009: The Passing of the Torch
The Great Fleet: Voyage to TRAPPIST-1
009: The Passing of the Torch
Excerpt from the Parchment Memoirs of Orion Voss-7
Time does not wait, even for those who would reach the stars.
By 2102, Dr. Elias J. Voss was seventy-nine years old. The fire that had carried him through decades of opposition, betrayal, and heartbreak still burned bright, but the body that held it had grown weary. He called us together in a small observation lounge high above the Phobos shipyards, where the half-built skeleton of the Pioneer Torchship Discovery gleamed in the sunlight.
Sophia had passed quietly three years earlier. Marcus Voss, now fifty-one and chief engineer of the entire Torchship program, stood at the window. His son — Lieutenant Elias J. Voss, twenty-seven years old and already serving in Fleet Command — stood beside his father. I remained quietly in the corner, no longer merely an assistant but family in every way that mattered.
Dr. Voss sat in a simple chair, the antique fountain pen resting on the table before him.
“I have done all I can as the public face of this dream,” he said. “The rest belongs to you. But before I step back, I want you to understand something clearly.”
He looked at each of us in turn, eyes still sharp with that old intensity.
“Humans are already a multi-planetary species. Thanks to the Mars Federation and the courage of those who built a republic on the red dust, we are no longer chained to a single world. What we are doing now is something deeper. We are refusing to become a single-solar-system species.
This dream belongs to every hopeful heart that came before us — to Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Robert Heinlein, to Wernher von Braun, Elon Musk, Robert Zubrin, and countless others whose names we no longer remember. We are not unique. We are simply the next link in a long chain.
You — my son Marcus, my grandson Elias, and you, Orion, my oldest friend — you will be the first to actually do it. Not dream it. Not speak it. Do it.”
He reached for the pen and held it out to me.
“When I am gone, use this to write the truth. Tell them about the piggy banks and the protests and the nights we nearly quit. But above all, remind them that they stand on the shoulders of every dreamer who came before. Remember all of us when you light the torches and set sail for the ruby suns.”
Marcus swallowed hard. “We won’t forget, Father.”
Lieutenant Elias J. Voss stepped forward, voice steady. “We will carry the whole chain with us, Grandfather. All the way to TRAPPIST-1.”
Dr. Voss smiled — tired, proud, and deeply at peace.
“The dream was never mine alone. It was always ours. Now go finish it.”
CHAPTER 009.1 –
The Last Quiet Night
2102 – Elysium
Gardens Habitat, Mars
Sophia Voss lay in the sunlit bedroom that overlooked the red plains. She was seventy-nine, frail now, but her eyes were still sharp.
Dr. Elias K. Voss sat beside her, holding her hand. Marcus stood at the foot of the bed. Young Elias J. Voss (twenty-seven) knelt on one knee so she could see him clearly.
Sophia’s voice was soft but clear.
“Elias… my Elias…
Your grandfather carries the vision. Your father carries the weight
of making it real. You… you will carry the flame across the dark.
Do not be afraid to burn.”
She turned to Marcus.
“Stay behind if you must. Keep the
fires lit here so they have something to come back to. The Arks will
need you.”
Marcus swallowed hard and nodded.
To her husband she whispered, “We did good, love. We really did.”
She smiled one last time, squeezed her grandson’s hand, and slipped away peacefully that night under the thin Martian sky.
Dr. Elias K. Voss passed peacefully on Mars in 2105.
009.2: The Long Night
Excerpt from the Parchment Memoirs of Orion Voss-7
The days after Dr. Elias J. Voss died were the hardest I had ever witnessed.
Not because the project stopped — it did not — but because for the first time in thirty years, the dream had to move forward without its original heart. The man who had carried it through betrayal, fire, and near-collapse was gone. What remained was a heavy silence that no engine roar could fill.
