Space Jump

We scientists of Gianastrum discovered that our central star had become unstable.  Our ever enjoyable pinkish skies were turning more reddish and our weather was becoming unpredictable.  We then noticed the solar winds had increased to a point the magnetosphere was no longer protecting our atmosphere and little by little our oxygen was being blown into space.  Our advanced minds in nuclear physics worked out that our star was slowly expanding and we only had a matter of years before our world would be totally stripped bare of its atmosphere and our lives would be over.

Our astrophysicists had worked out transit portals a couple of decades before and we had been using them with great success to explore the other planets with in our system.  They were quite ingenious as we could matter transfer them already assembled across space, and once they were in place we could just walk through the portal and be on the surface of the other planet.  We tried to work out if this could save us but within our system there would be no where safe to hide from our own star’s death.

As a group our most learned people decided to not share this information with the general public lest we start a mad panic and we just passed it off as a “normal nuclear cycle event within our star” most just accepted that…most.  In the background though we were furiously trying to solve the problem of our own extinction when the daughter of one of our most brilliant physicists posited “Why can’t we just put a portal in another system?”  Precious time had already been wasted but our astrophysicists began a mad search for any planet that had a similar atmosphere.  What they found was a small blue planet orbiting a white star ten light years away.  We couldn’t transport a portal that far with any certainty and we felt crushed until someone asked if we could leapfrog a series of matter transfer units across space?

It seemed redundant and a gamble but we launched the first transfer unit as far out as we dared, and sent the next to it to go the same distance further.  The test worked and we began the furious calculations of where to set them and where to aim them.  In a year we had a thousand transfer units traversing interstellar space from us to this tiny planet.  The first portal shipped immediately after.

The first issue we had was timing, to pass from portal to portal they had to be in a certain degree of alignment and the day night cycle of the planets were markedly different meaning we only had a few minutes in which to pass through on any given day…this would not do for moving an entire civilization between the planets–we needed more portals and some massive ones at that.

Engineers, scientists, and explorers were quickly and quietly signed up, trained, and entered the portal.  What awaited them was a very green world with brilliant blue skies in the day and the chance to look deep into space through the darkness of this new planet’s night.  Its moon was huge and depending on its faze could nearly light the night with its reflection of the white dwarf’s light.  The news from all that where there was breathtaking.  We managed to send a few construction craft through the transfer system to help speed the portal process along and soon the engineers were building receiving portals all around what would become our new home.  There was only a few portals that would allow for bi-directional travel though so news from more remote portals was scarce.  We knew several larger townships were being built quickly though so people would have homes when they arrived.

The biggest issue arose though when our star began to enlarge faster than we had calculated and what we had figured would take two decades suddenly became half that time and we had to tell our people of our plan.  The news was controlled to prevent panic and a lottery system put into place where entire family units would suit up for the journey and pass through the portal.  The trip only took a few minutes but self contained suits were a must as you did have to pass through nothingness to use the portal so suits became the big rage as people began to prepare for their journey.

New issues began to arise as we were no longer making replacement components for our technology as instead we frantically rushed people through so what had been a steady flow of portals on our end began to dwindle as the portals became unstable.  Of course this put more strain on the remaining portals having to be used so much.

With our atmosphere diminishing rapidly I was one of the few portal sentinels left and I sent the last family through for the day I suited up and went home to prepare my own family as there was nowhere near enough oxygen to breath now and the radiation was too intense for bare skin.  I helped my four kids pack the last of the things they would take with them.  Helped my wives with their things.  We ate supper together and returned to the portal where we slept until time.  We were the last to leave our home world and I opened the portal for the last time and ushered them on the platform “I’ll be along” and sent them through.  I watched my wives one slightly taller, one with golden hair, and one with bright red,  my two sons and my two girls pass through the portal and step out on the other world onto New Gia, but I knew there wasn’t enough power left for me to pass through, and so I waved my good-bye to them as the portal collapsed.

Whoever may find this tell my wives and kids I love them always, for now I am going outside without my suit and watch the sunrise one last time.