006: The Big Protest


 

 The Great Fleet: Voyage to TRAPPIST-1

Chapter 6: The Big Protest

Excerpt from the Parchment Memoirs of Orion Voss-7

The lowest point demanded a reckoning.

In the spring of 2090, the opposition called for a “Day of Planetary Conscience” — a coordinated global protest meant to bury the Stellaris Foundation once and for all. They chose Geneva, outside the very hall where Dr. Elias K. Voss had delivered his historic speech eleven years earlier. Nearly four hundred thousand people filled the plaza and surrounding streets.

I accompanied Dr. Voss. He insisted on going — not to speak, but to listen. Sophia stood beside him behind a shielded viewing platform. Marcus remained with the security detail, while young Elias J. Voss and Lena were kept safely away.

The sea of signs was overwhelming:
ONE EARTH — ONE WORLD
STOP THE ESCAPE PODS
FEED EARTH FIRST
VOSS = BETRAYAL

Elena Vargas took the stage to thunderous applause. Her voice rang across the vast square.

“They told you the world was dying, so you gave them your savings. Now they admit the world is healing — and still they want to leave! While children go hungry in reclamation zones, while oceans need centuries more healing, they want trillion-credit arks for the chosen few!”

The roar that answered her shook the ground. Bottles and debris flew toward the security cordon. For one terrible hour it felt as though the entire dream might end right there, trampled under humanity’s oldest fear: abandonment.

Dr. Voss watched it all in silence, his face pale but steady. When Sophia whispered, “We should leave,” he shook his head.

“No. They have the right to their anger. We must prove we can bear it.”

That night, back in the Foundation’s secure offices, the Board met in emergency session. Funding projections were grim. Major donors were wavering. The legal wounds from the Kane affair still bled.

Yet something shifted in Dr. Voss as he stood at the head of the table. He looked exhausted. He looked human. But when he spoke, the same quiet steel that had ignited the dream eleven years earlier returned.

“We have reached the bottom,” he said. “Good. Now we know how deep the well is. Tomorrow we begin climbing again — not by shouting louder than them, but by reminding the world why we started. Small donations. Town halls. Honest conversations. The stars are not an escape. They are an expansion. And we will prove it with every credit, every weld, every child who still believes.”

He turned to me.
“Orion, prepare the schedule. We’re going back on the road.”

The Big Protest of 2090 was meant to be our funeral.
Instead, it became the moment the dream refused to die.

The Echo – Denver, 2097

Seven years later the nightmare returned, sharper and bloodier.

Twenty-two days after the Helios-3 atrocity, eighty thousand angry souls filled Denver Federal Plaza. The signs were rawer now:
51 DEAD IN NEVADA — HOW MANY MORE?
VOSS BLOOD MONEY
BURN THE FLEET

From a third-floor window in the old Colorado State Capitol, Elias J. Voss watched the crowd with sunken eyes. He had not slept more than four hours a night since the bombing.

Lena stood beside him, arms folded tight. “Most of them aren’t radicals,” she said. “They’re just scared.”

Marcus Voss sat at a folding table covered in security feeds, his hands trembling slightly. “They’ve breached the outer barricades.”

Elias pulled on a plain black jacket and baseball cap. “Then I’m going out there.”

He walked straight into the roaring plaza with only two security officers. He climbed onto a concrete planter and spoke with nothing but his raw voice.

“I’m Elias Voss. Last month I held Amira Khalil while she died. I know the cost better than anyone here.”

A bottle whistled past his head. Someone screamed “Murderer!”

He did not flinch.

“But quitting now would make their deaths meaningless. We are not fleeing a healed Earth. We are carrying her forward. And yes — that costs. It has always cost.”

A woman in her fifties pushed forward, voice cracking with grief. “My son died in the Resource Wars. I don’t want your Fleet… but I don’t want any more children dying either. Make it safe, or don’t do it at all!”

Elias met her eyes. “That’s fair. That’s all we’re asking for — the chance to make it safe.”

That Night – Safe House Outside Denver

The newsfeeds were merciless. Public support had dropped another twelve points. Mars was threatening to freeze funding.

In the dim safe house, Marcus poured three glasses of whiskey. Lena dropped her tablet in disgust. Elias stared into his glass.

“Amira asked me not to let them win,” he whispered.

Marcus raised his glass.
“Then we survive on what we have left — grassroots, small nations, the people who still believe. This is the forge, children.”

They drank in silence.

Later That Same Night – Voss Family Habitat

The apartment was quiet except for the low hum of the air recycler. Sophia Voss, now seventy-one, moved slowly through the kitchen brewing strong tea the old-fashioned way.

She set four mugs on the counter. Marcus sat with his head in his hands. Young Elias leaned against the wall, trying to look stronger than he felt.

Sophia placed a hand on her grandson’s shoulder — the same gentle gesture her husband had used for decades.

“This dream is heavy,” she said softly. “But it is also beautiful. And it is worth every sleepless night. Just… don’t forget to come home sometimes. Even dreamers need to be held.”

She kissed her grandson’s forehead, then her son’s.
“Now drink your tea before it gets cold.”

Marcus rested his hand on the cast-stone counter — a piece of home they had brought from Mars — and murmured the Red Line Oath under his breath.


 


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The Great Fleet: Voyage to TRAPPIST-1
V 3.0

NOTE: this is a unfinished Draft of a in progress work.  © Curtis Neil, May 2026

ARTISTS COPYRIGHT, Curtis Neil May 2026 

Curtis Anthony Neil/Grok 4.0/ LibreOffice. MAY 03rd. 2026 AD. MAY 08th.2026

Bakersfield, California, USA, North America, Planet Earth (Terra), the third planet from the Sun (Sol), Solar System, Orion Arm, Milky Way Galaxy



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