Author’s Note:
I am back after a long hiatus. With smut. This one is a serial—I have the plot outlined but I’m writing as I go. An homage to one of the most iconic sci-fi franchises of all time but with a futa twist! No sex in this chapter I’m afraid. Tune in next chapter!
*******
Chapter 1
Anna gasped out loud. As the haze slowly began to clear and her senses began to return, the first thing she noticed was the cold.
She shivered. Her entire body shuddered and trembled as if she was seizing. Her skin was so cold it felt as if it was on fire. If she could see, she was sure her breath would come out in mists. Her limbs felt heavy, like they had been asleep forever.
Asleep. Cryostasis. Colony ship. A surge of excitement. They had finally arrived.
Her eyes snapped open.
The room was dark. A low tone beeped behind her ears. No one greeted her and only the emergency navigation lights were on but even those were dim beyond their normal levels, casting the room in dark red glow.
Pain suddenly tore through her skull and she curled over and cried out.
“Fuck!”
It was unbearable.
But as soon as the migraine happened it was gone and she was left breathing hard.
Groaning, she pushed herself up and felt herself lift from the pod and float upwards.
“That’s strange,” Anna muttered.
She grabbed the lip of the pod and used it to spin herself around to touch down onto the ground. Technically, there was no “down” in space especially when the ship’s artificial gravity was offline but she needed some semblance of normality. She winced as her entire body exploded in fiery pain. As the sensation slowly returned to her limbs, she felt a wave of nausea suddenly overtake her and doubled over, hacking up stasis fluid. Globules of gray liquid floated through the air before splashing onto the “ground.”
Just when she thought she was done, another wave of nausea hit her and she threw up again. Her head throbbed with a series of brain melting migraines and it was all she do to curl up into a fetal position and float in place, waiting for everything to subside.
“Hello?!” she cried, her voice hoarse and weak, “Is anybody there?!
“Leah?! Is this some sort of prank? Come on, this isn’t funny.”
After what felt like an eternity she unfurled herself and pushed herself back down to the floor and looked around again.
She was in one of the cryostasis chambers but all the other pods stored behind her were dark and none of them were open.
Very carefully, she picked herself up and steadied herself on her pod.
All the pods had an interface on the right side for accessing vital functions and diagnostics. Anna looked down and tried to make sense of the readings.
There were no readings displayed, only the same warning that flashed repeatedly.
Emergency Revitalization Sequence Initiated
Anna frowned. She tried pressing the menu button or swiping around with her finger but the screen was unresponsive. Without her gear—namely her tablet there wasn’t any way for her to access the system console and diagnose what went wrong.
Shivering, she wrapped her arms around herself in an effort to keep warm.
“Need clothes.”
The form-fitting cryostasis suits they wore into the pods were state-of-the-art and had embedded sensors to help monitor vitals but were also sheer, thin, and not very insulating.
She went over to the far side of the room and pressed a button to open one of the storage lockers.
Nothing happened.
Cursing under her breath, she tried another one. Again, no response. She went down the line, trying all of them out of sheer frustration. None of them opened.
“Helloooo?!” cried Anna looking up at the ceiling, “what the hell is going on?”
No response. What had happened to the ship’s AI? Why wasn’t anything powered?
Did we even make it to the new system?
A sinking feeling crept into her as she began to run through all the worst case scenarios in her head.
The door that led out of the chamber was open at least and the hallway beyond was lit in the soft red glow of emergency navigation lights.
Steeling herself, Anna left the chamber and went right down the hallway. She tried to remember the layout of the ship from memory but the mental fog from stasis was making things a struggle. Luckily, the ship had maps etched into the wall just about every block.
“Here we go,” she muttered as a spidery collection of lines, words, and symbols came into view.
Shivering in place, Anna traced where she was on the ship. While her brain seemed to be running slower than synth syrup, she vaguely recollected being told that the cryopods were built towards the aft of the ship. The map on the wall confirmed her suspicions and once she saw where the bridge was, she groaned inwardly.
“Well at least I won’t have to walk.”
