complete the mission of populating a new planet with our dying species.

           “Lost in thought, Alexis?” Susan asked me suddenly. I smiled at her.

           “Do you think there are any humans left on Earth?” I asked her.

           “We have been in hyper sleep for almost three hundred years, and when we left, Earth was dying. I would be surprised if anyone were still alive on Earth.” Susan shook her head.

           “Well, we will know soon. The first part of our mission is to reach out to any of the other colonies we can, including Earth.” Justin commented.

           “Some of them had a hundred-year head start.” Lola pouted.

           “And we have at least a hundred-year head start to several other Arks.” Steve reminded Lola.

           “True.” I agreed. We then refocused and began to prepare for our descent onto the planet. The sight before us on our descent was beautiful. This was one of the twenty planets that were deemed suitable for human life. This mission was ultimately a restart mission. A second chance for the human race. My crew was hopeful for the success of this mission. This is what we had endured hyper sleep for three hundred years for. Now it was time to start our mission. “My readings indicate the air is breathable.” I said once we had successfully landed on the large planet.

           “I want everyone to take a breathing apparatus. These masks can convert the elements in the air into breathable air for us, so they are ideal for exploration as well as diving.” Ethan told us.

           “Yes, sir!” We said in unison before heading to the hatch of The Ark. In the hatch were our special exploration suits. Everyone except for Susan and Justin put on their suit. Susan and Justin had been assigned to stay with the ship and start preparing the robotic workers we had brought with us to begin building housing units for us and the future humans we would create.

           “We will only be checking out a mile around The Ark. We need to set up a perimeter just in case there is any native life that could be dangerous to us. Since this planet is almost identical to Earth, we need to be prepared to come across new life forms.” Ethan warned us.

           “Yes, sir.” I nodded once I was fully dressed and ready for the exploration. Ethan waved to Susan and Justin. The two headed back inside and closed the airlock. The other four of us watched as the hatch opened, revealing an idyllic meadow scene before us. We were all wearing our breathing apparatus, but it was not on. We walked out to the meadow and began scanning the plant life.

           “Oh, there is a caterpillar!” Lola exclaimed as she scanned the grass.

           “Looks like there are bugs on this planet too.” Steve complained. I laughed.

           “Spread out!” Ethan instructed. We all nodded and split up. We stayed within each other’s sight and began walking out to set up our perimeter. I noted that the plant life was very similar to the kind that grew on Earth and did not seem poisonous in any way to humans. This was a good thing for us. The ones who decided to send us to this planet in the first place had limited knowledge. While they knew this planet was identical to Earth in the sense that it had all the elements needed to create life, they had no knowledge about the life that had formed on this planet. This planet could easily be filled with things designed to kill us; it was a huge risk but a necessary one to save mankind.

           “Hm?” I looked out towards the tree line and thought I saw a humanoid shape. As soon as I saw it though, it was gone. “I saw something in the forest up ahead. Looks humanoid.” I called over on my communicator.

           “The evolutionary scientist from Earth told us that we would probably come across other humanoid creatures on these planets.” Ethan reminded me. “He called the human form the most practical.” He chuckled.

           “I recall.” I shook my head. “I am sure he regrets saying such a thing considering the annihilation of our species.” I sighed.

           “Maybe he is in hell, learning to regret it.” Steve said. I rolled my eyes at the comment and continued walking out until I reached the mile marker. I was around fifteen feet away from the tree line and heard some rustling of leaves. I switched on the camera attached to my shoulder and looked around the area.

           “What the-?” I looked on in shock as I saw what looked like a little girl staring at me from behind some trees. “We’re not alone!” I called out on my communicator.

           “What?” Ethan responded.

           “I see a little humanoid girl in the forest.” I explained. The girl looked nearly identical to humans, the only difference I could see was on her hand that was grasping the tree. Instead of normal human fingers, hers were elongated and had what looked like talons inside of fingernails at the end of them. Her eyes were also inhuman. She had eyes that glowed in the dark under the canopy of trees. “Hello.” I waved to her. I froze when I saw her smile at me, revealing a set of large and bloody fangs. “Uh-oh.” I said as I began slowly backing away. Suddenly the girl was no longer alone. Four more humanoids revealed themselves hidden within the trees of the forest. “Crap! Everyone gets back to The Ark!” I screamed over the communicator as I bolted towards the ship as fast as possible. Everyone else made it to the hatch before me and I saw them looking behind me in horror. I briefly looked back and saw twenty humanoids chasing after me.

           “Grab her!” Ethan yelled as the other two grabbed me and yanked me into the ship before Ethan turned on the forcefield of the ship. Even with the hatch open, the forcefield worked. We watched as the humanoids ran into the forcefield and screamed in pain as they were zapped by high voltage electricity.

