Rebirth

The murmur intensified, driving itself deep into her subconscious, calling her name unrelentingly. Didn’t it understand? She just wanted to sleep"to melt back into cold’s embrace and ignore the voice’s summons.

 She was sitting crossed-legged inside the Terradome, the earthy smell of moist dirt permeating through the air while her fingers gently traced obsolete symbols across her knees. A whisper of wind, and the creature settled on a branch just above her head.

She slowly looked up, fierce green eyes fixed intently on the small intruder. It puffed up its flame-orange breast and matted, dark gray feathers, regarding her with beady, unblinking eyes and a round, cocked head. She was named after this strange being. But as she searched the deep recesses of her mind for its name, she was distressed to realize she couldn’t quite locate it...

 The murmur continued. Only this time, she reluctantly allowed it to drag her out of sleep. For a moment, she allowed her eyes to remain closed, taking in her surroundings solely with her other senses. She felt the numbing coldness of hypo-chronic sleep, the tightness of her clothes, and tasted the blandness of the sterile solution covering every inch of her body. The sudden assault it launched on her tongue made her spit it out, and she was relieved to hear a hiss as the cover slid away from her, releasing her from its coffin-like embrace.

She stood inside a cylindrical sleeping chamber, more or less, and as she took a step forward, placing her weight on her left foot, a sudden pain forced her to the metallic floor. She lay there, gasping for breath, trying to remember who she was.

The speaker besides her pod repeated the warm voice of her mother calling her twice more, then cut off, leaving a cold emptiness behind. It was then, in the silence broken only by her slow heartbeat, that it all come back"-the mission, the project, the Terradome"-she didn’t need to look at the steadily blinking monitor to know the flashing blue words:

 

[ Robin-1028, age 17. Saber Team Leader. 3^rd generation. Due for October Twenty-First, 3236-CT ]

 

            She noticed a blinking green button besides the hypo-chronic sleeping chamber, and sat up, cross legged, to investigate. The grooved floor made patterns against her flesh, but she rubbed her hands and they went away. A light touch revealed a deep storage compartment that slide out and gently bumped against her knee. Inside laid a neatly folded white towel which she used to dry her dark brown, shoulder length hair. She peered into the compartment again, pulling out a fresh set of clothes. Robin quickly stripped down, tossing the wet clothes back into the compartment.

Saber One took a second to admire her new outfit. It was complete with a personalized name tag, sporting an emblem of a saber that combined equal parts grace in design and viciousness in use. The small scintillating scales that composed the outfit seemed alive"somehow molding itself to her figure until it became a perfect fit. The collar fit snugly around her neck, not too tight, but the fabric on her back was too short"it pulled her shoulders together until she was forced to keep her chest out.

Out of annoyance, she deliberately hunched her shoulders. The fabric expanded, and the discomfort vanished. Black socks and heavy, comfortable boots were also in the drawer, and she put them on with ease. She was sitting up, in fetal position, and she discovered that when she tried to stand, a searing pain would attack her legs. She decided to gather her strength first before attempting to move around.

The dimly lit room that surrounded her was roughly rectangular in shape, with a low ceiling and a width only about eight paces. Everything about it whispered calculated efficiency, from the smooth angles to the grated walkway just wide enough for her to stumble forward from her pod without running against the opposite wall. Her attention now shifted to the glowing, light blue walls"seemly smooth and bare that, on second inspection, revealed moving, blurred figures moving rapidly on the other side.

Besides her, twenty-three other vertically arranged pods gave off a low, steady hum. She reached toward the dim monitor of the pod besides her, which pulsed on contact with her hand. A prompt appeared, asking her to wake the rest. Seeing no reason not to, she went ahead and gave the order. Then she quickly pulled herself up, placing a steadying hand against her own monitor to try and display a passable show of dignity by keeping her head up and chest out... but goddamn, it still hurts.

In perfect unison, the pod covers slide upwards, revealing the unhappy faces of Saber Team, most of which were crinkled in grimaces of disgust. Like dominoes, they took turns crashing forward in varying degrees of grace. Korr, two pods to the right of hers, retched onto the floor amid curses broken only by convulsive coughing fits.

Robin walked over and tried to help. He placed a calloused hand on her shoulder and pulled himself up. “Ahh, I’ll never get used to taste of this. Never again, I beg.” He said in broken Omnitongue. He had a surprisingly gentle touch for a man built like a bear. Robin had no doubt that had he wanted to, he could crush her with one hand.

“I think I liked you more when you were asleep.” Lune replied from across the walkway. She had wet, moon-silver hair that shone with a light purple hue"the reason behind her name"but was only two years older than Robin. She had changed, and now strode briskly towards the pair, walking with a sense of dignity that caused the other members to pause and regard her with curious"and some jealous"eyes.

She stopped in front of the pair and adopted a casual stance, wrinkling her nose and giving Korr a punch on the shoulder that sent him reeling backwards against his pod. She smiled innocently. “Oops.”

Lune nodded in Robin’s direction as Korr unleashed another string of curses, growling about rank and of the abuse he has to endure from her.  “Morning Robin.”

Robin nodded, looking down the length of the walkway at her team. “If I’m right, we’ll never have to do this again.” she told her second and third-in-command.

A brief pulse of energy illuminated the room. The blue wall facing their pods blinked and faded away, revealing the figure of a neatly trimmed man of forty-six flanked by ten unarmed men. The Lord of Thyvanix broke into a grin as Robin recognized him.

“Ah, Sabers, the time of truth will soon be upon us. We have exited CLAW (Calculated Leap Assembled Wormhole) Space. In a week, we shall arrive at the edge of the Womb of Mankind. In ten days, we sit at the designated coordinates of meeting with the other colonies. As the encounter has a high chance for violence, I have woken all the Warriors early so that you may familiarize yourself with the trials ahead. Find the old rhythm with each other that made you who you are. You are granted full access to the Ship.” He paused, surveying at each of them before continuing. “And remember, a team’s success is measured both by the strength of its hands and by the quickness of its mind.”

Saber sighed quietly as her uncle walked away"she wanted to ask him where her mother was"but his figure was soon obscured by the ten men following him. She turned around and began a quick assessment of her ragtag team. They were haphazardly arranged in a line, shoulder to shoulder.

Most of them had stopped fussing with their buttons and uniforms, preferring to stare at Robin and await further instructions, except for Efink, who wielded a comb and was attempting to subjugate a stubborn, jet-black cowlick. Ecnal, his twin brother, jabbed him under the arm. With an audible “oof”, he dropped his comb, which clattered under the grated platform. He fumbled for it in vain, and gave up as he noticed the exasperated faces of his friends. He straightened and made eye contact with Robin, but from time to time glanced backwards down at the comb lying under the grilled floor.

Robin pointed down the long hallway towards the Terradome.  Without a word, Saber team formed a surprisingly neat line and marched briskly forward, in the direction of the facilities that would be dominate their life for the next ten days.