"No one thinks you're a joke, Cho," Rivera said calmly, "Relax and get ready to smile for the cameras."
The Oshun was a sleek, handsome ship, built to be as light and fast as possible. The bridge, on which the crew now stood, formed the rounded nose of the ship.
The console wrapped around it in a half circle around which five chairs were arranged. Above the flat, touch screen dash, a wide, currently dark screen also wrapped around the inside of the nose. The ship had no windows, the better to withstand the rigors of space.
Instead, it had thousands of tiny cameras, which fed information back to screens like that one, taking the place of viewports. It was turned off at the moment, but had it been on, it would only have showed the Hermes sitting on the opposite side of the launch pad. Oshun's twin, Hermes would carry a second complete crew. They were each other's back up, in case something went wrong during the voyage.
A moment later, a handsome blonde man stuck his head through the open hatch curiously, smiling when he saw them.
"Looks like just about everyone is here!" he called back to the people behind him, stepping inside, "Where's Dr. Abdullah?"
Ian Maurea had a thick New Zealand accent which the media found almost as irresistible as his effortless surfer charm. You would never have guessed he was a genius astronavigator from looking at him. According to him, all Maori were fantastic sailors, and space was just another ocean to him.
Behind Ian, a documentary film crew stepped into the ship, eyes wide and cameras rolling.
"She'll be with us shortly," Rivera answered as Ian, looking especially dashing in his flight suit, took up a spot beside her in the lineup, "A last minute transmission."
Ian grinned, leaning past Rivera till he could see Cho.
"Skipped over you again, did they?" he teased.
"Oh shut up Ian," Cho huffed in irritation, but Penny could see she was smiling, probably just delighted that Ian agreed she should have been consulted first. Cho's crush on Maurea was well documented.
Penny was fairly certain everyone on both crews had struggled with a crush on the navigator. Even Rivera had been briefly charmed. But fraternizing with crew mates that way could get you removed from the mission, so Penny, along with everyone else, hadn't allowed those feelings to grow beyond the basest infatuation. Only Cho's had stubbornly lingered, despite her best efforts to shake it.
"Welcome to the bridge of the U.S.S Oshun," Rivera spoke to the documentary crew, reciting a planned script, "I am Captain Bonita Rivera. You've met my astronavigator Dr. Ian Maurea. On my left is the foremost xenobiology expert in the world, Dr. Lacy Cho, and beside her is renowned diplomat and conductor of the Lunar Accords, Ambassador Penny Allyn."
The documentary crew of course already knew this, having conducted preflight interviews with the entire crew already, but this footage would be played at the beginning of the film once it was edited.
"Sorry I'm late!"
Rivera paused and smiled as a tall, dusky skinned woman in her late thirties with a headscarf tucked into her flight suit hurried through the hatch and on to the bridge.
"Ah, and here is our communication officer," Rivera explained, "Dr. Salome Abdullah. Dr. Abdullah was part of the team that first found and recorded the Kepler transmissions. Without her research into stellar signals, we would not be on this mission."
Penny still remembered the moment more than ten years ago when the public had first been told about the signals Salome's team had located, echoing out of the far reaches of space in the Kepler region, the cluster of planets the Kepler telescope project had studied and determined to be habitable.
They'd already been studying the strange, faint signals for years before they released the information to the public, once they had proof that the signals were real and indisputably the product of another intelligent civilization.
That was when planning for the first contact mission had begun. Penny had known even then, just eighteen and graduating valedictorian of her prestigious private high school, that she would be part of it, would stop at nothing to earn a place on that ship. Her parents had been thrilled to see her set such a lofty target. Penny was only surprised they hadn't chosen it for her themselves.
"It's from here in the bridge that I'll be steering the ship," Ian continued with undisguised pride, patting the back of his chair, "Keeping us on the trajectory NASA has laid out for us, as well as calculating and adjusting that trajectory in case of any unforeseen obstacles. Now, we'll be taking the journey in stages, with long cryosleep kips in between each leg..."
The interview went on a while longer as the documentary crew was shown around the ship, then at last they were shooed out. A security team swept through next, ensuring nothing had been changed, damaged, or left behind. And then, at last, it was time to begin final checks.
Penny settled into her seat, her heart hammering with fear and excitement, ready to do her part. Rivera was the only dedicated astronaut. The rest of the crew were specialists, but they'd all been trained together for years on every single function and maneuver the Oshun had. Every one of them could fly the ship if they had to, though of course they were best off flying it together, each one handling their specialty.
Final checks hit no snags and Penny felt almost nauseous with excitement as the five of them pressed the buttons on the collar of their flight suits which expanded a clear, close fitting helmet around their heads. It was time for takeoff.
The view screen was on now, and Penny could see the Hermes on the other side of the tarmac going through the same motions. A window opened in the corner of the screen to show the Hermes crew as they prepared.
Captain Gaugin, a dignified older man, shared a respectable nod with Captain Rivera. To either side of him sat Dr. Renee Klaus of xenobiology, Dr. Theresa Nguyen of astronavigation, Dr. Catharine Redbird on communications, and to his far left, Ambassador Ambrose Nesmith. The elderly black man exchanged a smile with Penny, the same twinkle of nervous excitement in his eyes.
