I Like Him

Adria opened her eyes slowly. The awakening was never pleasant as the cryogenics wore off. It left people with a feeling of unease and nausea. It was best to lie still and get your bearings before trying to sit up. She had learned this the hard way the first time she woke up. It took the droid a few minutes to clean up that mess and she needed a new uniform.

She struggled to remember how long she had been in cryogenic sleep this time. This was her fourth sleep since embarking on humanity’s greatest ever migration. In the early 2000s forward thinking people started building the largest space faring ship ever imagined. It was large enough to transport five million people, billions of seeds and plants, and millions of animals. It was a true ark.

They did this because the Earth was in trouble. They tried telling people about the effects of climate change, but most people didn’t listen. So, a group of philanthropists, scientists, and engineers came together and hatched a plan to save the people, animals and plants of our beautiful planet. It took years, but it was finished just as things were getting serious on Earth.

There were crazy weather events, famines, droughts, floods of epic proportions and of course conflicts over what was left. So many people died. As all of this was happening the group that called itself ERP (Earth Relocation Project) had swung into action.

Over the years they had compiled a list of the world’s best and brightest and their families. It became their mission to secretly recruit these people without exposing themselves to the world’s governments. They already had an idea that something was going on, but ERP had been very careful.

The recruitment took a few years and finally, in June of 2150 everything was in place. Everyone and everything was safely on board. Before anyone else on Earth knew what was happening, they had launched and were on their way. On their way to where? Good question. By now, they were deep into space and as a junior engineer Adria was not privy to that information. Everytime she awakened, she was given an assignment by a droid. She performed her duties, usually for thirty days and then go back to cryo until the next time.

It was lonely, as every person had their own duties in their own section of the ship. She hadn’t seen another human being since coming out of cryo the first time. It finally dawned on her that her sleep had been ten years this time. In total, she had slept for 30 years and yet aged only 3 months. When she boarded, Adria was thirty years old and one of the best aerospace engineers in her company. Her physical age was still thirty, but really she had been in cryo sleep for a total of thirty-five years and was sixty-five years old.

She smiled at this thought and started her lonely walk down the corridor to her station. She stopped when she heard music. Where was it coming from? As she got closer to the door, she realized that the sound was coming from the other side.

Adria was confused. Did the last person leave their music on before the went back to cryo? She held up her hand to the scanner and the door slid open. She jumped back, unsure of what to do. There was a man in her seat!

“Who the hell are you?!” They asked at the same time.

“What? You go first.” I seems that they were in sync somehow, because every time they opened their mouths, they said the same thing.

Adria paused and when it seemed that they had both recovered from the shock of seeing another human being, she took a deep breath and said “I’m Adria Malek, Engineer 2nd Class. Who are you?”

The man stood up, straightened his uniform and said “I’m Jack Purcell, Engineer 2nd Class and I’m very confused. I haven’t seen anyone since I boarded the ship. I just woke up a couple of hours ago. Why are you here?”

Adria’s brow furrowed. “I just woke up a few minutes ago. Something is wrong. There shouldn’t be two of us up at the same time. We need to figure out what’s going on. Maybe this has happened in other areas of the ship. Did you check the ship’s status yet?”

“Look Officer Malek. I know what I’m doing. There’s nothing wrong with the ship. All stations are reporting in as normal. It’s obviously some kind of computer error. Why don’t you just go back to your cryo unit and go back to sleep? I was up first, so your pod must have malfunctioned. GO check it out and get back to bed.” Ordered Purcell.

“Excuse me? I believe that the insignia on my uniform rank me above you and you address me properly. Stay at your post and I’ll check out my pod. When I get back, we’ll decide who goes back to sleep, Officer Purcell.” Barked Adria.

“Yes sir.” Smiled Purcell. “Whatever you say.”

Adria gripped to herself all the way back to her pod. Who the hell did this Purcell think he was? She barely outranked him, but she’d be damned if she let him call the shots. She checked out her pod and ran a diagnostic. It was fine. She activated her radio and contacted Purcell.

“Hey, Purcell. Everything checks out at my pod. Where’s yours? I’m going to check it out next.”

“Sure thing boss. My pod is in corridor 12, section B.” He quipped.

Adria told herself to breath. She thought it would be great to see another person again, but now she wasn’t too sure. This Purcell guy was a pain in the ass.

She reached his pod and performed the same diagnostic. It was fine too. That was weird. Why would the computer have woken up two people at the same time. They were nowhere near their final destination as that journey was going to take 250 years.

Adria walked briskly back to her/Purcell’s station.

“Well, what did you find?” He asked.

Adria frowned at him, wondering if he grasped the potential seriousness of their situation. She guessed not, seeing as how flippant and sarcastic he was

“Both our pods check out. That concerns me. It’s not supposed to happen unless there’s something wrong.” She said.

“Well sir, what do you suggest we do?” He smiled again.

Adria wanted to wipe that smile off his face, but she knew they had other things to worry about.

She pushed her way into the small room and started running ship wide diagnostics.

“Woah there sir. Are you serious about something being wrong, because I haven’t seen any anomalies on my reports.” Now he was starting to sound worried.

If she never saw this guy again, she’d be happy.

“Look Jack, why don’t you do something useful and help me figure out what’s going on?” She yelled.

“Jeez, okay. Keep your pants on. What diagnostics are you running?” He asked.

Finally, he was starting to get it. She told him what she was doing and set him up to run some other programs. After about two hours, Jack stood up from his chair.

“Oh, shit!” He exclaimed.

“What?!” Asked Adria.

“Okay, we need to not panic, but there’s a hull breach on deck fifty. The monitoring stations are still on there, but I think whoever was there is either dead, or incapacitated. What do we do?” He looked to Adria.

She searched her memory for what to do next. They studied the data to see how bad the breach was, so that they could come up with a plan. Repair droids should have been deployed when the breach was detected, but that hadn’t happened. The protocol was to send a droid outside the ship to take a look at the damage.

The next few hours was a comedy of errors as Jack and Adria couldn’t agree on anything. When they finally got a look at the damage, they were ready to shove each other out an airlock.

“Oh my God!” They said in unison.

The breach was bigger than they had imagined. They had no idea what and who had been sucked into the void of space, but they needed to get that hole fixed. They sent out every droid they could find and within a day, the breach was sealed. It wasn’t perfect, but it would hold.

As pressure and atmosphere returned to that section, Adria ordered Jack to accompany her to the damaged section.

“Why do I have to go too?” He questioned.

The look on her face must have scared him, because he jumped out of his chair and started walking to the nearest lift.

The damage inside was extensive and the officer who had been on duty was missing and presumed dead. All-in-all things could have been worse. They woke up the next officer on the list and filled her in on what had happened. She looked shocked, but assumed her duty and thanked them.

As they exited the lift back onto their deck, Adria turned and faced Jack.

“You are a flippant, disrespectful idiot and I hope I never see you again, but thank you for your help. Now get back to your pod. I’m pulling rank and assuming my station.” She ordered.

For a moment, Officer Purcell looked like he was going to argue, but instead he saluted and exclaimed, “Thank you sir. It was fun. Don’t break anything.” and off he went.

What an ass, thought Adria as she sat down at her station. I like him.