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“Robby, we can’t outrun them forever!” Jack shouted over the wind as he lifted the cannon blaster onto his shoulder and took aim at the fleet of speedracers following them over the desert plain.
The metal hovercraft they were in was zooming across the flat salt plains in the outskirts of New Pittland, Earth’s largest fuel trading port, stirring up a wave of dust crystals in their wake as they ran for their lives from the fleet of Empire speeders hot on their tail. Jack Abbot, former space ranger medic turned Groundling doctor, stood at the back of their craft and pulled down the reloader, hefting another explosive into the cylinder and taking aim at one of the many speeders following them.
Michael ‘Robby’ Robinavitch, a former Empire architect turned Groundling strategy manager, kept a steady grip at the hovercraft’s wheel in the driver’s seat, readjusting his goggles as dust began to hit his face through the cracked shield in front of him, “You don’t think I don’t know that Jack?” He yelled back at his friend, “Trinity! Where are we at on the map?”
Trinity Santos, a local mechanic’s daughter turned reluctant Groundling mechanic adjusted the flight cap on her head as she scrolled on the map pad in her lap, before yelling over the sound of the wind and engine working over capacity to keep them speeding away, “Only a few kilometres out from the impasse!"
“Fuck, they just won’t let up,” Robby cursed under his breath, his eyes scanning the horizon ahead at the looming mountain ranges they were desperately speeding towards and the valley that provided them from the reprieve of the fleet converging in on them. He lifted a hand from the wheel and yanked down the internal comms mic hanging above his head that was connected to his headset, “Ellis, how’re we looking on ammunition?”
Parker Ellis, their small team’s weapons and ammunition specialist that grew up in the Groundling’s hidden community, sat strapped backwards underneath the main cabin with her hands navigating the hovercraft’s large turret that was churning through shells quicker than they could restock. She slapped a hand against her headset, “We’re not looking good, Robby! I could use an absolute miracle right now!”
Ellis wiped the bead of sweat from her brow before yelling over her shoulder, “Oi Rat Boy, keep feeding those shells into the turret rope!”
Dennis Whittaker tried to hide the small roll of his eyes but got to work as she had said. He was the newest member of their ragtag team, and was the sole reason they were in this current predicament. Dennis was born and raised in a deserted space outpost on the run from Earth to the planet capital of their neighbouring system: Avelon. He had followed the only career option he’d had available to him to leave the outpost, and joined up to the Empire of Avelon’s ranks as a foot soldier, training in their space military troupe until he was stationed as a prison soldier just outside the planet’s capital of Novagard. There, he had been the sole guard of the last Minister of Earth’s wife, the last living ruler of the people of Earth. Or as most people referred to them now: Groundlings. Over the time he stood watch at her cell door, the stories she shared with him about Division Day started to eat away at the lies he was brought up on, and Dennis was horrified to find out about the merciless slaughtering and enslavement of the Groundlings over the decades since that fateful day.
When an opportunity arose for him to take the last piece of resistance; a key that the First Lady described as the last hope the Groundlings had to be free of the Avelonians forever, he jumped at the opportunity to break from his military rank. Dennis dutifully took the key disguised as the woman’s measly necklace with her clear instructions of the coordinates to find on Earth, and in the middle of the night he smuggled his way onto a cargo ship headed towards his destination planet.
It was halfway through his travels that he realised that the Empire of Avelon was onto him, and soon his face was blasted on every screen at every space port along their journey. After keeping himself tucked away under the grates of the walkways for weeks on end, he’d finally made it to Earth, and managed to disguise himself as one of the crew when the ship docked.
But his luck didn’t last long, and the people of New Pittland ousted him at the first mention of a reward for his whereabouts. He couldn’t blame them though, these were people who were desperate for any opportunity to lift themselves from the poverty in the oppressed fuel town that was a dusty shell of the city it once used to be. As he dashed through the winding pedestrian streets outrunning the Empire of Avelon’s footsoldiers hunting him down, if it hadn’t been for Ellis’s hands yanking him off the street into the rafters above the bustling markets below, he would have most likely have been locked up and never seen again.
Ellis had then brought him to the Groundlings Rebellion commune in the tunnels beneath New Pittland. There, Dennis had pleaded with the leaders to take him seriously and showed them the key that he was promised was their last hope. Whilst most of the leaders shot his plea down, after the hearing adjourned he was soon joined by Robby, who pulled a team together to join him on his trip to wherever the coordinates would take him.
Which led them to their current predicament. After breaking out of a checkpoint when one of the guards recognised Dennis’ mugshot that was blasted across half the galaxy, the crew broke away from their planned highway route and were cross-countrying their way through the salt plains and towards the abandoned valley on the outskirts of the city that would grant them passageway towards the location of the mysterious coordinates.
“Robby!” Trinity’s voice rose an octave in warning of something she locked eyes on ahead of them, “They’ve set up a blockade!”
Robby’s gaze immediately jumped to the valley’s impasse, and lifted his scanner hanging around his neck to see a small line of vehicles starting to converge at the entrance of the valley.
“Fuck!” Robby slammed his hand against the wheel. How the fuck had the Empire known where they were going?
Shit shit shit, Robby thought to himself as his mind raced, they’ve blocked off the highway and now the abandoned valley’s impasse, could they slam through the smaller blockade and risk craft damage to get to the cave passes he knew the Empire wouldn’t be able to navigate through?
Trinity frowned, glancing at the map below before peering out through the dashboard and shouted over the wind, “What about the mountains?”
“Are you crazy?” Robby gave her a sharp look, “You know as well as I do that the Scavengers will eat us alive if we go up into the mountains!”
“Better the enemy you know than the one you don’t!” Trinity yelled back at him, “What other choice do we have?”
Robby frowned as he kept his hands locked on the wheel, his eyes darting between their two options. The valley path straight ahead where an armada on the ground and most likely in the air would be greeting them, or up through the crevasses in the mountains, through tunnel and cave systems that had been carved by Scavengers over many hundreds of years. Through a mountain range that was the boogeyman of Groundling children’s nightmares, stories of vicious wild people that even the Empire knew to leave them to their own devices.
“Shit, fuck, fucking, shit-” He kept cursing to himself as he swerved their vehicle and yanked down the mic again, “Everyone strap in, we’re heading into the mountains.”
A clunk was heard from the back of the ship as Jack dropped the cannon blaster, “Are you crazy?”
“Do you have any better ideas Jack, because I’m all ears!” Robby roared back in frustration.
Their smaller craft finally hit the base of the looming mountain, and Robby gritted his teeth as he tightly navigated the hunk of metal up the winding path along the side of the mountain. He kept glancing at the side mirrors, groaning to see that whilst the larger Empire attack vehicles had pulled up short before the entrance to the mountain paths, a group of smaller Empire racers smoothly followed the cloud of dust they left in their wake.
Robby frowned as he weaved in and out of the mountain face, his eyes glancing back as the racers seemed to follow them without hesitation even from their large distance, how the fuck did they know where to go?
As if reading his mind, his headpiece sparked to life with the frustrated yell of Ellis in the turret, “Robby, no wonder they know where we’ve been heading, they’ve got a tracker on the fucking turret!”
