Second Chance — The Human Side
EP.02 — Volunteers Wanted
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"Between asking someone to go die
and choosing to go die yourself,
there is a distance the size of the universe."
SCENE 01
Vacancy
One month since the call went out.
Number of applicants: zero.
I had expected this. More precisely, I expected it and hoped otherwise. Expectation and hope don't need to point in the same direction. I expected no one would come and hoped someone would. Both feelings coexisted without conflict inside a 72-year-old's head. That's what being human is.
The posting read:
UN INTERSTELLAR PROJECT "SECOND CHANCE" — CREW RECRUITMENT
Mission: Tau Ceti system exploration and Astrophage aftereffect resolution
Distance: ~11.9 light-years
Transit: ~25 years one-way (0.5c, incl. accel/decel)
Hibernation: Full-duration torpor during transit
Crew: 6 (Captain, astrophysicist, biochemist, geologist, medical officer, systems engineer)
Note: Minimum 50-year round trip. Return is not guaranteed.
"Return is not guaranteed." That single line was everything. That single line stopped the world's best scientists, bravest astronauts, and most dedicated civil servants in their tracks.
The irony was that Grace's myth was the obstacle. Grace never came back. Everyone knows. The memorial, the documentaries, the textbooks. "The great hero Ryland Grace saved humanity and never returned." A story even children know. And the unintended lesson of that story became:
If you go, you don't come back.
The hero's story was preventing the next hero from being born. The myth was devouring reality.
The committee convened again. To report zero applicants. Stratt would have ended this meeting in three seconds. "No volunteers? I'll designate." Stratt's way. Efficient, inhuman, effective.
But there is no Stratt this time. It must be democratic. Democratic means slow. Slow means the Sun is sick.
Park
"It's only been a month. Let's wait."
Chair
"How long?"
Park
"The right people will come. Last time, Grace solved the problem in the end. But this time — we must not send anyone by force. The second time must be different. It has to be."
· · ·
SCENE 02
Conditional
Week six. The first volunteer appeared.
James Cole.
I was not surprised. Cole is a soldier. For a soldier, "volunteer for a dangerous mission" is a structurally familiar request. For a civilian it means throwing away your life. For a soldier it's an extension of the job. Cole volunteered not because he was brave, but because this was his most natural response.
But Cole had conditions.
Cole
"I volunteer. Three conditions."
The committee was in no position to refuse. Six weeks, zero applicants.
Cole
"One. I board as security officer with full crew status. Decision-making authority, not advisory."
Cole
"Two. The ship carries defensive armament."
Cole
"Three. In alien contact situations, the security officer's judgment overrides scientific judgment."
The room went quiet. Not from anger — because Cole's conditions were, uncomfortably, logical. Ignoring security on a mission with alien contact potential isn't optimism. It's negligence.
The problem was the third condition. Security overrides science. That essentially means — the soldier outranks the scientist.
Park
"Colonel. If Grace had been armed when he met the Eridians, what do you think would have happened?"
Cole
"He'd have been safer."
Park
"Safer? An armed human appearing before an alien — what does that alien feel? Threat. Then that alien gets defensive. Then you say, 'See, hostile.' Self-fulfilling prophecy. The safety that weapons create is — simultaneously — the danger they create."
Cole
"That's theory, Dr. Park. Reality doesn't follow theory."
Park
"Correct. Reality doesn't follow theory. Grace and Rocky becoming friends wasn't theory either. It broke the theory. Your theory."
Cole's lips thinned. But he didn't argue. Soldier's training. Retreat from an unfavorable position. Better than total defeat.
Cole
"I'll concede the third condition. But the first two are non-negotiable. I will not go unarmed."
· · ·
SCENE 03
One by One
After Cole's volunteering hit the news, things changed. One person moves and the next becomes easier. Human herd psychology. Nobody enters an empty restaurant, but once one person sits down, others follow. Cole was the first customer.
Week 8: Shin Hyunseo. As expected.
Week 9: Amir Hassan. Unexpected. A 32-year-old Egyptian-British geologist. Specialty: exoplanetary geology — analyzing alien planet surfaces from remote data. His application's motivation field read:
I laughed when I read it. First laugh in a long time. Grace was like this too. Wrapping enormous motivation in small words. Not "I will save humanity" but "I want to take my field seriously." Not humility — honesty.
Week 10: Marek Nowak. Medical officer. Polish. Forties. Warsaw Medical University, space medicine specialist. Motivation: "You said you needed a doctor."
Week 11: Carlos Rivera. Systems engineer. Mexican-American. Thirties. Helped develop the Astrophage propulsion system. "I built the engine, so I should know how to fix it when it breaks."
Week 12: One slot remaining. Biochemist. No applicants.
