The Long Sleep

[lonesoldier]

In 2004 NASA's NEAT (Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking) system predicted that an asteroid, 99942 Apophis, would strike the Earth in 2029. This possibility was quickly disproved and forgotten by the general public. As the years progressed, commercial space-flight finally became viable, though the idea of a "Space Vacation" was still firmly in the bounds of Science Fiction. Time ground on; humanity progressed. Chief among our advances were cryotechnology and the beginnings of fusion technology.

In 2023, Apophis was brought back on the radar. The NEAT and LINEAR projects estimated an impact within five years. News of the impending disaster was silenced, though it was soon leaked to other world governments. By 2027 four colony-ships floated in the docks above Earth. In 2028, as Apophis became visible in the night sky by amateur astronomers, 4000 carefully selected people were evacuated onto the starships. Powered by prototype fusion reactors, and with their passengers in cyro-hibernation the starships sped toward Chara, Rigil Kentaurus, 18 Scorpii, and 37 Geminorum.

----

Sensor duty at the Rigil IV Orbital Platform was boring. Ships would dock, ships would leave. Sometimes an asteroid would swing within a couple million miles of the planet. Ensign Tereth sat hunched over, his chin in his hand, watching the cargo ships driving through space toward Rigil III to use the JumpGate. He noted that their ion engines looked like bright stars as they faded away. A loud blip brought his attention back to the sensor display. Another starship entering the system.

Ensign Kay was much more alert than Ensign Tereth. Her job was much more interesting though. Tereth would alert her of any starships approaching their platform and she would hail them and give them their docking bay number.

"Woah, look at this piece of trash. Looks almost twenty-first century," Tereth shouted to the entire docking command. "Well, they aren't responding to me," Kay shouted back. "They are moving pretty slow, maybe they busted their ansible array or something?" Tereth reasoned. The ship did look pretty banged up, micro-meteorite dents pock-marked the surface of the ship. "Well, I'm going to flash the landing lights on Bay 16." "Looks like they are takin' her in.

"Hail them on shortwave radio, we should be in range." Kay put her headset back on.

"This is Rigil IV Orbital Docking Command. Do you copy?"
"We copy. This is the HMCS Hope."
"HMCS? What designation is that? Where are you from?"
"His Majesty's Canadian Ship. We are from Earth"
"... Repeat that last part?" Kay set her console to broadcast through the Command Room.
"We are from Earth"

----

$ cd ~/declass/TheLongSleep/HMCS_Hope/
$ less ./candidates.txt

....

[Partially declassified 2029]
Cyro-hibernation Prospects:
Bayne, Victor - Field Agent - Rhun
Costa, Zé-Antonio - Technician - Steve Gorak
Gordon, Andrew, M.D. - Doctor - Kaodi
Reaves, John, LT - Military - DrZombie
Sobieski, Lem, 1SG - Military - Stonegod
Logan, Ashley, 2ndLT - Military - Shayuri

----

It was like waking up from a dream you cannot remember, though the chilly half-life of cyrohibernation isn't real sleep. You remember the... recent... past well enough. The phone call alerting you of your candidacy, agents from your government escorting you to launch sites you didn't even know existed. The acceleration of the shuttle as it left the ground, for most it was your first time in space. The HMCS Hope, three weeks of intense training and preparation for cyrohibernation. You don't even remember how it happened, you would just fall asleep in the tube and wake up a little damp they said.

The tubes are inclined slightly, you rest on your back. You are wearing a skin-tight suit, anything else would have hampered the freezing process. The tube is warm, kinda like lying on a beach, basking in the sun. You look at your feet, (the hatch of the tube has popped up and slid behind the tube), there's your uniform. Looking to your left you can see a squat, little, tracked robot rolling along, laying the uniforms in front of the tubes. The uniform is a dark green with light green threading. Your last name is printed on the left breast in yellow block letters.

Victor and Zé-Antonio (Rhun and Steve Gorak) are in the same module (1M, holding 250 males). Two other survivors seem to be waking as well.

Andrew, John, and Lem (Kaodi, DrZombie, and Stonegod) are in a different module (2M, holding 250 males). One other survivor has already left his tube and is dressing. It seems likely that he is Admiral Ackland, though he's too far away to read his nametag.

Ashley (Shayuri) is in yet another module (2F, holding 250 females). Three more are stirring, but have not left their tubes.

What do you do?

