---

“So what are we dealing with?”

Safely ensconced within the briefing room on board the Pyxis the two people at the head of the whole expedition, civilian and military, were having a meeting that had been planned for twenty years but never officially happened. A dozen souls had known it would, and none had discussed it- even with each other- since the decision.

“The probe’s data on the surface is detailed, but not perfect. It has been taking detailed scans for fifty years now, it will take time to sort through the data. Right now…” A hand went through the younger’s hair, a tic rarely seen in more public venues. “There’s nothing there. Now. We have geographic data, atmospheric data, and the satellite has been monitoring the electromagnetic spectrum for all that time. Nothing’s been flagged.”

“That all indicates that we have nothing to worry about. But you don’t sound convinced.”

Silence reigned for a moment, and the screen mounted on the table between them flicked to a different image. A single gesture stretched the display up, rendering the landscape into a three dimensional view. One section pulsated slowly, patiently.

“This isn’t a natural formation. Not according to our geologists. Sure, anything is possible. But it’s just not plausible. It doesn’t match the surrounding area. Moreover…” The younger paused, almost unwilling to finish the thought. “There are impact craters. Different sizes, all perfectly consistent with meteorites or other debris.”

“But?”

“But they’re only found in this same area, at least from what we’ve been able to analyze so far.”

“I understand.” The Captain of the Pyxis nodded slowly, drumming his fingers on the edge of the table. “As of this moment, with your permission, I will be arranging our deployments under Case Siberia Beta.”

“Even though it could be nothing? Anything down there shows every sign of being dead or dormant. Case Siberia could be for nothing.”

“No one but us is even briefed on it. If there’s nothing down there then we will have worried for nothing, and no one will ever know. But if there is something down there…” The thought hung in the air, and both were quiet. The Captain came to his feet, eyes flicking over the display. “I assume you’ve seen it? The Siberian discovery?”

“Eye opening, isn’t it?”

“It is. On many levels. Proof that we aren’t alone in this universe like so many people believed, that our rock was not the only one that produced life. Advanced life. Life capable of technologies we’re still seeking to match, even with examples right in front of us.” A spark illuminated the room, for the moment the ship was still in silent running coasting on only its own inertia. His younger co-conspirator’s nose wrinkled at the smell of burning tobacco, but on board the Captain’s own ship… So be it. After a drag the older man continued.

“And I was awed by its power. For the briefest moment that we managed to turn it on it put out more power than anything we’d ever seen, and the data we pulled from its computer in those seconds… One hundred and ninety one years. Almost two centuries and we still haven’t figured out a tenth of it. All of that has been weighing on my mind. But what kept me up at night getting here every night that I was on duty was the last thing to strike me when I saw it.”

Another long drag.

“Something brought it down. And we’re flying straight to where it might’ve come from.”

---

“-ain speaking. I repeat, all crew proceed from cryostasis chambers to ready stations. Pandora will reach orbit in one hour. Follow the post-hibernation routine and proceed to your station by then. I repeat…”

The same announcement came through the speakers across the ship, relaying instructions to the occupants of different clusters of stasis pods throughout. Grouped by role and placed in proximity to their ready stations, every crewmen aboard began to wake in time with the Pandora’s systems coming online at full power. The remainder of the ship’s crew, scientists, technicians… And all of the pilots.

Showers were provided in close proximity to every grouping of pods, lockers containing the attire and gear that they would immediately need, and signage marking the way towards food and water.

And as soon as those human needs had been met, pre-flight checks for their Orbitals.

Humanity had reached Proxima Centauri.

@Caasicam @Plank Sinatra @HereComesTheSnow @eemmtt @Hawthorne @The World

---

Cryo sucked.

Volana had heard that some people simply go out and then wake back up years later, no feeling of time in between. She always felt rather envious of them. Not for her, Volana had half a mind to ask if it was some running joke to spike her nutrient drip with the good stuff, the dreams her frozen mind decided to conceive always tended to be far more unsettling than she particularly cared to experience.

Even so, waking up from cryo sucked more.

Light, blinding painful white light, was the first sensation that came rushing back to greet her, forcibly dragging her out of the artificially induced stasis like being dropped in ice cold water. It was closely followed by the sound of an announcement coming back over the ship's comm system, a muffled jumble of words that her groggy mind couldn't yet parse. A single, uncoordinated motion draped her right forearm over her eyes, offering a slight reprieve from the shock of stimulus. The limb felt heavy, like her arm was full of lead, and Volana exhaled consciously for the first time in fifteen years.

By now words were beginning to fall back into place, and she caught snippets of a familiar voice giving instructions. It was another beat before she could place it as the captain.

She could hear other voices too now, along with a general hum of activity that was steadily increasing as what she assumed were technicians monitored vitals as others aboard awoke. A breath in, the recycled air smelled astringent and metallic. It took a few more beats for feeling to return to her limbs, and she risked lifting her arm from her head to squint her eyes open. Above her the transparent cover for the cryopod hung open, having been opened well before she regained consciousness. Volana rolled her head to the side, blinking to force her vision to focus on the stasis pod next to her own.

"...to ready stations. Pandora will reach orbit in one hour. Follow the post-hibernation routine and proceed to your station by then. I repeat..."

Right.

Rise and shine.

Steeling herself for the exertion, Volana made to push herself up to sitting with both hands.

And only succeeded in nearly rolling herself off the left side of the pod, her heart jumping in her chest from the unexpected motion, while the shot of adrenaline shocked the rest of her body awake.

Volana waved off the technician which had noticed and moved to help with her good arm, and cursed under her breath at the phantom hand that had not been able to support her weight. Her face flushed, and she felt her cheeks grow hot from the rush of blood. She really hoped no one else had noticed her momentary lapse.

Less than a minute in a completely new solar system and a swear were the first words out of her mouth.

"I'm fine, fine," Volana insisted, properly pushing herself up to sitting this time as she swung her legs around for them to hang off the side of the padded pod. A chill worked its way up her spine as she dropped to the floor, the metal floor sucking the warmth out of the soles of her feet. Not that the insubstantial garments they had spent cryo in provided any sort of protection against the chilly air either.

Spurred on by the temperature, Volana took a few shuffling steps forward to reacquaint herself, and her legs, with the sensation of not falling over. Confident that she did remember how to walk, she made her way over to the showers nearby, following both the labels posted to the walls and her now fifteen year old memory of the layout of the ship.

Small blessings, the water was actually above room temperature once she stripped down and made it into a shower, a rarity on board most vessels she had been on. While it felt amazing, she didn't linger too long, her stomach was beginning to remember that the last meal she had was a distant memory at this point.

It wasn't long after that she found her locker, inside the few things she had brought with her on this distant journey. Slipping into her pilot's suit with a practiced efficiency, Volana grabbed her prosthetic before heading off to find something to eat.

It was only when she sat herself down in the mess that Volana finally took the time to look around, she wasn't the only pilot who had decided to get something to eat before getting to her station.

---

It was a clear day.

Amidst an endless expanse of wheat, the figure of a tall man clad in a dusty bomber jacket loomed high, a lone spot of brown against the amber waves tossed by a gentle wind. His face, normally composed of firm, resolute lines, had long relaxed into something much more placid as his eyes slid across the field. Honestly, it was a little stroke of luck that his blonde hair was a touch off the color of the grain— at least whenever it blew in front of his face, it served to break the monotony.

He had been here an unthinkable amount of time. Most definitely not a short while, yet simultaneously impossible to truly perceive as long; it was unthinkable in the truest sense. A long and continued stretch of the present moment. He had just gotten here, yet he had always been here. Somehow, it did not in the slightest feel strange— rather, it was akin to the simple acceptance that this was the state of things being carried on the rays of the sun high above.

If there were anything to pique one's actual interest, it would be the blurred figures that appeared in the distance, every so often. No scheduling to it that he could discern, so clearly they weren't military. Rather, they were by all accounts a well-off family of civilians— one appearance would be a boy and a girl chasing after an excitable Labrador. The next, a man and woman gathered around a table, three seats going empty. The boy and the father looming imperiously over a chessboard, Knight pinned by Queen and Bishop while Rook threatened Check in one. The girl and her mother, learning to ride on horseback, not quite understanding how to swing herself up onto the stirrup yet.

He knew these people. Even with their ephemeral presence and form, the feeling of familiarity was inescapable when it washed over him, every time they appeared. He did not have the presence of mind to question how he knew, even when they were at the far reaches of his vision. He simply did.

By the time they had drawn close enough for him to start trying in earnest to make out the faces, he had long known what just clicked when voices came to his ears on an errant gust of wind.

"Konstanin! Konstantin! Have a look!" someone called. He could hardly place who if he thought about it— it was as if a ghost's. The memory of a certain cadence and tone, carried through an old and crackly radio. He tried half-heartedly, but seemed to intrinsically understand the effort was futile. Instead, he focused on where the small silhouettes— No. Where he and she were pointing. He knew.

His eyes swept up from the golden waves, and into the sky. High above, impossibly dwarfing the wheat that he already thought to be infinite, was a cloudless sapphire sea. A true abyss of blue, enough to swallow the whole world and be lost forever within. He vaguely felt the edges of his mouth prick upward into a smile, familiar lightness entering his chest. Pride. Elation. Awe.

Freedom. More than anything, that endless expanse was freedom. The deep dark blue that eventually gave way to the stars... He looked at it and saw a home. A place where a man like him was at his most primal, at his purest, drawing dancing lines of white contrail as he pleased. A painter against the azure canvas, he vaguely began to note his perspective matching that of an old plane their fingers had been following, climbing higher and higher into the blue as two roaring engines pushed further upward.

Maybe he could simply picture it from here on the ground. Maybe he was really up there this whole time. He did not know, nor did he care, his emotions windswept by breaking the sound barrier all over again. As he climbed, the blue grew deeper and darker until it bordered on black, even the burning white sun unable to pierce the depths of stratosphere—or beyond, above him.

"Isn't it beautiful, Kon?" the girl asked, seamlessly returning him to the ground.

Yeah. It was the most beautiful thing a man could ever see, short of maybe one other contender. He hoped dearly that one day, he could show the both of them just how right they were. They had no idea.

He looked down for a moment as the wind picked up— but when his eyes had returned to the ground, his brother and sister had faded again. Shame. He had so much of his world to share.

He looked up again, a downburst forcing fresh air into his nostrils as the distant rush of wind rang in his ear. Squinting, he could just barely make out the craft as it ascended still, his mind's eye beginning to make out stars. It pushed higher and higher, further and further, greedily drinking in all the beauty of the wide blue sky as it screamed towards unending opportunity and wonder. Far higher than it was probably ever meant to go, heedless of anything beyond its own wish to keep going.

He reached upward, tracking it with a hand, and for a brief moment broke through the Kármán Line. Space.

Then, the burning sun grew too harsh to make out anything more.

---

"...peat, all crew proceed from cryostasis chambers to ready stations. Pandora will reach orbit in one hour. Follow the post-hibernation routine and proceed to your station by then. I repeat…”

The florescent overhead greeted him in white.

