Monica awoke in the narrow, cramped chamber, as she had now for the past twenty-seven cycles. The blue-green water swirling around her as she groggily regained consciousness in her new body. The apparatus on her face was a black mask with tubes and cables coming off of it and leading to the top of the chamber. The mask kept her from drowning in the chamber also held in her panicked breathing and gasping as she fought to try and remember where she was and what she was doing. This part of the process was always the worst. A voice could be heard in the chamber.
“Revivification complete! Brain Scan Complete! Brain Pattern transplant 99% effective. Memory loss holding steady at 0.3%! Evacuation of clone chamber activated!”
Suddenly, Monica felt the liquid rush out of the chamber, her breathing apparatus popped off and the door flung open, dropping her to the clean tile floor in the cloning room. Yes, she thought, that was what this place is, the cloning room on the Star Cruiser Last Chance. She climbed slowly to her feet, holding her head as the memories were still settling in her mind. She used the edge of the nearby desk to pull herself up and took in her surroundings. On the desk was a pad of paper, a pencil, and a picture of a family smiling back at her, but she couldn’t quite remember the significance of them yet. Turning to the left she saw a closet with a black and blue jumpsuit hanging in it. Underneath the suit was a pair of plain black boots with velcro straps. Next to the closet was a narrow mattress on a platform with some drawers. She turned to the chamber she had just exited, the clone processing chamber. The door still hung open, the apparatus was swinging back and forth inside the chamber and the computer inside was making a short announcement: “Please input genetic material into sampling intake!”
“Oh right, gene sampler.” Monica said, her voice sounding raspy and strange to her. She walked up to the chamber and touched the small device protruding from the side. The device was about the size of a human finger, with an opening at the end. Monica stuck her finger in the tube and felt a small stabbing pressure. Pulling her finger from the device she saw a small trickle of blood starting to come from her finger.
“Genetic material accepted. Analysis beginning. Clone will be ready in approximately seven years.” the machine said.
“Alright. Well I better get started on the work then.” Monica said, walking over to the closet and putting on the suit and boots. They fit perfectly, just as she had expected them to. After all, she knew what size shoe she wore whenever she got out of the clone chamber.
Monica opened the door into an empty hallway. Like the rest of the ship. All of it empty. Except the cryo chamber in the bottom of the ship of course. The rest of humanity laid there, waiting for Monica to fix the life support systems, the food replicators, and the water purification systems enough to support more than just herself. Monica hadn’t gone down to visit the cryo chamber in about 3 cycles. She just trusted the autopilot functions to maintain it and received regular updates from the onboard computer systems.
A thought hit her. The onboard computer systems.
“Computer,” Monica said into the emptiness “Activation code Alpha, Leo, Leo, Charlie, Leo, Echo, Alpha, Rodger.”
“Acceptance code accepted, welcome back Captain Monica.” the computers deep, logical voice came over the speaker. “Would you like a status update?”
“Yes please!” Monica shouted, still rubbing her head from the disorientation of the clone process.
“Understood! Cryo chamber functionality at 100%. Food replicators operating at 90% functionality. Water purification at 100% functionality. Life support at 65% functionality. Auto pilot operating at 99% functionality. Clone process chamber at 78% functionality. Shields Offline. Weapons Offline. Stealth mode Activated and operating at 100% functionality. Outgoing communications offline.”
Monica let the computer ramble on with the status update. So she had finished water purification and had food replication repairs were nearly complete. Life support was still down so that was where she would start her work.
“Computer, put on some classic rock music. Something that starts off soft and builds up the beat. The computer began playing Hotel California by The Eagles. An earth classic. Monica didn’t care for The Eagles, but at this point she had heard every song in the database a few thousand times. It didn’t really matter.
“Computer, where did I leave off in my repairs for the life support system.” Monica asked.
“Captain, you left off repairing the computer terminal in the forward section of the ship, responsible for air circulation and regulation. That section does not have any atmosphere. You will need a vacuum suit and air canister, which you conveniently left outside the room last time you left that area of the ship. Once that computer terminal is fully repaired, life support will be fully functional.”
