“GET OUT! GET AWAY FROM ME!” Markus shouted, he had leapt from his Stasis chamber and was backing off into the corner of the room, “LEAVE ME ALONE!”
James, realising he was still holding the metal bar threw it to the floor. Again he raised both hands in the air, standing still.
“I'm not going to hurt you,” said James in the most reassuring voice he could muster. “I heard you calling for help, I thought you were in trouble.”
Markus had backed up right against the wall, the steel cool on his back. He stood there trembling as he watched James' every move.
“I AM in trouble.” Markus barely managed to form the words, his voice noticeable trembling. “Look around you, where the hell is everyone? We're ALL in trouble!”
“Woah, slow down....” James started.
“GET BACK!” Markus shouted.
“OK, OK. Look, my name is James. My memory is a bit fuzzy right now, but I think I was a part of Engineering. I'm trying to find out what happened here.”
“Where was your Stasis chamber?” Markus asked, he was beginning to calm down a little. James hammering on the door had really scared him.
“I'm on the next deck down, I was making my way up to engineering, the next deck up.”
Markus, although managing to keep reasonably calm now, continued to watch everything James was doing.
“Why were you going up there for?” Asked Markus, the suspicion in his voice plain to hear.
“Like I said,” began James “I'm a part of engineering, my memories are too vivid to be otherwise. I don't know how long we were all asleep, but most of my memory has been affected quite severely. I need to see if I can fix up the power a little.
“Why?” Said Markus “What’s wrong with it?”
“I don't know, but as you can see, it's become an issue. As I’m sure you've noticed, the emergency power is on.”
“And what does that mean?” Asked Markus.
“Basically, either something has malfunctioned somewhere, which is potentially fixable or the reactor is on its last legs. Which is worse case scenario, and not at all good for us.”
Markus moved away from the wall, slowly approaching James.
“What happens if it's the reactor?” He asked.
“Well.” Said James, “It means that every system on-board this ship will start shutting down one by one, eventually life support will also shut down. I need to get up to engineering and see what is going on. Hopefully finding some more crew members up there at the same time.”
Almost on queue the dim red lighting flickered and went off, the room was plunged into absolute darkness momentarily. James felt a sudden sharp pain shoot through his skull, he held his head as the pain shot through it and down his neck. Across the room Markus was holding his head in his hands, moaning in pain.
“Make it stop!” He cried out.
The dim red glow of the emergency lighting flickered back into life again, flooding the room in its eerie red shadow. It seemed darker than before it went off, it felt oppressive and depressing.
“Are you OK?” The concern in James' voice was evident, his own pain had started to recede.
“No” Markus mumbled, “My head hasn't been right since I woke up. The headaches..... just then....that was almost unbearable.”
James considered telling Markus of his own sudden head pain, but given his emotional state he deemed it wise to maybe keep it quiet.
The room fell into silence with both men lost in their own thoughts. It was James that finally broke that silence.
“Look, as it stands we seem to be the only people in the immediate vicinity right now. I have no idea what I’m gonna find when I get up to engineering, we need to stick together. Like I said, I’m James, James Horton. I'm sorry we met the way we did, it wasn't my intention to scare you like that. We need to figure out what’s going on and where the rest of the crew are.”
Markus looked at him through the gloom, they were only ten foot away from each other, yet in the darkness James was nothing more than a shadow.
“Yeah you're right.” Said Markus “I'm Markus Clyde, I’m sorry, this whole thing is just freaking me out. I woke up in my Stasis chamber after dreaming about my family, I was panicking. I couldn't breathe, I didn't know where I was or even who I was.”
Markus went silent, his family, they were his life. He had dreamt about saying goodbye to his son. A ten year trip? Why had he agreed to do that? What was so important he would leave his family for a ten year trip in space? A sudden but deep sadness washed over him, how long had they been out here already? How old was his son now? He longed for the warm embrace of his wife.
“We were coming out here for ten years” Markus suddenly declared.
“You just remembered that?” James asked.
