File I: Rude Awakening

As quick as she drew a single deep breath, private Locks opened her green glassy eyes.
Surrounded by perpetual whiteness she looked around her, white as an empty sheet of paper lying far into the horizon her brain made belief she was seeing.
Her T.O.R. armor, worn duty clothes, gun, goggles, everything was still there, over her, as she stranded idle on the middle of that perpetual whiteness.
Suddenly a slow push, an electrical rush, ran down her spine compelling her feet to start the seemingly pointless act of walking. She felt her feet moving over the white surface, step by step, but the background didn’t change a bit on its featureless appearance.

Suddenly, as she kept on walking, stains of vibrant magenta, yellow and cyan stared drawing a fantastical landscape and what could be considered one of the walls of the whiteness; rolling pink plains, infinite blue skies and weird green mushrooms stared appearing on the way of private Locks, as she continued her automatic march.
Her face devoid of all emotions, she turned her head slowly, waiting for something that was coming from one of the pink hills.
There, at the distance, a small troupe of bizarre, yet comical, creatures came singing and dancing, all of them with a varied set of cartoon expressions. They continued their cheerful dance until they had formed a circle around private Locks.
Then a sharp whistling came out of nowhere, a familiar and obnoxious tune private Locks identified almost immediately as the little creatures started humming, “Don’t worry be happy.”

As the growingly vexing creatures continued their encircling dance around private Locks, a small yellow creature, with freakishly long pointy ears and a deep voice, that didn’t matched his 2 feet tall chubby body, started dancing closer and closer to her.
-The land lord says your rent is late. - It sang - He may have to litigate.-
-Don’t worry. – Singed happily all the rest of the creatures at the same time- Be happy.-
The little yellow creature looked up to the soldier girl with his big black eyes.
-Look at me, I’m happy!-
Private Locks tilted her head to the left and drew her gun, sticking it directly to the little creature’s forehead. The creature’s eyes widened to almost the full extent of his feline face and its ears dropped heavily.
-I’m happy too. - Private Locks said as she pulled the trigger and a gallon and a half of blood splattered all over her with a sickening cracking sound.

.   .   .


Another deep breath, more of a gasp, and a skinny little brunette girl jumped out of a dirty grey bunch of blankets on mattress in a corner of a dark room. She was shaking violently as a stinging cold clawed inside her chest, she tried her hardest to control her breathing but her bare white body kept getting colder and colder.
A mechanical stirring started creeping down to her, like an electric spider, and with a flash a monitor the size of her torso stood a few inches off her face, held by a mechanical arm with galvanized claws and muscles made of flexible plastic tubes.
The flicking white light of the monitor accentuated the freckles on the girl’s face and shoulders and made even more visible the blue tone of her shivering lips.
A multitude of voices came whispering out of the machine until a single female voice rose from all the others.
-Crew member 1067, Private Locks, life signs now stable.-
-I have figured that much already. - Said the shriveling girl. – What happened?-
-The Fuse’s cargo hold’s haul suffered a breach.-
-A breach? - Echoed the girl as she tried to look into the darkness of the room.
-Affirmative, as result of which four crew members resulted whether incapacitated or instantly terminated.-
- How sweet C.C. - said the girl, now wrapped on the dirty blankets, as she jumped out of the bed. - So, where are we now?-
-The Fuse has been a drift on the deep northern Lyran space for eight hours and forty-five minutes, standard day time. - Said C.C. following the girl trough the room.
-Wow, for how long have I’ve been lying here?- asked a surprised Locks as she walked towards the, now, illuminated lockers next to one of the green tiled walls of med bay.
-Approximately six standard hours. - Answered the monitor. – C.M. 1067 suffered form a severe concussive blast as a result of the breach, and was as such re-weaved and heavily sedated.-
-Great, that’ll be a week of getting used to new guts. - She sighed as she got dressed with her worn duty clothes.

A few moments later she was sitting on the bed, tying her shoes when someone slid open the thick metal door that separated med bay from the main corridor B. Behind it was a young man, with all his red hair dreaded and with a smirk on his face, he was wearing the same work clothes as the girl; an old pair of pants under a thick black fabric jump suit.
The jump suit was equipped with special cooling devices that circulated water as a second circulatory system, but it severely hindered movement when air inside a ship was too cold, so many crew members, including those of the Fuse, removed the sleeves.
-Had a nice tripping white butterfly? - Asked the boy.
-Bite me Carter.-
-Ok, jeez, it wasn’t that bad was it?-
-Of course it was. - Said the girl as C.C.’s monitor turned off and she returned to the darkness of the main system. – I think I shot a cat or something.-
-Crud. - Said Carter with a big smile on his face. - Dr. Alice must have weaved you up big time.-
-Yeah.-Said the not as happy girl. - Know what happened on cargo hold?-
-Don’t know much about it. - Answered Carter.-We’ve been running silent ever since so we’ve lost contact with the upper levels.-
The girl remained silent for a couple of minutes, meditating on the situation she and Carter where stuck now. Running silent on deep space, especially after a breach, could only mean a fistful of possible worst case scenarios.
-So we’re trapped on systems level. - She said as she tapped loudly on her lap. - Anyone else down here with us?-
-Just you, me, and Kari. - Said Carter. - She’s trying to open up the emergency food caches; come on, she could use a hand.-
The girl and Carter walked out of med bay trough main corridor B; cables where hanging out of their installations, just above the fluorescent tubes that united the brownish metal walls with the black ceiling.
-Damn. - Said the girl as she looked around the trashed corridor. - We sure took a good hit huh?-
-Good enough to take out Miles and Joan. - Said Carter kicking around a piece of the ceiling. - And to leave you and Kari all bruised up.-
-Yeah, I guess. - Said Locks a bit embarrassed. - Sorry.-
-Look, I know you haven’t been around that much. - Said a surprisingly serious Carter.-But Kari and Joan where good friends, so watch what you say around her.-

The rest of the trip down the destroyed corridors went out in silence, Private Locks never liked being nagged, she had always had some authority issues, but Carter was right the situation was serious, people had died already and even her life was in danger as long as complete communication wasn’t restored between the three levels of the Fuse.