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Chapter 1

Rude Awakenings

Cryo isn't like sleeping. There are no dreams. Those require complex neural activity. Synapses firing, the sending and receiving of strings of messages to create detailed images accompanied by noise and even smell. Very little of that occurs in cryo. We are out at the edge of death. Some would say that we are in the realm of death when asleep. I cannot say anything about that, but I can say that in cryo, I was in a thick blackness. I could feel it engulf me and smother me and then I was in light.

My head hurt and my stomach was in knots. I couldn't stop the thick, mucus like mixture from rising up my throats and over my chest. It smelled bad enough for me to vomit again.

Welcome back to the world.

Those were my first few seconds of awareness that greeted me and how I wished that I could just go back to that murky blackness. The next few hours were going to be worse.

Next, my vision and hearing slowly returned. The blackness turned into a soupy grey. Those greys turned into splotchy outlines. I could hear a wailing and my brain strained to reorganize itself to make sense of everything that was happening.

The wail split into voice and screaming, sirens, all kinds of noises that made me cringe. They pounded at my ears. I didn't know what was happening.

My vision cleared some more, enough to see that I was in a pod, my pod, my cryo pod. A red light flashed angrily at me. It was the emergency release switch. I was supposed to hit it. I remembered that I only had to hit it in case of an incident bad enough that the androids couldn't handle. Something was going wrong, horribly wrong.

My arms were tired despite years of sleep. They struggled and complained, but I managed to lift them up and slap the switch with sweaty palms.

Immediately, there was a hiss and the pod lurched as if went from its prone position to an upright one. Straps held me up.

A rush of cool, recycled air came flooding into my small pod, filling my lungs. It burned like fire and I coughed up more of the mucus they filled us with. It went and slithered down my body, joining the rest of the mess by my feet.

I reached out and pushed against the front of the pod, regaining more and more of my strength with each passing moment. The front gave way and I was met with more air and new noises.

"Get him away!" Someone was shouting.

"Oh my god!"

"What? What's going on?"

"Where's the captain? Is... dear lord."

I fell out of the pod and onto my knees, the straps automatically disconnecting now. I could also feel tubes pulling out from the back of my arms where they had fed nutrients into me to keep me alive.

I blinked several times and looked at the scene.

There was a man on the ground. He was still. Several others were gathered around him. Another man was standing in front of them and facing towards another that I somehow recognized immediately, Samuel, the Anuman synthetic android. I remembered everything now.

It was after the failure of both Prometheus and Covenant that the governments and corporations of Earth realized that the galaxy isn't ripe for colonization. It was dangerous out there and in order to survive outside of Earth, petty rivalries between companies or countries could no longer exist.

A new era for man dawned, one centered around innovation towards colonization. Everyone pooled their resources to find better ways to ensure the next effort would not fail.

One of the first challenges was addressing the frailty of humans. Humans were weak and they knew it and they knew how to get around it.

Wide spread gene therapy and forced mutation of humans was not going to be popular, but the creation of an entirely new race somehow got the green light.

Taking all of the best traits of the animal kingdom and putting them into the shell of human/ canine figure was the answer and after only a decade, the Anuman was born. More capable in every way than humans, Anumans were to be the trailblazers. However, this was a quest to colonize for humans and therefore, Anumans never numbered more than a few thousand.

I was one such Anuman, born to the name, Mark, by two Anuman parents, I was destined from the beginning to travel to the stars. I was assigned to Paradise to find a new home for humans. Now it seemed that Paradise was doomed to fail already.

"Move out of the way," Samuel spoke, a slight twang to his voice that hadn't been present when the ship had first left Earth. He spoke to the figure opposite of him, another synthetic, but a human model, Mathew.

Mathew readjusted himself to make sure he was more in the way between Samuel and the humans. "You are malfunctioning Samuel. Please deactivate and we will take care of you."

"I won't comply," Samuel replied and pointed at the humans huddled around the fallen figure. "They are- they are- they are." His voice grew low and deep. His head twitches with each repeat of the words.

"I will force compliance if I must," Mathew took a step forward. "Do not make me."

"You will try," Samuel moved forward at a speed that I didn't believe possible for any man or Anuman.

Mathew matched his speed and the two grappled each other. I stopped watching at that point.

I scrambled, keeping a wide berth from the two fighting synthetics, towards the huddled people. I needed to see who was hurt.

I saw that there was Dr. Abigail Lassetter, the chief medical officer, a woman of short stature but strong will who was entirely devoted to the cause of saving lives. She was directly over the fallen individual. Around her was Charlie Mensis, the muscle maniac Chief Engineer. He looked angry. Then there was Brian, the silver furred Anuman that was also the Master-at-arms for the ship. He and Charlie were having a stare down over something which transferred over to me when I got close.

"Get the fuck out of here you fucking dog," Charlie hissed at me and seemed ready to physically force me to go as well. "Before you kill someone else."

"Shut the fuck up, pinky," Brian swore back. "He didn't do anything."

