Journey to Centauri is an episodic tale that details the splintering of the U.N. Alpha Centauri Mission on its way to the new world. Contents ©1998 Firaxis Games, Inc. All rights reserved. Journey to Centauri : Episode 1 "Captain." Shapes. Shadows, hovering over him. A sense of threat, darkness eclipsing his vision, and the distant sound of warning klaxons. He tried to lift his hands and could not, tried to speak and felt his throat turn to fire. A deep cold pressed down on him, crushing his bones to ice. "...this one...hurry" The voice again. More movement, seen through layers of frost and glass. I am the Captain came his next thought, sharp and coherent. I should be first.... First out of the sleep. Visions returned to him: the long rough cylinder of the ship, floating above the chaos of Earth. The massive cryobays with their rows of sleeping crew, the white-suited cryotechs moving ghostlike among them. His last memory of laying down in glass and feeling the blue tide rise to swallow him, forty years and a moment of darkness ago. Thinking, hoping, that when he woke again, it would be to the sight of Alpha Centauri's primary cresting the rim of a new planet, a new world. But now...something was wrong. Someone, unauthorized, moving around the ship. A wave of dizziness washed over him and his vision blurred into a sea of blue, red lights flashing in the distance. He could feel the ship shaking beneath him. "We move..." A shadow passed over him, and then another. Footsteps retreated. He stared up through the curved top of the cryocell, willing himself into the open spaces of the ship, trying to force his fingers to move. His brain signaled alarm but his heart and muscles, held in near stasis, would not respond. He waited, helpless, while the ship hurled on and the warning klaxons sounded their three beat sequence. After interminable moments he heard a click and a hiss, and then a storm exploded beneath him. Transmission Received, U.N.S. Unity Central Processor. Meteor Impact Detected. Fusion drive shut down. Severe Damage Hydroponics Mods 2, 3; cryobay 7. Triggering automatic wakeup of core staff per coded instructions. Journey to Centauri : Episode 2 Pravin Lal awakened to the hiss of the transparent capsule door breaking its seal and the feel of the ship's foundation shaking beneath him. His heart began to pound and he closed his eyes, breathing deeply, seeking calm. When his heartbeat slowed he opened his eyes once more. His training had prepared him for this: disorientation, sleep sickness, a deep fatigue that seemed to nest in his bones. He spit the respirator from his mouth and pulled the IVs from his arm, then lifted his hands, placed them on the glass lid above, and pushed. The cryocell opened. He was alive. Around him stretched the expanse of cryobay two, silent and vast, filled with over a thousand identical glass capsules, each one bathed in a pale blue light, each with tubes and cables snaking down to conduits in the floor. Over a thousand crew, but his eyes immediately, reflexively, turned to the cell at his left. He climbed to his feet and, ignoring the chill, crossed to it. He looked down through the glass. There, beneath the frost and bluish tint of the cryogel, he could make out her soft brown shape, indistinct, and the darkness of her long hair. Pria. She looked so peaceful, so far away...he still remembered her gentleness, and their last strong kiss before the cryotechs closed the cell, locking her away from him. His practiced eyes scanned the small console above her cell. Everything appeared normal; she had survived. His eyes flickered once across the manual release key, and then he saw the red warning lights flashing at the far end of the cryobay. The ship... he had almost forgotten the danger. He brushed Pria's cell with his fingers one more time and then turned away. From a metal shelf at the foot of his vacated cell he lifted a folded uniform... sleek, comfortable, in the sky blue of the mission's Chief of Surgery, with the U.N. seal on the breast and no country-of-origin markings visible. The Captain had lobbied strongly for that. He slipped into the uniform and flipped on the small computer sewn into the uniform's sleeve. Status report: the Captain would emerge from cryosleep shortly, along with the Chief Science Officer and some emergency support staff. It appeared that large portions of the ship's hull had been damaged, along with two of the three hydroponics modules. The fusion drive had shut down. Pravin entered the Returned to Duty code and headed for the command bay. The ship was racing towards Centauri system at tremendous speed, and without the fusion drive there was no way to stop. Log Entry Received, Pravin Lal, Chief of Surgery. I have awakened to find the mission in jeopardy. I go now to join my Captain in the command bay, ready to learn what has gone awry. I pray the integrity of the