The Last Transmission of Archibald Tell

The following transmission was recovered from the ULYSSES Starship. The first of its class starship capable of reaching farther reaches in space, equipped with ion engines, self sustaining life support system and hibernation chambers able to keep an individual in stasis over long voyages. In the event of a mission critical emergency, the Captain will be woken from stasis to triage the problem. 

Captains Log…This is Captain Archibald Tell of the starship Ulysses, commissioned by the New World Exploration Alliance. Our mission states we are to reach orbit of the Saturn Moon Europa, and attempt a landing excursion. Initial navigation readout has us dramatically off course and exact position is unknown. The approximate date is 2316.8. Myself along with my crew have been in hibernation for 2 years 7 months 16 days into a 4 year journey, however twenty minutes ago I was woken up while my crew stay asleep. Mission protocol states that the captain is to be brought out of hibernation if a life threatening situation should occur. 

Currently I am in my state room, recording this message, the rest stay in hibernation. After completing the formalities associated with waking up from a 31 month sleep, I have been reviewing the latest auto logs. It appears a malfunction in the life support system as triggered the alarm and my subsequent wake from deep sleep. I may be a bit groggy and this freeze-dried coffee we get up here isn’t doing me any favors, I have reset the alarms system but they continue to go off. I am running a diagnostic on the life support systems to find the problem. The initial message was an error #16, which means we are dangerously low on Oxygen, just under 18 hours until depletion of reserves according to the read out.  

My first reaction is this is an error in the error messaging system, as this ship, as far as I can understand the science, is designed to produce its own oxygen, so there should never be a shortage. The life support system is equipped with CO2 scrubbers and a what I can only understand it to be a recycling type of mechanism that creates oxygen. We also have reserve tanks as well as a separate lines feeding the pods in hibernation chamber.

As soon as the diagnostics come back clean, and I reset the alarms, I will put myself back to sleep.  

End Transmission

17:11:05 remaining 

Diagnostics came back and confirming the error message, The ship is not only losing oxygen but also incapable of scrubbing the air of C02. Luckily I’m the only one expelling any of it. The other 5 members of the crew are still in hibernations and they operate on a different air filtration system to better control their sleep. However if the ship loses all its oxygen they too will eventually lose it. 

I find this hard to believe. There has to be problem elsewhere causing this, something smaller I’ve overlooked prompting these error messages. We triple checked everything before we took off. I checked life supports myself. There’s no way life support is failing. I’m going to reboot each system one by one and find the problem. This has to be a computing error that can be straightened out with a reboot.  

On a more personal note, this coffee is shit and is doing nothing for my emotional state right now. What I wouldn’t give for an actual espresso up here.  

End of Transmission

14:07:53 remaining 

Well I’ve been through each system on this ship. Run diagnostic on almost every line of code. And it’s all running optimally, that is except for the life support. The Goddamn life support! The circuit board on the oxygen rebreathing system malfunctioned and the filtration system shutdown. This happened shortly after we went into hibernation. We slowly ate up the oxygen over the course of 2 years. And I just wasted 3 hours fucking around with the computer. Not that I could really do much else up here. I don’t have many other options. 

But I have had time to think this all through.

This whole mission felt suspect from the beginning. Thinking back now, from getting this assignment to launch was like 6 weeks. Not too short of time, but still probably could have used another month or so in the simulators. I mean this was all new tech we were playing around with. But still, I have flown on 12 missions to the Moon and Mars Orbit, I have a feel for how this is supposed to go. The proper timelines and procedures. And something smelled like shit from the get-go on this one.  

Why, did we rush this mission. We knew the ship wasn’t ready. My reports stated as much. The Alliance… those bastards rushed us through the tests. Hell even fudged the numbers on one or two…oh yeah I know all about that…and for what. Just so big time CEOs Agatha and Ernesto can beat the other guys to punch. This is just a fucking game to them. I never trusted the them. Are we just an insurance write off for those sons of bitches? It’s been all about the ship anyway, and the engines, and how it can revolutionize space travel. Well now that ship is lost. And us? Our lives are expendable, what’s it matter to them if we run out of oxygen just so long as the fucking ship makes it! Well guess what, its going straight to hell with me!

Maybe you just use robots next time!

Fuck! 

What the fuck am I going to do?!

Ok, think…if I reroute power from the back up generators I could maybe restart the system…it’s a long shot but it’s a plan…I’m not beat yet. I have less than 15 hours of air left but I’ll use every second fighting, cause fuck them. 

End of Transmission

8:48:17

I’ve rerouted. I’ve rewired. I’ve rejiggered. I’ve reengineered . Reverse engineered. Rebuilt. Reformatted. Deformatted. And retooled. I’ve done everything in the manual and anything else that seemed plausible. I am all out of ideas, plans, maneuvers, and options. 

Except for one thing, it’s not a viable option though but it’s possible. Oh I shouldn’t even be thinking of it.  