“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Robby groaned, his mind racing.
He yanked the wheel as the path ahead narrowed and everything tilted as they started to carve back into the extensive cave system Scavengers had made in the decades since they were banished into the mountains.
A hand reached into the cockpit and grabbed the mic, yanking it down, “Ellis, Whittaker get your asses up here.”
“What’re you doing!” Robby yelled over his shoulder, his eyes never leading the winding paths around the looming rockface in front of him.
“Robby, we need to lose the tracker beacon!” Jack held tightly onto the bar above his head as he swayed with their craft's erratic turns through the entrances to the caves, “Drop the turret on the next corner.”
Robby swerved the hovercraft along the edge of the cliff face, glancing over at the steep drop down into the salt plains below, and gave a small grunt in reluctant agreement, even though he wasn’t happy about losing part of his baby. The amount of money and time it would take him to repair and replace the turret unit made him feel sick, but considering they were running for their lives he’d have to mourn it later.
Jack leaned his body backward to bellow through the back half of the ship, “Ellis, get up here before he drops you off the cliff too!”
“I’m coming, I’m coming.” The frustrated voice of Parker Ellis entered the cabin as she stumbled in carrying a large bag that clinked as she tried to steady her footing, followed by an equally shaky Dennis.
“That better be the sound of everyone buckling up back there!” Robby shouted, and the three of them staggered into the seats lining the cabin walls, quickly shoving their hands through the harnesses attached.
“Right, Trinity,” Robby yelled out as he yanked the wheel around another corner that wove back into the loops of the caves, “When I say now, you’re going to press that button there and pull the release lever above your head.”
Trinity glanced up, “The one that has yellow and black stripes and says Do Not Pull on it?”
“Exactly.” He yelled.
Trinity dutifully did as she was told, and Robby quickly glanced over his shoulder to see Jack, Ellis and Dennis all strapped into the cargo hold in the middle of the ship, Ellis clutching a large bag of ammunition to her chest.
He turned his gaze forward, swerving the racer craft back out into the sun on the edge of the cliff face and yelled, “Now!”
Trinity pressed the button and yanked down on the release lever, and the whole hovercraft felt a shuddering vibration wrack through the metal as the bottom half of their vehicle unlatched. Robby held onto the wheel tightly as he felt the weight of the turret start to fall off, and yanked the wheel to the left as he rounded the tight corner, sending the once attached turret pod over the cliff face as they rounded the edge of the winding mountain path.
Their hovercraft swerved back under the cover of the rock face and they held their breath until they heard the massive explosion of the remaining live ammunition ignite as it made contact with the ground far below them, and the crew could almost feel the shudder echo through the mountain walls around them.
There was a lightness now to the hovercraft as Robby continued the vehicle’s path further now into the mountain caves, his heart racing as he hoped the diversion would buy them some time to hide out. His eyes kept catching on the small darkened alcoves they drove by, and he knew they were running out of time.
“Trinity, we need to find somewhere to hide, like right now. Yell when you see something that’ll fit us.” He gritted his teeth as he precariously balanced the drift of the vehicle with the speed needed to keep out of sight of the racers behind them, hoping that they’d been distracted by the explosion.
After a few tense moments, Trinity’s hand shot up and pointed to a darkened entrance up ahead on the left, “There!”
Robby yanked on the wheel, slamming his foot against the breaks as he rotated their racer vehicle to slow down. With practised ease, Robby dropped their emergency break and they could feel the shudder of the engines as their hovercraft fought against the forward motion and instead turned into the mouth of the small cave. The crew fought against the straps of their harnesses as the hovercraft pulled up in a few yards, their bodies leaning forward as the metal groaned to a halt in the small, darkened space.
“Lights, everyone! We need everything electromagnetic off.” Robby gasped out, and he made quick work of shutting off the overheating engine, and the lit up panel in the cockpit.
Jack and Ellis made quick work in the cargo hold behind him, Jack unbuckling and finding the master switchboard located on the reverse side of the cockpit, and deactivated the generator. The whirring sound beneath their feet started to groan as it eased to a stop, and Ellis swiftly found the emergency lighting and switched off the fail safe mechanism, flooding the cabin into darkness.
“Everyone be quiet, they’ll be hot on our tail and we need to wait them out. So no lights, no speaking, nothing.” Robby muttered.
The racer craft was plunged into darkness, only the slivers of light from the cave entrance behind them barely illuminating the space, and the only sounds echoing through the vehicle was the groaning of the dying engine and their heavy gasps for breath.
They could faintly make out the sounds of racers somewhere nearby, and the sound of chopper vehicles overhead as they sat still, trying to calm down their thundering heartbeats and prayed now that they’d lost the tracker, the Empire would assume the explosion a few hundred yards beneath them was the whole vehicle going up in flames.
The crew were fighting for breath, the intensity of the speed chase and losing the back end of their ship over the canyon edge finally catching up with them. Jack noticed Dennis’ teeth starting to chatter and he reached over to grab a space blanket, gently draping it over his lap as the younger man gave him a grateful look and clutched the blanket to his face to smother his chattering.
The whirring sounds of the chopper and echoing engines of the racers seem to become fainter as the crew sat frozen for a few moments longer, and Ellis took a deep breath out and let her body sag, her head dropping forward in relief. Jack sent her a grateful look, before he let his heavy head drop back against the padded headrest behind him, his eyes closing for a moment as the adrenaline started to leave his body.
From the cockpit, a bubble of nervous quiet laughter seemed to erupt from Trinity as her body drooped forward, her head coming to rest tiredly on the co-pilot wheel in front of her. As her body shook in nervous relief, Robby placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, in a silent warning to keep quiet but also as a reassurance that she wasn’t alone.
They all began to relax in the growing silence as the Empire’s fleet moved further away in the distance, and Dennis took a deep breath out and tucked the blanket around himself tighter. His body was still shaking and his teeth continued to chatter, the only sound echoing through his head other than the very faint beeping sound that his ears picked up from somewhere outside the racer.
Wait, what?
Dennis froze, his brows starting to furrow as his head cocked slightly, his eyes jumping around the small space as he tried to pinpoint the source of the consistent but distant beeping noise. He slowly unbuckled his harness, his attention still trying to hunt the source of the noise, and Jack glanced over at the younger man as he slowly stood up out of his seat, heading to the window at the door and peering outside into the darkness of the cave.
Jack looked at him puzzled, muttering, “Whittaker? What’s-“
Dennis held up a hand, his head still cocked, “Can anyone else hear that?”
The rest of the crew froze trying to train into whatever he could hear, his eyes searching through the darkness ahead of their racer to see whatever was making the noise.
Without saying anything, he reached up and moved quietly to the side door, sliding it open and poking his head outside the vehicle. Ellis tried to grab his jacket but her fingers slipped through, and she hissed at him, “Whittaker! Get back here!”
They could hear his feet land in the dust beside the racer craft, his voice muffled by the tin around them, “I can definitely hear something further in the cave.”
At the sound of the crunching dirt beneath his feet, Robby rolled his eyes, muttering to himself something along the lines of ‘rat boy’. He unclipped his harness and swivelled his upper body to face the expectant faces of his crew before giving them a circular motion with his index finger, and motioning them all to pick up their weapons to follow the younger man.
