Sailing over fields of rippling green and bounding across mountain tops had been the norm in Jara's dreams for a while, so it was strange to see that at the end of her usual flight that this time she came to rest at the end of an unfathomably long red carpet.
And at the end of the run far in the distance was a silhouette of a man. The man wasn’t her father but he was smiling at her as if they were long lost family. All Jara could do as her flight began to slow was smile back. But just as she raised her arm to wave, and the man opened his lips as if to say something important, reality came back into focus like a hammer.
Alarms blared on the cryo-pod’s wallscreen. Sweat was beading down her face, fogging up the visor of her helmet through which she could only just make out the warning message on the screen: Cryogenic System Offline, beginning wake-up.
Screaming through blinding pain as she did, Jara reached to silence the alarm and opened the visor on her helmet. She let out a huff as the environmental systems of the pod sucked up the extra moisture.
Jara tapped several commands on the screen. She wasn’t sure exactly what she was looking for, only trying to find any hint as to her pod’s current condition. On one screen, her suit’s readings were displayed, showing that in the time she’d been out, minimal repairs to stabilise the damage done to her spine had been attempted with moderate success. That’s when she saw it; the date-stamp on the wallscreen caused her heart to skip.
“Two– two years?!” she muttered, her throat stinging with the dryness of someone who hadn’t spoken in years. “It’s been two years…”
A single tear wormed its way out of her. There might’ve been more were it not for how dehydrated she was.
The suit had slowed her metabolic rate to a near crawl, but it hadn’t stopped. Working in tandem, her envirosuit and cryo-pod had done their best to preserve her, but they were never designed to store a human indefinitely, let alone an Odeen like her.
Adult Odeen averaged half a metre taller than a typical human, but she wasn’t an adult; she was only fifteen. Or, she supposed with a pang in her heart, seventeen now…
Her pod now however was failing, having done what it could to keep her alive after the attack on Valrakee Station.
“Who in the hells attacked us?” she wondered aloud, stifling tears, scrolling the wallscreen to view the pod’s telemetry. It seemed that the telemetry had failed over a year prior, its most recent record being a snapshot of empty space. Confused, she checked and rechecked the records scrubbing all the way back until the day of the attack.
The day just after she could still clearly see images of the station. Then, beginning on the following day and for every day after, the records showed nothing but the backdrop of stars. Had the station been destroyed?
Sadness gripped her as she realised she’d never see her father again, never get a chance to retrieve his body. Then came the screams, the memory of the berserkers as they howled in defiance of their own deaths as something overtook them. Something had utterly destroyed Valrakee that day. And now – screams long silenced – everything was just gone.
She checked the pod’s distress beacon, and for some reason it was off. Opening up the system logs, one error stood out from the rest: Distress Beacon Offline, manual reset is required.
Jara sighed. Whether it was the ever present pain, or the loss of her father, she found it hard to care about yet another setback.
It was simple enough to get the beacon going again; a light touch of human intervention. A system restart, that’s all it took. Not that anyone would be around to hear it, she thought.
That’s when the pain started. An irking, nagging pain that tugged at the back of her neck. She checked her suit’s readout on the wallscreen again. Everything nominal, except for the obvious spinal injury – poorly mended – and broken ribs. Jara almost convinced herself that’s all it was. But something was… odd. She felt like something was pulling, itching at the back of her brainstem.
Jara checked her suit systems again. No internal bleeds, no skull fracture, no torn ligaments, at least not in her neck anyway.
And there it was again; an itchiness almost like something was crawling around back there. She tried to squirm, to dislodge whatever was hanging around back there, but nothing changed. Was it just her spinal injury, was she bleeding?– no.
She growled and whined, only for the itch to grow. It started slow, then something sounded from behind her.
“What was that?–” she whispered, her heart now racing as her suit’s systems began flashing warnings for her to remain calm.
The sound shifted. First from white noise, through static, then to a low whisper. It was almost like–
Realisation dawned on her as she recognized the growing cacophony. It was the screams. The same horrible screams that she heard back on the station. Distant still, but growing. Growing as they had just before Jonothen closed her into the cryo-pod.
She could feel her skin begin to churn, her body tried to sweat if not for the lack of water. Jara grew hot – hotter than her suit’s failing environmentals could counteract. The sound kept growing, rushing towards her as if it raced down Valrakee’s corridors towards her. A new alarm blared warning her she was overheating and the rush of screams continued to grow.
