I arrived at the stasis pods before I recovered fully from the shock of discovering to what extent my parents’ memories had warped my sense of self. I needed time to think about it, but time was one luxury I couldn't give myself yet. I needed hands to get Echidna fully operational, and the only hands remaining were encased in stasis gel.

Awakening teams generally include a doctor, close friends of the person coming out of stasis, and a telepath. Echidna didn't have a doctor, and our other telepath had other duties, so it fell to me. I really ought to pull my friends out first, not out of favoritism, but because I could cushion their shock better. Only one problem remained.

I didn't really have any friends aboard.

I stared at the Quick's pod for a while, trying to ignore the mess from my own shattered door. He wasn't my friend, but he might just be the closest thing I had. I didn't know exactly what to expect from the process but given the little training I'd had on stasis pods a brief telepathic prod should begin the process. When I started to receive something like responses, I could have Echidna dissolve the gel. Steeling myself for the worst, I reached out to gently wake my First.

Quick, wake up.

Less than a second later, his voice reverberated through my head, laced with impatience and relief.

Middle Grade First Officer Quick reporting for duty, sir.

***

After living through years of my father's memories, weeks of my mother's deaths, and my own waking reconstruction, I never thought words could panic me. Standing outside his stasis pod, my First proved me wrong.

Middle Grade First Officer Quick reporting for duty, sir.

I'd gone insane enough to order my essie to do an emergency rebuild after only a few minutes cooped up inside the stasis chamber. I had no idea how long I'd kept Quick waiting. Before I could think I scrabbled at the cover on the manual door controls. Halfway through overriding the locks, it occurred to me I didn't need them.

"Echidna! Open Middle Grade Cadet Tomas Quick's stasis pod!"

"I'm sorry, Captain. There is no such person aboard." My heart stopped for a moment. "There is a Senior Grade Cadet Tomas Quick in the stasis pod in front of you. Is he who you're looking for?"

My heart started again. When Captain DeLann died, her orders overriding standard Imperial protocols died with her. Echidna just defaulted back to what everyone knew. Quick was sixteen years old, so Quick was a Senior.

"So, get the door open!"

"Yes, Captain." The machinery holding the door closed began to vibrate, the frequency so low an unaugmented human might not be able to hear it. "You might want to step back."

Before I could ask why, I saw the interior of the pod. Stasis gel still filled it from floor to ceiling, its own weight forcing it through the cracks. It oozed through the door as it irised open, and only Echidna's warning and my augmented reflexes let me dodge the first spurt of goo. The sudden movement shot pains through my legs and back, but I could handle a little pain better than I could deal with a messy uniform. What that said about me I have no idea. Before things went any further, I contacted my First.

How long have you been awake in there?

His response, again, came immediately. I'm not, really. Half asleep. Been poking at my essie, working out some kinks in my augmentation plan. Had them get started on it, since I've basically been napping. He paused. Should I wake up now, then?

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I stared at the growing hill of stasis gel covering the corridor. I could just walk through it and drag him out.

Unlikely; power requirements for carrying Cadet Quick added to power requirements for shielding required to get through stasis gel exceed stored power.

Swearing silently at the sirens in my head, I confirmed their analysis of my augmented specs. I couldn't understand why they'd upgraded me in such a way I could barely move most of the time due to 'power constraints'.

'You will get me out of this box in under sixteen minutes, or I swear to God you will live just long enough to regret it'.

Having my own words fired back at me by the sirens in my head forced my teeth to grind, drew my lips and cheeks down in a scowl. Of course, Quick contacted me at just that moment.

What's wrong, Captain?

My gaze shot to the interior of the stasis chamber, where Quick's face had just come into view through the translucent, rapidly dissolving gel. I took a few moments examining him, trying to get a sense of how long we'd been trapped in stasis.

More than days, less than years. Organic processes slow unreliably, which makes any more accurate calculation impossible.

Great. I might be just past my sixteenth birthday, or I might be approaching my eighteenth. I might be a half dozen short jumps from home, or I might be on the far side of the galaxy. My heart raced, blood rushed through my ears, and my hands glowed.

Crew standing by. Please explain the nature of the emergency.

My essie's sirens cut through my incipient panic, better than any amount of water to my shielded face. Stand down. Just a panic attack. I grabbed at anything that might focus me, and my mantra slipped from tingling lips.

"I am not a coward. I am excellent."

"You're certainly looking better than when I saw you last, sir."

The stasis gel surged as Quick bulled his way through it, forcing it aside as he grabbed the sides of the doors and pulled himself into the corridor. Looking around, he grimaced at the mess.

"Sorry, ma'am. I'll get this cleaned up as soon as possible."

"That'd be swell!"

Quick's eyes went wide with surprise and voiced an unspoken question to me.

"Tiamat is gone. Something went wrong. Delnot is looking into it." Such a simple statement. Something went wrong. I am not a coward. I am excellent. I will not fall apart when my crew needs me.

"Who's left?"

I didn't trust my voice. Working on instinct, I reached out through my augmentation, pulled in the latest crew roster, bundled that with what I'd found out, and sent that block of information to Quick, much as my essie had handed me my own specifications. The data pulled from my mental 'grip' like air sucked out into vacuum, and my First frowned.

"Sir, I think I may be a better choice for the work with partitioning Tiamat's damaged memory cores from Echidna." Was that the faintest flicker of grief passing across his features? I couldn't tell. He hid it better than I did. "Cadet Delnot will be able to assist you with waking the crew out of stasis. I can't."

I saw the sense in his words, nodded agreement. "I'll want you with me on the first few, though. Telepath, Doctor, Friend, and at least with you we'll have two of three on those first few."

He nodded in return. "Looks like I'm not the only one who got started on augmentation while we waited." He smiled at me. "I'm glad you decided not to change the look."

I frowned, not at him, but at the memories his comment brought back. My own idiocy does that to me at times. "Thanks, I think. We need to keep going. Who do you know with a fair number of friends to work with?"

He stopped, thinking about it. "I think you know her, actually. Do you remember Denny Card?"

A moment's thought brought me an image of slate grey skin beneath cropped obsidian hair. "Captain of the dodge ball team we played against?"

"Yeah, that's her. I know her from my armoring classes, and she knows quite a few of the retreads... reincarnates... from her former Command career. She'll do nicely."

I nodded again. "Lead on, First."

"Echidna, please give us a guide to the stasis pod containing Cadet Denny Card."

No light sprang into being. Instead, Echidna's voice whispered in my ear. By the way Quick's eyebrows drew down, he could hear her nearly as well as I could.

"Captain, who is Tomas? I mean, what position does he hold?"

Despite my best efforts, I sighed, my eyes rolling a little. I'd never been good with Juniors, especially with neoincarnates.

"Tomas is your First Officer."

"Oh. So, my notes on him being in Armoring are wrong? Okay, I'll switch him over to Command."

"No, his specialty is Armoring. Leave that as it was."

"Okay then. Senior Grade Armoring Cadet Tomas Quick is now listed as my First Officer. Guide light coming up, sir!" With that, a thin red line sprang into being, tiny lights pulsing along its length. More impressive than Tiamat used to create, but Tiamat hadn't had a young AI's need to impress people. As I took my first step along that lighted path, the sirens whispered in my ear.

Power reserve failure. Shutting down all non-vital functions.

The glow disappeared from my peripheral vision, and liquefied stasis gel slopped onto my shoes.