Phobos Shipyards – Observation Lounge
17
January 2106
Lieutenant Elias J. Voss stood alone at the same viewport where his grandfather had passed the torch four years earlier. The Discovery was nearly complete now — a graceful silver spear eighty meters longer than Torch-1 had been — but tonight she looked cold and accusing under the work lights.
Marcus Voss entered quietly, looking ten years older than his fifty-five years. Lena followed a step behind, her logistics tablet clutched like a shield.
“They want you to speak at the memorial tomorrow,” Marcus said. “The whole inner system is watching.”
Elias didn’t turn. “What am I supposed to say? ‘Thank you for believing in my grandfather while we killed people chasing his dream’? ‘Sorry about Amira, sorry about Sofia, sorry the old man died before he could see us light the torch’?”
The bitterness in his voice startled even himself.
Lena stepped closer. “Elias…”
“No.” He finally faced them. His eyes were red-rimmed. “I was twenty-seven when he handed me this. I’m thirty-one now and I still feel like a boy playing dress-up in his grandfather’s coat. Every time I walk these yards I hear his voice. Every time I sign off on another weld I wonder if this one will be the one that kills someone else.”
Marcus placed a hand on his son’s shoulder — the same gesture his own father had once given him.
“He carried the same weight. Every single day. He just got better at hiding it from you.”
The Memorial – Phobos Central Dome
Next
Day
Thousands attended in person and via holo-link. Elena Vargas sent a quiet, respectful message. Even Dr. Tomas Lang offered measured words of condolence. But the grief in the dome was real and heavy.
Elias spoke last.
He stood at the podium in his lieutenant’s uniform, the small silver torch pin his grandfather had given him fastened above his heart.
“Dr. Elias J. Voss did not build this project because he hated Earth,” he said, voice rough. “He built it because he loved humanity too much to leave us in one fragile cradle. He made mistakes. We all have. But he never stopped believing we could be better.”
His voice cracked.
“I wish he were here to see the Discovery fly. I wish I could tell him the torch feels too heavy some days. But he already knew that. He carried it anyway.”
He looked out at the sea of faces — engineers, welders, families, OPTIMUS units standing at attention.
“So tomorrow we go back to work. Not because it’s easy. Not because we’re certain. But because quitting would make every grave we’ve already dug meaningless.”
He stepped down to scattered, heartfelt applause. It was not the thunderous cheer of the 2094 desert test. It was quieter. Grimmer. More determined.
Voss Family Quarters – That Night
The three of them sat together with a bottle of the same Scotch Marcus had saved from 2089. One empty glass remained in the center of the table for Dr. Voss.
Funding had taken another hit after the grandfather’s death. Some donors felt the “soul” of the project had left with him. A new round of technical delays on the Discovery’s magnetic nozzle had engineers nervous. Death threats had surged again.
Elias stared into his glass.
“I keep thinking about what he said in 2090 after the Big Protest. ‘We have reached the bottom. Good.’ But what if this is the bottom? What if we’re just too stubborn to admit it?”
Marcus spoke softly. “Then we become the kind of people who can live at the bottom and still build upward. That’s what he taught us.”
Lena reached across and took her brother’s hand.
“You’re not alone in this, Elias. None of us are. Grandfather knew he wouldn’t see the launch. He prepared us anyway.”
Elias was quiet for a long time. Then he stood, walked to the viewport, and looked out at the half-built Colony Arks growing beside the Discovery.
He spoke to the stars more than to his family.
“I’m scared, Grandfather. I’m so scared I’ll be the one who drops the torch.”
A long silence.
Then, quieter:
“But I won’t. I promise.”
One Week Later
Elias walked the length of the Discovery with Raj Patel — now fully recovered and limping slightly — and a new generation of young engineers. He forced himself to smile when they showed him the latest containment field improvements.
At the end of the tour he placed his hand on the cool hull plating.
“This one’s for you, old man,” he whispered. “All of them are.”
The Long Night had not ended. But somewhere in its darkness, the first faint sparks of dawn were beginning to appear.
The torch had passed.
Now it had to be carried — heavy, scarred, and still burning.
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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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