I awoke to pitch blackness, at first, I thought this was just another pocket of awareness before I fell back to unconsciousness as I had had many times before. This time however it was different. I couldn’t remember anything about my past, not even my name. sometimes during my previous short periods of consciousness, I had flash backs of painful things, but I could never remember them afterwards, only the haunting pain stayed in my mind. Breaking my thought process were voices, muffled as they were I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Then light poured into my small space, barely big enough to turn my head away from the light. It hurt my eyes and I squeezed them shut.
“Holy crap there’s someone in here, what are we going to do with him?” said a male voice.
“Take him to the captain, she might want to make him her cabin boy or something.” Replied another voice.
“He’s really skinny.” Replied the first voice. After a few seconds the brightness dimmed, and I was able to look at those who had freed me and were probably also my future captors. Two men stood above my small pod, they were both about the same height, holding rifles and grinning under disheveled white hair. Their rifles weren’t aimed at me but instead at their sides, so I guessed they didn’t see me as a threat. I looked around my small pod, then at me. I was wearing a skin-tight jumpsuit made of a strange material, I noticed a name tag on my jump suit, but it only had a number. The number read 666, if I was 666 then there had to be 665 others like me. I slowly sat up, as I did lights flashed before my eyes. These lights gradually grew into focus, they were a heads-up display. Small areas on the bodies of the men in front of me glowed orange, and their weapons glowed an ominous blue. Upon closer inspections the small orange areas were in fact weak points. A particularly bright point on the crotch helped me figure that out.
“Well look who’s awake, He seems very alert for someone fresh out of stasis.”
“Your right Jenson he is pretty alert, let’s take him to the captain.” The men grabbed my arms and pulled me up easily, then they dragged me forwards since when I tried to walk I stumbled. After a small distance I took a few small steps, then I was able to walk on almost my full weight. I grinned and the two men beside me laughed.
“Someone’s proud of themselves, and you definitely have a right to be if you can walk after a few minutes out of stasis.” Said the one on my right. I nodded, and we kept going. After another few moments we stopped at a door and the one called Jenson turned to me with an apologetic look.
“I know we’ve been nice to you but don’t expect that from the captain, she’s one ruthless lady and she hates weakness.” He said to me. I looked myself over, I was skinny, and my ribs were showing through my chest.
“I’m screwed, aren’t I?” I said, speaking for the first time. It sounded strange to hear my own voice, I had never heard it before. It was gravelly with disuse, but it wasn’t bad. It was deep and that seemed to surprise the men beside me. Then they laughed hard and slapped me on the back at the same time with quite a lot of force. Then we walked through the door into what looked to be the bridge of this vessel. Large screens lined the wall in front, then there was a series of seats in front of consoles. And finally, on a raised circular dais looking over the whole room was a large and comfortable looking seat.
In this seat sat a woman in a black and red flight suit, she had blonde hair and an almost too perfect face. She looked at us as we entered, her face contorted into a sneer as she looked me over.
“Look what the dogs dragged in, why did you bring me this thing?” she asked.
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“Ma’am we found him in stasis around fifteen minutes ago, if he wasn’t something he wouldn’t be in stasis, right?”
“I suppose, but you say he was in stasis only fifteen minutes ago?”
“Yes ma’am, he could almost support his own weight nearly as soon as we got him out of the pod.” She leaned back in the chair.
“What is your name stranger?” she asked me.
“I don’t know, I don’t remember anything of my past.” I replied. “I don’t suppose you know who I am?”
“No, so now the question is what should I do with you?” she said with a thoughtful look.
“I could work for you.” I offered.
“And what could you offer my crew?” she asked skeptically. I focused on her and my vision zoomed in and highlighted four spots in blue. One was in her cleavage and looked like a small pistol, there were two long knives on her thighs and a very small pistol hidden in her left boot.
“Threat identification, and possibly more since I don’t know what other talents I might have.” I said with a grin.
“And how would you judge me?” she asked.
“One of the first I would terminate in a hostile situation.” I replied.
“And why is that?” The woman said in a threatening tone.
“You’re the one who appears the least threatening, but that’s not my real reason.”
“So, what is?” she asked me curiously, to which I responded with a smirk.
“One, that pistol between your impressive cleavage, two and three are the rather large knives on your thighs, and fourth is the small pistol hidden in your boot.” I said as I counted off on my fingers. She laughed, which I hoped was a good sign.
“Your hired and give yourself a name we need to call you something.” She said waved dismissively at us. The two men beside me motioned for me to follow them. I was walking under my own weight now, which I enjoyed as the exercise helped me stretch my minimally sore muscles.
“So, what do you want to be called?” asked the one called Jenson.
“How about Seer?” asked the other. I mulled over the name for a moment, letting the name roll of my tongue a couple times. Something was missing I was sure, but before I figured it out the other guy broke my chain of thought.
“That sounds more like a last name or a title, he needs a casual name.”
“Yeah your right.” Replied Jenson. “How about Jack?” I shrugged and said the name out loud.
“Jack Seer, I like it.” I said with a grin as we continued onwards. We went into a hangar, inside was a large surprisingly well-kept looking ship. The ship had a sleek design, it was shaped like a cone with winglets on the top and both bottom left and right. The hull was made of overlapping plates and underneath the edge of each plate was engines going full circle around the cone shaped hull. I didn’t see any visible weapons, but I was sure that was the point. We took a small lift to a set of catwalks on either side of the docking bay. I was guided towards the suspended walkway closest to us. Its creaking made me slightly nervous, but we didn’t stop until we reached an airlock door on the docked ship. Jenson walked up to the door and placed his hand on an almost invisible panel to the right of the door. A greed line moved up and down the pad, then the door slid open with a long hiss. We walked into a well-lit hallway, that was immaculately clean. We exited the airlock room, heading right at a T-section.
After a disorienting amount of turns we stopped in front of a door.
“Welcome to your new home sweet home Jake Seer.” Said the other guy. Jenson nodded and grinned. I tapped the console in the wall next to the door and it silently slid open. My new room was small, there was a bed against one wall and on the other, there was a closet. at the back of the room there was a door leading to a small bathroom. I nodded my approval and grinned.