Here is a little sneak peak of a project I’ve been working on – an earlier draft of the short story was posted at the beginning of my time on this website, and will probably be more accessible once I stop procrastinating and redesign my website. This is the first part of the expanded introduction to what will, ideally, become a science fiction novel 🙂 If you do take the time to read, please take just a few more moments to leave me some feedback! Any and all criticism or praise welcome – I just want to have a sense from other people what is working and what isn’t.
And with that…
Among the glimmers of starlight, a lone moving gem approached its destination – a landing site near the edge of the crater ‘Dorothy’. As it drew closer to the vague atmosphere of Charon, it slowed its momentum and twisted itself into a landing configuration. A plume of fire from the base made a pulsing pattern to slow its descent towards the hard layer of metal that stood under a layer of ice. As the craft approached, the metal burned bright red and began to vibrate, shaking off what it quickly reduced to mist before unsealing in the center. Its doors slid open to reveal a long tunnel burrowing down into the body of the moon, just in time for the ship to gracefully fall in and float to more honest ground below.
As the vehicle came to rest, power rerouted from the propulsion system into onboarding and auxiliary systems. Lights began to flicker on, and the temperature from the engine diffused itself into heating panels across the hull, bringing the internal temperature up until it reached habitable levels. A series of electronic whirring and beeping filled the silence as the soft voice of the ship’s computer systems came to life – eventually, it was replaced by the voice of a virtual assistant, whose soft, neutral tone came not much louder than the rest of the machinery in the room.
“Auxiliary systems online. Onboarding sequence initiated.”
Two chambers made the internal body of the ship – one that held the systems which enabled their craft to make it to its destination, and another that held 12 ovular grey pods. On the top of each pod, a small light illuminated on a panel – first, flickering yellow as the cryogenic thawing process was enacted on the occupants, followed by a solid yellow to indicate the transition into ‘Wake Up’ protocol.
A green light flickered on to one pod earlier than the others, and the voice announced slightly louder than the buzz of noise: “Happy Landfall, Officer Sadler.”
The pod emitted a quick hiss, then a pop as the curved grey dome of the chamber slid to the side and into a crevice in the wall. The occupant was a hunched ball of a woman surrounded by a crown of dark waves. She shuddered violently and made a sound like dying cattle, hazel eyes flicking open unevenly but failing to make sense of the grey and white shapes around her.
With time, she stopped making the noise and felt some sense of connection return to her body. There was not enough energy to think yet, but she could engage in some voluntary movement. She sat up slowly with the feeling that her brain was moving at a different rate than the rest of her. The sense of nausea was overpowering, and as Sadler pulled herself to the rim of her statis pod, she used the leverage to lean her chin over the side and vomit.
As she emptied her stomach of a pale yellow fluid, the voice came on again.
“Happy Landfall, Officer Saleh.”
Another pod flashed green and opened. The figure inside made a series of distressing gasps, then a shuddered groan before sitting upright. A short mess of brown hair fell against her gaunt face as she drank in the air. Her eyes looked wildly around the room before landing on the other woman, who was continuing to be sick and failed to acknowledge her.
Saleh tightened the muscles in her diaphragm and began controlling her breathing in a rhythmic pace. ‘In…. Out…. Pause…. In…. Out…. Pause….’ The sensation began returning to her body, and she felt as the pounding and fogginess in her head both began to dissipate. Her gaze continued to rest on the other woman, using her as a focal point to try and make sense of her surroundings.
As she processed that she was somewhere she’d never been before, the virtual assistant spoke again:
“Happy Landfall, Officers Kennedy and Holstein.”
Two more pods unsealed, followed by two more distressed humans.
“Happy Landfall, Officer Nayeli.”
“…Officer Duale.”
“…Officers Hershlag, Fisher, and Chu.”
“Officers Shetterly and Delsambro.”
“Happy Landfall, Officer Jung.”
The last pod slid open, and the woman inside sat up calmly (relative to her travel companions) with a few regulating deep breaths. She let her eyes fall open, gazing first at the floor, then around the room at the chaotic display. Around her, each still sitting in their own pod and in various states of processing, were eleven other women. All of them felt vaguely familiar to her – not in the way that they should be old friends, or even excited to see each other, but in that something inside her anticipated this moment a long time ago. Her consciousness struggled to catch up with time, but she was vaguely aware that since everyone was awake, they had passed the most important threshold of their mission. The concept of a mission was clear, but the details were a nebula in her mind.
In time, the discordant noises of machinery and human agony came to a lull. Two dozen eyes moved in pairs to make sense of the room and its occupants, and for a stretch of minutes, the women would each take their turns at movement. Some of them exchanged cautious glances, looking to each other for some sense of recognition that did not exist within themselves. Officer Sadler, first to awaken, was the last to attempt to stand, uneasy on her legs as she cautiously stepped over the fresh puddle of bile. As she righted herself and found balance, she wrapped her arms around herself in a poor effort to consolidate heat. Each officer had woken in transit clothes – thin, white garments that wrapped from the collarbone to just above the knee. While much better than being bare in front of strangers, the material didn’t do much to provide against the environment.
Officer Sadler looked to her left, then right, and made eye contact with a taller woman with bronze skin whose dark coils of hair fell just shy of her shoulders. She felt a nagging itch in her mind as the woman stared back, giving an expression that felt readable but untranslated. Wondering if she should introduce herself or make a joke, Sadler was interrupted before she could decide by the calm, even voice of the virtual assistant.
“Welcome, Earth Officer Ambassadors. You have arrived at your final destination of Charon. I will now guide you to the Officer Facilities Unit, where you will be able to prepare for your first meeting as a team. The current time is 04:15 Charon Local Time; please prepare the meet in the Command Center by 6:00 Charon Local Time.”
Some of the group jumped as a door in the corner of the room opened, and a green light switched on above it and began to blink steadily.
“Please follow the green light to Officer Facilities Unit.”
It was a while before anyone broke the stillness. Cautiously, the red-haired woman closest to the door took a step forward, pausing to stare up at the green light illuminating her skin. She took a glance behind her, dark blue eyes pleading silently before she faced the open doorway and stepped through. Her first step was into a closed white hallway made of a firm material that felt warm on her bare feet. After the first few steps bore no immediate consequence, she felt the tightness in her chest ease a little and pressed forward with a slight sense of urgency. The sounds of footfalls and breathing behind her told her that she wasn’t going on alone.
The tunnel ended with another green light blinking above a doorway, leading to a much larger chamber and their first sense that they were in an environment meant for humans.
[TO BE CONTINUED…]
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