“It was in my dream, I couldn't tell my Son how long I was going to be away for. What the fuck were we going to be doing out here all that time?”
“I don't know,” said James “but now you mention it, ten years sounds right. I know I have an authorisation pass, I just can't remember it. Another place I need to find is my own quarters, I’m bound to have made a note of it. With that code we can access the terminals and find out why we are here and what the hell happened!”
“So, Engineering and then find your living quarters” responded Markus. “Any idea where they are?”
James looked at the floor in silence, trying his best to drag some memories from the shadows in his mind. His head started to stab with pain, the harder he thought the worse the pain became. It was almost as though his subconscious was deliberately trying to stop him remembering. He lifted his hand to his forehead and winced.
“James? You OK?” Asked Markus.
James rubbed his head before looking back up.
“Yeah, I'm OK. I just can't remember, my mind just clouds over.”
The pain started to subside, he was starting to feel drained.
“OK.” James declared. “What equipment do we have? I have this flash light, it's not brilliant but it works.”
Markus grabbed his rucksack.
“I found this in the locker room, there's a couple bars of Neutrichoc. Got a flash light too, it's a bit weak though. I reckon we should grab some of the water and drinks from the other Stasis chambers.”
“Good idea.” Said James as he opened the cabinet of the nearest chamber and removed the drinks.
Markus joined him, placing the bottles in the rucksack.
“Another couple should be enough, then we should head out.” Said Markus.
After the bag was filled with water and nutrients drinks James walked over to the terminal and looked at the screen. With his fingers on the keyboard he waited to see if anything would come back, even just a few characters from his password, but there was nothing. He stared blankly until his eyes started to lose focus, and still nothing emerged. Turning away, feeling frustrated he noticed the large scratch mark next to the door.
“What the hell is that?” Worry in his voice.
Markus walked to the door, “I dunno, I noticed it earlier.” he said.
“These walls are re-enforced, that wouldn't have been done easily.” James remarked as he bent down to examine the scratch more closely. He ran his finger up and down the six inch gouge, the edges were straight but sharp to the touch and it was at least half an inch deep.
“Maybe someone was trying to get out of here.” Suggested Markus.
“They were clearly pretty desperate then.” Replied James. “Like I said, the walls are re-enforced, you can tell that just by looking at them. I don't think you could make a scratch like that with anything found lying around here.”
Markus felt a shiver down his spine, what could of damaged the wall like that? Dark images filled his mind, insane crew members savagely clawing at the walls and themselves. Desperate to leave this room, bodies both living and dead piled against the door in one bloodied orgy of despair.
He shook the thoughts away only to be replaced by pain, pain deep in his head, slowly spreading its dark tendrils to the darkest corners of his mind.
“I need to get out of this room.” Markus finally said.
They both walked out of the door into the corridor, their flash lights lighting the way ahead.
“At the end of this corridor is a stairwell and lift.” Explained James, “engineering is on the next floor, follow me.”
Both men slowly made their way down the corridor, the flash lights cutting through the shadows as they went until eventually they reached the stairwell. On the wall was a map of the deck, this was one of the Hyper-sleep decks. Five separate hypersleep lounges and their connecting store rooms as well as a general store down the furthest end of the deck. As James had said, engineering was the next deck up. Engineering and transmissions. Markus' mind briefly woke up long enough to let a memory through.
“Transmissions?” Markus said, his voice sounded confused.
“What?” Replied James as he placed his foot on the first step.
“Transmissions. That's why we came out here, it's just come back to me. We had intercepted signals far beyond our solar system!”
James stood motionless on the stairs, his mind desperately looking for memories to pluck out of the darkness. And then it came to him, two words rushed out of the dark and exploded in his head.
Alpha Centauri.
His heart leapt. Of course, he thought!
“Wait a minute.” James said excitedly. “Alpha Centauri, the signals came from Alpha Centauri! We must of came out here to see what they were.”
“It must be.” Replied Markus. “So are we there now? In another solar system light years from home?”
“Christ knows!” Exclaimed James. “We must be! Lets get the power online and find out!”