Daily Creative Writing Prompt - The Ship That's Taking Us To Our New Home

It had been three days since Stafford awoke from his cryogenic slumber. Nevertheless, he still hadn't regained his equilibrium and lost his balance as he rounded the turn into the solar engineering lab. Getting better, he avoided falling to the floor this time and regained composure, carefully waking forward into the steel cage that is the solar power array for the space station he was a small micro-organism of.

Three hundred fifty-six souls on board, including himself and all would be counting on Stafford's maneuvers. The space station had reached the middle point of it's voyage. It's at this crucial point that the solar arrays must be switched from drawing solar power from the Earth's sun and point toward the suns of their new destination. This would be the first time that the mission would be running from a power source different than that of their origin, a task that Stafford took very seriously. He was most honored on the eve of mission launch that he'd been selected by his peers to perform this most important task.

If the ship didn't start drawing from an increasing power source and not a dwindling one, life support would begin failing long before they'd reached their final destination. Stafford removes his key from the pocket of his flight suit and inserts it into the lock securing metal cage surrounding the green button.

This is a voyage that's hopeful mission includes colonizing the latest of the artificial planetary system the Corporation had almost finished in Star Nebula Four. Planetary systems made from chunks of debris floating in the nebula's gravitational pull have proven to be excellent candidates for ultra fast terraforming. With the assistance of petrified plastics, small space hurtling planets have been created to make habitation possible for hundreds of humans.

As Stafford opens the cage, he starts to get nervous. His training had instructed him what to do in case of a solar array malfunction. This was just such an important task that he couldn't help getting butterflies just a bit. Now with the cage open, and the green button staring him in the face, he hesitated just a moment. Then pounded his fist on the green button.

Alarms immediately screeched in the air all around him. It would take another three days for the array to make a 180 degree rotation and begin drawing from their destination now and not their departure sun. Heading toward the engineering lounge, Stafford contemplated three more days of old movies from the 1990's. He loved Mallrats, maybe another run through with that one.