Up on the Arc's launch deck the preparation crew were frantically preparing the automated pilot system for its launch.
"Come on Dan, get a fucking move on!" the man shouted over to his colleague. "The fucking cattle's being loaded already, We'll be done for if we are last again, the loading crew will never let us hear the end of it."
Manically tapping away at his keyboard with one hand the man held up his other hand, extended his middle finger in the direction of his friend and shook his head.
"Not helping Boris!" he said without taking his eyes of the screen.
Frantically tapping in the co-ordinates he punched the last few buttons hard as the program uploaded. Spinning in his chair he didn't feel the arm of the chair gently brush the gyroscopic calibration dial as the interstellar compass shifted by just 2.37 degree's.
"See, fucking done. Jeez, you're cranky when you have a date!" the man joked. Turning back round he pushed down the protective cover on the controls and locked them shut.
"Voyager-13 bridge prepared, over to you Lantea Control." he said over the radio.
"Come on" his boss said "I've been trying to get Maria on a date for months, I'm not going to let you make me late!" he said.
"Still need to do the final checks on the gyroscope don't we?"
"Fuck that, we've only just installed and calibrated it this morning. Just sign the fucking forms and we'll get out of here." he said as Dan shrugged. Boris wouldn't realise the implication of his decision, but for the 5,000 occupants of the Voyager 13 it was a decision that changed their destinies forever.
The launch occurred exactly as planned with a single fault, not that the occupants had any idea what was going on as their bodies were controlled in deep stasis. It took nearly 10 years before anyone suspected something was up, until then there had been no reason to suspect that Voyager 13 was anything but on track. The automated radio signals suddenly stopped one day, little did earth realise this was down to the slight alignment of the gyroscope finally pushing the ship outside of the communications path of sight.
Over a three month period concerns grew about the whereabouts of the arc, as radio signals that took 2 weeks to go between Earth and Lantea figured that the ship wasn't on the path it was supposed to be on.
Voyager 13 was written off as the biggest disaster in space history, the theories ranging from meteor impact through to engine failure. The HubbleX space telescope could find no trace of the ship along the programmed flightpath, and all the checks on the ships systems prior to take off were all green. After 30 years when it was scheduled to arrive even the most optimistic of people had to give up on it ever being found, it never showed up at Lantea
Voyager-13 was lost, and as the final Arc set sail from the earth leaving only the most unfortunate behind to die with the planet, all hope of tracing the ship was gone.
It would take a further 1200 years for Voyager 13 to happen upon another system capable of sustaining life. The automated system expelling most of its final solar energy reserves to steer the huge ship out of the near light speed travel and towards the 4th planet from the sun. As it limped into orbit the control system finally gave in and the bridge went dark causing a glitch to run riot through the rest of the ships control systems.
The system spat out a single pod as the glitch was cycled through the system but the damage was done, pod LV-426 was already in free fall, the heat shield burning bright red as the friction of the atmosphere increased dramatically. In the early morning sky the ball of fire fell across the sky and into the dense forest below, the plc on the pod controlling decent as best it could before crashing into the thick canopy of trees.
Inside her stasis pod Nichole awoke and at first didn't remember anything about where she was. She was suspended some sort of gel and started to stir as she pushed her hand up against the pod window. The tube within her mouth withdrew and she gulped in the foul fluid, trying to scream as panic set in.
Remembering something suddenly she reached out to her side and pushed a large red button, slamming it multiple times with her hand. The door flew open and she gushed out onto the floor coughing frantically, the fluid draining through the steel grating as she brushed the gloop clear of her eyes and looked around.
The dark room was filled with the other stasis pods, and were filled with people all waking up and thrashing on the doors like her. Cables and bits of racking hung everywhere, the odd spark emanating from the exposed wires And broken lights. She jumped up to the first one as a woman clawed and bashed on the door begging for help.
"The button" Nichole shouted as she slammed her fists on the glass but the woman didn't listen, she was frantically clawing at the glass in a blind panic. Looking around frantically Nichole tried to lay eyes upon anything that would help her break the glass. She spotted a larger pillar in the middle of the ring of chambers with a large red button and knew immediately what to do. As she slammed the button all but two of the doors flew open, the people inside coughed and spluttered as they fell to the floor.
Rushing over to the last two pods Nichole looked around confused, the person inside was slamming the red button inside, but nothing was happening. Nichole clawed at the outside of the chamber, trying to pull on the door as the persons struggles grew weak.
