Quoted By:
֍ Ellie Teegarden ֍
Age: 1296 teegardenian years
Profile:
Despite humanity's recent exponential technological growth, we haven't yet found intelligent life in outer space; those pictures of flying saucers at Woodstock don’t count. And yet, we can still be dead certain: they have wars too.
Ellie Teegarden from Teegarden's Star B was just lucky enough to be spared an era of rot and starvation, of madness and fanaticism, by the simple virtue of being born two generations too late. But even a 1296 years old little girl has wars of her own. When her parents dragged her from her cherished town into a stuffed research complex, Ellie just didn't have the same luck making friends. Lonely and bored, what did she do? Of course, convince every other kid around to infiltrate the facilities's humble undercity while all the adults got busy with something big. And it was fun. They found a rocket. She realized her parents weren’t just particle physics- they were cosmonauts as well! She was so proud! Everything felt brighter- until the raging men in uniforms showed her parents all those security footage tapes of her jumping around a top secret facility. Everyone blamed her. Her 'friends' blamed her, their parents too, and even her own fell in line. Yet all the shouting and accusations vanished when Ellie declared that she wanted to be a cosmonaut too- to be replaced by dreary silence
and her parents made the deadly mistake of telling her that she wasn’t smart enough.
Next day, everyone hated her- yet Ellie remained undeterred. Her continued loneliness and boredom made her resilient. Or perhaps it was the shining goal ahead keeping her from looking around, from seeing all the mean faces and hearing all the whispers. Because to become a cosmonaut herself would solve all of Ellie's problems: she'd prove her parents wrong, she'd leave this dreary place, and she'd be among the shiny stars above! Their own sun just wasn't much to look at…
Her plan set, Ellie studied. And studied. Alone, isolated, spending with their parents what little leftovers their job would let her. She would cry out of rage, at times, both with her eyes and mouth- but that only fueled her resolve.
Then the day came.
Just like ours, the rockets on Teegarden B are controlled almost entirely from the command center .The only button allowed to cosmonauts inside a rocket about to launch was the one that let them abort the mission, and the commands that became available later on were still few and far in between. Once inside, Ellie knew, there wasn’t much she’d need to do.
Right as the rocket launched, when someone realized that Ellie had infiltrated the rocket wearing that bizarre space suit dress, that was the only button needed
but it was pressed just right after engine ignition.
(cont!)
