Mission: Paradise

One

A crash woke Penny from her sleep, blinking rapidly at the red lights flashing on and off around her as she climbed out of her pod. For a minute or two, she was confused. Where was she exactly, with the grey sands and three orange suns? What was the repetitive, wailing noise filling her ears? And, the one that seemed to be most prominent in her mind, was the biggest question of all. Why was she, Penny Wolfert, the youngest and one of the four females in the crew, the only one out of her shipmates awake?

All the answers seemed to flood into her mind at once. She was on a rocket, that had obviously crash landed. Hopefully she was on Acradus, her destination. Although it didn't look like the 'paradise' her father had told her it would be. Her father. All other questions and thoughts faded from her mind as soon as she thought of those two words. 400 years it had been since she saw him. He would be dead now, wouldn't he? After all, she had been in a artificial, non aging coma for the past few centuries, induced by NASA. Speaking of NASA, she wasn't sure what year it would be back on Earth. Assuming she had been asleep for exactly 400 years, it would be 2840, considering she left in the summer of 2440.

The two questions left unanswered made their way back into her head, making her ponder them quietly. The wailing noise had to be some kind of alarm, from the crash landing. Obviously the ship was damaged from the impact, or perhaps something else entirely. Perhaps the damage was the reason they crashed in the first place. But if that was correct, then what had caused the ship to be so damaged? What was capable of breaking a ship so badly that it crash landed? 'Maybe,' Penny thought. 'Maybe the atmosphere on this planet was so thick and so strong, that it burned through the ship, or did something else to it?' Penny hoped that was the case. The idea of being on a planet with no one to help her, and a broken ship that likely wouldn't be able to get her home was bad enough without something capable of destroying a ship added into the mix too.

Final question. Why was she the only one awake? The only question she couldn't answer. She had no idea why her shipmates weren't awake, unless the journey was quicker than expected, which would mean their pods were not set to wake them up yet. She could only wish they would wake up soon to help her. But even if that was the case, that still did not explain why she was awake.

Her three first questions aside, Penny headed to the main bay of the ship, hoping she could gain assistance or at least some answers from the ship's artificial intelligence, Houston. She pressed her palm to a sensor on the wall, opening a sliding glass door.

Loosening her long blonde hair from her bun, Penny made her way across the ship, flicking switches as she passed them to turn the warning lights and the alarms in each area. Now that she could hear herself think and see where she was going without hurting her eyes, she felt a lot better. All she felt now was... loneliness. Longing for some kind of company, even if it was the most annoying person in the crew.

The twenty four year old reached the front of the ship, swiping on a glass screen to bring up Houston, the ship's hologram who was in charge, and could help with nearly any problem related to space, the ship, or any planet that had been travelled to by NASA before. A flickering form came to life, becoming the shape of a man.

"Miss Penny Wolfert, why are you awake? The twelve of you were not scheduled to awaken until three days, eleven hours and twenty two minutes from now." Houston started, a concerned expression on his face. "Was there some kind of issue or-"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out myself." She cut in quickly, not ready to listen to one of his famous lectures when she had woken up from nearly half a millennia long sleep just minutes ago. "Also, could you find out why the ship crash landed, and if we are indeed on Acradus? I was hoping that it was the atmosphere or a fault, and not something on the planet that brought it down. This would certainly not be the 'paradise' or 'promised land' that my father insisted it was if there was something here capable of bringing down a rocket." The young woman shuddered slightly at the thought.