Inspired by this post. Thanks to vaspherado for the creation of the character and sparking my inspiration a bit. :)
The drawer slid open with a hiss, and chilled air blew into her face. She sighed and traced her finger along a row of fingernail-sized capsules, stopping at the one she needed and plucking it out.
She held the tiny capsule close to her eye and examined it shrewdly. This was 89, the one who would follow her. 89 would emerge after some years, fully grown, just as she had. 88 frowned. Her gaze swept across the rows of capsules, sealed tightly and labeled in blocky, square numbers, ascending. 90, 91, 92... how many were there?
88 didn't want to think about it. Hundreds more could be doomed to patrol this damned ship, and there was nothing she could do about it.
She was the sentinel, the guardian of the frozen cargo of the last remains of the human race. 89 would be next. The ship's computer told 88 that today was the day to begin the growth process of Clone 89, so that when she hatched from stasis she could take 88's place.
88 didn't know what came after that.
It was a long, dark trip. The humans who'd built the ship had left its cloned caretakers with a copy of every film, video game, and book ever made to keep them somewhat entertained. In every film 88 had seen that involved space travel, space as imagined by earthbound humans was filled to the brink with stars, nebulae, fantastically odd planets... The truth was, most of space was just that. Space.
88 stared into inky blackness outside the window as she lightly pressed 89's capsule into a growth chamber. It would remain here for the next eighteen years. Satisfied to see the occupation light turn green, 88 turned around and headed back to the ship's cockpit.
She was the pilot of the ship, although she had no idea where it was going. Someone had plugged coordinates into the ship's computer 88 generations ago. Could she ask someone? No, they'd all been asleep. For 88 generations.
88 tapped into the ship's computer to manually confirm the placement of Clone 89's capsule into a growth chamber. Then, it was onto tasks just like she'd done every other 24-hour rotation. She made her way down to the refrigerated cargo bay, and peered into one of the chambers' windows at a human's face.
It was someone about her age, if not a bit younger. 88 knew this face very well. It looked exactly like hers. This had to be the original. Number 1. 88 read her name on the plaque on the chamber door- 1's name, but not 88's.
88 began to check 1's vital signs. She'd repeat this process about five hundred times by the end of her rotation. She stuck two earbuds into her ears and turned the volume up. In her monotonous routine, 88 fell into a dreamlike state. Here was perhaps a famous actor, here was someone who could lick his elbow, and here perhaps was a trapeze artist. She read each of their names, saying it aloud, and she spoke to them, although she knew they couldn't hear.
The thing about space is that it was mostly space, and to 88, the stars were all inside.