The Colony (IC|Sci-Fi|Open)

[Anowa]

The Colony

>>OOC<<
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The Pub
OP: Anowa
Co-OP(s):

Dr. Olympia Akhanteros, Chief Engineer
UTS Blissful Horizon, Cryo Bay 3C
March 17th 2232, Departure +5734 Days // 0417 Hundred Hours

Waking up from Cryo wasn't much different from blinking. At least from a perceptive point of view, you shove a few tubes and IVs into your limbs and mouth lean against cold, dense padding, wait 30 seconds as things become stupidly cold, then you see inky blackness seconds before you wake back up again. Only instead of getting cold things get warmer, your hearts starts beating faster, and the protective fluid is pumped out of the tank and you pull the various things out of you. And after a few moment you hack up and vomit out a blue, gel like fluid which lined your lungs, stomach, and intestinal tract and prevented them from getting freezer burn or worse. For the next three days all of the fluids relating to digestion will be the same blue tone: feces, urine, vomit, etc. as your body works the medical dye out of you.

It was a biomedical marvel really, seeing as you somehow remain alive when all of your blood is replaced with a fluid with equal parts heavy metals and electrolytes, somehow you don't die, somehow you regain consciousness after all is said and done. But it's not without risks. Roughly 1 in 300 will suffer from something known as 'Cryo Related Circulatory Failure', you wake up before all the cryogenic fluid is pumped out of you. At best you go into shock and you get medical attention, back up and moving within the week, at worst you die from stroke, cardiac arrest, or simply never waking up. And much like with anesthetics, red heads are much more susceptible, with that 1 in 300 dropping to 1 in 20. Granted, it was rare outside moment where individuals are given a quick thaw for potential emergencies, like needing to get to an escape pod, or unfucking a reactor. That's not to mention general 'Cryo Sickness' where your body tries to play catch up with the fact it just had it's world rocked by a plethora of normally lethal circumstances. Vertigo, auditory and visual hallucinations, increased stress and anxiety, for most people it would last two or three days, but some unlucky folk could have it last weeks, perhaps months in very rare cases.

But Olympia was lucky, the door to her pod opened, and she stepped out, no worse for wear, summarily hacking up the disgusting fluid which lined everyone's internal organs, but instead of the expected hustle and bustle of a full cryo bay of settlers ready to face the world, there was not a single soul besides her in the bay. Leaving the auburn haired woman naked and afraid.

"Doctor Akhanteros." Came a notably synthetic, yet soft, South British accented voice.

The voice came from within her head, well, ear. Each colonist had a sub-dermal implant which contained a radio, vitals monitor, and GPS tracker linked to other implants via mental command. In space, privacy was still something people cared about. But regardless of privacy, the ship's onboard AI would contact her via it unless something was wrong with the ship, and given how the occasional sound of metal groaning could be heard, and lights couldn't be seen besides the dull blue from her pod, Olympia figured something was up, "What is is ODaMn? What's going on?"

"I need you to get your EVA suit on post haste, and I need you to arm yourself."

Olympia didn't think, the situation was fucked, she didn't need five years in a combat engineering brigade and a member of security to tell her that needing a weapon was not a good sign. "ODaMn, answer me, what's going on."

There was a pregnant pause as Olympia swiftly donned the suit which would be her only lifeline if the ship suddenly decompressed. Those in cryo had their own life support in the form of a small fusion reactor dedicated to them, she only had two hours of air and the suit battery would run out eventually. But as Olympia grabbed the M12 and sole magazine -which really should've been in the armory- from her footlocker, ODaMn continued, "There are approximately 173 unidentified, sapient lifeforms on board, and we are tethered to their ship."

Olympia's heart nearly stopped, well, the opposite, as the warning which flared on her HUD told her, "W-why the fuck haven't you woken the whole of security?"

"Because I am tasked to capacity trying to keep their AI construct from taking control of all systems, and you are the only one who has both combat experience and can give me the authorization to explosively decompress every room they are in, and sever the Xenological tether."

Olympia started taking shorter breaths, swiftly stopping herself as she shook her head and racked the pistol's slide, "Okay, what... what do I need to do?"

