”Ship’ s Log 10-257-21:05

I was made aware of the issue several years ago. A young officer had noticed the corrosion of one of the CO2 recyclers and immediately brought it to the senior officers attention. We looked at the numbers and no matter what solutions we came up with we were left with a new problem. 101,702 lives in stasis are dependent on the operations crew of 150 to maintain and eventually land. We figured with a skeleton crew of about 20 we could make due with our current setup and eventually get to the destination. There were only 50 spare pods available to us. A lottery was held to decide who stayed and who went into stasis. The volunteers to do neither numbered 45. The pods were filled with the first lottery and were put in stasis before the second lottery was held. The 35 unwilling men and women now faced a death the didn’t want, but knew that they would be saving everything that was left of us . Most cried and said their goodbyes as the joined the 45 volunteers with graceful acceptance. Before the lottery however several junior officers had made a pact that if any one of them were chosen they wouldn’t allow any of them to die. In the aftermath of the resultant mutiny only four crew were left alive. Without a crew to maintain the ship it will soon fall beyond repair. All the mutineers but one committed suicide rather than face slow suffocation and guilt at dooming the rest of the human race.

As acting commander of this ship I decided to wake the twenty individuals most likely to succeed were we failed. Good luck. Gods be with you.”

—-Log end 10-275-21:12

The audio log and the warm body next to the console answered whatever questions the new crew had about its authors fate and their role to come.

“What do you think we should do, sir?” Cadet Jameson asked.

“First we remove the dead from the ship,” replied Lieutenant Nguyen “then we get to work.”