Get Into James Shorts - 7. New Worlds

UN Deep Space Exploration Vessel Horizon

Alpha Centauri Star System

20 June 2120

“Somehow, I just never expected this.”

"Oh suck it up MacKinnon. We've been asleep for thirty years. You're just going to have to embrace the suck for a while."

MacKinnon raised her head from the sleeper chamber and said, "Garrison. You're still alive. Damn."

There were several guffaws and chuckles from around the sleeper compartment.

Morrison, the mission science officer said, "They said waking up would be like the worst hangover ever."

Somebody else groaned and said, "I'll never drink again."

MacKinnon sat up. Her body objected, and her head ached, but she managed to put her feet over the side of the crypt-like container. Across the aisle was a locker. She opened it and took the robe out. Very hesitantly, she stood and put it on.

She said, "OK Garrison. I've got my feet on the deck. Be a good engineer and see to my ship."

"Aye-Aye sir."

MacKinnon wobbled on to her stateroom. She took a shower, and it had the desired effect of helping her gather her wits. She dried off and dressed in her utility grays and found that her appetite had also awakened.

She wasn't the first person to arrive in the galley. Morrison and Raines were already there. Morrison already had a computer pad out and was going over the data that the ship's sensors had gathered as the Horizon had entered the system.

As she placed a ration pack into the microwave, she said, "What have you got Morrison?"

He looked up from his computer pad and said, "It's spectacular Captain. The two primary stars are in a tight binary and Proxima rotates way, way out-almost a half light-year. We've got eighteen planets and forty-four moons so far. Five or six of them are in the green-zone. All of those have atmospheres and three have hydrospheres."

MacKinnon raised an eyebrow as Morrison put the star systems data up on a screen on the galley wall. She looked at the planets in the so called green-zone. Two of the planets were inviting shades of blue and green.

Stunned, she asked, "Life?"

Morrison said, "At least plant life on two of them. Maybe four. We're still too far out to get a good look."

Raines said, "The star system is huge. Because the two primaries are a binary, the planets orbits are much, much longer than our own solar system. These two planets have an orbital period of thirty-two and forty-six years. We're looking at ecosystems that have seasons that last decades."

MacKinnon sat down with her ration pack and said, "Nine people with two years to explore a system this big?"

Farrow entered the galley and said, "We'll have a lot of help from our drones Captain. It looks like we're going to need it."