The Planets are Dancing, the People are Dying- Chapter 1

Chapter 1-

"Uhmm..." Jonathan stood at the podium, wiping some of the sweat off of his forehead. He ran his fingers through his unkempt black bangs, trying to push them out of his eyes. "So... I'm sure you're all wondering why I've gathered you all here... Uh..." He looked throughout the crowd of about three-hundred scientists and engineers. "You were all out watching the... Well, while you were outside and at the observatory, some readings and data came in... From a few different sources... First let me bring you to this." Jonathan looked at the large LCD screen behind him, pressing a small clicker in his hand. The screen displayed a not-to-scale image of the solar system.

"We received several packets of data from the telemetry satellites. As you all know, the telemetry satellites are stationed throughout our solar system, they were created mainly for pinpointing each of the planets and their moons, they're highly accurate. This is of course useful from a physics stand point in the observation of planetary motion and from a navigational stand point in determining precise locations of objects within different planet systems like the Jovian system or the Saturnian system which each have many moons. This has helped us in the past with landing probes and rovers deeper into the solar system, as well as supplies to some of the outer colonies. We have telemetry satellites in the inner solar system as well, but since their first launches out to our neighboring planets quite a few decades ago, they've been relaying rather monotonous data, the same old stuff.

"However... Tonight is different. First we received a signal from telemetry satellite 1, orbiting Mercury." Jonathan pressed the clicker, the screen zoomed in on the cratered planet. "Not much here, a few mining colonies exist on the northern pole, but the idea of long term mining isn't very practical. In fact, the colonies have been abandoned for quite some time.

"It's not the colonies the satellites informed us about though..." He pressed the clicker again, the screen zoomed out and showed an orbital path of Mercury with a blue line around the sun. "The orbit of Mercury... Is changing. And not on a galactic scale, this is much faster." His finger slowly pressed the clicker once more, the click echoed through the dead silence of the room. A red line appeared, jutting out of the orbit in blue. The ellipse drawn was smaller. "Mercury is being pulled in... If it continues at this rate... It will be swallowed by the sun... Within our lives." A small gasp went throughout the crowd. "I know," Jonathan turned to the scientists and engineers. "Sounds crazy, yeah yeah, things don't happen like this. Maybe it was a malfunction in the satellite? After all these things have been up for years...

"But, I'm afraid it's not. The next packet we received came from telemetry satellite 5, orbiting Jupiter..." The nervous scientist pressed the clicker again. The screen shifted to the Jovian system, showing Jupiter's cloud belts and the great red spot. The four Galilean moons were visible as discs, and one could make out faint detail on each of them. "This artificial Jovian satellite says that within the next few decades, Io will be swallowed by Jupiter. A little while after that, the other three Galilean moons will follow... Europa has quite a few colonies now, some dedicated to scientific research... Others are civilian, people trying to start anew, just like in the 1500s. It's all the same... The other telemetry satellites all chimed in, Saturn will lose its rings much faster than we anticipated, not one hundred million years from now... Only a hundred... Neptune will pull Triton apart much sooner as well, create its own ring system, then devour it. Uranus, the same thing.

"You get the picture... The readings say... At best, within the next few hundred years, the outer planets and their moons will crash together and form a giant mass of gas and rock. The inner planets will be pulled ever inward until they are all swallowed by the sun... At worst, it will happen within a hundred... That is if things get worse by going faster. No readings have come in to change any current results, but there's no point in assuming that it will take place slowly..." Jonathan sighed, turning to the crowd again. They all had worried faces, some were shaking their heads, it looked as if others were crying.

"I know... We always thought we'd have more time, the Sun would at least give us a billion years before heating up and making Earth impossible to live on but... It looks like we only have a few hundred at best..." Jonathan's head fell slightly. He looked back up, trying to smile as best he can.

"Not all hope is lost..." He clicked his device and the screen displayed a black and white image of two bright horizons, two equally large planets orbiting around each other to the backdrop of a large star. "This image came in from... The New Horizons space probe... An unmanned mission to the Kuiper belt. It was launched a long time ago, and it died a long time ago... But it turned itself back on...

"Now, with the readings we had back then, we determined New Horizons, after its final mission of observation in the Kuiper belt, would careen off toward the Alpha-Centauri system... But it would have taken it thousands of years to get there. Apparently, it got there in a little under one hundred... And sent back these... Images and spectroscopy readings. If they're correct, then Alpha-Centauri has a new planet, or a previously undiscovered one... Positioned right in the habitable zone. A binary planet system that meets all the criteria for life that our own planet Earth does. The temperatures of both planet and moon are desirable, and each have their own atmosphere that is breathable... Within our reach..." He explained, looking at the image and crossing his arms.

"Which brings us to problem number two. Shortly after receiving telemetry data from the Jovian system, we received this." He turned to the crowd as a new slide appeared, a screenshot of an email. "Sent from Europa-1, which is one of the colonies on Jupiter's smallest Galilean satellite, Europa." Jonathan swallowed. "Humanity... Doesn't deserve a second chance..." He recited the email then shook his head slowly. "Now, it's not possible for someone to send an email out from Europa to be received by Earth unless it goes through a special network and is evaluated... We can only assume that, either the powers that be in Europa have turned or-" He placed his forehead against his palm, then looked back up at the crowd. "There's been an uprising." The large crowd shifted as scientists and engineers alike muttered and whispered to each other.

"Now both of these assumptions are... Just that, assumptions." The crowd quieted down again. "But it would be correct to say that something has happened on Europa, they have discovered the telemetry readings, as well as the information from New Horizons. It is possible that New Horizons' outgoing message was received by sensitive equipment in the Jovian system. The Jovians have sophisticated equipment for communication, and seeing as the raw data sent by New Horizons would have been unencrypted... The only problem would be that New Horizons would have been aimed directly at Earth... How would the Jovians have received a signal so far out?

"We've already been able to compose a few theories." Jonathan pressed the clicker and the screen flashed to a sky view of a large purple cosmic mist encompassing the sky, with bright points far brighter than stars sprinkled throughout the mist. "Forgive our uncreative nature in names... Tachyon Nebula 1. The thing that has the entire solar system in awe. An enormous cloud of gases and other elements speeding through our solar system at tachyon speeds, speeds far greater than light. This... Nebula, if you wish to call it that, defies everything we thought we knew about the universe... It's massive, and moving fast. Our theory is... Unscientific... But, seeing as lately certain occurrences seem to defy our scientific data and theories... We believe that this nebula has... Brought the information of this new or previously unseen planet, run it through the dormant New Horizons probe, and brought the signal to us at tachyon speeds... This would be able to explain how the Jovians received this data, and one could deduce that the entire solar system has this knowledge. This cloud, perhaps broadcasted the information in all directions... This would also suggest... We're not alone in the universe. Something out there is giving us a chance, while possibly simultaneously destroying us, if these two forces are the same." Jonathan clicked the remote one final time, and the screen turned to black. "Now one question remains. What do we do?"