Second Chances, a battlestar galactica: 2003 fanfic

Title: Second Chances
Author: RangerLord
Word Count: 12,164
Rating: PG-13, mild sexual references, mild language, discussion of suicide.
Summary: Earth finds a location for its first colony.
Classifications: pre-BSG/Circle of Time
Spoilers: None
Archive: YES (Notify author if not submitted personally.)
Disclaimer: Kobol and the Circle of Time are ideas belonging to the distinguished Ronald D. Moore and/or others involved in the Battlestar Galactica series on the Sci-FI Channel, 2003-2005. All other characters and references are copyright 2005 RangerLord. Keep yer mitts off, without the author's permission.

Publication History:

Submitted 19 May 2005 for publication on the Galactica Fan Fiction website.
Published 11 June 2005 on the author's web site.
Published here 12 July 2005.

Second Chances

All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again.

The thought came to his mind, unbidden. "Indeed it has," he murmured to himself, settling into the command chair. With a glance around the empty compartment, he activated the command station's computers. Aloud, he said "Here we go again," and hit the switch to start the recorder.

"Mission log, starship Second Chance, Flight Officer Christopher Adamson recording" he stated flatly, in the general direction of the console. "Cycle number eleven. Astrogation panel puts us 5.445 light years out from Earth." Chris started to add the date from the chronometer overhead, but it reminded him of the world he'd left behind, and the mission log would get a timestamp anyway. He started down his checklist.

"Astrogation systems - check. Second Chance is on course and making point-nine-nine light speed steady. Fuel consumption is on schedule. Automatic course corrections during the last cycle... none." Chris continued through the checklists, just as he'd done a hundred times or more in training, and ten times previously since the Second Chance launched. All this has happened before...

Navigation, propulsion, hull integrity, internal power, computer function. He worked his way toward his goal. Complete the checks, and get on about the duties of this particular cycle. He reached the last checklist category, life support. He wondered if it were left for last for a reason. If life support failed, there'd be no one recording a mission log, he thought darkly. "Cargo section life support - check. All modules maintaining viability." He swiveled his chair to view the rear of the compartment. Two coffin-like chambers stood there, angling back against the bulkhead. One was dark; its lid retracted. The other was lit. Frost obscured the transparent section of its cover. The read-outs to the side and above showed all was well with its inhabitant.

"Cryo-chamber one shows all systems normal. Chamber diagnostics are complete, and unit is ready for the next six-month cycle." Chris grimaced. He didn't care much for cryo-sleep, but the mission demanded it. Besides, should he decide not to hibernate again, he would go stir-crazy or possibly even die of old age before the starship reached its goal. At least this way, the five and a half years the Second Chance had already been underway had been just a few weeks to him.

He turned slightly, looking over the second chamber. "Cryo-chamber two... All systems check. Medical Officer Grissom's life signs - all normal" Normal, at least, for a human in induced hibernation. The automated system had not awakened her; it did so only on the even cycles. Other than checking on him, the Medical Officer had few duties during most cycles. Her expertise would be critical, though, at the mission's culmination. In the mean time, she felt largely unhelpful standing by while the Flight Officer performed his job. They had, however, been selected as a flight team for more reasons than just their professional competence, and Chris considered for a moment waking her anyway. It was not disallowed, and there truly was no one to stop him. The thought of her company warmed him. He would decide tomorrow, after the probes were launched.

Chris hit the release on the command chair's harness. The chair's padding pushed him ever-so-gently upward in the zero-gravity as he shrugged out of the belts. Artificial gravity was still the stuff of fiction, and rotation-induced g-forces had been deemed unnecessary for a crew of two who would spend only a week awake out of every six months. Chris pushed off the command chair, and floated toward what had been from his previous vantage point the compartment's ceiling. As he crossed the short distance, he executed a practiced roll, bringing his feet around to the deck above the command station. Zero-g eliminated the need for the starship to have a 'flat' floor plan, and the designers of the Second Chance had taken full advantage of that fact. Chris considered the layout to be occasionally disorienting, but the ship's cleverly efficient use of space was a testament to the brilliance of the women and men who had put their hearts and souls into her creation. Chris was confident the Second Chance would serve him well. For the people of Earth, for those he and Cheryl had left behind, he hoped the starship would live up to her name.

On the ceiling which was now his floor, Chris strapped into the exerciser, taking a moment to slip on the gloves which included the physical monitoring system. He stuck to the drill, no more than moderate exertion upon first emerging from cryo-hibernation, and then a rest period. Sleep was optional. Humph, he thought. More like redundant. …and all of it will happen again.

Chris ate, taking the first ration pack from storage without checking its contents. He separated the cold items, and popped the self-warming button on the remainder. Aware that every facet of the meal had been engineered for efficiency, he marveled at the fact that it actually tasted good. Vaguely he recalled listing his favorite foods on some form during his mission candidate training. He had wondered then how that information affected a psych evaluation. Now he knew.

After finishing the meal, he carefully stuffed the meal containers into the recycler and executed another push-and-roll across the compartment to his sleeping berth. Their sleeping berth. His thoughts returned to Cheryl, weighing the decision he thought he had put off until tomorrow. He wanted her company, that was undeniable. But he also knew the reality of their situation. This mission, every facet of it, was in truth a long-shot. Every action a roll of the dice, from letting the computers fly the starship six months at a time, to the chance that they would ever find a planet where human life could survive. Even waking Cheryl had its risks, and was his wish for companionship worthy of putting their mission in jeopardy? He had discussed it once, with one of the biomedical engineers, who had assured him that the process was safe. Out here, though, he was betting all the marbles. Out here, even one-in-a-million odds of disaster might be too risky. Chris shook his head, as though that would clear it. This argument with himself was going nowhere. He would leave it for tomorrow. He had a lot to do tomorrow, and the refuge of his checklists would bring back clarity. Then he could decide about Cheryl.

Tethering himself loosely in the bunk, Chris punched up the view screen. Wishing to escape the reality of the Second Chance and his mission for a time, he selected Popular Entertainment from his personal library, and picked up with an ongoing epic he had been viewing sporadically since his selection as Flight Officer. It was a drama about humankind searching for their lost homeworld, now just a legend; he took it as a glimpse far into his own future. The tribulations of these seekers struck him deeply, sharing as he did their one-chance-and-we'd-better-get-it-right situation, but the idea that someday the descendants of his precious cargo might come looking for home gave him hope for his own mission. Later, as he grieved for the epic's fallen commander, he realized he had not truly escaped, and he popped a sleeptab with a mild REM-booster and resigned himself to dreams.

