Wake up
Space is endless, dark, quiet, but so beautiful. The stars shining and nebulas in all different colors give the endless darkness a spark of color. The peace of it all is disturbed when a ship appears.
The starship Avalon.
Destination: The colony world of Homestead II
The ship is enormous and going fast, unruffled by anything it's way, in the forefront a force field is up to protect the ship and all its occupants, it comes in handy when the ship is heading right into an asteroid belt. The asteroids that collide with the force field are immediately reduced to atoms, but the amount of asteroids, meteors and comets are too much for the field to handle so the ship sends any energy that can be spared into maintaining the force field.
In the distance though there is an asteroid in much, much bigger size, it's quickly heading towards the ship at an absurd high speed. It hits the shield with such force that the power goes out for just a second, in the ship it's dark and shaking from the aftershock of the hit. The lights come back on but in the control brink there are numerous holograms that state that many repairs are needed, one by one the repairs are done, except for one.
Pod 1498
– – – –
James Potter
Denver. Colorado
Rate 2 Mechanical Engineer
Stage 1 post status injection
Down on the passengers deck there are hundreds upon hundreds of pods, 5000 in fact. Six pods make up one column, and at one column the lights flicker and one of the pods lights up. It lets out a hiss as air starts flooding pod one again, the mechanisms in the pod comes to life and gives the person lying inside three different shots to start all metabolic activity, the band that lays around his neck and down his chest, over his heart, is an defibrillator, meant to shock the heart to start beating and allows it to start a normal rhythm again.
The man inhales sharply and takes his first breath, the clips that were on his fingers monitoring his vitals disappear back into the pod, it starts to open to be able to let the man out. The surface he is laying on starts to rise so that he is laying in an upright position, a hologram of a woman appears before him.
“Good morning James, how are you feeling?” the holographic woman asks, her dark blue uniform making her brown eyes warmer, kinder.
“Wait. What?” James eyes widens, panic clear as he starts to struggle in his pod, trying to feel where he is. His heart rate picks up and he becomes short of breath as he start to panic harder.
“It's perfectly normal to feel confused. You just spent 120 years in suspended animation.” James reaches out to touch the hologram but his hand goes right through it, making the lady's words glitch.
“What” He breathes out, not really able to comprehend what is happening or what the woman is saying, the panic is still there, making it hard to breathe.
Did she just say 120 years?!
“It's okay, James. Just breathe, everything is okay” The woman says as the pod starts rolling away, trying to make James calm down a little.
“Where am I?”
“You are a passenger on the starship Avalon, the homestead company´s premier interstellar starliner.” The pod rolls into a room made of glass that immediately starts reading his vitals to make sure everything is as it should be.
“We´ve nearly completed the voyage from Earth to your new home. The colony world of Homestead II” A red scanner starts scanning him from the top of his head to the tips of his toes.
“A new world, a fresh start. Room to grow.” Images appear before him, a picture of homestead II, looking so much like earth that it takes him back a little, images of empty fields and waterfalls follow and a warm feeling starts to make its home in his chest.
“Oh, yeah” James let out in a whisper.
“The Avalon is on final approach, for the four months you´ll enjoy space travel at its most luxurious. Food, fun, friends.”
“My friends,” He let out in a drowsy voice.
“That's right, James. The ID band on your wrist is your key to the wonders of Avalon.”
James raises his hand to look at his wrist, and just like she said, there is a silver band on his right wrist.
The machine chimes, signaling that the physical exam is over.
“You´re in perfect health James. Let's get you to your cabin, where you can get some rest.”
– – – –
The door opens and the lights slowly start lighting up the corridor. There are small robots on the floor that speeds through an opening in the wall as soon as James takes a few steps into the room.
My head is killing me, Jesus christ.
“You may be experiencing post-hibernation sickness.” say the same voice that talked to him when he first woke up, the volume of the voice is a bit to high for him at the moment, it perses through his head and makes everything spin, black spots starts dancing before his eyes but he tries to push past is and continues forward so that he can get to his room and lie down and sleep like the dead.
“Your door will illuminate for you” the voice said, just as a door down the corridor to his left began to glow a soft blue.
Still feeling like shit, James slowly makes his way to his cabin, raising his hand with his ID band to open the door. It slides right open and allows him to enter, there is another hologram in there, same lady but now he can see all of her, she starts talking as he crosses the threshold.
“Welcome to your cabin, your home until we make landfall. Over the next four months you´ll prepare for your new life on Homestead II, meet your fellow passengers, take skill building classes, and learn about colonial living.”
Yeah that's not happening until I feel less like I'm gonna kneel over. James thought as he let out a big yawn, aggravating his headache even more, making him wince.
“You have been assigned to learning group 38, for passengers with engineering and technical trade skills. Please scan your ID to confirm luggage delivery.”
James looks at her, then back at where his suitcase appears from a hidden panel in the wall, still not fully understanding what is happening around him, just wanting to go to sleep so that the bangging behind his eye can finally stop.
“James”
He hears his name and looks back at the lady, he doesn't know her name, she never introduced herself but she looks kind. She seems like someone that likes to laugh, James likes to laugh, Wait what am I supposed to do. He doesn't have to ask as the lady looks at him with a gaze full of understanding and patience.
“Please scan your ID to confirm luggage delivery.”
Right, that's what she said. He notices a circle in the hologram that the lady is motioning towards so he lifts his hand and taps it on the hologram. As soon as he taped it he heard something like flowing water behind him.
“To help you recover from hibernation, be sure to drink plenty of fluids.” James sees a dispenser that is filling a cup up with some pink liquid, it's not water but it's something to clench the thirst in his throat that is starting to bother him, so he takes a few steps to reach the drink, swaying dangerously on the way over. He takes the cup and starts to gulp it down, it tastes sweet, not sickeningly sweet but like strawberries, he loves strawberries.
“Enjoy the rest of your voyage on the Avalon, a homestead company starship.”
The hologram flickers out and the lady disappears, it's quiet now and for that James is thankful, the drink helps his headache a little but it is still in full swing. He looks around, trying to locate the bed, for the first time since he stepped a foot in the room James actually takes notice of his surroundings, he is currently in a hallway that has one door on the right that turns out to be the bathroom when he opens the door. He doesen´t border to look to closely how the bathroom looks, he is on a mission to fins his bed and pass the fuck out.
He continues down the hallway, it opens up into an open space that looks like a living room, still no bed. He sports a staircase and seeing as there are no more doors the bedroom has to be up the stairs, so James slowly makes his way up, taking a few pauses when black spots once again start to dance in his line of sight. Finally he is at the top of stairs and right before his is the most lovely sight he has ever seen, a big soft looking bed, he walks forward and falls into the bed, face planting into the soft duvet. Something is digging into his face, and for the first time he notice that he is actually wearing his glasses, how he didn't realize that before he has no ide, but he doesn't have the energy to try to figure that out so Jame crawls his way up the bed and takes his glasses of, putting them on the nightstand besides the bed. He fights with the duvet for a minute until he can get under it and snuggle up, the lights dimes immediately and then goes out, as if the ship knows he is going to sleep.
Who knows, maybe it's alive somehow.