#dark technology

[hindbodes]

I'm tired of feeling unsafe.

[auflander]

Truth

Clent startled awake, snapping a look around while feeling a few droplets of sweat rolling down his back as he scanned the barracks room. Nearly eighty of his shipmates rested in their suspended bunks, the only sound aside from breathing coming from a slightly rattling vent cover. He strained his ears to listen and could just barely hear other activities going on within the ship since the sound as transferred through the metal walls.

Rubbing his face with the edge of his blanket he rolled over o stare at the bottom of the suspended cot above him, the dim blue light meant as a 'air sterilizer' served better as a source of light for those to use to find the way to the head without resorting to a flashlight. His dream troubled him, it was the same one that he'd had for the past seven nights. The ship would be hit by something, fire, screaming, alarms blaring for evacuation. He'd make it to a door that would open and he'd be pulled into space and see the ship drifting away while he tried to reach and grab it. Cold choking, then he'd wake up.

With a low sigh he pulled his thin blanket back and slid to the side of his cot, legs swung down to drop to the floor. Pushing his blanket back into his cot he walked carefully to the bathroom to take care of a need. The floor felt icy under his bare feet with the rest of the air feeling just as cold as he walked back to his bulk. Grabbing the edge and readying himself to climb back in before a small vibration rippled through the floor a moment before the entire ship was jolted.

Immediately alarms sprang to life and the pleasant blue glow and peaceful near silence was replaced by strobe flashing red and amber lights while bright white emergency lighting clicked on, small lighted dots in the floor and walls lighting the way towards hallways and gear storage. Former sleeping bodies that had not been thrown from their bunks were caught in heaps of blankets and broken cable supports for the hanging bunks. The ship shuddered again while a groaning vibrated through the hull, the floor bulking as the deck plating rippled underfoot.

Whatever happened, the ship likely wasn't going to make it in one piece.

The barracks room door burst open from the torque of the hull walls. Sharp hissing could be heard from pressurized piping cracking and leaking. A plume of super chilled air condensed moisture into ice crystals. Shouts of confusion and orders barked out through the rooms and hallways. The ship shuddered again and pitched wildly throwing even more chaos as people bounced off walls and the ceiling before slamming back into the floor. Many not getting back up and those that did now nursing broken bones and leaking gashes. Lighting flickered, but the emergency trace lights remained, leading the way towards safety.

Clent rushed in a near blind panic towards the nearest rescue pod. The crush of people behind him pushing him along like a tsunami through the twisted mockeries of hallways of the stellar class interceptor. Slamming into a door, panic screamed out in Clent's mind, the same markings of the door in his dreams. He tried to push away, claw towards safety before the door burst inwards. He felt himself and maybe two dozen others being pulled now, hands and feet trying to slow the rush forward towards a gaping dark maw.

He screamed. The sound cutting hard against the howling rush of air before his voice was silenced in the same way the roar was cut short. With only last impact against a twisted floor plate, Clent spun into space, his hands grasping for anything to stop his trajectory. Behind him, the ship was barely in one piece, gaping holes torn through the hull, scattered pieces and bodies curving away by the second. The ship was venting all atmosphere, the process was causing the hulk to twist along it's long axis. Lighting inside and out flickered. Clent felt himself growing colder by the moment, his body was aching, feeling like it was both being crushed and pulled apart at the same time. Finally his vision faded darker and darker. Then there was nothing until a final aching stab in his brain before thoughts froze.

Clent rasped a heaving breath, his whole body felt like it was on fire yet it also felt cold numb. His joints ached and muscles so tired, but it was the sensation of feeling all of it as if it was being relayed to him through a third party. Coughing until his sides ached and lungs burned Clent heaved another breath, the icy air stabbing his lungs and sinuses like a million needles. His skin feeling now like a billion fireants were crawling and biting him before he spasmed more coughs. These breaths drawing warmer air into his lungs even while his heart hammered in his chest. The sound in his ears a screaming whine. Each breath drawn caused fewer and fewer coughing fits as feeling in his body became duller, the sensation of needles and spikes fading while the shrill sound in his ears faded to reveal a more steady distant tune that he was sure was a song that he couldn't place. There were voices that didn't match the music, coughing and retching cries or ache from elsewhere nearby.

Forcing his eyes open to regret it as they burned like having a thousand red hot soldering irons stabbed into his eyes while also having them washed with acid. Touching his face with his fingers felt like his fingers were burning and his face was on fire. He cried out again a raspy wet popping sound from his throat. Which hurt nearly as distractedly painfully as his eyes.

Clent felt himself check out, fainting from the pain or was it something else. Either way the desire to be unconscious came over him with a suddenness and all encompassing finality that took no argument.

Clent groaned as he rolled over, his body ached in the same way one would ache from having stayed in one position far too long. Joints complained about the movement before crackling like so much popcorn. Stiffness vacating from his spine and other joints while the sensation of blissful release helped rouse him from sleep. Blinking slow as he scanned the space. He could hear that it wasn't a terribly large space, but it wasn't confined either. He couldn't see much because of a very low powered violet colored series of floor level lights.

For a few moments Clent tried to think and fit the lighting and sounds to his memory of being in the barracks of the ship. sitting up quickly as the memory slammed into his thoughts. He wasn't in the barracks anymore. He was in a small room. The lighting, sensing his movement and position slowly brightened enough that he could see that he was alone. His bed was built in to the wall, he had a small desk table at the foot of the bed enough that he could use the foot of the bed as a chair. Farther back in he room was a private wash area with other bathroom fixtures and a privacy curtain that he estimated would hang to just above his knees. On the table was a neatly folded long sleeved shirt and a pair of matching loose pants atop a pair of stretch slippers.

