by Kate Kyle
The mechanism inside slowly raised the upper part of the stored passenger.
"Hello, sir," Jax opted for a neutral greeting, watching the man's dark-haired head appear over the lip of the pod. His face was still puffed, his forehead glistened, either with sweat or from the atmosphere inside the stasis pod.
She waited for his blue eyes to focus on her.
"My name is Jax, Jackie McCarthy, I'm the pilot. How are you?"
"Hmhm…" the sound that emerged from the man's throat reminded her of the crackling of the old radio she used to listen to when playing pirates in her grandfather's old shed.
She stepped forward. She'd never seen a person waking up from stasis in real life. They worked through an awful lot of sims in the Academy, plus, of course, all the important virtual experience from the video games, but real life? Forget it!
The man's face was still somewhat paler than on the photo, but his lips were already filling in with color.
"You've been woken while still on the ship," Jax said. She tried her best to sound confident and informative. As if there was a perfectly normal explanation for his early revival. "The ship is under reduced gravity, about forty percent of that on Earth, so you need to be careful while walking. I'm here to help you out of the pod, when you are ready," she added.
What the heck should one say to a person being woken too early from stasis?
She stretched out her arm, in case he wanted to shake her hand or simply to help him sit up.
'Thanks," he croaked and cleared his throat. Pink blotches appeared on his long face. "Who did you say you were?"
"Jax, the pilot."
He stretched his neck slowly left and right and then looked at her.
"I thought the pilot was supposed to be a man," he said.
Jax clenched her jaw.
"Anything wrong with a woman pilot?" she said, trying her best at a low growl voice. Okay, the passengers should know who their pilot was, but the cargo?
The man's face tensed.
"No, not at all. That was not at all a comment about your gender, Captain," he rattled on, adding an artificial grin. His face muscles were still waking, so the grin appeared to form in slow motion, making it seem as though he was wearing a rubber mask. "I've got nothing against women pilots. I'm sure you're experienced and everything, but I'm just… " His voice trailed off, giving Jax enough time to gather her thoughts for a cool-headed reply.
"The original pilot had an accident a few hours before the scheduled flight. I happened to be nearby and available," she replied. And that was all true. Her now ex-boyfriend, might have had a different view on the nature of the events. However, but the bottom line put him in hospital with a head injury, probably still attached to life-sustaining equipment and unable to give his account. Hopefully, by the time he could speak again, she would be on her way back, ready to face any investigation and tell her side of the story: protecting a precious water supply from being poisoned. She never meant to harm Hunter. Once she realized her attempts to talk him out of playing 'a practical joke' on the nearby town failed, she simply wanted to take the jar with a toxin away from him. But he was equally determined, or maybe simply too intoxicated to listen to her arguments. So, it took her a few punches and a wrestle to the ground to achieve her goal. In her defense, she'd provided first aid, called an air ambulance and made sure he reached the hospital fast enough to save his life.
Hunter had always been reckless and irresponsible. She was right to have dumped him.
"Did you hear me?" the man's hoarse voice cut through her thoughts.
"No," she replied, forcing herself back into the current moment. "What did you say?"
"Just wondered where we were and why am I being revived?" he said.
"The 'where' part is easy to answer. We're on the outskirts of the Asteroid Belt. The other part…. That's the million-credit question," she replied. "I was hoping you'd know the answer."
His blue eyes widened.
"And how exactly would I know that?"
She considered how much information she should reveal.
Just enough and not too much, of course…
She told him about the message and the cut-off comms.
"Who else is being woken up?" he asked.
Jax pointed at Pod 7, with the light above it still blinking red. Ms. Zhou still had a good twenty minutes left to reach full revival. She told him what she knew of her.
"That makes no sense at all," he said slowly. "If there is an emergency, you should wake up people that can be of help to you, correct, Captain?"
Jax tensed her shoulders. "That's not my rank. I-"
"That's customary title for a spaceship's commanding officers, if I'm not mistaken," he said, watching her carefully. "Are you sure you're a real pilot?"
Her skin prickled.
"'Course, I am," she fired back. "Shouldn't we rather focus on the real issue here, which is why you and an insect specialist are being woken up?"
"Yeah, you're right… Jax, if I may?" His lips curved into a half-smile.
"Sure…" she replied, giving a curt nod. If he wanted to use the 'customary title' again, it should spare them a few awkward moments. "And you? Baron? Or do you have a real name?"
He corners of his mouth dropped by a millimeter, barely noticeable, with the mask-like effect still wearing off.
"Actually, I do," he said. "You can call me Rutger."
"Good. Now, we're well acquainted, let's try to figure out why a biohacker and a Chinese entomologist are being woken up in an emergency incident that's affected the comms of my ship so much it had to be completely shut down."
He looked her straight in the eye.
"First, help me out of the pod, will you?"
3
Rutger
It didn't make any sense.
No. Fucking. Sense.
Unless of course… but that would mean there was a leak within Rutger's own network.
Impossible.
Unless the ship was much smarter than he understood.
