Proxima - Chapter 1

The crew awakens from stasis

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

Deep in her unconsciousness, she felt a jolt.

A light crept into her mind, harsh and unyielding, and with it, a sense of heaviness.

Her limbs remembered how to move, but they didn’t seem to be entirely under her control. As they squirmed, her senses returned to her body.

She was standing at an angle, leaning back against a padded surface. Her arms pushed against it, and her leg took a step forward.

As soon as she realized she was standing, she was falling, and the cold, hard ground came up to meet her. The surroundings were too bright to make out; voices seemed to float through the air, but she didn’t know or care what they said.

She wasn’t sure how long she stayed there, unable to move or speak, barely registering anything beyond the sensation of her body on the metallic floor and her rapid heartbeat. As her thoughts coalesced into coherent patterns, she began focusing on her breathing, eyes still shut.

When her heart had slowed, she blinked once. Twice. The world began to materialize around her.

Elara was in the medical bay. An 18-foot by 12-foot room with fiberglass white walls. Built into the long wall to the left of the entrance were seven alcoves, one for each crew member, each containing a med pod. Around her, Elara’s crewmates were also shaking off the effects of over a year of stasis.

It had been five Earth years since The Astraeus embarked on its voyage to Proxima b.

Just over a parsec away from Earth, it was the closest potentially habitable world by 36 light-years. Although, as the crew learned before their departure, habitable was a relative term.

The planet was in the “Goldilocks Zone” of the red dwarf Proxima Centauri, not too hot and not too cold, at least according to Soren, the expedition’s astrogeologist. When the first mining expedition arrived, temperatures on the planet’s dark side averaged −38 °F, which Elara certainly considered too cold. The temperature was the least of their worries, however.

Proxima b was close enough to its sun that every five hundred years or so, it was hit by a solar flare strong enough to wipe out life on the planet. But Soren said that there was no way one would happen before the enhanced magnetic field built up a protective atmosphere. Probably.

The atmosphere contained toxic levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide. The soil was inhospitable for any plant life from Earth, and despite their countless models, projections, and tests, there were still countless unknown factors that could disrupt or destroy their progress at any moment.

Fortunately, humans had decades of practice increasing a planet’s average temperature on Earth. Unfortunately, the other problems may prove more difficult to solve.

She looked at Sam, the mission’s botanist, who was clutching an emesis bag. “Reminds me of college,” he said, smiling weakly before wrenching into the bag.

Deep space travel was still in its nascent state. Increasingly scarce resources on Earth led a half-dozen major corporations to create space programs to mine nearby asteroids, moons, and planets for anything that would generate a profit, but few of them dared venture outside the solar system. The time and resources required to reach a planet outside the solar system made any profits practically non-existent. Instead, they created a monopoly on resources in the solar system, and poured money into nuclear transmutation research.

However, in 2060, an unmanned exploratory probe sent out by Apex Dynamics discovered that Proxima b was rich in rare Earth elements. This was a shock to astrologists, who predicted that the planet was primarily composed of iron and silicate. Soon, companies were clamoring to see who could achieve deep space travel and reach the planet first.

Apex Dynamics won. In less than fifty years, it had established the first-ever colony outside the solar system.

Initial attempts at stasis had been incredibly damaging to the body and mind. Miners were sick for weeks or months after waking up, and sometimes didn’t wake up at all. Even after forty years and billions of dollars invested in improving stasis technology, its effects were unpleasant and unpredictable, albeit less deadly.

Some of the crew were handling the side effects better than others. Captain Vega was already standing at a port in the wall, reading a report from the ship’s computer. Beside him, Cassandra, the agricultural engineer, was lying on the ground on her back, groaning, with her feet flat on the floor, knees in the air, and her hands covering her eyes from the bright lights of the med bay.

Elara tried to sit up, but her body refused to listen. She knew that being shut down for over a year would affect her biological systems, but she did not expect to experience side effects as significant as the rest of the crew.

“Ema,” Elara’s voice came out as a horse whisper. She coughed and tried again. “Please check crew vitals.”

“Certainly,” Ema’s voice sounded over the speakers. A blinking red light in one corner of the room told Elara that Ema, the specialized medical computing program which stood for Enhanced Medical Assistance, was monitoring their heart rate, temperature, and whatever other vitals it could read without physical contact.

After a few more minutes, Elara managed to sit up. A few more after that, and she could stand. She began helping the others onto exam tables so Ema could do a more thorough examination.

Cassandra staggered towards the entrance to the med bay but was held back by Captain Vega. “Not so fast, officer. We didn’t make it all this way for you to fall off a ladder and break your neck because you can’t walk straight. Wait for Elara to clear you.”

Cassandra nodded weakly and sat down on one of the exam tables.

Even with Ema’s doing most of the work, it took Elara almost an hour to review the post-stasis exam checklist for each crew member: electroencephalogram, electrocardiogram, and a full bloodwork panel, to name a few. By the time it was done, the crew had recovered enough to stand and gathered near the bay entrance in silence. Most of them were still too sick from the stasis for small talk.

When the final checklist was complete, Captain Vega addressed the crew: “All right people, I hope you enjoyed your nap. We’re going to be arriving at Proxima b in two weeks. I just informed Earth and Proxima command that we’re awake, so we should be hearing back from them soon. According to Ema, we’re all in pretty good shape after stasis. You might feel like shit, but there were no major complications. Still, I want everyone to take the rest of the day to rest and recover and catch up on news from Earth.”

“Once Elara fully recovers,” the captain nodded towards Elara, “She will review Ema’s findings and begin her post-stasis workup for each of us. Tomorrow, at 1100 hours, we will meet to review the most recent data transmissions from Earth and Proxima b. After that, we’ll finalize our initial approach for planetary engineering.”

There were mumbled agreements, and the crew dispersed. A handful of them headed to the mess hall, although Elara couldn’t imagine how any of them would feel like eating now.

Milo sat down on a couch in respite and immediately closed his eyes, looking queasy. Lucas went straight towards the engine room to run diagnostics on the ship’s systems. Elara barely registered the other crew’s movements as she walked shakily through the respite area to the ladder and climbed up to level three.