“Good Job, Monica, always thinking ahead.” Monica said to no one in particular and hurried off toward the forward part of the ship.
“Captain, it is important that i inform you that the estimated time to repair that computer, working at the full capacity of a human being is three years, four months, seven days and twelve hours.”
“Wow, so in three and a half years, I can finally have some company?” Monica said a little huffy as she ran down the hall.
“Yes captain. Your cloned body will be approximately aged twenty which will be approximately seven years younger than the age you were when your compatriots were put under cryo freeze. You may wish to work at a slower pace, so as not to startle them.”
“Computer, I am the only one who can save these people. I am not going to make them wait any longer than I have to. They’ve been under cryo freeze for one thousand, two-hundred, fifteen years while I jump from clone body to clone body. I am not making them wait any longer than they have to.”
“Understood, captain.” The computer said.
The days turned to weeks and the weeks turned to months as Monica continued to work. The music played, she slept and ate, but only as much as was necessary and no more. She wasn’t going to risk putting more strain on the systems than she needed to. Finally three years, four months, and six days had come and gone.
“Computer, status update on the life support system.”
“Life support, online. You’ve finished 1 day ahead of my estimations. Excellent job.”
“Thanks computer, play some victory music.”
“Playing: “Don’t stop me now” by Queen”
Monica danced her way back to the clone process chamber, excited that tomorrow she could finally wake the rest of the crew up from the cryogenic sleep system they had been stuck in for centuries. Arriving at the clone process chamber, she sat down in front of the desk and glanced up at the clone chamber where a new body was still being formed. The body was about the size of a ten year old child. Monica often wondered if there was any sort of conscious being in that brain before her mind was copied onto it? Was she overriding another person’s existence simply by trying to save the human race?
Monica had wrestled with the moral and ethical problems to her proposed solution to save the human race. But it had to be done. The humans had done something to Earth before they had to abandon it. Thousands and Thousands of ships had left the planet, in search of a new home. The human race had divided up into these ships to ensure a huge genetic pool to pull from. Families had been torn apart. Ethnic, racial, cultural and religious groups were split apart to ensure that even if only one ship survived the journey, a great cross section of humanity would survive the voyage and be able to rebuild those groups on their new home, where ever that ended up being.
Some ships had gone toward the constellation Virgo, others headed closer into the galactic core. Her ship, the Last Chance was heading in the direction of a planet called TOI 700-d, a planet found that was Earth sized in the habitable zone of its star. Even having developed ships that could travel near the speed of light, the journey was expected to take thousands of years. A long time for humanity. But the ships had been equipped to support several hundred generations of humans. But after a few hundred years, the ship systems started to have problems. Monica had been the captain of the ship and ordered everyone into cryo stasis while she activated repairs. After a few years of repairing the ship and realizing just how many systems were going down, she realized she would need more time. She had considered waking someone else from Cryo stasis and having them assist her, but the life support system was barely hanging on and couldn’t support another person for the amount of time it would take to enact repairs. So she came up with a new idea.
The clone process room had originally been designed to simply clone body parts, organs or tissue that would 100% match that of the crew member in need of a transplant or replacement. A few modifications and the clone process chamber was able to make her a new body. The ability to copy her brain scans and consciousness over to the new body was experimental at best and she wasn’t even sure it would work until the first time her body had reached old age and she turned the scanner on.
Traveling from an aged body to a healthy young body was a weird experience. It felt like being sucked out of your head through a straw and then being shot at the speed of light against a wall. The disorientation always hurt and was uncomfortable. Living for twelve-hundred years had also made Monica realize one other thing: She was tired. She was tired of reliving the same experiences, the same thoughts, the same bodily aches and pains. Now that this was over, she was not only ready to wake up the other humans. She was ready to rest.
Resting her head on her pillow, she closed her eyes. This would be her last night alone. Her last night as the only human active on this ship. Tomorrow humanity resumed its Salvation.