Foreign Bodies: Second Contact Book 1
Fen hoped to wake up in a new world with a new life. However, this wake-up call is not what he signed up for.
Foreign Bodies –
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Command Assigned to Officer N. Haelo
***
The goo was the worst. Something about the way the gel invaded the ears and nostrils left Fen’s skin crawling. His eyes were wide open, mouth tightly closed. He felt the liquid rising over his chin. When the warm, sweet-smelling slime pooled over his quivering lips, he pushed up. His face pressed against the sealed door, eager to catch one more breath. Then, the thick, viscous ooze enveloped him completely.
Fen lay suspended in the pod, pinching his nose between his fingers and screwing his eyes shut. There was no sound in the syrup. He waited, brow knotting as he tried to endure the sensation of being submerged in the liquid. He tried not to mind as the fluid clung to him, hardening until he felt like an insect trapped in tree sap.
It’s all part of the process. It’s all part of the process.
And the process took forever.
Holding the breath in, keeping his nose and mouth closed, was so hard. Fen had practiced in the bath in preparation for this day. He knew he could not hold it for more than a minute.
“You can relax, Fen.” A voice permeated the tank, piercing through the goop through his earpiece. “Remember your training.”
Fen tried to obey the gentle, soothing voice that told him to submit. Yet the expression of horror on his face remained. He felt like he had been encased in the goo for the longest time, though it could only have been thirty, maybe forty seconds.
“We’re almost there. You don’t need to hold your breath like that. Try to relax, and everything will be fine.”
Fine words, but they did nothing to stamp out the body’s instinctual reaction to drowning.
Fen wanted out. By now, his lungs were burning, and his lips quivered to open. At any moment, he would let the liquid in and feel it seep into his lungs.
He had stepped into the pod willingly. He knew what he was in for. Part of him still knew he would be fine when he came out the other side. However, none of it was enough to stop him from reaching out to smack the pod door.
Or at least to try to. When Fen attempted to move, he found the resistance from the goo too much. The liquid around him, dense as molasses, made any movement almost impossible. Merely reaching out an arm felt like a Herculean feat far beyond him.
The hardening amber trapped him with no escape. His lips trembled, his mouth desperate to open in its quest for air.
Then everything changed.
When Fen was sure he could not take any more, the goo that had been as solid as concrete loosened. The hardening amber prison became as water once more. Best of all, it was draining away.
Fen’s arm, finally able to move, smashed against the pod door. He pushed his body forward, his lips breaking the surface and inhaling.
That first gasping breath burned, but, oh, did it feel good. Fen pushed his hands behind him, pressing them to the back of the pod to help prop himself up, desperate not to fall below the water line.
No way he was going through that again.
As Fen relaxed his breath and the primal fear of drowning abated, he noticed other sensations. The gross feeling of water draining from his ears, the chill of the air he drew in with each ragged breath.
He did not want to remain in the amber, but the goo was warm. The more liquid receded from the tank, the colder Fen became.
All part of the process. In a few moments, someone would come by and open the doors to his pod. They would greet him with a warm towel and a fresh set of clothes. He’d take a shower. A real shower with good old H20 steaming at a luxurious hundred and two degrees. There’d be food, too.
Fen closed his eyes, hugging his body as the shivers set in. He concentrated on the thought of the meal that waited for him after he was clean and dressed. Braised archileo hearts served on a bed of steamed rice with a drizzle of tepino sauce for flavor. Basic, hearty, a reminder of home as he stepped out in search of a new one.
He had received a few raised eyebrows when putting in the request for his first meal. The acquisitor who took the order reminded him twice that first meals were the one and only time he could choose whatever he wanted to eat and the single opportunity to indulge in fancier fare.
Fen had refused. He did not blame others for ordering gourmet-style meals and extravagant platters that would set a person back a whole day’s rec. He knew several in his cohort had braved ordering luxury cuisine they had never tried before and weren’t sure they would like. All because they wanted to take full advantage of their one free meal.
Fen wanted something plain that would warm him through body and soul. Right now, naked and shivering in his pod, he could really do with that warmth.
As his teeth chattered, Fen rubbed his arms vigorously. He had little to no view ahead. His pod lay horizontal on the deck, affording him a glimpse of the gray metal ceiling and an intense white light above.