Dennis walked a little ahead of the small crew, his hand fumbling through his militant vest until he found the small emergency torch and clicked it on. He kept his eyes trained at the uneven ground below his feet, navigating the unstable rocks as the cave began to narrow in and the roof of the cave started to cone downwards, moving carefully towards the increasing sound.
He could still hear the sound of beeping echoing up ahead, and he glanced over his shoulder to see the rest of the crew slowly following in his path, their own torches illuminating the cave as they hesitantly followed Dennis into the seemingly never ending cave system.
Dennis continued to follow the sound, even as his feet met patches of water beneath him, and he frowned as he avoided the puddles, where was the water coming from?
Further on from where his torch was leading the way, his eyes strained to see a small sliver of light ahead of him, and he lifted his torch to where a woven path between the rock walls seemed to block the light from coming further. He carefully navigated through the ribboned path until the light source seemed to hit him fully, and he switched off his torch, moving forward to what seemed to be the mouth of the cave. It was a slight descent to reach the more open area, but as he stumbled a little, his hands catching on the rock wall next to him, he dusted off his hands on his trouser legs and lifted his head, only for his jaw to drop at the sight that lay before him.
His eyes widened, “Holy shit.”
——
“Um guys? You definitely want to take a look at this.”
Dennis’ voice echoed throughout what seemed a larger space ahead of them, and the rest of the crew moved with haste as they raced to find wherever Dennis had ended up. Their torches helped to light up the thinner pathway between the rock walls, but they soon found themselves stumbling down the same descent of loosened rocks until they could see his frame against an unexpected illuminated open space. They too came to a standstill beside the awe-struck younger man, taking in the space that their narrow tunnel had led them to.
It was a large domed cavern, easily as tall and as wide as some of the freight ships that the Empire ferried between here and Avelon. The cavern was filled with light from the hole in the roof, where the last of the sunlight was streaming in and casting the whole space into a dusty, orange haze. They could hear a small trickling of water coming from above, which ran down the far wall and created the pooling of water that acted as a moat around the large object looming under the light-stricken space.
A large bulking racer craft with its nose rammed up against the cavern wall.
It was an enormous craft to find in a hidden cavern, rusted and tilted with its nose facing down at a fourty-degree angle, having seemingly caved in from the roof into the cavernous ravine via a landslide of rocks and dirt that propped up the back half of the ship.
“What the hell happened here?” Ellis murmured into the echoing space in disbelief.
“I have no idea.” Robby shook his head in shock.
A curious look came over Trinity as she glanced at the rest of the group, “Let’s go find out, shall we?”
The small crew tentatively staggered down the slope of rocks that had solidified some time ago near their entrance to the cave, cautiously feeling for give in the ground beneath them as they crawled down the steep slope. Eventually their feet met the moat of water, and they waded through the ankle-deep still water to approach the looming hulk of metal in front of them.
It was a large craft that had broken upon the descent into the cave, with its left wing lay scattered in pieces to their right, leaving a trail of metal innards that had been torn from the craft. Robby frowned as he approached the ship, his hand tightening on his weapon as he took in the rusted insignia on the side.
“Jack? Is this-“ His voice trailed off as he looked up at it, his boots crunching beneath him as he slowed his approach to the looming main cabin.
“Yeah, it’s a medic craft,” Jack’s head was tilted as they came up beside it, ”A very old one by the looks of it.”
Jack frowned as he looked up close, and he used the weathered leather of his ranger jacket to wipe off some of the grime and rust covering the large lettering on the side.
RK-492
Jack’s hand dropped as he pulled back abruptly, his mind racing, “This is an old pre-Division Day craft,” His mind was racing as he glanced back at Robby, “It’s gotta be at least thirty years old.”
“Um, guys?” The dry voice of Trinity broke them out of their pondering, and they turned to see her beneath the attached wing of the ship, before she squatted and pointed at a large bundle of cloth lying beneath it.
They had easily missed it amongst the piles of rubble and dust coating all the surfaces around them, but she gently nudged the bulked form and a layer of dust slid off it to reveal a skeleton hunched over.
Dennis jumped back in shock, but Robby and Jack moved forward to assess the remains, the skeleton tipping over to reveal the bottle green uniform the bones were encased in. The two older men crouched down either side, Robby propping the skeleton back up so they could take a good look at it.
“He’s male,” Jack murmured, his fingers wiping off the medals and pins adorning his uniform, “Special Forces, Space Military, Specialty Marksman, Diplomatic Protective Services. Shit, this is some heavy stuff here. Some of these medals are older than us, Robby.”
Robby sat back on his heels, his mind racing as his eyes glazed over the faded regal bottle green marksman uniform, which was starting to paint a picture he wasn’t sure they wanted to decode.
Jack swivelled his head to bow near Robby’s, “What the fuck is a pre-Division Day medic craft doing this far out in the scavenger lands, with the bones of a speciality marksman guarding the door in a cave that has likely been untouched for decades?”
Robby’s head turned to look up at the ship again, “I don’t know, but considering the ship is still running something inside that has been beeping for who knows how long, I’m not sure I’m going to like the answer.” Without pause, Robby unholstered his weapon and made his way slowly to the cabin door.
“Ellis, keep watch.” Jack murmured as he followed Robby’s broad form to where the cabin door was rusted shut, and he could hear Ellis’ weapon being drawn from where she now stood guard at the end of the wing.
With a quick glance sideways to see Dennis and Trinity armed on one side and Jack on his other, Robby steeled himself before grabbing the rusted handle, groaning as he yanked it as hard as he could until he could feel the ageing metal fold beneath his hands. The large cabin door groaned as he used both hands to pull it along its track up on the angle the ship was on, a layer of dust hitting his face as the interior of the dark ship was revealed to them.
The inside was eerily quiet except for the omnipresent beeping of something deep within the ship, and their eyes had to adjust to the unlit cabin area. Robby lifted his weapon to search inside the craft, his eyes and nozzle flitting around at any sound or visual he could make out.
The cabin was only a few meters wide, and the immediate section hosted a drop panel where medics could be strapped into an anchor point and be absconded onto whatever disaster was needed below the ship. Robby could see the cabin extended to their right, but he was immediately drawn to the open cockpit door ajar next to him, and he hoisted himself up onto the cabin floor to get a better look.
He could feel his crew start to trail into the ship behind him, and Robby cautiously moved through the eerily untouched space. He could see through the small gap that it opened up into the cockpit of the ship, and he raised his gun in preparation for whatever might be inside, only to find another skeleton in full Special Forces uniform still strapped into the pilot seat and slumped over with the skull pressed against the steering unit.
“Got another one up here,” Robby threw over his shoulder, “Another Special Forces by the looks of it, Jack.”
Robby’s eyes cast over the sea of abandoned buttons and panels, before his eyes glanced down to see the orange labelling of what could hopefully provide them some answers, “Found the black box, I’ll see if it can tell us where the ship was coming from.”
“Roger that.” Jack yelled back at him, having also hauled himself up into the ship and held out a hand to help Dennis and Trinity clamber up. Jack’s eyes surveyed the abandoned benches and empty trays, before turning uphill where the rest of the cabin was slanted upwards.
His eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness inside, his weapon hoisted as he slowly shuffled up the metal interior, surveying the eerie stillness. The medic craft was well stocked, his eyes taking in the high cabinets of probably long expired medications and dressings, and metal slabs designed for emergency surgery during tumultuous flights. He remembered what it was like in these crafts; stitching up wounds on tied down soldiers as they navigated battlefields, and Jack shook his head out of memories of time long past.
But it was what was at the back of the ship that was highly unusual, seemingly customised to this particular vessel, where the sound of the beeping seemed to emanate from. Jack shouldered open the shuttered doors into the last section of the ship, the light from behind him seeping past his body into the darkened room, which was only illuminated by a red glow of a panel attached to one of three large rectangular boxes. It was only as his eyes adjusted that he realised what he was looking at.
Jack blanched at the sight of them, he knew what these metal beds were. In his very early training as a space medic, he’d done his apprenticeship flights with medic freights that had rows upon rows of boxes like this. They had primarily been used to transport ailing patients who were better to be cryogenically frozen in the transport from Earth to Avelon, and had also served the ultra wealthy who were remiss to pass their precious waking time on a ship floating in space before they’d even arrived at their new home. The second golden age of space migration they had called it, many years before they’d been decommissioned when the last passenger flights ceased to run from Earth to Avelon.
His gaze narrowed into the illuminated panel as he shuffled towards it uphill, seeing the dated technology displaying a screen of numbers that was faded with inactivity. He instinctively wiped the panel, and the screen glitched for a second, buffering in its inactive use, before it came alive with a medical report.
Jack’s brow creased at what he was seeing:
CONFIDENTIAL CLEARANCE LEVEL
Gender: female
Age: 29EY
Height: 174cm
Hair colour: black
Eye colour: brown
Race: confidential
Clearance: confidential
Location of origin: confidential
Cryostasis duration: 32.8 EY, 10 EM, 29 EH, 53:06 EM.
Jack recoiled in confusion, She’d been in this bed for thirty-two earth years.
He scrolled through her stats: oxygen, nutrition, blood pressure, cryostatic status and muscle health, seeing all the stabilised numbers before pulling back and looking at the bulkhead in front of him.
Who the hell was important enough for a high ranking medic to hack a cryo bed, and freeze someone for over thirty years on a planet with no end date in mind?
Jack hoisted himself up until he could see the now frosted over viewing window to inside the chamber, blowing a breath out before using his gloved hand to wipe away the top layer of condensation to view inside.
As soon as he removed his hand, he froze. Jack prided himself in remaining calm and collected during most scenarios: being shot at, losing his leg, facing down armed Empire fleets. But in this moment, he couldn’t seem to collect himself as he stared down at the face that greeted him laying in the chamber below.
Because he knew who this was. Despite being submerged under icy water and an oxygen mask covering the majority of her face, he knew those loose black curls and high cheekbones immediately.
“No fucking way,” Jack stuttered under his breath, before raising his voice, “ROBBY!”
Robby’s head snapped up at Jack’s raised voice, having rarely ever heard the man shout so frantically, and he swiftly moved through the cabin, bypassing the curious movements of Trinity and Dennis. His boots clunked against the worn metal beneath their feet on the angle as he used the various handles and benches to heave himself up to where Jack was. He hoisted himself around to the other side of the cryo-bed, lifting himself up to join Jack in peering inside.
Before he too froze, upon seeing the figure laying in the chilled chamber below them.
“Holy shit, surely that’s not her.” Robby muttered.
Jack looked at him incredulously, the two of them unable to hold back the sheer disbelief they felt, before they looked down again.
Robby wiped a hand down his face as he looked down at the woman floating in the water, “What the fuck are we going to do? We’re in the middle of a fucking war.”
“Yeah, and she was there when it started,” Jack hissed back as he gestured to her.
They barely registered Trinity and Dennis coming up beside them, straining to peek through the glass that had already begun to fog back over again.
“We can’t take her, she’ll be a liability-” Robby hissed, his eyes never leaving her face.
Jack took a deep breath, “We can’t leave her here, Robby. This machinery is not built to last this long term, and certainly without replacing the generator to run the cooling system. And if no one else has been here in decades to find her, if we leave her here she will die.”
Robby’s eyes shot up to meet his own, registering that what Jack was saying was true. If even the Scavengers who ruled these mountain ranges hadn’t found her after decades of laying in her tomb or if they’d decided to let her rot here until the generator died out, without them the woman lying beneath them would most likely perish. Robby couldn’t help but think of the decaying corpse in the pilot seat, and the skeleton who’d willingly stood guard until his own death just for her to make it to their future. For what?
Jack insisted, “Someone went to a lot of effort to make sure she would stay alive, until she was found. We cannot let their sacrifice go to waste.”
Robby inhaled in through his nose, his head tilted back in acceptance, “Fine. What do we have to do.”
Jack’s shoulders dropped a little in relief before he reached down to lift the handle of the panel up to him, “We have to commence the cryo-revival process.”
Robby slowly crossed his arms and frowned, “And when was the last time you did one of these?”
Jack shrugged a shoulder as his fingers began typing away, “A decade ago at least, it’s like riding a bike though, right?”
Robby snorted, “Yeah well, that’s what you said about bartering with the copper traders at the market, I seem to recall you nearly losing a finger?”
Jack tried to hide his smirk, “Semantics.”
Robby scoffed as Jack fiddled with the panel, his rudimentary understanding of these systems coming back to him as he instigated the cryo-revival process. The technology was extremely dated and was lagging under his instructions, but the memories of training in these systems seemed to come back to him and he mentally went through the checklist of things they’d need to put into place so they could raise her from the cryostasis she was in.
The cryo-revival process seemed simple in theory: remove the body from the icy chilled water as well as the muscle activation suit and nutrient feeding tube, start the slow process of reactivating the blood flow from its reduced capacity, and feed them the revival cocktail of all the nutrients the human body needs to function at full capacity.
But for the individual, it turns out that it is excruciatingly painful to be raised from the dead.
From what Jack had read, the feeling of emerging from a cryo-sleep was the equivalent of being electrified through every nerve ending in your body for hours on end. Each muscle that had been maintained by the nodule suit, suddenly feels like being set on fire. As the blood circulation starts to return to normal, every nerve ending is engaged as the human body is flooded with adrenaline and life again. And these testimonies were from individuals who’d been in cryostasis for months, not decades.
It would be a painful and arduous process that would most likely take the rest of the night and well into tomorrow, and if she got through it, she would have residual shooting pains for weeks if not months as her body resumed its full functionality.
Jack continued to step through the various panel pop ups saying are you sure you would like to begin the cryo-revival process? All the while the other occupants of the ship looked on at him with bated breath awaiting his next steps.
Realising he needed to give them some purpose over the next few hours, he continued to tap away at the screen but spoke to the two younger team mates, “Whittaker, I need you to go hunting for some emergency blankets, or anything insulated you can find. Trinity, see if there’s any emergency fluids or revival kits in the medicine cabinets, they should be locked up in a sealed container somewhere cool, hopefully it's powdered but if not check the expiration date and make sure it's usable."