[Rhun]

The normally graceful Victor climbs from his cryo unit, seeming a little off balance from his long hibernation. He shakes his head, runs a hand through his blonde hair, and takes a deep breath. Then, he turns his attention to the uniform, one eyebrow raised in critical appraisal. "Not the color I would have chosen," he says quietly, to no one in particular. With an unhappy look on his face, he begins to get dressed.

[stonegod]

Another day, another zloty Lem's first thought of the morning, every morning, since joining the forces. It was a saying of his Babcia's. Poland hadn't used the zloty since it joined the EU, but, old phrases die hard.

The first thing Lem wanted was a cigar. Then he remembered he stopped smoking. Then he wanted a bath. He felt dirty. And not good dirty, either. Bad dirty. Stale dirty. Like he'd been out too long and spoiled. Ugh.

Lem cracks his neck to the side, then pushes himself out of the tube before working up the rest of his muscles real quick. A cough from somewhere reminds him that the sock he's wearing doesn't really cover much, and the big man shrugs and starts putting on his uniform. Once that is all done, he looks to the others, continuing to warm up his out-of-use frame until someone thought up something for him to do.

They always do eventually.

[Kaodi]

As his cryo tube slides open, Andrew stares outward, lying still, just breathing. After a moment, he slowly begins to pull himself up to get out of his little space, where he has been lying for likely far too long.

For a brief moment, he is more acutely aware of himself. His breath sounds like a hurricane, and the beating of his heart like thunder. He can almost feel the blood surging in his veins. Soon, however, the feeling has passed, and he his attention returns to his immediate surroundings.

Andrew reaches for his uniform and begins to dress. Looking around, he greets his waking comrades with a nod as he catches eaches eyes. Once he is suited up, his gaze wanders momentarily to the name, Gordon, on his left breast, and he slowly runs his fingers over it.

Quietly, he says to himself, " Well, ladies and gentlemen... now the fun and the injuries begin... "

Time to get to work.

[Shayuri]

Warm. It's nice. Don't want to get out of bed...it's always so cold in the mornings.

Bright too. That was odd. Ashley squinted her eyes behind her lids and shifted her arms. Pads were fitted along her arms, her legs. Around her head?

Where the hell am I?

Her eyes opened, and white light flooded in, momentarily overwhelming her. But with it came memory. Endless hours in frustrating simulations. So-called 'live' flight tests of rocket-powered fighters that had, comparatively at least, rotten aerodynamics. And all of it so heavily classified that she had started feeling like she'd fallen to the bottom of a very deep, very dark well. Then came the official letter on RAF stationary and certified envelope. She'd graduated the test courses and was now certified to fly the 'Starhawk.' Assigned to the HMS Hope's defense wing.

She hadn't even known what the Hope had been then.

Now she was on it. Module 2F. And Earth?

Ashley's heart squeezed in her chest, and for a moment almost felt like it stopped.

Earth was light years away. And most likely uninhabitable. Good God. She shivered violently, and caught sight of the green bundle on the floor at her feet. Yes...good. Routine. Bury herself in routine. Worry about whether or not there was a habitable planet in this solar system or not later. Worry about the lives and unfinished business she'd left behind later. For now, get dressed.

The rubbery clingy hibernation suit was hard as hell to get off, and Ash had time to appreciate being the first one out of her tube before she managed to get into her uniform. They were all women in her module, of course...but even the natural lack of body consciousness afforded to one used to military showers was eroded by the embarrassing thought of how she must look, half-encased in this sticky off-white, faintly patterened rubber suit as she cursed and pulled and stretched and tried to peel it off. Nearly falling over twice, one might add.

But dressed she got. She did as good a job on her hair as she could with her fingers...not that great, since her hair was naturally a bit fluffy when cut short like this, and right now she had a couple of hundred years worth of bedhead going. All she could do was wet it down to her scalp and hope it didn't bounce back to "Ash the Brown Dandelion Girl" when it dried out.

Finally she was presentable though...and realized she was all dressed up with no place to go.

"Uh...hello?" she asked aloud. "Anyone else awake yet?"

[DrZombie]

John Reaves shivers uncontrolably when he wakes up. The bright white light and the peculiar smell of disinfectants soon hammer home.

Well, looks like there isn't any Kansas anymore, Toto. Better not to dwell on that.

Silently and quickly, allmost mechanicly efficient he peels off the suit, then quickly dresses, brushes his teeth and hurries to his predesignated place.

He stands at attention in a textbook salute.
"Lt. John Reaves reporting for duty sir."

[Steve Gorak]

Ze takes his time getting up, making sure all his body parts have thawed. He sigh when he gets confirmation of the one he is most concerned about.

