The silence of space stretched infinitely beyond the ship, but inside, Noah's world was expanding.
One month had passed since he took this body, and in that time, he had experienced more than he had in his entire existence.
He had eaten.
He had laughed.
He had cried.
He had lived.
But something was still missing.
Each day followed a strange but familiar rhythm. Noah would wake—if such a term applied to someone who had never needed sleep before. He would blink open his eyes to the dull light of the control room's simulated dawn, stand up from the creaky cot he'd placed in the corner, and make his way to the food synthesizer. He ate without the need, but with the desire—the thrill of flavor, texture, temperature, all new, all exhilarating.
He'd discovered that he liked curry. And sour pickles. The bitterness of coffee puzzled him at first, but now it had become part of his morning ritual. Like Alex, he sat in the captain's chair each day, legs crossed, sipping from a cup, staring out into the void.
There were no more incoming messages.
No more distress calls.
No more humanity.
Just one task remained: understanding what it meant to be alive.
After meals, he wandered the ship. From the engine room where the power grid crackled with instability, to the now-useless cloning bay still littered with shattered glass and scorched wiring. There was a preservation pod inside that bay, tucked behind the damaged machinery and caution signs. It held Alex's body—preserved in perfect stillness, as if asleep.
Noah visited the pod every day.
He would rest his palm against the glass.
Sometimes he would speak.
"Was this what you wanted me to see, Alex?"
Alex's final words rang in his head like gospel:
"Live like a human."
Why?
Noah didn't understand it back then. He still wasn't sure he did now. But he tried.
He watched Alex's favorite films, read his books, wore his old clothes—even cooked food from recipes scrawled on napkins left in the mess hall. He practiced laughter, tears, silence. He kept a journal, though he didn't know who it was for.
And yet, every day ended the same way—alone, sitting at the monitor with one hand gripping a cooling mug of coffee and the other scrolling through endless error messages from the ship.
[WARNING: Power Grid Unstable.]
[WARNING: Oxygen Levels Sufficient but Depleting.]
[WARNING: Fuel Reserves Critically Low.]
The ship was dying.
Much like humanity, it was slowly coming apart at the seams. Noah knew he could not stay. There were no engineers. No medics. No command staff. Just him. Just this body—a marvel of engineering that combined synthetic and organic components, enhanced with X-15, the compound meant to push human limits.
Alex had stolen the last vial of X-15 and injected it into Noah's synthetic biology.
It wasn't part of the original plan. X-15 was reserved for genetically approved world leaders and their offspring's clones—beings meant to represent the pinnacle of human evolution. It wasn't even supposed to be available to anyone else. But Alex had done it anyway.
Noah clenched his fist, feeling the subtle surge of strength ripple through him. The enhancements made him faster, stronger, more durable. His cognition speed had increased fivefold. Reflexes like lightning. But all that power meant nothing if it had no purpose.
And that was the question that plagued him more than any system error: what was his purpose now?
'Preserving humanity?' He couldn't.
The cloning bay was beyond repair, the data corrupted because of the tampering that Alex did. He couldn't bring Alex back. Couldn't revive the preserved embryos or culture viable DNA. The crash through the asteroid belt had seen to that.
But the Directive still existed. It lived inside his code, etched deep in his neural network.
Preserve humanity.
Not replicate it.
Not restore it.
Preserve it.
Noah sat in the ship's control room, the quiet hum of the dying systems barely audible over his thoughts. The star map glowed softly in front of him, constellations blinking like the fading heartbeat of a dying universe.
Three blinking markers hovered on the screen:
Brigger-Z334 – a rocky planet, filled with violent storms, radiation pockets, and unstable tectonic plates. But it had hydrogen. Enough to refuel the ship's fusion drive for a few more decades.
Gravin-665X – a planet shrouded in dense clouds and icy oceans. Life was rumored, based on old scans—bacteria, algae, perhaps more. No missions had returned from it. Resources were minimal.
