This choice: A day in the life aboard each ships: leisurely vs laborious • Go Back... 07:00 Hours
Women's Ship
--
Elizabeth grunted as she picked up the fork to move another bite of reconstituted egg to her mouth, grimacing at the amount of effort required; it felt like she was doing resistance training in the ship gymnasium, not eating her breakfast. Despite the engineering team of the Hippolyta working through the night, they'd finally had to admit defeat: Whatever the plasma wave had done to the ship, there was no fixing it, not without a deep repair and probably a total rebuild, which could only be done planetside. And even with humanity having finally unlocked the secret to faster-than-light travel, they were a full 12 months from their destination. So for the next year, all the women were going to be in a constant state of exercise. The ship's doctor had assured her that, as with any physical effort, their bodies would eventually adapt. Until then, though, it was going to be a rough ride. Maybe even afterwards, since the weight would remain constant.
She grimaced as she finally got the fork to her mouth and actually tasted the egg. She knew that on the men's ship, the Dionysus, the men would be having real food, no expense having been spared in stocking that ship's larder. No reconstituted or freeze dried rations for the proud men of the Earth Colonization Front!
She sighed as she lifted her cup of coffee, which weighed about as much as an olympic shot-put. Maybe things weren't quite so unfair--maybe the lack of gravity was giving the galley bots (another amenity the women didn't have) problems, and their breakfast had been ruined as well.
She smiled a little at the thought; David hated to start the day without a good breakfast. Normally she'd have sympathy for him, but she was still feeling a little salty over how carefree he'd been yesterday.
He was probably trying to figure out how to eat eggs that wouldn't stay on the skillet for frying even now.
--
09:00
Men's Ship
--
David floated through the air on the ship's bridge, casually picking bacon out of his teeth with one hand while idly rubbing his mildly distended stomach with the other, occasionally letting out a low, contented belch. The galley bots had managed to cobble together some gizmo or other that restored gravity in the ship's kitchen, but there had only been enough spare parts to restore gravity in that single room. The chef bot who oversaw the other galley bots had been apologetic, but David had laughed it off. If gravity could only be restored in one room, the kitchen was the one to do it in. How else were the galley bots going to cook, after all?
And cook they had! David's own breakfast had been a three egg omelet, with plenty of bacon and sausage on the side. The chef bot had surprised him with a stack of pancakes dripping in syrup and butter as well. He'd been too focused on his own delicious meal to pay attention to what the rest of the crew were eating, but since he wasn't the only one rubbing a visibly stuffed stomach, nor the only one belching in contentment, he was confident they'd all been fed just as well as he had.
He folded his arms behind his hand and lazily kicked off the wall as he drifted too close to it, enjoying the feeling of sailing through the air. The low gravity was good for his digestion, too, he was pretty sure. Normally he'd have a bit of a stomach ache after eating that much, but without gravity pressing down on his gut he could digest in peace.
12 more months of this? He didn't mind that at all.
--
13:00
Women's Ship
--
Liesel Jeffries, Chief of Engineering, grunted as she strained to lift the enormously heavy wrench and tighten the bolt on the access panel. Her long, honey blonde hair was slick with sweat, and her face was red with exertion.
The plasma wave hadn't visibly effected any other systems, but she'd ordered her crew to give the ship a thorough checkup even so: Just because the artificial gravity was beyond their ability to repair didn't mean they couldn't take care of any other problems that cropped up. The crew had grumbled a little, but gotten to work in short order when Liesel made it clear she would be joining them in conducting repairs.
She sighed in relief as she finally got the panel completely closed, wiping her sweaty forehead with the back of her hand. She'd put in years of effort to reach Chief Engineer, and she wasn't going to let her first voyage with that rank have a black mark on it. She couldn't do anything about the plasma storm, but she'd be damned if she let any other problems crop up during this trip!
No matter how exhausting the increased gravity made the repair work.
--
17:30
Men's Ship
--
"Alright, boys," Chief of Security Hyde Sawyer said, his blonde goatee split by a wide grin even as the ship's lights gleamed off his shaved head. "Anyone wanna tell me what happened here?" He was currently hovering in the doorway, his tall frame and broad shoulders nearly filling the gap with maybe an inch clearance on either side.
Crewman Adam Scott, clearly the ringleader of whatever this was, grinned goofily. "Check this out, Chief!" He plucked a candy bar from the cloud floating around him, stripped off the wrapper, and then skillfully twisted so that he was facing Evan Schwartz, a member of the navigation department. "Go long, Ev!" He then held up the candy bar between two fingers, then used his other hand to flick it, hard. The chocolate rocketed across the room like a cork from a champagne bottle, and Adam kicked off the wall behind him equally fast, sailing upward and opening his mouth wide, snapping his jaws shut like a shark as the candy sailed between his teeth. There was a sound of cheerful hoots and claps from the rest of the crewman in the rec room.
Hyde cocked his head, then gripped the doorframe and pushed off to enter the room fully.
"You gonna make us stop, Chief?" Adam asked, crestfallen.
"Hell, no!" Hyde said, floating towards the men clustered on the "catcher" side of the room. "I wanna give it a try!"
There was another chorus of cheers, and a beaming Adam plucked another candy bar and took aim. "Go long, Chief!"
--
21:00
Women's Ship
--
Elizabeth collapsed onto her bed with an exhausted groan, too tired to take her glossy brown hair out of its practical bun. Everything she'd worn today was drenched in sweat, but she was too exhausted to make for the shower. She'd just have to do it in the morning, assuming she wasn't too sore to move from all this effort.
Right before she passed out, she found herself thinking of her husband, and hoping his day had been at least half as stressful as hers. Maybe it wasn't a very nice thought, but misery loved company.
She didn't know how she was going to endure a full year of this.
--
22:00
Men's Ship
--
David finished tying himself to his bed with the bungee strap retrieved from storage and folded his arms behind his back with a sigh of pleasure. The day had been a blast! The various bots on the ship meant the crew were all essentially on light duty to begin with, and so they'd had plenty of time to experiment with their new weightless state. Many had spent the day in the rec room trying out whatever zero-g games they could think up (the current most popular was human pinball), and the galley bots had outdone themselves for lunch and dinner. The crew had rounded off the evening by watching an action movie in the ship's cinema, and the night shift (comprised of more bots and one or two human men to supervise) had just been coming on when they all went to bed, worn out from a day of fun and frolic.
David rubbed his stomach (still feeling bloated from dinner) and chuckled as he thought of his wife. He hoped the women's day had been half as good as his ship's had been. If not, though, he wasn't going to waste time feeling bad about it. It wasn't like he was the one who'd turned up their gravity after all.
He ran a hand over his black, men's regulation buzz cut before closing his eyes, certain that tomorrow would be another wonderful day.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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