She felt better about this knowing she had someone so experienced on her side. Nesmith had been rewriting the rules of diplomatic conduct since before Penny could spell the words. The fact that she was working with him now left her dizzy with delight.
"Captain Rivera to ground control," Rivera said, flipping on the coms, "Checking in. How is the weather looking?"
"Everything looks good captain;" a controller answered calmly, "That storm we were keeping an eye on seems to have stalled off the coast, so it shouldn't be a problem. We're all good to go here."
"Excellent." Rivera practically glowed with pride, as though she could barely believe it was finally happening. Penny was in much the same boat.
"We have the documentary crew here watching the launch," the controller continued, "They'd like to know if you guys have any last words before the launch, anything to say to the folks back home?"
"I would like to politely request that ground control not use the term 'last words,' thank you," Dr. Cho suggested as laughter echoed over the coms, "And also remind my boyfriend not to let the fish die while I'm gone. Love you honey."
"I would like to say goodbye again to my partner," Captain Rivera said, her voice losing its crisp professional edge for a moment, "You and the kids are the best things that ever happened to me. Stay safe. I promise I'll be home soon."
"I have a message for my brother," Salome said next, "Stay strong, I believe in you. Watch after Alia, make sure she graduates. I expect to see her opening her own medical practice by the time I get back!"
"I'd just like to tell every Native and Indigenous kid out there that it isn't impossible and it isn't too late," Ian said, surprisingly serious for his usual flippant attitude, "Look at me and Redbird over there on the Hermes. Look how far we've come. There are no limits for you. So come and meet us in the stars!"
There was a small applause after that, and then eyes turned to Penny, who found herself briefly caught off guard.
"I guess," she said hesitantly, all the elegan
t words she'd prepared suddenly out of her reach, "I guess I'd like to tell my parents... Goodbye. I hope you're proud of me."
They took quotes from the Hermes crew next as a few last checks were made and the engines warmed up.
"It's just about that time everybody," the controller said, "Everything is green on this end. You are cleared for launch. Beginning countdown in..."
Penny took a deep breath, checking that she was strapped in and her helmet was secure, fussing as last minute nerves fluttered like a cloud of butterflies in her stomach. The countdown dwindled lower as the roar of the engines grew louder and louder in Penny's ears, drowning out everything else.
She closed her eyes, not sure if she was trembling or the ship was shaking. The count hit zero and several Gs of force hit her in the chest as the rockets kicked on and threw the Oshun and the Hermes into the atmosphere.
Riding waves of fire they soared six miles straight up. It was a tense ride, Ian and Rivera trading data and orders with ground control in rapid fire as they carefully guided the ship into the sky. Penny, not a critical part of the launch sequence, could do little but watch, fingers crossed that nothing would go wrong.
And then suddenly, they were in orbit. Penny felt the crushing resistance lift off of her all at once, her auburn hair drifting around her in her helmet as gravity let them go. The ship shuddered as the boosters decupled and floated away from them. Through the view screen, the Hermes was right beside them, doing the same.
"All good so far," Rivera reported with a relieved sigh, "Just waiting on alignment. Tell me when, Dr. Maurea."
"Won't be too long," Ian reported, staring down at his console, "Everything is going surprisingly well. I'd say it's safe to turn off the fasten seatbelts sign and move about the cabin."
"Agreed," Rivera nodded and Penny, excited, followed the others in unbuckling herself from her seat and floating upwards, weightless and graceful. Zero gravity was without a doubt one of the best parts of being an astronaut.
"Hey Salome," Cho called as she drifted upwards from her seat, "Do you have the files for the new transmission?"
"I had them transferred to the ship so I could she them to you," Salome confirmed, "I don't know why the keep skipping over you for me. I can tell them a lot they already know about its radiological make up and where it came from, but all they care about these days is what it means, and that's your area."
"That's what I keep saying," Cho huffed, "They don't take me seriously. No one does."
"They will after this," Penny reassured the other woman, "You're going down in history books today, whether we succeed or not."
"Do you want to come look over the files now?" Salome asked, "Since we're waiting on alignment anyway."
"Absolutely!" Cho agreed, grinning excitedly at the prospect, "Want to come with, Ambassador?"
Penny shook her head.
"No, that stuff all looks the same to me," she said, "Once you guys figure out the language, I'll start learning it, but until then it might as well be Greek."
"Except you actually speak Greek," Salome chuckled. Penny shrugged modestly.
"I'm going to go get the cryo pods ready," Penny said, drifting towards the hall as Salome pulled up the transmission files on the console, "Give me a shout when we're clear to move."
The ship was long and wide, tapering at both ends for a shape not unlike some kind of seed. At one rounded end was the bridge. Between was the kitchen, lab, and storage. At the far end was the bunk room. Currently empty, as Penny tapped on the touch pad near the door, five round, person-sized pods slid out of the walls in a configuration not unlike the chairs on the other end of the ship.
