Proxima Adventure

Chapter 26. Evolution, part 2.

Chapter 26. Evolution, Part 2.

Because of the recent discoveries about the ship and its purpose, the crew was spending more time searching through the ship's records and manuals to see if they could find more hidden things.

Alice came to Charles's quarters one evening and found him sitting in his living area listening to music, namely 'born to Run' by Bruce Springsteen. His cat didn't seem to be as interested in the rock music.

"I didn't know that there was music in the system's memory," she said before she plopped down next to him.

"This ship's memory storage is unbelievable. It has almost every movie, TV show, sporting event, news cast, and music, opera, and broad way performance that was recorded."

"Maybe they wanted to preserve human achievements for a new Earth habitation."

"That would be the case if there were a new human existence."

"Well, I don't know about that, but I've found something that might have an impact on what we thought they were trying to do."

Charles stared at her with a confused expression. "Oh?"

She smiled briefly before presenting a more serious expression to him. "I discovered that there are three more individuals in hibernation on this vessel."

His expression evolved from confusion to excitement. "You're kidding?"

"Nope," she replied with a smirk. "It turns out that there's a section off the main hibernation chamber, and it contains more hibernation modules."

"Are you saying that there are people in them all this time?"

"Yes. I know it sound crazy, but there is a male and two females in them."

"I didn't see them in the crew manifest."

"Maybe they were added at the last minute."

Charles grabbed his keypad, causing the cat to get up and jump off the couch. After punching in the right code, he was able to get into the original commander's data.

"You're right," he told Alice. "Although, I don't see an explanation for them being kept in a hidden location."

"Maybe they were in there as an added protection of the mission."

Charles rubbed the side of his face. "Could be. Let's go see if they're still alive."

She followed him to the hibernation chamber where all the modules were opened.

Alice pointed to a door. "I think they're in there."

Charles opened the door and entered with Alice on his tail. He looked at the three units and then turned back to her. "They're still kicking."

"So, what are we going to do?"

"Let's revive them. It's probably the only way we'll know why Space Command did this."

Charles and Alice pushed buttons in the modules that started the revival process.

"Let's leave them recover," Charles said. "We'll warn everyone to stay out of the corridors."

It wasn't until later that evening, after the three new crew members had been revived, cleaned up and escorted to the large dining chamber, that Charles and his crew were able to see and talk to them.

Ted Westen was a young male much like Carl, with blond hair and blue eyes. Marion Westen was also a blond, while Gretchen Westen looked almost the same as her, indicating that they were twins.