The Wakening

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She wakes with no memories of her only crewmate...
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This is my first stab at writing sci-fi, and I enjoyed every second of it. John Wyndham I ain't, but it was fun all the same!

As ever, my heartfelt appreciation goes out to my editor, The (devilishly handsome) Brit, without whom my stories would lack a definite sparkle! Always there with a wise word and a green highlighter, I'm more than lucky to have him on my side *grins*

I also would like to thank my beta reader, the wonderful Lee Savino, who thinks to ask the questions I never even realise need asking. And laughs at my lame jokes. She's fantabulous.

Without any further ado, I hope you enjoy!

*****

The hiss of the hydraulics was the first sensation she experienced. Some sort of fluid drained outside the bag she lay in, settling her gently on the bottom.

The bottom of what?

The light was filtered by the opaque plastic sheeting, a fact she was grateful for as her eyes struggled to readjust. She tried to raise her arms but found them constricted by the bag.

What's going on? Where am I?

A sudden thought stopped her dead.

Who am I?

This last worried her, but remotely, like she wasn't quite awake yet. She tried to think through the fug laid upon her mind but it was blank, like a crisp sheet of white paper floating in smoke.

A beep sounded, loud to her ears, then the bag she lay in began to rise, gears grinding. It shuddered to a halt and slowly unfolded.

The dim light still hurt her eyes and she squinted, rubbing circulation back into her hands. A sharp pain in her legs and back made her gasp and through blurred eyes she saw cannulas attached to tubes snaking back into the machine by her feet, before iced pads covered the insertion sites, a cooling spray coating them.

Something hard slid over her breast and she grasped it before it slipped over her shoulder. Circular sheets of metal attached to a chain sat in her fist. She tried to sit up to read them but her head was still held, motionless, in a frame.

Lifting them up to her eyes, she traced the lettering neatly inscribed.

O POS

30062668

FRESCOE

JS

CE

RSF

A voice spoke into her ear, female and automated, interrupting her inspection of the tags. "Memory download initiating."

What? Wait. Hang on a sec...

A plate inserted into the base of her skull, clicking into place. Pain coruscated through her for an endless moment, visions flickering so fast she could barely see them. Nausea bubbled and then it was over.

"Memory download complete."

The machine released her head with a snick and Jaylin sat up, groaning. It never got any easier. Would it kill them to figure out a way to administer a painkiller at the same time?

She shook her head, clearing the last of the cobwebs and pulled herself out of the pod. The room was carpeted, with a pile thick and deep, heavy wooden furniture lining the walls, looking to be bolted down. A large screen took up most of the wall opposite, blank and dark.

As she stepped away from the lid, it slowly replaced itself with a hiss, the pod sinking back down into the floor, the bed attached to the top tilting back into place. Jaylin shuddered. Nightmares plagued her of being swallowed into that thing while she was asleep. She hated sleeping on her own in there. Good thing she usually had...

The thought trailed off as she approached the screen. It lit up as she drew near, a woman's face taking shape.

"Heya Eo, good to see you."

"And yourself First Mate Frescoe." The computers voice was modulated for ease of hearing, the same voice from the pod. "How was your Wakening?"

Jaylin shrugged, "Easy enough. How did Adams and French go down?"

The screen glitched for a second, then came back into view. "Captain Sionna Adams and First Mate Samwin French are secure within their biotanks. It is time to report to the Captain, First Mate Frescoe. Please avail yourself of the showering facilities and meet him in the wheelhouse."

The petite woman breathed a sigh of relief, "Right y'are Eo, I do whiff. Those pods certainly don't help with the staleness." The screen went dark.

Hot water jetted down from the ceiling of the wetroom, a fine spray soaking Jaylin's sore muscles. While the tanks did move her body in the fluid to avoid muscle wastage, she always felt stiff when she emerged.

She scrubbed quickly, skin glowing pink, wincing as the water trickled over the fine insertion points across her body.

I wonder how long we were down for this time?

She counted back through the other pairings. Should be somewhere between fifteen and thirty years depending on how long Eo kept the other pairings up.

Never less than a year, nor longer than two, those were the rules. Optimal amount of time to spend doing the same thing every day with just one other person.

