Sick A Terran survivor of a derelict vessel begins to realize something is very wrong.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1v8E4tOPHejGwxhqSLVCxwMQ2YPUxzQu21-KWEKFV9P8/edit?usp=sharing
“We picked you up orbiting Mintaka, in a petronium tanker, the ship’s engines had failed, subsystems dead including the cyro units...except, of course, for yours.
Jessica tried to focus on the sheet of paper in front of her. Her head hurt. In the upper left corner there was a photograph of a young caucasian woman. She had seen this woman before, but could not remember where.
“Salvage team gets claim to the vessel including any cargo but maritime law demands they release survivors at the nearest Dominion held world. Hence why you are here. They dropped you off yesterday and we have been thawing you ever since.”
“I am sorry, where is here?”
“Bernards, short for Bernard’s World but even the navigation charts don’t reference the founding name. Listen Ms. Harding I am going to need you to sign right here on the dotted line.”
The man in the navy blue suit reached across the desk and tapped at the bottom of the form in front of her. Jessica clutched at her temple, the headache was intensifying. She squinted through her migraine at the big red header reading “Jessica Harding” on the top of the paper. The photograph stapled to the document was apparently hers.
Jessica scrawled her name along the dotted line, the pen scratch against the table the only noise in the white closet room. When she had finished and handed the paper to the man in the suit Jessica turned around in her chair. The room had only one door situated behind her with a thick glossy window beside it.
“Why can’t I remember anything? Why does my head hurt so much?”
“Freezer brain. Expected side effects from prolonged cryosleep. You will also develop visual floaters in a couple hours. The headaches will get better in time as will the memory.”
“I...you said you found me?”
“Yes. Cryofrozen in a derelict spacecraft. The logs were almost unrecoverable but they reference the ship as an Icarus III. Say she departed from Kelt-9 enroute to Gliese but a catastrophic engine accident left the ship thrustless in orbit around Mintaka. Mintaka is a neutron star and the radiation coming off the star obscured the rescue signals your crew had attempted to broadcast.”
“And they found me frozen...on this ship...where is my family?” Jessica asked with the sinking feeling that she did not remember if she even had family.
The man sighed and looked down at the table before taking off his glasses and polishing them with the cuff of his suit. When he had finished he replaced the eyeglasses on his bridge and folded his hands in front of him.
“I am afraid this is going to come as a bit of a shock to you Ms. Harding. You were down for quite a long time, the ship records read eighty eight years but with the relativistic speed of your orbit around the neutron star it comes out to one hundred and twenty three. I am afraid that unless your family could afford digital entombment or methuselah treatments they have all passed by now.”
With another sigh the man in the suit reached under the table fishing for something in his pocket before pulling out two little digital tags and a business card which he held out towards her.
“As it happens a relative of one of your departed crew members happens to live on Bernards and has agreed to take you on until you can find further employment. Her name and address are on the back of the card. The green token will get you as far as Laustin by magnetic track. There is a 7:12 out of the station across the street. The blue token is fare for an auto-cab once there. I am sorry for your losses Ms. Harding, but I ask that you realize just how many state charity cases a public servant such as myself has and to not abuse the contact information on my business card.”
The man in the navy blue suit stood up from the table, turned towards the door and departed. He paused outside the room a moment, out of the corner of his eye through the soundproof window he could see the woman screaming. The man checked his watch. He was late for his next client.