Titania

The maiden voyage of Titania was an event to be remembered. All of the top news programs and newspapers had been talking about it for over a year. It was the largest, most luxurious spacecraft built in history. The vessel was to orbit Earth for a week’s time providing a spectacular view for anyone lucky enough to be on board.

It was the publicity opportunity of a lifetime. Everyone wanted to be the ones to check in on board the maiden voyage of Titania. This included technologists, media magnates, politicians, celebrities, super models, reality TV show contestants, makeup artists, stylists, radio show hosts, and celebrity kids; all who had large followings on social media. They had booked the most in demand DJ’s and musicians in the world to perform each night. Wealthy families lined up on waiting lists to be the ones to book their sons and daughters on board. A lucky handful of people had won tickets in contests and sweepstakes.

Nobody thought it was weird or ironic that the engineers named the spacecraft Titania, except for a handful of naysayers who were ignored because their vibes were too negative. After all Titanic was in 1912 and that was over 150 years ago.

The crew members included an activities director, chefs, bakers, stewards, maids, porters, bartenders, workout instructors, a hair dresser, a makeup artist, and a nail artist. There were also instrumentalists, journalists, and an engineering crew for the musical performances.

Titania was to be steered by the illustrious Captain Archer Peterson, former Sky Marshal with decades of experience commanding ships in the US Sky Force. He was the highest ranking officer for Cosmic Cruise Lines. And he had hand-picked his best crew members for the maiden voyage of Titania. Everyone trusted his ability to pilot the ship through even the worst conditions.

The engineers had calculated the risk of encountering flying debris, and plotted a course with the lowest likelihood of encountering an unknown flying object. The ship was equipped with sensors and radar that could accurately predict the course of a projectile in space for days or weeks ahead of schedule. The crew would have ample time to change course in the event of encountering a dangerous object in low orbit.

Escape pods were stored on the outermost layer of the ship. In case of emergency they could launch the escape pods within minutes, re-enter the atmosphere, and float safely down to Earth.

The space liner itself was 270 meters long with a breadth of approximately 28 meters. The ship had to be constructed in orbit because it was far too heavy to be launched into space.

The interior was decorated to the highest luxury standards at the time. Because of the need to conserve mass, it was minimalistic in style. But every feature was intended to draw the eye and inspire awe in the viewer. From the furniture to the base metals in the ship, everything was constructed from the finest materials.

All of the VIP areas were centered around the floor to ceiling windows to make the most of the impressive view. Tables and seating areas abounded underneath cavernous ceilings in the lounges and dining areas. There were cozy nooks to sit on throughout the hallways.

The most luxurious suites had a king sized bed, a living room, and private bathrooms.

The less costly cabins had comfortable beds and a closet. There were shared bathrooms in the hall for most of the passengers. It was necessary to conserve water in outer space, so there were no baths. But one could take a quick shower and then air dry.

It was possible to have food delivered to your room. Or guests could go to the onboard restaurant and café. Refreshments were served in the saloons and lounges as well.

The A deck was reserved for the VIP passengers. It contained the VIP suites, the VIP lounge, a computer lab, and an observation area with large glass paned windows and a sweeping view of the Earth below. There was a large circular skylight in the center of the deck from which one could look up and gaze into the vastness of space.

On the B deck there were more VIP cabins, as well as a restaurant and a café. Another lounge with observation windows was located on this deck. This was also the location of the bridge where the captain and crew steered the ship.

C deck was home to more cabins, as well as the officers’ quarters, an observation deck, and another computer lab.

D deck was also known as the saloon deck. There were three large public areas, including a lounge, holoplex, and a nightclub. Several cabins and suites for the general admission attendees and crew were also located on this deck.

The E deck was mostly long hallways full of modest cabins for general admission and crew members. There were portholes from which one could gaze at the Earth or outer space.

The F deck accommodated more cabins, as well as a gymnasium, a zero gravity room, and a spa.

The G deck or the Lower Deck was the lowest deck to contain passenger cabins. It housed crew members and general admission passengers.

Decks A through G were accessible by means of a network of tubes that wove in between each floor.

The lowest deck contained the engine rooms. It was off limits to passengers for safety reasons.

On the day of departure spaceships full of guests from around the world launched from spaceports in Mexico, Kenya and Indonesia.

The boarding of Titania was an event in itself. Everyone was wearing their finest traveling clothes. Porters carried their luggage on hover carts behind them.

Paparazzi snapped photographs and videos from all directions. Social media influencers live streamed the event to their online communities. The majority of the proceedings of the event were captured by individual smartphone users.

