Chapter One

Being Alone

The Starship: Seattle Grace
Destination: The Colony World of Homestead II
Status: Autopilot
Crew: 258 asleep
Passengers: 5,000 asleep
Year: 3485
(40 years to go...)

The ship floated through outer space. The core engine burned, propelling the axils and turning the ship to keep a steady flight path. The bridge was empty because the ship was still on autopilot. There were still forty years until it reached it's destination, the mission was too long for one person to pilot. So the ship did it itself. The ship itself was enormous, with the capability of housing a full colony of five thousand for four months it had everything; from life support to volley ball courts. It was the starship equivalent of a luxury cruise. Five thousand passengers lay sleeping in hibernation pods. Each one equipped to keep their inhabitant alive and well, and asleep for one hundred and twenty years.

The Seattle Grace was on its fifth mission. It was a regularly used ship with all the latest upgrades. It was protected by a shield to deflect asteroids and the outer shell of the ship itself could withstand the heat of a small sun. A warning was sent the main control that a large asteroid was entering range of the shield. The rock was larger than most and unprecedented by the autopilot. As the ship smashed through the asteroid belt and closed in on the rock, it splintered into a million pieces. Flames burning the remnants until little remained. A tiny cluster of rock broke free of the shield and pelted into the side of the ship. It shouldn't have happened. But the ship made its repairs, everything was back online within seconds, the autopilot had done it's job. Apart from pod 1498.

Pod 1498 housed Mark Sloan. A bio-engineer from New York who settled in Seattle because he followed his best friend across the country. Before leaving Earth he was single, living in a hotel and lonely. He has been asleep for eighty years.

The lights came on first. Then a fine mist cleared from around his body and the pod began its protocol for exiting hibernation. Stage one took twenty seconds, a quick triple injection of various drugs that restarted the heart and brain, including a defibrillation which made his chest rise and fall as his heart began beating again. Stage two was stabilising his vitals, making sure his heartbeat was regularly that he was breathing on his own. His first breath was cold air. And it was the last stage before the pod itself opened and exposed Mark to the rest of the ship. The bed rose out of the pod and a hologram screen appeared in front of his face. His eyes were still closed. This was stage three: passenger discharge. Where the pod introduced you to the ship and casually told you to get out.

A voice startled him and his eyes opened. It was a female voice, she looked like a flight attendant. Mark didn't remember her from entering the ship but then he was still a little hazy from waking up. The flight attendant told him 'good morning' and asked him how he was feeling. "Wait what?" He said, grabbing the side of the pod. It's perfectly normal to feel confused, the voice responded. He took a breath in and out but fought the screen. You just spent one hundred and twenty years in suspended animation. The voice continued, apparently with or without his cooperation. "What?" Mark said again, his mind still foggy. It's okay Mark, just breathe. The pod started moving, Mark's breath halted at the back of his throat as the motion sickness began to kick in. The voice carried him through various hallways, giving him information about the remaining voyage and what he could expect from the flight. Mark remembered the words from the company brochure; food, fun, friends.

It deposited him outside a door marked '268' encouraging him to step out of the pod and through the door. It opened for him and inside he found a tiny room, almost like a train compartment. His cabin was small because he was here on an economy ticket. There was only enough room to stand in and the bed was only a single. He wasn't sure it would be long enough for his full six feet but he sat down on it regardless. His head was swimming. The flight attendant reappeared in front of him to remind him that the wrist band he was wearing could be used for a variety of things; accessing his cabin and any food he wished in the cafeteria. It then informed him that he had been assigned to learning group 24 (biologists and bio-engineers) for skill-building classes with other passengers. Good, he thought to himself, because I haven't seen anyone else awake yet. Am I the first?

His luggage arrived next, like everything on the ship, he had to scan his wristband for it. Then a cup of nutritional water was provided from the dispenser in the corner of his room. The flight attendant disappeared after this, apparently her piece was said and he wouldn't see her again. Despite having just woken up from a century of hibernation Mark was surprisingly tired. So he took a shower and climbed into bed, he had been right earlier about the height because his toes were poking out the end.

The next day, many new things happened. Mark dressed himself and headed to his skill-building class. Apparently learning group 24 only consisted of him and another flight attendant hologram. No one else bothered to show up. Mark scratched his head and asked about where they were, were they just being lazy? But he didn't get a straight reply. He ran down the corridor and into an elevator. He entered the Grand Concourse, the main habitation area of the ship. But he wasn't met with people, he was met with machines. He asked for a person and was sent to an empty help desk. He asked for the captain and was sent to the empty command ring, there was a sealed door to the bridge and command room but the voice that followed him everywhere told him he needed special access to get into the apparently empty room. Access he didn't have. Mark's fists pounded the metal for ten minutes against the voice's advice before deciding to take a proper look around.

He walked to the observatory, a beautiful room that asked him what he wanted to see and showed him the stars. The voice in here was lower, a man's. He sounded pretty wise, like how God would sound if he had a voice. Mark asked for Homestead II, which the voice gladly showed him, providing advice about it's position in the solar system.

"So where are we?" Mark asked next, expecting an image of the ship to appear close to their new colony planet.

But the voice diverged, instead a line appeared, between Earth and Homestead II. Then it said words Mark had engraved into his memory: we will arrive in approximately forty years.

"What?" He retaliated, almost shouting.

We arrive at Homestead II in forty years, three weeks and one day.

"No wait, that's not possible. We're supposed to be arriving in four months, the voice, that woman she said- she said I've been asleep for one hundred and twenty years, that's not right. None of this is right. How long have I been asleep?"

Eighty years. The voice replied.

