Alison's Writing Corner

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Nadiya opened her eyes. The hum of the environmentals sounded off. She got up and checked the readouts. The O2 level was off. She sighed and messaged the landlord. He responded saying the emitter was acting up and he had a tech on the way out to fix it.

She rolled out of bed and climbed into the shower. The water was tepid at best this morning, which meant the heating unit was going. She messaged the landlord again and he said he’d have someone come take a look at it later that day. He asked if she’d changed the access code to her apartment and she told him she hadn’t.

Nadiya dressed and pulled her oxygen mask over her face. She activated the cannister on her hip and walked out her door, joining countless others on their way to work. Oxygen levels on Traxia were lower than on Earth, or so she’d been told, which is why there were O2 emitters and oxygen tanks in use here and had been since the colony had been founded two hundred years earlier.

Nadiya knew nothing about Earth, other than what had been taught in her history class. No one on Traxia had set foot on their parent planet that she knew of. Not even the politicians who ran things. Earth was nearly fifty light years away, a hefty three thousand year journey with their not-quite FTL drive systems. They had no contact with Earth either, because of how long it would take to get a response. In essence, Traxia was cut off from Earth and had learned to survive on its own.

Nadiya made her way into the office and removed her oxygen tank. She sat down at her desk and powered on her work station. Several urgent tasks were in her queue already that morning, dumped there by her boss. She sighed and read through them, prioritizing by what needed to be done when, and got to work.

Her day was interrupted a few hours later by shouts from her coworkers. “Nadiya, you have to see this. There are ships landing on Traxia,” Somalia said.

“Ships?” Nadiya asked. She got up and went to the window. Sure enough, starships of a strange design were landing in Traxia’s long unused landing field.

“Everyone, go home,” the head of the department said. “Turn on the news. Find out what’s going home.”

Nadiya did just that. There was a live broadcast from the capitol building of the leaders meeting with the men who came from the ships. They were humans like the Traxians.

“How do you look like us?” the man from the ships asked.

“We are human, just like you,” President Kalvin Hooper said mildly. “We’re from Earth as well. We came to Traxia 3200 years ago under the order of President Philippa Norris to settle here. The journey took three thousand years due to the N65 Worm drive, and the colony has been thriving here for the last two hundred years.”

The men from the ships conferred together. “There is no record of a colony being sent to Planet M645,” the first one said finally.

“The world is called Traxia,” President Hooper corrected him. “And I can show you the documentation. It’s in our hall of records.”

The leader and two of the men followed President Hooper and his bodyguards into the hall of records. The camera followed them in. There the men looked over the proof of what President Hooper said. “This is old Earth technology,” the man admitted. “Under President Norris’ seal. You are correct. There was a war on Earth a hundred years ago and we lost quite a lot of our historical records. It seems the colonization of Traxia was one of those records lost. I wonder how many other worlds we colonized have been lost?”

“How many people do you have on your ship?” President Norris asked.

“Five hundred,” the man said. “All men, women, and children.”

“We can easily accommodate that many people,” President Norris said. “Are there any more ships coming?”

“No, we were the only one sent here,” the man said.

“Then as long as they can accommodate themselves to wearing oxygen tanks because Traxia has a lower oxygen concentration than Earth, we should be able to help integrate them into our population in no time,” President Norris said.

“Thank you,” the man said.

“I’ll get my people to work putting together spare oxygen tanks for all of them,” President Norris said. “I’d keep them on the ship until we manage to get them working.”

“We will,” the man said. “I appreciate your help with this.”

“Traxia is welcoming to all who come here from Earth seeking to shelter. Our population isn’t that large so any fresh blood is welcome to mix with ours,” President Hooper said.

Nadiya snickered to herself. This was the third ship claiming to have come from Earth in the past century. Her sister had married one of the children who’d grown up that had come from the last colony ship. How many more were they going to send claiming they’d forgotten Traxia existed? She wondered if any young men on this ship were going to be attractive? Maybe she’d snare herself a husband out of this lot.