Kiera
Okay. Seriously! That blaring alarm was just obnoxious. It reminded me of the fire station sirens from when I still lived in the city. They were designed to draw attention, but this was ridiculous. Wait. Alarms?
My mind felt foggy. Those alarms were supposed to mean something. Something important. The room around me shuddered and it woke me as nothing else could have. Alarms! The sleep serum was making me sluggish. The antidote was supposed to be an instant wake-up call. The pod I was in shuddered again.
I blindly hit the button at my side. My pod drawer opened and I rolled into a crouch next to the pod as it automatically shut again, sensing that no one was in it any longer. Looking around, it took me a moment to get my bearings. Four other pods were next to mine. My crew members. My family. They hadn't woken yet. The alarms were designed to only awaken me in the event of an emergency. Stupid protocol if you ask me. The wailing siren, flashing lights and automated voice over the intercom told me something was very, very wrong with my ship. Something I wouldn't be able to fix on my own.
The power flickering instantly put me in commander mode. I stood and raced for the cockpit. On the way, I slapped the emergency release button to wake the others. Jumping into my seat, I began to systematically scan the readouts on the monitors in front of me.
If the readouts were accurate, we were only about three-fourths of the way to our destination. A planet that we had hoped could sustain life. We should have slept for another four months though.
Over the last century, Earth has become severely overpopulated. Almost all of its resources had been used up. It was past the point of us saving it. Especially with roughly twenty-one billion people trying to survive on it. After much, much deliberation, it was decided that the only solution was to begin looking off planet for people's survival.
There were small colonies on Mars and the Moon, but as the atmosphere wasn't viable, only the extremely wealthy could afford to go there. That didn't fix any of the problems for everyone else.
Thus, the International Collective Space Alternative, or ICSA, was established. All space programs from every major country had combined their knowledge and resources to try and find an alternative planet to colonize. For once, there had been no fighting and grandstanding. No 'our country is better than yours'. The United States, China, Russia, and several other countries were determined to save humankind from itself. Once we had all come together, unbelievable advancements were achieved.
In the past twenty years, over three hundred drones and satellites have been sent out into space. Each searching for a planet with an atmosphere similar to Earth's. Surprisingly, several had sent back information regarding previously unknown planets that could be what we were looking for. With each one that was found, an exploratory team was sent out to get more details about the planet.
My team had been headed to just such a planet that our superiors had labeled Terra495. We were to do everything from atmospheric readings to exploring the planet for any hostile lifeforms. Our main objective was to find out if it could sustain human life and, if so, how many, and how dangerous it would be to live there. But we had to get there first.
I was making adjustments to turn the annoying sirens off when my team began hastily staggering in. We were all dressed the same. White drawstring pants, white tank tops and, of course, white socks. Apparently, color was too much to ask for.
Greg made it to his station and began taking stock of the information in front of him. Without waiting for them to fully wake up, I began shooting orders.
"Greg, check hull damage. I need to know how bad it is. We went through an asteroid field. The autopilot didn't find it in time to avoid it. Mikhail, check engines. We're dragging and not getting full power. Bao, life support. Fabrizio, check for surrounding planets. We may need to find somewhere to crash. Literally." I didn't want to say it, but the chances of there being a planet nearby were slim to none.
Shudders were raking the ship continually now. Power was flickering, the annoying automated voice got deeper and slower as the computers began losing power. The ship was designed to shoot anything in its path with a laser. It would either deflect it or destroy it. The asteroid field had simply been too large with too many obstacles. It had been impossible for it to avoid every single one. The hazards of space travel.
"The hull is damaged in sections four, three, and six. Significant damage. Four and six can be repaired, but the damage in section three went all the way to the engine room," Greg reported. He was making his own adjustments, trying to divert power to only the sections needed to keep us alive.
"Life support is dropping," Bao chimed in. "If we are going to do something, it needs to be soon." She was cutting off life support in all sections except what we absolutely needed to survive. We had all trained for just such a contingency. We knew what needed to be done.
"Mikhail?" I shot out.
"The main engine is fried. We are running on back up. It's barely enough to keep us alive to get to the escape pod." He turned to a different screen. "There is no fixing this. Life support would go out before we could even fix half of the damage done."
"I second that, Commander," Bao spoke up. "Even with blocking off half the ship, we only have life support for maybe two hours. And that is only if we confine it to this room and the launch pad where the escape pod is located. We would still need to wear our space suits."
I barely contained the growl that was itching to escape my throat. I refused to let my team die in this metal, floating piece-of-shit ship. It was supposed to have been built to withstand anything.
