The stars shone through the armor-clad glass of the canteen deck in a wide distance, Lieutenant O’Connel caught the last brief lightning flash of a small asteroid which died down in the shields. He must think of the earth, the blue planet, or at least it was this once...

Natural disasters are at the agenda now, the climate is disturbed, sooner or later the native country of the people will go down.
O'Connel packed the rage when he had to think how the people had destroyed her home planet in her boundless facing. Shortly before the definite destruction of the earth mankind recollected and founded the new earth government (NEG) which found out by its researches that mankind can not live in this world any more for a long time anyway. The wars, the environmental pollution, all this has destroyed the world and carved indelible scars into the face of the earth.
Years of planning made it possible for the NEG finally to build a prototype of a colony ship. Smaller than the original exemplar and equipped with a hyper room drive this 240 people containing ship which was baptized on the hopeful name Sun Light should be the vanguard of mankind in the galaxy M63. After long observations and readings there were new possibilities located for settlement for the mankind. But also signals were caught, the scientist didn't agree about the decoding of these signals, but they agreed in one point: These signals came from intelligent life...

O'Connel was frightened when a hand touched his shoulder.
"What do you think about, Lieutenant?"
It was the voice of his colleague out of the science laboratory, Lieutenant Elena Baxter.
"You should rather go on the bridge, the hyper room jump starts within 15 minutes.
O'Connel nodded at her dumbly, got up and saw through the bulletproof glass in the infinite distance of the universe once again. They were maybe a tenth light year away from the earth now and although it was distorted by wars he missed the formerly blue planet...
"All staff to their stations", it sounded out of the loudspeakers of the long gears of the 'Sun Light'. O'Connel approached the lift which led to the bridge. When he entered the lift a feeling of uncertainty came over him.
They were the first who tested this new drive to penetrate into the universe further than each one other person.
But what if it did not work as planned? The hope of whole mankind rested on the shoulders of the almost 240 people on board of the 'Sun Light'. They were the best in their area, so much was clear but alone the best ones will make mistakes. O'Connel expelled the doubts from his head when the sluice of the lift opened and he was greeted on the bridge of Captain Olafson with a warm "Lieutenant, how nice that you attend one of the most important events in the history of mankind too." O'Connel understood this hint of course and went dumbly to his tax console.
"T minus 3 minutes" it sounded out of the loudspeakers, the nerves of all crew members were tense, the last preparations for the activation of the hyper room drive were made. "Matter-antimatter-reactor online..", the second mate suggested. "Ok, get the space warp on operation level.", although his played calmness the stiff of Captain Olafson was clearly recognized.
"T minus 1 minute." Interferences in the shields let them glimmer in a bright green, all on the bridge heared the buzzing of the space warp. Captain Olafson insured that all systems worked normally, breathed deeply still one time and gave then the order.
"Guys, the eyes of the mankind are directed to us, it's up to us to give the mankind an new world which can delight it. God may protect us. Start the hyper room drive!"
O'Connel was the man who had to push the 'big red button'. He hesitated another moment, vacated all his doubts aside and started the drive finally. The 'Sun Light' learned a jerky acceleration, the shimmering green in the shields got stronger and the stars deformed slowly to lines in the infinite black of the space...
O'Connel pursued the course of the 'Sun Light' on his control desk, he had never seen the computer switching so fast through the inter galactic cards before.
Ten minutes had passed since the activation of the drive, so he must switch of to hold the M/AM-reactor stable and to cool down the reactor. The order finally came. "Hyper room drive on stand-by ", it sounded from the mouth of the Captain. O'Connel operated the desk and gave the computer the necessary instructions for switching off. The buzzing of the space warp got quieter and the shimmering green disappeared slowly from the shields again. Finally the stars could recognize as shining points on the black background so as if they had not moved at all, too.
"Lieutenant, Status report" came the order to O'Connel ".
"Aye! The hyper room drive has worked as planned. We have put 1000000 light years back and are now in the near of the Dabog fog.
The cool and re-charging phase of the M/AM-reactor will take about a week." "Good work, Lieutenant." Captain Olafson activated the intercom to be heard on the whole ship, "The first jump through the hyper room is done and everything ran as planned. All people have a break earned itself. Today within five days I expect everyone freshly again and ready for preparations for the second jump."
O'Connel was relieved, that no one of his fears came true, maybe he was only a hopeless pessimist, he thought when he entered the lift to go to his room...
O'Connel lay in his accommodation on the bed and stared to the blanket. They had already everyone brought about 24 jumps, without behind himself any incidents or problems, and his doubts were stronger than ever as no one before has been in this meager mapped part of the universe before, stimulated only. His thoughts were interrupted by the cry of the Captain suddenly. "All staff is ready for next jump for the stations, us."
The preparations proceeded like always according to plan, the crew already had developed a certain routine slowly for new technology.
The hyper room drive was started and the 'Sun Light' learned an enormous speed push once again.
Constant sums of the room bend field became the interrupted by a report from the plant room suddenly.
"Captain, we have here a serious problem ", it was the voice of Lieutenant Baxter.
"The M/AM reactor, his coat has begun to destabilize itself, we must immediately leave the hyper room ", Olafsons answer was bullheaded.
"We can’t do this, we could strand everywhere. "
"So suffer it does to me, Captain, but the reactor detonates in a minute if we do not switch it off."
First now Olafson could estimates the serious of the situation and gave the order to deactivate the drive.
The ship was shaken by an enormous explosion when it left the hyper room. "Lieutenant, Status report!" called Captain Olafson irritated.
"Captain, we have left the hyper room and have landed in the middle of an asteroid field. A large asteroid has met us on to starboard when the shields were deactivated for leaving the hyper room. The leisure deck and the accommodation decks 12-14 are destroyed. "
"Insulate immediately."
O'Connel operated the instruments despite the serious situation with high precision and certainly, but his look darkened when he checked the instruments. "Captain, our fusion reactor is damaged. I can bring the shields no longer online! "
"Have we a other chance to drive through this asteroid field? "
"It does not look that way as if" O’Connell’s sentence was interrupted by another asteroid element.

"Captain, the cover breaks, we must evacuate."

Olafson thought 4 endless seconds. "Alert stage red. All men to the rescue capsules ", he exclaimed finally on the whole ship.
The rescue capsules flew away in all directions as the splendid 'Sun Light' which should be the first hope of the people broke in two and found her grave in an asteroid field in the middle of the unexplored room.


Measures were taken by the type of the 'Sun Light' for further ships on the earth meanwhile. Again there were selected the qualified and best people to find new planets for mankind. On one of the ships YOU wait for the run order. As Captain of the settlement ship hopes and great responsibility lie on your shoulders. It lies to give the hope back at you, the people now and to open them the gate to a new world...