Astronomicon 1: Inception Point (Finished)

19 - The Hesperian

Ria Laghari, the forty-one-year-old Commander of the Hesperian, had just finished putting on her white overalls. She had only been out of her cryonic pod for a couple of minutes and her muscles still felt weak. Moving at all was difficult and slow but as Foxy had defrosted her early after receiving a distress call, she wanted to get to the control room as soon as she could.

She tucked the cellophane wrapper into one of her pockets and rubbed her eyes again in an attempt to clear her blurred vision. She knew that most of the side-effects of cryonic freezing usually wore off within a few minutes, but they were still disconcerting, and annoying. She felt as if most of her body was not quite connected to her brain. Her head was foggy and her sense of balance was off.

"There is a message waiting for you, Commander. Would you like me to read it to you?" asked Foxy.

"Yes, please, Foxy. Is this related to the distress call?"

"No, Commander. The message is from Earth and dated thirteen years ago.

Foxy casually read out the message that gave the briefest description about the Uranian not launching while Ria dragged herself across to the hatch. She hit the green button on the hatch and waited for the light to indicate that the tube beyond was fully pressurised. Her aching muscles were barely working but, as soon as the light flicked on, she set to work spinning the handle to release the internal bolts.

"Is that the only message, Foxy?"

"Yes, Commander."

"Not much mail for thirteen years!"

The hatch opened and she swung it back on its large hinges until it latched against the curved wall. Her muscles still seemed to resist every movement as she pulled herself into the connecting tube and crawled two metres to the identical hatch at the other end. Ignoring the pain, she set about opening that hatch too.

By the time she was pushing it open, her arm muscles were screaming in pain and she felt exhausted. She almost fell out into the Command Module's lower seating area beyond, barely able to land on her exhausted feet. The correct procedure was to take her time and give her body time to recover from being frozen but a distress call from the Elysian had taken away the luxury of pacing herself.

Foxy had already activated all the internal lights for her, brightly illuminating the white-painted circular room with sixteen padded seats lining the perimeter wall. She lurched to the central ladder, that provided access to all the levels above and below this one, and leant against it for a few seconds, trying to catch her breath. Dizziness washed over her and she realised there was no way she would be able to climb the ladder for a couple of minutes.

"Foxy, what's our flight status?"

"All critical systems nominal, Commander. Navigation systems confirm that Hesperian is on trajectory and behaving precisely as predicted. There is a fan failure in the Medi-Bay and external camera 17b is not providing a feed and has been powered down in response."

"Looks like we survived the voyage intact. Foxy, how did our sister ships do?"

"Contact has been lost with Arcadian, Commander. Olympian is on schedule and I am receiving its beacon pulses. Uranian, as previously reported, has not completed the voyage. Elysian, as previously reported, has taken emergency actions and sent distress calls."

"Contact lost with the Arcadian?"

"No transmissions have been received from the Arcadian's beacon for two years."

"We haven't received a distress call from the Arcadian?" she asked, already knowing what the answer was.

"No, Commander. The primary assumption is that Arcadian's beacon system has failed. Continuous sweeps with the Astronomy cameras failed to locate Arcadian at the expected location but if its external lights are not active, we would be unlikely to detect it at this range."