"Fabrizio! Give me some good news, or we are going to be living in an escape pod for the unforeseeable future." I switched the power off to more sections. The ship was large. It would take all of us working together to make this work. Now, the only sections left with any power were the two Bao had advised to be left alone.
"There is a planet that is kind of close. It's one we have never seen before. The asteroid field must have blocked any of our scans from finding it. Now that we are on this side of it, the planet is visible. It's a little bigger than Earth. Atmosphere is similar as well." He sent the information to the screen in front of me so I could get a better look. The excitement in his voice was clear.
Where Earth had once been a blue planet with large land masses of green, it was now mostly brown with gray clouds where the storms had begun to take over the planet. This planet was completely different. It was equal parts of what seemed to be purple water and red land masses. There was a cloud here or there but nothing like what we had become used to seeing. "Can we make it in the escape pod?"
"We can," he replied. "It will be tight though. Once we get there and land, unless we find an alternative fuel source, that's it. There will be no moving the pod. From what I can grasp of the terrain from this distance, landing is going to be difficult. There aren't many flat areas. There are steep mountains and large masses of water. Not much in between."
I couldn't contain the grimace. My gut was telling me this was not going to be a simple landing. "At this point, it's our only hope. And there is no telling how long life support will last in the escape pod. Okay, people. Everyone to the pod. Most of what we need is already there, but quickly grab whatever isn't. I've sent a message to headquarters. Who knows if they will actually get it. Even if they do, it will be at least six months before they receive it, much less send help. That planet is our new home." Locking everything down, I followed the others out to the launch pad at a fast clip.
There was nothing that I needed to grab. As an extra precaution, before we left, I'd had my crew stow all their gear in the escape pod. The higher ups were not happy about it, but there had been nothing they could do. Once we had set foot on the ship it had officially become ours. They had no say in where we stored anything. I was now grateful that I had listened to my instincts.
Our space suits were located just outside the large escape pod. Just as we had trained, we quickly put them on and tested the communications inside the helmets. We always used to laugh at the large suits that our ancestors had once used. We had never seen the point in wearing something that was so bulky that you could barely move in it. The suits we donned now fit our body shape. The helmets were more like motorcycle helmets. The ease of movement helped us get to our seats inside the pod faster.
Taking the controls, I fired the engines and loaded the coordinates of the nearby planet into the guidance system. The bay doors of the outside ship opened with a command from Mikhail's station. Very carefully but with more speed than finesse, I eased the pod out of the ship that had begun to tilt into a slow spiral.
The complete blackness of space greeted us. In the distance, a small asteroid belt could be seen. Looking back at the ship through the thick panels of the view screen, I finally accepted that there was no saving it. Even if we'd had the resources, there was a whole the size of a small car on the side of it. I sighed regretfully. That ship was the start of a new life for us. A new adventure. We were lucky. If that asteroid had hit close to where our life pods had been, we would have died not even realizing we were in danger. Small miracles.
Turning the pod, the planet we were aiming for came into view. My brain automatically did its own calculations for the distance and fuel we had in the pod. I trusted Fab's word. If he said we could make it, I knew we would. It's just how my brain works. A sigh slipped from me before I could stop it. I loved these guys. But the thought of living in this tiny escape pod with them in this close proximity? Not really something I wanted to experience.
"There is a landing spot here, Commander," Fabrizio sent the coordinates for the area he had found. "It's small, but we should be able to land there. It's right on the edge of the ocean."
"Then that is where we are headed. Time to intercept?"
"Twenty-five minutes."
"Copy that."
For the next twenty minutes, my crew did as much research on our new home as our limited signal would allow. It wasn't much but it was enough for us to be reassured that we would survive. At least from the atmosphere. With our skills and training, I had no doubt that we would survive whatever creatures were on the surface.
We were entering the planet's atmosphere when an alarm sounded. Again with the alarms. The pod suddenly picked up speed instead of easing into the course I had set. No matter what I did to try and adjust, nothing was working. It was almost like we had been drawn in by a large magnet. "Hold on, we are coming in hot. There's something different in the atmosphere. I've lost most of my controls."
"There is an element in the air that I've never seen before," Fab shouted over the blaring alarm.
I had no time to silence it. "It's interfering with my controls. I have steering but little else."
"Aim for the edge of the water just offshore. We'll swim," Mikhail shouted.
Taking his advice, I aimed for an area just offshore. "Brace yourselves!" Just before impact, I released my grip on the controls and crossed my arms to brace, gripping the seat restraints. Two seconds later we slammed into the water. The jolt was so hard I was sure I would have bruises. Dread filled me as water surged across my boots.