Xenos

v. Discovery: June 27, 2126

Ducking her head into the pilot's cockpit she told Galen that she needed to manually reset the vid-feeds throughout the entire ship, a process that would take her a while. "Keep an eye on the one on the bridge, will you? I'm going to try calling it when I'm done fixing the connections." Galen told her he would, his voice muffled from being in the other room as she rummaged in the food cupboards for a granola bar before she started on the job.

She headed back into the depths of the ship, past the horrible star tunnel where she averted her eyes and watched her feet and into the more comfortable second tunnel with doors that led into the narrow private rooms they slept in. Each person on the ship had their own, making it one of the only places on the ship where you could truly be alone. Most had filled it with objects from home to stave off the homesickness that trips into space could give even the most seasoned traveler: photographs of loved ones and family, small posters of places on Earth from their home countries, and various, small memorabilia or trinkets they wanted with them. Cin kept hers tidy; the only things from home were the photographs on the walls. Most people seemed to struggle with the weight limitations, but not her. She'd learned from her first mission that bringing too much cluttered the room and made her feel claustrophobic. She'd spent most of that mission in the common rooms, foregoing any privacy for the open space. Even now she still occasionally felt the tightness in her chest that the room gave her if she spent too many hours in it. For her, it was merely meant for sleeping.

At the end of the hall, just before it led into the recreation room, was the vid-screen. It was the most annoying one on the ship. Since it was outside of the sleeping quarters it had been tuned to be loud enough to wake anyone who was in their rooms.

It wasn't used often.

If information was deemed important enough to wake people, they sent a runner from the bridge to knock on the doors instead. People were more eager to listen if they hadn't been startled awake into a heart attack from the noise.

Currently the only other person in the sleeping quarters was Zo, who once again had left her door wide open, revealing a room with photographs of happily smiling faces on the walls, small carved trinkets littering the small desk facing the bed—to save space you had to sit on the bed to use it—and a shield that took up the rest of the wall made from stretched animal skin. Cin shook her head, a smile turning her lips up. All it took was the push of a button to slide the door shut, but Zo claimed that she was too tired to remember to push it, so more often than not it was open. Privacy wasn't a big thing for Zo. Cin got the sense that she was worried about missing out on things when the door was closed. Zo herself was currently sprawled across the bed, one leg bent and the other straight, her black dreadlocks fanned around her head like a halo.

Cin contemplated shutting the door so she didn't wake Zo, but quickly determined that noise would be minimal. She carefully opened up the access panel to the left of the screen. Inside, a small light blinked red. Glad that it was easy to figure out the problem this time, Cin reached in and pulled out the video line. After reconnecting it she pushed the miniscule button next to the blinking light to reset it. After a moment the light glowed green, indicating that the link was fixed. One down, she thought.

In the recreation room she found Mollia and Jackson talking over the movie that played in the background. Cin gave them a wave but didn't interrupt. Chances are she would get dragged into a debate about the merits of the movie they were currently ignoring, and Cin didn't have the time today. After the screen was fixed she went into the gym, separated from the rec-room by a large wall of glass. The thumping pulse of the treadmill filled the room as Alexei ran, a sheen of sweat coating his body. He pulled out an earbud and asked her what she was doing, but didn't stop in his workout. They talked for a few minutes about what Cin and Drake had found outside—he'd seen Drake head into the medbay—and Cin marveled at his ability to hold a conversation while running. When she was working out she couldn't focus on anything else.