The Phoenix and the Pelican - Two Ships in the NightChris Evophoenixandthepelican.blogspot.com-1123 years after impact-716 years after launch The first thing Carpathian Adams thought upon waking was that someone had broken thethermostat. His second thought was that the thermostat was probably perfectly fine, butthe lock mechanism on the cryo pods needed a little work. The pods were designed with just such a horrifying malfunction in mind, so Adamsmanaged to push it open without killing himself. He stumbled naked and damp into acircular tomb holding fifteen of his crewman safe. None of the lights were on yet, so he hadto find the door with nothing but the status lights on each of the cryo pods around him. Hefound his uniform in a box below the pod and made himself decent.He found the rest of the ship in similar shape- it'd been around a thousand years sinceanyone had walked these cramped halls. He hoped the fuzzy memory would wear off soon,so he wouldn't be stuck around the ship lost for days."Captain Adams?" He spun around to find one of the youngest members of his twothousand person crew, Cecilia. Her huge eyes brought him back into the moment. For asecond, he wondered if he had already been wandering around for days."Yes, private Dawes? What is it?""You looked lost.""Just taking the wakeup a little hard, I'll be fine in a few hours. Do you remember whichway it is to the bridge?" Relieved, she pointed one arm directly behind her. "Oh, uh, thankyou.""No problem, sir. I need to get to the central life support controls and start waking up thecrew.""No rush. We aren't even sure why we woke up.""Telamon's programmed to wake us up when we arrive at the signal." Adams spokeslowly, trying carefully not to slur his speech or forget what he was talking about. "Beingawake doesn't mean we've arrived, it just means that something important happened."Cecilia couldn't follow."Important like what?""Dunno. Maybe something broke? It might all be fine, but we have to check." She agreedto follow him to the bridge.The walk was relatively short. The colonists of Anowara knew that Telamon wouldn't everbe supporting a massive crew for centuries of waking life, so they'd forgone most comfortsand crunched an engine, apartments, cryo chambers, matter storage, and all the otheressentials into seven hundred by one hundred by eighty meters of cubist minimalism.Adams collapsed into the captain's chair. The bridge walls blinked at him dimly, makingweird shadows of the other three chairs in the room. Cecilia flipped on the lights."Power's working fine. Looks like we have life support through most of the ship." Shecontinued to stalk around the room, hitting switches and making the ship hum. Adamsflipped up a small console at the side of his chair and began reading out stats."According to this, engines are all fine. Weapons didn't accidentally detonate. No leaks. It

looks like we were woken early up because of a signal.""A signal out here?" The captain shrugged. "Wait- how early?""According to these possibly-undamaged records, the absolute year is eleven twentythree. We've been in space for seven hundred and sixteen years." She collapsed into theensign chair."I heard numbers like seven hundred and a thousand thrown around before I signed up,and I looked at all the paperwork, and I passed through all those training sims, but here Iam, six hundred years after everyone I knew back on Anowara died, and three hundredyears short of where we should be. It's insane." The captain flipped the main screen on-seven feet wide, it would give everyone in the slightly cramped bridge an excellent view of all the fascinating things happening in the infinite, empty void between the stars. Stars.Stars, and nothing else."That's how slower then light travel works, private. For all I know, the guys back homecould've already worked out warp drives, and we'll wake up with a huge colony alreadyestablished." She started reading off the stats again, checking that all the individualcrewmembers had been within normal bounds for their whole internment."You said there was a signal?""Yeah.""Human?""Of course." In millions of years of life on Earth, three hundred years wandering aroundlost, and over a hundred building themselves back up on Anowara, no one had ever seenany proof of any other life. Every sign pointed to humans being alone in the galaxy, nomatter what the odds said."Who could possibly be out here?""I don't know." He turned the signal up, trying to decode it into some recognizableformat. "It looks like a pure audio broadcast. We should get an answer fast." Static blastedout of the main speakers, occasionally daring to cross into a slightly familiar pattern beforegetting nervous and retreating back to comfortable anonymity. Suddenly, order brokethrough."Hello? Hola? Guten Tag? Konichiwa? I don't know who will get this, but we need help. This is the ROCS Long, survivor of earth. We've had some disagreements- there is openfighting in the halls! They burned down a garden! If anyone's out there, or anyone's left inhere, please, please come. Anyone." The message repeated in clumsy Spanish, German, Japanese, Aramaic, and French, the languages of the other five arkships from earth. Amachine voice inserted some astronomical number at the end. They listened to the wholething in silence twice. Cecilia shut it off the third time the survivor hit Japanese."When was this sent out?""Two hundred years ago, according to the number of days it's been broadcasting.""Jesus. They're all dead by now." She shivered."Only if they all died right after the message was sent. Each of the arkships had fiftythousand people on board, plenty to keep a population going if if there is a little civil war. You've read your history, even the Atahensic had some scary conflicts- the privacy battle,the right of captaincy, all that.""So you think we might actually meet some survivors?""I think we're going to need you to wake up an away team either way. Find me a coupleof engineers, a couple of soldiers, and anyone who's familiar with asian culture." She shookher head."All the asians were on the Chinese or Pacific ships. It's a pretty arcane subject for us."

The captain waved the idea off."Doesn't matter if it's arcane. Growing up back on Anowara - small settlement on thewest continent, you know - I knew a kid who knew more about greek poetry then anyonealive. He taught himself greek so he could read Homer in the original language. My dadliked to paint, and gave some lectures on impressionism at the local university." Hewatched the idea spread across her face."All the crew were required to provide a list of their hobbies for the manifest. I should beable to search that for knowledge of Chinese history." She did a quick network search. Agiant, pulsing X covered her screen."Computer: command code alpha hydroxide omega one." The ship's computer answeredin its chipper female voice."Accepted.""Grant private Cecilia Dawes full access to all systems for, oh, five days.""Accepted.""This shouldn't take any longer then that.""Is that really necessary, sir? I mean-""I give orders, private. Not permission. Now get to work, we need an away team and askeleton crew before we arrive in three days." Seven people sat around the conference table in the back of the ship. Seminonsensicalgraphs and diagrams streamed across the screens covering every wall of the room, givingengine temperature, water supply aciditiy, flux combobulation, and all sorts of things thathalf of the table assumed were made up on the spot for show. Captain Adams stood at thehead of the table and cleared his throat."Now, I assume we've all met each other at least briefly, but I feel it's important that weget introductions out of the way and work on a first name basis. As you all know, I'mcaptain Carpathian Adams of the Anowara Telamon, this beautiful rust bucket we are alltrapped in until we hit a planet. I like things to run smoothly, and I don't care how. To myleft, you'll see my lovely and surprisingly unlucky assistant, private Cecilia Dawes." Shesmiled and gave a brief, hesitant wave. "She'll be able to help you with a little bit of everything, so please don't hesitate to ask either of us. The captain pointed at the man onher other side."Wing Commander William McKenzey." He was at least twice the captain's age. Everyoneelse at the table appeared very impressed with his ability to sit at full attention. "I act asfirst officer on board, and represent military interests onboard the Telamon." The captaingroaned."Don't ruin our very first crew meeting with this crap, McKenzey. Just because I retiredfrom the military for a few years before I came back for this mission- honorably discharged,as you should know!- it doesn't mean that I'm not still an army brat through and through.Let's keep moving." The woman next to McKenzey perked up."Athena Smith. I'm the doctor on board." They stared at her for several more seconds.Adams tapped the tabletop absentmindedly while she looked to the next person, across thetable from her. "Oh! Is it still my turn?""Yes, Athena. We're going to be working together, so we should know a little about eachother.""Okay, um, I like fantasy books?"