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         Armstrong stood on the knoll overlooking the city where he and his ancestors had always lived. Not that he could see much as the thick smog hung over the city. For years they had petitioned the government to do something and it was always the same empty promises. It had reached a point where he and those like him had taken matters into their own hands.
         Raising his head he peered towards the sky the setting sun turning everything a sickly color. Above him he could just make out the shadow of the moon. Hidden beneath the surface was their salvation, at least for the twenty-five hundred people lucky enough to get a place in one of the stasis chambers. The ships were large enough to put five hundred people each into stasis along with a crew that would be woken as they neared their destination, a destination that would take them one hundred years to reach. The cargo holds were already filled with stasis chambers containing seeds, livestock, materials and the tools they would need to begin their new lives.
         Shaking his head to break his thoughts he turned towards his electric hover car. It was time to return to the city and conduct the lottery that would determine who was getting a berth on these ships that were ready to go. Tomorrow the semi-annual run of cargo ships bringing minerals and rotating crew back from the moon would begin only when they returned to the moon they would be filled with those that were leaving. In forty-eight hours they would launch never to return to Locmar again.

         
         The dark ship slid silently through the blackness of space the energy readings barely registering. Except for the barest twinkling of the stars that could be attributed to natural phenomena it went undetected. Deep inside the scarred hull small robots went about their duties as they had been doing for the last twelve hundred years waiting for the signal that would alert them to awaken the command crew.


         Armstrong stretched as he was awoken from the stasis pod slowly blinking his eyes as he pulled himself to a sitting position. Looking around he saw the other three members of his command crew doing the same as the robots hovered close. Carefully standing up he held onto the side of the pod until he was sure he was stable and then headed for the command center eager to see if the planet they had chosen was going to be the perfect place for them.
         "What the hell," Kyla muttered under her breath as she looked at the readings.
         "What is it?" Armstrong asked looking over at his wife as he tried to locate the other four ships.
         "According to the computer we have been in stasis for twelve hundred years," she replied her voice trembling.
         "There has to be a mistake," he retorted.
         "No mistake," Liam said from behind the Captain, "we aren't even in any space that is known to us."
         Armstrong sank into his chair looking at the other three members of the command crew and slowly shook his head. "That would explain why we don't see the other ships then. No one can know, not a word of this is to ever get out to any one still in stasis." He said and watched the others nod. "If asked we can only presume the other four ships met with disaster." He said as he turned around and started the scans to find a planet they could colonize. Just another secret to keep he thought as he steered the ship towards a planet that would fit what they needed and there were no signs of life except animal and vegetation.
         Liam watched as they achieved orbit and ran more scans before they woke the first group that would go down. "Looks like we can send the scouts down," he said.
         "Very well, wake the scouts and send them down. If all is good then send down the workers to start the building then we'll wake the last of them." Armstrong ordered.
         "When do you want to send down the cargo and livestock?" Kyla asked.
         "When the workers go down," Armstrong replied as he stood up. "Let the computer record this as year 101 AL."
         Kyla put the orders into the computer so the robots would know what to do and when as she watched Armstrong leave and head into the quarters that had been previously set up for the command staff. She knew the secrets and she knew that they were the only ones and those secrets would go to the grave with them.