He woke with a start, nightmare visions of killer robots fading quickly from his conscious mind. There were robots aboard the Second Chance, of course. None on the flight deck, as none were needed during the voyage. They were securely packed away in the cargo hull, awaiting their future duties as teachers, laborers and soldiers. A small mechanical army designed to nurture and develop a fledgling colony, as well as ensure its safety, lay dormant within the starship. Cutting edge technology, for sure. Chris recalled his one encounter with one of the machines, not long before his candidacy for this mission, while he had still been flying covert ops. A retrieval in hostile territory, he had not been briefed as to the nature of his passenger. Need to know basis, and he didn't need to know. Camouflaged in non-reflective armor plating, the robot had seemed sinister in the starless night. It barely registered on IR as he stood waiting in the doorway of the small recon ship, and he had nearly opened fire on it before receiving its friendly code. He remembered being pissed at risking his life for a machine. In the dim red light of the recon ship, its upright ant-like appearance only accentuated its inhumanity. It had four hind legs, for stability he assumed, and from the look of them, two forelegs more than capable of dealing out death. The thing never spoke, locking itself down in the passenger compartment even as duty overcame curiosity and Chris strapped in, throttling up for home.

The memory passed quickly, and Chris set himself to the day's tasks. From the dimness of the compartment, Chris knew it was just now 'dawn' in the auto-lighting program, but he was eager for the day to begin. Cycle eleven was the first to have more than routine astronomical observation on the checklists, and he was looking forward to the probe launches. He quickly downed a cold breakfast pack, tucking the obligatory energy bar into a uniform pocket. He did a 360-flip to the exercise deck, landing on his hands, and then flipped again to 'right' himself. It was an amazingly difficult maneuver in zero-g, actually, if you wanted to stay on the surface from which you started. Chris grinned, quite pleased with himself, and strapped into the exerciser. He hit it hard, which was his usual routine. The physical exertion was a release, an escape, and he launched himself into it. He kept this regimen in his head, but he followed it diligently. Shortly he was done, wolfing down the energy bar and a half-liter of water. He felt energized, alive. The probes awaited him. He smiled at the idea of launch checklists.

All of it will happen again. The thought crossed his mind once more, asserting itself without his conscious bidding. Chris gave it no real attention, fitting as it did so well into his psyche. The comfort of routine had always been his refuge. Even after the stark terror of combat in the vacuum of space, there was always the return to the base-ship, the landing procedures, the debriefings. Chris always came back to those routines, and they always restored his calm. Restored his sanity. In the days before he was recruited for covert missions, his attention to regulations as a fighter pilot earned him his call sign, conferred upon him by a squadron mate who loved Ancient Earth History. Hammurabi, they had christened him. In the life-threatening course of combat, it was shortened to "Hammer". Chris shook his head at the thought of that ancient king and his code of laws. At least they hadn't dubbed him "Lawyer".

A push and a twist and he was floating quickly toward the command chair. As he reached it he threaded his arms through the harness which floated above the chair in the null gravity. Pulling himself downward, he clicked the connector into place, locking himself securely into the chair. Flicking a switch on the command console, he stated "Mission log, cycle eleven, day two. Flight Officer Adamson recording. Phase one FTL probe launch to commence immediately. No further voice log unless situation warrants. Computer event log begins now." Chris flicked the recorder off, and turned his attention to the probe flight control panel. At his command, four probes would take flight today. Four chances to find a habitable world, a new home for humanity. He would review their destination data shortly; for now he was absorbed by the pre-launch sequences. As he put Probes One through Four into warm-up mode, his thoughts turned for a moment toward their forthcoming flights.

FTL space flight had been the breakthrough of a lifetime, perhaps even the breakthrough of all time. There were some that hoped the push to the stars that it heralded would finally be the catalyst that brought all Earth together. But that was a fleeting hope, as those who yearned to reach beyond the solar system were quickly crushed. The most brilliant minds on the planet could not solve the problem of living cells surviving FTL flight. No organism, no matter how simple or complex, ever lived through a test flight. It had been a devastating blow, at least to those people who had vision enough to care. They had found the tool to colonize the stars, and they could not use it. The vision did not die completely, though. There were those who stubbornly clung to the search for a solution, and others still who rather than abandon their dream simply altered it. Life might not be able to survive faster than light travel, but they had proven that machinery could. And so the idea for missions such as the Second Chance came to be.

The Second Chance was truly a beautiful expression of some of humankind's best traits. Its design blurred the distinction between engineering and art. Built in Earth orbit, it was launched into the dark reaches of space with the hope it would someday find a new home for the human species. Toward that end, packed safely deep within her hull, the Second Chance carried the seeds of human life, enough in number and diversity to establish a new colony out among the stars. Supplies and equipment filled her cargo hull as well, making up the vast majority of her mass. There too, lying dormant, were the robot helpers and protectors that would one day foster a new world. If they were lucky.

Even that, the chance of finding a habitable world, had not been left entirely to luck. Of course not. The data humanity had collected about the cosmos had been sifted through, cross-referenced and double-checked. The new FTL technology had been harnessed as well, with automated ships sent out and programmed to return with surveys of distant planets. By the time she was ready to launch, nearly a hundred prospective worlds had been cataloged. Unable to travel faster than light, however, the Second Chance could not possibly visit them all. In fact, arrayed as they were in all directions from Earth, she would not be able to visit even most of them. The visionaries, and their computers, had gone to work and found a vector out from Earth that placed the greatest number of prospective homeworlds the smallest distance from the colony ship's course. Reduced to barely more than a handful of chances, the Second Chance was blessed and sent upon her way. She was the first. Those she left behind had planned that she would not be the last. Chris wondered if they would be able to hold things together long enough to build another.

The launch panel showed that the four probes had completed their warm-up phase. Chris brought up the pre-launch checklists, and began. The probes sent forth this cycle would survey the first four systems along the Second Chance's launch vector, scouting far ahead of her. From their places on the outer hull of the starship, the probes would be released at near-lightspeed. As they fell away from the ship, their onboard astrogation computers would adjust their courses and fire the FTL drives. They were programmed to return to within transmission range of the starship in time for the next cycle. The relative position of the ship and the surveyed systems would give the Second Chance enough distance to reduce speed and be within fuel range of a planet, if one were found. Since it would be six months before the rendezvous, the probes would have more than enough time to complete their primary missions, and thus were programmed to expand their searches if secondary targets were detected and fell within mission parameters.

Chris finalized the pre-launch checklist. The probes were 'hot' and ready for launch. A bit surprised at himself, Chris realized he was getting an adrenaline rush just like he used to in the final moments before a combat drop, back when he was flying aerospace fighters. This was so completely different, and yet it was so significant, so mission-critical. His heart pumping faster, he raised the cover and punched the launch button, releasing the probes. As they detached, he thought he could hear the sound through the hull, and then they were on their way. Flight data streamed across the display, far faster then he could read, and then it stopped. The probes entered FTL flight, and their computers spoke to the starship no more.

The launch of the probes brought Chris' thoughts back from fighters and combat drops, back to the starship and their mission. His mind turned to the next cycle and the probe rendezvous, and that brought him back to Cheryl. She would be awake next cycle, and that thought pleased him greatly. Despite her companionship, though, the next cycle might be rough. Anticipation of the probes' data would be high, and if they struck out he wasn't sure how he'd take it, or how Cheryl would react. At least they would have each other for support.

He decided it would be best if he did not awaken her now. They would have time to spend together on the next cycle. As Medical Officer, she would have pressing duties, as the responsibility for analysis of the probe data belonged to her. But despite the work that awaited them, they would have a full week together, alone among the stars, before duty called them back to the cryo-chambers and another six-month hibernation for him, a year for her.

