Emily Chung

Flash Fiction
When youre travelling to Kepler 452b, otherwise known as Earths cousin, which is a
whopping 1,400 light years away...its not really considered normal space travel. We are literally
leaving the solar system. Now, if the USS Hamilton was going to Mars or literally any other
planet that orbits the Sun, all we would have to do is leave Earth at a precise time in order to
intercept the orbital path of said planet. From there, it would be smooth sailing until we were a
good landing distance away.
Now, we decided to be adventurous and travel 1,400 light years away, we cant just fly
into the planets orbit. We first have to fly out of the solar system and into the Kepler planet
group in order to be heading in the right direction of the planet. In order to fly such a great
distance our Captain decided to use a warp drive, which is a system in the spaceship that allows
it to travel faster than the speed of light, cutting down the travel time significantly. The speed of
our ship in warp drive is 26,000 kilometers per second. The total time spent in the warp drive
will be 98 years and we will be travelling 14.2 light years in 1 year. During the time spent in the
warp drive, everyone on the ship will be in cryogenic sleep, and we will wake up about a year
before we reach Kepler 452b in order to have the exact amount of time to slow down to a safe
landing speed.
Currently, Im on a spaceship with 98 people, 2 cows, 5 chickens, and 2 roosters...all in
Cryogenic sleep. We are whizzing through space in warp drive, and the ship is dead silent. Its so
nice to have time to think...or, be able to hear yourself think. Im sitting at the control panel of
the USS Hamilton, trying to figure out what all the flashing buttons and screens do. I can feel
Hunters stare like lasers on the back of my neck, so I spin around in the chair a little too fast and
reach back for the edge of the control panel to steady myself. Thank God I didnt hit the big red
button labeled panic just inches away from my hand.
Mia, out of 100 people, how did we end up being the ones that had to fix this? Im an
engineer, not a...I literally dont even know what people who are good at maps are called...IM
NOT FIT FOR THIS! Abort!! Hunter yells. He really needs to take it down, otherwise he may
*accidentally* fall out of...something.
So, you need to calm down. I have it handled, okay? We just need to figure out how far
away we are from Kepler 452b and how far off the original course weve drifted and how we can
steer the USS Hamilton to get back on course. Itll be fine. Look, that part kind of looks like a
video game control, so that counts for...something, at least its familiar, I said, turning back to
the control panel.
We are currently zooming through space, hopefully in the general direction of Kepler
452b. The USS Hamilton entered warp drive a few weeks ago, with everyone else and all the
animals entering cryogenic sleep soon after that. As the youngest members of the crew (arguably

the least experienced), we were voluntold to stay awake for an extra month in order to make sure
that everything was running smoothly. It, of course, was not. Well, for the most part until we
finally checked the path the ship was heading on, only to find out that we were going to fly about
80 kilometers too far to the left of Kepler 452b...our whole plan of colonizing a new planet had
turned into a glorified airplane ride past what was meant to be our new home. But hey, we would
have enough time to wave hello before we ran out of fuel and plummeted to a fiery death.
So here we are, attempting to fix a problem that seems so small its almost pointless.
With every minute that passes, it becomes more and more tempting to just lock ourselves into
our cryogenic chambers and sleep until its someone elses turn to fix it, when we wake up in 98
years. But, thats not what a real astronaut would do, according to the morals of any human who
isnt currently in this situation...and future-Mia and future-Hunter will probably look back on this
as a good decision, mainly because well be alive and thriving instead of a pile of ashes.
After hours and hours of calculations and papers scattered all over the spaceship (mostly
math, but some games and airplanes), we have managed to put the USS Hamilton back on course
to Kepler 452b. I dont want to exhaust you with all the calculations, and frankly I dont want to
write about them so Ill just summarize: I used equations and math to get some numbers and
drew a map with our spaceship thats headed in the general direction of Kepler 452b. Now all we
have to do is figure out how to get this information off the paper and into the spaceship, so thats
happening.
Hey Mia? I think all that work was for nothing...theres a place here to put in the
coordinates of Kepler 452b and also the coordinates are written very nicely on this map over
there, so really thats all we had to check. They were a little off, but I fixed them and now we
should be good to go.
Oh... My brain could no longer form words or coherent thoughts out of sheer
exhaustion and sadness that hours of math and thinking went to waste. Confident that everything
was running smoothly, we climbed into our cryogenic chambers drifted into a peaceful sleep for
the next 97 years.