It had taken some detours and all in all much longer than she’d have liked but Anna had made it to the bridge. Along the way, she had found a jumpsuit from a maintenance closet that had malfunctioned and now wore it zipped up over her cryosuit. There had been a few in the closet and she had been pleasantly surprised to find one that was roughly her size. She couldn’t quite tell what color it was since it was dark enough to simply look black underneath the red lighting but it helped with the cold and it had pockets that she could put stuff into and that was a win. There had been a portable work light in the closet as well which she had tucked into one of her many pockets.
“Hello?” she called.
The bridge was eerily silent. The door was wide open though a part of the door jutted out as if it had been manually opened and someone hadn’t pushed it all the way open. The room was cast in the same dim red light as the rest of the ship. All of the operator screens were dark and the main navigation hub looked to be completely offline. There was someone there sort of debris suspended in the air on the far side of the room and below the navigation hub, a panel had been removed and a tangle of wires erupted from the base like some sort of tangle of vines. A toolkit was hooked onto one of the safety bars.
Anna floated through and immediately made her way over to the pilot’s chair where an array of screens and controls surrounded the chair in a semi-circle. She tapped the main screen but there was no response. Frowning she found the manual power switch and pressed that, holding it down for at least ten seconds.
After a pause, the backlight glowed and a logo appeared in the middle of the screen shaped like a V. It was the symbol of Vector, one of the biggest software companies in the system. Or it had been at any rate, it was anyone’s guess if they were still around. Anna didn’t even know what year it was.
The bootup finished in a few seconds and the home screen appeared. She looked up at the corner of the screen and pulled down one of the menus and stared.
10:53
Thursday, August 20
3314
She frowned. That couldn’t be right. They had left the system in 2089. The trip was only supposed to take a hundred and fifty years. If this was accurate then they had been in space for over a thousand years. She tapped on a few icons and brought up the ship’s main log and the screen filled with lines upon lines of neatly organized text entries accompanied with various icons that related to the different sections of the ship. She scrolled through and read the headlines—it was a lot of warnings about different parts of the ship losing power or failing. After what seemed like an hour of scrolling (probably only a minute at most), she let out an exasperated sigh and tapped the filter settings and reorganized the entries by date ascending instead.
“Should’ve just done this in the first place,” Anna muttered to nobody but herself.
It was still a lot of information to process but at least now she was getting dates that were closer to their departure year. As she skimmed and kept scrolling she quickly saw where the warnings began.
[ 2186/9/03 4:53:39 ] Warning! Class 5 Solar flare detected
[ 2186/9/03 4:54:15 ] Attempting evasive maneuvers
[ %$8/ÔÏ/&* 4:5§‹Ç◊ ] War_ni•ª˚∆ng! Damage ·¨˜€∏EJWECH—:”Z>>?}
[ I…≤86&WTG03 4a¶©˚ ] Q4r28i|?’! Navigation Sys”ØTEMÓ˝„ÎUN-AÏbl
[ 2˜m˘¯9∆¥∫¬ 0 50∆2 ] Wa∑n∂i[Â]ng! Critical Failßå45))u:”ÓÒŒ¸†e
[ ◊1(_9k/03 4œ5π:º2 ] Warning! High radi‡Óætion lev&$∞detecte¬∆
[ 2√≥¶/L˚+¥ ≤æ∞5:¬2 ] Re¥sꇰtti◊ng ˆÅ• A§¥lµl Sensør A&…¬rrays
[ 2186/9/03 4:59:44 ] Error! Unable to reset Sensor Array 6-9
[ 2186/9/03 5:09:35 ] Error! Ship off-course
[ 2186/9/03 5:09:40 ] Correcting course
[ 2186/9/03 5:10:00 ] Running full ship diagnostic
[ 2186/9/03 5:12:02 ] Ship diagnostic complete
[ 2186/9/03 5:12:05 ] Emergency protocol enacted
[ 2186/9/03 5:12:10 ] Error! Cryopod 00001-00009 offline
[ 2186/9/03 5:12:16 ] Cryopod 00010-00014 activated
[ 2186/9/03 6:46:19 ] Warning! Obstacles detected
She closed the log. The migraines were starting up again and the letters along with the rest of the room was beginning to swim in front of her eyes. She grunted as the pain wracked her head and it was all she could do to just stay still and let the sensation pass. Another thousand years seemed to pass before her brain felt normal again. Her vision was blurry though and she felt moisture around her eyes. With her thumb, she brushed it off and flicked it away. In null g it would otherwise coat her eyes and stay there due to surface tension.