Thinking about the hibernation schedule drew his thoughts away from Cheryl, and he recalled what he had learned about their mission schedule during training. Two weeks of waking time every six months, time spent on fundamental tasks like course maintenance and stellar surveys, with probe launches planned at strategic intervals. Eleven probes were scheduled for deployment, with thirteen systems planned for evaluation along the Second Chance's course. Two of the eleven probes would scan two systems each, due to their fortunate proximity. One of the remaining probes was designated for a second, closer analysis of any world chosen for colonization. That left four as back-ups or for targets of opportunity, should the stellar surveys reveal anything previously undetected.

Reciting the deployment schedule and mission assignments helped Chris down from his adrenaline high. He continued to mentally recount the hard facts of the starship's flight. As Flight Officer, he was on a six-month hibernation schedule. Given his age, and the fact that hibernation was not without its ill effects, nor did it completely negate the aging process, the mission planners assigned him a 30-year expected lifetime 'on-deck'. That would be over 1500 cycles, which gave the starship an expected range of 770 light years at their current speed. That went far beyond the range of their most distant target. Chris figured it went far beyond the limits of the human mind, as well. He fervently hoped to never find out. They would be out of probes by then, and probably out of chances. He wasn't sure if the ship would last seven centuries, anyway, or for that matter would their cargo? And then there were the relativistic effects of near-lightspeed travel. That was never a consideration for this mission, as there was no plan for a return to Earth, so the passage of time there was moot. Still, the theory was mildly amusing to Chris, as he imagined future generations of Earthers developing the technology to arrive at his destination before he did. If they don't blow themselves up first. He gave a grim chuckle at the thought.

Chris' thoughts returned to the probes' destinations, and he brought up the list of target systems for the four he had just launched. All were systems centered on Sol-like stars. Data from Earth-based FTL probe surveys pegged each system as having one planet within the habitable zone and with the correct mass to have near-Earthlike gravity. It remained for the Second Chance's probes to bring back the fine details. Chris reviewed each system in turn. As he looked at a system diagram, with its concentric rings showing planetary orbits, he thought perhaps he ought to give names to these nameless worlds he was about to survey. The stars themselves had been named long ago, following traditions dating back to Earth's early written histories. But extending those conventions to the planets by tacking an orbit number on the star's name did not seem right to him. They should have names. Cheryl would think him silly, but after all he was officially an explorer now, a kindred to ancient Magellan, and the right of naming fell to the discoverer, did it not?

Still, Chris felt himself not quite suited to the job. A calculating flight officer, he was also a deadly warrior when called upon, both in and out of a fighter cockpit. But a namer of places? He did not view himself as the type, whatever type that was. Still, he felt the task had become his duty, as surely as he was responsible for this starship and her mission. He felt that the inspiration would come, if he thought about it, and so he decided to run a few miles in the exerciser. Strapped in and monitoring gloves on, he donned a VR helmet. A few blinks and twitches of the eye and the VR interface had him looking down a dirt road back on Earth. He elected to run without music, and set the environmental noises to minimum. With boots locked in to what amounted to a cross between a treadmill and a stair climber, he began to run. Or as close to it as you can get in zero gravity. Chris threw himself into the workout, as he always did, but kept a corner of his mind open to the inspiration he was sure he would find somewhere down this road. He turned off the distance readout - he would know when he was through.

Despite his intentions, he soon lost himself in the road. The computer-generated footfalls in his ears beat a rhythm that brought forgetfulness, and the combination of the peaceful tree-lined road and the exertion of his steady run put him at ease. It was not until the computer intruded, gently chiming that lunch period had arrived, that Chris realized he had lost track of his goal. He spent a few minutes in the head, with all its contraptions geared to recover and recycle as much of his biological 'by-products' as was possible. Chris considered some of the devices to be disgustingly rude in their design and application, and there was one in particular that he swore no living soul would ever see him use. Donning fresh uniform trousers and a regulation tee shirt, he tackled the prospect of lunch.

This time he looked over the selection before he began. Choosing one which had been a childhood favorite, he separated the drink and dessert, and popped the heater on the main pack. He wondered if, knowing what this was supposed to taste like, he would be disappointed this time. He also wondered about the heater. Probably an exothermic chemical reaction, caused by two agents mixing when he pushed the button. Pushing that button had always felt like it was breaking something - a bit of resistance and then, pop! Some people may have thought it odd that a fighter jock knew that much about chemistry, but Chris knew quite a bit more in truth. Although eventually called to other things, he had tested with a high aptitude for chemistry and the other physical sciences, and had performed well above average in his college studies. While not photographic, his memory was extraordinary, and his ability to memorize and retain such things as the Periodic Table of the Elements had been quite to his advantage.

As he ate, he thought about the Table. He visualized it, color-coded as he remembered it in his first high school chemistry class. He pictured each element in turn, its name, symbol, number and weight. The composition of its nucleus, and the orbiting electrons. Suddenly the inspiration that had eluded him on that country road came. Sure, it was simple, though really there was no scientific link. He imagined again that Cheryl would laugh. But there it was; orbits. Orbiting electrons, orbiting planets. The mission planners had assigned the original list of target worlds each a number, and while he had never fathomed the source of their ordering, those original designating numbers were still assigned to the Second Chance's survey planets. He would simply match planet number to an element on the chart, and with perhaps some small changes to get a nice sound, he would name his planets.

And thus it was that when the next cycle arrived, the four dead balls of rock the probes had surveyed bore the names Beryl, Flora, Vana and Paladin.

"Mission log, cycle thirty-one, day three." Chris sat in the command chair, facing the deep-space survey panel. In his memory it had been only five months since the disappointment of the first probe rendezvous, but ten years had passed as he slept aboard the starship. The Second Chance was now just over fifteen light years from Earth. Fifteen was such a small number, it made it seem like such a short distance to him. Trying to figure it in miles gave him no better perspective; the number was unimaginable, over ninety trillion.

"Reviewing stellar survey data for possible targets of opportunity," he recorded. In this stretch of space, two stars with planetary companions were within range of the starship's instruments. Chris sat back in the command chair as he looked over the data from the two systems. One had a planetary body in the habitable zone around its sun, but the star was orange and mass readings revealed the planet to be a heavy-gravity world. The other system was centered upon a giant star, and only what had once been the outer planets remained. Neither merited the use of an FTL probe to get a closer look.

Releasing himself from the straps of the command chair, Chris floated over to the hibernation chambers. He rested a hand briefly on the lid under which Cheryl slept. Her longer cycle in the cryo-chamber was a safety measure, reducing the number of times that she must be awakened, but the odd cycles, without her companionship, were beginning to wear on him. He considered going back into hibernation early this time, but shrugged the idea off. Duty required his attention to the ship, according to carefully planned routine. Rushing through things to put a quick end to his lonely week was only inviting disaster.

