Proxima

by Chase Hildenbrand

Liam’s memory returned an hour after he awoke. His head hurt and his body shivered as he exited the hibernation tube. Fingers trembling, he managed to put on his cold clothing which did nothing to bring him desired warmth. The walk back to his room was a slow and painful one. He cursed Gene Christensen for discovering this horrible process. The man must have acted like waking up was not a big deal, or maybe the longer you were under the more miserable you felt after awakening. He didn’t know.

  The hallways were empty. Liam woke in the first wave which consisted mainly of people with important positions. The passengers and most of the crew were still asleep, but the second wave would start the process within hours.

  Like Ann, he wanted a shower and food—the latter would have to come later. He managed a quick shower, which did little to help his body recover. In his room he opened a vacuum-sealed clothing bag. He was slipping the shirt over his head when his wall-screen pinged. A message. He touched the icon to open it. His presence was requested on the bridge. He noted the date in the bottom corner of the wall-screen. 3187.

  Inside the bridge, he saw Jameson hunched over a computer looking at a star map and completely oblivious to him approaching.

  “Hello, Captain. Are you as miserable as I am?”

  Jameson jumped out his seat—startled with his hand on his heart.

  “Shit, Liam! I guess you saw my message.”

  “I’m glad you asked me to join you. I know we had a falling out before the Big Sleep, but I hope we can get a fresh start now that we’re on the other side. We caught up with the rest of the fleet?”

  “No, Liam. Not exactly. Can you look at this map?”

  Jameson moved out of the way so Liam could get a better view. The map showed space in a six light-year radius from Earth. Not far from Earth was a blinking white light—their ship.

  “No...”

  Liam pulled up data from the computer that would tell them their miles travelled.

  “This—this can’t be right, can it? It says we’ve only gone three and a half billion miles.”

  Chapter 16

  “WE’RE STILL INSIDE the heliosphere! How the hell did this happen?” Liam paced the room, head in his hands. He tried to remain calm, but clearly failing. “Captain, weren’t you supposed to be on the maintenance crew?”

  Jameson leaned forward in his chair with his head bowed and elbows resting on his knees. He watched Liam pace back and forth.

  “I was, yes. I woke up I’m sure not long before you did. I thought this was the first rotation. I came in here and the first thing I did was pull up the star map to chart our progress. You can imagine my disbelief. I checked on the computer system who was awake and saw your name. I also pinged a few others.”

  As if on cue Percy disembarked the closest elevator. His walk was slow and deliberate. Liam recognized the familiar grimace on Percy’s face with each step he took.

  “I slept like shit. Or at least I woke up like shit. Not sure which. Liam I didn’t know you were on this rotation.”

  “I’m not Percy. This isn’t a rotation.”

  Both Liam and Percy stood, Jameson remained seated. Percy, clearly confused, looked between the two men.

  “What do you mean? It’s rotation two, right? I’m supposed to wake up every two hundred years just to check things out.”

  “Percy,” Jameson said. “It’s not the second rotation. There were no rotations.”

  Understanding dawned. No rotations.

  “What does that mean, then? Everything okay?

  Jameson stood to look him in the eye. “No. It seems we had a malfunction to systems. A full diagnostic report will be needed, but apparently we’ve been drifting out here, at the edge of our solar system for a thousand years.”

  “I—I don’t understand. What about the other ships?”

  “It appears they made it to Proxima. At least as of four and half years ago when their last encrypted relay left their ship to ping on our scanner.”

  Percy had to sit. The ramifications blindsided him. Liam continued pacing the room, his face betrayed his emotions. Jameson looked utterly defeated. The Hawking was his ship. He’d failed them.

  “Liam,” Percy said. “Ann—”

  “I know. God. I don’t...” Liam stopped his constant pace for a moment. “I don’t know what to do.” He picked up a nearby object off an officer’s workstation and heaved it across the room.

