Celestial Castaway

  Towards the edge of The Milky Way the stars start thinning out. Planets, meteors, comets and other such ephemera that constitute a working Galaxy become less numerous too, until there is just....nothing. The absolute absence of anything at all for unimaginably vast distances. To all intents and purposes, and certainly to a human aboard a spaceship heading out of said Galaxy at speed and with no means of steering or propulsion; forever.

This is the situation that Gen-Com Surveyor 1st class Irre Le Vant is in, although he doesn't know it yet. Currently he is deeply and happily sedated, floating in the warm, comforting embrace of a high quality Suspended Animation chamber. It is the only one in use aboard The Silver Lining, a Star Colonies Probeship. An infinitesimally tiny mote on a sub-microscopic pin-prick in the endless, deepest of deep space that is supposed to be delivering him and supplies to a team on a potential colony world some thousand-odd light years away. It isn't. He dreams...

'I am with Nex, and we are blissfully happy. Everything is perfect. Nothing could ever be wrong when I am with her. It's my first term at the Xenotech and she is the most shockingly beautiful woman I've ever met. Hair of conditioned fire and eyes lambent emeralds, she leaves a crimson trace in her wake. Nexio Sutra; to meet her is to desire her. Her laughter raises every hair on my body, shivers the length of bones. She laughs a lot. Astoundingly, she is drawn to me and we revel in each other instantly. We are inseparable and invincible, mutually inspirational. When we are together, everything comes easy to our rarefied mindset; we are the King and Queen of the faculty. Our work makes a small but potentially important breakthrough in the application of artificial nucleotides. We are the campus Zero-G spadgeball doubles champions, nothing is beyond us. We are delirious with our own love and power. And then she falls with William, we agree his name an instant after we realise his conception but I am wary of his upsetting our dynamic. An easy, carefree pregnancy and he arrives. My concerns evaporate as soon as he is born, for he is perfection personified, a pure expression of our love. Fitting in seamlessly, we reach ever new plateaus of happiness. His first steps, his first words, his little victories are milestones of glee for us also. He grows fast and soon has his own autonomous adventures; school, friends and clubs. Then......the bad thing happens. I don't want to think about that and so I turn from it, floating back again to the best days.'

A part of him realises that these experiences are rose-tinted, made perfect through the lens of the chemically induced state he is in, although due to the same chemicals keeping his unconscious mind happy, he doesn't care.

A sub-routine in the A.I informs the main operating system that an alarm has initiated, indicating that a particular piece of hardware has triggered one of its many safety protocols. The Re-Animation process is started immediately, the pod containing the hapless fellow pivoting to a thirty degree angle, the lights in the bay blinking on in readiness.

'I am with Nex, and we are happy. It's my first term at the Xenotech and I am surrounded by grey fog. Grey fog? I am swimming? Why am I swimming through grey fog? Ah no, I am static but very nauseated. Throbbing pain in my head. I can't move, can't even open my eyes. Is this a bad Stim-Crash? Not worried though can't seem to remember....Oh hang on, got it; Sus-An. I've been under Sus-An, dreaming of the good times in my life, dreaming of her. Like I always do. It feels like I've been dreaming forever. The Neural Interface is beaming info straight into my head. Big, loud, shiny data dump, like its shitting cold fire into my brain. For some reason this strikes me as hilarious, I'd laugh if I wasn't on assisted breathing.'

-Cognitive function check- 85% normal parameters. Physicality check- 40% normal parameters. Re-Animation sequence continuing. Begin orientation update:

Welcome back to consciousness crewman. Please do not be alarmed. The Reanimation process may take longer than the designated average span. This is due to the length of this particular Suspended Animation term. Congratulations! You have exceeded the previous Sus-An record by 957 standard Earth years. This data will be fired into a Unisphere node at the earliest instance. Nearest Unisphere node currently 960.428 light years from this unit.