Chris tethered himself in the sleeping berth and turned on the viewscreen. The last few cycles, he had drifted away from his usual habit of watching video programs, and he had taken up reading. He had also abandoned his usual science fiction fare in favor of historical non-fiction. Shortly before the launch, he and his former wingman Scott "Ares" Carter had been visited by Scott's father at Tranquility base on the moon. The man had presented Chris with a data-pack full of military histories, news recordings, videos and manuscripts. There was everything from personal journals written on the front lines of at least a dozen wars to dramas, both written and video, based upon true events. The collection was impressive, accumulated by generations of the Carter military family, and some of the material dated as far back as the Second World War. Chris had started reading one of the oldest works, from an era when flight was limited to the atmosphere and craft were powered by a propeller and an internal combustion engine. It told of the American Volunteer Group of fighter pilots flying missions against the Japanese over mainland China, and was titled God Is My Co-Pilot. Chris hoped that God was still pursuing that vocation. It made him feel a bit less alone.

Propulsion systems occupied the whole of Chris' fourth day awake. He checked each of the separate systems: the main stardrive, the secondary or in-system drive, and the maneuvering thrusters. The Second Chance had consumed the majority of its fuel for the main drive during the run-up to near lightspeed as it departed Sol. The remaining reserve was intended to allow the ship to brake and change course for any star system that an FTL probe might find, with a ten-percent safety margin left over. The starship could maintain its point-nine-nine light speed velocity with just a minimal amount of fuel, as long as they maintained a straight line course. Helping to facilitate this economy of fuel use was the fact that the probes essentially scouted ahead of the starship, using their faster than light capability to survey systems and return to the starship with enough distance left for frugal braking and course adjustment.

Fuel storage for the in-system drive, also shared by the maneuvering thrusters, was still 100 percent of the original load. The Second Chance had used an external accelerating drive coupled with the slingshot effect of a close pass to the sun to propel itself out of Earth's solar system. After final course adjustments, the external drive section had dropped away, and the main stardrive began the task of accelerating the ship the rest of the way to its current near-light speed. The external drive carried its own fuel, so the starship's chemical fuel complement remained untouched

All of it will happen again. Two more days passed for Chris, during which he was immersed in more detailed checks over the remaining starship systems, the same systems that he reviewed in brief the first day of each cycle. Despite having done them thirty times before, he stuck closely to the checklists, marking each point complete as he verified it. As day six drew to a close, he thought ahead to the upcoming cycles. His training had included the full mission itinerary, so there were really no surprises. In the early cycles of the mission, he had avoided looking ahead at the schedule for the next cycle, since it gave at least a small sense of freshness to his assignments. He was losing that sense now, and had begun on the last cycle to check the mission plan for the next.

He punched up the schedule for cycle thirty-two. Something caught his attention, and he shifted the view to show an outline of the next four rotations. Yes, he remembered this stretch from training. They were approaching a section of space where there were several target systems spread widely along their course, too far apart for a mass probe launch. The first launch, of a single probe, was on the next cycle. That probe would not rendezvous with the starship until two cycles later after surveying two systems. A second probe, launched on the following cycle, would return to the starship at the same time as the first. The joint rendezvous was dictated by physics and the need to put the Second Chance within range of all three star systems should one of them have a habitable planet. On that same cycle, a third probe launch was scheduled to survey another pair of systems. Its return on the following cycle mandated Cheryl's awakening to handle the probe data analysis. It would result in a shift in her schedule from being up on the even cycles, to being up on the odd. Chris considered it a bonus that he would have her companionship for two cycles in a row.

The final day of the cycle was filled with preparations to turn the starship back over to the computers for another six months. After breakfast, Chris squeezed in a session on the exerciser between checklists. He took no lunch, fasting in preparation for cryo-sleep. Instead, he drank a liter of water and took his pre-cryo medication, designed to accelerate his body's transition into hibernation. Afterward, he spent an extra hour at his viewscreen, finishing God Is My Co-Pilot. The book completed, he ran the life support checklist, and then started the hibernation sequence on his cryo-chamber. The pre-cryo medication was already making him feel sluggish, his mind fuzzy. As he finalized the cryo-hibernation program and climbed in, he gave a silent prayer. The chamber lid slid shut, and for another six months humanity's Second Chance returned to the control of the computers, and to the hands of God.

Later, as the cycles wore on while the starship crossed what Chris came to call the Barrens, he would think back to that group of launches as rarely as possible. It only deepened his steadily-increasing sense of desperation. Probes Five and Six had returned within transmission range on cycle thirty-four. They had returned empty handed. Three more planets, all incapable of supporting human life, were added to Second Chance's catalog. As he launched Probe Seven that same cycle, Chris realized for the first time his hope was flagging. He had sought refuge in Cheryl's arms, and for a while he forgot about being so alone, forgot that they were running out of chances. When they awoke together on the following cycle, the seventh probe awaited. They reviewed the initial survey transmission in silence, Cheryl gripping Chris' arm in both apprehension and support. Two more planets unfit for habitation joined the previous seven. Chris had even forgotten what he'd named them.

Their flight through the Barrens dragged on. Chris dutifully completed his stellar surveys, but there was little at all to look at within range of the instruments, and certainly nothing worth expending a probe. He thought of this empty expanse of space as a desert, not one of sand but of black rocks swept by the wind under a permanent night sky. Cheryl and he were travelers, struggling toward a distant star on the horizon, a star which seemed to be racing away from them. Onward they pushed, never seeming to get any closer to their goal. Chris knew that this mental picture was contributing to his sense of failure. He fought back, for a while, with goal-oriented VR programs on the exerciser and with some viewscreen material recommended by the mission psychologists during pre-flight training.

It seemed to help. He awakened one cycle with the memory of a vivid dream, which was odd since cryo-hibernation wasn't normal sleep and was supposedly dreamless. The memory pressed at his consciousness, almost forcing him to recall it. He had been once more out on the desert of black rock, but this time he was much closer to the horizon, and he was traveling with great speed. The breakneck pace over the rocks left him feeling breathless and out-of-control. It was a disturbing feeling. What riveted his attention, though, was the brilliant yellow-white star on the horizon. When he looked at it, he felt as though he left his body and the desolate Barrens behind, and as if in a streak of lightning he was there, at that star. As the feeling of incredible speed faded away, he felt so calm, so relieved. As he stared at this alien sun, a planet swung out from behind it, following its orbit around the star. A beautiful blue and green orb, graced by white swirls of clouds, it seemed at once Earth-like and yet still so strange. However foreign it was, to Chris it nonetheless felt like home.

As the cycles progressed, Chris still pictured the Barrens as that night-shrouded desert of black rock. Yet whenever it came to mind, always there was that brilliant star and the blue-green gem of a planet. It tempered his desperation, and after a while he attributed it to his subconscious capitulation to all the positive-attitude reading he had done. "Whatever gets me by," he thought.

