THE COLD ROMANCE OF SLEEP: A Work in Progress
As a rogue star hurtles toward and through our Solar System, our near-future world girds for possible destruction, hastily mobilizing to build crude starships to carry colonists to possible Earth-like destinations among the nearby stars.
From our tormented Earth, we trace the building, the journey, and the arrival of one of the starships, its passengers going into ultracold sleep for over ten thousand years. Many have been selected for their special abilities and professions, but others – rebels, fugitives, and criminals –get aboard the starship as stowaways.
Partway through the long migration, surviving humans back on Earth discover that the ship will pass through a lethal field of asteroid-like rubble. Marshaling their more-advanced spaceflight capabilities, they send a rescue mission: overtake the starship, navigate it through the debris, and repair any damage it may have suffered.
The ship, crippled, with many of its precious human cargo dead or dying, arrives at a habitable planet 27 light-years away. Grieving and celebrating, its survivors make landfall, and a new human world struggles its way into life.