He had slept in both extremes of condition, from the lap of luxury to inexcusable squalor. As with most things given such a wide range to work within, he found the experience of waking up from cryo to be...

"Urgh."

Eh, middling. He'd logged a few naps before—

"Rise and shine, big guy." a technician chuckled, his humor evident behind the facemask as he began to guide the impossibly rusted joints within Konstantin's torso upward. "Welcome to fifteen years from yesterday."

But never so long as this one. It came with the territory of being a pioneer, apparently, to feel like you'd been coated in molasses and clogged like a miner's lungs. Commiserations to anyone who'd pushed west into the New World, centuries ago. The first swig of Rakia would be to them, and the second to the warm shower that he vaguely remembered was coming.

"Well, no wonder I feel middle-aged." he replied blandly, working his muscles to reintroduce circulation and remove the feeling of static. "I spent the past decade and a half dreaming about missed opportunities."

"Grim."

"I'm due a crisis, just for the record."

Rolling his shoulders proved fruitful, as did tensing his thighs. For a big long nap like this, it was natural to assume everything would take a moment or two to come online— but this thirty-second conversation proved his wits to be more or less back. Therefore, the rest of him was probably close enough. Couldn't waste time forever.

He rose, taking a moment to lean on the pod as his balance finished calibrating... And began to slowly walk towards the reheating treatment, each step a little less unsure. It was pretty uneventful from there, a brief glance in the mirror prior to stripping down and entering the pleasant warmth reminding him that his hair had been growing out, and that he'd let a short beard grace his jaw.

His flight suit fit mostly well, if a little loose— almost being like he'd remembered it, were it not for how he'd gone a bit thin after fifteen years without a meal.

Luckily, there was plenty of signage to help him out for that. Refreshed and awake, he was quick to snatch out an MRE (Beef Goulash and Liver Pate, if it made any difference.) and seat himself in the mess, bluntly dropping in across from a woman with hair of ice. Volana Jacira, if he remembered right— the pilots had all gotten more or less familiar with each other before the Pandora expedition had launched proper— at least, enough to avoid introductions and confusion regarding combat roles.

"Zdravo." he said, greeting her in his native tongue as he bit into the dense cinnamon-and-nutmeg-tinted sweetness of a fruitcake.

---

Volana looked up from her dwindling supply of food as another soul dropped, for lack of a better word, into the seat across from her. Her attempts at removing the tinge of anticryo that still clung to her tongue temporarily halted.

"Privyet," she responded in kind, a faint smile playing across her features as she recognized the greeting. There was a slight pause, primarily as Volana combed through memories over a decade old now to fit a name to the sandy-blonde hair and bright eyes. "Stojanović, yes? Looks like you thawed out all in one piece, lucky you."

She gave her arm a wave, the rest of the limb still resting on the table next to her food.

"It's a good thing I keep spares though huh."

When Zakharin awoke from his dreamless sleep from his cryosleep the technicians have unhooked the dialysis machine from him. The old marine had been put into cryo many times along with his extensive cybernetics made the process of getting over “cryolag” as the marines called it quicker. Waving off the technician hanging around him.

“This ain't my first time being frozen.” Zakharin told him. The man knew there was no point arguing with the old man left to work on another pod.

He looked over the rest of cryobay observing the technicians rousing the occupants of each pod. The coldness of the pod still clung to his cybernetics. Giving the once over on his limb he stood up the machinery compensated for any unsteadiness he had.

“-ain speaking. I repeat, all crew proceed from cryostasis chambers to ready stations. Pandora will reach orbit in one hour. Follow the post-hibernation routine and proceed to your station by then. I repeat…”

He old cyborg moved into action as he heard the message time was of the essence. Zakharin swiftly navigated to the ship halls to the cleaning area. Once a shower and going through his grooming routine. The old marine opens his locker taking his kit out and getting dressed. Checking back into his locker to see how the other items fared from the long journey. Checking the seals on the box were intact. Satisfied with their condition he opened the box. Inside the box was full of cigars martian reds his favorite. Selecting several he slipped them into a leather case placing it into his breast pocket along with his lighter.

Closing his locker he made his way to the mess to grab a quick meal while he could. Grabbing a light meal. He spotted Volana and Konstantin at one of the tables. Zakharin made his way over to them.

“Privyet.” The old marine said, taking a seat at the table.

“If either of you got any cryolag I know an old trick from the corps to get rid of it.”

The last woman on Earth heard a knock at the door.

Such an old, simple horror story. And it had been on her mind a lot these past decades. As far as anything had been on her mind in that time, to the extent that she had even had a mind. There wasn’t a chance of being the last woman on Earth, and certainly not of being the last woman in the solar system. You could scarcely get a few miles from anyone on Armstrong the city was so populated and Earth’s were much the same. Even the solar system, in its own way, was beginning to get crowded.

But in the void between systems it was easy to be the first, last, and only.

A knock at the door would have been frightening for sure.

But in its own way the solitude had been even more frightening, the knowledge that any word she said wouldn’t be heard for years if it ever was. That even if everything went according to plan there would be eight long years before she heard another voice, then two, then twenty. Twenty two years before a soul came within a lightyear of her. A fear that by the end became crushing even in the deepest subconscious reserved for the hibernating and the near dead that maybe she would never be found at all. That her sleep would never end that her vessel would become her tomb and Voyager would become her own, personal Flying Dutchman.

Artemie Isra, brave explorer, lost to space.

But her solitude was broken by a hiss, instead, as her pod’s lid slid open. The sound barely registered, but the words from the world beyond did. Just a little, slipping through the fog in her mind to tickle at her synapses. Those were voices, real, human voices.