  “We’re in shock. I know. But let’s try and stay calm. We need to think rationally,” Jameson said, trying to ease the tension in the room. “We need a plan.”

  “A plan? Where was your plan when an alien ship appeared outside that fucking window?” Liam shouted, his emotions raging.

  “Your plan led us into a battle which may very well have crippled this ship!” Jameson retorted.

  “I saved twenty-five thousand lives. And at least I had the balls to do something.” Liam took a step toward the captain.

  “We’re stranded because of you,” Jameson replied, matching Liam’s step.

  Percy rushed ahead to land between the intense men. “Guys! Same team. Relax. This is a fucked up situation, I know it. We all do. Let’s try to keep our cool.”

  Liam and Jameson continued staring at each other, breathing heavily until Percy gave them each a little shove to separate them. Jameson turned away first as footsteps could be heard entering the room.

  “Hi, everybody. What’s going on, Captain?” a confused Officer Stacy Rednour asked. She was followed by Officer Jon Crouch.

  “Rednour, Crouch have a seat. How are you?”

  “Fine, sir. I wasn't scheduled to wake up for maintenance until the sixth rotation. Is something wrong?” Jon looked around the bridge as he asked, his eyes landed on the broken piece of equipment Liam threw across the room. He and Stacy pulled up two chairs. Liam, Percy, and Jameson sat as well.

  “There’s been a situation. This is not the first rotation—or the sixth. There were no wake-ups from anybody on the maintenance teams. We slept through it all. The year is 3187 and we only travelled just over three billion miles. We aren’t sure what went wrong, yet, but it appears it only affected our ship. The other four made it to the Proxima Centauri system.”

  Stacy and Jon sat stunned. Jon ran his hands through his hair while Stacy bent over, head between her legs.

  “Shit,” Jon said.

  “Yeah. That sums it up,” Percy said.

  “We’re in uncharted territory here,” Jameson said. “I’ve made sure no one else will be waking up for now. As for the command crew, I think it might just be the three of us in the first wave plus Mr. Donovan and Mr. Alvarez. We need to decide a course of action.”

  “Whatever you say, Captain, we’ll follow,” Stacy said, bringing her eyes up from the floor.

  “This is a decision that will impact thousands. I can’t put it all on my shoulders. We have a lot of work to do to find out what went wrong and where we stand. Listen, we all have much to process. I’m hungry after the Big Sleep as I’m sure you all are. How about I order us up some food. There are a few chefs who woke in the first wave to prepare the kitchens.”

  Everyone nodded their agreement and Jameson went to his computer terminal to place the order. Liam’s thoughts were torturous. Ann was four and a half light years away. Lost from him forever. The harsh reality crashed down, suffocating him. He would never see her again. Never touch her. Never hold her. When he closed his eyes saw her features. The radiant smile, the soft touch of her hands, the way her hair flowed down from her shoulders.

  If they could find a way to communicate, each transmission would be years apart. He would watch her grow old without him on a strange planet. He wondered if she was exploring the planet even now. Fascinated by new life to discover, or trying to find a way to bring life to dead soil. He knew she would thrive either way.

  But for now he had to keep himself in control and not let his emotions overrule his composure. Twenty-five thousand lives had been disrupted by a blindsiding error. He needed
to be on top of his game to help the people conquer this challenge together. Maybe Jameson was right. Maybe this was his fault. If he had handled things differently when the alien came on board they may not have gotten involved in a battle which may have damaged their ship beyond what was discovered in the inspections. So many what-ifs and maybes to consider. He tried to put them all aside and concentrate on the situation at hand. Blame could be passed around later, whether it fell on his shoulders or not. But what’s done was done. It was time to dig in and fix the problem.

  “Listen everyone. Captain Jameson especially. I apologize for my behavior. It was uncalled for and unprofessional.”

  “Liam, it’s alright to be upset,” Percy said. “This is all so messed up.”

  “I accept your apology and I offer my own. We need level heads.” Jameson extended his hand. Liam shook it.