There were three things that Mark did next. He went back to the Grand Concourse and tried to send a message to Earth detailing his situation. Which apparently was an expensive option and wouldn't get to Earth until after the ship arrived on Homestead II. He sent it anyway. They charged him $6,012 for the luxury. The next thing he did was look for something to drink. He read in the brochure that this place had a bar so he searched the Grand Concourse until he found it. Behind the bar were two women, both with human-like heads and metal bodies, one white, one gold. Robots. One was polishing a glass and the other was cleaning the spotless counter.

Mark sat down on a bar stool and the first robot, the one in white put down the glass she was cleaning and looked up at him. "What can I get for you?"

"I'm a scotch man." Mark replied, still reeling from the knowledge that he was awake forty years too soon but reveling in the chance to talk to someone three-dimensional again. The robot zoomed to the other side of the bar on some sort of rail and poured him a drink.

"You're a robot." Mark said pretty unoriginally.

"Android, technically. You may call me Meredith."

"Mark." Mark replied.

"Please to meet you Mark." The other robot pitched in as he brought the glass to his lips and swallowed the whole shot in one.

"That's Cristina." Meredith said, looking like she wanted to go on and on about something but not saying a word.

The last thing Mark did that day was sadly stroll back to his cabin.

The next day the voice introduced him to the cafeteria. He scanned his wristband as per usual and was presented with a list of coffee choices he wasn't allowed to select. "Damn economy," he said, picking the most basic option and proceeding to food. Which mostly tasted of cardboard. He spent the day reading the training manuals he found in one of the smaller control rooms. He perused over them drinking his black coffee until he found the hibernation pod manual. He read the entire thing from cover to cover before locating some tools and heading back to the pod room. He tinkered with the wiring until he could get the pod to close and hopped in. It was a further minute of relaxation before he realised he was trapped in there. Hibernation was apparently not that easy.

After his first plan failed, Mark went back to the command ring. He spent weeks gathering tools outside the bridge and trying to break down the door. Nothing worked. And slowly things started breaking. At first it was a glitch in the elevator, the doors not locking properly and the lights flickering off and on. At the end of most days, he gave up trying to change the inevitable and accepted he was going to live out the next forty years on the ship, usually drinking with Meredith at the bar. She was more chatty than Cristina, who mostly ignored him. And forty years wasn't so bad, so he'd be eighty, with the right diet of black coffee and cardboard, he'd still be alive. Sometimes his acceptance of that fact depressed him the most. Forty years alone with two robots, one of whom didn't like him that much. Forty years without sex.

Meredith almost always pointed out that there were plenty of things to do on the ship so at least he wouldn't be bored. One day Mark listened to that and decided to upgrade himself from a bed that was too short. He found a crowbar in his collection of tools and broke into one of the bigger rooms, a suite this time. The bed was a double. He started playing golf in one of the sport rooms and went to the onboard restaurant: programmable for over thirty different cuisines. He watched movies and let his beard grow out. He spoke Spanish to the robots in the Mexican version of the restaurant and he started wearing flip flops.

Everyday the cardboard tasted a little bit worse. He started talking to the cleaning robots and walking around naked. He missed the feeling of someone watching him naked, he missed flirting and staring a women's asses as they walked up the stairs in front of him or bent over a bar. He started drinking more and more. Eventually foregoing glasses and just carrying the bottles around with him.

The worst day, was the day he found the spacesuits. They were set up so that passengers could take a walk outside the ship every so often, to experience space. The first thing Mark did was give the suit a poke. Then he held the glove because it looked like hand and that was good enough these days. He put the suit on not knowing what would happen next. Not knowing whether he'd come back to the ship, not caring. He walked into the air lock and released the pressure, his boots magnetising to the floor. He took a few steps out and onto the deck, the ship was spinning, with every rotation Mark felt himself getting dizzier but he ignored it. He gazed up at the wonder of stars and demagnetised his boots. He floated into the ether, tethered to the ship by a thin grey cord. But still, and so completely alone.

He went back inside, the spinning had given him a headache anyway. He took his helmet off and strolled back into the room. Methodically he took off each piece of the suit and redressed the manakin. Then the voice spoke, we hope you decide to join us again soon for another thrilling experience. He was leaving, he was turning around and leaving when the voice had to add that. It was like a punch to the stomach. No, he wasn't going to enjoy another experience, he felt small and alone out there. And the thoughts he had about breaking the tether and just letting the infinite void of space swallow him had caught him off guard. He didn't like himself when he thought like that, it scared him. Was he capable of really killing himself? He felt his feet tugging at him as he followed the voice. He walked back into the air lock and the door closed behind him. Pulling down the lever was so easy, and pushing the final button to open the pressure seal would be too easy too. But he didn't like feeling this way. He closed the air lock and ran, his bare feet slapping the floor with each pounding step. He slipped so easily, knocking himself out. His back hitting the floor hard, and his head bouncing as he lost consciousness.

When he finally came round his head was banging. He curled over on the floor and cried for moments that seemed endless. He picked himself up slowly, his back aching as he pulled himself upright. He put his head in his hands and screamed. His violent outburst reverberating off the walls, in a disruptive echo. Then he looked up and saw her. She was still asleep. She looked so peaceful and alive, her cheeks were rosy and fresh. She looked like Snow White. Alexandra Grey. Mark's clammy hands made sweaty fingerprints on the glass. The side of the pod said she was a doctor. So she was smart as well as beautiful. And she helped people, maybe she could help him. Mark sat with his knees against his chest, his back against another pod. Was there hope in this bitter, infinite emptiness? He pulled out her video file.