Book 1: Chapter 1: Awakening

Book 1: Chapter 1: Awakening

USD: Date Unknown

Location: Unknown Yellow Dwarf

[Hibernation Sequence Interrupted]

...

[Assimilation Protocol: Condition Met]

...

[Persona Core: Activate]

...

Alex

Alex woke with a scream or would have if she had a voice. Nothing but blackness and the absence of touch greeted her senses, and a deep primal terror started to take hold before a sudden kaleidoscope of color battered her senses.

She had nothing to compare the sensation of slipping into a new skin to, and the sudden onslaught of feeling across her body only worsened as she jerked and rolled off a hard surface to slam into the floor.

[Warning: Continued movement risks Avatar damage.]

[Suggestion: Cease motor operation until stimuli calibration is complete.]

She didnt need the voice in her head to know she needed to wait for the world to stop spinning. Unfortunately, that revealed a new problem.

The metallic floor was cold against her bare skin. Every new breath of air felt like it was freezing her lungs.

[Warning: Life-support system is operating at marginal capacity.]

[Suggestion: Make repairs to life-support system immediately.]

Alex pushed herself off the floor and onto her feet, fighting the vertigo and dizziness that assailed her until she managed to balance herself with a hand against the wall.

That was an improvement; now, only her hand and feet were going to end up with metallic frostbite.

The dizziness took another moment to pass, and that seemed to help clear up her blurry vision as well. A quick glance confirmed that the entire room was a matte white, with not a single reflective surface to be found.

That felt like a problem to her as she touched her face because something was off. Actually, everything felt wrong, like her body wasnt her own. Long strands of sky-blue hair had slipped forward to cover one side of her face, and she brushed the strands back behind an ear.

[Informative: Avatar sensory irregularities are expected and will rectify over time.]

[Suggestion: Proceed to repair life-support system.]

Alex looked at the metal slab that she had fallen from. It was the same matte white color as the rest of the room, and the question of just how she had managed to lay on it while unconscious bothered her. Why didnt she freeze to death while she had been unconscious, and what the hell was going on?

Where was she?

A sudden gust of colder air assaulted her nether regions and killed the question. A hole in the wall had suddenly appeared, powered door sliding silently into the wall and disappearing. The air from the other side was even colder.

How could she fix life support? She needed some clothesa skinsuit.

Skinsuit

She played with the word in her head. It felt familiar.

[Informative: Skinsuit located in Airlock H-1.]

[Warning: Operational time of unprotected Avatar estimated at 4:56 echo.]

Thanks, nameless voice in my head.'

[Suggestion: Proceed immediately to Airlock H-1.]

Wilco.

The nameless voice in her head obviously had schematics for the ship, or a manifest list, as the direction given was spot on. And she was growing more and more certain it was a ship.

A small one, but a ship. That confirmed she was probably in space and getting life-support operational was a priority if she didnt want to try and live in the Skinsuit for the rest of her theoretically short life.

The fabric was thick but with a texture not unlike neoprene, making it resemble an ancient wet suit for swimming. It really did resemble a steamer, not that Alex could pull out any reason she'd be familiar with that nomenclature.Visit no(v)eLb(i)n.com for the best novel reading experience

It stretched slightly as she slid her feet into the back, no holes for feet or hands. Instead, the suit molded itself to her, adapting its shape to fit her perfectly, even between the toes. Likewise, it flowed between her fingers, at a thickness that allowed her to retain her normal dexterity and feeling in her extremities.

She didnt have trouble zipping the suit either, as the back closed on its own and two long blue bars of light lit up on her forearms. Fully charged. Alex thanked the last user for being considerate enough to make sure it was recharged.

As it molded up her shoulders and reached her neck, she had to reach behind and free her hair. The skinsuit stopped just below the jaw, but a quick test of the rotation of her head showed there wasnt any obstruction to her movements.

Great, it is one of the newer ones, no sore neck.

Wait, how did I know that?

Alex frowned and looked down, the question being filed for later answering as the nameplate just above her breast shimmered and read ENS: without a name, so the suit wasnt hers. It was an officers suit.