It’s wrong, it’s deceitful, but it might work. It would require borrowing the power and oxygen from the hibernation system…it would only supply enough power and oxygen for 1 person to make it back home. 

I shouldn’t even be thinking this. The captain goes down with his ship. But I really never got be a captain. I have so much more to give and offer space exploration. 12 missions but this was my first one at the helm. 20 years in space flight and I am now a captain. I can’t give that up now, just when I am about to get started. I could honor the crews sacrifice by continuing on. I could get back on track. Find out where I am. Make it to Saturn and back, landing seems out of the question, but a manned orbit of Saturn is worth it, worth them. 

This could work right? 

Yeah…oh what the hell?! What the hell am I thinking! I’ve just gone crazy that’s all. There’s no cheating this. I just wasted 5 hours of air. 5 hours of my life. I never thought the idea of wasting breath ever meant so much but when you have so little left, well I feel guilty, watching the clock, holding my breath, my life ticking away one-Mississippi after another. I try as I might to slow down time. Draw every second out as long as possible.

End of Transmission

1:49:12 remaining 

Commander Tracee Wilcox

Lt. Benjamin Smiley

Dr. Reese Park

Dr. Davis Hampton

First Engineer Oscar Marquez

These are the names that should be remembered. And I Captain Archibald Tell, deliver here my final transmission. 

We,the crew of the Ulysses should forever be remembered for being the first of our tribe to go farther from the cave than ever before. To Venture beyond the known, and to make our mark on the Universe. To plant a flag on another world and say, “Hello Galaxy, Humans are Here!”  

But no, I guess it just wasn’t our turn. The six of us were just meant to be casualties in this new space race. Just names entered into a log labeled FAILED MISSIONS. They were better than that, they were a damn fine crew and I would have been honored to serve alongside them.

I thought about waking them but for what. Wake them up just to tell them they’ll be dead in 2 hours. No, let them sleep. Let them die while dreaming. I’ll be joining after this transmission, climbing back in my pod, to die peacefully. I wonder if you die in the middle of a dream can your soul get stuck there for all eternity…Hopefully it’s a pleasant one…I’ve uploaded videos our families sent up to each of the pods. Maybe hearing the voices of our families will put them in our dreams. And then we can be there, with them forever. It’s about the only optimism I can find right about now. 

I have approximately 1 hour and 49 minutes of oxygen left…one hundred and nine minutes…would it be worth using any of 6540 seconds lamenting my failures and regrets…how this mission failure is the crowning achievement to a life fret with ineptitudes and fuck ups. 

No, No, No why give myself the satisfaction of dying miserable. If ever a person were meant to be floating lifelessly through the universe for all eternity it would be Archibald Tell. Always late to the party, last picked for the game, just short of the mark. But this mission was supposed to change all that…this mission was to put my name in the mouths of everyone worldwide. The hero of the great Saturn exploration. 

Some hero, I couldn’t even sleep properly without killing everyone. Now I’ll forever be known as the Captain of the death ship. Piloting a crew of corpses across the stars. What a joke this has been. 

I’ll conclude my final entry with a message for who or whatever finds us. 

We are humans…we are curious…we are ambitious…we exceed every boundary…we cross every line…we are intelligent, inquisitive, indulgent…we seek that which is lost and explore that which is unknown…we are prideful, we are dedicated and we are stubborn…most of all we are human, full of faults but give us time and we will show you love.

End of Official Transmissions

Begin Private Transmission;

Elise…my love not sure if this will even get to you or when, if ever that will be…but by that time I will be dead. 

At this moment, I have about 68 minutes left. I always imagined I’d be scared…and I want to be scared…But I can’t…I can’t feel anything. It’s funny how being this close to death and I can’t find emotion. I feel numb to it all. All my life I’ve feared this moment. Always anxious it would happen too soon. At a point when I hadn’t experienced much of the universe. But I’ve come to understand something about death… there is nothing to fear. Because what we fear in life are the consequences to actions. But there are no consequences with death, because death is the final consequence. 

Seeing you one last time would be my last request. I was foolish for leaving you, for this. My ambition to succeed blinded me to the achievements I already had…You, and Grace and Max… I can see their faces when they find out their daddy’s gone forever. I shed a tear for that, for them, for you. Leaving for 8 years was heartbreaking enough and has turned out be a huge mistake. I should have listened to you. You knew this was a bad play. You were always the smart one. So smart, funny, quirky and clumsy…beautiful..so endlessly beautiful…If there is a place beyond this, I will miss you and love you eternally. But I ask one thing of you… please accept this as I have and please move on with your life…I will forever be your love in the stars, but you deserve love on the ground as well. 

And Grace and Max…I want you to grow up to be the best and brightest, most amazing people that I know you are capable of becoming. Because you two are the most perfect, most beautiful creatures and I was stupid fool to ever leave you. To ever think I needed something more than the love from you two….I want you to know that you will never be alone…ok…as long as the stars come out, your daddy will be right up there looking down on you. Always with you, always loving you.