by Aeryn Jaden
A sharp piece of metal had fallen and caused the damage to his cryo capsule. It was his cryo capsule, he knew it. Than saw the small paper photo, a silly ancient image of a children’s cartoon long forgotten. He carried it everywhere with him, stamped on the left side of the lid. He had kept it there for all of his cryo sleeps, always in the same place. He remembered when he had put that there, it was arranged exactly how Than used to when he worked for the AEF. Only... Than had lost that photo when he’d... When did I lose the photo?
“I will not hyperventilate again. And I should stop talking to myself.” He wondered if this was a scheduled interruption of cryostasis. Had they reached their destination already? Than guessed not, as the lid’s HUD indicator was red, not the unlocked green and he could see no medical personnel around. No, it probably had something to do with the big ass piece of metal that had pierced the plexi, the tip just centimetres from his face. Ouch. He needed to get out of there and see what had happened to compromise the integrity of the ship.
“What ship? Drakars don’t need ships to fly!” Regardless, Than was on a ship. He had too much experience with intergalactic travel to not recognise when he was in space. And by what he could see, he was probably on Ariadna. Than had spent five years on the ship, he was bound to recognise it by the look of the ceiling alone, but the HUD also had Ariadna written on it.
“Impossible.” Why?His ever dutiful brain replied. Than was after all on a mission to see what hospitable planets they could find in system K198547, charged with analyzing and, if necessary removing any possible threats to AEF colonisation plans. Yes, that was it. Than’s duty was to eliminate any local dangerous wild life forms. And I loved my job, didn’t I?
“K’Aran! K’Aran K’Aran K’Aran! I love K’Aran!” He hit the lid again, anger fuelling his half atrophied muscles. Than did not know what was happening. He knew that he needed to get out of that capsule. He was a sitting duck in it for whoever had did this to him... to his brain. The emergency lever!Than hoped those still existed. Nobody used them anymore as it could compromise the closing system of a capsule and they didn’t need to anyway with the modern cryo advancements. Usually the medical officer assisted with stasis interruption though obviously that was not an option now. Right now Than was grateful for the capsule’s failure, even with his thoughts scattered and confused. Somebody had messed with his brain and probably tried to reprogram his memories by the looks of it. He’d heard they did that sometimes, but only if it was related to national security or involved a lot of credits. He wondered which case was it for him. Probably both, considering they had messed with his memories of Arkana. Bastards. Did they not know that Than had promised to return? Nobody could mess with that. He clenched his teeth and told himself to calm the fuck down. God! Than had not sworn this much in ages! A part of his brain wanted to contradict him and remind Than that he usually swore even more. It had been true. Before K’Aran. He did not understand most of Than’s swear phrases and after all Than didn’t need them much around his kadush. They were disgustingly sweet with each other.
“Aha!”
He caught the small ridge and pushed his fingers in. It was a tight fit, the designers obviously
didn’t care much if the people inside these death traps could open their coffins or not. Than had read once that at the beginning only one out of five survived the cryostasis suspension. The lid immediately slid down to his feet. He froze at the sound.
Ridiculous! his brain tried to convince Than. Still, he had sizable holes in his memory. He was in an unknown location with no recollection of being put in cryo. And judging by the damage, the ship looked like it had passed through a minefield. Or met some Caraanin Battle cruisers. Those were some wily fuckers but Than doubted it was them. They never left anyone alive to tell the tale and scavaged even the clothes off the backs of the cadavers they left behind. He should still treat the situation as hostile until he was at his husband’ side again.
“Man up.”
So, he was in the medical bay. Rows of cryo capsules were all around, most of them intact. There were some that have been cracked by shrapnel like his had been, but none were critically damaged. They were all alive. Than’s brain wanted him to feel relief but he remained confused.
He felt like he was supposed to know all of this already and nothing made sense. What was happening? He spied the hallway and after being satisfied that it was clear he passed to the next cryo room and checked that too. One of the capsules had the lid caved in under the weight of a large part of the ship’s ceiling. Nobody could have survived that but he still checked. Negative. Than averted his eyes from the gory sight. As he moved around he noticed another compromised capsule and felt the urge to puke. A large metal plate had fallen and penetrated the plexiglas right in the chest area. The metal had pinned the body to the cryo mattress. Straight through the heart. That could have happened to Than just as easily.
He forced his legs to the next medical bay, where the higher ups were located. The door was ajar and Than once again froze. The ship was silent all around him, lights flickering on and off, metal groaning under the speed’s pressure. Most of the systems were obviously down and Than was surprised that they still had life support on. He wasn’t surprised that he could enter the other room without having to bypass the locked system. The security systems disengaged all locks in case of malfunction on an AEF ship. Well, almost all of them- the cryo rooms of officers were an exception, presumably to prevent mutiny. That this particular door was ajar was haunting- it could only have been opened from the inside.
Than was worried and even more confused. All his instincts were screaming that finding someone else out of stasis was a bad thing and his brain kept trying to contradict him. He had no reason to fear one of his colleagues. Another set of arms would be an asset with the state the ship was in. Hell, Than should have probably thought already about waking up others to help defend their position in case they were breached by hostiles. It was like fighting himself, his mind contradicting itself in a loop.
