Unit 37: Rescue at Kilter Field

Chapter 2

The young lady in front of Bri's capsule smiled. "Take a deep breath," she looked down at the data tablet in her hand and made some adjustments to the holographic mechanism.

Bri closed her eyes and sucked in a chest full of the tinny-tasting air. She tried to focus. Tried to relax. She felt her shoulders relax anyway, but it seemed impossible. It's not easy to relax when you're about to be sealed into a glass cylinder, put to sleep, and then launched past light speed to...somewhere she had never heard of.

"Is this your first time?"

Bri wanted to speak but the mask that covered her nose and mouth didn't allow it. She nodded.

"Alright, well, it's going to feel odd for a moment, then the next thing you know you'll be waking up." She touched the tablet and a clear panel swiveled into place, sealing the cylinder closed with a quiet hiss.

Bri's heart jumped when she heard the pneumatic seal. A little streak of panic ran through her. But it wasn't like her to be afraid. This was scary but there was still a sense of adventure. After all, she was about to be launched across a star system while she took a nap. But something deep inside of her, something evolutionary, was afraid. She wanted to scream. She wanted to yank the emergency handle and run, but she got a grip.

She had already watched one conscript try. It took less than a minute for two much bigger soldiers to grab him. Then the doctor sedated him and they sealed him in his hypersleep chamber anyway. She took another deep breath and tried to think of anything except where she was and what was happening. The taste of the air was like she had been working in the yards, digging through the piles of metal scrap before it went to the smelter.

She closed her eyes and thought of her mom's face, the look in her eyes. Her little sister's hug, the way her arms squeezed around her, like if she could hold on tight enough, maybe none of this would happen. Then she thought of her last kiss. The dress she had worn to dinner, red, long and slender. She thought of the way his eyes...she opened her eyes and the doctor was staring at her through the glass. There was a gentle hiss, this one closer, somewhere around her feet maybe. And everything went dark.

When she opened her eyes, the hypersleep chamber door had already swiveled open. She looked around. Her head felt like it was full of water, sloshing around. Not everything was clear. But there were other chambers, maybe twenty or thirty all neatly lined up along the walls in curving rows. Two were open and empty.

There was no one in them. Her thoughts slowly came together. The people were gone. She realized she could get out, her cylinder was open. She looked around just as the room's door opened and a NewT soldier walked in.

He was taller than Bri by almost three inches and stronger, a lot stronger. She thought of the gentle curve her body had now. Would they chisel her the same way, turn her into something strong and lithe? But then she saw the adjunct, the exoskeletal augmentation. She had seen the tech on the video feeds, the new bio-mechanical extension the New Terran scientists had come up with, but it was the first time she had ever seen one up close.

Her eyes moved along the black metal that ran along his forearm. It was thin, maybe half the width of your little finger, connected to a circular joint of some sort, and then on up to his shoulder. She met the marine's eyes and realized that he had caught her staring at him.

"Lladron," he looked over at the chamber she had just stepped out of.

"Yes?" Bri stared at his fingers, the way the black metal ran along each appendage, like a fustidiam vine. But why was it on just one arm?

"You're to report to shuttle A42." He glanced at his wristcall - a data tablet that wrapped around his forearm. "This way." He turned on his heel and Bri followed him down one corridor and then another, passing sailors in light armor, a few engineers, and a small group of marines, none outfitted with exo's. It was like the ship they were on was not a military vessel, but something else, a regular transport maybe, but being manned by soldiers and civilians?