A Thousand Sleepers - EVE Pod and Planet Fiction Contest YC117

This is my submission for the EVE Pod and Planet Fiction Contest YC117

I'ts been a long time since I've written much of anything, but I saw an opportunity here and decided to take it. I've never put any of my works out there for the public, so this is a first for me.

I'd like to thank Eluwien for all the support, proofing and reviewing. It's a big deal to me to actually put this out there.

Corpies, you're the best! If I win, let's party in some suicide frigs!

Let's get on with it. Enjoy.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A Thousand Sleepers

“Panic.

That’s what you feel when you wake up. You open your eyes and you’re floating. You see vague shapes beyond a transparent film and you hear talking, but it’s all muffled. Like voices in your head that echo what just happened to you - death.

Death just happened to you.

Suddenly you’re flushed out like the shit that you are, because in this birth there’s no one to catch you. This time you’re on your own.

Sprawled on the floor, trembling, you’re cold on the inside- your bowels pumping themselves into action from some kind of stupor or hibernation. Your skin burns to the point where you just want to claw it off with your bare hands, but they’re on fire too.

Then it hits you.

It’s faint at first, like a whisper. But you know it’s coming closer, and the closer it gets, the louder it’s going to sound. It’s almost like a reminder, a pang and a clang that makes sure that if you’re not awake yet, you sure as hell are going to be.

Bang!

It all starts playing in reverse, you see a bright light and you’re looking at yourself in the cockpit. It’s silent, like one of those old movies, except you know this really went down. You see yourself shouting but the words aren’t there.

And then you start thinking, right? You start replaying the mistakes you made – like all this could’ve been prevented if you’d just been smarter about it. An evasive action or reload right there. Overheat or set off your prop mods here – anything.

But it doesn’t change things, does it? I’m still dead, and I’m going to die every night from now on. That shit doesn’t just leave you. I know, because I’ve been here before- haven’t I? “

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sitting across from me, the bored doctor sucks on his cigarette and doesn’t say a thing. I look at him; he’s studying his notepad and I get the feeling he hasn’t listened to a word I’ve said. This guy hasn’t even noticed I’ve finished talking.

I make a point of audibly clearing my throat.

He looks up at me, irritated, like I’ve just interrupted some misunderstood genius at work. I might be just another re-born toe tag, but you’ve been dead for a while. And when I leave, you’ll still be here. This isn’t your job, it’s your tomb.

He blows smoke from between his tightly clamped lips, “Sounds like you’ve had a rough one this time.”

My expression is the only answer I give him. No shit, asshole.

I look at the blue smoke twirling in this dark and dank room. A single unseen light source somewhere high up illuminates this small patch where we sit opposite each other. It’s so dark that if I extend my hand to the side, I wouldn’t be able to see my hand beyond where my wrist ends. 

Where’s the rest of the staff?

For a moment he gives me his full attention, “Why don’t you tell me what happened, from your perspective? I want to hear your side of the story.” He leans back in his chair and resumes his inattentive disposition.

Something about the way he said that makes me feel uneasy. “My side of the story, what’s that supposed to mean?” 

He glances to the side, and his cigarette ashes flake onto his white lab coat, “Nothing, just a figure of speech. I just want to know what you remember.” He brushes the ashes off his coat with yellowed, ghoulish fingers.

I force myself to stop replaying my death in my head, “It’s hazy, I’m still piecing it together, but I’ll try. We got an emergency signal from a wormhole somewhere in Venal, an expedition gone awry, we guessed. Our mission was to cloak up and head to the source of the signal. In case of a Sleeper presence, we’d return with our best guess as to what had happened. In the event Sleepers weren’t present, we’d investigate and salvage the wrecks. Standard search and rescue op.”

The doctor nodded all the while I was talking- so far so good.

 

Why did I think that?

I blink a few times to clear my thoughts and I rub my temples with clammy fingers. The fogginess in my head is starting to recede. “We fitted up and headed out to Venal. The source of the signal came from a wormhole entrance, so someone had definitely managed to send a distress beacon out from wherever they were.”

The doctor ruffles his brow. “You got clearance to head into an uncharted wormhole?” He’s on his second cigarette already. He taps his yellowed fingers on his notepad. It’s just for show, I know. No one uses those anymore. 

“You’d have to ask Captain Janos, I’m only second in command of a Search and Rescue. I do what someone else tells me to do.”

He gives a slight nod, acknowledging the point.  

“Once we slid into the wormhole system, it didn’t take us long to scan down the signature of the expedition. This was an old system, the star was a white dwarf, and since we could only find one signature, we assumed- correctly I might add- that it was our missing expedition.” I lean forward and turn my head from side to side, “Where’s the rest of the staff over here, by the way?” 

He raises his gaze at me and feigns a comforting smile, “Oh, they’re around. It’s the graveyard shift and it’s a slow night. No one but you guys to process tonight.”

Liar.

He nods his head a little, beckoning me to continue.

“We warp over to the site. Sure thing, we find our lost expedition: Buzzards, Asteros, Stratioses – what you’d expect from an explorers’ outfit. Except that…”

“Yes?” he asks with unexpected enthusiasm, like I’m about to confirm something he already knows.