And that’s when it happened. A white light stretching from the edge of her vision quickly grew into a sun. Her eyes began to roll back in her head, her body began to shake and seize. And for the microsecond before she lost consciousness, she understood that this was her end, just two years too late.
…
Jara awoke some time later staring at the ceiling with her helmet off, breathing a much fresher blend of air than the two years stale mix of her cryo pod. Her hair was wet and splayed over the back of a plush pillow. She tried to move, to lift her arms and roll over, but the strain on her spine was too great. Jara winced as she began to wriggle, trying in vain to get a better view of where she was.
She wasn’t tied down or restrained in any way, but sudden realisation dawned as Jara began to feel the soft fabric of a neck brace where it cradled her chin.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Someone outside the room noticed her strife and rushed into view.
“Jara, dear,” a doctor said in a strange accent, “please relax, sweet. Any more strain and you’ll disrupt the nanites.”
“I– eugh” Jara tried to speak but her throat was thick with phlegm.
“I’ll get you some water in a moment, dear. Please just stay still while we heal you up.”
The woman moved out of view and her footsteps swiftly left the room. Focusing now, Jara could feel a slight breeze over her whole body. She could feel a void in the bed beneath her spin, with a clamping pressure on either side. Air circulated across her chest, down to her navel, and all the way to her toes. Jara was suddenly aware just how naked she was.
The doctor returned shortly after holding a squeeze bottle of a gellied, electrolytic, electric green solution and carefully inserted a hose-like straw into Jara’s cracked lips. After a moment of hesitation, Jara slurped down a few good gulps– just enough to get a few words out.
“Am I naked?” Jara said, “where’s my suit?”
“You are indeed very naked,” the nurse said with a smile, “I’m Doctor Lina Logantr. And please don’t stress, I cannot emphasise enough the importance of you remaining still.”
“It’s… it’s cold,” Jara said, sheepishly.
“That’s good, that’s good!,” Dr. Logantr said, “that means you still have sensation down there. We were worried due to the state you arrived to us in.”
“Where am–?,” Jara said, coffing through the last of her breaking phlegm.
“You’re on Drassil, love. In the private hospital in The Emperor’s Palace.”
Jara’s eyes grew wide.
“I can see that’s not the answer you’d expected,” said Dr. Logantr. Leaning over her she brushed back her chin-length hair behind her ear. “The only thing I want you to focus on right now is resting and letting the nanites repair the damage done to you. Your suit and cryo-pod did an amazing job keeping you alive, but they weren’t very successful in preparing you for the long term. That’s where I come in.”
“Why are you helping me? Why here?” Jara asked.
“Answers will come, I promise. For now, rest.”
…
The next time Jara became aware, the back of her neck itched with an impossible fury. Without thinking much of it, she quickly scratched at it.
After several seconds of itchless ecstasy, Jara realised that her fingers, her arms, hell even her neck could move. She shot up in bed and inspected under her sheets.
“Clothes,” she said with a wave of relief.
Quizzically, she probed the back of her neck with her fingertips. It was subtle but it was there, a thin seam-like scar that ran the length of her spine all the way to her tailbone.
Jara let out a sigh and laid back into the plush pillows of the hospital bed.
This wasn’t like any hospital she’d ever seen before. Looking around, walls and ceiling were decorated with fabulous murals from a history that Jara hadn’t the slightest idea of. The walls also had expensive and gaudy looking tapestries, with sculptures and busts every few metres.
Her room back on Valrakee Station wasn’t even a tenth this size, nor was her family’s entire apartment. A tear suddenly pushed its way out as she remembered. Rolling over, another soft pillow welcomed and nestled her face as she sobbed muffled to herself until morning.
…
Voices outside her room early the following morning woke her next, more in the same Drassili accent of Dr. Logantr.
“She’s stable?” asked a man in a deep voice.
“She’s awake,” said a distant Dr. Logantr, “But please be gentle. The poor thing has been through a lot.”
“Whatever her condition,” said a third, squeak of a man, “if she can speak, we must know.”
Into view walked an overly dressed, emotionless man in gaudy robes, his greyed hair tied back into several top knots with an almost painful constriction.
Behind him, an unassuming, smiling man followed wearing a neat dress suit that stood in stark contrast to his wild navel-length beard and matching mop.
“Daughter of Odin! You’re doing well I see,” said the smiling, bearded man, using an oddly dated expression.
“Speak, girl,” hissed the other man with a disregard that made Jara’s brow curl.
“That’s no way to speak to a lady, Jarl Gand,” said the smiling man, unphased by the other man’s lack of tact.
