Tethers
By
Sara Reinke

Prologue

4.9.2056
Commercial Stellar Transport: Daedalus
Crew Members:
Captain Alexander Horne (retired) (277-231-9)—First Officer
Kathryn Emmente (352-210-0)—Second Officer
Lieutenant Eric Nagel (retired) (424-111-7)—Pilot
Xian Tren, P.E. (268-199-0)—Seismic and Mechanical Engineering Specialist
Leia Nicholsan, P.E. (325-989-1)—Payload Specialist
Franklin Brown, M.D. (517-532-5)—Medical Officer

Additional On-board:
Jerica Emmente

Mission:
Complete construction of terra-farming colony facility on Jupiter satellite, X-1226

    Funny, Kat thought, studying the stellar display, watching the computer trace lines across the monitor, plotting and arranging course adjustments so minute by the readings she'd almost question their necessity. Funny, it doesn't feel like Easter.
    But there it was, undeniable on the monitor displays. At least seven months in cryostasis away on Earth, it was Easter Sunday. Back there, in Illinois, she imagined her family would just now be settling in for the traditional Easter feast. Her mother would be bringing out a turkey, steaming and probably too dry, and the table would be laden with mashed potatoes, gravy, homemade cornbread dressing, rolls and her sister Allison's green-bean casserole.
    The dressing will be too runny, Kat told herself. The gravy too lumpy, and Jerica would just wrinkle her nose at it all anyway. And then we'd have to sit through an hour or so of Allison bitching about her job and how her ex doesn't pay his child support, and snapping at her kids for picking at each other. Some fun.
    Some fun, but she found herself missing it anyway. Easter had always been a difficult time for her, full of unpleasant memories she didn't feel much like thinking about, and she had somehow found a comfort and strange sort of solace from being with her family. No matter how weird they could seem.
    She pressed a couple of buttons on the terminal in front of her, locking in the new coordinates the ship had plotted out. They were running late; a small system glitch just prior to their coming out of cryostasis had left them a little over a day behind schedule.
    “Good thing it happened then and not earlier,” Alex had remarked. “Or Christ only knows where we might have ended up. Uranus or something.”
    She'd laughed. They all had, but none of them had really found it funny. And they'd all been keeping a watchful, wary eye on the bridge since then, making sure the system didn't decide to make another odd decision and send them off-course again and out into space.   more >>