“He… llo?” She managed, then grimaced. Even if her tongue hadn’t been thick with chemicals, her voice was so rusty. It came out in fits and starts, forcing its way through vocal cords long disused. The first stab at opening her eyes was a dismal failure, she closed them again immediately. The second a moment longer, then the third, and fourth, and finally she blinked them open unsteadily.

“Take it easy,” A masked technician said, gently helping her into a seated position. “Taaake it easy. You’ve been out a long time, we had to wake you up slow. Can you understand me?”

Artemie nodded, eyes widening just a fraction as a small, unsteady smile graced her face.

“Good! We’ve been watching your vitals since we started thawing you out, nothing out of the ordinary there. But you’re going to be unsteady. That should wear off within the hour, but don’t be surprised if it takes you a little time, okay?”

She nodded again, not quite trusting her voice, and swung her legs over the side. It had been a while, but she remembered the drill; shower, food, and then ready stations. Just like the Captain was saying over the intercom. The Lunite almost fell when she tried to stand, just barely catching herself with the technician’s help, but her first step was more stable. Then the next, and the next....

“Your gear is in that locker. We moved it off your Orbital after we picked you up. You’ll find your flight suit in there. Holler if you need help, alright?”

“Thank you.” Artemie smiled, ignoring how her voice still sounded. She’d get there. The shower was heavenly. Both of her prior awakenings had allowed her only a brief, cold spray after she awoke and before she settled in for cryo again. This was warm water sluicing over her and washing away the years of ice and darkness, gently scourging it from her bones with each second. She regretted having to cut it short.

Her suit was exactly where she expected it, familiar and freshly cleaned. To her, at least, it could well have been cleaned nearly a decade ago. She pulled it on and zipped it to just under her collarbone, unwilling to again confine her neck so soon, and resolved to find some casual clothes at her first opportunity. None had taken the trip with her.

The first real problem that she encountered was a total lack of familiarity with the ship. Its class hadn’t even existed when she went to sleep the first time, and obviously there had been no chance to tour it (or meet the crew) before it set sail.

Thankfully someone had labeled her way.

MREs, thank God, hadn’t changed in thirty years and neither had mess halls. Uniforms, it seemed, had. The Lunite flight suits she saw mixed in with the other designs had definitely been updated while she was gone and it made her feel a little obvious.

Artemie bit her lip. None of these people were familiar. But that table had three individuals whose bearing and attire said ‘pilot’, so she gingerly picked her way over and sat down at the table with her first bite of MRE in her mouth.

Might as well rip the bandaid, right?

---

"So it'd seem," he replied evenly as the hulking form of the old Russian bear, Zakharin, filled his peripheral vision while taking his seat nearby. "At least I get to feel all ten fingers nearly dropping my tray instead of one set. A good tradeoff for not being so interested by the idea of electromagnetic warfare that I can stay awake during the powerpoints."

Another bite, and and a tilt of the head to his right welcomed the man likely their senior even with ages combined. Unlike Volana's lilting, measured Inner-Colonial accent, the rough bass of the larger man could never have fully hidden his homeworld Russian heritage, even if his command of the lingua franca was as flawless as you'd expect from a hardened vet.

"Zdravo. Good to see you again, Colonel Iron Side. You look damned good for eighty, have to say."

He would be a wealth of invaluable battlefield experience on this mission. Granted, they were officially security detail, but packing upwards of a dozen orbitals straight from UN active duty had Konstantin guessing that somebody was expecting some kinda fight somewhere. A bureaucrat or a scientist somewhere, perhaps— the kind of people who could definitely be wrong, but usually were right about enough things to listen to.

They'd find out when they got out there, confirmation only an hour or so away. However, to speak of unknowns being walked straight into—

"And I may need to take you up on that one. Jacira's got a bogey to her nine. Don't remember her face." he stated, regarding the demure, almost skittish young woman that had quietly taken up residence a little further down the table. She had the air of a new arrival, unsure if she was welcome amongst the rest of them... on a ship that had ostensibly been crewed by the same people (albeit in rotation) for over a decade.

Probably some need-to-know bullshit, but since her garb was very pointedly an ancient model flight suit, chances are they did need to know, and she'd be joining them out in the void. Best not wait on that. He extended a hand across the table, dropping his cake into his muesli without even a hint of fanfare.

"We don't bite, you know. You are?"

Besides, even if he had lost most of his youth's decorum, being a gracious host was part of his culture.

Holden was no stranger to Cryosleep. He might've spent most of his time in the area around Saturn, but during long voyages between moons, and the occasional trade convoy from Titan to the outlying planets, it was prudent to keep your men in Cryo. They were less of a logistic issue that way, and it helped extend their 'shelf life', in a sense. In his time in the SDF, there were several attempts to lobby against the Van Winkle Law, but those were thankfully overturned.

With all that said, Cryo was rarely a peaceful experience for the man. After all, if you're asleep for that long, the subconscious tends to dredge up bad memories.

“-ain speaking. I repeat, all crew proceed from cryostasis chambers to ready stations. Pandora will reach orbit in one hour. Follow the post-hibernation routine and proceed to your station by then. I repeat…”

The man woke with a start, the ship's reprocessed air filling his lungs as he shook himself from his reverie. A concerned technician walked over to soothe the man's nerves, and while he was reticent to accept his assistance at first, Holden eventually did so.

"Help me up," Holden said. "I just need to shake it off so I can feel my legs again."