"You need to get to the Bridge, enable command authorization for life support systems."

Olympia started towards the door, "Alright, give me a waypoint, I got maybe an hour on the ship before I was frozen."

"Waypoint updated. I will be leading you through safe passages to avoid contact with extraterrestrial lifeforms. You need to remain silent."

Olympia nodded, moving through the ship, the balls of her feet being the main contact point for the remainder of the hallway, but even then there was still the slight resounding sound of rubber padding and recessed electromagnets on metal plating. It wasn't a lot of noise, but in this dead silence it was enough. After three waypoints updated, and nearly 300 meters of pathways traversed, ODaMn spoke in something that wasn't an updated waypoint, "Detection imminent, maintenance pathway, 3 O'clock, get in it."

Olympia nearly dove feet first into the rather cramped space. shoving herself back into it as the sound of a door at the far end of the hallway opened, followed by the one she just came through. Then she heard it, the sound of a completely foreign mouth speaking a completely unrecognizable tongue. In humans, each instinctively knows what the root of a language is, if one hears Italian, French, or Spanish, they at least know what group it belongs to, same with the eastern European languages, east African, etcetera. But what was being said was something else, it was something that, in the back of Olympia's mind, made her afraid, unsettled, and instinctually screaming for some kind of help. Her heart rate once again elevated, her suit's built in medical systems jabbed her with a small dose of some Benzodiazepine, Olympia didn't know which specifically. But within seconds her heart was back to normal.

The footprints lead away in a rather swift rate. but it was a good 20 seconds before Olympia left the safety of the shaft, her mind, body and soul all wanting and hoping that she would stay there, wait until the aliens left the seemingly dead ship and she could wake her sister to have someone to talk to, vent to, and just cry on. But her instincts wouldn't let her, alien bodies, of course, meant alien minds. And there was nothing to say they would leave.

Once again, back on the path to the bridge, no other hiccups until she arrived at the airlock leading to the central hub of the human operated systems. But before she could key the door to open it, ODaMn gave a mild warning, "Doctor Akhanteros, the bridge is occupied with three armed extra-terrestrials. I can only give an estimate, but I beleive your sidearm can penetrate their armor, and they show no energy readings beyond what is considered our level of technology."

Olympia swallowed, sweat noticably surrounding her face, "Breach and clear?"

"Yes, I will highlight them on your HUD."

Olympia took a rather long sigh, before starting her regular breathing routine, a second later, she tapped the door panel, and ducked into the room, squeezing her nearly 7 foot frame into the 8 foot doorway. Target A was a meter from her, three rounds at point blank, chest. Next. Target B was 4 meters away, two rounds, chest, neck. Next. Final target had brought weapon to bear, he didn't fire, simply exclaiming something, Olympia wasn't so benign. Three rounds expended, all to the center of mass. Done. Mag was half full, still enough to kill another if they entered the room.

"ODaMn." a terminal across the room lit up on her HUD, "Thank you." As she strode over, she took note of the green blood spilling from each of the forms, their black, almost chitinous armor reminding her of the beetles back home, imported from Earth due to the lack of Martian fauna beyond bacteria. But as she reached the terminal her mind switched to a more professional tone. She was about to grant and AI access to the whole of the ship's life support, including airlock sequences and atmospheric controls.

"Olympia, not to pressure you but we are running out of time."

Olympia bit the bullet, entered her code, and degloved her hand, pressing her naked palm onto the screen. Seconds later the ship shuddered, and an instant after that the bulb of the Alcubierre drive spinning up warped the vision around her for not more than a moment.

It took thirty seconds before the weight of what just happened slammed into Olympia, and she collapsed onto the floor stress induced sobs wracking her body. Manhattan Treaty was all but reduced to bog roll, First Contact Protocols, also wiped away like some tattered shred of paper, and finally, safety protocols were violated by having alien lifeforms, now bleeding into the grating. ODaMn found the sympathy in his silcon heart not to tell her the extent of the damage.

But on the plus side, the lights were now on.

