BETH

Hibernation pods failed in numerous ways. The longer a subject slept, the greater the risk. Some choked out because the oxygen dispenser failed. Some died of heart attacks. Some died of a lack of nutrients and water. Some were put down too deep and never awakened. Some froze to death when the cells would for some random reason not saturate themselves enough by the anti-freeze fed into the body. And those who managed to wake up ran the risk of manifesting hibernation disease, also called turning insane. Hibernation sleep halted the subject from ageing and the perceived travel time made instant. In conclusion, the dangers were minuscule compared to the benefits.

Beth opened her eyes slowly. Trapped in a coffin. Breaths were short and fast as she felt the panic. Light seeped through the frosted lid and with frantic fingers she searched the coffin’s inside. Her body naked and submerged in a translucent liquid, goosebumps formed on her skin. Something covered her mouth and nose. There was panic and she tried to yank out the mouthpiece, but it was strapped tightly around her head. Why was she in a hibernation pod? Mom’s death was the last thing that happened, the memory gave her nausea. Ice crystals cracked. The coffin opened. The inside sensors must have recognized her awakened state. Beth sat up in the thick liquid, the mouthpiece disengaged and pulled itself back into the coffin. As she positioned herself she noticed a similar hub, for tubes and cables, hooked up around her crotch. She clawed at it, but it didn’t budge. Her fingers couldn’t get underneath its seams. The instinctive panic cooled as rationality returned slowly. She had slept in a hibernation pod once before, a long time ago, but it still disgusted her. The crotch piece disengaged and pulled back. How far in had those tubes been? Translucent liquid splashed over the sides when she grabbed the pod’s sides.

“Hmm,” Beth mumbled and stretched her back, every vertebra made a satisfying pop.

Clearly, she was not meant to be awake. The hibernation pod’s light was too weak to reveal her location. This place didn’t smell the facility’s disinfectant; instead there was a stale, almost musty smell. Like a room which had been closed for too long without proper recycling of air. She carefully stepped out from the pod, the metal floor cold on her naked feet. Hands gripped the edge of the pod so she would not slip and fall. Gravity felt like Earth standard. Her stomach growled loudly. She steadied herself and prodded the darkness with a hand. Fingers touched something cold and smooth. Another pod perhaps?

Lights lit up and blinded her for a moment.

A cargo container! Nine additional hibernation pods were aligned in two rows and clothes hung in both short sides of the container. Beth grabbed one of the full-body overall and stepped into it. She also put on a pair of sneakers, which lay neatly underneath each rack of overalls. Away from the cold metal her feet warmed slowly up. They prickled at first, but after those initial moments she felt blessed.

Feeling more confident, with clothes on, she investigated the pods. She froze. Tom! Still and calm in blissful sleep. He had helped her during her escape attempt! He had thrown one of the guards away. Beth walked around the other pods. A familiar woman. The bitch with the ice power, who had tried to stop her escape! Beth felt tempted to shatter the lid and kill the woman, but decided not to. Why was Beth awake and not any of the others? Her strength functioned mentally too, it could have fought against the induced sleep on its own. She walked over to Tom’s pod again. Should she wake him? Not right away. She wanted to investigate further and he might be harmed if she tried it on her own.

Beth’s fingers moved along the container walls. The familiar sweet taste rushed into her, feeling invigorating. She had yearned for more. Muscles itched with excitement. Skin flowed into metal. Fingers slammed into the container wall as if it was a soft pastry. She pulled apart the wall and created an opening big enough. The outside was cold, but not nearly as stale. She stepped outside.

The space was gigantic, faint light lit up its entirety. Countless more cargo containers filled up the area. Why in the hell was her hibernation pod in a cargo container and storage area? Had she been stored for posterity? Like a lab rat? If she had been in starship she would sleep and awake in a hibernation bay. With personnel to help her wake up, with medical drugs and physical therapy. And something warm to drink! It was all wrong.

“Down to the floor! Face down! Now!” A man yelled, Beth turned to the voice.

Five combat suits approached with their weapons trained on her.

“On the floor!” they yelled.

