Blue lights flashed, filling the corridors. “Blue lights. Red means fire, white means lockdown, green is a breach in the haul, and blue is buckle your damn seat belts we are about to enter accelerated warp,” a much younger voice from below recited. Ness lay back in his bunk clutching his face in pain as blood dripped from his nose. He reached for his seat belt and strapped himself in. The pioneers were expected to make landfall this week. If they had reached a hospitable planet, could they have constructed a warp gate already? Ness knew for weeks aboard the carrier named New Horizon, that he would soon be on a desolate new planet called Flare. He knew for months that most all of humanity were going to board these carriers and set sail off into the future, but it was only now that it all seemed to sink in. “I thought they were going to announce when the pioneer squad landed?” Ness called out.
