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Alpha Redemption

By P.A.Baines

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1

The ship loomed overhead, its shadow engulfing them. Its smooth white skin filled the window, slowly obscuring their view of the Earth as the elevator rose. It stopped, and pneumatic seals hissed and whirred into place. Brett followed the technician through the airlock, pausing only to get a final glimpse of the planet he would not see again for almost a decade. He craned his neck to get a look but the ship's hull now blocked his view. All he could see was a sliver of atmosphere and a handful of stars.
It was his first time inside The Comet, but he knew it intimately from months of training. They were in the cockpit but there were no instruments: no joystick or control console, or even a windscreen--at least not in the usual sense of the word. There was nothing for him to do other than get into the hyper-sleep chamber that crouched in the middle of the floor like a grotesque, mutated iron-lung. He climbed the steps, turning to look towards the open airlock while the technician helped him connect the hoses, checking and double-checking the seal around his mouth. His initial discomfort at having something attached to his face faded as he relaxed the way they had taught him in the swimming pool, focusing on breathing slowly and deeply.
He slid into the chamber and his legs, hips, torso and chest became weightless in the clinging embrace of the syrupy goo. It covered his head and he opened his eyes, blinking uncomfortably into the yellow haze. He knew it was vital to immerse the eyes; they had stressed that many times. Remember to open them wide and have a good look around.
He could see the airlock from here, and the technician, now an amorphous blob, moving around the front of the bath, back and forth, back and forth. Brett felt a shudder as the lid closed and sealed over his head. A vague fear surfaced in the deepest recesses of his mind—what if. . .? then vanished again like a puff of breath on a chilly autumn morning.
The technician disappeared through the airlock, leaving Brett alone in his bath, breathing filtered air through a hose, listening to the muted sounds of the ship as it prepared to launch him towards an impossibly distant point of light.
In his dream-like cocoon, Brett could sense very little. Everything seemed muted and far away. He heard distant hisses, cavernous booms, and the ghostly shriek of metal on metal. Vibrations passed through the liquid and nudged at his body as if to alert him to some impending danger.
He could see the hoses drifting. His legs floated like odd-shaped creatures in a yellow sea. Then the vibrations stopped and there was no sound other than his heart beating softly in his ears. The taste of the air being fed to him through his mouthpiece changed. It reminded him of something. Was it watermelon? He could not remember the last time he had eaten a watermelon. He could not remember the last time he had seen a watermelon. Maybe they were extinct. Like dinosaurs. Hit by an asteroid; drowning in the mud; arms too short to take out the seeds. . .
Brett became aware that he was no longer thinking clearly, but that was fine. He watched his thoughts tumbling along like pretty little shards of plastic in a kaleidoscope, tumbling, tumbling, ever changing, never the same picture twice.
And at some point--he did not know exactly when--his thoughts faded as darkness washed over him and he slipped into hyper-sleep.

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