Jack hit a few more buttons on the keypad before a loud whirring sound came from the cryo bed at his feet.
A large groan and a heavy thud came from the bed, and both Robby and Jack stepped back slightly as the bed began to lift from within the floor of the ship. The bulkhead began to rise, and they watched the large hull of the bed snap open slowly with a metal groan, revealing the body floating in the water below them. They watched the water that she was submerged in begin to drain out into the floor beneath her, and could hear faintly the water draining outside the ship as it lowered her body onto the metal slab at the base of the bed. The draining water revealed her lithe frame encased in a skin-tight compressive suit with micro-nodules attached all over her body.
Her face was wrapped in a large oxygen mask, and as Jack looked over her he noted the hastily strapped septic patch had been tightly wrapped around her left shoulder, the once white material now stained with a darkened patch of blood that had seeped through.
Jack checked her heart rate as the water drained and it looked steady, “She has a cryo suit on which is good, whoever put her in here had the foresight to shove her into that thing.”
“What does that do?” Whittaker blurted out as he came back with an armful of blankets.
“In cryostasis, the body function slows down to an almost minute-level due to being in the icy water and the medication they pump in, and the body goes into a state of hibernation. But if the muscles aren’t active they will begin to atrophy over time, so they invented this suit she has on. It has tiny little electro nodes which intermittently send pulses through her inactive muscles, and even in a coma like this they are contracting her muscles and keeping the blood flowing to maintain healthy muscle function.”
Jack saw Trinity arrive at his side with a large tin box, “Here you go boss, luckily it's powdered so we don’t have to worry about it expiring.”
“Thank god,” Jack muttered more so to himself than anything, it was one less thing he had to makeshift in the middle of the desert with equipment that was decades old, “Trinity, I’m going to need you to run to our craft, grab my bag and make sure it has the med scanner with the cuff attachment and bring the whole thing. And grab the water purifier as well, we need to fill the tanks up so we can get her drip fed.”
He felt her scurry off from his side, and Jack tilted his head to Robby, “Help me by detaching the nodules, but make sure you don’t knock the mask, she won’t be able to breath independently without it for a while.”
The two made quick work of unlatching the thin wires from her suit, trying their best not to jostle her too much, and soon enough all that was left was the feeding and breathing tubes attached to her face. As Jack unlatched the oxygen and nutrition components from the liner of the box she lay in, he glanced up to see Dennis wringing his hands out hopelessly.
“Whittaker, I’m gonna need you to find one of the sleeping mats on board here or in our ship and set it up outside on a flat bit of surface, this ship being at an angle won’t work for the next part. Also grab the electric stoves in our trunk too.”
He heard Dennis scurry off as well, and Jack turned back to the unconscious woman below them, now only connected by the tubes running down her throat.
“Ok on the count of three,” Jack scooped his hands slowly underneath her upper body and thighs, “we’re going to hoist her out and into my arms, and then you follow me with those two metal canisters attached to her breathing tube.”
“One, two, three.” The two of them lifted her up off the metal bed and Robby helped situate her into Jack’s arms, propping her head up against his shoulder. Jack glanced over to make sure Robby had secured the metal canisters, before nodding at him and they started to move down the angled interior of the ship’s main towards the door.
Robby moved around him and stepped out first, mindful to not jostle her breathing tube too much as Jack cautiously squatted him and the unconscious woman in his arms down until he sat on the edge of the entrance way, pausing before he saw Ellis race up to greet him.
“Here boss, I got her.” Ellis murmured as she reached up and slipped her arms next to his and took her weight from Jack at the awkward height. Jack carefully transferred her weight into Ellis’s arms, gently extracting his hands to avoid the tubes getting tangled between them, and making sure Robby was staying close. Ellis slowly pulled away from him and shuffled her feet towards where Dennis and Trinity were setting up shop on a flat, open part of the cave.
Jack jumped down off the older ship, racing around the slow moving Ellis carrying the unconscious woman to direct the younger two crew mates, “Whittaker, set up the mat out here and get the blankets ready to go. Trinity, I’m gonna need those stoves either side of her body once she’s wrapped up.”
Jack swiftly helped Dennis unroll the mat out and he grabbed one of the blankets and laid it out open ready to lay her on top of it, and watched Ellis slowly approach them and kneel down next to Jack. Jack quickly went to secure the woman’s head as Ellis gently laid the woman down onto the mat between them, securing her head to stay in line with her spine to not jostle the breathing tube as Ellis removed her arms from underneath the water logged body.
“Robby, grab one of those spears we saw over the doorway in the cabin and hang up those metal canisters so we can replace them with the drip feed in a moment. Trinity, mix that powder with equal parts water into that bottle there. Dennis, you set up the stoves and Ellis grab the scissors. We need to get her out of this wet skin suit or she’ll freeze as her body starts acclimatising to the temperature outside of the cryo bed.”
The crew all worked on Jack’s lowly muttered orders, bustling with their gazes down to give the unconscious woman some privacy as Jack took the medical shears and made quick work of cutting the thick nodule suit off the woman. Ellis helped him peel away the wet suit to reveal a tight tank top and boyleg underwear underneath, and she gasped as the septic dressing came off her shoulder to reveal a now mostly healed bullet wound. Ellis said nothing else as she worked with Jack to discard the now shredded nodule suit, quickly towelling the woman’s damp skin before grabbing the ends of the blanket beneath her and began to swaddle her up.
“Leave her left arm out, and make sure the blanket is only covering her loosely. Her body will go into a state of shock if we heat her up too quickly.” He insisted as Ellis tucked the blanket underneath her body.
Jack glanced up to see Robby shove the spear into the ground near her head and hang up the half consumed oxygen and feeding canisters onto the top of the pole and detangling the tubes to her throat. He could see Dennis turning on the electric stoves either side of her body and Trinity pouring in the revival concoction into the bottle, and Jack glanced down at the now swaddled woman beneath him, before turning to Robby.
“Brother, can you hand me my go bag?”
Jack made quick work of getting a needle into her exposed arm, feeling Dennis squirm at the sight beside him as he tapped the drip and lifted it up to rest against the metal canisters that Robby was helping Trinity to pour her mixture into.
Jack glanced down at his watch, making note of the time and that in a few hours, he would switch the full coverage oxygen and feeding mask into a less invasive tubular option as they weaned her body back into full function.
He blew out a breath, glancing up at the exhausted faces of his crew mates as they looked down at the mystery woman lying at their feet, “Well, everyone better grab their sleeping mats and blankets, it’ll be a long night so some of you may as well get some rest while you can.”
—--
The sun was beginning to set as the crew dragged their equipment into the cave and slowly set up camp around the unconscious woman, all of them starting to feel the desert chill seeping into the large cave. They began wrapping themselves up in their secondhand military fleece and camping blankets, huddled on their mats as close as they could to the heated stoves. At some point, Robby had found some freeze dried rations on the old medic ship, and using one of their pots he dished up their measly meal of chicken broth mixed with water, but no one was complaining after the day they had. It felt like a meal for royalty after surviving the armada of the Empire.
