Proxima by Chase Hildenbrand

Author:Chase Hildenbrand
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chase Hildenbrand
Published: 2020-07-05T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

ANN ALWAYS BELIEVED herself to be a patient person. She grew up in perhaps the most trying time in human history after all. Waiting for good things to happen never bothered her as much as her peers. However, the three weeks spent orbiting Proxima b without hearing from Liam or The Hawking was driving her mad. Surrounding herself with her work, her spirits were high during the first week. Every day after her worry increased exponentially. Now, weeks after waking up in the Centauri system, she lay on her bed an emotional wreck. Where was The Hawking? Rumors circulated around the ship that people knew other people on other ships who saw the alien fleet destroy The Hawking. Rumors. Unsubstantiated rumors. She refused to believe anything that didn’t come from an official source like a captain, and so far the word has been mum from them.

She prayed that Liam’s ship was simply further behind than they all thought. Millions of reasons could have delayed them. Perhaps they were slightly off course? Whatever the reason, her work had begun suffering. Adam and Blaire picked up more and more of the workload, while she distanced herself from not just them, but Ray and Salena as well.

The survivors of the human race were days away from taking their first steps on an alien world. Ann and her team were on the transit schedule for day one. Their mission was to land in their designated zone to begin setting up a camp and mobile lab. Once complete, they were to study an array of plant life nearby their camp and return even more to The Christensen after a week on the ground. The work would be strenuous and dangerous, leaving Ann little choice but to regain her focus and pull herself up from this slump.

For now, she wanted faux-coffee. One step at a time.

Grudgingly, she pulled herself up to plant her feet on the floor and made her way to the coffee maker. It was 6:10 am, Earth Standard Time and this was the morning they would begin packing up their Z48 with lab equipment for the surface. Adam needed her help, no sulking allowed. The smell of the filling coffee pot woke her up just enough to not completely fall over from fright when a series of knocks pounded on her door. Heart racing, she turned on her wall-screen to see who scared her so egregiously at this ungodly hour. It was Adam, and to her surprise, Ray. To her knowledge the two had never met.

“I’m not dressed. Hold on,” she told them through the door. As she pulled on a robe the coffee maker finished brewing. Before opening the door she decided they could wait and she filled a cup. After a couple sips, she was as ready as she’d ever be for this odd meeting of work and personal lives. Her quarters were a disaster with clothing all over her floor and trash piling up on her counters, but she didn’t quite care.

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