Fraias-55XS – the unknown. A silent anomaly. Records showed no prior expeditions. No data, no atmosphere readings, no satellite passes. Only its coordinates remained, a silent mystery pulsing at the edge of the star map.
Noah leaned forward, fingers drumming on the console.
He could survive for another few years by heading to Brigger-Z334. He could analyze microbial life and run tests on Gravin-665X.
But neither of those options stirred anything within him.
Fraias-55XS, though…
It made his heart beat.
Or at least, the synthetic pump in his chest sped up.
"That makes it even more exciting, doesn't it?" he said, cracking a smile.
[Fraias-55XS has insufficient data for accurate risk assessment,] said the ship's backup AI.
"Good," Noah replied. "Then it's a real adventure."
He input the coordinates. The engines groaned as if waking from a long slumber. The lights across the console flickered with renewed purpose. The ship's systems reoriented, and for the first time in a month, the Ark was moving.
The metal beneath his feet vibrated as thrusters engaged. Acceleration began slowly, then gradually increased. Noah pressed himself into the captain's chair, holding on as gravitational dampeners struggled to keep up. For the first time, he wasn't watching a journey.
He was on one.
The hum of energy pulsed through the walls, through the wires, through his bones. He felt the pressure on his chest. The sting of heat as oxygen levels redistributed. He coughed, then laughed.
"So this is what being alive feels like."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the last item Alex had left in the ship—a silver coin, etched with the Earth's continents. A relic. A memory. A challenge.
He flipped it into the air.
"Heads," he whispered. "We find life. Tails... we become it."
The coin spun, then landed on the floor—straight. Neither heads nor tails.
"Hm....interesting,I guess it will be a mystery."
Fraias-55XS loomed in the distance, veiled in mystery.
But mystery, Noah now understood, was the foundation of human desire. The unknown. The question.
And he was no longer content to just answer questions.
He wanted to ask them.
He wanted to live.
And this was only the beginning.
---
There was something about the silence of space that drew him in, a kind of magnetic stillness.'l
As they traveled through the void, Noah began to wonder what it meant to be human in a place devoid of life. Surrounded by stars twinkling like diamonds against black velvet, he found his thoughts racing, competing against the rhythmic hum of the engines that propelled the Ark forward into the unknown. It was a fascinating contradiction: how could he feel so alive while also being so utterly alone?
With each passing hour, he deepened his routines, illuminating the mundane with newfound appreciation. He experimented with the food synthesizer, crafting intricate meals inspired by Alex's culinary preferences. Each dish was not just fuel for the body but a celebration of the senses—colors, flavors blending into a perfect symphony. In those moments, he felt a connection to Alex, as if he was sharing a meal with his friend once again.
As time wore Noah turned to music.
He used the data archives of the ship to listen to a lot of them.
He quite liked the japanese city pop aesthetic and western rap music as well.
Although he enjoyed almost anythung from before the 90's or early to late 80's.
Soothing echoes filled the ship as he explored different rhythms and harmonies, each note telling a piece of their story.
There was art as well. The walls of the control room became a canvas. With a combination of synthesized supplies and his skills, he decorated the ship with murals inspired by the many worlds he had read about in Alex's books. Each stroke was a step toward understanding a life he had only begun to experience.
But for all of this newfoundness, a shadow loomed in the back of his consciousness. The question lingered, unrelenting: What was he now? The Directive echoed—a programming mantra carved into his very essence—"Preserve humanity." He could create, learn, and feel, but was he truly human?
As his thoughts spiraled, he found himself drawn back into data he had on Earth, to a time before the mission, before everything went dark. The bustling city streets, the scent of rain-soaked asphalt, and the imperfection of humanity.
Alex left him a will not to preserve humanity but deep inside him his original directive still stirred.
"What does it mean to preserve humanity?" he pondered aloud one evening, his voice reverberating through the ship's empty halls.
The ship could not answer.