She opened the log and skimmed through quickly again. From what she could tell some of the crew had been pulled out of their pods due to the emergency protocol and the rest of the logs showed shuttle activity as well as a few messages indicating systems being reset but then the logs trailed off. The only notifications after that were automatically timed diagnostic items related to various systems on the ship.
She activated the voice command feature and a calm British male voice chimed out, “What is your query?”
“Where are we?”
“Unknown.”
“Can you elaborate on that?”
“Several sensor arrays are damaged. Unable to provide accurate data.”
Must have been the solar flare event that she read in the logs. That would explain the damage.
“Why is the power off?” asked Anna.
“The ship’s reactor is offline due to the accumulation of nine hundred sixty-seven unfulfilled maintenance items which prevent full operational capacity until addressed. Please refer to Safety Protocol 14-11a for more details.”
“So the ship is running on backup batteries?”
“Yes.”
She almost didn’t want to know, “how much runtime left?”
“At current settings, with all functions minimized except for oxygen recycling, S.O.S. transmission, and emergency lighting, there is enough power for approximately ninety-three days.”
Her eyes widened. Three months of power left. What the fuck.
“Where the hell is the crew?”
“Cryopods 00001-00009 containing primary crew members are offline. Cryopods 00010-00014 were activated—”
“Yes and where are they?”
“Status: deceased.”
“Fuck.”
“That is not a query.”
Anna glared at the screen. Even though she knew it was just a rudimentary AI system responding it still ground her nerves and she was already not feeling her best.
“Why am I the only one awake?”
“Your cryopod was activated as a countermeasure based on Emergency Protocol 119: In the event of projected backup systems failure, personnel are to be awakened based on profile best suited for tasks resulting in continued ship function.”
“That doesn’t make any sense, I’m not a reactor mechanic or a hardware engineer. My background is software.”
“Based on your profile, you are currently best suited to assist in continued ship function.”
It didn’t make any sense and the more she thought about it the more unease crept into her thoughts.
“H-how many pods are still active?” she asked.
“There are no active cryopods at this time.”
Glacial dread washed through her.
“No. Oh no. No no no. This can’t be happening!”
She was the only one left.
*****
Ophelia stared at the star charts in front of her, calculating and recalculating in her head the most efficient route based on all available data.
This is waste of your time. I’ve already charted the most efficient course, chimed a voice inside her head, what is the point of having a navigational intelligence installed if you’re just going to do all the same work yourself?
A mind not exercised is a mind that declines, retorted Ophelia, and in the case of an emergency and you’re out of play, what then?
That won’t happen.
Ophelia resisted the urge to snort.
Anything could happen, Pal. We’re in space.
My processing power is unparalleled. I am confident in my ability to protect this ship and its crew.
While I appreciate the zeal, there is a reason the Corps doesn’t use drone ships for everything. We humans still retain a level of adaptability and creativity that hasn’t quite been replicated by machines yet. Even after all this time.
“Captain, long-range scanners picked up an S.O.S.,” called Nim from the front.
“You think it’s the one?”
“Too early to say. The signal’s weak. Could even be coming from dark space. From what Pal tells me it tracks with the trajectory of the energy trail we’ve been following.”
“How long until we can pinpoint where it’s coming from?”
“Rough estima—wha? Oh, all right. Pal is saying eight days.”
“Well even if it doesn’t turn out to be our prime objective, we are the only ones out here. Please make the necessary course corrections.”
“Done.”
Ophelia nodded and refocused her gaze back onto the charts that floated in front of her. They weren’t actually physically there of course. The Nexus chip implanted in her brain was feeding visual data and triggering her visual cortex in a way that made it look like an augmented reality display. Like something out of an Old Earth video game.
Looking over the star charts again, she realized that her mind was wandering when she calculated the results again and the course time had actually gotten worse. A glance at the time in the corner of one of the menus told her that much more time had passed than she had initially thought. She sighed and dismissed all the overlays with a flick of her hand.
“I’m done for the night. Don’t stay up too late, if there’s nothing pressing feel free to let Pal take over,” said Ophelia.
