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Aryana woke several hours later. With the
exception of the occasional beep and a few flashing lights from the control
panels around the bridge, it was completely quiet. Just outside the viewfinder,
the frozen darkness of space continued to drift by. Indifferent. Endless.
She reached down and grabbed the datapad to
check the calculations and, to her surprise, found that it was dead. She tapped
it a few times but it was completely non-responsive.
Battery’s
probably dead. she thought.
Getting up from under the warmth of her
blanket, she crossed the cold floor to the datapad’s docking station and
plugged it in. It gave a reassuring beep and the screen flashed to confirm it
was charging. It would be at least a few minutes before it let her activate it
again.
Leaning down at the closest console, she
flipped on the screen to check the course layouts.
While she waited for the readouts to come
up, she couldn’t help but chuckle at the toys strewn across the top of the
console. It was covered with a number of small action figures wearing spandex.
Brown, her navigator, was a huge fan of the 20th and 21st
centuries and apparently these toys were “wrestlers” from some entertainment
program back then. She had always been a fan of “The Rock”, as Brown called
him.
The computer blinked and started scrolling
numbers across the screen. Thousands of lines of calculations, hundreds of
variables and numbers were accounted for, all flashed by in an instant. She
could have manually checked them, but right now she was more interested in the
overall.
Course
stable. Flashed in green at the bottom of the screen.
“Good enough for me.”
She flipped off the screen and made her way
back to the rec room to make herself some dinner. While she waited for it to cook,
she came to the conclusion that she’d have to wake her crew. It would be
jarring to be woken from hypersleep for such a short period, but it would be a
lot harder to explain when she woke them up just to make them refuel the ship.
The next while was spent choking down the
poor excuse for a meal that she had tossed together. It was bland, tasteless,
and made from what she could scrape together without rehydrating any food
stores, but it filled her belly and that was good enough for the time being.
She could have a real meal later.
Afterwards, back in the cryo-chamber, she
went about thawing her crew. She started with Duncan. Duncan Kilborne had been
her second mate for four separate ore-runs into the Capulet sector and a good
guy. Next was her navigator, Hammond Brown, who always preferred his last name
to his first. This was followed by Rebecca Lee, the Quartermaster, Richard
Sanchez, Pilot, Danisha Folami, the ship’s Mechanic, Yoko Xi, Danisha’s
Assistant, Howard Moore, the ship’s Doctor, and Franklin Toss, the Cargo Master.
The tubes opened one by one. Cryogenic gas
poured out across the floors and the cool mist filled the room. Arayana couldn’t
help but shiver, immediately regretting having left her blanket on the bridge.
It was already cold. Adding the contents of eight freezers to the room didn’t
make it any better.
For a few minutes, nothing moved except the
pluming white and blue gases. Then, groans. The sound of sporadic movement.
Finally, Dick was the first to speak up.
“Are we there yet?” he muttered incoherently.
No one answered.
Slowly, painfully, the crew went about
climbing out of their tubes and making a beeline for the nearby showers. Men
and women alike stripped off their cryosuits with no regard to the others
around them and basked under the hot water. The water on the ship was rarely
used and had been recycled more times than they could count but none of them
cared. The hot water helped to blast away the delirium and slimy feeling that
cryo sleep left them with.
Aryana waited calmly for each of her crew.
None of them took too long, but she wouldn’t rush them even if they did. Waking
from cryo was a horrible feeling and she had just done the same not too long
ago. She couldn’t fault them for the toll the process took on their bodies.
It was only when the showers had stopped
and the crew was pulling on fresh clothes that anyone spoke again.
“They ain’t paying us enough for this shit.”
Frank grumbled as he pulled on his pants.
“Not enough to wake up to your face, Frank.”
Dani shot back without even looking over.
“Good morning to you too, shitface.”
The two chuckled and soon the eight of them
were making subdued small talk amongst themselves. Lots of insults and more
than a bit of colorful language, but none of it angry. The only one who didn’t
join in was Aryana, and Howard was the first to notice.
“I can’t help but think we didn’t get to
enjoy the sight of our Captain’s fine ass in the shower today.” He said as he
finished pulling his shirt over his head. “What do you think Becca?”
“You’re right,” the spunky little
Quartermaster agreed. “I was wondering why I felt so tired. I just realized I
didn’t have my coffee this morning.”
As if to empathize her point, Becca looked
over at Aryana and playfully licked her lips.
“Now, do you suppose it’s because she just
doesn’t like us anymore?” Howard asked, pouting his bottom lip.
“I think it’s because I had to wake up
early this morning while you assholes slept in.” Aryana snapped back with a
grin.
“Such are the privileges of that fat little
bonus on her paycheck.” Dani said with a laugh as she tried to dry chocolate
mop of hair.
“Wait a second, you guys get paid?!” Brown
said with playful panic.
“Like I said, not paid enough for this
shit.” Frank muttered again.
Dani reached over and smacked him in the back
of the head with a laugh.
“Alright, alright.” Duncan said calmly. “Clearly
something’s up. What’s going on, cap’n?”
The crew fell silent and, for a minute,
Aryana hated Duncan. He always had the crew’s attention in an instant and now
all of them were silently staring at her. She’d much rather just listen to
everyone bullshit amongst themselves than give them the bad news.
She let out a long sigh.
“As you know, sometimes we receive orders
that dictate when we need to make alterations to our course. And, despite being
your captain, I have no say in those alterations…” she said. She couldn’t help
but to feel defensive. “Well, it would seem that we had to make a change.”
“What kind of change?” Yoko asked, her brow
furrowing.
“As it turns out, the course that we were
previously heading on would have taken us through active pirate space. The
company felt it in our best interest to redirect us around that quadrant.”
They all remained quiet, staring. They knew
more was coming.
“They...” she scratched the back of her
head and sighed again. “They’re sending us up towards Waystation Kappa-34.”
“Kappa-34?!” Frank said. The huge man stood
up to his full height in anger, dwarfing those around him.
“That’s going to add months onto the trip!”
Becca said, gritting her teeth.
“Yea.” Aryana agreed. “Six months out, we
get to stop and refuel. Followed by another six making our way around.”
“A whole year?” Duncan asked quietly.
Her heart felt heavy as she looked at Duncan’s
calm, but darkened expression. She couldn’t say anything to him. She just
nodded.
The crew stared at each other silently for
a few minutes. None of them wanted to say what they were all thinking. The year
of their family’s life that they were going to miss out on. The extra year in
the freezers to play havoc on their bodies. The extra year where anything and
everything could go wrong in the reaches of space.
“I know this sucks, guys.” Aryana said
finally. “But it’s either that or get buttfucked by pirates in your sleep.”
“I, for one, was hoping to meet a nice
upstanding gentleman.” Brown said snidely. “However will I meet him if not
through barreling blindly through pirate territory?”
Dani proceeded to smack Brown this time.
Frank chuckled. Dani smacked him too.
“I figured you guys would rather know this
way than when we got to the Waystation to refuel. So, if you want to go back to
the freeze right away, you’re more than welcome to. If you want a few hours to
stretch your legs, I get that too. One way or another, I want everyone back on
ice within a day.”
“Let’s get this shit done sooner rather
than later.” She said sternly.
They all nodded in agreement.
