Unlink

"This is the most promising planet we've had in years. Let's see what we've actually got down there."

Every sensor on the ship instantly came to life, each one directing its attention to the planet below. Long range scans from home showed it to have oxygen and water, but it was farther from the local star than would be ideal.

"Antenna 7 didn't activate."

It was common to have a few defective parts on startup. Most outward-facing sensors were turned on for only a day or two every few years, so any faults weren't detected until a new planet was reached. A simple reboot would usually do the trick.

"Mark, did you hear that? Antenna 7 isn't working."

Technically, Mark couldn't hear anything. The three crew members on the ship were all asleep in stasis pods while data from the computer was fed into their mostly inactive brains, which would process the information and send new data back into the computer. The pods also significantly slowed the aging process, allowing the people commanding the ship to do so indefinitely. It was the cleanest and quickest solution they had found back on Earth for piloting and maintaining a ship for an unknown length of time. Artificial intelligence hadn't yet reached its full potential, nor was it as trustworthy as a human brain, and building a ship that could sustain a large population being awake for generations was out of the question.

With just five years until a giant meteor was to wipe out the Earth, they had been forced to act fast. Within months of the discovery, hundreds of vessels launched in every direction from Earth. Most of the population went into cryogenic sleep as passengers, while crews of three - made up of pilots, scientists, and engineers - hooked into the ships' computers and began a voyage to find a new home. The chance of any one ship discovering a habitable planet was small, so each went its own separate way, sending a beacon to the other ships if one was found.

It had been 843 years since this particular ship, SearchLight 25, had launched. It was one of the last to leave Earth, launching late enough that Sarah and John witnessed the planet rip into pieces as the meteor hit. It took mere minutes for the only land they had ever stepped on to become an unlivable wasteland. Yet that was not the last difficulty the crew faced. Sam, the third crewmember, died unexpectedly years after their departure. He was able to be replaced with a passenger, but still no suitable planet had been found, and no beacons had been heard. Even if another ship had discovered the perfect world, it was possible SL25 was too far away to hear it. In fact, it was statistically probable that around 20 ships had found a suitable home by now. Scans from Earth hinted at there being plenty of potentially habitable planets throughout the solar system, but all SL25 had found were barren and toxic rocks.

"Mark, I know you can hear me. Diagnostics say your body is processing information. Hurry up and get your section started, I want to see what's down there."

"It doesn't matter," Mark sighed. The emotion in a linked brain's voice didn't always process correctly, but enough information was there for anyone else connected to decipher it.

Sarah stopped what she was doing. "What do you mean it doesn't matter?"

"Just look at it. There's nothing down there. No water, no green, nothing. It's a rock floating through space. That's it. The long range scans were even less reliable than usual."

Sarah switched her view to the feed from the camera pointed at the planet. She typically didn't like looking at it before running some tests. She'd rather watch the data flow in one piece at a time, and seeing the planet spoiled part of the fun. After a quick glance, she responded, "You know that doesn't mean anything. There could be water under the surface, and abundant vegetation isn't a necessity. We can set up the domes as long as the atmosphere isn't going out of its way to try and kill us."