Indeed, Chris clung to whatever did help him get through each cycle. When he was alone, it was the exerciser, and the viewscreen. Data storage space had never been an issue on the Second Chance. The amount of space taken up by information storage was tiny in comparison to their other cargo, and so the starship carried on-board practically the entire written legacy of Earth. Chris would never run out of material to keep himself occupied. The same was true for the VR programs he used in the exerciser. But those activities could only hold his attention for a while, and then his mind would return to that desperate alone-ness that haunted his thoughts. At least on the odd cycles he had Cheryl. She worried about him, telling him she was seeing changes in his personality. He saw changes in her, too. They were both weary of the emptiness, the confinement of the starship, and the fading hopes of finding an Earth-like planet. There was a limit to how much of this his mind could handle, and Chris feared he was getting near that limit.

Then one cycle he arose to find that they were out of the Barrens. It didn't seem real to him anymore. The cycles they had spent traversing empty space were a blur behind him, and the now was just a dream from which he would soon awaken.

Only it wasn't a dream, it was real. Half-risen from the cryo-chamber, Chris snapped back into himself, and then started to push off for the command station. He halted, one hand anchoring himself to the chamber. "Good Lord," he thought, "have I let myself go..." He spun around toward the head, releasing his grip on the grab rail for a sling-shot effect. He took a hard look in the mirror, grimacing at what he saw. "I haven't shaved in weeks." Glancing over his shoulder at the cryo-chambers, he corrected himself, "Make that years." He continued to examine himself in the mirror, pulling at his lower eyelids, baring his teeth. "Dude, you look like shit!" he said aloud, almost chuckling. Chris shaved, then sealed the head and showered, and afterwards donned a proper uniform. It had been quite a few cycles since he had dressed according to regulations. Clean and proper-looking, he felt renewed. This would be his fresh start, he told himself. After breakfast, of course.

Later, after operations checklists were completed, Chris reviewed the cycle's schedule. This time around, he would be launching FTL Probe number Eight. Of the probes pre-planned for this mission, three others were left, all to be launched in the next few cycles. If none of them hit paydirt, then the mission was most likely screwed. Chris wondered for a moment what he and Cheryl would do then, so far from Earth. "All dressed up and nowhere to go," he mused, and then put the thought out of his mind. If they reached that point, there would be grim choices to be made, but for now Chris was riding high on his sense of renewal and he wasn't going to let it go easily.

The following day, as he worked his way through the probe launch sequence, Chris kicked around ideas for what he would name this target world. It was number 92 on the original prospective targets list. On the Periodic Table, number 92 was uranium, and he just couldn't help himself - he wanted to name this planet Uranus. "What the hell," he thought, "if we end up living there, we can always change the name."

The third day of the cycle found him once again reviewing the nearby stars for anything the astronomers back on Earth might have missed. Chris was used to coming up empty on these field surveys. The telescopes in orbit back home were impressive instruments, and with all the effort that had been put into planning the mission, it was not likely that they'd missed anything. Still, there were corridors of space lying near their course that were obscured from the Earth by clouds of interstellar gas. Part of his job was to check those areas of space each cycle in the small chance that they contained any hidden gems.

"Mission log, cycle eighty-eight, day three. Reviewing stellar survey data for possible targets of opportunity." Chris spoke almost absent-mindedly in the direction of the recorder as he worked the survey panel controls. "We are 43.56 light years from home." Without speaking, his thoughts continued, "That's past the eighth month of my second year on-deck, and forty-four years have passed for the ship." The bio-engineers had figured that he could last thirty years of on-deck time. Physically, perhaps, but Chris was certain that he'd never last that long mentally. Although he felt much better now that the Second Chance was out of the Barrens, he still felt that his tolerance limits were being approached after less than two years. If they didn't find a suitable homeworld among these last four candidates, Chris figured they were done. What they would do then, he didn't want to consider. "Let me attend to the right-now," he thought, almost a prayer. He continued the survey.

Not far from their course he found a loose cluster of stars. As he tightened the instruments' view of the area, he wondered to himself what it would be like on any planet he might find there. A dozen or more stars would be their new sun's near neighbors, far closer than any star was to Earth. Chris imagined that the stars in the cluster would be bright enough to be visible in the daytime. What a strange sight that would be. The survey turned up nothing, however, and Chris turned his attention elsewhere.

Some time later, he found something. There it was, in a region the computer had marked as obscured from Earth, a yellow main-sequence star with a planet in the habitable zone. Chris focused in on the system, and watched the planetary data stream in. At one-point-one times the mass of Earth, the planet would have a bit stronger gravity than home. It had a yellow sun, and a near-circular orbit within what the computer figured was the star's habitable zone, where enough solar energy fell on the world to maintain it within survivable temperatures for humans. Here was a target system that definitely warranted the use of an FTL probe. Chris checked the cycle's itinerary and scheduled the launch of a second probe for the following afternoon.

On cycle eighty-nine, those two probes had returned to the vicinity of the starship and transmitted their findings. Returning from the planet Chris had dubbed Uranus, the images and data Number Eight brought back showed it to be more like Mars, a frozen desert world with just a wisp of an atmosphere. Had their mission been equipped for terraforming, it might have been a good candidate.

Chris had high hopes for Probe Twelve. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he expected it to be bearing news of that blue-green world from his dream. As he and Cheryl watched, the data streaming back from the FTL probe told a different tale. Chris' target of opportunity was a greenhouse planet, very much like Venus, with a dense atmosphere and extreme temperatures. Cheryl ran the parameters through the computer and then gravely shared the verdict with Chris. They had a decision to make.

The starship Second Chance carried not only the seeds of a new human colony, but also the medical technology capable of manipulating those seeds. The parameters established for the selection of a new homeworld contained two sets. One set delimited the planetary types where a human could live and flourish. The second set was broader, and included planets with gravities, atmospheres, and temperature ranges where humans could only survive through genetic engineering. Reviewing it during training, Chris had thought that this "backup" plan essentially defeated the main purpose of the mission. Looking at some of the conditions considered survivable under the plan, he imagined what kinds of changes would have to be made to their human cargo for them to survive. They would hardly be human anymore.

Now he and Cheryl were faced with the decision, whether to implement the bioengineering program and end their search, settling the altered children of humanity on this grey-green world with its choking atmosphere and oven-like temperatures. If they did, their mission was over. They would have to do a final survey with an FTL probe, then brake the starship and correct course for the system. Once in orbit around the planet, they would implement the genetic engineering program, and start deploying the robots to the planetary surface. He and Cheryl would never be able to set foot upon the planet, except perhaps briefly in spacesuits. They would have to monitor their children from orbit, effectively imprisoned in the starship.

If they chose to go on, they had only three more systems to survey. Three more chances to find a habitable world for themselves and their cargo. They didn't have enough fuel for the main drive to turn around and come back if they struck out. They could continue on, and while it was true that they would have probes remaining, the odds of finding any more systems to survey along this course were worse than the chances that one of their last three pre-selected targets would be habitable.

Finally, they decided to leave the Venus-like planet behind. It wasn't a decision that he and Cheryl arrived at through discussion; while they privately considered the choice to be made, they each realized they were making preparations to go on. It may have been that neither of them wanted to force the changes on their children that would be necessary to survive on the greenhouse world. It may have been that they couldn't bear the thought of never leaving the starship. Whichever it was, they made the necessary log entries, and the Second Chance continued on her course.

All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again.

