So far out now that only a few glimmers of light shone in the darkness of the night,

The emergency lighting shone with a jaundice yellow gleam. The end of the line a clocking in stand stood its scanner like a check out stand ready to read the code imprinted on his armband. The light flashed green as it recognised his number and clocked him in for his shift.

 It was silent work no sounds to distract him, the captain orders were no window or images to be visualised in this room. Nothing that could distract him was allowed, this room of rooms viewed almost as an inner sanctum among the designers when it was built and the crew when they realised the significance of the tasks that were completed there.

 No one disturbed him the only noise a clicking as he read through each report and file, storing away the answers in his mind; weighing up scenarios, measuring against the specifics that he had been programmed to measure.

 The comlink flashed on his arm and the captain voice loomed over him,

“Isari 4326 has a decision been made, power is fading quicker than we anticipated this time. I repeat power is fading quicker than anticipated… What is the choice?”

The correlations and formulas programmed in his matrix allowed Isari 4326 to provide an answer within moments.

“Hazelton Philip Jnr is the selection. No skills or specialised knowledge, there are no factors which require his specifics over another.”

The captains quivered slightly down the com as she responded,

“Philip? He’s the only choice?”

Isari 4326 responded while making his away to the control hatch next to the door and began inputting the information of his selection,

“He is the choice for this time, Systems will begin the process of utilising his status field and re routing the power to the main engine.”

The captain’s response was unusual but Isari 4326 was programmed to obey all commands that would not have a detrimental effect to the survival of the journey.

“5 minutes, give me a 5 minute countdown before the systems actions the commands.”

Isari programmed the countdown and completed the process keys needed for the programme to be completed once the countdown was complete, he then returned to his files and moved Hazelton Philip Jnr from the pile of required personnel file to the growing pile of those who had been utilised to ensure the continuation of the journey.

9356 required 378 utilised.

Captain Helena Hazelton made the short walk from the bridge to her cabin in seconds, the status chambers stood there, all glowing in that jaundice yellow glow. He lay there his smaller chamber next to the slightly larger ones of his sisters and father. Philip jnr was only 8 years old. Her youngest child, the inspiration for her taking on this role, he’d always been an adventurer always wanted to be an explorer. When the bombs had been dropped on earth and the system started to become uninhabitable they had asked for volunteers for the different options. She had opted for the unknown, to journey into the deepest recess of space to find a new home. The journey had not gone to plan and 800 years had passed since she’d seen the excited glow and the shouts of joy of the adventure ahead of him that he’d made as he’d climbed into his status chamber. And now it was over for him like so many others whose lives had been sacrificed during the seemingly unending course of this nightmare journey.

Hearing the timer counting down the last few seconds, she passed her hand over her sons face and watched as the status chamber started to glow amber then blue then red then it was empty, the life force pumped out and the regular lighting for the deck flooded back cancelling out the emergency jaundice yellow glow.

She made the solitary journey back to the deck and sat in her captain’s seat staring at the stars. Neither she nor the systems had any idea which way they were to go next to reach their goal. They floated aimlessly through the heavens preying for an answer.

In the depth on the inner sanctum Isari picked up the files and began again to correlate and test the information contained within them. If calculations were correct another would need to be selected in 16 weeks and 19 days if they had not arrived at their destination. All that time would be spent studying and understanding so if the choice was to be made he would have the correct data in order to do so efficiently and correctly as programmed.