One

Log 16

Hours since launch: 379

Day of travel: 16

Nothing much has been going on recently so I figured I'd tell you about who's here with me.

So out of the hundred or so who applied for this mission, only myself and seven others were selected. There weren't as many applications as there would have been because of the nature of this mission. Everyone knew what this mission was about and what would happen if you went on it before you even applied. It was advertised as the mission from which you'd never return. No kidding, the ads actually said that. Which was why hardly anyone applied compared to previous mission which usually received close to a thousand.

After about 10 months of thorough processing of those applications (I would hate to have seen how long it would take them to process a couple hundred of them), thirty were notified of their selection for the training program. The thirty of us trained and were assessed for 6 months before the group was cut down to the final 8.

One year of training prepared us for literally anything that could happen or go wrong during our mission. The training supervisors wanted to give us another 6 months to prepare for absolutely everything because we wouldn't be able to ask for help later, but as soon as One was completed, we had to go. So we can only hope nothing we weren't prepared for doesn't happen.

Anyway, I promised to tell you about who's here, not how we got where we were. Although I suppose the stories about who we are reveal a little about why we are, too.

If any of you are reading this (again Katri, keep your nose out of other people's business!), don't hate me for any of the things stated below. Don't worry, no secrets will be told nor will anything embarrassing.

First up, my dear friend Corie, one of two scientists aboard One. Being the only two who haven't been in space before has kind of brought us together. It also means we're the only two who left Earth for reasons other than a love of being in space. For him, that reason is his cousin Cierra. The two of them are close, more siblings than cousins really and they only have each other, their parents having died in a car accident when they were young. Not that I'm calling them old, they're only in their early thirties and a few years older than me. But anyway, that's kind of their stories wrapped up together. They're so inseparable that their lives are almost exactly the same; they both grew up to become scientists. Kind of creepy, but they have incredibly similar interests and if you know them, it's not so weird. It's just Corie and Cierra.

Next, I should probably talk about Katri, the "pilot" of One. She's incredible and probably my best friend here (apologies to everyone else and don't let it get to your head Katri). Anyway, Kat was a pilot back on Earth, a damn good one. She flew top-of-the-line military jets as part of the airforce during the Uniting Wars and once they ended, she became a test pilot. After a few more years of that, she decided the sky wasn't high enough and joined an astronaut program. Since then, she's been on three space missions, testing out different types of spacecraft to see what works and what doesn't. When applications opened for the One mission, Kat was the first applicant. The reason? She had no one left.

Moving onto Ty, our "mission specialist" although there's nothing really specific about our mission. Reason why he's here? He was the one who only got to spend 22 hours in space and wanted to come back for more. Well, there's more behind it but that's one reason why he's here. Basically, he's got no one back on Earth for him, either. 

Then there's Carter, the resident doctor. Grew up as an orphan bouncing from foster home to foster home. Somehow managed to do well in every school he ever went to, got really smart and became an astronaut. He joined this mission because life on Earth had never really been good to him so he thought he'd move to space.

So I guess I'll talk about Skyler now. She's the commander of One and the leader of this mission. Before she became an astronaut, she was an astronomer. She doesn't really share everything with us, but she joined this mission because she and her husband had just divorced after their only child drowned. She doesn't talk about it much.

And last but not least, Nic. He's our technician and is super good with computers. On Earth, he was a total computer geek but he's a pretty cool guy. He keeps everything running on board and just kind of does his work out the way of everyone so we don't see him much. He could probably hack into this and read it but I doubt he would unless Skyler made him or something. Anyway, he's here because he just wanted a change from life on Earth. He lost his family during the Uniting Wars but I don't know how, he hasn't told any of us.

So that's the crew. We're all pretty close but we all still have our secrets and have all come together because of the loss we've all shared. None of us had anyone on Earth, but we have each other now.

Gotta go now, the computer is telling me off for not starting my next task on my schedule.

- C Velour :)

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