The smiling man leaned in to her, his beard brushing over her forearm.
“I’m Bael,” he said, sweetly, “Jarl Bael Kagawa. I apologise for my fellow Jarl. He has no idea how to talk to children, or to anyone really.”
“She’s seventeen, Black Dog,” said Jarl Gand, “hardly a child.”
“Jara here has been in cryo-rest for two years. To her she probably still feels fifteen,” said Jarl Kagawa to which Jara felt herself nodding along.
“Black Dog?” Jara asked.
“A nickname,” said Jarl Kagawa. “You can call me Bael if you like. And, this is Eiormhen. And, well, you already know Lina.”
“I haven’t met a Jarl before,” she admitted, though recognizing the term as someone in charge of large colonies or cities within The Odeen sphere.
“I bet not, since there’s only a few of us. Your station didn’t have one, from what I’ve read,” said Bael.
“Yes yes,” interrupted Jarl Gand, “I’m sure this girl’s life story is rich with detail. What I care for is what happened aboard Valrakee Station. It was quite the talk of the Stj?rnrike when the news first broke.”
“You… you haven’t found it?” asked Jara.
“Unfortunately not,” answered Jarl Gand, “otherwise we would not be in here questioning you. Think girl. You must recall something!”
“Sirs, might I remind you that Jara has been through quite an ordeal?,” Dr. Logantr interjected, "She's still recovering.”
Bael’s brow furrowed and he stood to face Jarl Gand.
“You’re not going to get anything pressing her like that, Eiormhen,” he said, baring teeth. “Be civil or I’ll throw you out of here.”
“You couldn’t,” Jarl Gand said with a wave. “Well, if civil is what it takes then… Jara is it?”
Jara nodded, sending blinding pain from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.
“Good,” Jarl Gand said, dismissing or not noticing her pain, “can you share any details– anything at all about the events of that day leading up to the station’s disappearance?”
Jara looked first at Dr. Logantr, then at Jarl Kagawa. Dr. Logantr’s expression was firm yet awash with worry. Jarl Kagawa’s on the other hand was kind, the bared teeth he’d only just threatened Jarl Gand with now listed in a smile. A smile with such an unwavering sincerity that reminded Jara of her father’s.
“Go ahead,” Jarl Kagawa said.
“I don’t know, really,” Jara said as she began recounting events, “it was my birthday…”
Jara continued to describe the events of that day; her spacewalk with Jonothen, the crash of the troop transport, the valiant last stand of the berserkers, and finally her father sending her off alone in a cryo-pod.
When Jara was finished her eyes were blurry with tears as she fought to stifle any blubbering in the presence of the Jarls.
“Dear, oh dear,” said Jarl Kagawa, and Jara noticed he was gripping her hand firmly and had been for some time. “An ordeal for someone so young to see so much.”
“We’ve seen worse, Black Dog,” Jarl Gand said flatly, “and that’s all? You remember nothing about your attackers– about the current location of the station?”
Jara shook her head, “Sirs, it’s been two years. You’ve heard nothing from them? No survivors?”
“Afraid not,” said Jarl Kagawa, “the station went dark shortly after the attack began. Any and all perimeter buoys were equally subdued. No– as far as we know the station was not destroyed, but taken along with all hands. You were among the only wreckage left behind.”
“Pappa…” Jara said, turning her head away from the three to hide in her pillow. Jarl Kagawa loosened his grip, letting her hand go as she folded herself back into the pillow.
“Well, then. This was pointless,” spat Jarl Gand as he turned to leave. “I’ll let you break the news to the Emperor.”
Jarl Kagawa nodded and stood.
“Come now. Let’s leave young Jara to rest,” he said, following Jarl Gand out of the large room.
Dr. Logantr, thankful to have the space to breathe, sat on Jara’s bedside.
“I know you don’t want to hear this now, love,” she said, brushing the hair from Jara’s face, “but you’re safe now. You’ll be taken care of here, you’ll see. Just rest, and soon we’ll find a place for you.”
Jara looked back at her with one eye still hiding beneath the pillow. The doctor was kind, and she was safe. She thought back to the day she lost her father – that horrible, tremendously terrible birthday that lasted two years. She knew now that memory would follow her forever; those screams of whatever horrors took her father, the battle hymns of the berserkers as they fought in vain. But none of it mattered any more, those horrors couldn’t touch her this deep in the seat of The Stj?rnrike.
She was safe.
Dr. Logantr stood to leave and Jara slumped back into her pillow.