They sat in relative silence for a while as they slurped at their food, watching Jack slowly navigate himself around the woman; fixing the monitor cuff on her arm, checking her vitals on the med panel, readjusting the drips into her arm and tubes in her mouth. But the peaceful silence could only last for so long until curiosity won out.
“So, who’s the mysterious lady of the shallow cryo lake?” Trinity’s sarcastic drawl broke the silence as they watched Jack note down the woman’s pulse onto his med pad.
“That,” Robby motioned towards the woman, “Is Samira Mohan.”
Dennis frowned, the name seemingly familiar, “Wait, why do I know that name?”
“You should know that name,” Jack muttered, his eyes still trained on the pad in his hands, “She was the daughter of the last Emissary of Earth on Avelon, Minister Eli Mohan. And narrowly escaped being bombed on Division Day in Avelon’s capital Novagard 31 EY ago, before being supposedly assassinated after escaping to Earth.”
There was silence for a moment before Trinity couldn’t help herself, “Well, apparently not successfully assassinated.”
“What do you mean escaped being bombed on Division Day?” Dennis redirected the conversation, “The First Lady told me it was a cover up.”
Robby dropped his spoon into his dinner container, “It was, but not for the Groundlings.”
Jack’s fingers moved to Samira’s sternum to readjust the monitor he’d put there, “A little bit more context might help, Robby.”
Robby sighed, cracking his neck before jumping in, “So as we all know, hundreds of years ago as Earth started to heat up, the human race began looking for life on other planets, and in their search they found the small planet of Avelon. It wasn’t as large as Earth, but held a similar enough elemental makeup as Earth that it would make colonisation feasible for humans to live there. So Earthians started colonising Avelon, gradually over time people started to migrate there until the majority of the human race had migrated to this planet where the crops aren’t dying and firestorms aren’t ravaging the land. But it still lacks the organic materials for the fuel necessary for space travel, so mass-trade routes begin between the two systems.”
“Avelon becomes this bustling, futuristic hub for space travel and exploration, with technology advancing faster than humans can keep up with, thrilling right? Except that comes at the price of taking advantage of enslaved labour back here on Earth, to the people that had begun to be referred to as the Groundling population: the people that they refused to let into the capitalistic utopia they’d created on Avelon.”
Robby starts waving his hands, “Over decades in Earth-time, Avelon begins to encroach more and more on the autonomy of the Groundlings and their ruling class; suddenly the diplomatic trade negotiations become fighting for land rights, people being driven out of their properties, Groundlings being overcharged for their access to food and water. Soon enough, Groundlings are starting to be limited in their ability to travel, to hold down jobs, to access higher education. The population starts to become enslaved, and essentially controlled by the ruling class of Avelon.”
“And amongst all this, Minister Mohan is desperately trying to fight for Groundling rights as civilly and lawfully as he can; using his position of authority to appeal and grandstand during every Council opportunity he can. As he is spending half the year appealing for the human rights councils to pass his bills in Avelon Council sessions, his daughter Samira is growing up running around the halls of the Chancellors. She would spend half her time in the International Governing Board in Novagard whilst her father consulted with the Council, and would then travel with him back to Earth to be a part of the conversations with Earth’s ruling Ministers here. Whilst she was running around those halls, she became friends with the High Chancellor of Avelon’ daughter, Cora Malusson. Two peas in a pod apparently.” Robby took a sip from his water bottle.
“So she had friends, great.” Trinity rolled her eyes.
“They were friends,” Jack interjected, “Until Avelon media decided to make an example of Samira Mohan under the direction of the High Chancellor himself. She was only thirteen years old when it began, she became the public target for every single hateful thing the bigoted elites of Avelon thought about Groundlings.” Jack murmured.
“Imagine being a young girl, whose only apparent crime was that she was born on Earth, being ripped apart by an entire media body of a planet. Labelled as a filthy ‘Groundling’ influence on what was essentially the royal family of Avelon. Getting death threats for ‘corrupting’ her friend, simply for being from another planet. Being accused of being the reason why Cora Malusson was failing her classes at school, despite Mohan being the top of her class. Being labelled as ‘troubled’ in their later teens when they were spotted out at a club, where the High Chancellor’s daughter was found to be buying drugs, only for them to be planted on Mohan here.” Jack’s voice trailed off as he checked her patellar reflex, and Robby jumped in.
“And yet, despite receiving death threats and media vitriol on a weekly basis, that didn’t stop them from being friends, up until the Avelon High Academy protests of mid-AY century (Avelon-Year). The two of them had just graduated reformatory school, and were enrolled in the Academy when the protests began. There were other Groundlings who attended the Academy that had become sick of the hatred and abuse they received everyday for just being Groundlings, and staged peaceful protests over the trade war between Avelon and Earth.”
As Robby spoke, Jack motioned for Trinity to come over beside him, and the two of them slowly rolled Samira into the recovery position on her side, lowering the blankets so that Jack could check the pressure points and the healing bullet wound on her shoulder that the hastily-wrapped septic dressing had been healing.
Robby sighed, “Well, it was peaceful until High Chancellor Malusson ordered the armed forces to converge on the protestors, arguing they were disrupting the access to education at the Academy his daughter was in attendance,” Robby scoffed as he took a sip of water, “As if they weren’t actively unenrolling Groundlings via phoney disruptive dismissal claims and shipping them back to their home planet with barely the clothes on their back. Snatched right out of their beds.”
Jack had Trinity hold Samira in the recovery position, and leaned over to grab the muscle-stimulation injections from his med kit. With his gloved hands, he wiped the skin at the base of her spine with a disinfectant, before grabbing one of the needles, biting off the cap and injecting the serum in the disinfected skin area.
“But one day, as the protestors were being accosted by the armed forces, Samira and Cora happened to be doing their Academy orientation tour. The protests had been carefully hidden from the public up until this moment, and the Academy had tried to unsuccessfully shut down the protests before the heavily-publicised tour began, but it didn’t stop the students. Mohan watched the escalation of the violence towards the protesters from the armed forces, and marched right on out into the thick of it after watching a soldier beat a protester with a baton. She walks right up in front of him and stares him down, a whole foot shorter than the guy. The fucking ballsiest spine of steel I’ve ever seen.” Robby huffed.
“That image of her standing over the beaten protester with the soldier threatening her, his baton raised, blew their precious system up. Samira Mohan standing alone against a whole wave of armed forces became the face of the revolution, of people that had been pillaged, enslaved and cast aside.” Jack muttered, as he bandaged up the injection spot, “That photo of her was circulating in the Avelon media for weeks, much to the rage of the High Chancellors of Avelon.”
Robby rubbed his hands together and held them over the stove in front of him, “So Samira Mohan became the Groundling pariah, the face of a rebellion. She capitalised on the attention, doing talk shows and speaking at town halls, getting interviewed by celebrities. She knew what she was doing and how to play their game, and of the power she now wielded. And so did High Chancellor Malusson.”
Jack began manually stimulating the major muscles around the injection site as Robby continued, “There were rumours he reprimanded her in front of the entire Chancellor’s and Academy boards, saying she was inciting unnecessary violence and rebellion. But she couldn’t be stopped, even Avelonians were joining her cause. She even tried to appeal to her friend Cora to join her cause, but why would Cora turn against a system she benefited so greatly from?”