It was cycle ninety-nine, and Probes Ten and Eleven had made their rendezvous with the Second Chance. As the survey data from the two probes streamed into the starship's computers, Chris tried to steel himself for the results. He glanced at Cheryl; he could tell she too was trying to be brave. Four cycles earlier, Probe Nine had returned to them with grim news. Its survey target was a world rich in mineral resources, but completely devoid of atmosphere. They had accepted the report in silence, clasping each others hands. Though they did not talk about this latest disappointment, they were seldom far apart for the rest of the cycle. The comfort of each others arms seemed to be the only thing sustaining them.

Now they were looking at the data from the final two probes. It was as though they were reading their own death sentences. Cheryl spun slowly in the zero-g, her hands locking on Chris' shoulders. She pulled herself close, pushing her face against his neck. A silent sob wracked her body.

No amount of training could have prepared Chris for this moment. Without a doubt, his thoughts had turned this way in the past and he had wondered what he would do. What Cheryl would do. Now, however, it was no longer a dreaded possibility. What he had secretly feared the most was now a stark reality. The last probes had returned empty-handed. Their mission had failed to find a new home for humanity. They were out of options. They should have ended their search at the greenhouse world, forever altering their species to survive there. Now they couldn't go back.

The reality of their situation slammed into Chris, shaking him to the core. He clung to Cheryl. She was still silent, her face buried in his shoulder. His mind raced. They were nearly fifty light years from Earth, but it might as well be fifty million. They couldn't go home for the same reason they couldn't go back to the greenhouse planet - they didn't have enough fuel. They could push onward, in fact the starship would continue onward unless they interfered, but what was the point? The course of their starship had been selected to put the greatest number of potential habitable worlds as close as possible to their path. They had visited each of those systems, and had found none of them to be suitable. There had been other worlds farther out than this on the full list of targets, but none of those more distant planets lay along this course.

Reluctantly, Chris separated himself from Cheryl. They looked deep in each others eyes for a moment, and then turned away to their duties. Cheryl recorded the full data dumps from each probe; Chris had to finalize the probes' flight logs. He pulled the mission data from each probe, recording the detailed events of each survey flight. As he finalized the logs, he glanced over the names he had given these last two worlds: Selena and Tantalus. The latter had seemed fitting to him; his dream vision of that blue-green planet circling a distant star had indeed tantalized him. Since the time he had awakened with the insistent memory of that world, he had believed that they would find it. He had held his breath at the return of each probe, certain that this would be the one, fearful that it would not. Now, with the last of their target systems surveyed, he had not found his shining planet. He felt betrayed by his insistent dream.

As the cycle continued, they said little to each other. Even in the refuge of the sleeping berth, arms and legs locked together, naked in the zero gravity, there was little conversation. Each of them wrestled with the question of what to do now, needing to arrive at an answer within themselves before bringing it before the other. Cheryl seemed subdued as she completed her duties throughout the starship's artificial day, but she was fiercely passionate when they coupled. Chris was torn, his own disappointment and disillusionment with their failed quest remaining at odds with his strange sense that the dream planet still lurked ahead of them. Ultimately, though, he felt his responsibility was to Cheryl, and he would support her in whatever choice she made.

On the morning of the seventh day of the cycle, Chris broke the silence. On a normal cycle, this day would have been concerned primarily with the life support systems and their preparations to re-enter cryo-hibernation. "I'm not getting back in the chamber," he told Cheryl. "At least, not yet." They were in the midst of breakfast - she paused, looking at him intently, and then nodded. It hardly mattered if they stayed awake now. Chris went back to his meal pack, satisfied that they were in agreement on this.

In the days that followed, Chris felt strangely free. Until now, he had never spent a moment aboard the starship that had not been scripted by the mission planners. Even the amount of 'free' time he had on each cycle had been scheduled, and during those periods there had always been the weight of his upcoming duties pressing down upon him. Now, since they had decided to put off hibernation, time was on their hands. The first day they spent reveling in what freedom they had. Zero-g tag left them giggling, if a bit bruised, but in the small command compartment of the starship it didn't take long for the fun to run out and they looked for something else to do. Chris suggested they play backgammon for a while. The game had been a favorite of Chris' as a pre-teen; he had played with his grandfather. He had packed a travel set as one of the few personal items he was allowed, but he and Cheryl had never used it until now.

They stopped for lunch, and afterwards Cheryl produced a deck of cards from her locker and asked if he knew how to play Hearts. He did not, but quickly learned. After being soundly beaten several times, Chris challenged her to a game of strip poker. With a sly look, she agreed. The poker match was close, and led to the inevitable result, although not until after a quick round of naked zero-g tag. They skipped the sleeping berth this time and floated free, their urgent motions sending them spinning gently around the compartment.

Later, as the artificial day drew to a close, they snuggled together in the berth, zipped up in a single sleeping bag. Chris turned on the viewscreen, and they searched through the video archive. Cheryl picked out an old favorite, and after a couple of hours they drifted off to sleep, together, as the credits scrolled past.

The next morning, Chris was ready to talk about what they should do. "Now that we've reached the end," he forced himself to say. They couldn't stay awake, he was sure of that. Eventually the confined space would drive them stir-crazy, and if it didn't they would probably start getting on each others nerves. People weren't meant to live for extended periods in such small quarters. Besides, for what purpose would they be living? Chris knew they had plenty of supplies, but exactly how much he had never checked out. They wouldn't die of starvation, but they might kill each other, or even themselves. If he started losing his mind, Chris wasn't sure what he was capable of doing.

For now, though, while they still had their sanity, there were several things they agreed upon. They could not commit suicide, neither could they end each other's lives, though there were substances in the medical locker that would be quite effective for either purpose. They discussed trying to continue the flight, perhaps adjusting the length of the cycles, and keeping to their mission. For once, Cheryl was more negative on the idea than Chris. He spent several hours poring over the astronomical data in the starship's computers. There were a few target worlds more or less ahead of them, but nothing anywhere near their current course. They would have to spend the Second Chance's reserve stardrive fuel for a course correction, and Chris couldn't find a new vector with more than one of the cataloged worlds on it. At that point, he too gave up on the idea.

That left them with essentially just one option. They could go to sleep.

Permanently.

Making that decision gave them a sense of closure for what had seemed a desperate situation. With it behind them, they began life anew aboard the starship. After all, there was no reason for them to hurry into the Big Sleep, as Cheryl had christened it. They settled into a leisurely pattern of days, doing whatever came to mind. They talked, watched video dramas, and listened to music. Cheryl took to using the ship's instruments to investigate some of the stellar phenomenon around them. They had been so focused on finding habitable planets that they had hardly paid any attention to the nebulae, star clusters, and other wonders they had passed. She shared her more spectacular finds with him. Chris felt a bit guilty about all the free-form activity. "But," he thought, "I haven't had a vacation in roughly fifty years. I guess I'm overdue."

Chris inventoried their supplies. As he suspected, there was ample enough to sustain their bodies far beyond the point where their minds would break. He also donned a life-support suit and made an inspection of the cargo hull. The suit was not an actual spacesuit, although those too were among the ship's supplies. The LSS simply provided the heat, pressure and breathable air necessary to enter the unheated and un-pressurized cargo area.