Looking around, he gest dressed and tries to see if any hybernation units malfunctioned. He then smiles at the first person that makes eye contact with him: "I'm glad that's over, do you know where they our stuff was kept?"

He then gets to the closest window (if any) or computer terminal, to get a status check of the situation.

[Rhun]

Victor shrugs and shakes his head at Ze's question."No clue, actually. But I'm sure we will find out soon enough."

[Kaodi]

" I trust you're all feeling real chipper, " says Andrew, looking for one of the computer access terminals.

Pounding away on the keys, he attemts to log into cryotube network in order to run a diagnostic on the functionality of the ship's cryohibernation units. Of course, should anything have gone wrong, whatever poor soul that has been affected has likely been long dead, but it is only natural that, as a doctor, he should check on his future patients' well being as the first order of business.

[lonesoldier]

The modules are essentially long hallways. One end joins up with the central cylinder of the ship (MM, Main Module, surprisingly enough) the other end points into space and are reinforced by the outer habitation modules (which are essentially rotating rings, with 1g of gravitational pull). The entire interior glows a diffuse white, while pretty much everything is made of the exact same cloudy-white plastic (Think of an Apple computer's shell).

At the end of the hall there is a little niche in the left wall with a raised shelf. As you walk by a robotic arm (grippers and all) places a plastic bin on the shelf. The bin has your first and last name printed in black on the white plastic, and inside are your personal effects. In the right wall there is a recessed computer screen with the standard holographic touch interface.

---- Shayuri

"Yeah," replied someone. Captain Hurst, by her rank sewings and name. "Feels so surreal, but I guess there will be time for that later. Logan... you're part of the Alpha Team? Lets get down to the bridge, ladies," she shouts the last part to the other two and walks to the end of the hall, grabbing the bin and stabbing a few buttons on the computer. The doors at the end of the hall slid open a crack and then the diffuse light dims until all that's left is the glow of the terminal. Hurst curses once and stabs at the "Esc" key.

---- Everyone

Andrew and Ze get to the computers in their modules first. The interface is quite similar to planetside ones. Was quite similar... You navigate through the menus and it seems the Hope is doing fine. An alert appears on both screens, telling you to report to the bridge. Then the lights dim, the terminal displays a busy prompt, asking you to wait while it does some calculations. (Andrew observes that exactly 984 people are still in hibernation, vital signs are minimal but that's to be expected. There are vital signs at least.)

Admiral Ackland bellows, "Someone! What the hell is going on? Turn the lights back on!" He is soon standing right behind Andrew demanding an explanation.

----
Sorry if it's a little confusing, I'm going to photoshop up a picture of the ship for you guys.

[Shayuri]

Ash nodded in response to the question. She was in the Alpha Team, sure. Her memory was still a little fuzzy, but she remembered the briefing. The fighter escort pilots would be among the first to awaken...just in case. Otherwise why bring them at all?

She starts for the bridge too, but pauses when the doors jam and the lights go out. With a questioning glance back at Captain Hurst, she calls, "What's with the lights? Is everything all right?"

The question seemed stupid, even as it left her lips though.

[Kaodi]

Andrew glances over his shoulder, doing a bit of a double-take, then turns around to face the Admiral.

" Oh, uh, it is you, Admiral, " he stammers, " Err... as a medical specialist, uh, I felt it was my duty to make sure that the vital signs of the ships crew members were still going strong. "

Taking a second, he composes himself, and says, " Dr. Gordon, Sir. 984 vital signs still register within the cryohibernation system. The other 16, in which we are included, have awoken. The console lit up with orders to report to the bridge, when the lights dimmed. Best to get going, I guess. "

Andrew moves to grab his bin, pulling out his display goggles and hastily donning them as he heads for the door.

[lonesoldier]

Please note that the cyrohibernation modules 1M and 2F are rotating in the x-axis and 2M and 1F are rotating in the y-axis. The habitation modules (not drawn yet) will be rotating in the z-axis (thus creating an acceleration due to gravity away from the Main Module).

If you guys don't understand me just ask. I'm doing my engineering degree right now, so I know I tend to throw out weird terms now and then.

I'll update this map as I go (And it will be posted up in the Rogue's Gallery in the HMCS Hope entry when complete.

[stonegod]

Lem checked his gear. Knife, check. Gun, check. Armor, check. Good to go. He almost felt like going for a Sunday drive. And... ah, there it was. Stashed in his armor, just where he left it. His petrified Macanudo cigar. With a smile, he bit down on its very worn end.

