Every last one of them believed that. Sloane did, too.
A wrinkled stasis uniform wasn’t really on her list of priorities. But hey, whatever floated Garson’s prelaunch freighter was fine with Sloane.
Garson folded her arms over her chest, drawing Sloane’s attention back to the woman nestled inside the comfortably detailed interior. “The other side,” she murmured, as if more to herself than to Sloane. “Andromeda.” Then, meeting Sloane’s gaze, she asked, “What do you hope to find there, Director?”
She blinked. “Hmm… I haven’t much thought of it.” An outright lie, and at Garson’s crestfallen look, Sloane added wryly, “How about a cure for the common hangover?”
That earned another bout of laughter, bright and genuine. “We can only hope,” Garson said, still chuckling, and gave Sloane the nod. That nod. The one that said the time for talk was over.
Sloane oversaw the closure of the pod. She smiled at the leader of the Initiative through the small porthole, patted the pod twice in old habit, and waited until the indicators all showed cryogenic success and stability.
“The other side,” Sloane echoed—and the advent of her real work.
Rubbing the lingering effects of the previous evening from her temples, she began her own final inspection. For whatever reason known to whoever designed the procedure, Director Kelly had wound up with the strange honor of being the last awake.
It was up to her to declare the station safe to fly. A ceremonial gesture, she reminded herself, but that little excited portion of her brain also reminded her that she wielded the power to stop it all. If anything at all was amiss, she could put the whole thing on lockdown.
That meant something, didn’t it?
“Not that anything could go wrong,” she said aloud as she walked the long, echoing corridors. The place was built by the top minds in the whole galaxy. Everything down to the last wire was the end product of countless hours of genius. If something went wrong now, it’d have to be an act of some pissed-off god.
Sloane didn’t believe in gods. Or in dodging procedure. Not when it was this big, the stakes this high. The final walk was one of the few items on the departure checklist at which she hadn’t rolled her eyes.
In truth she’d been looking forward to this ever since the plan had been made. A few hours of blissful silence and solitude to roam the halls of the station—her station. The place she’d sworn to protect and shepherd on its great mission. The place for which she’d given up her life in the Milky Way.
Granted she hadn’t left much behind. Not really. No family, no responsibilities beyond that which she’d earned with the Alliance. There were pioneers who had given up much, much more. When it really came down to it, Sloane was only really leaving behind baggage.
A galaxy’s worth of it. Old scars. Enemies made across old battle lines, and subsequent grudges lobbed diplomatically across political tables. Idiot officers far more concerned about the shine on the medals earned on the back of dead soldiers…
The old, familiar anger welled in the back of Sloane’s mind. She gritted her teeth and shook her head again, which mostly served to set her hangover back into swing.
Enough was enough. She’d landed the best job in the entire galaxy—soon to be two galaxies. She had the chance to make it right, and right now. Though even that was jumping ahead. First, the journey. Then the time for change. Which sounded a hell of a lot better to her than the poor suckers left tangled in the Milky Way’s red tape.
Sloane went through her checklist with unwavering attention to detail. She didn’t care if it took her six hours or six days, she would make damn sure every last door was closed and locked, every supply crate was properly stowed, and no nefarious “rogue elements” were hiding in the air vents.
Mostly, this meant a lot of walking. Which meant the perfect time to pull up Garson’s speech on her omni-tool. The speech, much like the woman herself, had zero preamble.
“Tomorrow we make the greatest sacrifice we have ever—or will ever—make,” Garson began. Bold words, and confident as hell. “At the same time, we also begin the greatest adventure of our lives.”
Sloane agreed with that. The lure of the unknown wasn’t her drug of choice, but she appreciated the excitement.
“Many have weighed in. The gossip, the media coverage, even threats, have had more than enough to say.” She spread her hands, as if she could hold the weight of all the thousands of hours of committees she’d attended. “Some claim this plan is nothing more than an attempt to flee the galaxy we helped shape, taking our very expensive toys—” Her eyebrows lifted.
Sloane chuckled.
“—and going somewhere else to play. Others decry our mission as the most expensive insurance policy known to any sentient species.”
Sloane would’ve been happy to punch out this metaphorical they. Instead, she had to settle for muttering a terse epithet, and continued on her path. At least there was no one to hear her talking to her omni-tool.
“The message I left with the Hyperion is similar to the one I’m saying to you now. You are about to embark on a journey unlike anything ever attempted before. And make no mistake…”
The holographic Garson paused, looked into the camera for a long moment. Sloane’s step faltered as she watched. She felt a chill run up her spine, crawl across her scalp. In that deliberate pause it felt as if Jien Garson stared right at her.
Focused on her. Really saw her.
Her and the thousands of pioneers like her.
“This is a one-way trip. What all those politicians, naysayers and threats don’t understand is that we are here, together, because we believe in something they don’t. We put our effort and our faith into something those people can’t imagine, can’t even begin to understand. In other words, they,” Garson said flatly, “are wrong.”
Sloane nodded. Firmly. Hell to the yes.
“The circumstances that have led to the creation of this magnificent station are vast and varied, that much is true. We all know some of these reasons.” But with this, Garson smiled faintly. Reassuring or rueful, Sloane couldn’t tell. “None of us can know them all, not even me. Yet they are only part of the equation. You and I,” she said, gesturing to Sloane—to the audience, “are the other part.”
Sloane found herself nodding again. Silently shouting another hell yes! She was another part. A big part. Sloane had plans. Ideas. And Garson had already made it clear she liked that. A new way for a new hope, right?
“Each and every one of us has our own reasons for volunteering to go,” she continued, “and those too are legion. Some of us feel a sense of duty. Some of us do indeed fear what the future has in store for the Milky Way. We flee our past, we seek a future. We wish to begin anew. We crave the unexplored wonders that no doubt will reshape all that we know.” Garson smiled, encouraging. Warm. “All equally valid, in my estimation—but that’s not important here. What is important as we depart, what I want to be sure you all know as you prepare to cross this ocean of time and space, is this…” She held her breath a moment.
Sloane couldn’t help but admire the woman’s skill, especially compared to her own. Sloane’s speeches tended to be short and to the point. Things like get it done or put them down. Things you could say fast and on the ground.
But the camera loved Jien Garson. Her force of will, her trust, radiated out through every pore. “None of those reasons,” Garson said plainly, direct and without so much as a shred of humility, “matter anymore. Not for us. What matters now, for you and me, is what we do when we arrive. Who we become, and how we carry ourselves in Andromeda.”