Test Planet 01

Test Planet 01

By Jen Cole

Copyright 2012 Jen Cole

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

About the Author

Chapter 1

I’m the only kid in the world, which is my own fault. My parents let me decide, and I decided to be woken with them. I figured it was the only way to be sure when I opened my eyes, that they’d be there. I knew my grandparents wouldn’t. I knew my aunts and uncles and cousins and school friends and everyone else on Earth wouldn’t. So you can hardly blame me for at least wanting my parents to be there, and they were. We hugged and kissed and welcomed each other to the planet we hoped would become our new home – five hundred light years from Earth.

We arrived on a colony ship filled with families – lots of kids. The trouble is, they’re all asleep. Cold sleep it’s called, where you’re almost dead but not quite. Your body lies in its pod, preserved and never aging. You can stay that way for a long time and we needed to. Our trip took a thousand years.

In the compound at night I can look up and see a bright speck moving across the sky, regular as clockwork. It’s our ship orbiting the planet with its sleeping cargo. If everything works out, the sleepers will eventually be woken, and when they come down, I won’t be the only kid on this world anymore. I just wish I didn’t have to wait so long.

Unless you’re insane, you don’t just drop a whole colony onto a brand new planet. What you do is wake up a small advance party – in this case a dozen scientists plus me, who take a flyer down and live on the surface for a year, collecting samples, doing tests and basically being human guinea pigs.

Why a whole year? Because, like Earth, this planet is tilted and travels around its sun, which means it has seasons. Different plants and animals flourish in different seasons and they all need a chance to attack us.

If we can survive a planetary year without catching any incurable diseases, or being overrun by swarms of insectoids, or dying of thirst when all the water