“Wait wait, Cora Malusson?” Dennis shook his head as his mind raced, “As in the current High Chancellor of Avelon, Cora Malusson?”
“Yeah, ironic isn’t it?” Robby gave Dennis a dry look, “The woman who barely passed her academy course because she partied more than she studied, and whose father paid to fudge her results, is now the leader of the Empire.”
“But then the Division Day bombing happened. The day Samira Mohan was framed and the real war with the Groundlings began.” Robby continued solemnly, looking down at the unconscious body of Samira in front of him.
“Mohan was due to make a speech at her Academy Graduation Ceremony. She had graduated early, top of her class with honours specialising in International Politics and Trade Negotiations. The Academy had actually originally prohibited her from making a speech under direct orders from the High Chancellors, but the public outcry was so great they had to reverse their decision. And in a venue that only sat two thousand people, fifty thousand people turned up to that Graduation Ceremony just to hear her speak. That’s how powerful she’d become.”
Jack had been watching Robby’s face slowly as the shadows of Robby’s guilt of once being a part of the Empire and the terrible things they’d done ate away at him in his recount, before he noticed Trinity’s hands moving beside him. Jack was holding Samira’s body on her side, and Trinity, after seeing the mess of curls that were plastered against the unconscious woman’s body, had carefully started braiding the woman’s hair out of the way. Jack blinked, finding himself surprised by the usually snarky younger woman’s compassion for Samira, and tried to hide his smile as Trinity slowly finished the braid and tied it off with a loose band on her wrist.
“But as she was scheduled to start speaking, that’s when the bombs started going off. Over one hundred people died that day, graduates and family members who were just unfortunate enough to be in the wrong section at the wrong time. Chaos erupted and the armed forces invaded the scene, escorting people off-campus and arresting people on mass. The High Chancellors immediately launched a white washed investigation, their conclusion coming too quickly and too sharply to be anything other than a coup against the force that was Samira Mohan. They claimed the Groundlings had perpetrated an act of violence against Avelon, and Samira Mohan was the instigator.”
There was a small silence as the crew sat in thought, processing Robby’s words as they gazed down at the women between them with renewed awe.
“It wasn’t clear how it had happened, but a team of Groundling-supporters found out about this verdict before the public did. They smuggled Mohan down to the freight docks disguised as a mechanic and managed to get her out on one of the last waves of cargo flights to Earth.”
“When she got here, every flight was thoroughly searched, but they escaped and ran for their lives to a medic craft that was waiting.” Dennis immediately glanced back at the medic craft looming over them.
Robby started to pick away at the rip in his pants, his words stumbling out, “They were close too, but a rogue sniper on a roof nearby managed to clip her in the shoulder. The attempted assassination was caught on tape and televised anywhere and everywhere it could, to diminish Groundling-rebellion support. Some people held out hope that she’d survived, but the years rolled on and no one ever saw her again.”
The team were silent, their eyes drawing to the faint pink line on Samira’s shoulder, where the bullet had torn through her skin and very nearly killed her had it not been for the quick thinking of the team that had shoved her into the cryo-coma bed.
“Until now.” Ellis murmured, her eyes staying trained on Samira who was laying on her side.
Robby nodded, “Until now.”
Jack slowly rolled Samira until she was once again on her back, gently lifting the blankets to cover the cool skin of her upper body. Her body was starting to regulate its temperature again, and he made a note on the med pad of the time of her muscle-injections.
“Now what?” Trinity turned to look up at Jack sitting next to her.
“Now we wait for her to wake,” Jack glanced at Trinity, “And figure out a way to explain to her that the last day she survived is the last day of freedom any Groundling has had since.”
—--
Slowly one by one, the crew began to succumb to their exhaustion of nearly being killed by the Empire and finding the lost face of the rebellion. Ellis nods off first, her back to the stoves as she lets out occasional snores whilst the rest of them chat quietly. Dennis and Trinity fell asleep next, their eyes desperately trying to stay open but their bodies dragging them into unconsciousness after being ravaged by adrenaline for hours at a time.
Robby sat solemnly opposite Jack, his frame hunched over in exhaustion until Jack insists he get some sleep, joking that someone will need to be functional and in charge the next day and Jack doesn’t know how long it will take Mohan to wake up. Robby huffed but nodded, before shuffling down until his head was propped up on his pack and pulled his pilot cap over his eyes, falling asleep within moments.
Jack stayed awake for some time longer, rotating between manually stimulating the blood flow to Samira’s fingers and toes after remembering a study done on coma patients he’d read in a journal years ago about pressure points in extremities. He took down her vitals every hour, and continued to rotate her body to avoid pressure points when she awoke. After being suspended in water for so long her joints would have become accustomed to the non-gravity environment, and he was concerned the pressure on her joints would cause her extreme pain.
But even Jack slowly started to feel the pull to rest his eyes for a moment, so he pulled up his own pack and laid down on his side, his hand surrounding her wrist so his fingers could keep a steady track on her pulse.
Jack barely remembers closing his eyes, but after what feels like only a moment, he feels a slight jerk from underneath his hand. He inhales a sharp burst of air as he lifts his head, slowly coming back to consciousness as his eyes and brain start to catch up with the idea she is starting to wake up.
He sits up slowly, his eyes trained on the woman lying next to him, watching her eyes flit underneath her eyelids, her head slowly rolling from side to side. A small beep starts to emit from the med pad, and he glances at it to see her heart rate starting to quicken. He quickly silences it so as to not awaken the others passed out around them, and shuffles himself to sit up fully at her side.
Samira’s chest suddenly seizes as she tries to take in a gulp of air, and her body starts to react to the feeling of a tube being stuck down her throat. Her eyes sluggishly open up, darting blindly as her heavy hand staggers up to her throat, a small choke escaping her as she tries to move the tube from her mouth.
“Hey, hey,” Jack scrambles onto his knees and grabs her wrists, “Give me a moment, I’ll help you get the tube out.”
She seemingly barely hears him as he holds her jaw firmly in one hand as she blindly gazes up at the sound of his voice, her body thrashing a little at the lack of awareness of her surroundings.
“If you can hear me, I’m going to need you to cough as I pull this out, right about, now-” Luckily her hearing seems to be the first thing to recover and she weakly compresses her lungs into a cough as he gently guides the tube out of her throat until she is spluttering around the first gulps of independent air.
But not for long, because as she stares around blindly and taking deep gasps, he hastily grabs the oxygen nasal tube and hooks it around the back of her ears, murmuring quietly, “Here you go, let’s keep this on for a little while until your lung function is back at an easier capacity.”
She continues to let out pathetic coughs as her muscles spasm and contract from lack of use, her hands coming up to clutch at his wrists as he fixes the tube on her face.
“You’re ok, I know you must be in a lot of pain right now, but you’re safe, I’ve got you.”
“I-,” She rasps out, her vocal chords dry from decades of inactivity, “I can’t see-”
“I know,” He mutters quietly, “You are lying on your back in the middle of a cave, we’re in the mountain ranges outside of New Pittland.”
“My-, body-” She gasped, her body jerking against him, “-fire-.”
