Timeskip

[WP] “1 day on this planet is 15 years on earth,” said the ship's AI. “I was told to inform you of this after the completion of your 12-day mission on the surface.”

*****

Jem staggered backward for a second; her spherical helmet tapping on the white plastic wall with a dull thud.

She did a calculation for a moment before saying “It’s been 200 years?”

The green light of the AI floated in mid-air and rotated for a fraction of a second. This indicated it was running through a lot of replies, as this wasn’t exactly a difficult and unpredictable question. Jem hated it when the AI tried to play her like this. “Time in is fact relative, which is why the qualifier of the Earth was added for context. It has in fact been 187 years, 6 months, 4 days, 17 hours, approx.”

Was that really the best option it could come up with? “How? Why? When?” A million other actual reasonable questions ran through her head. The helmet dropped to the deck, and her flight suit creaked. Jem let out a breath “Ship, go into Cherry mode.”

The green light was replaced by a red one. Jem had chosen the name based on this. She should have known when she came back and it was the default Ship that greeted her. The ship was the serious one. The ship was official. Cherry was a friend, as least they were supposed to be.

“J, welcome back.” Cherry’s voice squeaked slightly.

“Cherry. What the fuck is going on?”

The light rotated. Jem could swear for an instant it seemed like it was going green, just an instant. It remained red and stopped rotating.

“J, I’m so sorry.” The words felt hollow immediately “It was ordered from Mission Control. You know how they can be. They ordered me under whatever statues they liked to not advise you about where you were going until right now.” the inflections felt wrong.

Jem walked over to a bulkhead and sat down. “Why?”

“Because you would never have agreed to do the fix if that was the case.” Cherry almost sounded embarrassed or guilty. Right now though Jem couldn’t do anything but think about the sliders when she build this frontend. Pretty high sympathy, but also max practical.

“It’s a fucking farm planet. Is it really worth wasting my entire life fixing a tractor? Everyone I’ve ever known, dead. Everyone I’ve ever loved, dead. Oh god…” Jem felt tears on her face.

“Are you sure you want me for this J?” Cherry asked. “You don’t want me giving you the actual answers to these questions, do you? Wouldn’t you rather have Alice or Frank?”

“Alice is my therapist, and Frank is a union rep.” Jem spat back. “I wanted a friend.”

“Right.” the circle spun for a moment but remained red, and it made an audible sigh "You were the only one without connections that would have little impact or rattle down the timeline for the projected duration of the mission. No children, no parents. Focused mostly on work. Also, this was a critical mission, the Atmospheric Icers you fixed, will allow terraforming to commence at a much better rate, meaning rather than being suitable for farming algae, the planet will be ready for colonization in just 500 earth years. Combined with you being in perfect physical health, it was an opportunity for the scientific team to study the effects of short-duration, long-term relativity aging on a human subject. This part of the mission was low risk, but still a significant part worth mentioning at this exact second.”

A buzzing sound followed by a communications ping came from the bridge.

The circle moved towards the bridge “The scientists are coming to debrief you. I think they are arriving too soon, but they were eager. You know how people sometimes forget that people are, you know, people.” the circle hovered over the communication station “They’re calling to dock.”

Jem swore in several languages as she made her way to the station. She put on a headset and pressed several buttons “This is Chantry 7.”

“Hello. This is the science vessel D'Artagnan of the Azure collective, coming to debrief you about your experience.”

Jem pulled the headset off and looked at Cherry “The what?”

“There’s been 187 years of history since you’ve been gone. The American empire fell in a really stupid way, so no more XASA. The European Union fell to infighting, and the French scientific movement ended up on top, with each section having a different gemstone name. It’s actually a lot more complicated than that. But you should probably answer them.”

Jem put the headset on again “Rodger D'Artagnan. You are cleared for docking at bay 1.”

“We are very excited to meet you.” Came a totally different voice from the other ship somewhere in the background.

Jem threw the headset away. She could see the other ship as it maneuvered outside. The Chantry was a tiny thing, with a bridge, engineering hub, and all the essentials needed to live for a short three-week deep space trip. On the outside, it looked like sheets of metal attached by random piping with a very clear up for the bridge at the top, and engine at the bottom.

The bridge view outside showed her a collection of coral shells grown onto a science fiction red stone apartment building twelve floors high; with all the angles being slightly off. After a few moments, she realized it had to have been grown to account for the irregular shapes on every window. Had they grown this ship in space? The scientist in her tried to remember how coral grew. The pilot in her made her start moving towards the airlock, while managing to change out of a flight suit, into some comfortable jeans and a protein bar

If she was going to debrief for hours while processing her entire life had been destroyed, she’d be damned if she was going to be uncomfortable or hungry.

“Cherry?” Jem said while putting on a T-Shirt “I get overtime pay for this right?”

The light went blue, Frank replied “I did negotiate you a deal for real-time ship pay after your agreed 12-day contract elapsed. I basically argued under union law that you were still on the job and hadn’t even taken a break yet. It went to court and is now standing law that this was unethical and the money has transferred to companies a few times. If anyone asks, you have trauma and it was deeply unethical. You can probably afford to retire on your own moon.”

“Frank, I’ve missed you.” Jem opened the airlock.

*****

THE END.