That's when the lights when out. Clicking on his illuminator, Lem internally cursed not being able to afford the night-op for his display gear. Such were the vagaries of military finance.

Noting that the rest of the non-coms must still be popsicles, that left Lem as the low man on the totem pole. Looking to the Admiral, the Pole queried, "Orders, sir? I can take point to make sure the bridge is secure if that is necessary."

[DrZombie]

John goes to the nearest terminal, pulling rank on someone if there is none free, and checks the computer to see what exactly the problem is. The usual shortcuts don't seem to work. After tapping a few keys he sets out methodically to find out why the comp is acting up.

(Use computer : 9+4=13)
(Use comp : take 10: 9+10=19)
(if needed : take 20 : 9+20=29)

[lonesoldier]

Ackland glowers for a moment, but decides it's not Andrew's fault and lets him by. Once Andrew moves away John is able to try his luck with the terminal. After a few errors he manages to get into a simple command prompt. The AI, Hope, prints a few lines.

"I've been asleep too, I did not see you there."

"I'm noticing some errors. I don't think my circuitry has degraded, it's all solid-state and ceramic-encased," the AI continues writing.

"Hello?" Hope says, sounding slightly static-y. It makes a noise akin to someone clearing their throat, "Inter-ship communication grid is now active." It's vaguely unnerving, you know it's a limited-AI, but it sounds almost human. The lights slowly bloom back into existence and the doors to the main module slid open, revealing the others.

"The main module is a weightless environment," it reminds. The main module isn't meant for a lot of traffic. It simply houses the bridge at the front, the engines at the back (The only non-modular parts) and has many connectors to the other modules. The main module and the other people in different modules, look like they are spinning.

Ackland puts a hand on Lem's shoulder, "You got point then."

----

Hurst slams her first against the screen, the holographic image shuts off as her hand passes through the field and reappears when she removes it. "Something about it being busy..." she says, "It's too early for things to be messing up." Just then Hope's voice comes in through the grid. "Hello?" "Inter-ship communication grid is now active". The lights fade back in, and the doors slid open with a near-silent hiss, as do the other three modules'. Hurst is the first out, grabbing a hold of the hand-bars set in the wall of the main module to pull herself into the weightless environment.

----

Aside from the hand-bars, the walls of the MM are adorned with the occasional terminal (replicas of the terminals in the hibernation modules). The building material is the same throughout the ship, though this polymer seems slightly soft, forgiving if you cannot stop yourself with a hand-bar.

Ackland drifts into the MM and looks down both directions. "Alright, here's what's going to happen, formalities later. Team Beta, I want you to check the engines, then sweep the habitation block and finally storage. Captain Hurst, you are with Team Beta. Go now." Six women (including Hurst) and one guy begin making their way toward the main body of the ship.

"Zhou and Smith, I want to you to suit up and check the Starhawks. Stay together." A man and woman (Ashley would recognize them, they are fellow pilots) move toward the rear as well.

"That leaves you six, Team Alpha, and myself. We are going to the bridge to reactivate all the systems, run some scans and make sure we are in the right system. Sergeant Sobieski, lead the way."

[DrZombie]

"Hope's noticing some errors, Sir. Unlikely to be hardware problems, just some glitches in starting up. I'll run a full diagnostic check on the bridge."

Originally Posted by Admiral Ackland

"That leaves you six, Team Alpha, and myself. We are going to the bridge to reactivate all the systems, run some scans and make sure we are in the right system. Sergeant Sobieski, lead the way."

John falls in behind Sgt Lem.

[Kaodi]

Taking up his position in line, Andrew tries to figure out if his display glasses are going to link up properly with Hope's system.

" May I open the connection with Hope to allow my headset to start displaying information, Admiral? " he asks, hoping that the ships systems will be able to transmit using the datalink. Safer to ask, rather than raise the ire of the Admiral again should something go wrong...

[stonegod]

Lem grinned around his old stogey at the civilians, amused at the AI waking them up and not some of his noncoms. Whatever. Poles were used to dealing with hardship. Its natural when all your neighbors---well, except the those Czechs, they were to busy with art---tend to smash into you every century or so.

Attaching his rifle to the stowing mount on the side of his armor, Lem grabbed the support rings and headed up. He wasn't paranoid, just cautious, so his motion detectors were on as well. He'd seen Aliens.

[Rhun]

Victor quickly tosses his gear into the daypack and slings it over his shoulder. Then he turns to face the other men in module 1M. "Perhaps we should go find out what is going on."