“Well, I’ve seen my fair share of expeditions gone bad, if you take my meaning, but this outfit was built for combat. See, besides all the exploration gear, they had also brought an entourage of firepower. We’re talking experimental battleships, heavy assault cruisers, you name it. I mean, these guys could’ve taken on a megacorporation if they wanted to. And I can tell you, they were ripped to shreds. Normally I’d be salvaging that in an instant, but there was nothing to salvage, it was like the wrecks had been wrecked and then wrecked again, just space mush floating all around.”

I pause, and he’s looking at me, waiting for me to continue. But I don’t have anything to say about the matter. The images of that destruction keep coming back to me. What the hell happened over there?

“Did you investigate further?” he asks, jostling me back to the here and now.

“You could say that. We fanned out, looked for any clues as to what had happened, but we really couldn’t piece this puzzle together. I mean, if Sleepers did this, they’d had to have been Sleepers of a kind I’ve never heard of. And if they did, where did they go? They don’t move around, they don’t roam. They just, well- sleep.”

“Did your investigation yield any results?” he asked. He was irritated again, like he had to repeat the same question over and over. 

“Not really. We looked for black boxes, but like I said, everything was pretty much pulverized. We could see parts of the ships’ fuselages, but other than that, it was like all the electronics were obliterated.”

He sat back and exhaled yet another batch of blue smoke into the room. “What was the conclusion of your investigation?”

“Well, that’s where it gets tricky. We were preparing to leave the site when all of the sudden my wingman explodes next to me.”

I feel the panic kicking in, the images are storming into my mind and I can’t stop the torrent. I have to keep talking, I have to discharge these memories at the same rate at which they’re forming in my brain or I’ll lose it for good. I launch into a manic tirade. 

“I look to my left, and lieutenant Khorvas is taking heavy fire. I look at my sensors to see where the attack is coming from but by the time I’ve confirmed the damage type, Khorvas is gone from my overlay. I look around me, stupefied by the sheer destruction I’m witnessing. My overlay is emptying of friendlies by the moment, and all I can do is watch. Why don’t I shoot? Why don’t I do something? I froze, I…

Wait. No, that’s not right. I am doing something, I’m on comms shouting orders, I’m shooting… I’m still trying to pinpoint the attack. I… I don’t know what’s happening anymore, I…”

The man in front of me deliberately rises from his chair, takes a step towards me and slaps me across the face, brings his nose to within an inch of mine and grabs me by the shoulders. He starts shouting. “What did you see? Focus! You’re not frozen, you’re the X-O, keep those people alive – what are you seeing? Remember!”

I bring myself from the brink of tears and madness and try to focus on the last memory of my previous life.

And as a faint squeal I manage to utter: “I see Captain Janos has locked on to me.” 

He lets go of me. The torrent subsides, my rambling is over and my mind starts to calm down.

That’s right. That’s how it went down. But why wasn’t I sure about that a minute ago?

“Thank you.” He says as he gets up. “You’ve earned your promotion-”, he pauses for a while, “Captain”.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He turns his back to me and walks into the darkness beyond. I see a sudden bright light, an opened door, and he walks through it, leaving me to my thoughts.

I played the part. Captain. Well done.

Who said that? Why is that in my head?

A moment later the door slides open again, and a shadow emerges through the light. I hear footsteps coming towards me. I focus on the here and now. I start shouting: “What’s going on here? I want an explanation goddamit!”

From somewhere in the darkness, a man pulls up a chair and takes a seat in front of me. “Easy, Captain. You’ve had a rough day.” He’s tall, his face is in the shadows, but his light brown pinstripe suit says it all- Director. “My, I don’t suppose you even know how long you’ve been in here talking with our evaluators.”

“Evaluators? I just spoke with your doctor, that’s all.” But even as I say that, I know what he’s talking about.

“Pardon the deception, if deceived is what you’re now feeling, but we had to make sure we got an honest account from you. We didn’t want to push you too hard out of fear that those re-emerging memories of yours be damaged. Jumping your consciousness is such a delicate process, don’t you agree?”

“I guess…” I start to say.

“Absolutely.” He cuts me off, “Captain, I commend you on your performance, both on the field and here at corporate HQ. I believe you’ve earned your explanation.”

I can only nod my head at this point. Yes, get on with it already. I’m getting impatient.

“I’m not impatient.” I blurt out.

The man chuckles to himself: “No, you most certainly are not”.  He thinks I’m talking to him.

But I’m not, am I?

The man begins: “Four years ago we stumbled into a stable wormhole in Venal. An expedition was sent in, and what they discovered was something completely unexpected. We found signatures of sleepers by the thousands, they were everywhere in this system. But stranger still was that they appeared to be moving around. Now, that’s not thoroughly uncommon, some sleepers do, occasionally, even engage in warp, but the distances travelled are quite short, usually restricted to warps within the system.

Not so this time. We found that these Sleepers were warping in and out of the system. Where they were going, we don’t know. So we studied their habits, tried to establish some kinds of patterns until, eventually, we thought we might have found a clue as to what they were doing. We hypothesized that there had to be a kind of Sleeper hub from which and to which they were warping. Of course, this is all speculation.

