Board Thread:The Mech Bay Bar'n'Grill/@comment-24866242-20140514220513

“What’s the longest you’ve spent at high sub-light? Before now I mean.”

Ben and Jarrid were alone in the control center of the little ship, not that it looked much like a control center anymore. The workstations were all dark, and most had been covered with heavy blankets. The chairs had been removed and a pair of sofas had been brought up from the common room on the lower deck. The light in the room was provided by the cold glow of the distant sun that they were approaching painfully slowly. That pinprick of light was larger this month, but it was still too far away to need active radiation filters. The observation dome was still in passive mode, allowing starlight through. It was a quiet place on a tiny ship full of quiet places the last few years.

Ben mulled the question over before quietly answering. “The longest from my point of view? Maybe a week. Engines failed and left us coasting at a high percentage of c. About two months real time.”

“So, a lot faster than we’re going then.”

“Hmm… point nine nine c maybe. The effect is stronger the closer you get to c.”

They sat quietly for a few minutes, watching the void outside. In the old days they used to gather up here, but most of them kept to the lower decks now. Watching that tiny pinprick grow slowly larger was a depressingly slow process. Maybe that would change in the coming weeks as they got close enough to home to see the star growing larger.

The ship had been rotating ever since they had shut off the engines. The stars drifted slowly across their field of view. They had been coasting for quite a while now, conserving fuel for their eventual deceleration. Time moved slowly in their little bubble of space time.

“Home…” Ben murmured to himself as his gaze fell on the distant sun. Even at this distance he didn’t let it linger too long. When he turned back to Jarrid he just had time to notice the older man’s sardonic smile before the dark spot the bright point of light had left on Ben’s retina obscured his face.

“Homesick after all these years?”

“For Galiese? Not really.”

“New Oregon then?”

Ben shook his head again.

Jarrid nodded. “Honestly, we’ve been in this box longer than I ever spent on Galiese.”

Ben laughed, “We’ve been in this box longer than I spent on Galiese.” There was no trace of bitterness. They had all had a long time to accept their situation. Life was quiet in their little cage, but they had made something of it. In a couple of months their long exile would come to an end. Then what?

Behind them the door slid open and a pool of artificial light spilled into the room. A seven year old girl clutching a homemade doll dashed into the room and leaped into Jarrid’s lap. “Ooof!” Jarrid grunted with the impact. “Baby, I told you you’re getting too big for that.”

“Sorry, Daddy. Mommy says its time to eat.”

“Okay, tell her we’re on our way.”

The little girl jumped out of his lap with the same disregard for his comfort as she had entered it. Jarrid grunted again but his eyes gleamed as he watched her run out. “Its her I worry about,” he said. “She’s never known anything but this life.”

Ben shrugged as they stood up, “She’ll adapt. Kids are resilient.”

“I suppose so.”

Jarrid started for the still open door but hesitated when Ben didn’t follow. “Not coming to dinner?”

“In a minute. I’ll catch up.”

Jarrid nodded and the door closed behind him as he walked out. Ben walked the other way to the one control panel that wasn’t covered in cloth and pushed a button to wake it up. He punched a couple of buttons and brought up the trip clock. Eight years since the accident. More than ten years by Galiese’s clock. In two months it would be over. Tomorrow they would start getting the ship ready to slow down. Two months of deceleration and then… what? Was there even anyone still there who would remember them? Maybe they would get back and pile back into another ship to head back out. Preferably one that could travel faster than half the speed of light.

Ben shook his head and shut off the display. Tomorrow he would start acting like a captain again. Tomorrow the blankets would come off the stations and the sofas would go back downstairs. Tomorrow this would become a spaceship again. Tonight was for camaraderie and high spirits. Tonight was for family.

The doors slid open in front of him and he blinked in the artificial light of the hallway as he strode back towards the stairs and the common room a deck below. Cheerful voices came up the stairwell as he approached. Jarrid and Marissa and their daughter Becky. Chico, Sandy, and Jeff. Chaz. Eight people, trapped on a sublight cruise for eight years. They were all older, but if there was anyone still on Galiese who might remember, they they would be older still. 