The Shooting Star She Saw
Decided to do something a little different and challenge myself to create short stories based on the episode names of some of my favourite tv programs, they maybe set to similar themes as the program or something completely different. Hope you enjoy.
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Skye sat in the lip of one of the large observation windows that dotted the colony ship, from the outside of the large vessel they looked like fisheyes dotted in a uniform pattern.
They gave the ship an odd look, but for the approx. 100,000 inhabitants of the colony ship they were a welcome view for the world outside. Though many could be very sparce of colonists giving the 1.5km length of the ship and the cryo cycles.
Given the journeys length and the need to conserve power and supplies the inhabitants would be cycled in and out of cryo sleep at predetermined intervals. They all had their role in maintaining the ship, it to make sure they all made it to their destination.
Some asked why they could not simply put the ship on auto pilot and all its inhabitants to sleep, but to this day they had yet to perfect hibernation technology, they could afford people to sleep for as much as 10 years without mishap, but after 10 years, something happened to the body while in cryo that scientists were yet to explain and so the 10-year cycle was brought into effect.
As the colonists were awake, they were put to work as this was not free ride.
Skye was on her break in the lower decks spending a bit of time looking out at the stars, her mind struggled to comprehend the idea that the ship was moving at great speed yet, the stars remained still in the darkness of space.
It was as if they were dead in space, a drift, destinated to run out of fuel and supplies, traped in a 1.5km tomb likely to never be discover as it drifted lifelessly through space…as the thought consumed her mind, she closed her eyes and searched for the feeling, searched for the gentle vibration, the gentle hum letting her know the engines were running.
It was not the first time she had felt a sharp worry, a sharp stab of fear when she let her mind wonder and lost the sensation, having to find it once more to calm herself. She did not like being awake, she preferred to be in cryo sleep, you could not feel fear in cryo sleep, she feared how far they were away from help, from support if something when wrong.
It would not be the first colony ship to simply disappear never to be seen or heard from again.
‘The risk and rewards of a better life’ she snorted thinking about the ads the Citadel Colony Program used to run, the same ad that resulted her in being on this flying tomb.
Skye felt a vibration on her wrist, it was her timer reminding her it was time to go back to work as she contemplated what that actually meant, if she didn’t do it then no one would know, one of the ships repair bots would simply do it for her.
It was merely a way to pass the time between sleeps and for the repair bots not to be used, using them meant more maintenance and repairs were needed, and repair bots were not cheap, it was cheaper to get the humans on board to do the work and save the bots.
She ignored the vibration on her wrist, it was her own timer, no one was coming to check up on her as she saw the forlorn expression on her face through the window, staring deep into her own eyes.
Feeling the piercing darkness, feeling the cold as her eyes unfocused.
She was not sure how long she sat and stared, her wrist feeling numb as a bright light tracked across her vision, she focused on the light, on the brightness as it flew across the window.
Skye wondered what it was, wondered about naming it, a star of her very own travelling through the cosmos…
The thought made her smile as she turned the vibration off on her wrist and stood up, ‘time to get back to work’ she thought and wondered away as the star continued on its journey.
