"Welcome To New Terra"
Maggie Greer emerged from her stasis bed grimacing and groaning at the stiffness overwhelming her body. She'd expected discomfort after 22 years in hibernation, but this she would have given a 14 on a scale of 1 to 10.
She found a sealed bottle of fortified water in a holder next to the stasis bed right where she'd left it more than two decades earlier. She drank it down slowly, set it aside, let it settle in her stomach, then consumed the adjacent nutrient pack as well.
"Artie?" she asked softly. Getting no answer, Maggie asked, "Artie, you awake?"
The artificial intelligence for Deep Space Settlement Transport New Hope, DSST-1, was supposed to have greeted Maggie upon completion of her reanimation. It hadn't, which didn't honestly surprise Maggie. The leadup to the first manned mission to New Terra -- an ironic description as the crew included 2 males and 6 females -- had been plagued with problems right up until New Hope's departure from Earth Station III.
Maggie called out for the AI again, getting no response. She shrugged and went about her post-reanimation tasks without the computer's company. She stripped out of her sports bra and panties -- standard female attire for stasis -- and soaked for an hour in a tub of hot water laced with revitalizing chemicals.
After a short walk, she was in the quarters she shared with a second Crew Member who -- like the other 5 Crew -- wouldn't be reanimated until Maggie had performed her Systems Checks. She slid open her closet, gave the company issued clothing a look, and sneered. The standard issue crew uniform was a front-zip coverall of pinkish-tan that the very blonde Maggie had always thought made her look like a hotdog dipped into mustard.
Instead, she unzipped the bag of personal gear that she -- like many others -- had slipped onto the ship before departure and hid. She took out a bra and panties set that reminded her that she was a woman, then added a soft-to-the-skin blouse and a pair of yoga-style Spandex shorts. With the addition of a pair of slip-on shoes, she was more comfortable than she had been in a quarter century.
"Fuck you,," Maggie murmured, her words meant for the Mission Supervisor who had so often bitched and moaned about her refusal to wear the standard uniform at all times. She reminded herself of the distance between them, "A hundred fuckin' light years, asshole. Like to see you write me up now, dick."
Maggie checked on her fellow crew members, finding them in perfect hibernation, then wandered forward to the bridge. There she called for Artie again, got no response again, and set about rebooting the computer systems that would tell her all she needed to know about the mission's status.
And ... that was when her eyes bulged and her mouth dropped open. Maggie didn't initially believe what the computer was telling her, and when she finally got the AI's interactive communications to function, she asked, "Artie, how long have we been in stasis? What's the date?"
The AI answered the second question first, then responded to the first inquiry, "The crew has been in stasis for 122 years."
"How can that be?" she asked with a shocked tone. "What the fuck went wrong?"
Artie ignored the profanity per its programming, then began a long explanation about how an unexpected collision with space debris just 6 years out had disabled one of the engines "Primary and secondary communications are out as well. The tertiary communications system is functional but only to send messages, not receive."
Maggie spent the next six hours reviewing the situation, but in the end, there wasn't really much she could do to fix anything. She was a Medical Doctor, awoken first to check on the crew's health prior to their own reanimations. She had only rudimentary training in ship's operations; rebooting the AI had actually been a bit of a stretch for her.
She checked on the crew again, then hit her rack for some much needed sleep. Artie had told her there was no hurry to wake up the crew as -- despite the damage -- the ship was safe and secure and there were still 40 hours left before the others needed to be awoken.
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In the end, Maggie began reanimations just a couple of hours after she awoke from her 12 hour long nap. After changing into her coveralls -- she still wore her personal undergarments as a silent protest -- Maggie began with the Mission Commander, Helen Davis, who was the oldest member of the crew at 38 and the only one of them to have ever been in stasis for more than the Training Session of 6 months, as had Maggie and all the others back at ES-III.
Then, one by one, the others were brought out of stasis, permitting each of them to have their blessed turn in the hot tub. Helen chose to initially tell them nothing of the ship's troubles and extended hibernation, but eventually, they gathered on the bridge and she filled them in.
"We're fucked," she said, not knowing know how to start the conversation without simply being blunt. "As you all are very aware, the mission was for 4 of the 6 of us to descend to the planet's surface to perform surveys and experiments meant to establish beyond a doubt whether or not New Terra would support human life, while the other 2 processed data up here and kept the ship warmed up for our flight back home in 550 days ... 18 months.
"That's not gonna happen now, though," Helen went on. "We don't have the fuel now to reach New Terra's sun at the required speed for the necessary slingshot maneuver. We have no choice but to descend to the surface."
"And live there?" Maggie asked in shock, adding, "forever ... 'til we die?"
Maggie shrugged. An animated conversation erupted, with some of the crew arguing that there had to be options for a return to Earth while others argued that life on the planet wouldn't be that bad.
"We're here to determine whether or not New Terra will support life," one of them reminded the others. "Well, I guess we're gonna now, whether we like it or not."
"War of the Worlds," one of the crew reminded the others, referring to the often discussed H.G. Wells book in which Earth-invading aliens were stopped not by mankind and its weapons arsenals but by microbes for which the aliens had no immunity.
"Our inoculations will protect us," Maggie promised. "Trust me, they'll work. Decades of advanced, revolutionary genetic work eliminated nearly almost all disease on Earth, and the inoculations that came out of that research will protect against anything New Terra throws at us."
"What about DSST-2 or -3?" someone asked, referring to the Deep Space Settlement Transports that were supposed to be following behind New Hope.
"We're late to the party, guys," Maggie reminded them about their 122 year flight. "They're either not coming or have already been here, and I checked the sensors. There's no sign of another transport, in orbit or on the planet. When they lost contact with us just 6 years in, they probably abandoned the program."
A discussion laced with panic, disappointment, anger, fear, and just about every other similar emotion erupted until Helen finally got control again and said, "We can talk about this more later, but right now, we have procedures to perform for the braking procedure, which begins in less than 8 hours."
Helen issued some orders, and each of them headed out to get their work done. Maggie went to the Med Bay to look at the Crews' medical records and schedule checkups and further inoculations. Only then, when she was alone and certain no one would see or hear her did she begin sobbing.