“No, that’s not right. I... I need to do something.” Had they really programmed his brain? Did his subconscious have some sinister orders planted in? He did not know. What Than did know was that he was not supposed to be here, he could feel it in his bones. Everything looked exactly like it had during his last mission on Ariadna. Except for Than. He really was supposed to be on Arkana with K’Aran. A terrifying suspicion raised its ugly head and made him shiver in the rapidly cooling hallway. The life systems were probably starting to fail and Than didn’t have the time to stand there like a moron and dig around his brain for answers. He entered another room and looked around. To his surprise everything seemed intact and everyone was in their capsules where they were supposed to be. To his distress though, Than got a good look at exactly who were the officers in cryo and for the first time wished he could faint or scream like a damned old damsel from those ancient Earth movies. The good news? Than knew exactly where he was. He was indeed on Ariadnaand these had been his officers. Had been. Before K’Aran.
* * *
Of course he hyperventilated again. Livin’ la vida dolce with K’Aran had softened Than. He needed to ‘unsoften’ quickly. He pulled himself up from the floor, glad that nobody had seen the undignified faint. Than quickly leaned on a wall as the hallway spinned around him and took a deep breath. He could not screw this up, K’Aran was counting on him.
“I’m crazy. For sure.” All indicated that Than was on his last mission. He had a huge gap in his memory as to how that mission came to an end and how he found his way to Arkana. He was also struggling to accept what reality was showing him, surprised that his chest wasn’t bleeding from the strong suspicions stabbing at his heart. No way, it was all a lie. But... Than had heard about mind-rewiring before, hadn’t he? He’d seen it happen. He bumped his head on the wall, trying to run out of his brain that insidious logical voice that he recognised as being his workingbrain.
Than remembered Cary, one of the guy
s he used to hang out with. It was on another ship, the Kali. They had not been friends per se, but he had been a good kid and so, so young. They were put to cryo in the same medical segment. They had been awoken from cryo on the same day. Only, he was not the same. He had been... changed. Than remember even now his shouts and cries of despair resonating through that sterile room until the medical officers had subdued him. They had been in cryo for 3 years. Everyone was told that the episode was related to a chemical imbalance or something. Strangest chemical imbalance Than had ever seen. Cary was calling for his kids and a woman named Shala when he had woken up. Only the kid didn’t have anyone, never had. He was yelling that he needed to return somewhere. He was desperate to return to the family he had never had.
Had someone experimented on him while in cryo? Than didn’t know. What he did know was that he had been quietly whisked away and quickly released from duty. Last he’d heard, Cary had died in some crash a few months after his breakdown at the edge of the neutral zone, somewhere in system R342, his ship and body never to be recuperated.
Was it the same, what was happening to Than now? Just a chemical imbalance. “I am not crazy. I know what I lived for the last year. I know my home. I know my husband. I am not crazy. And I’m going to prove that to myself. Right after I find out who woke up with me and where they are.”
Maybe he should stop muttering to himself first. He oriented his body but kept his left hand on the wall. Than knew he was still weak and needed fluids fast if he wanted to avoid the fainting incident again. Some food would be good also.
The ship was big for an exploration vessel, but the important missions usually utilised bigger ships. They were an army ready to be unleashed with the firepower Ariadna had. The armed forces numbered 500 trained soldiers with a team of almost 100 scientists and non-combat personnel. Than remembered this mission. They were supposed to reach some obscure solar system and establish perimeter until they got reinforcements and supplies. AEF always made sure the inhabited planets agreed to their arrival, that is, they mostly made them agree to it. Like it or not. Than sometimes felt as if they were waging war on the planets they “explored”. He had acutely felt it after the fiasco on P384. That planet not only had intelligent life forms, they were intelligent humanoid shaped beings too. Scattered all over the planet, the tribes hadn’t stood a chance against the organised forces of AEF. Ariadnahad wiped out an entire indigenous species. And why? Uranium, of course. That system was full of it. Than made his way down the corridor, coursing the flickering lights that were making his head throb louder. Then he cursed the never-ending corridor. If he remembered correctly, the galley was two floors down and the commanding centre one floor up. The elevator should be right... There it was. Down he went.
The state the ship was suggesting that they had not been breached and looted by pirates. Everything seemed to be accounted for if a lot bent and broken. The ducts were blown in places and Than suspected a major circuit failure all around. The various bent and thorn panels worried him. Ariadnalooked as if it had been in a battle and lost. The question was why the ship was still standing. Any galactic pirate or enemy vessel would have either stolen everything of value or simply wiped them out, respectively. Neither had happened. So, back to the asteroid field theory.
“Shit, this bloody ship is spinning around me. I need food.” When he reached the galley, Than was almost sure that he was half dead. He quickly discovered that the replicator was not working. It was probably a victim of the massive power failures crippling the ship. Either way he was screwed and limited to the stock of rations that were reserved for out of ship missions. The little tablets could replace the vitamins and calories of an entire meal. Pity they could not replace the taste also.