Then, in week 13, someone unexpected arrived.
· · ·
SCENE 04
The Last Volunteer
Sophia Grace.
I checked the file twice.
Sophia Grace. Twenty-nine. Biochemist. MIT PhD. Specialty: extremophile energy metabolism. And — Ryland Grace's niece.
Grace never married, had no children. But he had a brother. Sophia is the brother's daughter. She was under two when her uncle left. She doesn't remember his face. She knows only the portrait in the memorial — that false portrait.
I called her into the interview room.
Park
"I'll be direct. Are you applying because of your uncle?"
Sophia looked at me squarely. Her eyes — strikingly like Ryland's. Same genes, different expression. Ryland's eyes led with curiosity. Sophia's led with anger. But they were the same eyes.
Sophia
"You've read my CV? MIT extremophile energy metabolism. Four Astrophage papers. Do I meet the qualification requirements for this mission's biochemist, or don't I?"
Park
"You do."
Sophia
"Then my last name is irrelevant to my qualifications."
A precise statement. But precise statements aren't always truthful ones. I've learned this in 72 years. People hide truthful feelings behind precise words.
Park
"One more question. Do you remember your uncle?"
Sophia's jaw trembled. Less than a second. But I saw it.
Sophia
"I don't. I was two."
Park
"Are you going because of someone you can't remember?"
Sophia was silent for a long time. Fluorescent lights hummed. An elevator whirred somewhere. The sounds of ordinary life.
Sophia
"...My whole life I've been 'Grace's niece.'"
Her voice dropped for the first time. Not anger, but what lay beneath it.
Sophia
"In school. In college. At conferences. Always 'Grace's niece.' Nobody reads my papers — they just see my last name. I've lived my entire life in the shadow of a person I can't even remember."
She raised her head. Eyes wet, but she didn't cry.
Sophia
"I won't deny it — I do want to finish what my uncle started. But that's not all. I want — just once — to be 'Sophia Grace,' not 'Grace's niece.' To do something under my own name."
A complex motivation. Not pure scientific passion. Personal need to prove herself, ambivalence toward a family legacy, longing to escape a shadow — all mixed together. Not pure.
But Grace wasn't pure either. He wasn't a hero acting on pure motive. He was sent by force.
Does pure motivation even exist? Is any human action driven by a single clean reason?
Probably not. What matters isn't the purity of the motive but the direction of the outcome.
Park
"...Accepted."
· · ·
SCENE 05
Six
The crew of the Second Chance was finalized.
I spread six files across the hotel desk and drank whiskey. At 72, what does health matter.
Shin Hyunseo. Captain and astrophysicist. Motive: trauma compensation. A vow to never be helpless again. Strength: cool analysis, leadership. Weakness: too hard on herself.
James Cole. Security officer. Motive: mission instinct. Strength: crisis response, decisiveness. Weakness: divides the world into threat and non-threat, nothing else.
Amir Hassan. Geologist. Motive: pure academic passion — the purest and the most fragile. The first to waver.
Sophia Grace. Biochemist. Motive: longing to escape a family shadow. The irony that this shadow is the reason the ship exists at all.
Marek Nowak. Medical officer. Motive: "You said you needed a doctor." The most concise answer. The hardest person to read.
Carlos Rivera. Systems engineer. Motive: accountability for the engine he built. A technician's pride. Easy to understand, easy to trust.
Six people. Six motives. Six kinds of darkness.
These six will have to endure each other inside a narrow ship — during the waking hours between hibernation cycles. Twenty-five years of transit. A journey with no guaranteed return. And at the end, they'll face beings humanity has never encountered.
I set down the whiskey and looked out the window. Geneva's night sky. Stars visible. Thirty-one years ago, these stars nearly went dark.
Last time, one person saved them. A terrified science teacher.
This time it's six. Six terrified people. Each afraid for their own reasons, each going for their own reasons.
I have to send them. As I sent Grace 31 years ago. But this time is different. This time they said they'd go.
That — made it heavier.
Ordering someone to go die is awful, but at least the weight falls on the one who orders. As it fell on Stratt. But when someone says they'll go die of their own will — where does that weight go? Does the volunteer carry it? The one who permits it? No one?
The 72-year-old doesn't know. Didn't know 31 years ago. Doesn't know now.
But one thing I do know. These six must come back. Grace didn't. The Second Chance must be — as the name says — a second chance. Not just to go, but to return.
I finished the whiskey and turned off the light.
Tomorrow, launch preparations begin.
⟡
NEXT EPISODE
EP.03 — Between Defense and Offense
Two weeks before launch, Cole's cargo manifest is revealed.
Not defensive weapons.
Offensive weapons.
"What's the difference between defense and offense, Dr. Park?
Just intent. Physically, they're the same."
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