Hermes

The airlock pressurized with a hiss. The colonists were quiet, unsure of themselves. After so long in Greenland in close company, the crew was silently apprehensive to live in a spinning, .4G vessel for a year. Tara Dayton pushed herself off the wall and to the airlock controls.

"Welcome home guys," she said, stabbing the button with her finger. The door opened with a dull thud. Stale, dry, cold air rolled into the pod.

"Ugh they could have turned up the heat a little,” Ramona said softly as she pushed herself into the adjoining airlock. The rest followed, groping around for a light switch, before the lights, on motion sensors, illuminated.

"Listen up, pilots do your thing, everyone else: check out the ship, get acquainted with the zero-G and the space. Carson, once everyone has explored the vessel, take charge of the unloading,” said Dayton.

“Yeah, will do. Botany team, go check out the growing area and make sure it’s ready to accept the plants.”

The airlock was located in the center of the vessel, which looked like a large bicycle wheel with four spokes. The centre compartment with the airlock was longer than the rest of the vessel, and contained mostly storage, but it was also lead lined to protect from radiation in the event of solar flares. Unlike the .4G of the living quarters on the outside of the vessel, it would always be a zero-G environment in the center.

Tara Dayton found one of the passages leading to the gravity section. She tried to walk down the ladder and realized she couldn’t without gravity. She laughed and awkwardly pulled herself down the ladder with her hands. After a few meters of this, she felt the microgravity of the ring start to affect her, and she let herself fall softly the rest of the way.

The habitation section was build around a single equatorial hallway with compartments on either side. The sensation of walking in low-G was strange for her, and her footsteps were clumsy and awkward. The floor curved upwards in both directions. She found her room, conveniently labelled as such. It was small, even smaller than the room on Greenland. She dropped off her bag.

“Weird,” she muttered, watching the bag fall slowly, as if in slow motion. She left her room and headed to the common area. This was a small cafeteria and entertainment room beside the habitation area. When she saw Hans Hermann was there frying potatoes.

“Oh hello Tara, I thought everyone seemed hungry, so I’d cook up some of these while everyone is getting settled.”

“My my,” said Dayton, smiling, “I guess you don’t mind cooking so much now, eh?”

“The pilots are busy, much for them to do,” he shrugged, “want some?”

“Thanks Hans, but I gotta make sure people are settling in. Save me some though, yeah?”

“Of course,” he said with a smile and a silly bow.

She walked awkwardly, her strides long in the low-G, to the next room, the botany hall. It encompassed fully half of the square footage of the Martian-G parts of the ship. Carson, Dayton saw, was organizing the botany team and telling them where to put the sample plants and seedlings they had grown. She smiled, seeing the team work together so harmoniously.

Next up was the science lab. It was much smaller than the one in the habitat; there was not intended to be much scientific work done on the journey. The room was shared with the command center where the pilots monitored the automatic systems, and the infirmary. Li was already working on the system checks and at the other end of the room, Gabriel Alphonse was doing inventory of the medical supplies.

“Watch out,” called Colby Smith flying through the door, out of control, and moving very fast. She grabbed the door frame and steadied herself. “Whew, that was nuts. Did you see that! I feel so light,” she exclaimed, and hopped. She kept rising until she softly bonked her head on the ceiling.

“The .4G is going to take some getting used to eh Colby,” chuckled Dayton.

“This is wild!”

Dayton smiled and gave Smith a pat on the shoulder, and let her hand linger a moment before she continued on her way. She had walked almost entirely around the ring of the ship and found herself at the other end of the habitation section. Pamala Sheldon was opening the door to her quarters when Dayton walked by.

“Settling in OK Pam?”

“So far. The gravity is crazy, eh?”

“It takes getting used to that’s for sure.”

“I've been meaning to ask you, is there… like, something you need me to do on this trip. I’m not very employable here, a geologist in space.”

“No, I think we’ll all be bored before too long. At least, every day that goes by is a day done on the ship.”

“True that. Well, if you need anything, let me know.”

“Thanks Pam. I’ll see you around,” Dayton said, continuing her rounds. The exhaustion was getting to her, having barely slept in the past 48 hours. She checked back in at her room and sat on the bed. Her bed felt soft, but she didn’t sink into it like she would have in full gravity. A rap on the door refocused her attention.

“Enter.”

It was Gabriel Alphonse at the door in his light blue jumpsuit. His dark hair was ruffled, and he looked as tired as Dayton felt.

“Hey Tara, you got a sec?”

