Into the Void

Chapter 24

He snapped back to himself, his mind once again wrapped in its cocoon of flesh, reinforced by the icy strands of metal and synthetic nerves. He opened his eyes, squinting and blinking into a harsh white light. His muscles ached and his mouth was filled with the hot coppery taste of blood. Lungs burning, he took a deep shuddering breath, relishing the cold, refreshing air supplied by his exo-suit. He glanced down at the small clock in the bottom corner of the heads up display. The entire eons long out of body experience had passed by in just under a minute. Someone was shaking him gently and an unrecognizable sound warbled over his suits radio.

The sound resolved into Izzie’s voice. “Nate!” she shouted. “Damn it, what's wrong? Nathan! Answer me!”

“It’s okay Iz, I’m right here.” said Nate in a whisper. The memory of the vision fading like a half remembered dream.

“Are you okay? What happened? I have the med kit here, tell me where it hurts” said Izzy, her voice high and full of panic.

“I’m fine,” said Nate. “I don’t hurt anywhere, and you’d have a hard time working that medkit underwater. Everything is okay, I’m okay.”

“Are you sure? Your suit listed you killed in action after you touched that thing”

“Yeah I feel okay. Did you guys hear the whispers too?”

Rowan swam over to him. “Whispers?” he said. “No, I don't think anyone heard that. If it’s okay with everyone else I’ll take Nate back up to the surface. I think he needs a more thorough check up.”

Everyone agreed and Rowan attached a tether to Nate’s exosuit and swam back to the surface, Nate paddled back up the tunnel slowly and emerged into the sharp daylight of the world above. Rowan led him into the gunship and sealed the exit ramp. Nate sat in one of the seats in the crew compartment. He looked up at Rowan standing over him with his arms folded and tried to explain everything the monolith had shown him.

“So that’s it then?” said Rowan. “Your arm clamped on and the alien artifact gave you some kind of vision? I’m sorry buddy but I think we’ll need to give you a full tune-up when we get back to the Dauntless.”

Nate began to reply, but stopped himself, checking the event logs on the exo-suit. It had listed him as completely brain dead for five seconds before reassessing and stating he was alive but comatose. “I really do hate doctors,” he said. “But the suit logs think I fucking died for a full five seconds, that can’t be good for anybody. So, I guess you’re right, time for a tune-up. What’s the final tally on this old bucket’s damage?”

Rowan smacked the wall twice with his fist, producing a hollow metallic bang. “This bucket, as you put it, is tougher than she looks. The belly is pretty crumpled but it should be able to fly out of the atmosphere, although I wouldn’t trust it for reentry until it’s spent some time in the repair bay. Control circuitry got pretty banged up, but the mechanical bits are all still in place, we got lucky and just need some wire to splice the hydraulics back under the computer’s control. Izzy managed to fix that false read from the EBF sensor. Only other thing is hunting all the shorts in my control panel but hopefully swapping some fuses will fix that.”

Nate thought back to how hard they had hit the ground. “Wow, tough sounds like an understatement. You ditched the extra fuel though, we won’t have enough to make it back into orbit, or slow down once we’re in space.”

Reginald chimed in over the radio. “Sorry for eavesdropping guys, but I’m chatting with the Dauntless they’re trying to hot drop us some fuel. Their communications guy sounds ex-military and I can’t keep up with all the acronyms and jargon. What’s he mean by hot drop?”