But such smart ships would have made the headlines and he would have known.
There was also a possibility that…
No.
He shook his head. Not on a cargo ship.
"You okay?" the pilot's voice came through a bit clearer than initially. The muddle was washing out of his system, and his deeper muscles were twitching.
Her name was Jax. He repeated it a few times to fix it in his head.
Rutger grabbed Jax's outstretched arm and put his legs carefully over the edge of the pod.
The light on the pod previously indicated by Jax as the one belonging to the other waking-up passenger blinked red.
"Is she waking up now, too?" Rutger asked.
Jax glanced over her shoulder.
"She's supposed to be awake at the same time as you, but you came around earlier. Maybe the waking time is individualized? I wonder why?"
"Is there a way of checking what's happening with the person in the pod?"
She stared at him.
"You mean other than opening the pod and looking inside?"
"Ha-ha," he said keeping his face straight. His head was still muddy, but at least she seemed to have a sense of humor, and of the type he liked.
"I gather opening and looking inside while the light is red is not an option?"
"I gather it's not," she replied.
Evasive.
On purpose?
"Is there another way?" he pushed.
She shrugged.
"Can always try the main console. There are camera feeds from the whole bay, but we can probably switch to individual pods. Why?"
Her green eyes glinted. Rutger slid off the edge of the pod and landed on his feet, bending his knees to dampen the shock and for a better balance. Forty percent of normal g-force. He should feel lighter. Good for his sore muscles.
Weird, feeling ground under his feet again.
Well, not really ground, but the floor of an interplanetar
y, moving ship. On the way to Rebels' Republic. Or maybe it wasn't anymore.
He had to make sure nothing else had been altered.
"The cockpit?" he asked.
She nodded.
"Can you walk unaided?"
"There's only one way to know," he replied and straightened his knees. The pre-mission briefing included explanations of the stasis and the recovery process, as well as instructions how to return to full operating consciousness as soon as possible. Under the Earth-level gravity in Segedunum. Hopefully, this was still possible in the current circumstances.
Yeah, the speed was of utmost importance, but once he reached Segedunum. Not while still on the bloody ship.
Or maybe, on the ship, too?
He lifted his left foot and placed it half a step towards Jax.
No issue. He did the same with the other foot.
"All good?" she asked.
"Seems so. Medical advances are amazing," he said. "Human progress is amazing."
She glanced over her shoulder at him, her eyebrows drawn.
"Courtesy of Rebels' Republic, just as everything else on this ship, excluding humans, most of them wearing faulty implants," she said dryly.
He grinned.
"And that's also courtesy of Rebels' Republic," he supplied.
She grinned back.
"Good point. What do you want to see?" she asked.
Actually, he hadn't had a chance to come up with a plan, let alone a cover story for it.
"First of all, like you, I'd like to know why we're being revitalized," he said, keeping his voice light, but his head was spinning, which had nothing to do with coming out of stasis, or the lowered gravity.
"So?" she asked, looking directly into his eyes.
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. From the corner of his eye, to his right, he caught a slight change in the environment.
He glanced over his shoulder.
The light on Pod 7 turned green.
"She's ready to come out," he said.
What a relief. He'd have some time to come up with a plan.
The pilot tensed but stepped out of the already open sluice.
"Indeed," she said. "We'd better help her out."
They stood on the exit side of the pod, waiting for the machine to lift the human contained inside.
The woman emerged, pale and fragile looking. Expressionless, her big, dark eyes darted from his face to Jax's and all around the room.
Jax repeated her lines, greeting the woman, but the insect specialist just shook her head.
"Are you okay?" Rutger asked.
"I think so, but what's going on here?" the woman asked. Her voice was hoarse, her eyes shone with anxiety. "Where are the other passengers?"
"They're still in the pods, safe. The only ones being revitalized are you, Ms. Zhou and Mr.… eh, Baron," Jax stuttered. Rutger felt Jax's cold glance on the side of his face.
The woman gripped the edge of the pod so hard, her knuckles turned white.
"Get me out of here," she croaked.
They did as she commanded. The woman, Lulu Zhou, Rutger read on the small display on the side of the pod, clambered out of the pod, leaning heavily against Jax.
"Blue light, that means the person is still in stasis, right?" she asked pointing at the pod number 8. Her voice trembled.
Jax nodded. She grabbed Ms. Zhou by the elbow and steered her towards the sluice door.
"We're going to the cockpit. You should probably have something to drink. Stasis tends to dehydrate you," Jax said.
"A drink would be great. Perhaps something stronger from the captain's special chest?" Rutger said and regretted it immediately.
Jax threw him a dagger of a glance. Ms. Zhou wobbled and retched. Fortunately, Jax grabbed the woman's waist and held her a second before an imminent collapse.
"You need to rest," Jax said. "Let's get you somewhere more comfortable."
Ms. Zhou turned her head and looked at her pod.
"I'd rather stay here. I need to lie down," she said, weakly.
'You can't stay here. There is not enough oxygen. But you can lay down in my sleeping pod, in my cabin."