These were where the crew would rest in cryo sleep in between the long, uneventful portions of the trip, waking at scheduled intervals to check on their course, make necessary adjustments and repairs, and stretch their legs. During the portions of the trip where they'd be awake, the pods would slide back into the walls and be replaced by actual beds.
Penny waited for the pods to slide into place and began checking each one to make sure they were all functioning correctly, prepping them for the first cryo sleep of their journey.
It was a long trip, even traveling at near light speed, as they would be. So for the 'easy' part of the journey as they left the solar system and began heading for the Kepler region, they would save on food and relative time by sleeping through it.
"Ambassador! It's time!"
Penny heard the shout from the bridge and hurried back just as the ship began moving again, leaving Earth's atmosphere and the pleasant limbo of zero g. As her feet touched the floor again just outside the bridge, she paused to watch through the view screen as the Earth began to recede in the distance.
It dwindled slowly but visibly as they picked up speed. The Hermes was a silver star against the planet's blue green bulk, keeping its distance from Oshun while they both settled into their trajectories, just in case. The Hermes, its distance constant, only served to highlight how Earth behind it was growing smaller and more far away with every passing moment, taking with it everything Penny had ever known.
"It's scary, isn't it?"
Penny looked away as Cho came to stand beside her. The others were all watching the screens as well. All except Ian, who was still fixing their trajectory.
"Our families, our homes," Cho went on, looking back at Earth with undisguised wonder, "Every place we've ever been, everything we've ever touched, every memory we've made. All of it is right there. And we're leaving it behind. By the time we get back, everything will be different."
A small smile touched Penny's lips.
"Thank god," she replied, smiling out at her slowly vanishing home, and missed Cho's confused look.
Finally, Penny thought with undisguised relief, finally she was leaving all of it behind.
Penny felt it as their speed crept towards the light barrier, straining her body uncomfortably. All the inertial dampeners and gyroscopes in the world didn't stop near light speeds from wreaking havoc on living bodies, causing nausea, insomnia, and in prolonged cases aggression, paranoia, and a host of other maladies related to being in high stress situations for extended periods of time. This was just another reason to spend as much of this trip as possible in cryosleep.
Once the trajectory was set, the crew recorded last few logs, messages for family and ground control, and coordinated with Hermes, ensuring their trajectories matched and would keep them close while minimizing risk of collision.
There was also a certain allowance made in case one of the ships encountered trouble, such as flying too close to a previously unknown gravitational body or running into a cloud of asteroids. The hope being, even if one of the ships was destroyed, the other would be far enough away to avoid whatever had damaged the first ship, and thus survive to continue the mission.
They were more than each other's back up. They were each other’s redundancies, ensuring the mission could be completed even if 50% of personnel were lost.
Finally, with lingering glances through the view screen at Earth, shrunk now to the size of a blue marble in the distance, the crew made their way towards the back of the ship and their cryo pods.
Behind them, Rivera closed up, turning off the view screens and the lights, anything non-essential. Once the engines had them as close to light speed as their craft was built to withstand, those would shut down as well, momentum enough to maintain their speed in the frictionless vacuum of space.
Only the cryo pods would remain active, keeping the crew suspended in a state so close to death, it was almost indistinguishable from it, their hearts beating perhaps once an hour, their breathing stilled to nearly nothing. The concept had terrified Penny at first. It still did a little. But Salome had explained it to her enough times, and she'd been put under in enough trials runs, that it was no longer a fear she couldn't control.
She climbed in and lay down, glad NASA had put in the effort to at least make these pods as comfortable as possible. Gel foam padd
ing cradled her, molding to her shape as she lowered herself into its embrace, her heart rate still a little elevated by nervous excitement.
She saw Ian and Rivera lying down on either side of her. Rivera's face was set and thoughtful, still preoccupied with the mission. Ian seemed unbothered by the situation, actually yawning as he laid back. On the other side of the room, Cho and Salome were still talking about the last transmission.
"But don't you think it's weird how regular the structure of each transmission is?" Salome was saying, "Don't you think there's a chance they're being generated automatically?"
Cho shook her head, waving it off.
"No, see, your problem is you're imposing a human mindset on things," Cho replied, "Think about how different their culture will be from ours. They may have a totally different conception of language. Their form of life may, in all likelihood, be entirely unrecognizable to us. So making any kind of assumptions is pointless. Yeah the messages could be procedurally generated. Or it could be a kind of formal letter format reserved for interstellar messaging. Dear aliens, how was your day, sincerely whoever.
That kind of thing. Or maybe their culture regards language as sacred and only allows them a limited vocabulary for sharing with other species. There's no way to tell until we get there, because we could never hope to conceptualize what they're really like-"
"Lights out girls," Rivera called, fiddling with a touch pad near her pod, "That's enough chatter. I'm about to close the pods."
"I just hope it's intentional," Salome said as she laid back, the pods hissing pneumatically as they powered up, "I hope it's the invitation we thought it was. I'd hate to show up there with the equivalent of their day time TV reruns..."
"Hey, it could be worse," Cho replied as the pod's lid began to slide closed, "Some of the first TV signals we ever sent out into space were recordings of wars and injustices..."
The Warrior's Proposal (Celestial Mates Book 7) Page 8