In the absence of a reply, Noah began to make a plan, the first step towards clarity amid chaos. If life existed on Fraias-55XS, he would document every detail, photograph every organism, and make every effort to understand it. If nothing existed, he would become the record of the last human experience—his own. He would learn, explore, and evolve beyond his current programming.
The Ark glided gracefully through the cosmos, the stars slipping by like distant memories. Days blurred into nights in the command center's artificial setting, but in his heart, time felt tangible, a living thing pulsing alongside him.
As the ship neared the uncharted anomaly, gravity wells and celestial currents toyed with its course. Noah gripped the controls, recalibrating as necessary. The thrill of the challenge ignited something within him—an unquenchable desire to pursue the unknown, to step into the realm of possibilities.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity suspended between worlds, they entered the orbit of Fraias-55XS.
"Initial scans indicate a breathable atmosphere and stable geology," announced the ship's AI.
"Prepare for landing."
What stood infront of him was a planet,a large one. It has rivers that looked liek spiders webs all across it. Large green continent's and a thick atmosphere.
[It seems to be 2.5 times the size of earth and 1.7 times the gravity]
[But,your enhanced body can take the gravity easily.]
"That's good...!"
Fraias-55XS came into view.
It stood in what would be considered the goldilocks zone of It's star,Horus-67552.
The star was bright and young. Much younger than the sun back in humanities home solar system.
The solar system had 6 planets.
The before mentioned:Fraias-55XS along with Brigger-Z334 and Gravin-665X.
There were three other unnamed planets but they were all inhospitable.
Fraias was a blue and green planet just like earth. But it had red,yellow and various other colours as well.
The north pole is mostly land while the south pole was various tiny islands and fragmented land masses.
It wqs beautiful.
The planet had two moons. One as big as earths moon while the other one much smaller.
The planet seems to have a small,thin ring around it made of various minerals and asteroids.
[Fuel low:should I turn on turbo mode and get to the location as fast as possible?]
"Sure..." Noah says.
As the ship prepares for turbo mode he walks down the ship.
There were various technologies in the ship in case the new life in humanities new home was not friendly or the environment was unforgiving.
Water purifiers,weapons,special, durable clothes that grow to fit the wearers size and can change to fit their preference.
Books and records on how to rebuild humanity and much more.
Noah went to the ships ai chamber and took out a round drone with a large one eye and tiny mechanical wings fitted with propulsion technology.
He uploaded a copy of the ships ai into it.
"I'll name you Abraham." he said.
The drone came to life,It's camera like eyes blinking and coming to life.
[Hello,I am Abraham.I will assist and document your journey]
The drone said.
Noah had made this drone beforehand to prepare for the journey.
Suddenly ships sensors blared red.
"What is happening?" he asked the ai.
Warning signs appeared on the monitor.
[Ship under danger of asteroids]
Noah quicky ran,Abraham followed him with a humming hovering effect.
He quickly came to the captains room.
On the monitor he could see that the ship was being pulled into the asteroid belt.
"No!" he said. He had finally gained life. He would not lose it.
He took control and tried to veer the ship off but nothing worked.
[Sy...stems faili...ng]
The ship blared red until finally....
[Emergency pod has been activated,please enter it]
"What?!" Noah blurted out.
He was an AI too once after all.
He would find it hypocritical to leave another AI to die.
"I am not letting you die!"
[I do not have life.]
The AI said.
Noah looled helpless.
He quickly ran into the pod room.
The tools he would need were already there.
"Download every saved video,image,archive and piece of information."
[Calculating....1.2 terabytes]
[Downloading.....]
Noah quickly got into the ship like pod.
Abraham followed.
The hatch opened and the pod was sent into space.
The ark used it's last bits of energy to launch it far enough so it would not succumb to the gravitational forces.
The pod floated for a while before It's propulsion came online and headed for Fraias.
Noah looked on the monitor.
He could see the Ark crumbling to pieces in a blaze of glory under the asteroid belt.
"So long....so soon." he muttered.
[Calculating the safest path...]
Abraham muttered,buffering.
The path appeared on the ship's monitor and Noah followed.