Thirty odd years, that brought them almost to the Libran sector. Maybe even to the point of not going back into that soul-sucking, hibernation unit they called the biotank.

Cap and I might actually make it!

The thought was exciting. Her first space-port. Where actual, non-Gaian humans lived. Were they aliens if they were the same race, shared the same root?

She sat at a heavy desk and combed through her dark hair, unsnarling the tangles. A memory flashed. She could remember someone sat behind her at the same bureau, naked as she was now, brushing her hair for her. There was a hint of a low voice, laughter, rough hands cupping her breasts from behind, fingers idly rolling her nipples and she turned...

No, there was no more.

What the hell was that? Why couldn't she remember? Was that the Cap? It couldn't be anyone else, they were the only ones on here.

She tried to bring his face up. Nothing. She brought to mind a score of memories from their time on the ship. In each one, the memory stopped, trailing off when someone else entered it.

It must be an after-effect of the hibernation. Strange, but it should wear off. Jaylin keyed in her code and peeled a mask from the dispenser onto her face, feeling the nanobots cleanse her pores and apply minimal makeup. Another code dried her fine, straight black hair and she sauntered to the wardrobe.

A line of cream button-down shirts and stretchy, ivy-coloured trousers faced her. She picked out a pair and grabbed some underwear from the drawer, dressing swiftly, efficiently. Inserting her earpiece mike, she threw a pair of flat boots on and glanced at herself in the mirror.

Ok, let's get to work.

A last look around the room and she stepped out into the passageway, shutting the door behind her.

*****

The corridor was furnished in much the same way as the bedroom, with dark, wood-panelled walls, light painted skirting boards and thick carpet, small lamps lining it. Jaylin only managed half a dozen steps before a door opened to her right and a man stepped out, maybe ten years older than her, sandy hair neat and an easy manner. She swallowed. He was easily a foot and a half taller, not particularly physically imposing but with the natural mass of someone who spent time with weights.

He turned and grinned, "Jay! Trust you to be ready before me."

The smile lit his face, taking it from pleasant to something far more interesting if the somersaults in her stomach were anything to go by.

He turned to crush her in a hug, head swooping towards her. In a panic, she stepped back and away, out of his reach, a startled, "Woah!", echoing off the walls.

"What's wrong, Jay?" His face fell, tone earnest rather than annoyed. He studied her searchingly but didn't seem to find what he was looking for. "Don't you remember me?"

Jaylin stared back at him, trying hard to jog something loose. Small neural connections at the back of her brain fired as she focussed on him, her hand automatically reaching up to a faint scar at the corner of his lip. "You feel...familiar."

He looked hopeful but the connections fizzled out and Jaylin shook her head, wishing she could give him more.

"I'm sorry, there's nothing there. I don't have anything. I don't even know your name." Her voice came out apologetic.

There was an echo of something, pain or disappointment maybe, that flitted across the man's light hazel eyes before he drew himself up. "I'm Captain Gibson, Frescoe."

He took her elbow in a proprietary way, almost without thinking it seemed to Jaylin, and turned her to walk along the corridor with him.

"We'll initiate setup, then I suggest that you visit the surgery about the memory loss." His voice seemed smooth, controlled, professional now that the moment had passed.

"Yes, Captain, understood."

The captain gave her a sideways glance and there was that grin again, melting Jaylin's insides, "You know, I could get used to that." She smiled back and cursed as she nearly tripped on a small android hovering in the corridor, touching up some paintwork at a corner.

"And there's the Frescoe I know, utterly cool under pressure, graceful as a stunned gazelle."

She laughed, "Well, you certainly seem to know me. I wonder what happened to Adams and French to require a paint job?"

The man next to her waggled his eyebrows. "I shudder to think. Let's go find out, shall we?"

*****

The wheelhouse was far less grand than its title suggested, a simple room filled with a large window facing out onto the rushing stars and a bank of computers discreetly set into the walls. There was no wheel in there but it was where the navigation systems were stored so the name kind of stuck.

The Captain, as Jaylin had started to think of him, strode straight to one of the units, while she walked just as purposefully to another, automatically logging in and running system and inventory checks as she always did on her Wakening.

