THE ROCKET-SHIP
Prompt - The Rocket-ship : Write about a rocket-ship on its way to the moon or a distant galaxy, far, far away.
Eighteen hundred and fifty days. Just over five years. Not that 'days' or 'years' held any meaning now. It was the numbers that mattered, not the units. Eighteen fifty activated the first decision window. Her decision.
There had been four of them to begin with. Alexei had been first to go. 'Day' nine hundred. A routine check and maintenance walk. Every ninety 'days' they took it in turn, but this one refused to be routine. The stickiness of the airlock door should have alerted them, but omens don't belong in space. And anyway, it wasn't the door that did the damage. The odds on what happened happening must have been billions to one against. Space debris. In deep space. Hitting the exact spot where their colleague was checking the secondary comms array. Had been checking. He was long gone before any of them could even react to the images on their screens. Long gone. As was their ability to talk to each other.
The accident which took Lungowe was even more bizarre. But when everything in their little world was routine it was hard to stick to procedures. She should have been wearing a full heat suit in the core room, but it was only going to be five 'minutes', wasn't it. But. Always but. But it wasn't five minutes, and as she battled to renew one of the lower hydroponic circuits the time stretched out. They called to her to leave, thrice, but each time it was "nearly there". But nearly wasn't as close as it should have been. By the time they got to her it was already too late. One of them should have been near at hand of course, but...
That had been 'day' fifteen hundred and eight two. Two hundred and sixty eight 'days' ago. What would once have been about nine months. Whatever they were. She and Paul said little now. It was all about waiting, and performing what had to be performed. The contingency routine allowed for half crew, no less, so they got by. She got by, for Paul did what he had to do, no more, and avoided any other responsibility.
So the decision was hers now. They were around a hundred and twenty 'days' flight time from taking up orbit around their destination. There were two hundred and eighty other human beings on board, in cryogenics stasis. There were guidelines on how quickly they could be reactivated, and reintegrated, returned, refreshed. They would have to be revived in batches, the size and frequency to be determined by the views and experiences of the transit crew. Which, now, really just meant her.
She'd been pondering it for days. With Paul's personality gone AWOL it would be down to her to perform the orientation procedures. She didn't think she could cope with more than three at first. She needed a leader, someone who would relieve her of the burden of command. A technician to take on a share of the maintenance workload. And - this was the tricky one. She'd have liked the wellbeing specialist, who had always been intended to be in the first batch, to help the four work through the impact of half a decade in intergalactical transit. She needed her. But. Always but. Paul needed proper psychiatric care. Maybe she did too. Maybe? Huh! The decision was made.
She punched in the codes. The beginning of the end had begun.
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