One Way Trip

                  Major Cam Branson stood at the observation window, staring out into deep space, into the nebulae of the Oort Cloud’s hazy murk, watching the scientific and engineering ships skirt around the rift anomaly they’d designated the “Turing Tunnel” – a quantum pathway that, in theory, could provide faster than light travel to a remote system. Only, it was no longer theory. They’d sent an unmanned beacon through, and it had successfully pinged back. Wherever it was, it was five light years away…and unable to return.

                  “Big day tomorrow,” said Dr. Victoria Cross, head of Project Wayfinder. She joined him on the observation platform.

                  “That feels like a tremendous understatement,” he said.

                  “I’m not very good at small talk,” she said. “But what the four of you are doing …”

                  “Save it,” he said. “I’m not very good at accepting compliments.”

                  Dr. Cross nodded.

                  “I’ll leave you be then,” she said, clapping one hand on his shoulder before taking her leave.

                  Cam waited until her footsteps on the research vessel’s floor faded away. Once alone, he opened his data pad and began to type:

                  Dear Mikala, by the time you receive this, I will no longer be here. Wait, that sounds a bit ominous, doesn’t it? You know I was never good with words. But put me behind a ship’s controls? Well, anyway….what I mean is that I’ll no longer be in our solar system. I know we haven’t spoken in years, but I felt I owed it to you, to our daughter, to explain. It’s like this – we’ve found a way to travel out of our system. There’s a tunnel of sorts, a rift, that will allow us to travel faster than light. Think of the possibilities! There are two problems though. One, it's small, this tunnel; only big enough to send four of us through with a very limited cache of initial supplies. The second problem, and the one that has me writing this to you, is that it’s a one-way trip. I suppose I’m a bit of a pioneer then, huh? Kind of like Earth’s westward expansion. Life on the frontier…the Nexus System. I know you’ve carved out a new life with Casey, on Mars, and I hope you’ll remember me fondly. We’re going through tomorrow, so this is goodbye. Give Lily a hug from me, will you? Thanks.

                  He thought about signing off with something funny, or clever, but he had neither. All he had was nervous anticipation. All he had was the unknown and the hope that he was doing the right thing.

                  But someone had to take the risk so that the rest of humanity could one day reach beyond the stars.

                  Tomorrow, that someone would be him.