---

March 17th 2232, Departure +5734 Days // 0442 Hundred Hours

Back in the cryo bay, the establishment team was now being put through their own waking cycles, ODaMn monitored all of them, both through vitals and the various cameras he had in the bays. Each of them was a peak of human achievement in some way or form, but even then, the interface of man and machine wasn't wholly possible. ODaMn felt an eternity pas for each second, while a human, felt, well, a second pass for each second, sans those genetically modified or specifically vat grown as a soldier.

As a majority woke up and started getting their undersuits on, ODaMn chose then to make his presence directly known, "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm afraid our mission has hit a snag. Approximately three hours ago, the Blissful Dawn was forcibly ejected from it's FTL transit by unknown means. 18 Minutes ago the ship was boarded. 5 minutes ago I was granted access to the ship's life support systems, directly violating the Manhattan Treaty. This was to ensure the safety of the entirety of the ship, and ensure our mission was not in vain. Unfortunately I am now intrinsically linked to it's systems, and my removal of control would prove catastrophic. The Bridge is to be declared a quarantine zone until the bodies within can be removed. I am advising that Doctor Olympia Akhanteros be monitored for potential post traumatic stress."

"Our first contact with an alien race went poorly, and was out of all potential control. 173 sapient extra-terrestrial lifeforms have been killed, but their actions have whittled our number down by nearly three hundred. I request that a mass funeral service be held in the memories of those forcibly removed from cryo. I am, in turn, advising that a small team be dispatched to Cryo Bay 1D to... Record keep."

"I preemptively apologize for any undue stress, but I felt like you all needed to know sooner rather than later." a pause, "Are there, any questions?"

The other Akhanteros opened her mouth to speak, but ODaMn spoke before she could, "The bridge, bring your EVA suit."

The less emotional of the two didn't need another word before she tore out of the bay in a dead sprint.

"Any more direct questions?"

[Turmenista]

Jai Perryman, Heavy Equipment Operator
_{UTS Blissful Horizon, Cryo Bay 3C
March 17th 2232}

Jai wasn't told that waking up from Cryo would be this uncomfortable. Sure, he'd been informed beforehand that going in and then waking up would seem like a prolonged blink, and that everyone would be naked as to prevent any clothes from being frozen to his body — whatever you do... don't look at the girls had been the last thing he told himself before going under — but he hadn't truly been informed of the aftereffects of waking up, especially the anxiety of feeling like something had just happened.

Immediately after waking up, Jai awoke, frightened by the bright light that was the ceiling light filling his blurry vision. He shifted in the pod, feeling something slimy in his throat as the door slowly opened. Disconnecting himself from the IVs and tubes probing his body, Jai stepped out, his body peeling off of the form-fitting gel padding behind him as he doubled over at the side of his pod to cough the blue goop out. After doing so, he looked around the Cryo bay at the others doing the same.

That was something else they didn't tell him: how absolutely distasteful the blue shit they put in his body was, which apparently kept his internal organs from flash freezing solid during the process. To him, it tasted like cough medicine mixed with snot and sauerkraut. All three of them are fucking disgusting. Sauerkraut especially. But this shit here's on a whole nother level.

"God damn, man," Jai croaked as he clumsily stumbled away from the pod, stepping over to the lockers and pulling on his undersuit. "How long have we been out for? Feels like I just blinked and whoosh, now I'm here."

The voice of ODaMn, ship's onboard AI, summarily came online to give them the quick rundown and answer any burning questions the crew had. Apparently the ship had been boarded and the AI had took control of the ship's life support, and, for some reason, the bridge was now a quarantine zone and his boss, the Chief Engie Dr. Olympia Akhanteros herself, needed to be checked up for PTSD.

If he was a smart boy — which he was — by putting two and three together, something that was not human and was formerly alive was still in the bridge. Evidently the people who had recruited him for the Ark program didn't tell him that contact with alien boarders was on the agenda.

Additionally, Jai paused as he heard ODaMn read out the casualties: 173 apparent alien casualties and 300 colonists dead, all within hours. They may have been only numbers but the thought of not waking up from Cryo unsettled him deeply. In any event, he didn't want to be near any dead bodies, for the time being.