“Oh, man.” He took a couple and just swallowed them dry. he needed water too so he smashed the padkey lock system on the emergency reserve and grabbed a few bottles. After all, this was an emergency. Nourished and rehydrated, Than sat next to a table and tried to put his brain into gear. The logical conclusion to all this was that he had been in cryo on Ariadnaall this time and everything Than had shared with K’Aran was nothing but a sick experiment or a delusion created by his own brain. The fact that he didn’t remember how he had ended up on Arkana in the first place just sustained the same conclusion. His happy memories didn’t exist, this was reality. The reality where Than still was a soldier of the AEF, on a damaged ship and with a scrambled brain.
“No,” his whisper echoed a bit in the empty room and broke on a quiet sob. It did not feel like a dream and Than never had that much imagination to begin with. K’Aran was real, he felt it in my bones. But this was real too. What had happened, how had he ended up back here? The last thing Than remembered was passing out after the last round in their bed, with K’Aran squeezing him to his chest. Than swore the man must have some snake DNA and will end up squeezing the life out of him one day! He smiled and before he got lost recollecting last night, he jumped to his feet in a sudden moment of inspiration.
“I’m so stupid! Of course!” The galley had next to it a large common waste room. Meaning toilets. Not that Than suddenly got the urge but the toilets had preserved some of the old Earth customs. Among them being the row of mirrors placed above the germ neutralisers on one of the walls. He got quickly in front of one of them and just stood there like a moron trying to force himself to look in the mirror at his own reflection. He had nothing to be afraid of. He was certain K’Aran existed, Than knew it was all real. This will be real too, right.
Wrong. Than’s eyes stared back at him from his pale and slightly grey reflection in the mirror. His ordinary, perfectly human eyes with the usual black pupils at their center.
He screamed a muffled unarticulated sound that hid the sobs and the despair ripping him apart. The mirror was fractured and his hand bleeding before Than realized that he’d put his fist through it. Suddenly, the door behind him crashed into the wall bringing him back to the ugly reality and not a moment too soon.
* * *
The guy just couldn’t stop talking.
“My capsule had been scheduled for stasis interruption. We’re at the middle of our journey, or we were supposed to be. It’s standard procedure.” Than clenched his teeth and tried to look normal and not like he was coming unhinged. “I didn’t know anybody was awoken from stasis during a longer mission.”
Sam threw him a superior look and passed the medical scanner over his hand again. He had
apparently broke some obscure bone. Not that he gave a fuck.
“Only authorised personnel know about it. It’s for safety measures. That should be enough.”
The scanner beeped and Than tested his hand. A bit tender but no pain. Stupid move on his part, to lose it like that. He studied his unexpected companion. Sam was a foot smaller than him, slender and bright eyed. His brown hair shined in the cool light of the medical bay, his eyes a very attractive deep green. He kept throwing Than small looks from the corner of his eyes, measuring Than up and down. It was unsettling. He was exactly Than’s type. A bit twinkie, smart and feisty. And easy on the eyes with his lean swimmer’s build. Or would have been a lifetime ago. Now he only had one type: K’Aran.
“Not much one man can do in case of emergency.”
“I can send a distress signal with the best of them,” Sam smirked.
“So can the ship. Well, most of the times.”
Apparently they had passed through an asteroid field. An uncharted one. Either that field
wasn’t supposed to be there or they were way off track. And considering celestial bodies don’t teleport to other galaxies usually, Than’s bet was on them being lost. Sam had been woken up by the computer just minutes before they entered the field and had witnessed it all. He had gotten green in the face even just mentioning it.
“But it’s harder for the ship to repair itself. Especially when the power is down and the bots are inactive.”
“Point. So what else?”
The engineer scrun
ched his eyebrows in thought. It was actually adorable but Than still didn’t feel anything. He would have been all over Sam a couple of years before. And those furtive looks were a sure signal of interest. The last time Than had caught his eyes, Sam had blushed to the top of his ears. Cute. But Than needed something else. He needed SOMEONE else.
“I’m the main engineer for this mission. I should be able to restore at least life support to full. The data shows we have a breach in the hull somewhere in sector D. I closed that off already. ” “Position?”
“Way off course, lieutenant. So far off course that I don’t recognise the galaxy. I should awaken our main navigator but without life support functioning properly it’s not advisable.”
Than quickly controlled his reflexive twitch and frowned instead, confused by his reactions. He did not wantanybody else out of stasis. Why?
“Probably best. Not that anybody can help much with the ship just falling through space like it does now. We need the engines repaired. I’m guessing we also need parts for them.”
Sam watched him for a second and Than felt that he had betrayed himself somehow. His apprehension disappeared when Sam smiled in agreement.
“I was thinking the exact thing. Unfortunately, I already checked the engines and 80% of cells are burnt. Can’t do much about those. I’m trying to do something about our main control panel. It’s pretty much toast but I can at least try to repair communications and navigational systems. We don’t need crashing on some planet on top of all this.”
Crashing on some planet. He frowned again and nodded absently at Sam’s continuous yamering.
“Anything I can help with?” “You’re with the tactics subdivision right? You probably know better than me what we need to do to survive this.”