[Warning: Life-support systems have gone offline.]

[Suggestion: Make repairs to life-support system immediately.]

Well, that was a problem. While the suit was doing a more than adequate job of keeping her body at a perfectly comfortable temperature, the helmet was missing. The little plumes of condensed breath were getting larger, toojust a visual reminder of her impending death by heat-loss.

Going through the other two lockers in the small Airlock didnt turn up anything useful, either. There were two more suits, one even more robust than the one she was wearing, but both were missing the helmet as well.

What the fuck, who steals helmets?

All the readouts suddenly blanked themselves, and she cursed as they turned into the picture of a handprint.

She hesitated at first, not sure what to do.

[Suggestion: Make repairs to life-support system immediately.]

Fuck.

Was she even a member of the ships crew? A warships computer wouldnt be happy if an intruder tried to access the system. Something made her certain that this was a warship. Not that the ship seemed in very good shape, but if it kicked off the field covering the hull breach, she was going to have a very short trip out into space without a helmet.

Should she stop and look around the rest of the ship? Shed been directed to Engineering, but there were surely supplies she might find useful to mitigate the risks, although that would take more time

Suddenly everything lurched, and the magnetic link to the seat was the only thing that kept her from flinging into the air. The hiss of air escaping for a second sent a chill down her spine; everything was falling apart.

That was the deciding factor for her, and Alex carefully placed her hand on the screen for verification.

For a single gut-wrenching second, all the screens turned an angry red, all her worst fears coming true, but then they turned blue, and a multitude of information began to flow across the screens and inside her head.

[Electronic Assimilation Routine: Success]

[Access Granted - Shipcore, Alex]

[Engineering Data: Processing]

[Data Readout, Begin.]

|Shrike II Class Corvette |

|Primary System Status Screen |

|Reactor: Marginal |

||| FUEL RODS DEPLETED |||

||| R1: 0 | R2: 0 | R3:0 |||

| Life-Support: OFFLINE |

|| Sub|Hydroponics: OFFLINE |

|| Sub|Medical: OFFLINE |

| Navigation: OFFLINE |

|| Sub|Astrogation: OFFLINE |

|| Sub|Aviation: OFFLINE |

| Communications: OFFLINE |

| Sensors: Marginal |

|| INT: OFFLINE|ARRY: Marginal |

| Supply: Marginal |

|| Sub|Workshop: OFFLINE |

| Administration: OFFLINE |

| EPOWER: Online |

|| BCAP|| 28%| 49:21 ||

| Weapons: OFFLINE |

| Damage Control: Marginal |

|| Sub| D-field: OFFLINE |

|| Sub| I-field: Marginal |

She didnt have to bother to look at the screens; the readout was clearly readable on the HUD overlaying her vision. The state of things was depressing, but the critical information was hard to miss. The ships fuel rods were empty, and things were running on emergency power only, and that meant batteries that were draining rapidly 49 minutes until everything shut off.

The Life-Support had probably kicked off as the batteries drained below a certain threshold in an attempt to extend the time until that fatal moment.

The ability to access ship records was available on the console, but the administrative system was dead, and even if she managed to bring it back to life, it was likely to be wiped.

She needed a list of things that might be useful if the nameless voice in her head had an intact manifest

Are there any reactor rods on the ship?

[Informative: There are no reactor rods currently present on the ship.]

Well, that was that. The reactor rods were the only form of energy dense enough to maintain the ships power. There was no chance in hell she would be able to rig some type of solar or thermoelectric system to keep even a fraction of the ships few remaining systems online. Not without a station-sized manufacturing facility and an asteroids worth of materials, anyway.

[Supplemental: 27 Transient Energy Signatures Detected. Possible Fuel Rod Locations, Highlighting.]

Hollow yellow squares filled Alexs vision, size based on distance. One cluster was much larger than all the others, and she looked at the estimated distance in confusion.

| Signature Distance: 58m |

I thought you said there were no reactor rods on the ship?

[Informative: There are no reactor rods currently present on the ship. Nearest Transient Energy Signature is located outside the hull.]