ship's datacore remains true. It is the last hope of humankind...all of our knowledge digitized for transit to the new world. If Earth has not survived these last 40 years, then our future lies in the heart of this damaged ship. Journey to Centauri : Episode 3 Captain Garland felt the storm of bubbles boil up around him, turning the thick cryogel to liquid. Fiercer now, growing violent, pounding his limbs; clench your teeth on the respirator, feel its cool silver shape in your mouth. He still remembered the training. The chemical reaction that neutralized the cryogel ended, and he found himself floating in liquid. Small heating coils on the inside of his glass cocoon kicked on to warm the liquid, continuing the process of bringing his body back to life. He sucked air from the respirator, waited for the liquid to drain away. Long moments passed. How many breaths did the respirator cartridge hold? Not many, he remembered, and the liquid should have drained away by now. A malfunction? He reached up, put his hands on the top of the cell and pushed. His muscles, partially atrophied despite the electromuscular therapy administered by the ship's computer, groaned in protest. The lid would not open. He felt the cold glass against his palms, unyielding, and felt the liquid around his face. God waits in heaven, but we are beyond heaven now. The thought rose unbidden into his mind. He pushed again, angry, but the seal would not break. He drew another breath and choked, felt a pressure in this throat. No more air. He turned in his watery tomb, pressed again. A panic rose inside of him as he felt his chest compress, his diaphragm forcing the last bit of oxygen from his lungs into his system. Not like this... His hands lashed out, seeking an escape. He could feel his knuckles striking the glass, feel a desperate animal energy howling inside of him, but his prison would not give. God waits in heaven, but we are beyond heaven now. His vision swam into darkness, and he knew what would follow: a final moment of involuntary struggle, and then a return to the infinity from which he had just emerged. He thought of the crew, the ten thousand crew, still in the sleep, still under his care. Faith would not release them, or repair a broken ship. He felt his heart pounding, and felt a surge of warmth spreading out through his body. One of his hands struck soft rubber, the seal between the cryocell and the lid, and he dug his fingers in hard. He felt something tear, something give. The seal broke. He pushed upwards, out of the cell. The lid swung open and cool stale air hit him in the face. He gasped for air, pulling in breaths as icy liquid ran off of his back. Around him, row upon row of sleeping crew awaited him. No transmission. Journey to Centauri : Episode 4 "Captain. Captain, it is Pravin Lal. Please confirm this signal is reaching you. Over." Silence. "I read you, Mr. Lal. I'm awaiting your presence in the command module. It appears we have our work cut out for us." Pravin smiled at the voice of his captain, sounding clearly from the comm unit woven into the fabric of his collar. He turned his head to respond. "Yes, John. I am outside of Bay Five, and I will reach you shortly." He quickened his step, anticipating the cramped warmth of the command center after traversing the dark silent ship, and also the more important business of assisting the Captain in finding out what went wrong during their journey. A small asteroid, he guessed, or some kind of space debris...he remembered the odds tallied by the flight computer as being 470 to 1 against such an occurrence, but perhaps their luck had not held. Or perhaps it was karma, following the humans from their tainted homeworld into the reaches of space. Pravin stopped before another hatchway and pressed the unlocking studs. As the seal released he glanced around quietly; the ship felt hollow and vast around him, a groaning structure of metal stolen from Earth's crust and propelled into the heavens. When the hatch opened he climbed into a small elevator and pulled the activation lever, listening as the elevator began to whir beneath him, carrying him to the command module at the ship's periphery. He felt the gravity increase as the elevator moved toward the outer carousel of the ship. The smooth shapes of the cryobays receded beneath him and he examined their surfaces dispassionately. Lonely again. He hoped his mood would improve as the effects of the 40-year sleep wore off. A session in one of the ship's gyropods would help to burn the poisons away, but he had no time for that now. The elevator stopped and he opened the exit hatchway, then finally reached the red command module hatch. Unusual...the Captain had left it closed, requiring Pravin to punch in a security clearance that he had committed to memory before the journey. The red hat...
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