"Is it far?"
"The next level up. There is a transport tube, a sort of elevator," Jax explained and pointed with her chin at the door.
They moved towards the exit, all three shuffling their feet slowly.
A few minutes later, Jax and Rutger helped Ms. Zhou into the pod in Jax's cabin.
"We'll be in the cockpit, on the level up from here," Jax said and pulled a wrist unit from a compartment on the side of the sleeping pod. "If you need anything, use this." She fiddled with the device, presumably activating it and handed the unit to Ms. Zhou. "Press this button to call me."
Ms. Zhou nodded. Some color had returned to her face, but a deep frown line appeared between her eyebrows.
Jax ushered him from the room.
They rode to the flight deck in silence.
Rutger wasn't keen on talking. His head was clearing from its post-stasis mush, but the clearer his thoughts became, the tighter his throat grew.
"Anywhere where I can sit?" he asked. "With access to the Net, preferably," he said, trying his best to sound less tense than he was.
"Ya' dreamin', mate," she replied and grinned. "We're cut off. But you're welcome to take any other seat except mine," she pointed to the chair on the right.
Any other seat… Pah! There were only two.
Rutger plopped onto the spare seat.
"You mean we're cut off from the PSSNet?" he asked.
Jax leant over the console, and for a few seconds tapped on it.
"Because of this," she said, lifting her dark-haired head and pointing at the main screen. The darkness with points of light disappeared, and a few lines of text floated on.
"Thought you'd better see this for yourself," she added.
He read the text, and then, reread it since his brain was still feeling quite mushy.
"Emergency event?" he said, rubbing his forehead. Maybe it helped, because a moment later the inside of his head felt a little brighter than the background of the screen. "What sort of emergency event? Did we hit an asteroid? Fall into a nano black hole? Lose an engine? Or was it an alien attack?" he rattled off, one by one.
What the hell was going on?
Jax swiveled her chair to face him. Her strangely green eyes were inspecting his face in the way that made him feel as though he was being passed through the spaceport security scanner.
"How about you pick your choice, mate?" she asked.
Uh-oh, he was starting off on the wrong foot.
He raised his hands in what he hoped was a peaceful gesture.
"Hey, Captain, I'm just trying to understand the situation. Don't forget, I'm the medically incapacitated precious cargo you're supposed to deliver safely to the Si-Carb medical facility."
"And I will," she replied calmly, putting stress on every word. "But if you're just my cargo, why aren't you in the cargo compartment?"
"I've already told you, I've no idea. Can we move on from asking the same questions over and over, on to trying to find a few answers?"
"Brilliant suggestion, why didn't I come up with it?"
Okay, the conversation was shifting from the known danger on to an unknown danger.
"Yes, precisely, why didn't you?" he fired back.
Jax's eyes narrowed. She studied him for a moment and then blinked.
"That was sarcasm," she said quietly, turning to face the screen again. "But I'm willing to forget this completely useless exchange and move on to something more useful, once you've established your intellectual superiority over me. And let me stress this loud and clear. I don't give a flying saucer what you think of me, but once you feel secure with your little brain, assuming you can find a grain of decency in your celebrity's heart, we need to work together."
Ouch!
He wheezed in a breath, and considered which part of her multi-layer in
sult should he reply to first.
No, wrong. He probably shouldn't. Particularly, since any reply would have to somehow include, allude to, or try to hide the fact that he was not, in fact, a celebrity.
"Hey, Captain, peace, okay?" he stretched his right hand out. "I'm really trying to help."
"So, try something else, because what you've done so far isn't working."
"Fine," he snapped back. "What have you discovered?"
"Apart from the message, just some minimal info on you and the insect specialist."
"Dare to show me that, too?"
She shrugged, and with a few smooth movements of her long-fingered hands over the console, pulled the passenger, or rather cargo manifest onto the big screen.
It took Rutger a couple of seconds to focus his eyes enough to read the lines alongside his name.
What a relief! It was exactly what he had been told would be included. At least this part of the agreement remained in place.
But why was he and the strange woman been revived?
"And?" Jax asked.
"Not much info," he said.
"Guess what? I already knew that!" she snapped back. "And what about the earlier message from the ship, Mister Stating-the-Blooming-Obvious?"
Rutger crossed his arms. The woman had a knack for being annoying. Was it some sort of a test of his ability to stay cool, calm and collected, or to simply keep in the role?
Actually, staying in the role would include him losing his cool.
"You're not particularly collaborative, either. Miss Kettle-and-Pot," he fired back. "If you want to get anywhere these days, you need to learn to work as a team."
A barely noticeable twitch ran through her sunburnt face.
"A European sloganist, I see," she hissed.
Oh, shit. They were never going to progress. Now, she was airing her own insecurities.
"So what? You bloody Americans. Always standing up for your individualistic values, even when it works against you," he spluttered. Blood was humming through his veins. "See what's happened. Instead of us trying to prove who's smarter, or who's wrong and who's right, maybe we could finally get over ourselves and start working together?"
