Tellus | ONC 2020

092:01:06:18:29:04

My feet are pounding rhythmically against the rough, moving surface of the treadmill underneath me, as I keep running, cornering the tenth mile. In front of me, the panoramic windows reveal my favorite kind of landscape. It is almost black, but kind of deep-purple or deep-blue when you look long enough. The stars are spread out across the blanket of the observable universe, and the constellations all tell a story of their own. My eyes look to the Centaurus constellation out of habit. I easily recognize the star that has been the center of my universe for as long as I can remember. It was a piece of SETI equipment on the Tellus I orbiter that intercepted the signal and revealed the existence of the Proxima d. That's when we knew for sure, we weren't alone. If it were not for the trillions of little lights on the night sky, we might never have thought to look beyond, and humans would probably still be convinced that Earth was surrounded by nothing but vast emptiness. I get so enthralled by the glimmering lights that I at some point feel as if I am actually running in outer space. The room is completely dark, but I can still vaguely make out the ghostly reflection of my face. I like running in the dark. I actually find it very comforting to be left alone with my thoughts. It has become sort of a breathing room in the high-paced life I'm living, even though I'm mostly out of breath and moving at high speed, still. My skin has a blueish tone from the screen reading Distance 9.6 miles Pace 07:13 min/mile. It is not good enough. I have been speeding up since 8.5 miles trying to make it, and I hit the increase button on my watch once more coming into the last few hundred yards.

"Warning. Heart rate: high," my watch alerts me, but I push through it. It is just a little longer. I finish at 1:16:36.

I jump off the machine, punching it frustratingly before I get my water from the cupholder. I should be able to do it faster than 1:15:00. The metal sound echoes through the empty room when I drop the bottle carelessly against the linoleum floor and settle myself down next to it. I'm panting uncontrollably as I lie down, calmed by the coolness of the floor. The sound of my blood rushing through my head is deafening, my hands shaking from the exhaustion, when I raise them to cover my face.

I finally regain control of my breath and slow down my heartbeat, when the little, informative beep-beep tells me that I have to be somewhere. Like, now.

"Shit," I gasp in between breaths before forcing my body to get back on its feet. The lights come on, as I aim for the door. I look over my shoulder to watch, as the panoramic view of space fades until it is switched off, and the windows reveal the green Texas plains underneath the blue sky. I gather the last of my strength and start running down the halls.

I reach the conference room last minute. Of course, everyone else is already there. On time is five minutes late around here.

"Gray, welcome," Davis, the head of the Tellus program, greets me. He knows my name because he and his colleagues in power have spent the last year assessing me, evaluating me, testing me, before finally asking me to be here in this room with these people today.

"Sorry, I'm late," I exhale while dragging my palms across the fabric on my thighs to wipe off any moist.

"Did you run here?" a man about a decade older than me looks around the group with a smug face to harvest a couple laughs for his comment.

"Yes," I respond, blankly. Thank you for stating the obvious.

I decide that I should shake hands and exchange names with everyone, like they probably already did before I my arrival. The girl closest to me looks sweet. Her dark eyes are narrow and her cheeks firmly round. The flag patch on her shoulder tells me that she's Korean. From the Unified Koreas, that is. The international members of the mission are a result of international agreements. I'm sure NASA would love it if they could have all-American crews. Surely, it would make it a lot easier with territorial space when the time comes for colonizing planets. The girl smiles at me when she grabs my hand, and it almost makes me smile back. Almost.

"Your name is Moon?" I glance skeptically at her name tag as I shake her hand.

"Your name is Polaris?" she mimics my tone and laughs.

"How do you know that?" I drop her hand and hesitate to move on. Her name tag only reads N. Moon, and mine just P. Gray. How could she possibly have guessed my name?

"I read your file," she shrugs, before reminding me, "I thought we were supposed to read the files."

"Right," I mumble. I didn't read their files, "I go by Aris."

"Isn't Aris like a boy's name?" the smug guy jokes as I'm about to shake his hand. What is it with this guy? I look at him, assess him, try to figure out why he is speaking to me like this. He is tall, broad, blonde, definitely American. Probably a real New York big-city type of guy that's used to picking up girls pretty easily around here. Nope, we are not going to be friends.

"Shut up," I say as I skip him. He is probably just the mechanic anyways.

"Gray," I state my name to avoid any confusion, when I offer my hand to the next person. To them, I'll just be Gray.

"Pfeiffer," the German woman says without tweaking a nerve in her wrinkle-free, strong bone structure face. Her auburn hair is pulled back in a ponytail that she probably could – and most likely would – use to strangle someone with. Alright.

"Nadeau," next in line greets. He tries to hide his French accent, and it throws me off a little, since I thought I had seen the flag of Canada on his shoulder. But then I realize, that even though it is uncommon and outdated, there are still a few small areas in desolate rural counties that have not completely adopted English just yet. He looks a little insecure, but definitely nice. This one will most likely try to be everyone's best friend for the duration of our mission.

"Mahanya."

The Zimbabwean voice is dark and smooth, and I loosen up a little at the sound. The last hand encloses mine in a warm, firm grip for a moment, and I prolong the greeting for just a second, enjoying the short sense of dependability I feel from his touch. Now, this one I can work with.

"Tellus XII mission crew," Davis announces to get everyone's attention, "This is Sánchez, he will be your commander."

I throw a respectful nod in his direction. I know his name. He already did two turns to Mars, the last one as commander. He has, basically, led the human species the furthest into space. And even though this mission will be much different, I believe we are in good hands.

I look around the group of people. My team. We are not necessarily NASA's finest, but I know we have been carefully selected based on the span of knowledge between the seven of us. For the mission at hand, we are their best bet. I have been preparing for this since I was born, but I'm not exactly there yet. We have all successfully completed the Astronaut Candidate training, but it will be another two and a half years of mission-specific training and preparations before they'll even load us onto the spacecraft. That's a lot of team building. Everyone always says the crew becomes sort of like a family. But I doubt it.