Jack of Harts

The greatest leap of the New Voyager program has always been to go where our ships cannot travel. That was interstellar space in the twenty first century. Now it’s intergalactic space. No matter how good our ships are, there is a limit to how far they can travel in the great void between galaxies. Hyperdrives do not work out there. But the swarms of solar sail probes don’t need hyperdrives. All they need is a laser to boost them to near the speed of light and to be set free of the bounds of galactic gravity. Tens or hundreds of thousands of years from now they will arrive in Canis Major, Sagittarius, the Magellanic Clouds, and so many others. The stars of other galaxies will awaken the cybers from their slumbers and there is one question I have. Will they be the first emissaries of Earth to arrive or will we be there to welcome them, having found another way to make the journey?