Beth raised her hands. “I am unarmed. Calm down.”

“Down!” They yelled and stopped paces away from her.

Her skin was still turned into metal, she had forgotten about that. But she could not flow her skin back to normal, what if the goons shot her? She kneeled, slowly. Hopefully the metal skin would withstand lasers.

“Get out of the suit!” They yelled.

“My skin!” Beth said. “It is not a suit. It’s my skin.”

“Out of the combat suit!” They yelled. “Now!”

The combat suits surrounded her, a few strides away. No way to flee.

“It is not a combat suit! Calm down! It’s my skin, assholes!” Beth said. She lowered her hands to point out that it could not be a suit. How stupid of her.

They fired. The red beams impacted. But the pain never flared, instead she felt spots of heat across her body. Attack, the only option. She sprung forward, but her punch went wide and she stumbled. A metal gauntlet slammed down on the back of her head. She turned around and swept with the back of her hand. Two combat suits were launched backwards.

“I don’t want to hurt you!” Beth yelled.

The remaining three didn’t care, their weapons fired without pause. Beth leapt forward and slammed into one of them. The combat suit’s weapon crushed underneath the force of her hands. She grabbed the suit’s arms, holding them down, but the faceplate of a helmet slammed into her. Dazed, her grip eased. Before the helmet came down into her face again she twisted and threw the combat suit away. Far.

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“Stand down!” Beth yelled. “I don’t want this!”

Beams pounded her with warmth. Metal skin held, but more and more warmth seeped through as fatigue grew. This couldn’t go on, she had to end it. She leapt to the next combat suit, grabbed and twisted the weapon until it snapped. They both fell. Her fingers squeezed into the suit’s metal. She heaved and rolled, coming over and straddled the soldier. With the advantage she held his arms down. She sucked at the sweetness in her mouth and slammed down her forehead at the suit’s helmet. The helmet dented and cracked. She pulled her head back, preparing to slam it down again. A gauntlet grabbed her face and shoved the muzzle of weapon right against her head. The soldier would fire until her head pulverized.

“Stand down!” A new voice yelled. “Cease fire, lieutenant! Why did you not answer my commands?” The man in uniform looked small compared to the lieutenant’s combat suit.

Beth still straddled the downed combat suit while another shoved her head against the muzzle of his weapon. She did her best to look friendly, hands up and a nervous smile.

The uniformed man walked up to her with a hand terminal in his hands. “I am sorry. They didn’t know what you were. I am Admiral Harris and this is the starship Au-delà. We didn’t know that you were with us,” Admiral Harris said and shook her hand.

Beth willed her powers away, the sweetness retreated, strength dissipated and her skin flowed back to normal skin. But her newly acquired overall was scorched and hung in rags on her. Admiral Harris seemed like a friendly person, he had made the soldiers stop shooting at her. But she didn’t trust him and kept a slight grip on her powers, able to re-summon them in a moment’s notice. Sweetness trickling on her tongue.

“Well. I tried not to hurt them. Not too much at least,” Beth said. The two she had backhanded had their combat suits cracked across the middle. The third’s faceplate was fractured. The fourth’s helmet lay shattered on the floor, but the man inside looked alright. The fifth was unharmed. All five stood up again.

“Your files were not visible in the system until just now. The movements you made triggered an alarm and my soldiers engaged you, this was moments before the files had been decrypted,” Admiral Harris said. “You must be hungry. You have been asleep for fifteen years, ever since we left the Solar System.”

“Fifteen years? What?” Beth said.

She stumbled a step back. Her eyes widened and a headache bloomed. What? What?!

“Let’s eat in my private conference room. I will have medical and hibernation personnel wake up the others in your cargo container. We will sort things out,” Admiral Harris said.

“Fifteen years?” Beth mumbled. That would put them at least thirteen years outside the edge of the Solar System if the journey started from Earth.

Admiral Harris grabbed her by the shoulders and led her. “This way.”

-

The air quality and temperature improved immensely when they entered spaces in active use. Her stomach growled faintly in satisfaction. The protein pancakes filled her and the orange juice reminded her of all the time spent studying in a particular coffee shop back at Callisto. Good times, better times.