“Roger that.”
Nimrah seems fond of that antiquated phrase, commented Pal.
You wouldn’t know just by looking at her but she’s quite the history nerd, said Ophelia, military history especially.
Between the two of you, she is the one who comes off more rigid. Which is surprising to me since you both served yet you are much more informal and relaxed.
Ophelia raised an eyebrow at that. The door to the bridge opened automatically upon sensing her approach and she descended the ramp down into a passageway.
Perks of being top of the chain with a small operation like this. Nobody around to penalize me for upholding antiquated tradition, she explained with a wry grin. The passageway split into three directions. Instead of taking a right or a left, she squatted and took the rails of the ladder in her hands. With her boots pressed to the outsides she dropped down.
I believe the fact that Nimrah feels on some level an obligation to uphold certain formalities speaks to her need for structure, Pal mused.
Becoming a human anthropologist are we? Don’t let Lilian catch wind, she’ll get jealous.
The shaft dropped her into the nexus: an open space in the center of their ship that led to all the other major areas. The designers had gone all out here and integrated a hydroponics system into this space and so a good portion of the walls were covered in an assortment of healthy looking plants. The starboard side bulkhead had a view port that was shuttered at the moment and the port side had a sizable screen set into the gleaming varinium surface. There was even lounge furniture integrated into the center. Facing her on the forward side was a set of double doors flanked by passageways.
While I’m happy to download the necessary information and attain the needed certs if needed, I have no intention of supplanting Dr. Kruse.
Probably a good call on your part. She may seem like the level-headed counselor type on the outside but something tells me there’s more than meets the eye with her, replied Ophelia as she strode towards the double doors. They opened and slid away with a quiet hiss.
I have compiled theories on that but I am obligated to mention that I believe her intentions for you and the rest of the crew are completely benign.
The rest of her crew sat around a long, rectangular table on built in benches. Zoe was grinning and Kia was doubled over, face twisted in glee, and belting uncontrollable laughter. Lilian’s eyes flickered between the two, a bemused grin tugging on the corner of her lips.
Zoe and Lilian nodded at her as she approached but Kia continued laughing right up until Ophelia reached the head of the table.
“Cah-pea-ten! Join us?” asked Zoe, the grin still on her face.
“What’s the word, fearless leader?” asked Lilian.
Kia finally looked up and straightened a bit but still couldn’t quite hold it together and let out a combination of a snort and chuckle.
“Bahaha, I can’t! I just-sorry, Lia,” Kia’s words devolved into giggles and snorts again. Finally she let out a controlled breath and turned to face Ophelia with an almost put together expression on her face.
“You can call me Ophelia, Zoe. There’s really no need for formality,” said Ophelia as she flashed the woman a warm smile.
Zoe shrugged but she returned the smile.
“My bad. Ain’t used to that yet.”
“Algood,” replied Ophelia, “Kia.” She tapped a finger to the edge of her lips.
Kia brought a hand up to wipe her mouth and chuckled, “thanks, thought I got it all.” And she attempted to glare at Lilian but broke down into giggles again.
“No woes,” said Ophelia before clapping her hands together in front of her. “Now, a quick update and then I’m out for the night.”
They all perked up, shifting in place to give her their undivided focus.
“We’ve picked up a distress beacon. Last I checked, we’re the only ship detectable within an eight hundred parsec radius. So we’re responding. I’d also like to note that the signal source is within the bounds of our previously projected route.”
All three nodded at that.
“How long ’til we there?” asked Zoe.
“According to Pal, eight days.”
Kia rubbed her hands together and her eyes lit up with excitement.
“Finally! Some action! I was getting tired of the book clubs and VR games.”
Lilian put on a hurt face. “What’s wrong with the book club? I thought we were having great discussions together?”
Kia patted Lilian’s hand, “I know what you’re trying to do and I won’t fall for it.”
Lilian crossed her arms and looked angry for a second but then winked at Zoe.
“Oh, you want more action, huh,” said Zoe. She waggled her eyebrows and smirked, “say less!”
Ophelia cut in. If she didn’t they would start up again and she would be here all night. “I’m not sure what we’ll find, especially this far outside the colonies but please make preparations.”
With that she turned and left them to their devices.