Forgotten Station

A Story by silent tempest

I write spontaneously, without reading what I've written and wihtout stopping. Influenced by ambient music and something what crossed my mind. In this case an interrupted cryo sleep.

Part I

The lid popped off and the cold water fell to the ground, wetting the shiny metal floor. The girl fell a moment after. Crushed to her knees unable to breath. Her mask didn't drop as it should have done. She had to tear it from her mouth. Then she could finally breath. Inhaling the air felt good in the beginning but then she began to taste and smell the rotten flesh. One of the cryo chambers which were put in a circle was cracked and the poor soul within died probably unknowing it's own death.

She stood up and looked around herself, still dizzy, she almost fell again, but she caught the edge of terminals display and gain balance. One of the cryo chambers was missing and there was a door instead. She walked to them limpidly and soon discovered that the door were broken. She tried to manually override the locking mechanism, but it didn't work. She opened a hatch of the cleaning system and dropped down. She crawled there in the wet and slippery shaft. She reached another hatch and opened it. She appeared on crossroad of cleaning end ventilation shafts. She changed into the dry one, but the ground was rusted so she had to crawl cautiously.

She was now in a dark room and couldn't see a thing in there. She found the switch of the lights and turned them on. A bright glow blinded her for a while and as she was recovering she began to see the room. It was all white with a table in the middle. The room was square with doors in between two glassed panels which served as observatory windows. The room was clean and the air had no smell. The only thing she smelt was the remaining odour of the rotten body and her own sweat.

The door slid upside as she opened them. She was now standing in a narrow corridor wearing just shorts and a tank top both white of colour. As she was cold here n*****s turned hard and were clearly visible. She wiped her long and from the cryo sticky black hair and turned right. She walked trough the gray passageway with the same white rooms on both sides, there were about 20 of them before she reached the end where she found a bathroom. She went inside and took a shower. The water was cold, but she had to take off the cryo gel. When she got out and dried her self the power went out. Suddenly she heard a sound. A kind of beeping and buzzing she never heard before. She looked into the passageway and saw a pair of about three heads taller green creatures walking trough the door. They stopped next to the room she left the vent. Her heart started beating rapidly and she hid behind the door.

“I must get to the bridge,” she thought shivering with fear.

Part II

She put her clothes back on and slowly reached the door at the end of the corridor. They were locked, but she used her fingerprint as a key. The control light turned from dim red to green and the door opened sideway making a lot of rusty noise. They must have heard that, she thought as she ran trough another corridor. This was a wide one, full of grey crates scattered in disorder, each with different mix of numbers end letters. Some were even in languages Evelyn didn't understand. She heard noise behind her and took a quick look. She saw the alien, tall, dark green skin wearing shiny black clothing of some kind. Its eyes were bigger than the ones of a human and gold-yellow, so bright almost like they saw trough her. The creature was holding something which Evelyn thought of a gun, so she ran even faster.

She got to the end of the hall and had a choice, either climb up trough the service ladder and get to the bridge using the vents or try the speed lift. They won't work, but I have to try it.

She pressed a button, but nothing happened. She pressed it again and again. Her breath was returning to normal and heartbeat getting slower. A quick look behind her only to find both the creatures still standing in the door to the cargo bay. Come on, work you piece of junk.

She heard the buzz and cracks again as she was fast climbing up the ladder. What are those things? What do they want and why didn't they shoot at me? Was it really a gun? Evelyn asked herself as she was making her way trough the ventilation system. It was dry and the air pumps were still in motion so she could breath the freshened air. Crawling like some mole again, at least in a breeze.
When she reached the end of one vent she turned left and continued her way, luckily there were pointers to the bridge so she knew the way.

“Asimo, you there?” she asked in her head.

“System malfunction, please find a repair technician immediately,” a synth voice told her. It was broken, changing from one frequency to another instead of reanimating normal human voice. Where is my AI when I need it?

She was getting tired of the constant climbing and crawling, but she didn't stop. She was scared to death from those invaders and she still didn't know where she is or what had happened to the crew.

Maybe they're friendly and I could reason with them, she thought when pushing the final lid. It was stuck so she had to kick it off. The plate metal dropped to the floor with a heavy sound which resonated trough out the whole room.

The bridge of this ship was round. The wall was made out of glass so that the captain could see the ongoing battle. There was a huge round table in the middle for tactical hologram of the ship and it's surroundings. Everything in here is dead. She walked towards the main terminal and tried to turn it on. It didn't work, but there was an emergency one which still had power.

Aytako systems booting …

Was displayed in bright blue to cyan on the black background of the terminal. She heard and saw all the panels come to life. Almost everything was blinking red.

Systems booted. Waiting for input.

She had to write the commands manually, no amenities of voice or mind command. At least the terminal had a simple virtual intelligence. 'Show Crew Status' Evelyn entered and saw a lot of lines.

Each consisted of a name a service tag and health status shown in percentage.

Oh my god, so much zeros, she thought and felt her heart turn into stone for a while, she put her arm on her chest and took a deep breath.

Scrolling trough the list of deceased she found herself with 95%. But she wasn't the only one. There were three more signs distinct from null. One was known to her, George Carsky F64ED92 75%.

The other one was the captain with only 2% left and the last one was someone called Gunnar with 61%. She typed a command for emergency wake up and hoped that she didn't kill them.

Really? Only four survivors, probably just three, out of seventy hundred?