Chapter 64: Crash course in 30 days
After the call with her father, Lucy went on with the health check like nothing happened and she watched the news from time to time.
Lucy missed her father and mother. Sadly, their whereabouts right now was a mystery to her and she did not know what has happened to them. With her fingers crossed, she prayed for their safety wherever they might be.
It has been almost a month since the selection was announced, and Alaska has received aftershocks day by day in a countless of amount. Her days went by in a floating daze as she could feel mild vibration, every now and then, which felt similar to a rocking boat on an ocean's wave.
Today, was the day that she could go out of the bunker again, and join with the rest of the final candidates of the space program. All space travelers need to undergo one-month rigorous courses before they are allowed to board the rocket and launch to space.
Sitting on her seat with Mike and Raymond on each of her sides, she is excited.
"Bam!"
The door to her right closed with a loud sound. A man walked with his hands on his back, and he stopped in the middle of the oval training room.
Lucy stared at the fit and robust man in front of her. She could not remove her eyes from staring at the man's clothes.
'So cool! Will I get to wear that too?'
Lucy exclaimed in her heart.
That man was wearing a white jumpsuit with a NASA patch on the left chest of the overall.
As Lucy continues with her ogling of the suaveness of the man in front of her, a charismatic and stern voice was heard all over the room.
The voice awakens her from picturing herself wearing the same outfit. She straightened her posture and looked at the person who was giving out the speech.
"Congratulations, to all the candidates. Welcome to the Astronaut Crash Course program. My name is Green Thomas, and I am your instructor for today."
The room was filled with greetings to Mr.Green. The man stopped his speech and his eyes observed every single person in the room.
He nodded his head to the people in acknowledgment. His face did not show any friendliness at all as he spoke. It was a bit cold and distant like a military trainer.
Looking down on his feet, Mr.Green suddenly spun his body in an almost 180 degrees facing the projector screen behind him before continuing his speech. "A real Astronaut needs to undergo various courses of training for two years. They need to learn all of the courses and also, passed the trainings, then only will they officially become an astronaut."
Mr.Green clicked the remote a few times, showing the audience slides on the training that all astronauts went. He cleared his throat a couple of times before continuing."However, today is not a normal training program. Today's training is crafted for commoners who will be sent to space, which are on a survival quest. To ensure the humanity survives, even though the world was destroyed..." Mr.Green's voice trailed over as he speaks on the last word.
"As for you guys here, two years' worth of training, will be compressed into a month's time training. I know, it will be burdensome, but trust me, I will shape you guys until you will feel confident to survive, while you were in space."
"Right, let me get a few things out of the way. During launching and landing, your body will experience big changes, as you are transitioning from a different gravity environment. From 1G inland to experiencing G-force up to 3 while launching, requires some training on a normal astronaut. Fortunately for you people here…" The instructor shakes a small briefcase to the audience before continuing his speech.
"A special serum will be injected to you guys before you went to space. Rest assured, it is nothing harmful. This serum alone could combat any motion sickness of the changes in gravity." The instructor took out the syringe that shaped like a gun and placed it behind his ear as he demonstrates where the serum is going to be injected.
The room gasped at the sudden revelation. The syringe is huge! Are they sure they are not going to die from the injection alone?
The instructor raised his hands to calm the people down before he continued, "In space, all of you will be assigned to your specific area, and sleep in your designed Pods. These pods will be rotated at a certain frequency to generate artificial gravity. The linkage to each pod, however, did not have the artificial gravity mechanism in it. Thus, all of you need to learn how to be able to maneuver your body in the weightless environment and learn the correct way to dress yourselves in the spacesuit and... EVA… Although, I pray that none of you needed to go outside. Ever."
The room filled with sounds of discussions against the sound of EVA.
Mr.Green's jaw tightened as he continued his speech. His face was getting more serious as his glare penetrates the people that were still talking.
"This is space. It does not cooperate. At some point, everything is going to go south. Everything will become haywire. Although astronauts will be around the Pods vicinity, who will maintain the Pods, but still, all of you need to learn how to survive outside of the Pods. You will never know if one day, something bad happens to the Astronauts, and one of you need to take over the Astronaut's job to conduct inspections or repairs. Imagine if all the Astronauts die, or injured, and what was left were only half-baked astronauts like you guys here? Untrained, and all… what will happen then?"
Lucy widens her eyes at the 'half-baked astronauts' statement from Mr.Green.
Mr.Green ignores the protest and he continues like nothing happened. "You will be helpless, and you will feel like 'This is it, this is how I die. This is how it will all end'."
Murmurs of agreement replaced the protest as Mr.Green continues his speech.
"In the case of the worst-case scenario did hit all of you, this training could help,.. more or less."
The people were quiet at the remark.
'More or less?!'
'Hah! Trained astronauts that have complete their trainings for two years also could not guarantee that they got to survive their mission, let alone for someone that only has a month worth of training!' Lucy clenched her fist in determination. She will not be the one who perished in space. She will survive and returned to earth!
"Every day is a battle up there. There will be problems after problems... and problems. Your persistence to survive will get you back home."
The room was quiet and the air was a little bit tense.
Home… Will there be home in another year to come?
"Do not worry about who will drive you home. The pilots will be there in the ISS, and when the time is right, you will get to go home…" Mr.Green's face turned somber at that remark.
"I know, it is not fair for you guys to be dispatched into space on short notice. But believe me, if there is another way to survive this apocalypse, we will not even think to send you guys there…"
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Lucy walked out of the room feeling somber. She was inside the room, learning all the engineering stuffs from the morning till afternoon after Mr.Green's speech.
"What the hell did we learn just now? I feel like puking!" Lucy walked out to the side of the corridor and propped one hand to the wall.
"Hahaha... I don't know myself. Mr.Green said we must have a basic knowledge of the Pods mechanism and also the mechanism of the suites." Raymond yawned and stretched his body a few times.
Lucy was annoyed at the shameless Raymond. He has been flexing his body so much that his belly was showing when he lifted his arms. Lucy moved away from looking at him.
"Ya, I know you have lost a lot of weight in this one month's time, but you still have a long way to go, you know?" Lucy snickers at Raymond as her hand showed to his protruding belly.
.
"What do you know? I have lost almost 15kg okay... I still need to shed a few more kgs, before I am confident to go to space myself. Besides, my current weight is already good enough for me to be sent to space." Raymond sneered at Lucy, while his hands covered the exposed belly back.
"Haha... we'll see. We'll see..." Lucy shakes her head left and right as she mocked Raymond's pride. She walked away with Mike, leaving the still gloating Raymond behind.
She felt that making fun of Raymond removed away her gloominess after the hardcore training she had received just now.
Her mind was all jumbled, with the Infos and new knowledge she has learned in the training today, and this more or less brings a depressing feeling to her. It felt like the apocalypse is getting nearer and nearer...
She needs entertainment, to distract her mind from thinking about depressing things, and making fun of Raymond is one of the entertainment at the moment.
"Ya, ya... don't be so childish, will you? Wait for me!"
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone