The Pioneer Protocol

Tensei

Through sheer and utter will, humanity dominated the earth. Twisting the natural processes to their own ends, breeding their subjects as they wished; cracking the very earth open to expose its resources; circumventing the natural obstacles hindering any one species domination through either clever design or sheer force. 

No other animal on the earths surface could attest to such accomplishments. Instead of being inside the ecological system where they had been born, they domineered it from the outside. Manipulating the chemical, physical, and even ethereal processes that had previously ruled. Legislating their own rules - and eventually laws. 

With that, they ruined the very planet they lived on. But not even this could halt their progress. It could not halt their will to continue at any cost. It could not halt their sheer survival instinct. 

Far away from the plains that formed them. Far from the cities that had destroyed them. Far away from the star that had gifted them with life.  At the cost of killing their entire species. 

They were once again reborn - through the Tensei. 

The coffee mug that Ichiro poured couldn't have been more welcomed. Eleanor, his wife of sixteen years and mother to his children, had given him the whole shabang in the shuttle over. He couldn't let his eldest continue like this, the principal had called and informed her that he had been in another fight. Something that Ichiro felt for. But hell, the kid was sixteen - he'd be bound to flex his limits a bit and rebel. What could you do?

"Jeez, you look like hell." Abby said and gave him a "what did you do now"-look as he entered the monitoring station.

"Good morning to you, too. " He sat down and let the heat from the mug spread through his fingers. He could almost feel the caffeine on the tip of his tongue.

"Is Ty acting up again?" Abby said. She always knew somehow.

"Yup." He answered, hoping to end the conversation there. He wasn't in the mood for yet another discussion on his son's failings - or more aptly, his failings as a father. With a sigh he resigned himself. The wife would be furious with him if he just brushed the topic off. Ty and he would need to have a word.

"Well, that's kid's for you, one day they're small angels and the next they've started to smell and questioned everything about ya. Hell, I haven't even gotten one yet, and I know that much."

"Yeah, I suppose." Abby was nice and all - just not tactful. Raising kids wasn't as easy as reading off a proverb at someone and calling it a day - if it was, kids would have practically raised themselves.

With a sigh he turned his attention to the monitor. Today was inspection day, so it was his duty as operations-manager to sort out any anomalous readings. Abby had already gotten started it seemed - as he was tagged in at least four different tickets. Coolant-temperatures in section A were slightly below estimation for this tour. He'd send one of the junior techs to check it out, probably just a fluctuation in the containment grid.

"Hey, did you get a chance to look at the tickets yet? Flagged something, I've never seen it before, it's really odd." Abby said and spun around. She was a tawny thing, twenty-something, red haired with the pale complexion to match. Behind a set of heavy prescription glasses her eyes were a hazel green. Had she cared to, she could've probably made every boy - and some more morally questionable men - turn their heads.

"Section A, you mean?" Ichiro said incredulously - it was a routine issue.

"No, check the one I just sent." She said and schooched her chair over. "I've never seen the alert before, it just seemed like gibberish. It's like the message-format is incompatible with our systems, or something. As I said - weird."