There was a wide range of activities planned for the space cruise: rock climbing in zero gravity, 4D movie showings in the holoplex, dancing lessons, culinary experiences, daytime drinking, and a see through tube hallway that wrapped around the outside of the ship and any guest could float through whenever they wanted. (It featured breathtaking views of the vastness of space and Earth below.) At any given time there was a DJ or musical act performing in one of the venues.

On the fifth night and sixth day of the event, around zero 200 hours, DJ Volcan, the headliner, was dropping his set in the nightclub.

Out in the recesses of space a mass of antique satellites floated in a giant satellite graveyard. The captain had pointed them out over the intercom earlier in the day. To most of the passengers they looked like a lot of twinkly lights out in the distance.

In the 2020’s a group of tech billionaires had launched tens of thousands of satellites into space. Since at the time most of them were men, no one thought about who was going to have to clean it up later. Now they hurled around the Earth’s orbit at speeds surpassing thousands of miles per hour.

Technology had advanced at an increasingly high speed over the past centuries, thanks to the technological revolution, and the advent of the world wide web. It had taken only a couple decades for the satellites to become outdated. But what a couple decades.

In outer space, even a collision with a tiny screw could puncture a large hole into your vessel, leaving a crater on the other side that resembled a bullet exit wound. Every time they launched a ship into outer space they risked the lives of its passengers, as well as billions of dollars worth of equipment and cargo. A lot of time and effort was spent on navigation to ensure space craft did not encounter these deadly obstacles.

The problem had been put up to Earth’s most brilliant engineers and scientists. But no one was quite sure how to catch the defunct satellites that were now caught in the gravitational rotation of the Earth. Most of them were no longer functional. There were tens of thousands so if they shot them deeper into the solar system then that created a new problem. If you chase the satellites in a spaceship that would be like a high speed chase with the additional dangerous element of outer space. (There is a high probability of death for the crew.) If they shot them down with a missile or laser it then created millions of tinier, harder to detect, and therefore more dangerous objects speeding around the planet, increasing the probability of a collision. If you tried to catch one with a net it burst through the other side going faster than a speeding bullet.

At approximately zero-two-zero-three hours an antique communications satellite was whirling around in orbit at such an angle as to run into another obsolete satellite that had been launched over 100 years ago by a competing corporation.

Both vessels exploded upon impact sending a wave of debris out into every direction. The wreckage varied in size from microscopic to pieces of metal wider than a man’s head.

Unfortunately several larger pieces of the debris ran into neighboring satellites, which broke apart upon impact. This created a larger field of space debris that radiated outwards colliding into the outlying satellites in the graveyard at such an angle as to change the course of their orbit. No one could have predicted the speed at which the mass of jagged shards of metal arched toward the route of Titania.

At the last minute the alarms went off and there was a warning issued to the crew. But they did not have time to change course.

At approximately zero-two-zero-four hours a huge mass of space debris roughly 92 meters wide breached the hull of Titania. The ship wreck caused the lower levels to be exposed to the vacuum of space, resulting in an immediate loss of life support.

Everyone in the engine rooms, and on Levels G through E, hundreds of people, lost their lives instantly.

Acting quickly, the remaining crew members sealed off the lower levels from the rest of the ship. This stopped the loss of oxygen long enough to evacuate the remaining passengers.

The captain managed to reroute the vessel for a crash course to Earth before his escape. It landed somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean creating massive waves that rocked the eastern seaboard of North America. Authorities are in the process of retrieving the wreckage now.

The loss of life has not been fully calculated but is estimated to be in the thousands.

Most of the wealthy and celebrity passengers made it out safely. Witnesses testify that they were alerted first, and that most of them did not intend to go down with the ship.

However, every celebrity did not make it. Technologist trillionaire Ha-nuel Moon, and his wife Cordelia Moon were in the zero gravity room at the time of the wreck, along with several of their friends and compatriots. The family asks that we respect their privacy during this difficult time.

A search mission has been put together by multiple governments to recover the dead. However authorities say it could be many years until they are able to locate all of the bodies. Many of them may eventually be considered a burial at space.

The vacuum also pulled out most of the objects inside of the lower levels of the ship, including furniture and luggage. This field of debris will likely remain in orbit for many years to come, waiting to be discovered, and serving as chilling reminders of the dead who once owned them, and the tragedy that resulted in the massive loss of human life in one instant.

And so all we have to remember them by is some old shoes lost in space.