  “Now,” Jameson began, “we have a problem to solve. We need to know who else woke up with the first wave. The chefs, us, but who else? If anybody essential is still sleeping then we need to wake them immediately. Crouch, Rednour, if I had to bet, I would say we have problems on two fronts. The engines weren’t as fixed as we thought, and something happened to the hibernation schedule. I want you two working on finding out what the hell happened. Liam and I need to discuss strategy. Percy, you’re the security chief, but since there’s not many awake, I’d like to keep you in here to help advise.”

  “Yes, sir,” Percy said.

  A ding from the elevator bay announced the arrival of their food. A chef brought in four plates of brown and green mush, but at least it smelled good.

  Liam and the others forced the food down as fast as they could. Its effect was immediate and his mind was already thinking more clearly. He ran through the options in his head as he ate. Option A: fix whatever went wrong, go back to sleep, and arrive at Proxima b a thousand years too late. He leaned more toward option B.

  “I think I know what we should do,” he said. “You guys are all thinking about Proxima. Of course you are, we have friends—loved ones—there. It’s only natural we want to follow them. But we have an option they don’t have. We could fall back asleep and do this all over again, sure. Or we could turn around—head back to Earth.”

  “Earth? Interesting. But if it’s uninhabitable, or even worse ruled by a species other than humans, then what?” Percy asked.

  “We have probes on board, remember? I think we should go to Mars and launch them. On our journey there we can fix whatever went wrong, and if we are detected by anybody unfriendly, we high tail out of there. If we can live on Earth, though, think of the possibilities. Assuming our friends made it alright to Proxima, we will be a two-planet species. Enough of us remain on board this ship to repopulate the planet.”

  “It’s a smart idea Liam, but if we go to Proxima,” Jameson said, “then by the time we arrive, there would be a functional society to meet us. All the hard work restarting civilization will have already been done for us.”

  “We’d be strangers,” Stacy said. “Strangers to them, strangers to the planet. Who knows what their culture could be like a thousand years from now? In some ways it might be easier, sure, but there would be so many variables outside of our control.”

  Jon added, “If we can resettle Earth, we could mold our society the way we all want it to be. Not to mention we’d be more familiar with the planet itself.”

  “Both options present challenges. We’re not going anywhere until the systems are back online. That is priority number one. After that, we take a vote. Not the four of us—every woken soul on board will have an equal vote. Those still asleep will have to live with whatever we decide,” Jameson said.

  “Is that fair?” Liam asked. “A few hundred deciding for twenty-five thousand?”

  “Let’s not forget that the vast majority on board are passengers. Not scientists, not crew members,” Percy said.

  “So they don’t get a vote because they’re not one of us?” Stacy asked, looking around the room. “They’re still humans on a voyage to save humanity.”

  “I have to agree with Stacy. Everyone should vote,” Liam said.

  “Crouch? What do you think?” Jameson asked.

  “I would put it to a ship-wide vote. I think once we fix the cause of all this, we wake up the others. If I were asleep and this decision was made without me, I know I’d be pissed. Excuse my language, sir.”

  “I think we can begin to relax some of the formalities, Jon,” Jameson said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  They spent the evening in groups. Liam, Percy, and Jameson pored over personnel files and determined that every essential person was awake aside from a few more mechanics and electrical engineers. They set up a meeting with a team to inspect the engines.

  Electrical power to the ship was only generating at twenty percent capability resulting in numerous sections of the ship being without power. The twenty percent was automatically rerouted to essential systems.

  Meanwhile, Jon and Stacy sorted through a mountain of saved data. Since the ship failed to travel further than their own solar system, they narrowed their focus to the first two years of the journey. Each automated system was designed to record daily reports. One hundred and fifty-seven automated systems operated The Hawking during the Big Sleep.

  As the evening began to close, the remaining command crew needed to operate the bridge were awoken and filled in on the details. None of them took it well, but each remained professional. They were assigned to assist Jon and Stacy.

