2099

Music, recorded half a century ago and brought along by some crewmember desperate to cling on to something of their old home, bounced and rang through the metal corridor that had been their dining room for the last few months. There were once times when it was not needed to drown the clang and whirr of the machinery keeping them alive so that they might eat in peace, once open discussion easily flowed across the table, be it breakfast, lunch or dinner, and it was just as often revealing of entertaining stories and reminiscences of Earth as it was practical reports on the progress of the repairs.

Now, however, the pressures of the task have brought up cracks between the various departments, headed by the very officers who were supposed to keep the crew together. For large portions of the crew, including said officers, bonds as strong as family had to be forged to ensure their mission, their one shot at ensuring Man's survival, was a success. But, despite the final reports on the finest psychologists around Earth, the crew was not like family, and in the case of some the common effort to survive was only being held together by the flying cage now sometimes-jadedly referred to as U.N.S. Unity.

At least a few tried to rekindle the comradery of the earlier days, when all there was was 'The Job'. Captain Garland, of course, could be trusted to support begin conversation, lest tension fill the vacuum. His officers, again, were more hit-and-miss, as encapsulated by the three highest-ranking members at the improvised table, grouped by his insistence close to the end with him. Not that they looked the part, the Unity Project's heritage in the various civilian space programs leaving all crew in their pajamas more often than in any formal uniform. Lt. Commander Skye was almost the ideal, even with all the pressures of the early reanimation. She was among the least reluctant to start debates in front of the crew, and was at constant alert to aid the mission however she could. As Chief Botanist and Xenobiologist, her exact line of work had been of limited utility, but she did make herself useful in setting up the allotments in the emptied cryo beds. Unity was never meant to keep a so many crew alive and walking in space this long, and her work meant more could be woken from the big sleep to try and finish the repairs before Arrival.

The service and the loyalty I owe,

In doing it, pays itself. Your highness' part

Is to receive our duties; and our duties

Are to your throne and state children and servants,

Which do but what they should, by doing every thing

Safe toward your love and honour.

Lt. Commander Godwinson, while not quite the Eagle Scout that Skye was, was still a vital chain keeping the crew together. Chief Psychologist and Ship Chaplain was a touchy combination of titles to give to one person, but Godwinson was nonetheless commanding of the empathy and charisma to hold a desperate group of people together through a mission, as her work in the Middle East proved apparent. Most of the officers could barely stand to be around her, but the crew held her in high regard, and Garland had to lean on this more often than he had felt comfortable with. Lt. Santiago, however, was the problematic one. He had been told that she seemed quite satisfied when she was the highest-ranking member in the room, though he was never one to know it. The other departments had been rather resentful of Security ever since they were first added to the mission plan, and Santiago had claimed a lot of popular support from the 'Redshirts' in talking down accusations of 'uselessness', though at the cost of making her the symbol of a barely-tolerated faction in the eyes of the officers. Garland caught himself, rubbing his aching head as his worries floated back up. Factions, cliques, gangs, these were not terms any ship captain wanted to be thinking about, whether on the water or shooting through space.

Finishing his toast, Garland turned toward Skye and tried to think of a conversation starter. Anything would be better than the hollow joy of the music emanating from the lonely player

"Tell me, Deirdre, have you been making any progress on bioscans of Chiron?".

The botanist had been staring intently into her cereal, bags hanging under her eyes telling she had been working on more than just allotments in repurposed human freezers. The blank slate of exhaustion cracked into the tiniest giggle as Garland saw her attempt to recall the details of her research.

"Welcome hither:

I have begun to plant thee, and will labour

To make thee full of growing.

And hold thee to my heart. "

The unconventional reply caught the attention of the other officers, only for Santiago to huff and return to her eggs, and for Godwinson to let out a light chuckle. Never enjoying the feeling of being out of the loop, Garland inquired "You want to give me that report again, Lt. Commander?"

Godwinson clarified to the captain "Macbeth, sir. It seems the Chief Botanist's hope for Chiron to be a planet of forests and gardens has been strengthened. Is that right, Skye?"

Pulling herself away from the hypnotizing swirl of the cereal, Skye wipes the daze from her eyes and falls back into as much of the professional academic she could. "My observations of Chiron will always be lacking as long as most of my team stays in cryosleep and the orion drive blocks most crew-accessible rigs from being fixed with the proper instruments, but she looks more and more of a paradise with every sight we take. Free Carbon seems to be a rarity in the atmosphere, effectively a trace element, but the ground seems to be teeming with organic nitrates. With the smallest of changes, an Earth plant could be put into the soil and barely know if it was an alien world or the valleys of Mesopotamia." The giddy mood growing in her gut was put on hold at that last comparison. Skye had never knew the ancient land that fueled civilization for thousands of years, only names in dusty old books like 'Ur' and 'Akkad' and 'Babylon'. "Well, before the Oil Shock, at least."

Silence reigned for a moment more.

Garland hoped to get the discussion back on track "Well, that is good to know. It would be a shame to come all this way for a desert, right? Though I hope it would be more than just the plants that won't need a suit. In my years in the North Sea, I never thought I'd miss rain as much as I do."

Skye, seemingly out of her quagmire in full, turned to properly address the captain. "A suit, no, even without any...development...on-planet. A simple rebreather would be enough for a human to survive, if the readings on atmospheric pressure ring true. As for rain, proper observations on weather patterns and rainfall would need to wait until final approach, but there is weather and rainfall."

"What beasts will there be on Chiron?"

Three heads turned to meet the fourth. Santiago's back was rigid and straight, a woman of the army through and through. Though barely a centimetre above the scientist, Deirdre's was a life of study and learning, and her rank and basic training had not completely weaned her of the student's slouch that put Santiago above her. The eyes of the security officer, steady and empty from a short lifetime of violence, was piercing right into those of the scientist.