There was a muffled snort from the other end and she glanced up to see him looking at her, eyes filled with mirth. "Indoor cricket, that was the reason for the repair job. We'll have to search for their gear, give that a go this time."

He really was more than a little handsome when he smiled. His smile faded as Jaylin gave him a polite one in return.

"How are the stats, Frescoe?" He returned to a more professional footing again and she kicked herself.

"Food stores suggest that we have only three years left until a Libran landing, sir." A crestfallen sort of excitement filled her voice.

Close, but it wouldn't be them getting the first glimpse of the Spaceport.

"I'm sorry Jay, I know you were hoping that podsleep was your last."

It felt strange, having someone she knew nothing about, knowing her well enough to pick up on her thoughts.

She moved on swiftly, "All other systems appear optimal, looks like Eo's still got it, sir."

"Thank you First Mate Frescoe." The AI appeared on the screen.

"Ok, I'll go through the logs with Eo, you head to the surgery, Frescoe, and I'll bring you up to speed later on the last 28 years." He was looking at her with eyes that made Jaylin shiver.

She turned to go, "Thank you, sir."

If they had history, she wanted it back.

*****

The surgery was a bust. She walked into the darkened scanning station and stood, as motionless as possible in the pitch black room as the unit scanned her, neon light strobes from head to toes in 360 degrees.

"Almost perfect health, a slight hypertension in the muscles due to hibernation protocol." The med-droid was emotionless. "Any memory loss appears to be due to a glitch in the memory download process, likely unrecoverable."

And just like that, her hopes were dashed. There would be no reunion with the gallant captain. Jaylin felt like she had lost a part of herself but worse, as she couldn't tell what part it was.

The captain appeared to take it better, nodding his head. "We'll just have to start again then, won't we?", and he smiled.

Weeks turned into a month, then two and an easy companionship grew between the pair. She learnt how to work alongside him, following his instructions to the letter as he brooked nothing less, though he certainly seemed to take her ideas into account.

When they had left Earth nearly eighty years ago, technology had still been unavailable for a true Artificial Intelligence, so the ship needed at least two crew members to react to any emergencies. However, given the human lifespan, no ship could carry just two crew so a minimum of sixteen pairs were carried at all times, woken up at varying intervals to keep watch for a year or two so voyages appeared to take only a few years.

Pairings were organised back on Earth and often the subject of months of training and psychometric evaluation to ensure that the crew members could work and live with each other for long periods of time.

In the absence of any emergencies, the ships' androids carried out routine maintenance and ran the ship admirably well, leaving the pair with little to do but keep an eye on the raw data, practice emergency drills and find ways to amuse themselves. This they did with gusto, reading in the library, working out in the onboard gym and sparring to keep their skills keen.

Regular updates were received from central, though these often took several weeks to reach them. News of what was happening on Earth became less important with each Wakening, the span of the years rendering the shifting politics and current events meaningless.

New media, however, was prized and every time fresh books or films were uploaded there would be a scramble to devour them with friendly arguments erupting over plots and potential meanings.

They sat and talked for hours; he seemed to delight in remembering things that he had told her before, catching her up. She began to fill in the blanks, each little piece reassembling a whole that she found achingly familiar.

Jaylin found in the captain a friend: kind, full of fun, with the ability to lift her no matter how down. Every so often she caught him looking at her when he thought she couldn't see, his look a mixture of pain and wistfulness which wrenched her heart.

The weight of his hope and expectation seemed to push her further from him. She wondered sometimes, what it might be like, but she knew that what was mere curiosity to her would mean far too much to him. She couldn't bridge it, even with the tickle at the back of her brain that pushed her towards him.

Then one day a message came for her from central, one she had been dreading since she had left Earth.

Message for First Mate JS Frescoe. We regret to inform you that your sister passed away peacefully at Cedar Oaks Nursing Home with all her family surrounding her. Our deepest sympathies for your loss.

Jaylin felt herself crumple in the library.

Not all her family with her. I wasn't there.

Soolin had been her world growing up, and only a congenital heart murmur had stopped her sister from joining the Royal Space Force alongside her. Time seemed to freeze as she tried to process the message, curling tighter and tighter into a ball under the desk.