  By midnight the last of the ship’s essential personnel had woken, showered, and been fed. The population awake on the ship multiplied to three hundred and twelve. Using the intercom system, Jameson called a ship-wide meeting to take place at eight a.m. in the crew cafeteria where he would break down their situation. At one a.m., the group dismissed and returned to their individual quarters.

  Alone again, Liam expected his emotions to take the better of him, but they never surfaced. He was too numb. The urge to drink swelled inside. Lying in bed, he wondered if anyone on board snuck some in and how he could find it. His own rule he wanted to break, but he knew there wasn’t time for self-pity. It was time to rest.

  The next morning he woke early and had breakfast delivered to his door. Today’s was a yellow paste that was supposed to taste like eggs—it didn’t. He got it down in three swallows and began removing his clothing from their vacuum sealed bags. Being a military man he made sure his bed was made neatly before he left his quarters to meet with the others in the cafeteria. They agreed to meet a half hour before people would show up to go over any possible new developments with Jon and Stacy.

  He arrived simultaneously with Percy, the other three came moments later.

  “Good morning, sirs,” Stacy said. “I’ll get right to it. After you all left last night, I dug deeper into the computer program that was supposed to monitor each of the systems on the ship while we were all asleep. There are thousands of systems as you know. The program wasn’t performing optimally. I ran it three different times and got three different results. Whatever happened, that program was obviously affected. So I stayed up all night and designed a new diagnostic program that would analyze all the ship’s systems and rank them in priority—life support, engines, hibernation, et cetera.” She could tell by the look on their faces that more explanation was needed. “I used to be a computer programmer before joining the military. One of the best actually, which is why I was recruited in the first place.”

  “Is the program finished?” Jameson asked.

  “Yes it is. I emailed the report to each of you.”

  Each of the four opened the email on their cells and spent the next minute or two reading through the data.

  “Wow. This is impressive,” Liam said. “It looks like at least half of the systems on the ship are operating below minimum performance. Now we know what needs work and how much. Thank you, Stacy.”

  “Excellent work!” Jon said. He looked at her with a smile an
d respect.

  “We know what’s broken now, but we still don’t know why. This is a great start, though,” Jameson admired.

  “Thank you, sir,” Stacy said with a hint of an upturned smile.

  It wasn’t long before everyone awake on the ship was piled into the cafeteria eating their mushy breakfast. By now they all knew it was 3187. Many of them were scheduled to wake up periodically on different rotations so none of them knew what exactly was going on. The few who did know had been ordered to keep it to themselves until the formal announcement that morning. By the time the captain got their attention they were anxious for any news.

  Jameson explained the situation to them as gently as he could. Liam was surprised how well they took it. Some wept, others merely sat in stony silence, meals forgotten and growing cold. However, when the mood was at its lowest, he marveled at how well Jameson pumped motivation into the icy atmosphere. The captain had a way with words and his speech was one for the books. It was like a pendulum swing. By the time he was done, they may not have been up on their feet cheering for the man, but they were definitely motivated to get to work and solve the ship’s problems.

  “That was intense,” Percy said to Liam as they stood off to the side. Liam agreed.

  It was also effective. The crew rallied behind Jameson’s message and the mission. For the next week everyone worked tirelessly going from system to system diagnosing the issues and beginning to repair them. One by one the smaller systems returned to full functionality. Meanwhile, Jameson and his bridge crew slowly got the ship turned around and started creeping its way to Mars.

  Three days post-wake up, the clean energy department who worked on the water turbine system that provided the bulk of power to the ship discovered the problem. A seemingly small and insignificant piece of the machine that generated the power output to distribute it throughout the ship was faulty. Through a chain reaction of unfortunate events Liam didn’t quite understand when he was told, the ship followed a safety protocol shutting down its powerful rear thrusters and then used its smaller front-side thrusters to slow down to a crawl.