His leg replacements, that is. It had been several decades since he's lost the originals, but modern prosthetics can not only serve as a substitute but as a straight-up upgrade. In spite of this, however, many people still prefer flesh and blood over metal and hydraulics- Holden was one of these people. Still, organic limb replacement was far too expensive for him, and he's gotten used to these prostheses, so it's not all that bad.

There was a soft clank and a slight hiss as the ancient bionics flared to life. The standard operating procedure dictates that all personnel in Cryostasis would be frozen with their prosthetics so that they don't spend more time than necessary putting them on in an emergency. Unfortunately, this meant that these pieces have not received proper maintenance in fifteen years. Newer prosthetics could perform regular self-maintenance from time to time, but the owner was encouraged to clean and maintain it themselves on occasion.

"Thanks." Holden nodded as feeling returned to his body. It was almost overwhelming at first, being frozen for this long...

But this wasn't his first time.

Now up and about, the man retrieved his equipment and steadily made his way towards the showers. His prosthetics were combat-rated; they were both shockproof and waterproof, which meant he could stand with them in the bath, thankfully. The warm water was a sharp contrast to the cold of Cryo, which helped him shake off the cobwebs and return to full capacity. With hygiene sorted, he put on his flight suit and walked towards the canteen for a bite to eat.

There, he spotted a few other familiar faces from the selection process. Colonel Brusilov was the most prominent one- he lent his assistance back during the Saturn Insurrections, after all. Konstantin Stojanović and Volana Jacira were seated there too, both skilled pilots in their own rights. He didn't recognize the last girl, though. Must've been a late addition to the program. Holden walked over to the table, an MRE atop of his tray.

"Colonel. Konstantin. Jacira..." He nodded to everyone, pausing at the newcomer. "...miss," Holden said, not unkindly. "There room for one more?" He asked as he took a seat. The table was clearly built to seat multiple squads, but the question was more phrased towards the conversation currently taking place.

---

For a moment it sounded as if she had never actually left Venus, and it was all Volana could do to avoid lapsing into her native tongue. Still, she appreciated the small amount of comfort and familiarity that it brought, lightyears from a home that she would in all likely hood never see again. It was reassuring that her now fifteen year old first impressions of her comrades-in-arms still seemed to hold true, it was more likely than not that these individuals would ostensibly be the only souls she would meet for a very long time.

Volana nodded in greeting to Zakharin, the older pilot more robot than she was, as her mouth currently occupied at the moment.

It was then that Konstantin drew her attention to another pilot who had stepped into the mess. She was definitely a pilot, her flight suit couldn't be anything but, however it was of a complete unfamiliar design to Volana. That, and the fact that she was completely blanking on both a name and a face. Volana was fairly certain that she had met every other pilot that was on board just before they all went under for cryo, though she didn't preclude the possibility that maybe her brain got a bit too frozen during the trip.

Either way, she was obviously part of the crew, even if her unifrm and patches were unfamiliar.

"Don't worry, they made sure to get me food to keep that from happening," the cytherean pilot smirked, padding the empty seat next to her own with her artificial hand.

Which was held by her real hand.

It was then that Holden made his way over, it seemed like the bunch of them were all cut from the same cloth. Food was very important.

"Plenty of room!" Volana reassured him, padding the seat on the other side in a similar manner to before.

“It's a simple trick although it was quite harsh you have to take a shot of a hot sauce of at least a 1000 Scoville.” He explained to Konstantin. “I promise that it will wake you right up.”

The colonel looked over the newcomer that Konstantin pointed out had arrived. He racked his brain to put a name to the face. Zakharin was concerned that names were beginning to slip from him. She was familiar to him as he couldn’t figure out where he saw her. But these were laid to rest as the rest of the group also didn’t know who she was. For now he decided to wait for her to introduce herself.

“Morning or at least I think it's morning.” Zakharin said to Holden as he arrived. “What you think Proxima is going to be like?” The old cyborg asked the group finishing up his own meal.

"I'm..."

The Lunite grimaced at the sound of her own voice. Cryosleep was harmless, and on paper there wasn't really any difference between being under for ten minutes or ten years. Maybe, maybe, if you stayed under for thousands of years you'd start to see some real ill effects. It didn't completely halt you after all, just ground the passage of time to such an infinitesimal rate that no change seemed to have occurred. You would have to stay under for a long time for that to add up.

In practice, however, the body had something to say about occupying the same position for years and years. Her voice grated still, and the word came out in a parody of her usual tone. She took the man across the table from her's hand and shook it firmly, holding up a finger on her other hand to plead his indulgence for just a moment. Artemie took a few long, deep drinks of water and cleared her throat quietly in an effort to clear the sandpaper from her throat. When she spoke again her voice came out clearer and stronger, if not quite normal.

"I'm Artemie Isra," She began again, shaking his hand once more before she released it. "It's a pleasure to meet you all. Rude of me not to meet you all before you slept, I know, but I'd been waiting for quite some time. You all are...?"

Artemie took a quick glance around the table, particularly raising her eyebrows a moment at the hot sauce remark. She'd been eating... Never mind. Why did so many of them have prostheses of some kind? Was it a new trend? They weren't uncommon at home, of course, but only when medically necessary. Was it just happenstance that multiple people here needed them, or a factor of their careers? Two of them had clearly had lengthy ones just looking at them, but what about the paler girl? Was it weird that she was a pilot who hadn't undergone any upgrades now?

Suddenly she felt even more out of place. Taking a break outside the flow of time sucked.