The cargo hull was tightly packed with all the things they would need to start a new human colony. There was really very little Chris could do down here, and despite its size, very little to see. The access tubes allowed him to reach the cryo-storage area, and for the first time since before the launch he looked upon their living cargo with his own eyes. "A pity you'll never see the light of a new sun," he thought. He considered for a moment shutting the whole module down, but pushed the thought away. He decided his tour was over, and headed up the opposite access tube. On the way back up, he stopped by the hatchway leading to where their small robot army lay dormant. He wanted to see one of them again, and began to open the hatch, but stopped. They would be out of sight, packed into cargo containers and fastened securely to a descent module. He continued back up to the command deck.

Time passed. Chris found himself drawn back to the stellar surveys. His dream of the shining planet circling that distant star still pressed at him, but he didn't mention it to Cheryl. He studied the surveys, using the computer to overlay the data on a three-dimensional chart of their course. When Cheryl queried him about what he was doing, he explained that he was just playing "what if", second-guessing the mission planners. She told him that wasn't good for his mental state, but he shrugged off the advice and she let it go.

Days passed, becoming another week, and the weeks became a month. They lived aboard the starship, awoke, worked, played, ate, drank, loved, slept and dreamed. Yet they could sense that it would not last. Chris felt they were reaching an unspoken agreement; soon it would be time to re-enter hibernation. Cheryl had been running diagnostics on the cryo-chambers, and he knew she was preparing for what they had decided to do. When he held her at night, Chris considered how easily he could have spent his life with this woman, just not under these circumstances. He fell asleep imagining them roaming free on a lush, habitable planet. He awoke the next day, dreaming of a shimmering star and its blue-green companion.

When they finally chose to do it, to enter permanent hibernation, it still felt like suicide. Taking the pre-cryo medication was like swallowing a poison capsule. For a short time, they lost themselves in the technical details of preparing the chambers. During the procedure there was a moment when they thought their plan had been thwarted. The computer controlling the cryo-chambers would not proceed without them entering a hibernation period value. Cheryl gave it the largest number it would accept, and they went on. Since cryo-hibernation did not completely negate the aging process, it would be enough. Their bodies would not last that long, and they would die quietly, in dreamless sleep.

With final preparations made, it was time to enter the chambers. Still they held back, the terrible finality of what they were doing tearing at their hearts. They held each other close, Cheryl softly crying, Chris with his eyes shut tight against the insistent tears. This was the end. After a time, Cheryl pulled away and slipped into her cryo-chamber. Chris floated above her in the zero gravity, one hand holding desperately onto hers, the other against her cheek. He looked into her eyes, wet with tears. "Good-bye," he told her. "I love you." She touched two fingers to her lips, then pressed them to his. His hand slipped from hers, he pressed a button and the cover to her chamber slid shut. It was done.

Chris reached over and grabbed the edge of his coffin, as he now thought of it, and started to slip inside. Then he stopped. There were still a couple of things he wanted to do. The pre-cryo meds were already making him sluggish; he and Cheryl had used a lot of time in their reluctance to take this final action. He needed to hurry if he wanted to make it back to the cryo-chamber before his body shut down.

He pushed across the chamber, aiming for the command chair. Covering the short distance, he wriggled clumsily into the restraining harness, but left it unlatched. Swiveling back and forth between two panels, Chris activated both the launch control program and the navigation controls. Besides the sixteen probes that had once ringed the outer hull of the Second Chance, the starship carried one other FTL craft. It was a small drone, its hull only large enough to house an FTL drive and a navigation computer. Hardwired with the coordinates of Earth, it had been intended to be launched when they had successfully found a new home. Chris had decided to launch it now, with news of their failure. He downloaded all the Second Chance's mission logs, and prepared to release the drone.

While the drone was being prepared for flight, Chris turned to the navigation computer. Despite their mutual decision to enter the Big Sleep, there was a part of him that had never been able to give up entirely. His studies of the stellar surveys had given him an idea, and he intended to play this one last card. Pulling up a list of vectors he had compiled in the previous weeks, he gazed at the computer. Unlike the course corrections he had initially considered, these were little more than just a nudge one way or another. As far distant as their intended destinations were, that little nudge would be enough to put the Second Chance onto a new course.

These were all equally wild long-shots, and he suddenly found he could not choose. Closing his eyes he spoke softly, "Lord, into your hands I place our fate," and he blindly put a finger on the screen. He re-opened his eyes and selected the vector beneath his fingertip. "Well, there we go," he said to the empty compartment. He sent the vector to the navigation system, and hit the execute button. He didn't feel a thing, but the feedback from the computer confirmed that his command had been carried out. He returned the system to automatic mode, and looked to the drone.

It was ready, so with a final check of its payload of data, he launched it. Would it reach Earth successfully? And would there be anyone there to receive it? He shook his head as he shut down the launch system. That done, he floated over to the cryo-chamber and slowly slipped inside. He felt so sluggish. His mind was foggy, and his vision had started to blur. The pre-cryo drugs were doing their job, shutting his body down. He wondered if he'd remembered everything. Not that it would matter much if he hadn't. He half-turned toward the other chamber, as his hand felt for the button to close his lid. "Cheryl, I'm sorry it ended this way." Then he slid the cover shut, and outside his chamber the compartment's lighting shut off. In the cold and near-darkness, incoherent images hovered in his vision. In the distance, he saw a single bright light. He lost consciousness, and the cold took him.

Along its new course, the Second Chance continued, alone. Within the ship, its living cargo remained frozen. In the command compartment, a computer monitored the two crew members who slept in the icy grip of the cryo-chambers. At nearly the speed of light the starship traveled blindly through the dark reaches of space. Only the navigation computer took any note of the star systems that they passed, and it cared only that their gravity not cause the starship to stray from its path. Time meant little to the starship; it was nothing more than a quantity to be recorded. A century, and then another, slipped away unnoticed.

Pain exploded in Chris' chest. Stumbling across the black rocks of the desert, he fought to keep his balance. He kept his eyes squinted, nearly shut, against the wind that howled though the outcroppings. It made a strange, low, siren-like sound. His vision was blurred, by the wind and the pain in his chest, but he could still make out a bright light in the night sky. The light would not hold still, and its movements made him stumble. He fell, and could no longer see. There was only blackness, and the sound of the wind.

Pain exploded again in his chest. The light danced in his eyes, but it seemed no longer to be night. He could still hear the wind, and above it a voice that seemed familiar. It called his name. "Chris!" He began to see the outline of a face above him. The light hovered between them, first still, then flitting back and forth, then still again. He heard sounds that he remembered; the monitors of the cryo-chamber, and from across the compartment an alarm from the nav computer. "Chris! My God, I thought I'd lost you!" It was Cheryl. The light went out, and Cheryl pushed a penlight into her uniform pocket. Tethered to his cryo-chamber, she had been checking his pupil dilation and response. Floating above him in the zero gravity was a defibrillator.

