After toweling herself dry, she took a T-shirt and a set of boxers that wouldn’t stay on unless she held the elastic at her hip, and went to the small dining room. A tray of re-hydrated roast beef and green beans went down like a lavish meal at a fancy restaurant.
Kerys returned to the flight deck. A little poking around found the option to open the shuttle bay doors. A moment later, the body bag full of possibly contaminated clothing tumbled off into space. She sat a while, staring at it getting smaller and smaller.
“The shuttle bay is open. Do you wish to abort the designated flight path?” asked the female voice.
The same message appeared in text on the screen. She pushed ‘no.’
Faint hydraulic whining in the hull accompanied the doors closing. She put her feet up on the console, ankles crossed, and stargazed for a little while, listening to her stomach squawk and chirp.
I’m going home. Hands over her mouth, she wept with relief and guilt. Once she regained her composure, she sat up straight, opened a SFT window, and recorded a video message.
“My name is Kerys Loring. I accepted a job from Avasar Biotech to research alien ruins on a planet they had designated AV494. What I thought was the find of a lifetime turned out to be a lie. The company had deceived us all. They’d found a deadly alien microbe on this planet and decided to test its effectiveness as a biological weapon on their own employees.
“I have been exposed to this microbe, but I was given an antidote which, according to their botanist’s studies, renders my body toxic to the organism for a few weeks. I don’t know if I have any of those damn things inside me, but I do know that I am not suffering any effects of the infection. I should not be contagious, but I can’t say with full certainty that I’m not. The microbe behaves like amoebic encephalitis, which is not transmissible from person to person once the infection sets in. I’ve done everything I can to scrub up. I’ve shot my clothes and all my equipment into space to prevent contamination.
“I am sending this message to my family, as well as the USIC. I’m on a ship designated the Imperator, registered to Avasar Biotechnology. The USIC needs to intercept this ship. If Avasar gets to me first, they’ll probably kill me to keep me quiet. Their operation here was illegal and conducted without the military understanding the full extent of it. I fully expect to be quarantined for evaluation on my return, assuming this ship actually makes it back. I will not resist. I want them to check me out. I want to know for sure if I’m clean. I do not want to risk anyone else’s life. Too many have died to this already… for no reason other than greed.
“Jaden, I hope you’re doing all right. It’ll be a while before I can send another message. Gonna take about three years to get back. Make sure Mom watches this. I know I haven’t always seen eye to eye with her, but she can get things done. If something happens to me, she’ll make sure they all know what happened here.”
She bowed her head and sighed.
“Be strong, kid. See ya soon.”
Kerys entered her brother’s email address as well as her mother’s, and, after a little bit of searching, three addresses that should go to the United States Interstellar Corps. She hit send, waited for it to come back confirmed, and sent it two more times.
A sudden, heavy feeling came over her at the memory of watching Will die. Once upon a long time ago, she had loved him… and despite seeing the real him, despite knowing what he’d done on AV494, some tiny shred of her somehow managed to mourn him.
“Bye, Will.” She let out a morose chuckle. “You’d probably think I’m foolish for feeling sad over you after everything you did, but I don’t. That’s the difference between us… and you still wouldn’t understand.”
She stood, and her boxers fell to the floor. The burden of guilt at having to kill Sergeant Gensch and Corporal Mitchell almost made her say ‘screw it’ and leave them there. However, a momentary flash of embarrassment at the idea the USIC might find her in the stasis pod naked from the waist down made her hike them up. After a short stop at the bathroom, she padded to a small lounge where she spent a few hours staring at movies without really watching them, had another Hydra meal, and zonked out on the sofa until the entire starship shuddered with the transition into translight.
Finally trusting that those mercenaries couldn’t ruin her trip home, she shut off the TV and headed across the flight deck to the hallway of cryonics pods. This ship had twenty in total, split ten per side along a hallway. A tiny infirmary stood at the end. Kerys slipped into the first room on the left and approached the console by the stasis pod.
Lights came on overhead as well as in the pod when she tapped the black screen. A strip along the top displayed a countdown until the shift out from translight. The system would know when the ship disengaged from the faster-than-light system, and automatically wake anyone in pods.
Aside from the countdown, a single green ‘go’ button filled the square screen.
Tap.
‹Press A to self-enter cryonic suspension or swipe your medical identification to assist another.›
“Oh, that’s nice.” She pushed ‘A.’
The stasis pod opened.
“Please enter stasis pod for pre-cryonic scan.”
She remembered that part from the flight out. The system needed to measure her body mass and vitals to calibrate itself. Kerys sat on the edge of the cushion, staring at her toes, not knowing how to feel about what happened… or Will in particular. So many dead. The only reason I’m here is because he couldn’t let go of me. Hmm. How ’bout that? I guess he really did love me.
