The Iron Forest: Ancestor's Legacy

Commander Victor Murphy awoke to a chaotic series of beeps and flashing lights. An overwhelming number of complex feeds of system reports and information displayed across his view screen. He blinked through stiff crusty eyelids, trying to remember a garbled weave of his past, but nothing manifested into consciousness. His body ached from an unknown length of dormancy, coupled with his lungs struggling to reanimate above a bloated gut.

Steel and machinery cocooned Victor from the inhospitable vacuum of space. A single window, covered in a thin frame of ice, gave him a view of the darkness. All around, his vision displayed holographic data still blurred from the waking effects of long-term sleep. None of the passing text and images of both his and the ship’s vitals had as much interest as the blue and green orb, passing across the viewport at blinding speed.

“Good morning, Commander,” the cryo-pod’s computer announced. The digital replication of a woman’s voice twitched and garbled like it too struggled to awaken. Victor detected her politeness and assumed he requested the gender for his own comfort and familiarity.

“Who am I?” he groaned, picking up on the title but still unable to read his name tag through blurred vision.

“You are Commander Victor Murphy, chief engineer of the Global Union Space Agency.”

That meant nothing to him, but at least he had some identity to cling to. “I can’t remember anything,” he said, feeling warm as drugs were pumped through a multitude of tubes in his arms and chest.

“My apologies, Commander. Memory loss is a side effect of the cryo-sleep process that should be clear over time. I am administering a dose of neuro-stimulants to help your cognizant functions and an ocular miotic for your vision and some mild sensory dysfunctions. The latter, you should regain soon.”

Blurred words, scanning across his vision, merged into focus. His memory, however, did not return with the same quickness. A few images from the past flashed in his mind, but seemed random and incoherent.

His hand and arm, still numb, worked its way through the cramped confines of his interstellar coffin. He wiped away a glistening layer of ice off his face that tingled where a beard began.

“What year is it, Earth standard?” He glanced over to read now recognizable status indicators and systems diagnostics.

“My cesium time standard has exceeded acceptable degradation. Based on celestial reference, the current year is 5486.”

“What? That’s not possible,” he muttered. “Run the analysis again and check for parsing errors.”

“I’m afraid that is accurate, Commander. I cross checked the data, and it appears you have been asleep for three-thousand, three-hundred, and ninety-six years.”

A mixture of amazement and disbelief rattled through Victor. The cryo-pod was designed for continuous deployment for centuries, but no one expected it to last several millennia—assuming it was that long.

“Impossible.”

“Afraid not, Commander. Although there might be an uncertainty of only two to three years.”

He snickered at that. What difference would two to three years make when he has been in cryogenic stasis for several thousand… A multitude of emotions came to him in waves. What of the friends and family, long since dead that I left behind?

“If I have been asleep for thousands of years, then why wake me now?”

The pod’s computer whirled. “My propulsion systems can no longer maintain a centrifugal orbit and keep you alive at the same time. The planet’s gravitational influence has increased beyond my ability to remain in space.”

Victor peered through the viewport to get a glimpse of Earth as it passed around the spinning pod in a blur. “Stabilize,” he commanded.

“I would not recommend that, Commander. The necessary fuel for safe atmospheric reentry is already close to depletion. If you like, I can display a current planetary image on your monitor.”

“No. I want to see it for myself.”

“Very well, Commander.”

Jets of gas burst from the pod’s eight rotational thrusters, placing the planet into the center of Victor’s window. He stared at the glowing blue orb, unsure if it was the same as he remembered. It seemed more barren, with a juvenile innocence than expected. The parts not blue appeared greener, lusher than his last mental image that surfaced through a haze. Half the sphere hid behind shadow. His recollection placed a glowing web of lights all across the surface, but only darkness, so black, he couldn’t see where the planet ended, and space began.

“Check for any signals from the planet’s surface.”

“Negative, Commander. No signs of civilization are being detected on any of my sensors.”

“Any humans?”

“Unknown. I can perform another search when we get into a closer orbit.”

“How long till we land?”

A barrage of trajectory analysis showed a digital render of Earth, with the pod’s flight path scanned across the holographic monitor. Beeps and clicks from the computer’s calculation interfered with the low hum of the pod’s life support system.

“It will be some time before we enter Earth’s atmosphere at our current velocity. Would you like me to put you back into cryogenic sleep for the duration of the trip?”

“What? No. I’ll sleep the old-fashioned way—when I get tired.” He scoffed.

“As you wish, Commander. Be advised it may be many days or weeks till arrival.”

Victor leaned his head back, closing his eyes. “That’s fine. I’ll wait. In the meantime, gather any historical references after the year 2177.”

“I’m sorry, Commander. My data banks do not contain any information of that nature.”

He rolled his eyes. “Of course not. I guess I’ll sit here and enjoy the view.”