Day 1
Finley woke up just after seven and immediately checked her comm. When it showed no emergencies, she rolled over and went back to sleep for several more hours.
She'd never been someone who hate sleep. One her time off between assignments, she was tended to sleep ten hours a night, making up for the sleep deficit that space was well known to cause. Most humans, even those born in space, experienced an increase in sleep quality when they slept on a planet verse in space. It was generally believed to be a result of the Cosmic Microwave Background, which included the never-ending noise of the machines required to live in space, and there were debates on how many more generations it would actually last.
More fundamentalist groups tended to twist it to support their argument that humankind had never been meant to leave Earth and needed to return to save themselves.
Nonsense, but Finley knew well enough not to dwell on empty arguments with people who had already made up their minds.
Most of the crew, everyone below the Commanders or Chief Officers, worked on shifts. The ship ran on the standard twenty-four seven-day week they'd inherited from Earth. It had been engrained into the human race that they'd been unable to shake it when they moved to space, so all time was set by the Very Large Array in New Mexico, while the meridians set by Greenwich Observatory were still recognized on Earth itself. Mars had the Olympus Mons Observatory now, that set the meridians for Mars and the Moon Colony was built around the Serenity Observatory, which had been nicknamed the Silver Millenium, partially due to the fact that the materials it had been built from were mostly silver and the fact that it had been a huge Japanese-USA building project and the lead Japanese engineer had a been a childhood fan of the manga, which hadn't quite been ancient by the time the observatory began construction at the end of the 21st century but it was getting close.
The Serenity Observatory was still considered one of the most beautiful human constructions in space, right alongside the Walker Hospital off the rings of Saturn, who design was inspired by the Forbidden City in Beijing. The city itself had been destroyed in a civil war in the mid 21st century, and while there were numerous smaller replicas built over the centuries, China had largely abandoned Earth when humankind moved to space.
None of the original governments that had existed in the 21st century had survived the move into space. Even the United States had become the United Americas after they'd taken control of both continents and formed a super government that had survived for longer than anyone else and controlled much of humankind's movement into space due to their size and production rate when they'd allied the African Nations.
Besieged by civil wars and no space to grow when numerous land grabs failed, Russia and China had turned to space, thriving for a few centuries before they fractured apart under the pressure of controlling so much space and so many people. The Ameri-Africa alliance had merged with Indo Asia, led by the Thai, and together they'd forcibly absorbed the European Coalition. Lacking any large government to stand behind, the remnants of China-Russo populations had simply been absorbed.
By then it had been the 27th century, humankind was firmly established in space and Earth, while still home to a large population, was mostly known for being the seat of the government and a vacation location.
Although it had been struck by famine and shifting continents and a few natural disasters and the exodus of most of the human race to Earth, the planet continued to chug along as it wished. Something scientists still studied to this day.
The last significant change had been a famine that ended when Finley was a teenager, and things had been peaceful since. For the most part. The civil war and splitting of the government had mostly taken place in space, since it was in the shared interest of both sides to protect Earth. Since less than five percent of current human population was born and resided on Earth and both governments had moved their headquarters to space during the conflict and it had only been the new government that had returned planet side.
Almost all ships ran on shifts, since it was the only way to keep a ship in constant operation. Captains and senior officers were simply available whenever they were needed and tried to stay as rested as possible in case of an emergency. Exhausted stressed out Captains had killed a lot of people in the first centuries of space travel, leading to significant laws and regulations about space crews and rest.
Finley rolled out of bed when her eyes finally fluttered open and didn't immediately shut again.
"Coffee. Black."
The machine in the kitchenette beeped and a few seconds later the hiss of steaming water being poured into a cup broke the silence and Finley pulled herself out of bed.
Littlefoot rolled over, stretching in a way that Finley had always envied and trotted over the small patch of self-cleaning grass to do her business, before joining Finley in the kitchenette for her breakfast.
Part of the Food Generator, which could make a variety of nutritious meals on demand, was a smaller attachment that made a small selection of dog food specifically for her breed.
Senior officer quarters came with their own Food Generators, while lower ranks shared eating areas. Some ships that allowed families generally allotted them larger quarters with Food Generators, but the Loss had smaller shared eating areas for each block of enlisted quarters and one large mess hall that supplied fresh meals every eight hours and kept fresh snacks available at all hours.
While the food supplied by the Generators was perfectly safe and could geed a human for their entire life without issue, there was something emotionally boosting about eating fresh food and military forces were careful to ensure they always had some available to keep up morale.
The machine beeped when the coffee was ready, but as Finley reached for the cup, it suddenly started beeping rapidly and Finley got a face full of aerosolized antidote.
She sighed. There was no way to put the poison in the food supply, but someone must have poisoned the cup itself while it was loaded on the ship.
"Kind of a letdown for the first attempt, huh girl."
Littlefoot ignored her for her food.
Some first day, Finley thought, amused despite herself as she put all the dishes and silverware in the sanitizer.
~ tbc