Image by Travis Anderson from Pixabay

Anari opened her eyes as the klaxon sounded. She sighed and rolled out of bed. For three years she had lived, ate, slept, and worked by those klaxons. She was beginning to forget what the feel of the sun and the wind felt like. Everyone onboard the starship Endeavour felt the same as she did, except perhaps the non-organic crew members – the androids whose purpose it was to make sure the humans followed the rigorous schedule set forth by the company.

She took her company allowed ten minute shower, dressed in her company issued ship suit, and went to breakfast. “How many more years do you think we’re going to have to eat this slop?” Martien, a young man who’d come aboard at their last stop, complained as they were given their necessary caloric intake and no more before being sent to sit at one of the tables.

“Do not talk. Eat your breakfast and go to your assigned duty station,” one of the androids commanded. “All conversation is to be kept until the company mandated social period.”

Anari ate the tasteless goo they called food and bussed her tray. She made her way to the environmental section and walked into the biome preservation area. There, backups of the ship’s oxygen and water maintenance plants were kept. She tended to the plants for the next twelve hours, pausing only for two company mandated fifteen minute breaks and her hour lunch.

The final klaxon of her shift sounded and she made her way to her dinner. She ate and went to the company mandated social hour. The problem was, everyone was so tired, there was very little socialization going on. “I repeat my question from earlier. How much longer do we have to put up with this?” Martien asked again.

“You’re new. You’ll get used to it,” someone told him. “I’ve been here six years. It becomes bearable after two to three years.”

“Are we indentured servants that we’re stuck here for life?” Martien demanded.

“Your contract should have stipulated ten years’ service aboard a starship,” someone told him placidly. “You just have to serve your ten years and then you’re given a nice, cushy desk job somewhere.”

“Or you’re promoted to bridge crew and serve another ten to twenty years on a starship. Depends on what the company wants to do with you,” someone else added.

Anari knew what she wanted. She wanted to be planetside again. She wanted to see the sun, to feel the wind, to taste the rain. She wanted to run in the fields of wildflowers near her hometown. But she had seven years to go and ten years could change a lot on a planet. She knew that. She sighed and when the klaxon sounded she took herself off to bed.