"Thanks." Holden said, taking the seat gestured to him. The Colonel discussed something about taking a shot of hot sauce- something that was known to many people in the military as the quickest way to remove Cryolag. More than once, some poor schmuck accidentally ups the dosage and ends up burning a hole in their stomach or esophagus, but the process certainly worked, if done correctly. The man took a bite of his MRE (which happened to be dried beef and vegetables), chewing a little bit before responding to Zakharin.

"If the skeptic in me is right? Probably a lot of rocks. Maybe some air or water if we're lucky." He commented, cutting into his meal. "Might have to use some terraforming equipment on the Colony Module, if we've got any." Holden shrugged.

During their conversation, it seemed that Konstantin and the new girl had made some introductions. Looks like she was a newcomer to them, too. The woman introduced herself as Artemie Isra, and that she couldn't meet them before they went into Cryo because she was waiting for quite some time. Peculiar. Holden waited for Konstantin to introduce himself in turn, before speaking up himself.

"Holden Cross." He told her, offering to shake the woman's hand once Konstantin was done. "Some people call me 'Castle', but that's a story for another time." The man takes a bite of his dessert- a vacuum-sealed pineapple fruitcake. "It's nice to meet you."

Since time immemorial, in many of the Earth's colder climates, the living had been vexed by the sacred dead.

It was a problem in Europe, Eurasia, and even the provinces that were as far north as North America went. In the months where vegetation gave way to frost and the ground would grow hard as concrete, burying the bodies of those claimed in winter had become an impossible task. But even in such climates, decomposition was an inevitability - it was an irritating bit of fine print, a sticking point of the terms and conditions for ever having lived at all. The more superstitious the culture, the more steeped in its own mythology and folklore, the more worrying this became; no one wanted to be haunted by their granddad after they let him starve to death, after all, and leaving the bodies to rest atop the frozen earth seemed as distasteful as allowing them to become living room fixtures. So, as a temporary measure, the bodies were frozen artificially - left in wells or chambers, packed with ice to the point where they would be suffocated had they not already died, and left not to rot, but to keep, until they could be buried with honors. They would sit, unmolested by humans and untouched by age, until the spring came and the ground could be cracked open like cold beers. Which, in essence, is what the people were too. Even the unknowable alien gods from afar had followed this principle to some extent, although it was unlikely they understood it; the ship that had started it all, with its awesome machines and unfathomable power, had created one such chamber for itself in Siberia over the eons. Hallowed dead, frozen and forgotten for all of time.

It wasn't hard to imagine why those were the first thoughts on Gypsy's mind as she woke up. Not that she could relate to the frozen dead - they didn't have to feel cold, or even particularly feel dead. But if they were capable, they would probably envy her right back for being able to wake up, so it seemed everyone had something to complain about.

She rarely had time for second thoughts of any nature, but a second thought did creep in as she felt her heart hammer in her chest, felt her her mouth suck in air before her nose did, felt the dryness of her eyes try to clear with lazy blinks - my face. They hadn't let her enter the pod with it.

Her first voluntary muscle movement in a decade and a half was a lethargic, but no less serious, flop of her arm over the top half of her face, bicep doing its best to disguise her from hairline to the soft tip of her nose. Once again, darkness swallowed her sight, but it was more comfortable than the alternative of being seen. The panic that had seized her rebooting body began to subside. She was protected again.

"I'm good," she said lazily to the technicians swarming to her side, as though she'd just been roused from the devil's nap. "I'm alright. Showers are this way, right?"

The hand that had flopped across her right temple and ear balled into a fist, with only an index finger pointed outwards in the same direction. Her whole arm was ungainly, a familiar feeling; it reminded her of nights on Earth and Mars, staring at the ceiling through a protective curtain of blonde hair with a lover who had decided to snooze right on top of her arm until pins and needles filled the entire limb. She found herself, absurdly, spending a couple seconds wondering how many of them had settled down. Aside from the unpleasant physical sensations of leaving cryo, she didn't feel particularly haunted by the places her brain had taken her during hibernation. She felt like herself. In reality, she had wasted fifteen years, the same way she had once wasted one night at a time. Many of her cohorts probably had families by now; some might even be dead. She doubted that they ever thought of her, either, so mentally she dispelled their ghosts and focused on a hot shower. And getting her face back.

"Right. Thanks, boys." She had no idea if the buzzing in her ears was the techs responding or not, but her memories of the ship's layout seemed sound. Arm still covering her face, she moved - painstakingly slowly - out of her frigid coffin and began shambling towards the shower.

Even in the safety of her stall, the water had to plaster her long, dark blonde hair over her face. Only when she could move her mouth and feel soaking tufts brush her upper lip was she able to relax and enjoy the soak. Instinctively, she knew the water was only lukewarm compared to how she had liked her showers in her old life, but to her body it felt absolutely scalding, and as soon as she could look in the stall and see her reflection swallowed by hair and steam the dormant years began to slide off her back just the same as the water.

When she was done showering, she took the chance to wipe some of the steam away with the back of her hand. Before it fogged her reflection back again, Gypsy took a second to stare at herself head to toe. She was paler than she always pictured herself - residual self-image from the days where a tan was accessible anywhere, whether she was in her apartment or in Chiron Works. Gypsy wondered if a tan would ever be that accessible again.

My boobs do look good, though.

She smiled, then caught herself staring at the expression as best she could with her obscured vision. From what she could tell, her grin was still as bright as people had always told her.

