Journey to Kyron 2

The Arrival | Chapter 1 - Part 2

Chapter 1 - Part 1

Vessel Antipodes, the year 2968

Emerging from the Vessel Control Hub, Josinda worked hard to keep her breathing even. She had never seen her father so stressed and anxious before. He never lost his temper at her, much less kicked her out of the bridge. She would expect that of her no-nonsense mother, but Captain Yrwin Allen was known for being kind and indulgent, not just with his children, but with all of the hundred thousand-odd crew members under his command. To act like that, something had to be seriously wrong. 

And of course, it was. Not five minutes before, AiLa had informed her that if they carried on their current speed and trajectory, they would find themselves inside Pollus, the central star of this system, rather than orbiting around it. Or more precisely, in their targeted destination: orbiting a moon with an atmosphere that orbited a giant planet made of swirling gasses, that orbited Pollus just close enough that water could exist in liquid form.

She dropped her head back to look up at the opposite side of the cylinder as she walked. Everything seemed exactly as it was a couple of hours ago when she crossed this same park on her way to the bridge, but it felt completely different. The same trees held the same fluttering birds, and the same sea swirled peacefully overhead, past the central tubes that bisected the cylinder and allowed the passage of people, goods, and the shifting light source from one end to the other. The thought of a scorching wave of fire engulfing first the nose cone and then the rest of the tubular vessel made her physically shudder and there was a burning sensation in the back of her throat as hot bile made its way up her esophagus. 

She turned and vomited onto a shrub beside the path that she had used to exit the park, grimacing as hot chunky liquid splattered back onto her bare legs and feet.

When she finally reached the residential area where she lived, her forcon had pressed enough calming impulses into her wrist and forearm that she felt capable of reasoned thought again. Being born and growing up inside a giant rocket meant that the threat of instant death was a constant companion, but somehow, she generally managed to push the thought aside. As did everyone else onboard, she supposed, distracting themselves by focusing on their physical, intellectual, and creative pursuits.

She entered the ornate apartment building and raced up the stairs to the sixth floor, enjoying the exertion while at the same time appreciating the slight reduction of gravitational pull with each flight. Ignoring the temptation to throw herself onto the bed and shed a few hopeless tears, she dragged her lime green desk chair over and asked AiLa to pull up the footage from the bridge.

The opening images were as awe-inspiring as always. The real-time projection of the star onto the screen in the bridge was more exciting to her than the AI reconstructions that filled their textbooks and galleries. She couldn’t comprehend why other people didn’t find it as special as she did, but she kept producing her daily logs and publishing them on the public channels for her closest friends to appreciate, even if no one else clicked on them. She received creativity credits, which she supposed was as valuable as the attention of her crewmates.

“Ah, why did I say that?” She mumbled to herself, watching her father criticize the clichéd metaphors she used to describe the size of Xenon, Kyron’s mother planet, but she let the footage play. “Cherry? Ugh,” she said under her breath. “Who uses fruit to compare to planets? That’s for fetuses.”

The video played on, now further from the action where her parents discussed the pending disaster.

She half hoped that she had dreamt the words that AiLa, her AI assistant, had calmly spoken when she asked why the mad panic, but they played out in high fidelity as clearly as if she was saying them again now: “The heightened emotion in the room is a result of the failure of the navigation systems to initiate the deceleration protocol.”  

“What?”

Josinda jumped a mile and spun in her chair to face the shape that was emerging like a swamp monster from the mess of blankets on her unmade bed.

“Crya? What the fuck are you doing here?”

The white-haired teen gave a bashful grin and crawled over, stopping short before touching Josinda’s bare thigh, but leaning forward and squeezing her shoulders coyly towards her lowered chin. “Waiting for you, of course.”

“Hiding in my bed? Were you planning on giving me a heart attack if I climbed in?”

The slight shrug of Crya’s shoulders told Josinda that she hadn’t thought that far ahead.

“Are you OK?” Crya’s nose crinkled. “It smells like spew.”

Josinda sniffed once but she must have grown accustomed because she couldn’t smell it, although the thought made her stomach gurgle. “You better get out of here,” she said. “I’m making my daily vid, and it’s going to be … explosive.”

Crya creased her pale blue eyes and spoke slowly, pausing between each phrase. “I heard. What does that mean? Something about the deceleration protocol?”

“Just what it sounds like.” Josinda gave an exaggerated sigh. “We’re not bloody slowing down.” Her voice resembled her father’s in her ears. “Sorry, just a bit stressed is all,” she said, noting the hurt look on the girl’s face. She hadn’t meant to give the younger woman the idea that she was looking for anything serious, but she was too distracted to worry about that right now. 

Seeing Crya at her brother Mannium’s school performance a few weeks ago had piqued her interest. The folded lids over her eyes and low nose gave away her family ethnicity, but the clarity of her skin and hair made her unusual in a way that wasn’t stereotypically attractive but was extremely striking. She could see by the look in Mann’s eyes and the way that he hovered in her vicinity that he was also drawn to her, and he had enthusiastically introduced her to his sister who was 15 years his senior.

Then, he had watched on helplessly as Crya basked in the attention of the charismatic older woman and drifted away from him and their other classmates.

“So…” Crya’s voice was mousy. “You’re um… you’re going to put that in your daily?”

“Why not?” Josinda had swiveled her chair back to look at the projection. “People have a right to know if they need to kiss goodbye their children.”

“Shouldn’t it be up to the leadership team to decide when and how to deliver that… that news?”

Josinda slumped back into the curvature of the chair. “Crya, don’t be dumb. Who the fuck cares if we’re all about to be as dead as the other planets in this system?”

“Still…” Crya looked unconvinced. “Are you sure you’re not just going for shock value?”

Her gaze drifted over the header where Josinda had punched in the words, “WE’RE HEADING STRAIGHT FOR FIERY DOOM!!”

Josinda pursed her lips and repeated stubbornly, “People have a right to know.”

Crya nodded. “OK, well, you should get a fair bit of Interest then, even if it’s not Appreciation.”

“If I get enough, it’ll be in the data pack sent back to Earth,” she said in a voice more directed at the screen than the thin white figure on the bed.

Crya sat back on her haunches and watched on as Josinda worked with AiLa to paste in the deceleration protocol and the current trajectory in the appropriate places under the audio of the captains’ dialogue.

Satisfied, Josinda sat back and watched the whole thing through, leaning in when the shot panned over the cloud-covered blue image of their destination planet.

“Oh God, I hope we make it,” she said quietly. Then, louder, “What do you think?” She twisted her head sideways to give Crya an expectant smile.

“It’s…” Crya let several moments pass before speaking a single word. “Fine.”

“Fine?” Josinda scrolled backwards and forwards past the multiple images of her own smiling face as she narrated. “What do you mean? This is huge news, everyone will click through, right?”

“I mean, probably,” said Crya hastily. “It’s what you’d… expect to see? In an expected order.” She shrugged and looked at her hands.

Josinda frowned. “Whatever. As long as I like it, that’s the main thing.” Those words felt like a catch phrase at this point, since she muttered them with almost every video she produced. “I need to send it now, because we’re literally running out of time.”

“Yes. Of course. No, it’s really good Josie,” said Crya.

For some reason, the forced positivity made Josinda feel even more uneasy, but she had made up her mind.

“AiLa,” she said. “Please post—”

The screen suddenly went black and a crackle through their forcons told them that a vessel-wide communication was about to begin.

Chapter 1 - Part 3