The cold seeped into his bones, permeating his entire body until his muscles ached. He tried to ignore it, waiting for the cryo technician to come and open his pod door.
How many minutes had it been?
Fen lifted himself, pushing his head closer to the window and trying to look out into the world.
“Hello?” he called. He didn’t want to cause a fuss or be a nuisance, but the cold was really starting to get to him.
He rubbed his hands up and down his shoulders, kicking his legs and rolling around in the pod. Anything to keep moving and increase his core temperature as he waited for the technicians to reach him.
Nowhere in the cryostasis manuals did anyone mention being stuck inside a freezer after revival. The way the guides told it, when he woke to a new world, attendants and medical personnel would fuss over him. They billed it as a combination of physical examination, orientation, and party. The event was intended to stir the hearts and minds of every colonist.
A proper waking and orientation should leave a person proud of making the journey across the stars to a new home and fill them with hope for the future of humanity. It was a story to tell the grandkids when they asked what it was like to wake up after centuries of sleep in a new, unexplored part of the galaxy.
“Oh yes, kids, I remember the first day of colonization. I woke up feeling like I was drowning, then I had to wait in a freezer until my balls froze off,” Fen muttered aloud. He needed to hear a voice, even his own, to help him ignore the cold in his pod.
Where is everyone?
He tried to recall the procedures for waking from cryosleep. He had attended a day-long course on it and remembered nothing. He barely paid attention to the mechanics of cryo-freezing or what the attendants and medics would do when he woke from his long sleep. The only part of the seminar that stuck with Fen was how to keep calm while being drowned in liquid goop. None of the advice they had given him on that score had helped.
“Hello?” Fen called again, his patience and calm deteriorating rapidly as no one revealed themselves.
Someone should be answering him by now, even if only through his earpiece.
“Computer, are you there?” Fen called for the ship’s virtual intelligence, but nothing came back in reply. He couldn’t recall if his earpiece or pod speakers were connected to the VI.
He banged on the door. Surely, the hermetic seal had lifted now with the cryo-liquid drained. If he could put enough strength into it…
He pressed his palms to the window and his knees against the panels. He could not risk waiting any longer. He must have been in here five, perhaps ten minutes for someone to answer him. No way he was supposed to be stuck naked like this. The frost forming over the glass panel before him was a sure sign the pod temperature was below freezing.
Summoning all his might, Fen pushed against the door, trying to force it open.
It didn’t budge.
“Hello! Hey! Let me out! Anyone!”
The cold suddenly didn’t seem to matter. Frozen as he was, Fen’s greatest concern was to see someone. Anyone.
“Hello? Come on. I know we’ve got ten thousand people to wake up, but I think we can do better on the timing here. I mean, why w-w-wake me up if you weren’t ready to crack open this damn box?”
Fen was rambling. He needed to keep the words flowing, to fight back the fears manifesting and looming large inside his mind.
A creeping dread ran through him as he tried to remember questions asked on orientation day. While he worried about coping with being submerged in cryo-goop, one nervous woman had been asking questions about potential malfunctions and the chances of a cryopod failing or opening early.
Fen had paid the question little heed. Cryo-tech had a proven track record as transportation between worlds and systems. It had been the backbone of human expansion for centuries. That didn’t stop legends and stories of malfunctions cropping up now and then, tales of people woken from cryosleep too early, trapped to die in their pods.
Fen’s eyes positively bulged in his head. Conscious thought disintegrated. All he knew was the need to get out, the feeling of the walls bearing down on him, and the cold that permeated through.
His fists pounded on the lid. Fen was no longer looking to get someone’s attention so much as he was looking to punch a hole through the window.
There’s no one out there. I’m alone. Stars. I’m alone.
There couldn’t be anyone else. If the medical and hospitality crew were busy waking everyone up, they would have heard him pounding the pod and throwing himself around by now.
Alone. Trapped.
Which came first? Starvation? Hypothermia?
Fen slammed his head back against the cryopod that was now his coffin. He tried rolling, pushing hard to either side to see if he could upend the box.
“…Hey! Hey, I see you! I’ve got you!”