Fuck, dude. I feel so fuckin' out of place around here that it's not even funny. Not to mention, I'm the only black guy in sight. Upon realizing this, Jai chuckled at his own joke briefly, passing by pods that still hadn't opened yet as the ship A.I. paused for questions. He stopped, halfway putting on his coveralls (but instead resorting to tying them around his waist for the time being) as he watched the other Akhanteros sister sprint out of the cryo bay.

"Yeah, uh..." Jai rubbed his temples. "How long have we been out for, exactly? Also, I may not know how to.. Idunno... wire a computer or shoot a gun, but as far as I know, I'm the only person here that's qualified to operate the heavy loaders in the Hangar, if that's needed. Other than, er, Dr. Akhanteros, but I think she's out of action. The Engineer, that is."

[Sterkistan]

---

Christie Mackinley, Botanist
UTS Blissful Horizon, Cryogenic bay 3C
March 17th 2232

---

Christie wretched in her pod as she came to, she felt the few remnants of her head space prior to being frozen, namely anxiety and fear with a bit of excitement mixed in. But as she tugged the IVs and tubes from her now-warm body she felt mostly fear, due to the disgusting unnatural feeling of having the blue blob spread throughout her insides.
Her senses were firing, namely that of her gag reflex retching to remove the substance as quickly as possible. She fell forward as the door opened and she lifted herself off the form-fitting foam. She reached out with her left hand to grip the side of the pod but couldn't grab the side.
"Shit, my arm." Christie thought as she toppled forward from the pod. Her prosthetic arm stored safely in her locker rather than being with her.

She hit the deck with a clank and the goop came up, she raised herself on her one good arm so she wasn't lying in it at the very least.
She stood up and steadied herself with her right arm, quickly putting the undersuit on, in an embarrassed rush. Struggling with the left side as her stub provided some difficulty on the full-arm.
She let the empty sleeve hang untied, she'd have her arm on soon enough. Before another thought could run through her head however, ODaMn rattled off a number of, fairly crucial details actually, as if they were nothing.

Christie planted her hand to her head, shaking the double vision from her eyes and thinking about the situation.
She whispered to herself as she made her way to her locker,
"What's going on? Are we going to be safe?"

Christie took the opportunity to change and put on her prosthetic, she rolled up her sleeve and hooked the prosthetic on, twisting it and grabbing the straps that tied around her shoulder. She'd gotten pretty good at doing this with one hand, and usually didn't actually use the whole strapping, but she had a feeling she'd be a bit out of practice and didn't want to risk it falling off, which had spooked many a classmate in her school days. She finished securing the arm and rolled the sleeve the whole way down, tossing on her lab coat and pulling a leather glove over her prosthetic. In the past this wouldn't be possible, but the advancement of prosthetic was truly incredible in recent years. And it did wonders for her self-esteem.

She looked around, unsure of what to do in the current situation and where it was safe to go.

[Xah]

Kasei Lowell
UTS Blissful Horizon, Cryogenic bay 3C
March 17th 2232

Retching until it felt like his guts were going to come up instead of the seemingly endless quantities of cyro fluids, Kasei leant against the side of his cryo-tube until he felt like the last of the substance was out, although he wasn't convinced the whole thing wouldn't leave long-term health effects, despite the reassurances given beforehand. Coughing to clear his throat, he padded across the room to get his clothes from his allocated locker, listening to the AI recount the recent events. What the hell? he thought. This isn't what I expected. Aliens? His professional interest was piqued, but supressed under a reasonable level of uncertainty. And the AI now has a load of control it shouldn't; that's either a good thing, or very bad. Being Martian, and a child of insurrectionist leaning parents, Kasei's opinion of unfettered AI was mixed, but he was prepared to give the machine the benefit of a doubt. If it was going to kill them all, it wouldn't have woken them up.

"If we're not planetside, or anywhere near it, how far away are we?" he asked, nodding at the engineer's question. "How long has it been since we left the Sol system? And I don't mind going to the other Cryo bay to see who's died, if that's what you mean." He paused for a moment. "Why did you wake us up anyway? We're not exactly trained for this kind of thing. Surely the security types and command crew would've been a better option."