"Not just him, you as well. Your kind did this." He pointed at the fallen figure that the doctor was hunched over, trying to perform cpr. "Never should have created your kind."

"Both of you," Doctor Abigail stopped and glared at the both of them. "What are you two doing. Get the other pods open. Do something. Mathew can't hold off Samuel off alone."

They both looked away ashamed and quickly went off in opposite directions to get the other pods open.

Mathew was doing his best to keep Samuel away, but Abigail was right, Samuel was going to overpower him soon.

The doctor's face turned to me and it immediately softened. "I'm so sorry."

"Sorry for what?" I cocked my head to the side.

She looked behind her at the figure and moved out of the way.

My heart stopped.

Despite being born naturally and not from a tube like the first generation Anumans, we didn't grow up in traditional families. We were trained from a very early age to specialize in specific fields that would be beneficial to the colonization effort. We were often trained by one or two humans and only those humans. They became our new parents. I was special, I had the right genes to be adaptable to all fields and therefore I was selected for a leadership position. I was given to Devin Archer, the pilot and first officer of Paradise. He raised me just as if I were his own son of blood.

He trained me in everything he knew as a first officer and pilot. He taught be the basics in navigation, communication, everything since on Paradise, the first officer was to be able to support all other bridge specialties.

I loved that man. He was my father and now he was in front of me, dead.

His head was turned towards me, closed. There was bruising around his neck, but he looked peaceful in his slick body suit he had worn in the cryo pod.

"I don't think he suffered," the doctor got up and she went to help get the rest of the pods open, leaving me.

It was odd. He was dead and yet I only felt a slight bit of remorse, not the flood of feelings one would expect if they lost a parent. Just a mild sadness.

A scuffle to my right got my attention.

Samuel had thrown Mathew across the room and was now heading towards a grouping of pods that held more crew members, including the captain.

Maybe it was courage, maybe it was duty, but I got up and I put myself between Samuel and the pods. The android stopped.

"Hello Mark," he said in a non threatening manner that was more creepy than reassuring. "Would you please move aside. I have very important business to attend to." He smiled, the points of his hardened, plastic enamel teeth barely visible under his lips.

I shook my head at him. "I can't let you hurt anyone else." I said. "Stand down, Samuel. Override three-sierra-foxtrot-echo." It was the code to shut down Samuel for maintenance. In a perfect world, he would have calmly and slowly found a chair and sat down before going to 'sleep.' It was far from a perfect world, hadn't been close to one in a very long time.

Samuel blinked at me and cocked his head to the side. "I'm not familiar with that code." He frowned. "I don't have time for games, Mark. Do please step aside. I do not want to move you." He walked calmly to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. He pushed firmly, but not enough to cause any harm. His strength was much greater than mine and despite my efforts, he moved me aside and moved forward. What was wrong with him? He hadn't made any threatening move towards me like he had done so with Mathew.

Speaking of the human android, I had slowed and distracted Samuel enough that Mathew was able to get back up, white ooze leaking from a number of cuts and abrasions, and tackle Samuel from behind.

"Get back, Mark," both of them said in unison and I did.

Mathew had Samuel in a head lock and was squeezing hard and pulling up at the same same time. I could see the plastic skin on Samuel's neck begin to stretch where the fur parted.

Samuel tried to reach back and grab Mathew, but his arms couldn't reach and as his head was slowly separated from his body, his struggles became more frantic.

I had to look away. Even though there was no blood, only white, sticky fluid and clear tubes, it was too graphic for me.

I did however, hear the slick tearing of the plastic as Mathew finished the deed.

I looked again. Samuel's body was on the ground, without a head, unmoving. Mathew stood over the body, holding onto the head that, if attached to a body, would have looked like Samuel was peacefully sleeping.

Mathew turned to me, the head still in his hands. "Are you alright. I'm sorry that you had to witness that. A nasty deed that had to be done."

"I closed my eyes," I responded.

"Ahh," he nodded. "Good." He then walked past me and towards where the doctor still was, taking care of the body. I followed.

Abigail held a small device and was sticking a tube filled with blood into it. She looked up with a sigh of relief when she saw Mathew. "Thank god you two are alright. I don't know what came over Samuel." Her eyes darted down to the head for a moment.

"Neither do I," Mathew replied. "With your leave, I will take Samuel and try to find the source of his malfunction. If you do not need me here," he added.

Doctor Abigail didn't reply and then I noticed that Mathew was looking at me. I hadn't realized that since the captain hadn't been woken yet and with Devin dead, I was the new first officer and currently in charge.

"Uhm, yeah," I said. "Go ahead."

Mathew gave me a slight nod and bow and walked away to go do whatever his duty entailed.

"You okay?" Abigail asked me.

"No," I answered truthfully. I was still in shock, but it would hit me soon.

"You want to go lie down?" She offered. "The rest of us can get the crew up."

"No," I said. "Let's wake up the crew." I needed to keep my mind busy and focused. I couldn't fall apart just yet, not when the entire mission was already falling apart. All of earth was relying on us.