Gypsy stepped out of the shower, drying off and running a towel through her hair to dry it off in a hurry. She knew it was a recipe for an absolute mess, but now was hardly the time to get fussy about her appearance when the most important part of it was still missing. Luckily, she found it on top of the belongings that had been set aside for her. Her face - red, black and gold, made with the contours of her cheeks and brow in mind. She hurriedly put it on and let out a sigh that would have been audible had she not been alone. Her sight felt clearer than it had since she awoke, and what was left of the tension in her body from before her shower had ebbed away entirely. Even getting dressed felt good - as soon as she was wearing her face again, she could have walked out completely naked and still felt comparatively comfortable.

For five seconds, Gypsy Alexandros actually, finally knew peace. Then her stomach growled.

"Uh oh."

The second growl was much louder.

So it was that Gypsy Alexandros, composed and self-assured once again, drifted out in search of the mess hall. She didn't know the path there as well as she did the way to the showers. That had been an absolute necessity to feel whole again, while finding the way to instant coffee and crappy MREs had been more about memorizing a routine. That had never been second nature to Gypsy. Luckily, the ship had been plastered with labels, directions, and 'You Are Heres' that made it feel more like a shopping mall than a bleeding edge interstellar cruiser. She took a second to gauge the aesthetics of her new home as she drifted towards the mess. It was alright, she supposed. Definitely looks human.

When she reached the mess hall, the first thing she did was look for an MRE that was the closest thing to a pepperoni pizza and breadsticks. They certainly had a container that shared the same name as her desired food, and she supposed there was no such thing as bad pizza. But she knew she would probably never have the real thing again. Underneath her face, her eyes crinkled in mild displeasure, and her lips drew into a full pout as she stared down at the package in her hands.

This is what you signed up for. You knew you would have to make sacrifices.

As great as the alien gods seemed in every respect, she found it hard to believe they'd mastered the art of a good pan pizza. Or maybe they had?

Those were the possibilities battling in her mind as she sat down, numb to the pilots alongside her at the table. She only vaguely recognized their presence due to the repeated buzzing, the same as she heard when the techs had responded to her. She could make it out and respond in the same way she had to them.

"The Colony Module," she said to no one in particular, as she spread her jalapeno...paste(?)...over her breadsticks. "Wonder if anything in there can make flare bursts safer from planetside. Could help with tanning."

---

"Hn! Colonel, white man I may be, but we Serbs can handle a little stronger than a Jalapeno. With due respect, I think your number's a couple zeros short." he replied with a chuff as the newcomer took both his hand and the time to try and get her throat properly lubricated, affecting the slightest air of indignance. Certain Ajvar blends were hotter, let alone the nigh-ubiquitous Tabasco... Probably a little joke.

"Konstantin Stojanović. Charmed, Isra."

Anyways, traded jests aside, he hadn't missed the degree of creakiness in the young woman's voice— worst case of it he'd heard by a long shot. For as much as certain people's bodies differed in how well they re-acclimated to room temperature, Konstantin had to wonder— just how many extra years in cryo did "some time" equate to? The humidity of the showers had gotten most everyone else working, even after 15 years, but this one still hadn't shaken it.

Even her grip seemed to still be weak. For all their sakes, he hoped she'd be up to scratch by the time they went on sortie.

And to speak of such:

"Likely some magnetic field generator. If anywhere'd have one, it'd be us." he regarded the eternally masked Gypsy Alexandros, an oddball amongst the expedition in so many ways, moping her way through an MRE of her own. "I doubt we didn't expect some rocks with dead cores and thin atmospheres. Mars all over again."

Or Ganymede. A rocky moon nestled within the magnetosphere of a gas giant certainly didn't seem terribly uncommon as far as exoplanets went, if memory served— certainly helped avoid radiation playing hell with your flight systems.

"On the bright side, it isn't as if there'll be many beaches to worry about that on. We'd have heard of a planet like Earth by now."

---

"I say it is good thing too, you have any idea how quickly I burn?"

Her steel-grey eyes danced around the assembled collection of pilots for a moment, before settling back on the now self-identified Artemie Isra. The cytherean pilot gave a smile, before offering a short, "Volana, Jacira. Though you may say Volana, if you would like."

Volana extracted what liquid she could out of the tightly packed bag of water that she had procured along with the now-finished rations. Hopefully they would have access to some real food once the colony ship was fully functional. For now, she was just happy to have something in her stomach, and more importantly, the taste of chemical out of her mouth. Volana rolled her wrist around, the left one, having properly attached the prosthetic in preparation for their assignment. There was a slight pang of disappointment as she stared at the metal and polymer appendage, after fifteen years of disuse she would've expected it to at least feel kinda funny to use again.

Volana. Holden. Konstantin.

It took a second to suppress the urge to ask about their ranks, as well, though she'd learned the older man's from Konstantin. But she had been working with a more civilian agency before she left, so the impulse was dulled a little already. She didn't know the older man's name, or the name of the... Woman in a mask. Who had sat down a moment ago. And appeared to be spreading a pepper paste on her pizza.

Artemie's eyes widened a little, not at the spice for foods much in excess of that had been her norm her whole life. But at what she felt sure must be an appalling change to the flavor profile. She munched steadily at her own MRE for a moment, she hadn't bothered to check the flavor, and shook Holden's hand in turn.

"Pleasure to meet you too, Mr. Cross." She smiled again, relieved that her voice seemed slowly to be coming back to her. "And you, too, Volana. I think I agree with Mr. Konstantin, Colonel. It'd have to be a bit hotter than that for me to notice."

"About the planet..." Artemie hesitated for a second, unsure of whether or not to weigh in. It wasn't common knowledge yet, clearly, but they could see if they looked out the window, couldn't they? This ship probably had windows, right? "... I took a little peek at the data the probe sent back. I wasn't really supposed to, but who was going to argue with me? It was 241, I think? Around then? The data was from five years before that, of course, so it was the data from the first year. The year 229. I think."

