2060- USS Robinson Space Research vessel:
Being on a ship with seven other people got boring at times, there was only so much time we could spend together before we got bored of each other's company. This mission was only supposed to last six months or at least that’s what we thought when we signed up.
Even though I was single, at first, sexual relationships were completely off the table. Most of the crew were in committed relationships at home, the only exception being the doctor on board, Dr. My Ling, and one of the engineers, Alex.
I, Macy, was the official comms director on board. I was tasked with keeping a clear record while also keeping in touch with the base back on Earth, along with other tasks to help around where I was needed. I got to know everyone this way, because I was plugging in anywhere on the ship we needed a little more tlc.
I woke up with a start. Alarms were blaring, a flashing red light going off over the door of my cabin, alerting me and my roommate, Officer Lydia Matthews, something was wrong. We both ran to get up and put on our work suits, a large insulated jumper to help with temperature regulation. Both of us usually just slept in a tank and underwear, but knew if the captain asked we were always ready for duty. As we were getting dressed, the ship was jostled, sending us tripping and grabbing each other. Lydia caught herself, but I was slammed into one of our desks anchored into the wall.
Dazed, I knew we needed to get up and get to the control room, but my vision blurred and I had a hard time standing back up.
“Hey, hold on, you might be concussed. Your head is bleeding. I’ll run you to the doctor before I head to the control room to see where the captain needs me,” Lydia said, pulling me up and walking to the door.
The red warning lights were still going off in the hall as the door opened. I was having a hard time orienting myself, but this was an emergency, not the time to be out of commission.
“No, I’ll be good. We need everyone on deck in case of code red.”
Lydia looked at me incredulously. “You’re bleeding and can barely stand on your own. You won’t be a help to anyone.” Lydia was always quick to honesty but she was right. We couldn’t afford distractions in these situations.
She walked me to the doctor’s room, a small but capable inpatient med bay. She had paged the doctor as we were making our way to the room, and Dr. My was hastily walking towards us as we approached.
“I’ll take her from here. You should get up to control.” Dr. My put her arm under me holding me up, even though she was a few inches shorter than my 5’5, she was strong. Lydia didn’t argue and started to run the opposite way towards the control room to see what the emergency was.
“Macy, what happened?”
“I lost my balance when the ship was shaking. Do you know what happened?”
Dr. My deposited me on to the patients table. Looking down and studying the cut on my head. She was so close I could feel her breath there, fanning my hair.
“No, it honestly feels like we are hit but let’s get you fixed up and then we can find out what happened. This doesn’t look like it will require stitches, but I’m going to clean the wound and I’ll know better in a minute.”
For the first time, I noticed I never finished putting my jumpsuit on, it was barely pulled up over my shoulders, with the zipper all the way down my abdomen. My thin tank top was riding low on chest, and I thought I caught Dr. My looking down for a second.
She cleaned my wound, bandaged it without stitches thankfully, and gave me something for the headache. The red light overhanging in the corner flipped off. The emergency was over but we still needed to report to the crew to find out what happened.
We walked quickly to control, and I couldn’t help but wonder if something had made an impact to the ship.
The door slide open and the whole crew was gathered around the central control panel where our course navigator was. They were all speaking over each other, clearly stressed and concerned about something. Dr. My and I looked at each other, a tinge of fear flashing in her eyes. We walked over, trying to discern what was wrong.
“The numbers are wrong. They have to be,“ Captain Makayla Frost said sternly, looking at Alex, our engineer, with a scowl.
“No, you saw me run them again. This isn’t our universe, none of these stars are charting where they are supposed to be. Hell they aren’t chatting where they were forty-five minutes ago. I don’t know where we are.”
My stomach dropped out. What the hell did he mean by that?
“What? How is that possible?” Another member, Ben, asked a clear panic traveling through his voice.
Alex looked up, just noticing we had joined the group as well. “We have somehow been spit out into a completely different place in space than we were an hour ago. If we are where I think we are, it would take hundreds of years for us to get back to Earth."
Ice traveled up my spine and I blacked out.
******
We all took two weeks, going through stages of grief. Alex was right, we had run the numbers over and over again. We would never make it back home to Earth. I had tried over and over in vain to contact the base back on planet. Nothing but static. Now, we were slowly accepting our new mission, finding a habitable planet, and survive. We only had enough resources for so long to stay on the ship. Years worth of supplies but not a lifetime, especially for a crew of eight. With this new mentality and the levels of stress everyone had been under the last two weeks, I noticed we became less uniform in our day-to-day behavior. It was like knowing we wouldn’t reach home and we were only accountable to the other seven people on board from here on out, released certain inhibitions. Nothing was acted on at first but, something was shifting in all of our demeanor.
I walked in to the medbay, looking for Dr. My to check on the healing of my cut on my forehead. I noticed she didn’t have her suit all the way on, opting to tie part of it around her waist, while she worked on some reports.
“Hey, Doc, you said to check back in with you for the cut.”
She looked over her shoulder at me, her black hair cascading over. I had never seen it down, it looked like a black waterfall.
“Sure, go ahead and hope on the table and lay down.”
I did as she asked and she came over leaning over me. I noticed her tank was riding low, the hint of the standard issue military sports bra peaking out. It pushed her cleavage together pulling my attention.
I had always been open to anyone and anything, and while this hadn’t been something I had aired out to my coworkers, I knew I would have to find relief eventually beyond the stress relief of my own fingers.
“Well, it looks like it is healing nicely. You’ll have a scar for a time, but I can give you an ointment to minimize it. Do you have time for me to do a body scan? the whole crew was supposed to have them as a checkup at the beginning of month three last week, but obviously there were bigger issues.”
“Yeah, I’ve got time.”
Since I wasn’t able to communicate with anyone at home or send the reports, my job had been all but made obsolete. I was helping anyone I could to distract myself, but I was also feeling tightly wound, more and more everyday.
“Great, go ahead and pull off your clothes, you can put on this hospital gown.”
She gave me a gown that tied in the back and turned back to her desk to give me privacy. I started to pull the jumpsuit off and my tank top but didn’t know if she also meant my bra and underwear. I went ahead and took them off too since she did say all of my clothes and put the hospital gown on, tying it in the back noticing there was no overlap so it would have a gap in it.