Beyond Sol

Chapter 14N

Stale, recycled air hissed from pipelines and bleed off valves, pressurising the weak ship after six centuries, although only thirty years had passed for the Spectrum.
Pod 2 whirred and calibrated, letting the latches and such let the large, glass paned, metal rimmed door fly open. Built up ice as a consequence of prolonged use and low pressure sealed the door shut, keeping it in place. I coughed and coughed, my throat itching. I knocked at the ice with the little muscle strength I had, turns out, muscle atrophy really is a pain.
I banged at it with my elbow in the tight, onesie suit we were forced to wear, for 'health purposes.' Yeah, right. The ice rim shattered, aha! I pushed open the door, flying upwards. I blinked a few times, yawning and stretching back, just spinning me on my back. The first thing that came to mind was food, god damn, food sounds good right now, real food. Not MRE's or hand grown potatoes, give me a steak and a pint of ice cream.
Holy hell, how old am I? Six hundred...uh...six sixty five. I was 665 years old, christ. I floated past the cryogenic module, taking interest in the surrounding modules that I passed, not much was different, other than the fact everything was smaller. If you go back to fourth grade science, metal expands when it's hot, and vice versa.
I hit the bridge, opening the unstable, stuck crooked door. It bumped open, the harnesses floated in the exact same positions they had been left three decades ago.  Fingerprints on the stick encased by a thin layer of liquified oxygen, jiggling in its place. I sat in the hardened seat, resting my head back in nostalgia. My boney ass, deprived of all muscle it had, snuggly fit into the mould.
I lifted my index finger to the battery startup switch, hesitating. I pushed forward the small, rounded switch. The screens flickered to life, some pixels either broken, non-existent or buggy. I opened into the ever-growing old menu screen, finding myself into the flight course. There it was.
The course showed a simple starmap, a 3D touchscreen map, a straight line drawn between KLMA-3 and Sol. I gazed up, lifting up the block out panels over the windows, still down from the Kracko battle, although you won't ever see someone calling it that, with the exception of physicists, historians, politicians, you get it, obnoxious people (wink wink, James.)
The line was nearly all whited out, a total elapsed time at the top right corner of the screen.  31 years, 4 months, 9 days. I zoomed in with two fingers to the Sol diagram. Eight planets, followed by the arrays of confirmed and unconfirmed dwarf planets. "VOID, you there?" I asked, grinkly voice cracking.
"Yes, of course sir."
"Where we at?"
"Makemake will pass your view in approximately thirty seconds." Uh, okay, specific. I looked over my miles to light minutes conversion chart nailed into the wall on my left hand side okay, six and a half hours to arrival, divide three eighty by twenty...I murmured to myself...nineteen minutes! Christ, I leaned over to my monitor again.
"Tch, begin crew awakening pods one through five, order them to the bridge." I saw a speck racing towards the Spectrum, whizzing by in an instant, well, that's your photo of Makemake. I stared blank-lessly at Sol, mesmerised by its growing intensity, fricken doppler shift has to ruin it though! It's light was squeezed into a blue shade, looking back at me.

With a bridge full of cranky, muscle deprived adults (hard to believe I know, certainly don't have the mindset of one,) the Spectrum dropped out of it's three decade voyage, pushing us forward violently in our harness. I looked behind at the three, then at Muhammed. "Everyone ready?" I placed my hands on the blackout shades as aforementioned, ready to pull them up.
"Hell's right I am," Amelia said with a raspy voice, scratching my ears. With what little strength I had left in my arms, I forced the blackout's up, the sudden bright glare from Mars blinding us.
I covered my eyes, "VOID, hit the lights!"
"Affirmative." VOID shut off the bridge lights, easing the view. I slowly uncovered my eyes, the green, lush surface welcoming the Spectrum. City lights shining through cloud cover, rivers streaming through the main land masses, which appeared nearly identical to Earth's (or Terra, for you stubborn scientists,) continents.
"Hoooooly shit." Muhammed stared soullessly at the advanced planet, large launching spaceliner contrails leaving marks in the air.
"When's our touchdown time?" Eliza asked, unfazed by home ahead.
"James!" I shouted, snapping him out of lala land.
"Oh, uh, we're what? Thousand kilometres up? Carrying a shitload of velocity from warp, if you hit your deorbit burn now, give it ten minutes and we're brighter than the sun. I'm getting a 102.23 KPA readout...so aerobraking could work fine." He shrugged, looking back down to his monitor, as if he didn't just do some intense calculation that probably isn't that intense.
"AETHER performed the de-orbit already, RCS, so is doing it, to be more exact."
"Helpful." Muhammed shook his head sarcastically.