By Logan Thrasher Collins

            “Wait up Jimmy!” Katrina called after her brother as he clambered up the snowy hill towards the launch facility. He turned back to her, cheeks pink and eyes bright. It was a cold clear night. Snowflakes drifted on the breeze, glowing against the light from the facility’s bulbs.

            “Sorry Kat. Just excited.” Jimmy held up the capsule containing the bacteria that he and Katrina had engineered using old lab equipment in their parents’ garage after school. They had not yet started high school, so they had taught themselves the rudiments of the biological sciences through books and the internet. After finding the old rocket in the facility and hatching their plan, they had spent many late nights deciphering passages from journal articles and laboratory protocols. At last, they were ready to send their engineered bacteria into outer space.

            Katrina smiled. She loved those little cells. She had figured out how to make the bacteria sporulate into hardy little balls of organic material, genetically enhanced to be capable of surviving for millions of years in the stasis chamber of the rocket which waited in the launch facility. Jimmy had added a collection of genetic operons which gave the bacteria the ability to use an exceptionally wide range of energy and nutrient sources. It had taken them nearly eighteen months but was well worth the effort.

            “Where do you think they’ll end up?” Katrina asked softly. Jimmy looked up at the densely glittering tapestry of stars set against the vast glowing river of the Milky Way.

            “Anywhere in the universe.” He stated with constellations reflected in his eyes. “Wherever they go, I hope they’ll find a good home.”

Jimmy and Katrina walked into the little old spaceport, shivering from anticipation as much as the cold. The white cylindrical rocket waited quietly on its launchpad. As a H14 transport vessel, it stood not much taller than a two-story house. Despite the vehicle’s small stature, Katrina knew it contained a lot of power in its fuel tanks. It would escape Earth’s gravity and even the gravity of the sun. Though it would eventually run out of fuel and continue moving by its momentum alone, this ship had the ability to reach the stars.

Jimmy clambered up the ship’s ladder to the cargo hatch. Katrina watched him open it and lock the capsule into place. She envisioned the rocket falling towards some far distant alien world a million years in the future. The vessel’s creaky old machinery would eject the capsule and the great white parachute would open like angel wings. After touching down on foreign regolith, the capsule would pop open. The cute little bacterial spores would stir and begin to wake up.

While it was true that not every environment could support these bacteria, Katrina had worked hard to ensure that they were tough enough to thrive in as many places as possible. Intense cold would slow them down, but not stop them. They could adapt to low atmospheric pressure. They could eat most of the different kinds of dirt found across the cosmos. The little microbes were tough.

            Jimmy closed the hatch and climbed back down the ladder.

            “Ready?” He asked. They had programmed the launch sequence into the facility’s dusty old computer a few days ago. “Damn right I’m ready.” Katrina answered. They strode into the protection booth. “Together.” Katrina stated. The pair gripped the red activation lever and pulled simultaneously. For a few moments nothing happened. Then they heard a boom of sound, felt a shockwave, and saw a blaze of blinding incandescence illuminate the wintery night. The rocket lifted off and shot into the sky, trailing an arc of brilliant fire. Jimmy and Katrina pressed themselves against the window and watched as the rocket grew smaller and smaller and smaller and at last vanished into the sky, leaving only a trail of rapidly dissipating smoke behind.

            “I hope they make it to wherever they’re going.” Katrina whispered.

            “Do you really think they’ll evolve into something like us?” Jimmy asked as they went back outside to look up at the stars.

            “Maybe or maybe not. But I sure as hell hope so.” Katrina said fiercely. Though Jimmy and Katrina would never know the answer to that question since its resolution lay many millions of years in the future, they slept deeply that night and dreamed of the rise of strange new civilizations far far away.