Aboard the Meridian: The Long Search

My name... well, my name isn't important. What matters is the mission.

I'm part of the Long Search—humanity's most ambitious attempt to answer the oldest question we've ever

asked: are we alone? It's the year... three thousand and forty-seven, by Earth's calendar.

Though I'll be honest, out here, Earth years feel like an arbitrary measurement.

The universe doesn't care much for our rotations around a single yellow star.

But we're human, so we cling to these markers. They keep us tethered, in a way.

I'm currently traveling aboard the research vessel Meridian. She's a long-range survey ship,

designed for exactly this kind of mission—years, decades even, spent crossing the vast distances between