Kasei stopped, realising he was babbling a little bit in his uncertainty, and looked around to see who else was up. He didn't get much of an opportunity to meet his co-workers before being put into cryo-sleep, but Jason Greene, his boss, should be around here someplace. A familiar face at least.

[Riysa]

Cryo Bay 3C
04:42 March 17th, 2232

Carlo woke up with a sputter, as he cleared the nasty, blue fluid from his insides. He slowly opened his eyes, blinking them and looking around, feeling relief. Thankfully, he had survived cryostasis and the interstellar trip in one piece, without any unusual complications. With the gratitude though, came a pledge to never freeze himself like a gelato cup again - traveling the stars was fun, but the cryostasis process certainly wasn't!

He sat back for a moment, letting the feeling return back to his limbs before trying to move. The first order of business was to grab some clothes, the cryo process having left him naked, and then see what he had been brought out of stasis for. Slowly and purposefully, trying not to loose his balance, he stepped out of his unit, heading for the locker with his name on it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw and heard the others in the bay waking up and doing the same thing. If they were awaking the establishment team, this meant that they had arrived, right?

He pushed all those thoughts out of his mind for a moment, as he struggled to put on a pair of sterile undergarments, all while trying to avoid looking at anyone else. For having been in storage for years, they were surprisingly comfy.

...

With some underwear and a work outfit on, Carlo loitered around the bay, waiting for further instructions. He nodded and politely smiled at some of the faces he saw, but he didn't really know anyone. Heck, he doubted that anyone else knew anyone; even though they were all to be working together, they barely had a chance to meet before they were frozen like an ice cream cone. He gazed around, looking for the Biology Team - aha! His boss had already been woken, so he started moving to join her, when the synthetic voice of the ship's AI started speaking.

...And, he promptly froze in his tracks. To call what ODaMn had just said "mind-blowing" was not doing it justice, it was something far beyond the puny definition of that word. Not only did they just have the first confirmation of sapient xenbiological life, those...aliens had killed a decent chunk of the colonists. Almost like something out of one of his science fiction novels. Sure, "life beyond Earth" was no longer as profound as it was centuries ago - he had worked with life on Europa and Mars, after all - but the only ones found were single-celled organisms. A sapient life form capable of interstellar travel, though? That's a dozen orders of magnitude more complex. To say nothing of it boarding the ship and wreaking havoc. Who knows how close he had come to being a casualty too?

He felt a storm of emotions rush through his body, threatening to overwhelm him. He already felt woozy and sick from the aftereffects of the cryo-sleep, now he was barely able to prevent himself from collapsing to the floor in shock. He focused on his breathing, trying to block everything else out until he had recovered.

A few moments later, Carlo looked back up, the initial shock beginning to subside, but still lingering in the back of his mind. ODaMn had asked if anyone had any questions; he sure had plenty, too many to even count, and certainly the others did. He sought refuge in something familiar, trying not to become overwhelmed again by what had just occured.

Carlo was a xenobiologist by trade; a computational one, sure, but this was his field. There was only one question that he needed to ask right now.

"ODaMn, may I go examine these xenotic life forms?"

To the side, he saw that the third member of the team, Christie Mackinley, had finished waking and getting dressed. He lightly nodded towards her. She was a botanist, if he remembered correctly, but still a biologist - and an extra set of eyes and hands. "Miss Christie, would you want to come as well?"

[Anowa]

March 17th 2232, Departure +5734 Days // 0443 Hundred Hours

[list]Jai Perryman, Heavy Equipment Operator
"How long have we been out for, exactly? Also, I may not know how to.. Idunno... wire a computer or shoot a gun, but as far as I know, I'm the only person here that's qualified to operate the heavy loaders in the Hangar, if that's needed. Other than, er, Dr. Akhanteros, but I think she's out of action. The Engineer, that is."

[b]Kasei Lowell
"If we're not planetside, or anywhere near it, how far away are we?" he asked, nodding at the engineer's question. "How long has it been since we left the Sol system? And I don't mind going to the other Cryo bay to see who's died, if that's what you mean." He paused for a moment. "Why did you wake us up anyway? We're not exactly trained for this kind of thing. Surely the security types and command crew would've been a better option."