"It's..." Again she floundered, trying to articulate what she thought. That the planet was beautiful, simply for being a world no one had ever seen before. That the very fact that anyone could set foot on it was a miracle that she was ecstatic to be apart of, how she was bursting at the seams to take part in those first steps on its surface. How she'd been living her whole life for this moment. That she had given thirty years to be a part of it. But that wasn't really what they were looking for. "I hope you packed sunscreen, Volana. There's a lot of desert. The probe didn't have exact data, but it estimated that it could get too hot for anyone to survive around the equator."

"But there's water. There are rivers, and lakes, though I'm not sure if anything would count as an ocean. And a breathable atmosphere, with real vegetation towards the coast."

The Lunite stopped, a little sheepishly. She was getting carried away, and her voice wasn't thanking her for the exertion just yet. She took a long drink of water.

"I'm sorry to be a bother, but... What's the Colony Module you're talking about?"

“Colonal Zakharin Brusilov.” Introduce himself to Artemie.

The old cyborg listened to what the other pilots had to say about the planet. From what they were saying it sounded like it was going to be a cooked rock with an atmosphere. With not much else there apparently. But his mind keeps wandering why send such a security force with the colony. He decided to not to voice his thoughts for now.

“Shame I thought it would be more lush.” He commented. Zakharin took another swing of the instant coffee he got before he continued. “Either way I'm looking forward to being planet side again.”

Stel felt the warmth of life once again for the first time in fifteen years, almost five-eighths of her waking lifespan, gone just like that. Dreamless sleep, if it could be called that, had stolen away so much time. The first thing to come to her mind as she groggily stirred from her pod was that she really wasn't going to be seeing her loved ones again. Not unless they happened to turn right around and go back, and that wasn't likely.

She already didn't like being here; the air tasted strange, the lights were too bright, and the artificial gravity felt off somehow. Perhaps it was due to her hibernation, but the influx of senses all being different than she expected threw her for a loop for several minutes before she finally planted her feet outside of the pod. She was likely one of the last ones out. A techy looked over at her and she gave him a thumbs up, a signal that he had done his job of waking her correctly, if not very personably.

A voice was resounding through the ship to follow the post-hibernation routine... What was that again? Stel was having trouble remembering. Luckily there seemed to be instructions on what to do posted on signs leading towards the showers and lockers. Standing to keep her balance for a few moments, she finally built up the courage to move over to the showers and begin the arduous task of satisfying her mind in terms of cleanliness while not taking far too much time to be acceptable. Her locker contained a standard flight suit, but it fit just fine and was just comfortable enough to not cause problems. She also grabbed one of the two PDAs in there, a perfect fix for her forgetfulness. After checking a picture of her family to help reassure her, she opened up a simple checklist of "To Do" items on waking up. Get out of the pod? Check. Shower? Check. Grab PDA? Check. Eat? Well, not yet. She looked around at the signs to find her way to the mess hall, grabbing some food and sitting at one of the few empty tables.

Unfortunately it seemed that she was missing out on the opportunity to mingle with her fellow pilots, not that she had much interest in it considering their age gaps, and furthermore found that she didn't like the taste of an MRE, or at least the one she had chosen. Then again, she figured that nobody probably actually liked MREs. That wasn't the point of them, after all. Still, she could hear the other pilots talking, and sat for a moment trying and failing to remember their names. Still, she gave a slight wave to those facing her.

---

"Hmph. I honestly don't understand all the hype about hot sauce." Holden commented on their preferences of flavor. "I can enjoy a bit of spice in my life every now and then, but you can have great meals with just salt and pepper." He shrugged as he finished his meal- he ate quickly, as many men in the military did. If you didn't eat quickly, you didn't eat at all, sometimes.

Artemie's words were quite interesting, though. She knew this much about the planet data, but didn't know about the mission itself? Granted, he couldn't say much either- the fact that this simple expedition required this much firepower was worrying in its own right. "You managed to take a look at the probe data?" Holden questioned, curious. "How'd you manage that? I thought only the higher-ups and scientists knew." He then leaned back in his seat, stretching his arms a little. "If you didn't know, the Pandora's carrying a Colony Module that's supposed to be set up on a viable habitat on Proxima Centauri β."

...something like that, anyway. He wasn't exactly the most knowledgable when it came to how planet colonization worked.

In the time that it took for him to get acquainted with the newcomer, two more had entered the mess hall. One took a seat at the table, while another opted to sit at one of the empty ones. The woman with the mask was easy enough to recognize- Gypsy Alexandros. A strange one, to be sure. The other woman was a little younger, and Holden knew her as Stel Nebula. He had heard that she was a capable engineer, but hadn't heard much about her otherwise. The former seemed to be getting along just fine with everyone, but the latter seemed less enthused about this whole situation- he decided to try and strike up a conversation to see how she was doing... but maybe later. Leaving the table as it is would be a little strange.

---

That caught Volana's attention. Or more specifically, a number of things which Artemie had mentioned caught her attention within quick succession. The unfamiliar addition to their little gathering of pilots had glossed over more than a few points so nonchalantly that it took a few moments for them to sink in properly, and Volana to actually parse exactly what was being said.

241? Were we not all in cryo at that point? None of us would have been woken up during the trip, only ship crew and colony personnel. How did she? 229 doesn't make-

In an effort to stem the rising tide of questions building up in the back of her mind, Volana addressed the most peculiar of the bunch. Her bright eyes fixed themselves on Artemie intently. "Wait, you are saying that planet is alive? It is not just another irradiated dead rock?"