“No worries, Gabe, come on in.”

“Thanks,” he said, sitting in the small chair by the bed.

“What can I do for you?”

“So I was just checking in on my equipment and I got an automatic message from the sun monitoring system. It looks like there’ll be some increased solar activity during the next month or so. I’m concerned about the radiation.”

“We don’t even get to settle in before the first crisis, do we?”

“I’m sorry Tara,” he said, apologetically.

“Not your fault Gabe, thanks for letting me know. How much time we got?”

“Nothing in terms of immediate risks, so we have some days. We can expect flares, and the systems will inform me.”

“Ok thanks, I’ll gather everyone in the rec room in a bit and let them know. Oh and Gabe?”

Alphonse, who had just stood to leave, stopped.

“Get some rest after, OK? You look exhausted and we will need your expertise.”

He smiled weakly and nodded before he headed out. Dayton laid back on her bed, feeling sleep trying to grab her and submerge her. She fought it, sitting back up and shaking her head.

“Soon,” she mumbled, and left her little room. She stumbled several times on the way to the command center, still getting used to the long strides in low gravity. When she got there, the two pilots had arrived and were checking their equipment.

“How are we looking Eric?”

“Good,” Alain said, turning to face her, “just running diagnostics and op-checks.”

“How long before you’re comfortable with it?”

“Ten minutes actually. The automated system doesn’t take too long.

“Alright, we…” she paused and yawned, “we’re going to have a meeting. Is 20 minutes enough time?”

“Not a problem boss,” said Li, who had been working on the computer system. Dayton picked up the intercom in her pocket and typed out a message.

TD: ALL STAFF MEETING, thirty minutes, in the rec room.

She walked slowly to the rec room, feeling a little more sure footed with practice. Hermann, Sheldon and Smith were already there waiting for her. She greeted them and poured herself a cup of much needed coffee.

“How do you like the ship guys?”

“Gutt,” said Hermann. Dayton smiled, she’d noticed when Hermann got tired his accent got stronger. “The layout is simple. I feel this will feel small before too long.” Dayton nodded.

“I agree, the gym is tiny too,” chimed in Smith, “but it’s temporary right.”

“Exactly,” agreed Dayton.

The other crew members started meandering in, most grabbed coffee, their rare luxury, before they sat down. The last in was Lyndon Carson, looking rough around the edges.

“Okay, everyone’s here,” began Dayton, looking around at her sleepy crew. “Welcome to Hermes! Nine months. That’s how long we’ll be on the ship before we land. It’s going to be boring, you all know that, except for our botany team of course, who will have to keep us fed,” she gestured over to the knot of green jumpsuit-clad crewmates.

“If you’re bored, if you need to keep busy, talk to them, they’ll undoubtedly have something for you to do. Now then, Gabe, can you come up here and tell the group what you told me?” Alphonse rose and stood beside Dayton.

“Yes, so,” he began, yawning, “according to the onboard sun monitoring system, we’re going to see some solar flares soon. We don’t know how bad they’ll be, but we need to plan for getting hit by several while we’re outside Earth’s magnetic field. We can expect radiation.”

The crew, sleepy as they were, were very attentive now, noted Dayton. Alphonse continued.

“The central docking room is the safest and most shielded place on the ship. If a flare is detected, we move there before it arrives and hunker down until it passes.”

“How long will that be Gabe,” asked Ramona Wagner.

“Unclear. Depends on the flare. Depending on how strong it is, we may need to move some plants and the unsealed food there too. I’ll keep you all posted on how the situation develops.”

“Thank you, Doc,” smiled Dayton warmly. “Now then, we all know our duties, or lack thereof, when we’re here. Go about them, you don’t need my instructions. Get some rest for now, we’re all pretty beat.”

The meeting broke up and most of the crew followed Dayton’s advice and headed to their rooms, herself included. Her room was cold. She thought about checking her security feeds, but decided sleep was more important. She knew there were nine long months to watch security feeds, and her body was screaming for rest.

She undressed and climbed into the bed, pulling the blankets around her like a cocoon. It felt so strange laying on a bed that gravity wasn’t allowing you to sink into as much as normal.

“We made it. There’s no going back, no hesitations from here on.”

The ship felt smaller than Dayton had been prepared for. After all the preparation, the planning, training, spying and paranoia, to actually be on the way to Mars seemed like a surreal dream. All the stress, fears and doubts she had carried with her for nearly ten years were paying off.

She steeled herself for what would come and then sleep took hold.