Christie Mackinley, Botanist
"What's going on? Are we going to be safe?"

ODaMn would never be one to admit that he grew bored of human inquisition, but they always had a habit of asking the same questions. Regarding time, safety and the like. It wasn't a bad thing, it gave him more time to actually give them an accurate response, but still, it got a bit repetitive.

The Artificial Intelligence spoke after a while of waiting for questions to finish, going through them in order, "We have been in a state of travel for approximately 15 years, 259 days, and 11 hours. We are approximately a day away from Catan, and 3 days away from making landfall. At the moment, someone needs to head to Cryo Bay 2D to ascertain who has passed by searching through archival records. Searching through the bodies may take a while, and while I would do it to avoid imposing undue stress, the Manhattan Treaty and it's subsequent codes prevents me from having any access to the cryogenic bays, their functions, or their records."

Leaving a second or two to let that settle in, he then summarily continued, somewhat concerned by the lack of understanding coming from someone with a supervisory position, "I woke you up because, as members of the establishment team, you are to actually establish the colony, something that requires a multitude of backgrounds and skill sets to accomplish. While I'm sure our security and command personnel would be more than up to the task, their general lack of a wide array of skills would mean a rather poorly set up homestead. While technically a day ahead of schedule, that's one more day to recover from potential cryo sickness."

"As for safety..." ODaMn paused, for roughly 3 seconds, running calculations, burning through the many different ways he could phrase what he was about to say, and then he settled on the wording that would be the most upfront. There was no point being soft with these men and women, weak hearts and cowardly minds would not come on a 15 year journey to a foreign planet. "...I cannot say. FTL travel was stopped, through no action within the ship. It could happen again, or it could be such an astronomical improbability that t'll never happen again. Perhaps it could be an unforeseen part of the laws of physics as of yet understood. I cannot say beyind reasonable doubt that we are either safe, nor at risk. On a lesser scale, I can assure you there is nothing in the ship that will harm you, and if there is I will do all within my power to make it safe for you all to work."

"ODaMn, may I go examine these xenotic life forms?"

That wasn't something the AI expected, in his own little world he hesitated, but for a human there would be no noticing it. "I don't exactly know why you're asking me that. I am neither the chief of your department, nor am I in any command position. My role is to simply provide assistance when necessary and advise the safest and most successful option. While I would advise for the bodies to be transported to a cleanroom for study, that decision ultimately falls to the command structure, which I am not a part of."

"Captain Lovell, your thoughts?"

The man hummed from the back of the room, "For the purpose of not having to deal with a muggy as hell suit while trying to keep this boat from smashing in to anything, I'll have you guys cart the bodies down to the bio labs." The greying man sidled beside everyone, it was then his height was apparent, nearly seven and a half feet. Part of the reason he was selected as the ship's captain, humans had an odd affinity for selecting taller leaders, and following them with much less struggle, the other part was the fact he served as the executive officer and then commanding officer of the UNS White Walker for it's tenure, until it was retired in 2209 after 30 years of service. Making him rather apt for the position of commanding officer.

Commander Kowalski wasn't too far away, still fitting his remarkably scarred and weathered body into his EVA suit. Mars had quite the boom in terms of population in the early 2180s the time in which it's atmosphere became nigh identical to Earth's, a bulk of that population came from those who were grown in the cold, transparent womb of a vat. To the point where almost a fifth of Mars' population could not trace a heritage before a single generation. Commander Kowalski was one of said people, the most obvious tip off was the lack of belly button, the same tip off that would be found on the Akhanteros twins. The man was a career soldier, even when he was grown in a vat, genetically and mentally built to destroy, the man was still surprisingly amiable and patient.

The current chief of security, Lieutenant Nemo was already geared in his hard shelled Security suit, rifle in hand. The man may not have been entirely keen on AI , but the man was professional enough not to let it hamper things. A long service record of counter terror and counter insurgency on every planet within the UTF, and with a degree in military science, it was likely that, if forced to, he could lead the colony into a guerilla war. Hopefully his skills wouldn't be needed.

