...So They Baked a Cake

A sardonic human-interest columnist joins a 21-member pioneering starship crew to chronicle the first deep-space test of the experimental Larson Drive, expecting to escape humanity. The voyage promises vast earth-time elapsed but compressed shipboard time, easing worries about limited supplies; the narrator smuggles whiskey and nurses contempt for fellow passengers. When the drive proves successful, the crew discovers a surprising error in the time-dilation estimates that will shorten their subjective transit to a matter of days, sharpening personal tensions and prompting reflections on sacrifice, duty, regret, and the emotional cost borne by those left behind.