           “Amazing.” Ethan said as the humanoids stopped running into the forcefield and started looking around. “They show intelligence. They seem to have understanding.” Ethan commented.

           “They also have built in weapons.” I said as I pointed at their feet and hands. They all possessed claws and talons, and when they hissed at us, we could see large fangs filling their mouth.

           “I wonder how the evolutionist would explain this.” Steve commented.

           “I wonder how god would.” Lola added. They helped me up as Ethan closed the hatch. We got out of our exploration gear and headed inside. Once inside, a concerned looking Susan and Justin greeted us.

           “What is it? Scared of the natives?” Ethan teased them.

           “Sort of…” Susan admitted. Justin went over to the control panel and pulled up a hologram of a young woman.

           “When we turned on The Ark’s communicator this came up. You need to watch it.” Justin said.

           “Okay.” Ethan nodded, then he pressed play.

           “If you are watching this, I hope it is off planet. My name is Angela Daring. I was selected with three other scientists for a mission to rebuild the human race on this planet. When we arrived, everything was going well, but we were unable to contact our home planet, Earth. We tried to cultivate this planet, but our gear was insufficient. This planet may look inviting at first, but it is uninhabitable. The ground has a layer of dirt that is only a few feet thick then you are met with a stone that is so hard, it destroyed all our tools when we tried to mine it. The trees and plants look promising, but as soon as you chop them down, or harvest them, they wither and rot at a rate that should be impossible. The water of this world is just as impossible. We tried to bring a bucket of water back to our ship, but by the time we made it to our ship the water had eaten through the metal bottom of the bucket…we can only survive off of the items we brought with us, which is only enough for a few years if that…I am afraid that we will die on this planet…”

           Ethan paused the video and turned to Justin. A look of concern written on his face.

           “Is this intergalactic?” He asked. Justin shook his head. “That means that this transmission was sent from this planet…” He realized. We all knew what this meant. We did not have the facilities to leave this planet on The Ark. It was designed to stay put once it was landed. It could not be launched from the planet successfully. Ethan nodded then fast-forwarded the video. When the video had five minutes left, he continued to play it.

           “At this point, I am all that is left. I can say that we were successful in some ways at keeping the human race alive. Our genetically altered humans have been surviving successfully all this time. We really lucked out when were came across the carcasses of some of the animals that call this planet home. Now, these genetically altered humans will keep our DNA alive. But we gave up something great to achieve this. These humanoids formed smaller, ape-like brains. The are smart enough to learn things, but truthfully, they are the equivalent of caveman. Maybe in time, they will evolve like we did. I am afraid that this is all I can do…I successfully sent one message back to Earth, telling them to never send anyone here…my creations will certainly kill them…”

           The video showed Angela’s last moments of life and we watched as she dies in front of us. Her body was skin and bones now, and she no longer looked like a young woman, instead a haggard old woman. We all shared a collective moment of horror as we realized that we were seeing our own future.

           “We need to find a way off this planet.” Justin said.

           “Where would we even go? No, we need to verify if what she is reporting is still true!” Steve yelled.

           “Are we going to starve to death?” Lola started to cry. I scowled at them.

           “Enough!” I yelled. “We are not going to die!” I told them.

           “Alexis is right. Even if we cannot cultivate this planet, The Ark has a large greenhouse we can use to grow our own food. We can pull water out of the atmosphere instead of relying on ground water. And we have the technology to study the materials of this planet and once we learn how to cultivate it I think we should work on building attachments to The Ark.” Ethan said. This was why he was our captain.

           “What about the locals?” Justin asked.

           “They cannot break through our forcefield, and they have a certain level of intelligence. I think we should be wary of them, not afraid.” Ethan reassured us. He then pointed out of the bay windows of the ship. We saw the humanoids running around, playing much like primates. “We need to help these people regain their humanity. It will take a lot of work, and gaining their trust, but we have the means to make them human again. Angela will not have died for nothing.” Ethan declared.

           “I agree. We have a whole living facility thanks to The Ark. We may not be able to terraform this planet, but we can use our technology to live here and complete our mission.” I agreed with Ethan.

           “Well, if the Captain and the Second in command say we can do it, then we can do it.” Steve nodded.

           “Right.” Lola sniffled as she nodded.

           “We can do this.” Susan declared.

           “Then let us get started.” Ethan smiled. We would make the best of our situation, and we would help the humanoids created due to the error of mankind. This planet may not be as like Earth as we hoped, but we would figure this out. We had the technology to be successful. We would succeed.