The great breakthrough of projection came from an unexpected source. I steeled myself thinking at its fruition just a few miles down the road from me. A scientist discovered the exact method by which gravity is projected from an extra dimensional space. She named the dimension d-space. This discovery allowed us to project and control gravitational fields, it also had another implication. A door way could be opened to d-space and using gravity fields create an exit in another location. The only limitation of exit point seemed to be the amount of energy you could pump into the connection. Lucky for us we had an energy firehose of sorts. There were a few catches with the technology though. Fist was that it took anywhere from a day to a year to store the energy to make a tunnel. It just depended on the distance you wanted to go. Second was it was a one way trip. You would need another projection complex at the remote location to get somewhere else.

Looking ahead of and behind me the convoy stretched for miles. Thousands of huge vehicles loaded with equipment waited for the signal to being. The gentle hum of diesel engines filled the air and tense energy was was almost palpable. The government had decided to suppress knowledge to the projection technology. Its war implication were too terrible to think about. So we couldn’t just go popping out of thin air anywhere people could see. An interesting use of the technology had been proposed as a alternative.

My ear piece made a small chiming sound, “thirty seconds, please take your seats and secure your harnesses. A quick tug at my straps verified I was well secured. The fifty others around me were doing the same. The transport I was in reminded me of a city bus, just with much larger wheels and actual seat cushions. The chime sounded again “expedition commence and good luck”. An excited chatter filled the air as we got under way. It took two hours of almost idling forward before word finally came down, we were three vehicles from the entrance to the projection tunnel.

As we moved forward the outer edges of the tunnel finally cleared the tail of the large truck in front of us. The tunnel was framed with a small square white border. Inside was just a clear image of mountainous rocky terrain and a teal green sky. As we drove through there was no unusual visual or physical sensations. The light over the door simply changed color from green to red. The convoy ride over rough terrain to the rally location took hours but finally everyone arrived. A new voice came over of the ear piece “Today is a historic day. We have embarked on the first human colonization of a planet in another solar system. Though we can’t breath here we will make a nice home by burrowing into the mountain we are on now. When we complete our new home and projection complex we will no longer be only citizens of the Earth. We will be citizens of the stars”.