We decided to fit an expedition like no other, the wrecks you found were indeed that expedition. The idea was to build a powerful enough fleet, that it could take on the amount of Sleepers we were expecting. Based on the warp patterns we studied, we concluded that the amount of Sleepers at any one time in that system did not exceed one thousand. Imagine! We built a fleet capable of battling a thousand Sleepers! To this day, that’s been the most ambitious undertaking our corporation has ever committed to.

This fleet was a secret that could under no circumstances be leaked. What new Sleeper technology we might find would make us the most destructive force in New Eden! And yet, the SeaBranch Alliance has many spies amongst us, and should these secrets be divulged to our enemies, we would be annihilated.

The fate of the fleet is, thanks to you, now known to us –although you were never supposed to receive that distress call. It turns out the Sleepers discovered our fleet in their midst and they made a coordinated effort to destroy it. Based on our- admittedly scant- readings, we believe over one hundred thousand Sleepers entered the system to destroy the fleet. Never before has such a coordinated assault been carried out by Sleepers! They’re protecting something, Captain! They have a secret, somewhere beyond. A secret that, for now, is impregnable – but we know it’s there! And we are the only ones who do.”

I feel my heart pounding. So do I.

I abruptly interrupt the man. ”Wait, you said we were never supposed to receive the distress call?”

He pauses for a moment, irate from the interruption, “That is correct. We had our own protocols in case of emergency or catastrophic failure. Some hauler somehow managed to pick up the distress signal and forwarded it along public channels. Naturally it landed in your lap because you’re our search and rescue op.”

Lucky me.

Yes. Lucky me. “What is the deal with Captain Janos?”

“You and Captain Janos gave conflicting accounts of what transpired at the site. You see, he claims his X-O deployed a bomb while everyone was preparing to warp out of the site. He says you brought your damage controls online and after the bomb went off, you began to systematically destroy the entire search and rescue fleet. He said he tried to stop you, but it appears both of you got your last shots fired at each other at the last moment. Both of you woke up here today. The rest of your squad mates were, unfortunately, on trial periods of their employment contracts. Their jump clones are not stored here, if they have any to begin with. Therefore, we had only the two of you to work with.”

As was to be expected.

“Does this mean Captain Janos tried to burn me?”

The man leans forward, revealing his face. Hawkish features, small beady eyes, a high widow’s peak, his dark hair covering his scalp like moss on a rock. He levels his gaze at me, his voice sullen. “Yes. However, his account is more shattered than yours is. He doesn’t appear to want to remember what happened, and our conclusion is that that is a result of him being unsure of his mental preparations about being a spy. Combining clone jumping with spying is a difficult matter, you see. You require years of mental discipline training to maintain the lie. Looks like Janos was in too deep.”

“So what happens now?” I already know the answer.

“Janos was executed not five minutes ago. You have attained the rank of captain and, as it stands, you are our foremost authority in matters of Sleeper research. You will retain your new rank and move over to our new Sleeper studies unit. Young man, you have a bright future ahead of you!”

Brighter than you think.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I lunge towards the man, and before he can react I’m pinning him down and grab a pen from his pocket.

I put on a sinister sneer and yell in his face: “Spies!? Now who would do such a thing, I wonder? You’re right, mental discipline is necessary in my line of work. Funny how that works, isn’t it? One minute you’re dead, then you’re subconsciously convincing yourself you’re someone you’re not. Once I’ve convinced myself, I’ve convinced you. Shame about Janos, I really liked him.”

He interrupts me with his pathetic whimper, “Please! Don’t kill me!”

I feign a stab at his throat with his own pen and I watch him flinch. I’m enjoying this.

“No, I won’t kill you. This is for me.”

I stab the pen into my wrist and tear into my arm all the way up to my elbow. I watch the blood gush out and through the pain and trauma I’m feeling I see the horror in the eyes of that pathetic little man. As I’m losing consciousness, I hear faint shouting.

 “Do not let that man bleed out! Medic to interrogation, he can’t be allowed to escape! Help us goddamit!” 

I hear footsteps rushing towards me, but they’re too late. It’s getting dark…
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Panic.

I’m floating, and I see fuzzy forms beyond a transparent film. They’re talking, but it’s all muffled. I’m flushed out like refuse, and I’m sprawled on a cold floor, shivering. My insides are freezing as if waking from some kind of ancient hibernation, my skin burns and I want to tear it off.

I hear it coming, the pang and the clang that’s going to remind me that if I’m not awake yet, I sure as hell am going to be.

That’s what dying feels like.

My implants kick into gear and I’m focused, something to comfort me in this rebirth. I grab a towel thrown my way.

A stout, barrel shaped man slaps me on the back. It stings, and I think he knows that, “Welcome back Colonel. It’s been awhile.” 

I look at him, I know this man and I know this place. 

I’m safe, because the SeaBranch Alliance is going to make a move to Venal. There’s a wormhole there with Sleeper tech waiting for us to claim it.