Centauri Arrival

Centauri Arrival

Today we cross Minerva's orbit. It also marks exactly forty years, ship time, since we left Lunar orbit, though it's three month longer back on Earth. The two class C shuttles I dispatched for the Minerva Expedition are invisible now, their Mag Sails braking against the gas giant's long trailing magnetosphere. They’ll end up over a year behind us, but it's the only opportunity we'll get to explore the world's moons, frozen though they be.

Forty years. We've had two thousand and seventeen births and four hundred and sixty deaths among the five thousand that set out. It's been a long command. The longest ever, except for some monarchs and dictators-for-life.

We're still coasting at 5,000 kps - almost two percent the speed of light - relative to Alpha Centauri. I'll order the Mag Sails turned on as soon as we pass Minerva's magnetosphere. We should be around our target world in another three months. By then we'd better decide whether to call it Terra Nova or Second Chance or Chiron or Atlantis - anything but Alpha Centauri Bb.

-Captain's Log, Cityship Atlantis, 4 January 2105, ship time (5 April 2105 UTC).