Yet do I fear thy nature;

It is too full o' the milk of human kindness

To catch the nearest way.

Deidre was only a moment stunned by the question, before pulling a generous smile in attempt to diffuse as always "Now, now, I'll be as pleased to meet little green men as anybody, as long as they knew how to make a good brew, but I'll need to collect a lot more data points on the flora before even an attempt at guessing the forms of fa-"

"That's not what I asked." Santiago interrupted, "I did not ask 'What beasts are there on Chiron?', I asked 'What beasts will there be?', a very important distinction, is it not?"

This was the league of questioning, Skye guessed, was more the realm of Santiago's blend of natural philosophy than hers. Skye squirmed in the struggle to form a reply. Although used to the more literal and straightforward world of academia, she trusted that feigning anorak would irritate Santiago enough to get to the point. "Well, we have about 2,000 species of Earth animals in the seed banks for the purposes of husbandry and companionship. Mission Year 5 will see the first of these banks opened as we would hopefully have a sufficient number of pens constructed for-"

"Don't play a fool, unless that is all you are." Santiago cut, quickly growing impatient. Garland had been paying attention and was seeing what Santiago was trying to do. Whispering, hoping at least none of the crew would notice this latest episode "Lieutenant, I hope to God you are not giving every crewman on this damn ship a headache on purpose."

Godwinson had the thankless task of quantifying the behavior of such characters as Santiago, but both this and rank at least helped give her an edge in reigning in such behavior before it started, "No, no, sir, it is alright, the Lieutenant was just giving her thoughts on what Chiron will be like when we land. Weren't you, Lieutenant?"

Beneath the music and the eternal rumble of the ship, an almost imperceptible growl rumbled through the chest of the Lieutenant.

"Mankind, Skye.", answered Santiago, "Mankind will be on Chiron. Do you think my men slept across 40 years and 40 petametres just to shoot bugs?"

Nobody had a counter to this. Even Garland was reluctant to imagine what would happen if a schism was to form in the crew. Godwinson knew it as the worst case scenario, antennas and engine drives were designed to be repaired, the same was not true for men's souls.

Trying her luck, Santiago continued "Man has killed man from the beginning of time, and each new frontier has brought new ways and new places to die. Why should the future be different?"

Fair is foul, and foul is fair:

Hover through the fog and filthy air.

The three members of her audience glanced at each other, the two older members in exhaustion, the youngest in confusion. Deirdre critiqued "But Lieutenant, this ship contains the best and brightest of humanity, handpicked for the grandest mission of our history. We're not apes at the riverbed fighting over scraps of food."

A very rare sound came from Santiago. It sounded something like mild amusement "Exactly, Skye, we're not apes. Who do you think was the first to pick up a bone and smash it against the head of his foe, the backwards savage, or the 'Best and Brightest'? That moment was what made us more than an animal, what puts us beyond nature. Animals survive. We destroy.

She barely believed it, but Skye was agreeing somewhat with Santiago. Before finally going into cryosleep nearly 40 years earlier, she had took one last look of Earth from orbit. One could see the invading oceans, the receding ice caps, the burning deserts of trash and the brown tinge to what was once a halo of blue.

"Not anymore", countered Skye, finally, finding in herself the hope which had pushed her onto the Unity all those years ago, "We vowed to never repeat those mistakes when we got onboard. Everywhere else in the Universe is a drift towards chaos, but nature, ultimately, builds order."

Similarly, it was not often for Santiago to smirk. It usually meant she thought her adversary was a non-threat. "That's the key, nature could grow and keep in balance for billions of years. But as I said, we're not of nature, not anymore. And when we grab a piece of nature, we make it not of nature as well. Rocks of Silicon and Uranium do not care to harm anything at all, left on their own they simply fade away with time. But put them in our hands, and they massacre tribes and flatten nations. Wolves knew their place in the circle of life, then we turned them into weapons, and we drove the mammoth to extinction."

Your face, my Thane, is as a book where men

May read strange matters. To beguile the time,

Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,

Your hand, your tongue; look like th' innocent

flower,

But be the serpent under't.

The smirk left her face, resetting to the dispassionate guise of normality "Savour your time putting the animals you find under the microscope, for what we did to the wolf, we will do to them."

The Lieutenant stood up from the table, saluted Garland, and walked out, presumably to check up on drills with the security team.

"Now what the Sam Hell got into her to do that?" Garland blurted once he felt sure they were beyond her senses. "It's her job to be keeping heads level, not flinging shit right into the fan!"

"Then Saul and all the people who were with him rallied and came to the battle; and behold, every man's sword was against his fellow, and there was very great confusion." Godwinson quipped. "Whatever she's thinking, captain, it can't be for the interest of the crew. Might I suggest once we make Planetfall, we try to keep her in the field? This ship wasn't made to hold so many people awake for so long, perhaps some time outside would do her good?"

Both Garland and Godwinson stood up to return to their own duties.

When shall we three meet again?

In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

When the hurlyburly's done,

When the battle's lost and won.

Skye sat quiet, deep in thinking.

That will be ere the set of sun.

She had to keep an eye on Santiago, as did everyone else on the ship, but even as she returned to her adhoc quarters and lab, shifting through the images of the little red world that her life course had locked her onto for rendezvous, she considered what had called it their home, and what her kind was going to do to them. She had done this manys of times, of course, but she always considered it would be something that needed protection and demanded responsibly, less it was lost forever like Earth. But now she was looking at it from another angle. Every new frontier, new era, new field of study, brought with it a new way for humanity to kill itself.

When they came down from the heavens to start their new home, what were they going to find this time?

Is this a dagger which I see before me,

The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but

A dagger of the mind, a false creation,

Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?