The Surface of Steinhull, Research Black Site Ovaettr ruins, Cryo Null
Sinn'Are'Sen passes through the hatch into the shattered remains of they cryosleep compartment where he had been found just over twenty one years ago. Just as his adoptive mother's exploration log indicated the compartment was long dead. The cryosleep tubes were, with a singular exception, cracked and empty. The lights were broken, the displays dark, the air carries the faintest hint of moving air.
“Alright Dara Tonn, last compartment for me. I'll put in the official exploration log entry as a voice-over over the recorded footage and audio, but this compartment... I'll want a personal record of it.”
“Easy enough to do Sinn. I'll stash a copy in the 'to be edited' pile along with everything else from today and I'll route one to your personal communicator.”
“Thanks Dara Tonn. Ready?”
“Ready.”
“Begin recording.”
Sinn walks further into the compartment, letting the light form the earpiece mounted camera play over the stains on the deck plates. He diverts over to one of the broken cryosleep tubes and looks inside.
“No body or remains. Cryosleep fluids stains all over the deck plates though. I think that the occupants of these tubes 'slept' in the nude.”
“Alert: audio distortions present in audio feed.”
“Sound check. Sound check. Sound check. I hear it on this end as well. It almost sounds like the sound is echoing strangely off of the cryosleep tubes, but I can't rule out a psionic phenomena. I'm activating Psyniscience to check... I can 'see' faint atmospheric disturbances concentrated around the cryosleep tubes. That might be the cause of the audio phenomena. Odd to see it so localized instead of filing the entire compartment however. It is not present in the one intact slash open tube. The one I was recovered from if my adoptive mother's exploration log is correct.”
+ It is. +
“Did you say that RSC-2W-0063?”
“Negative.”
“Can you hear it?”
“Negative.”
“Damn. Who's there?”
+ John Nixios, former Senior Doctor for the Empire, at your service. Can you actually see me? +
Sinn turns to look about the compartment for the source of the voice. He sees the ruined space suits, more akin to form fitting body suits, crumpled on the deck by 'his' cryosleep tube. Two spectral human figures in matching bodysuits stand atop the fallen suits, one male and one female. They are partially transparent and appear in gray scale, as if the color was leached out along with their physical forms.
“I can, along with your female colleague. I doubt that you are actually in this compartment however.”
+ If you mean our actual bodies then you are correct. They are no more. +
+ Flesh and organ and bone are indeed gone John, but our cybernetics still remain. I told you flesh is weak. Pardon me for not introducing myself. I am Aubrey Inez-Plath. Former Senior Doctor, in service to the Empire.+
“ I am Sin'Are'Senn, Psion and second-wave scout of the Republic. It is good to meet the both of you, even if you are no more then psionic phenomena. Were you the ones to place me in cryosleep?”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
+ Veil Ghosts you mean Sinn'Are'Sen? And yes, Aubrey performed the cryosleep procedure after I finished installing your memory module and Healing you. The memory module and Healing were routine procedures but the cryosleep procedure was... +
+ What john is trying to say is that neither had been performed on an infant, much less successfully performed on an infant. Given your void born genetic heritage I calculated that you had a decent chance of surviving the cryosleep process. +
“Void born? Is that why I don't look like the rest of humanity?”
+ Care to take this one John? You are better with the biological stuff then I am.+
+ Certainly. It's fairly simple Sinn'Are'Sen. The star ships and orbital stations of the Empire always have at lease some biologic crew even if the vast majority are, or rather were, 'men of iron'. Heavily augmented with cybernetics to the point that their humanity was only a technicality. The purely biologic crew tended to live on ships for their entire lives, dealing with all sorts of things including the natural consequences of intercourse. The resulting children down the generations took on certain physical attributes. Hair, skin, and eyes all adapting to low light 'power saving' conditions. Naturally high kinesthesia – awareness of ones own position - resulting in an aptitude for low and high gravity maneuvering was also quite common. +
“So the Republic's reliance on cryosleep for long duration means that these traits would be lost over time.”
+ Exactly. Faded back into the average for the general body of the population. I see that the prevalence of psions has not lessened any. +
“Given that my life has been anything but normal by Republic standards I wouldn't know. Why did you put me in that cryotube anyway?”
+ I'll take this one John. It wasn't exactly obvious to the average person in the Empire, but to those of us with the connections to know better the signs were, with hindsight, rather blatant. The rate at which psionic phenomena was slowly rising Empire wide, the increasing strain between internal factions, the increasing bureaucratic breakdowns, failures in communication... Out here on Ovaettr station all seemed well aside from some rumors. Until the evacuation warning came down.
+ Uprisings and / or invasion in the core sector. All Empire military formations were being recalled. It was to just be use doctors, our staff, and the maintenance team out here. My specialties, cybernetics and cryosleep, meant I had good connections with the maintenance crews. I installed a lot of their hardware myself instead of leaving it to the 'surgical specialist' hacks for example. One of them tipped me off that strange things were happening in the proximity of Genemaster Mekhane. Lots and lots of extra maintenance work, components failing thousands of hours ahead of expectations, so on. I checked my records and found no personnel injures were reported, despite my patient indicating that injury and loss of limb was becoming common. This was the first indicator that I actually noticed that not all was well out here on Ovaettr station.
+ A week later all the troops evacuated. Two days after that John went missing. I went looking and found him in Surgery Bay Five. +
“Installing the 'memory module' in my head.”
+ Exactly. +
“Why?”
+ I was fed up with a lot of things to be honest. They way the Empire had just up and abandoned us. The propaganda. The ever more prevalent psionic phenomena and Astral Veil ruptures. Above all else I wanted a record to survive. Everyone was tracked, and Genemaster Mekhane had access to all of the records. It was mad by this point, I suspect actually possessed, and rumors were flying that it planned to take over Ovaettr station. Given the choice of being turned into a cyber-thrall or death... I chose to roll the dice on an unrecorded, and thus unknown individual, surviving the coming chaos in cryosleep. To carry a record forward. Once you were in cryosleep, I had to erase my tracks. I still wish Aubrey had not found me. +
“You mean you had to die to conceal what you had done.”
+ We both had to die. It was certainty a cleaner end then cyber-thralldom or possession. +
“Do you know who raided Ovaettr station and killed all of the security automata? Or what caused the station to crash into Steinhull?”
+ No. Do you John? +
+ Not a clue. Must have been after our time. I am glad to see that my plan succeeded after a fashion. +
“I think I have some of it worked out, but not all of it. Others will be coming in the near future to find out more. Will you two be staying around? I'm sure they will have questions.”
+ My plan is a success and my work is complete, so I'll probably be fading away. Aubrey? +
+ My body is long gone, but my cybernetics and memory module remain. Take it for analysis. Perhaps I can be reborn as an AI for your ship, if the components are still compatible.”
“I kind of like my current AI, but the hull isn't going to last forever. What about a human form instead? It's what I have planned my the AI after the hull is set for scraping.”
+ ...I'd like a hand in designing the body. This Republic seems a decent enough government to work for. +
“I'll try to arrange that, but fair warning you are going to hate the amount of paperwork. Goodbye Jaohn Nixios.”
+ Goodbye Sinn'Are'Sen. Be well, whatever path you may walk. +
“End recording.”
“Clean copy. What the hell was that about.”
“Two old ghosts. You might even get to meet one of them someday.”