With a sniffle, she set the dog tags in the drawer of the small table next to the pod, swung her legs up, and reclined on soft, white cushions.
The lid closed part way, and a blue grid of laser-light appeared over her.
“Scanning,” said an electronic female voice. “Please remain still.”
She stared at a pure-white ceiling beyond the transparent lid. “Guess you’re right, Sarge. It is kinda comforting to hope there’s something out there when the bullets are flying over your head, even if no one’s really listening.”
I’ll try to get along with Mom if I make it home alive. I swear I’ll even go there for Christmas dinner from now on.
The system chirped. “Calibration complete. Self-entry to cryonic stasis ready. Biometric data matches employee record for Loring, Kerys. Please provide verbal activation code ‘Commit A-A-eight-one’ to initiate.”
“Might as well do this. Damn, I hope I don’t dream this time.” She took a breath, let it out slow, and said, “Commit. A, a, eight, one.”
A soft, mechanical whirr emanated from below as the pod closed around her, sealing with a soft thump. In a moment, the air took on a crisp, clean coolness. A little metal prod extended upward and delivered an injection to her right arm. Her limbs grew leaden. The strong overhead lights dimmed.
“All right, kiddo.” Kerys closed her eyes and pictured her little brother’s smile as she surrendered to the oncoming drowsiness. “Here I come.”
fin
Acknowledgments
Thank you for reading Wayfarer: AV494!
I’d also like to thank Dean Samed for the amazing cover, and Nina for editing. Additional thanks to Tony Healey for suggesting I write a ‘space thriller.’
About the Author
Originally from South Amboy NJ, Matthew has been creating science fiction and fantasy worlds for most of his reasoning life. Since 1996, he has developed the “Divergent Fates” world, in which Division Zero, Virtual Immortality, The Awakened Series, The Harmony Paradox, and the Daughter of Mars series take place. Along with being an editor at Curiosity Quills press, he has worked in IT and technical support.
Matthew is an avid gamer, a recovered WoW addict, Gamemaster for two custom RPG systems, and a fan of anime, British humour, and intellectual science fiction that questions the nature of reality, life, and what happens after it.
He is also fond of cats.
Visit me onl
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MatthewSCoxAuthor
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/mscox
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/matthewcox10420/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7712730.Matthew_S_Cox
Email: [email protected]
Other books by Matthew S. Cox
Divergent Fates Universe Novels
Division Zero series
Division Zero
Lex De Mortuis
Thrall
Guardian
The Awakened series
Prophet of the Badlands
Archon’s Queen
Grey Ronin
Daughter of Ash
Zero Rogue
Angel Descended
Daughter of Mars series
The Hand of Raziel
Araphel
Ghost Black
Virtual Immortality series
Virtual Immortality
The Harmony Paradox
Divergent Fates Anthology
(Fiction Novels - Adult)
The Roadhouse Chronicles Series
One More Run
The Redeemed
Dead Man’s Number
Faded Skies series
Heir Ascendant
Ascendant Unrest
Ascendant Revolution
Temporal Armistice Series
Nascent Shadow
The Shadow Collector
Vampire Innocent series
A Nighttime of Forever
A Beginner’s Guide to Fangs
The Artist of Ruin
The Last Family Road Trip
Standalones
Wayfarer: AV494
Axillon99
Chiaroscuro: The Mouse and the Candle
The Far Side of Promise anthology
Operation: Chimera (with Tony Healey)
The Dysfunctional Conspiracy (with Christopher Veltmann)
Winter Solstice series (with J.R. Rain)
Convergence
Containment
Alexis Silver series (with J.R. Rain)
Silver Light
Deep Silver
Samantha Moon Origins series (with J.R. Rain)
New Moon Rising
Moon Mourning
Maddy Wimsey series (with J.R. Rain)
The Devil’s Eye
The Drifting Gloom
Samantha Moon Case Files series (with J.R. Rain)
Blood Moon
Dead Moon
Young Adult Novels
Caller 107
The Summer the World Ended
Nine Candles of Deepest Black
The Eldritch Heart
The Forest Beyond the Earth
Out of Sight
Middle Grade Novels
Tales of Widowswood series
Emma and the Banderwigh
Emma and the Silk Thieves
Emma and the Silverbell Faeries
Emma and the Elixir of Madness
Emma and the Weeping Spirit
Standalones
Citadel: The Concordant Sequence
The Cursed Codex
The Menagerie of Jenkins Bailey
Sophie’s Light
Wayfarer: AV494 Page 33