He felt a sharp prick in his arm. "A light stimulant," she explained. "The computers woke us up, Chris. We're entering the gravity well of a star system. The main drive has already completed the braking sequence." She paused, looking at him closely. "What did you do?"

With the coercion of the stimulant, his body seemed to be awakening. His tongue still felt thick, though. "I must have been a bit too late getting into the cryo-chamber. huh?"

"Yes," she agreed. "You went into cardiac arrest as the system woke you. You're damn lucky that the computer thaws out your Medical Officer first." Gripping his shoulders gently, she pulled herself in closer. "What was so important, Chris? What did you do, and where are we?"

"Home, I hope, " he thought to himself. To her, he said "I just couldn't give up, Cheryl. Not completely. I did a final course correction after you went to sleep. I didn't realize how close I had cut it."

"That star system out there," he continued, "should be one of the systems from the original survey of potential homeworlds. It was so far out that I could make the course adjustment with little more than a nudge. It took less than five percent of our fuel reserve to make the change." He sat up in the cryo-chamber and began releasing the restraining belts. "I'm sorry. This affects us both, and I didn't have your permission."

As he slipped out of the cryo-chamber, he watched Cheryl's face. There was a look of worry there, and he knew what it was. If this were another dead ball of rock... The thought trailed off. "I have to get a probe launched. At this range, it won't be much of an FTL jump, but it'll give us an answer sooner, and we need the data from its instrument package." She nodded her agreement. Chris warmed up Probe Thirteen, programmed it, and hit the launch button. They would know whether his gamble had paid off within the hour.

Chris floated over to Cheryl, and started to speak. She cut him off. "I need to do a physical on you. You've been through a pretty bad shock."

Tethered to the medical panel above the cryo-chambers, she began the examination. While she worked, Chris tried to explain. He told her about his dreams, and how certain he felt that they were going to find that planet. "I almost didn't do it. In fact I thought I had decided against it, but when it came time to close the lid, I knew I couldn't. Not until I made the course change." He looked intently at her, lifting her chin so their eyes met. "If I'm wrong, if this isn't it, I'll take care of us both." She closed her eyes, and he held her for a long moment.

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that."

To occupy their minds while they waited on the probe's transmission, they started through the system checklists. Chris was concerned about the condition of the starship. He knew, based on where they were, roughly how long they had been in hibernation. He figured Cheryl did too. As Medical Officer, she would have already looked at the cryo-chambers' records. They didn't speak of it. Perhaps it was simply too much to accept.

The starship was in good shape, though. Chris noted a few minor parts failures and malfunctions in the flight record, but the systems had redundant back-ups, and the computers had made the necessary adjustments. The Second Chance continued to be a credit to the species that built her.

As he worked his way through the checklists, Chris took a moment to look at the list of possible habitable worlds. Whether it proved to be a new home, or a graveyard, he was going to give this world a name. It had been one of the earlier systems cataloged, the presence of its planets given away by the star's wobble, induced by the gravity of the gas giants in the outer orbits. Later, an FTL probe had confirmed the presence of a planet with Earth-like mass orbiting within the star's habitable zone. It was number twenty-seven on the list.

A series of beeps from the communications panel interrupted him. The transmission from Probe Thirteen was coming in. Cheryl started to punch up the survey data. Floating behind her, Chris grabbed her arm. "Screw the numbers. Bring up the orbital photos first." If she took offense, she didn't show it. A few keystrokes later, and they were looking at a full view of the planet. Cheryl gasped, going limp in the chair.

"My God, that's it!" Chris exclaimed. Before him, on the screen, was the blue-green orb that had haunted his dreams. At first glance, you could not tell it from Earth. He could make out multiple continents, and at least one great ocean. Swirling clouds obscured parts of the planet. Chris was jubilant. He pulled himself around Cheryl's chair and kissed her cheek. She took a sideways look at him, her face lit by a smile. She grasped his hand.

"At least you won't have to kill me," she said softly.

In the days that followed, they prepared for the critical task of deploying their cargo to form the new colony. Chris guided the Second Chance carefully into this new solar system, using the gravity of the huge outer planets to further slow the starship. As they made their way inward, he reprogrammed Probe Thirteen, turning it into a low orbit satellite and using its sensors to make a detailed map of the planet. From that, Cheryl would select a landing site.

Finally, they reached orbit over their new home. Chris wished the starship had a window. The first time they would get to see the planet with their own eyes would be from the flight deck of one of the descent modules. He had the modules ready to go, and Cheryl declared she had a landing site selected, with a perfect spot for the first settlement nearby. Chris prepared the Second Chance for shutdown. Only the empty starship and the last three FTL probes would remain in space. The navigation computer would be one of the few systems to remain on, maintaining orbit until either maneuvering fuel ran out, or the power died. Either way, the starship would circle the planet for a very long time.

Cheryl was already suited up and was working down in the cargo hull, completing the transfer of the life support module into its descent craft. Once that was complete, they would board the module with their robot soldiers for the landing on the planet. Chris didn't want to set foot on the new world without protection, just in case someone or some thing down there was hostile. They would control the other descent modules remotely.

As he continued shutting down the starship, Chris stopped at the launch control panel. In the flurry of activity that had followed their awakening, he had forgotten to record one thing. He had not named this world. He brought up the mission logs, and found the correct point for the entry. Recalling the planet's number in the target list, and picturing the Periodic Table in his mind, Chris typed out his choice, and then shut down the system.

He donned an LSS and headed to the cargo hull to join Cheryl. Very soon, the descent modules would leave their mother ship and travel to the planet below, to the human species' new home. A world he had dreamed of, and found against all odds.

A world he named Cobal.

fin

Appendix

For those who might be wondering, here are the elements and the corresponding planet names Chris used:

Beryllium -- Beryl

Fluorine -- Flora

Vanadium -- Vana

Palladium -- Paladin

Selenium -- Selena

Tantalum -- Tantalus

Cobalt -- Cobal

The Periodic Table of the Elements is available from the Los Alamos National Laboratory at periodic.lanl.gov/downloads/main.html as an Adobe ® Reader .pdf file, and another ubiquitous but unmentionable format.

"All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again." is taken from Battlestar Galactica: The Series, Episode 108 "Flesh and Bone." Full credit goes to the writers and creators of that episode. My apologies for using this without permission, but hey, this is fan fiction.

Kobol and the Circle of Time are ideas belonging to the distinguished Ronald D. Moore and/or others involved in the Battlestar Galactica series on the Sci-Fi Channel, 2003-2005. All other characters and references are copyright 2005 RangerLord. Keep yer mitts off, without the author's permission.

God is my Co-Pilot, Publisher: Buckeye Aviation Book Company; Reprint edition (June 1, 1989). Originally written (or more correctly dictated, for Charles Scribner) in 1943 by now Brigadier General Robert L. Scott, retired, (b. 1908) of what was then known as the U.S. Army Air Forces. During his career, Brig. Gen. Scott received three Silver Stars, three Distinguished Flying Crosses and five Air Medals. This was the first of twelve books he would write. In 1945 it was made into a film starring Dennis Morgan. The cast included Alan Hale, Sr. who is the father of the Skipper from Gilligan's Island.