Why can't I see anything? Or rather, why is everything just light and dark blobs?
I feel weird. Kind of empty. As if I forgot to eat last night.
Why am I waking so slowly, I've been a sharp waking person my whole life, down and twenty before I take a step in the morning.
Then it starts coming back. I'm waking after century of Earth time. I can't believe I'm actually alive. Went into that sleep fully expecting a computer malfunction, life support system failure, catastrophic meteorite damage, tissue damage... who knows. Basically knew I wasn't going to wake up. Fuckin' eggheads did it. Right on boys.
Checklists. So many checklist today. I have approximately 27 minutes before my sleep blindness clears enough to use adaptive glasses.
"Paroecia, relay crew status"
"Captain, crew status nominal"
"Paroecia, ship status and time to target"
"Captain, ship status nominal. Time to target, 108 hours"
"Paroecia, initiatiate wake sequence for all crew members, confirm"
"Captain, confirm order"
"Paroecia, prepare a complete transit, trajectory, and consummables report. Also, collect messages from TRAP1 control. Send everything to my secure frame"
"Captain. There is only two messages from TRAP1 control: The first received 723 days after launch, the second sent seven days ago."
I decided to hold off on relaying the news. Or even speaking it to my first mate. They were eyes only relays with full discretion to announce. Crew morale is important no matter what. We had been lucky - didn't see the 5% losses predicted, but a 2% loss rate is still hard, those were some good people. Proper reverence and honors were given, and just as planned they would be the first of our crew to earn graves on another world.
Four hours to let everybody regain motor control, tend to physical care, have the first solid food of their second century of life, and shake the fog off. At a relative time of TRAPPIST-1 0100 the remaining 490 crew members of Paroecia collected in the main hangar. This wasn't the announcement I had prepared 5 days ago, or rather, 5 days ago in my perception.
"Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Global Interstellar Commonwealth, The United Nations, the executive crew of Paroecia, and our new planetary system, welcome back!"
(Big cheers. Didn't have to change that part.)
We are all eager to get to work in building a future for humanity, so I'll make this as brief as possible. Following this, you will all receive a full briefing on your personal frames. I have some challenging news. As of approximately 101 years ago, we are dinosaurs. The previous 60 waking months we have all spent together - and recent 103 years sleeping side by side - appear to have all been rendered obsolete.
(Rolling murmurs, cannot blame them)
Now, to calm any alarm, we are all safe. The ship is in outstanding condition, our transit was perfect and we are on course for TRAPPIST-1, initial decel is proceeding precisely as plan, long range sensors are confirming all data collected by the Sagan Deep Space Biology Detector, and we will be landing safely if all goes well in four days.
But we will not be landing on an uninhabited planet.
(You could hear a pin drop in the room. I let that one sink in for a few beats)
We will be landing at the Alexandria Spaceport on the eastern coast of New Pangea.
Our long journey was eclipsed by a wholly unexpected breakthrough in faster than light travel approximately two months after launch and cryosleep initiation. GIC took two years to confirm the results and following a successful drone test sent us the news. Of course nobody on board could read it but the computer.
First question you are all asking: Why didn't they remote wake us and recover the mission?
That was mine too. I don't know about a lot of you, but I'd trade having my name on a few high schools for watching my boys get married and being a grandpa.
The FTL system only operates at distances larger than 27.8 light years. Don't ask me why. By the time they could have gotten us, it wouldn't have even mattered. They did the risk analysis and decided it would be safer for the mission and crew to proceed as planned. We all bought the ticket, taking the ride was part of it. We all boarded this bird knowing we'd never see Earth or our loved ones again. We all trained for that.
Within ten years of the discovery Earth was able to build the first functional, LEO stationed FTL ship. Transit times to TRAPPIST-1 was just 62 hours, and with a 124 hour return visit time Earth was able to rapidly ship men and materiel to the planet surface.
The world we are going to land on, the work we have all trained to do, it's been done for almost fifty years. TRAPPIST-1 is now known as Ginium. I alone have been in contact with Ginium Spaceport Control for the last three hours. They are expecting us.