"First Mate Frescoe, are you well?" Jaylin ignored Eo's voice, eyes shut fast.

"First Mate Frescoe, your bioreadings are showing an elevated heart rate and slight oxygen deprivation. Are you well?"

Images of her sister as she had last seen her flickered through her mind, young and proud as punch of her twin at her graduation ceremony three years ago. She barely noticed Eo flickering out on the screen.

Only three years ago, she had been twenty-five only three years ago. This couldn't be happening.

Part of her rational mind knew that on Earth nearly eighty years had passed but she couldn't see Soo like that, couldn't imagine her feeble or stooped, liverspots marking her hands as lines marked her face, her centenary passed.

Why? Why did I choose this? This waste of a life?

Strong hands pulled her from under the table, scooping her up, drawing into a warm chest.

"Thank you Eo, that will be all." His voice, deep and strong, reached her as though across a chasm. She was numb, floating in grey and recriminations. Her cheeks were wet, cold but she could not feel herself crying.

The captain's hand went to her hair, stroking it, trying to calm her. Jaylin's small, lithe frame fit into his broad chest and she let herself drift for a while listening to him murmur above her.

Finally she turned, looked up at him, his face achingly tender and eyes concerned as he held her.

"Why did we do this? We're glorified security guards. The machines do all the work, we're just the failsafe. Why did we think this was more important than our lives, than our families?" The anguish in her voice was searing.

There was a pause, while his jaw worked, light eyes distant in thought. "We thought we understood the price but we didn't, not really." A flash of remembered pain came and passed as he fingered the small scar at the corner of his lip.

Jaylin brushed her tips over it and raised her eyebrows in question.

Anything for a distraction.

The captain seemed to sense her thoughts. He grinned ruefully, "That was you, when I found out my ex-wife had passed. It was our first Wakening, brain embolism, she apparently was dead before she hit the floor. I went on a rampage and you hit me across the face with a wrench."

Jaylin's eyes widened, "I did what with a what?"

He laughed, the sound rich and comforting. "It was necessary. Believe me."

The ache had receded somewhat, still there but less overwhelming. Just intolerable rather than crippling. He had a habit of soothing her. Jaylin sighed.

The captain was looking at her with those wishing eyes again. "Here, I know what we need." He stood up, lifting her with him, as if he couldn't let her go. It was nicer in his arms, like the news was not as real. They left the library and he carried her to the mess, setting her down gently on a couch.

She looked at him curiously as he began to pry open the back of one of the cupboards. His hand disappeared into the dark recess behind it and there was a small shout of triumph as he encountered what he had been looking for.

He pulled out a glass bottle, unlabelled, filled with a dark golden liquid.

"Well, at least this has had time to age," he laughed. Jaylin gasped. Alcohol was strictly forbidden on the ship.

"How did you get it on board?"

The captain snickered, "Now that is something you don't want to know," earning him a wan smile.

He cracked open the seal and the heady aroma spilled out, hints of rum and raisin, vanilla and summer stone fruits underpinned by a rich, toasty malted scent. Grabbing a couple of disposables, he poured a generous measure into each.

Jaylin was apprehensive. Drinking had been limited to the occasional session in the park as a teenager and a few raucous nights with the other flyboys during training. Nothing like this. She thought of Soo and the drinks they wouldn't get to share. It made sense to drink now.

I can only give it a go, right?

She knocked the measure back, the liquid burning her throat and making her choke, her eyes streaming.

"Shit, what the hell is this stuff, napalm?" Her voice was hoarse, painful.

The captain was choking as well, but in laughter. "Easy there Jay, you're supposed to take some water with it."

The burning receded, and Jaylin was left with a warm glow suffusing her limbs. Her head felt almost weightless. An aftertaste of spiced Christmas cake, almost a hint of marzipan settled on her tongue. It was certainly better than the cheap cider she had drunk as a kid.

Another measure, with a little water and a dry caution, "Try sipping it this time," and she nodded. He folded onto the couch next to her with his own fresh drink, taking the smallest of sips and rolling it around his mouth appreciatively, making a small noise of pleasure. Jaylin wondered idly if that would be a sound she could tease out of him.