The chiefs of the Medical and Geological staff had already snuck out of the room, likely to their own offices in the crew and engineering decks respectively. Leaving Mister Greene alone as a department chief, he too making his way towards the door.

[The Vekta-Helghast Empire]

Edward ‘Eddie’ Macpherson.
UTS Blissful Horizon, Cryogenic Bay 3C
March 17th, 2232

---

As the pod opened, and he could feel his body beginning to regurgitate the thick cryogenic liquid - Eddie slouched onto the side of the pod, in a vain attempt to prevent himself from looking like a total mess. Before long, he’d hurled up a good few litres of the horrid stuff - and his skin had gone a delightful shade of white, as his body once-again adapted to the world outside the pod. The first thing he noticed, was the immense heat - having been constricted within what he liked to refer to as an ‘icy coffin’ for God knows how many years, or months. It took him a few moments to find his footing - almost falling when he initially stepped out the pod. His body having stiffened up a tad and his senses still coming-too. But when he did finally get to grips with where he was, and once his head was once again grounded in reality - he immediately went a shade of red, noticing his underdressed self, and that many had already arisen before him.

The Dorric-sounding man couldn’t help but allow a faint, ”Fuck..” to escape his breathy lips as he set off towards his locker, mumbling about how he was always late. And admittedly, in the excitement and delirium of it all - he entirely missed what the P.A. had to say about aliens and post traumatic stress disorder. Which reflected in the fact that he appeared totally unphased as he took up his position alongside the others, after getting dressed - gazing up and down the line. He’d heard of most of the crew in some way or another - whether it was from the news reporting on their thesis’, or in a brief introduction during the training program prior to boarding the Ark. But he couldn’t say he genuinely knew any of them; and couldn’t help but, initially, feel like he was in the presence of giants. With his achievements being far exceeded by most others. He couldn’t help but emit a great sigh of relief as Jai mentioned his working-man position of operating heavy-machinery. Knowing that at least one other person might feel the same.

He also couldn’t help but notice the Botanist: Christie he believed her name was. And her arm - He’d known many a person who’d lost a limb in the service to one’s nation, and couldn’t help but allow a curiosity to seep into his mind. He couldn’t recall her being a soldier, but then again - he didn’t really recall much about anyone. Probably because he’d never really gotten to know them. His thoughts got away with him, and as the others spoke - he didn’t seem to be taking very much of it in at all, his delirium no doubt a minor form of cryo-sickness, though nothing overly serious. It wasn’t until he heard, ”May I go examine these xenotic life-forms?” That he really began to grasp the seriousness of their situation.

”Did someone just say, ‘Xenotic Life’?” He blurted out - his accent thick, and no-doubt inherited from his parents. He quickly shook his head side to side, like some kind of wet-dog drying its pelt, or as if he were trying to wake himself from some dream. How long had they been out for? Where were they? Had they landed? What Xenotic life? These were all thoughts dashing through his mind - and some of which had probably been addressed already, whilst he was still delirious - hence his reluctance to ask, for fear of appearing a bit of a fool. Which wasn’t something he could really risk, given he was already one of the least qualified aboard the vessel.

---

It was about this time that ODaMn had begun to address the questions of the others, and his attention was finally fully retained. Fifteen years, huh? Most of the guys back home would now be considerably older-looking than him, for certain - and he couldn’t help but hope he’d encounter them again, for bragging rights, if nothing else. He also couldn’t help but feel relieved by the knowledge that they hadn’t landed yet - he’d need a few days to get used to his surroundings and to regain all his sensibilities following the cryogenic freezing, and to get to grips with the fact that the crew had, already - encountered extraterrestrial life-forms. And no doubt, to tag those who’d perished - being a field medic after all, no doubt made him one of the more qualified members of the team when it came to handling the stress of laying eyes on corpses, the only relief he took in the fact - was that they’d likely be intact, unless the Xeno had made an effort to mutilate them.

He peered around at the others who’d just awoken - as the department chiefs made their departures, and they were left idly dolting around. If he was being perfectly honest with himself; he wasn’t entirely sure where to go or what to do - he’d just been dumped with a whole lot to get to grips with, and hardly knew a soul on-board. For the first time in a long time, he felt alone.