Stranded Star

Lieutenant Young stepped aboard the ship, looking back at her fiancee, Rei. He smiled, and nodded, as she took her final steps on the I.S.S Yamamoto. A single tear ran down her cheek, as the doors slowly sealed, along with her fate. They were on a voyage to the Andromeda galaxy, millions of light years away. Everyone knew what to do; step inside the cryo pods, and count to thirteen. That's about the amount of time it takes to fall asleep and go into metabolic stasis, and then they'd awake a hundred years from then, when they are close enough to their destination. Sumara did just that, and began to count.

"An, be, kho, śen, jo, sei...ka...te...nùr...lei...leán...lebé...lekkò." She said, getting sleepier and sleepier after each number. "Sláre, Rei. Goodbye..." Sumara said weakly, as she drifted off to sleep, hoping this would all be over soon.

When Sumara woke up, she opened her pod, expecting to see people bustling around, preparing for the landing on Idèle, their target destination. But what she saw terrified her more than anything; She saw nobody. Everyone else was still in their pods, unmoving, still in metabolic stasis. She got up from her pod, and frantically began to look around the large room, desperate to find someone, anyone who was awake. Perhaps it was an elaborate prank? She laughed. They must have been planning this since they left.

"Haha, very funny guys. You can come out now, jokes over. I said the jokes over, and as your Lieutenant, I'm ordering you to come out now." She said, now upset. The joke had gone too far. But when nobody but the silence drowning the room responded, she began to worry. What if...what if she was the only crew member awake?

'Wait,' She thought, 'There's a computer system aboard. I can just ask how much longer we have until we land. Hopefully they wake up soon.' Sumara thought.

"Atlas!" She said, speaking the computer's name. It responded.

"Yes, Lieutenant Young?" It asked. She nodded. At least the computer was active.

"How much longer until we land on Idèle?" Sumara asked.

"At our current velocity, the landing on Idèle is approximately...ninety-seven years from now." Atlas answered. Sumara couldn't believe it. They weren't even halfway to the planet. She fell to her knees, and sobbed. She sobbed because she realized that she would probably die on that ship. That she would never see Rei again. Never get married to him. She'd be stranded in space...forever. Through her sobs, she somehow found the strength to ask Atlas another question.

"Atlas, h-how long ha-has it been s-since t-takeoff?" She said, her voice catching.

"Two and a half years, Lieutenant." It replied. When he said that, she could feel herself slipping, and she fell to the ground, as everything around her began to fade to black.