There didn't seem to be a door, only an opaque wall that was mildly translucent. Looking at himself, Clent noticed he was entirely nude except for a wrist band of a very sturdy polymer that was marked only with an intricate barcode. His blanket felt paper thin and feather light but held his body heat better than any heavy insulation he could think of. The mat under him molded to his body to support like no memory foam could, it was cool but didn't feel cold or hot. The pillow fitted the same way to his head.

Clent sat on the edge of his bed and rubbed his face. Only the sound of plastic sliding on metal got his attention before an opening closed in the wall that his table was attached to. On the table was a tray of food. Something that looked like a half of some sort of fruit, a piece of strange looking meat. A odd slightly blue tinted nearly round squishy object. Some pieces of leaves, and a dozen 'gel packs' of what looked like water.

Poking each of the items on he plate before carefully experimenting with a bite from each thing. The taste igniting a ravenous hunger the same way one would turn a light switch to on. The water packets were first torn open before he bit down into one and swallowed, the water packet burst in his mouth and quenched a throat that felt cracked.

There were others around him, a few calling out and getting replies, others shouting awake in startle at their surroundings. The more sounds he heard the greater the lighting seemed to grow. Even while he noticed his opaque translucent wall starting to grow clear by he second. prompting him to pull on the clothes that had been left for him in order to remain modest and clothed.

While the wall cleared entirely, a door seemed to reveal itself. Clent exited his room to see a central communal room, he and nineteen others could share the space. A few assorted chairs were fixed to the floor in groupings of four. Each chair had a small attached table with an embedded screen. One wall was clear and showed a similar room space with another twenty people.

The screens flashed and showed a single golden haired Auflander with a black muzzle and cheeks. They addressed everyone.

"Humans, as you may have guessed at this point. You are being held in retention confinement. You will com to no harm but you will consider yourselves prisoners. Do not attempt escape or act in any manner that would cause disruption. We know these facilities are lacking a great deal of stimulation. These facilities are temporary measures before you can be transferred to a longer term facility. Until then," the individual said before Clent spoke up.

"Did we.. You attacked our ship?" he said unsure.

"No, your ship did suffer an attack, but not from us. More information will be forthcoming at your long term housing location."

"One more thing, I remember being pulled into space," Clent said while a few others nodded in agreement.

"You were retrieved yes from space are you call it and treated in our medical facilities."

"But I remember like, dying?"

"All of you were recovered with no biological functions. In essence, you were dead and had been for some time. I'm not one that could relay the process conducted to recover you, but it was performed successfully. Your current status can attest. Now you will be monitored for any abnormalities."

"wait wait.. wait just a minute!" Spoke up another, "What do you mean we were dead?!"

"We came upon the wreckage of your vessel and began immediate recovery operations, locating approximately eighty three percent of manifest. Operations were discussed and experimental procedure conduction in order to restore a more complex living organism. Your current status is proof of concept and success of experimentation."

"You.. Brought us back from the dead?"

"The short answer is yes."

"How.. How long were we dead?"

"The process was only feasible because of the manner in which your forms were preserved."

"How long were we dead?!"

"Approximately six point eight standards."

"How long is that?"

"Approximately fourteen years if the last data record on your ship was correct before the main computer lost power."

The silence that fell over the prison room made everyone want to sit down and reassess themselves.

"Next meal time will be announced with a chime. Until then, feel free to make use of provided tablets to bring yourselves information and entertainment."

Clent sat heavily in a chair, his dream coming back to him, every sensation replaying vividly enough he could feel it in his skin. Then the knowledge of having been dead for fourteen years and now, brought back to life. Both events fresh in his mind without any gap.

He stared at the tablet and the words 'scan wristband' long minutes before he scanned his wristband, and his picture showed at the top corner of the screen.

The first search he performed was the date, just to make sure that the Auflander wasn't lying. The next was anything on the wreck of the ship he'd been stationed on. The UNEF Oden Rising. he found it all, launch date, crew complement, all action reports, last mission date, course and pictures. Video scans showed in detail how the ship had nearly been torn apart and twisted. The listed recovered numbered seven hundred forty-five the remainder marked simply: Location unknown, search on going.

The rest of his searching turned up news of war, retaliations. Years of fighting and revolution within the intergalactic senate. The senate dissolving. Earth falling and being occupied, many other worlds being occupied. Clent felt his breakfast rebelling, he rushed back to his room as the first clenching spasms gripped his stomach and force the contents back up. Gasping while his whole body trembled, new aches returning before hallucinations started coming first to his vision and hearing. Once more Clent was back in the icy grip of space, his body convulsing in a vain attempt to save itself. A glimpse of a strange other ship nearby before things went black all over again.

"There is our proof," Spoke a golden haired research engineer while touching the projection to show dozens of gathered representatives present at the hearings to assess truth for who was to blame for starting a war that brought down the intergalactic senate and cost the lives of billions. "As the court has viewed numerous times from a witness that was present and a victim of the event that triggered the conflict that blame is to be assigned by this tribunal."

The Auflander engineer looked at the judges, of which there were ten humans that looked mortified that the evidence presented was being drawn directly from a reconstructed brain of a dead soldier. One that had been subject to repeated replays of the last ten minutes of their life a dozen times over the past hour. Each frame scrutinized for every detail.

Clent woke up with a small gasp, he was back in bed. A calming violet glow from the floor, he room was comforting, he was comfortable. It had just been a horrible dream, he told himself before relaxing to get on with his duty cycle of formulating slip coordinates and power output from the drivers.

[afuturism]

Promos from the “quantum reading method” where children acquire speed reading abilities while blindfolded.

[goat13]

Darkness

Jessabell©Goat13

[goat13]

Verdugo

                                                    Jessabell© Goat13