“I know,” Jack moved quickly to grab the next round of morphine, grabbing her drip line and swiftly injecting the small vial into her blood stream, “Next round of morphine coming right up.”
Samira is still gasping, but her body starts to relax from its jerking as the morphine spreads through her system. Jack continues to press on her extremities to help with her blood flow, imagining the feeling of pins and needles would be excruciating to her unused muscles.
“That’s your third dose of morphine, you will get three more over the next few hours to help you through until your muscles regain full oxidation. And hopefully your vision will start to return in the next hour as your retinas return to full function and reception of light.”
She kept letting out small gasps, her lungs burning as she started to exercise her ribcage again. Her unseeing eyes flitter around as her shaking hand comes up to where his own is holding her nasal tube in place.
“Why, am-” Her breath stuttered, “Like this?”
Jack was quiet for a moment as he collected his thoughts and chose his words carefully, mindful to not cause her any more grief in her perilous state, “You were shot in the shoulder, and your team placed you in a medical coma.”
“My-, team,” Her face lit up in recognition, “Did we, blow up the- docks?”
He froze, “What?”
“The-,” She heaved, “Docks, to cut-, supply.”
His body went rigid with understanding. Her team had not only been running from being discovered after arriving on Earth, but running from an unsuccessful attempt to blow up the one thing keeping Earth under the control of Avelon: the pillaging of natural resources. Without the docks, it would’ve taken years to rebuild that trade port, and it could’ve been the end of tyrannical suppression of the Groundlings and the planet they inhabited.
“No,” Jack placed a calming hand on top of hers, his eyes closing in disappointment at the realisation of how close they had gotten to a life free of the Empire, “No you didn’t blow them up.”
A pained look comes over her face as she lets out a ragged sob, her eyes closing as they begin to water at the unleashed tension from her body. He can’t do anything except hold her hand as she starts to sob, and her eyes blink up at him wetly as her chest wheezes.
Her eyes start to dart around the cavern, unseeing as her body jerks as she attempts to sit up, her hand pressing over his as it rests on her chest, “I need air, please-”
“It’s ok, we got the oxygen tube-”
She clutches at his hand as a sob escapes her, “Please, I need sky-”
A wave of understanding washes over him. Claustrophobia is something he is acutely aware of, having developed it as a trauma response to the horrors he saw on operating tables as a space medic. In tin cans hurtling through space that he couldn’t escape from, he recalls times where he had to be strapped down screaming for them to let him out, and he could sympathise with the woman beside him who wanted to be outside.
“Ok, ok. I got you Mohan,” He murmurs quietly to her.
He grabs his pack and shoves the drip and oxygen line canisters into it, before shouldering it and grabbing another blanket and laying it over her shivering body. Making sure everything was secured, he scoops up her trembling frame and tucks her against his chest as he stands from the ground. Jack can feel Samira sobbing against his chest, her weak hands coming up to clutch at his shirt as he carefully marches them up through the cave entrance they entered through earlier in the day.
Her quiet cries echo through the narrow tunnel and he is careful not to bump her, and he is powerless to stop her from hyperventilating about the situation she’d awoken to. Freshly awoken from a medical coma, in excruciating pain, partially blind, physically weak and emotionally wrecked; yeah that would make anyone distraught at being awoken to that shit show.
He gently hushes her as they move forward, reassuring the trembling woman that it will be ok, she’ll be ok.
They come across their grounded hovercraft, still in the darkness of the night, and he shuffles them around it until they break outside. The night air is chilly against his skin as he walks them over closer to the edge of the cliff, barely a cloud in sight as the horizon is illuminated by the city lights of New Pittland in the distance. With the sound of his feet scuffing against the dirt being the only sound for miles, he is confident they’re safe to huddle out here under the cover of darkness, and gently lowers them onto his knees, before he maneuvers his legs to lay out in front of him as he lowers her into his lap.
Samira is still clutching at his shirt tightly, her eyes less glazed over as she takes shuddering breaths, but is looking up at the night sky above them, adorned with stars that she may not have seen for years.
“Who are you?” Her weak voice wheezes out.
Jack is at a loss of what to say, how does one even explain who they are to quite possibly the most important person in this planet’s recent history?
He clears his throat, “I’m Jack, Jack Abbot. New Pittland native, former space ranger medic turned-,” His voice trails off as he decides his words, instead hoping levity might help break the tension, “Turned Groundling doctor. So in other words I’m a widowed, PTSD-riddled amputee with a death wish. Or so Robby tells me.”
He glances back down to see her eyes staring right back up at him, her waterline wet with unshed tears and he finds his words caught in the back of his throat at the beauty of her. Despite having been in a medical coma for over three decades, she is still a sight to behold tucked tightly against his chest, and he remembers the first time he’d ever seen her.
“I saw you once, you know,” He blurted out, before he could stop himself, his eyes lifting towards the horizon as his thumb gently rubbed on her arm, “I was quite young, maybe only eleven or so, and we’d broke out of school one day to go down to the local town hall to see you speak. You were barely in your mid-twenties but you spoke with a reverence and a passion of someone decades older. Someone who’d been through and seen so much, and had decided enough was enough. I’d never seen anyone talk like that before in New Pittland, talking about our future like it was something that was ours to claim, that Avelon couldn’t force us into. It was the first time I believed that there could be a future where our kids weren’t brought into this indentured slavery they disguised as life.”
Behind her silence in response is a question forming, and he gives her space to process her thoughts as her eyes dart past his face up into the night sky, taking in the constellations that bloom across the cloud-less sky above them.
Jack could almost feel her steeling herself to ask what was torturing her, and in a quiet whisper she asks him the question he’d been dreading to answer, “How long was I sleeping, Jack?”
He glanced down at her words, making eye contact with her as she looked up at him with wide desperate eyes, and realises that this woman is alone in a future she does not know yet, and right now he is her only anchor to realism. He couldn’t lie to her just to make her feel better, she deserved more than that. She deserved the truth, even if it broke her.
Jack swallowed nervously, hoping his voice was steady, “Just over thirty-two years.”
Her breath gets caught in her throat at his words, her mind racing.
“My father?” She pleads with him, as if he might tell her something different to what she already deep down knew was the truth.
His arms unconsciously tightened around her body as he took in a deep breath, “He died on Avelon, three years ago.”
He can feel her nod against his skin, her eyes closing as she processes this information. Samira’s hand tightens its grip on his shirt, and he tries to swallow the clog sitting in his throat. This woman whose whole life was a literal fight, who had lost family and friends to a cause she believed in so passionately, only to wake up in a desolate wasteland and realise it was all for nothing.
She begins to sob earnestly now, and he can’t find the words to comfort her, to tell her everything is going to be ok, because it might not be. He couldn’t do anything but clutch at her tighter, lowering the side of his head to rest on top of her own, gently murmuring to her.
“I’ve got you Mohan, I’ve got you.”
They sat huddled on the edge of the cliff, overlooking the salt plains that slowly over time became illuminated with the wisps of sunlight starting to peek over the horizon, casting the desolate plains in an orange glow. And in this moment, they were just two broken souls in the middle of a warzone, mourning a future that they had sacrificed so much for, only for it to fall apart.