General Jacob Meyer had looked like a young, up and coming man, who would go far in his career. But Admiral Harris defined the old, the Navy veteran incarnate, forged in war. Eyes sunk back into wrinkled sockets. At least a hundred objective years outside hibernation sleep. In this day and age retirement was not permitted before ninety and the average lifespan reached a hundred and thirty. The room’s gravity of people changed when the Admiral entered. No one dared to orbit too close, the veteran might bite.

Admiral Harris had his absolute focus at his hand terminal, probably reading about her and the others. The other nine sleepers from the cargo container sat around the long table devouring food and coffee. A hibernation pod sustained a body’s nutrient and mineral needs, but would not fill the stomach like a real, proper meal could. The woman with ice powers stared at her with harsh eyes, but Beth ignored her. The bitch had tried to sabotage her escape attempt.

Tom, the boy with the telekinesis power, sat beside Beth. His chosen drink was apple juice. At eleven years old he was easily the youngest of the lot.

“So. People. I think you are ready to listen to what I have to say,” Admiral Harris said and put away the hand terminal. “We left humanity fifteen years ago with the mission to establish an outer hub, to help in deep space exploration. Our starship, the Au-delà, is a city builder. It will take many years before we make contact with the rest of civilization again. Then your lot happened to wake up in my ship. What should I do with you?”

The ice woman coughed. “Well. Firstly, you have no say about what we do. Secondly, if you try to force us to do anything we will kill you and your entire crew.”

Why did she use “we”? Why would this crazy woman assume that she was the leader of them?

Admiral Harris was confident. “Lisa Rand. A dishonorably discharged Navy special forces. I could guess that your anger would make you think just that. My crew, my soldiers are a hard ass bunch. If you lay your hands on me this section will be flushed into space with everyone in it. You ten and me. The ship has no problem replacing me. Redundancy is what we do,” Admiral Harris said. “Before you say it, no we cannot put you back into sleep right away. You need to stay awake for at least three months before re-entering to avoid complications.”

Beth sipped the last of her orange juice and hauled a new pancake up on her plate. “Admiral Harris, if your starship has that kind of redundancy, you could just lend us a smaller starship, with at least ten hibernation pods, so we can return home.”

“I have already considered that, but no. You are a terrifying bunch of people. Equipped for mass destruction. I am not letting you go anywhere, I might need you. We are in deep space, who knows what lurks here. Also, your files mandate my complete ownership of you,” Admiral Harris said.

Lisa laughed. “You don’t own anyone. I will make you into a popsicle.”

“Exactly. If the Russians send starships here, I can just throw you at them and you will fix the problem,” Admiral Harris said. “Without my crew being hurt. When one is as strong as you, Elizabeth, maybe we can use you to help us mine asteroids.”

“In the meantime, what will you do with us?” Beth asked. Even if she corrected him, she had a feeling that Admiral Harris couldn't care less.

“You all will be given private quarters, each equipped with a hibernation pod. You will all probably be put into sleep soon, for use in posterity after we have evaluated your destructive potential. Your quarters will be locked, so you cannot get out. If you try anything fancy, like tearing a hole in walls, your compartment with you still in it will be launched into space and vaporized from a safe distance. No exceptions,” Admiral Harris said and left the mess hall.

“He will be in a world of pain if he thinks that he can control us. He and the rest of humanity are ants compared to us. We are gods, we can do whatever we want. I will see to it that this Admiral Harris is taught a lesson,” Lisa said.

Tom broke his silence. “I think that Admiral Harris is much nicer than those other people. Saif was disgusting. Maybe now we can be helpful instead of being experimented on.”

“A fun joke, kid. Unless you know how the world works and which you don’t. Shut up and do what you are told,” Lisa said.

“Let him be, Lisa,” Beth said, standing up and putting an arm between Tom and Lisa.

“You naive, little thing. You couldn’t even escape. You are pathetic, bonebag,” Lisa said.

Beth snarled. “Did you even try?”

The mess hall’s door slid open and men in combat suits entered. “We are here to escort you to your private accommodations,” the leading man said.