A voice. It was muffled, but Fen heard it.
“Easy! Easy, now. I’m with you. Lie back. Lie still.”
“I need to see you. Where are you?” Fen struggled to obey the disembodied voice, hands twitching with the urge to strike the lid again. Until he knew he was safe, until he saw with his own eyes that someone was there and looking out for him, he could not relax.
A shadow passed over the window. Fen’s chest swelled, and he released an almighty sigh as a figure leaned over the pod. He couldn’t make out the details. The glare of the light shining down and the frost on the glass made it impossible to see his rescuer as anything more than a dark silhouette.
“Okay. I am at the pod. What do I do? How do I open this thing?”
The fragile calm Fen enjoyed at seeing someone outside crumbled when they spoke. Did they not know how to operate a cryopod? Was his rescuer not part of the medical team?
“Please move to the right side of the pod, Captain. Direct your attention to the control panel. You should conduct the routine physical tests before releasing the seals.
“Screw that!” Fen banged on the window again, glaring at the figure moving above him. “Let me out! I am dying in here.”
“Serviceman Shorla is incorrect in his assessment. However, he has been awaiting release from the pod for longer than the recommended time. There is a risk of hypothermia, not to mention the crewman’s mental well—”
“Just tell me how to override the controls.” A hand reached down and pressed on the pod window. “Don’t worry. I’m going to get you out of there.”
Fen nodded, biting his lip and forcing himself to lie still. The best thing he could do for his rescuer was to let them work, to be as little of a distraction as possible.
“Okay, computer, talk me through the override controls.”
“Please give your attention to the ident scanner to the right of the panel. Place your thumb on it to engage the scan. Your rank will give you full access to override commands.”
Fen concentrated on the words, needing something to keep his mind off the box.
It was hard to put together a cohesive thought with so much fear and the icy chill of the pod causing him physical pain.
Did the computer say “captain” before? What was the captain doing opening the cryopods?
“Okay, I have green lights here. I think I have control.”
“Please press the green button on the control panel and pull the release catch down.”
“Doing it.”
Fen bounced nervously, wanting to jump from his prison the moment he was free.
“Nothing’s happening? I’m getting a red warning light, and the ident pad is flashing again.”
“Ranking officers must authorize all systems overrides individually.”
“I thought I already did.”
“Please press your thumb over the ident pad to confirm your order, Captain.”
“Stars.”
The shadowy form grumbled above him. Fen pressed his hands to the lid, pushing with all his might in the hope it would help. He would not endure a second longer in the pod than he had to. No power in creation would convince him to step back in one ever again.
A hiss had Fen jumping, and his body balled up as a cloud of vapor billowed over the window. The silhouette above vanished, and Fen could see nothing. Steeling himself anew, he gave one last push against the door. The sweetest relief filled him as it flew open at last.
Fen felt like a newborn lizard bursting from an egg. He had only enough energy to push out of the box, flop onto the metal floor, and lie there in a fetal position.
His rescuer was somewhere else. Fen heard footsteps, and the metal gangway underfoot rattled as his savior fled down the passage.
“Okay, this must be them. Overriding.”
The footfalls came closer again. Fen glanced upward and discovered a stern-faced man standing above him. They draped something over him. Some kind of blanket. Fen tried to wrap himself in it, desperately needing to warm his body after being exposed to the chill air of the pod for so long.
His fingers ached. He struggled to bend them as he sought to cover his chilled, naked body. He did not have the strength to push off the floor.
Instead, Fen used his remaining energy to cocoon himself in the blanket and crane his neck to the side. He looked around, taking in the long, dark corridor before him. Most of it was in darkness, the only light coming directly above them.
There were no sounds other than the footfalls of the other man as he worked.
“Where…is everyone?” Fen managed despite his chattering teeth.
“Not now. We need to get you warm and dressed first.” The captain was returning, dropping a gray uniform and a ship’s comm pin beside him. “Get dressed. Save the questions for later. Believe me, you’ve got a lot to take in.”
Well, at least he didn’t freeze to death. That seems like it will be the least of his problems moving forward. Find out on December 21st, when Second Contact Book 1: Foreign Bodies is released. Until Then head over to Amazon and pre-order it today.
