Ancient Astronauts

The Prisoner

Alyonna was jolted out of her reverie by the cell door opening. The warmth of Hans' memory cooled to ice, and she shivered. She must've been lost in nostalgia for a while because the rest of the precinct was empty. Her belly twisted with fear.

"On your feet, prisoner," the man on the left ordered. The other withdrew a pair of handcuffs.

Trying not to cry, Alyonna stood up.

"Turn around."

She did so.

The one with the handcuffs pushed her against the wall and kicked the back of her leg, causing her to lose her footing for a moment. She bit back a squeal of fright to avoid incensing them. Her hands were cuffed behind her back, and she was marched out of the cell.

"Where are we going?" She asked, her voice trembling.

They didn't answer.

Several agonizing minutes later, the soldiers opened a large door. This one, strangely for a spaceship, made of wood.

She found herself in a courtroom and breathed a ragged sigh of relief.

The judge, a woman in her mid forties, looked at her over the top of a set of small crystal spectacles.

She shuffled some papers around then demanded, "Alyonna Marian Standing?"

"Yes, your honor," Alyonna replied, trying not to shift too much and feeling under-dressed for the second time that day.

"Alyonna Marian Standing, you stand accused of failing to disclose compromising medical information to your cryogenics team and accessing a restricted area. How do you plead?"

Alyonna's eyes flashed. Furious, she exclaimed, "By 'compromising medical information' do you mean the fact that I'm carrying a baby, possibly one of the first who will be born in a new world? That I accessed an area where my fiancé, the CAPTAIN of this ship, was lying wounded and possibly dying? Are these what I stand accused of?"

"Yes," the judge replied without looking up from her paperwork. She adjusted her spectacles then went on in a bored tone, "We'll accept that as a full confession."

"What!?" Alyonna burst out, "Where's my lawyer! I have a right to an attorney! And a jury!"

The judge looked at Alyonna for a full thirty seconds then answered, "In the United States you do. If you'd like to go back there to stand trial we can put you in a shuttle. It'll only take about two thousand years and you won't have cryo. Honestly, it would save me some paperwork."

Alyonna fell silent.

"No?" The judge sighed, "Pity," and went back to her forms. "As you must've known when you failed to disclose your condition Ms. Standing, the Astral Ark does not have enough food or supplies for the one hundred and fifty thousand people it transported for more than a few weeks. That's one of the reasons it was manned only by a highly specialized skeleton crew and everyone else went into cryo. As near as we can tell, it will take a full year to get to the point where everyone can meet their complete nutritional needs every day, and that's if we supplement foraging and farming efforts with what we already have. The cryogenic fluid would also only last until we arrived. It is depleted. Do you acknowledge that you knew this?"

Alyonna couldn't deny it, it had been on the medical disclosure form. "No, I don't deny it."

"Very well, I find you guilty," BANG, went the gavel.

"So, Ms. Standing, you are found guilty and must resolve the issue. Sadly, we cannot feed you both and while we would hate to lose a valuable cryogenicist and astrobiologist we do still have laws. So, Ms. Standing, you have a choice. You or the baby."