Starting someone else's unfinished journey.

Finding One's True Self: Part 2

By Xan Steel

A few weeks had passed since Daniel had recovered entirely from his attempted suicide. Even though he was grateful for his sister's help in bringing him back, Daniel couldn't help wishing she hadn't. Daniel still didn't want to be on earth anymore. However, she made him promise that he wouldn't commit suicide ever again, and he promised her he wouldn't. That didn't stop him from finding other ways to leave earth. He could only hope that if he figured out a way that was safe she would join him.

Daniel decided to take all of his built up paid leave at once. His boss didn't argue after what happened to him. So, he had six months of free time to himself to be able to research what he was going to do.

Over the course of his first month, he borrowed a large telescope from his office, as well as a few star charts, and began hitting the data archives to find his mission. He planned his days to keep himself busy until it came time for Maria to return home from work. It would be at that point he paused his work putting it away and began making dinner for them.

Daniel went back to doing things with her like they did when they first moved here. To be honest, it was something he missed doing with her. They had always been close doing just about everything together.

Tonight, he wanted to do something special for dinner. It had been a while since they had her favorite dish. Chicken Alfredo. He decided to look up a delicious recipe for it, and then went and got everything he needed to make it. Came home and began preparing it. He followed the instructions to the letter. Well, he had to as he wasn't a good cook. Maria was the one that always cooked for them, but tonight he wanted it to be special for her and let her rest for a change.

He heard her pull into the driveway and put everything in the warm oven so that it didn't get cold. Then opened the door as she came up. "Welcome home sis." He said as she came in the door.

She hugged him and kissed his cheek, as she hung her bag and lab coat. "So glad to be home for now." She said in return as she felt him hug back.

"So how was your day?" He asked.

"Rough, again. Only this time we lost a critical experiment," she finished.

"Sorry to hear that. Listen why don't you get comfy and have a shower, and I'll have dinner ready when you come back out," Daniel finished. Maria couldn't argue with that as a shower did sound nice. She smiled and hugged him once more and left to take that hot shower.

Daniel finished putting the meal together at their small coffee table in the living room that doubled as a dining room for them and flipped the TV over to a channel they both enjoyed watching.

Upon finishing her shower, she came out in a nightgown and had her hair wrapped in a towel. Maria saw the meal sitting there on the table. "You, you made Chicken Alfredo?" She asked amazed. Daniel nodded and walked her to her seat at the table, as she was eager to taste it and dug right in once she finished sitting down.

She moaned loudly at the taste as she sat there eating and didn't say a word the whole time. It was just too good. Daniel smiled as he ate his dinner and had to admit it was delicious. Which surprised him, because he was only good at making simple things to eat like sandwiches. Once they finished eating, Daniel cleaned up the dishes from the table and put them in the dishwasher for cleaning later and rejoined her on the couch and watched the news with her.

It wasn't good news sadly. The reporter started off talking about a new set of wars going on between the different religious sects around the world. Rioting and looting that was happening. Disease and Epidemics breaking out over the world, and then suddenly the tone of the report changed when the reporter said, "Puppies! Look at these little cuties! Aren't they the cutest!?"

All Maria said was "Seriously?" Daniel just burst out laughing. He was laughing so much he had tears rolling down his cheeks. It didn't take long for Maria to follow suit after and they both just laughed together. 

Later that night, Daniel retired to the bedroom he shared with Maria. She went to her single bed, and Daniel went to his computer to check on some things. He looked it over and noticed it had finished the search he had been doing, and discovered only one mission that had never been completed and reported it as a lost cause. The mission to Alpha Centauri.

A lost mission from close to a hundred years ago only because they stopped receiving their transmissions, but for all they knew, the distance might have been too vast to transmit successfully. Having never retried this mission over the last one hundred years, it seemed like a useful place to start, Daniel thought to himself.  After doing some more reading on the subject itself, Daniel then retired for the night.

The next morning, he got up and wished Maria a good day at work as she left the house. Upon her leaving for the day he began to research this mission for more and more information. He had plans that he needed to get started. Hopefully, he could finish before his six months of vacation ended. His first step was finding a used or decommissioned ship. That wasn't in use by anyone and making sure it had the room for a couple of people while making sure he could retrofit it for space travel.

Next, he would need to find a power source. He figured he could use NASA's old decommissioned EM Drive and built into that design. Then making sure he had all the necessary Lab equipment and computers in place. Any and all types of entertainment, food, medical supplies, and just in case he would find a few stasis pods and set about getting it started.