The thing about dreams is that any logic seems perfectly reasonable whilst you're in them. Right now i'm convinced I've got to stop that big mostly blue horse from rifling thorough my filing cabinets.
"Stay out of my filing cabinets you damn dirty big blue horse!" Is what I want to scream.
I'm stopped by a sudden onset of impractically huge teeth. They really are getting in the way ... I'll have to sort them out when I march on over to the horse.
I convinced I keep all my best stuff in those cabinets there. It's messing everything up ! It's even putting in entirely new folders without even asking!
I'm not far away now. Damn my teeth feel big , I'll just move them out the way.
Now i'm watching them fall in slow motion and shatter on to the floor.
Slowly running my tongue across empty gums is when I first realize this isn't going well. At all.
I look back at horse whilst scooping up a handful of shattered teeth from the floor. It doesn't look impressed. I almost catch a flicker of disgust or confusion on its face, its hard to tell what with it being a horse and all. Like any reasonable being I swing my fist towards its big dumb head to try and punch it.
"Screw You!" I eloquently add, only to watch my arm move in slow motion. The more I watch, the slower it seems to move. The more I press it forward, the more it feels like I'm forcing it though walls of molasses.
The horse speaks, it looks me dead in the eyes, it lowers its head. Did it always have that horn? What's with the sudden light?
I fall back into dreamless asleep.
The next I know I being I'm awoken with the worst possible thing from deep space hibernation. A low oxygen warning.
For a low oxygen warning to trigger several terrible things must have happened to you. The first of which and probably most important is that all your primary hibernation systems and then their backup systems must have failed. After this catastrophic (and company assured against) event, in a desperate bid to keep you alive your pod will have begun the process of partially thawing you. If by some other terrible miracle your pod has been further compromised all the fluid in your pod will have been drained and replaced with standard atmosphere.
But even these aforementioned disasters would not have been a huge deal with your typical long haul flight, should some competent technician be available and got the message to bail your semi-thawed popsicle arse out. In this case let's say for arguments sake that you are out of competent technicians, and the pod has indeed been compromised in such a way for it to be leaking atmosphere at soon to be terminal rate. The hibernation pods' onboard computer would then have to decide that this last ditch effort to wake you was preferable to you never waking up at all.
After a few minutes of barely struggling to stay awake, one of the first things I know for sure is that the pod is leaking, I can hear the hissing. Either someone has smuggled a bunch of snakes in here with me or I'm leaking atmosphere. Whilst either case is deadly, I’m betting on the pods’ warning systems being correct.
I’m still very foggy from the long hibernation cycle, but a few things are immediately apparent. I’m not in crew storage (its standard practice to freeze non essential crew on long haul trips, and lets just say unless the chicken soup dispensers get clogged there isn't much use for 3rd level technician) I’m very familiar with the crew popsicle deck and from what I can see I’m not there. Instead it looks very much like I’m in a tiny escape pod.
Things weren't supposed to be like this. I signed up for a standard long haul shipment vessel. I’d sleep away the relative decades, maintain the odd Scutter, fix the odd nozzle. I’d get though most of the journey un-bothered and unneeded. our precious cargo of self-sealing stem bolts delivered and then used for whatever the hell they were used for. I didn't care nor need to know , I signed up on this job because I needed the money and had no one back on earth that I particularly cared about dealing with after time dilation and hibernation was taken into account. This was supposed to be an easy pay day. A few relative years in deep space, drop of most of the cargo, then have the option of getting danger pay by volunteering for the mission through that new wormhole or get the next ship headed to earth. I don’t think I got to the the station, at least I don't remember it.
Right now i’m going to go right ahead and classify what I’m currently seeing the worst possible thing to see when waking from emergency de-hibernation. First after what seemed to be an eternity of effort I managed to regain partial control of my arms. I began to carefully sweep the glass in front of myself. With my new found dexterity I had just enough precision to flail them over and clear the condensation from what I was trying to think of anything else but my soon to be glass coffin lid. The very last thing that I wanted to see across the room though the tiny viewpoint window of the escape pod is a desert.
This quickly leads to the following deadly conclusions. I've not only been ejected from the main ship (boo!), I've apparently survived entry into a planet (minor yay!) but I've no idea where I am on a said god-forsaken random planet that is 99.99 percent likely to kill me. (boo!).
For what will probably be the final nail in my coffin; I’m not in space so I might have been drifting a good while before ending up god knows where, and now I’m stuck down some gravity well where the company will (rightly) assert that its not worth the fuel to bring me back up.
I must be still fairly drugged up from the hibernation. At least I'm hoping its that, and not freezer burn. But the slightly dull feeling behind my eyes is helping me keep objective and not freak out. Looking around the small room containing my pod, I can a few non standard items , a slumped EVA suit lies away from me in the corner. Its whole left leg is missing and there is definitely a stump there. Some poor bastard had a worse day than me for sure. Did they save me? I can’t see the visor . I’m not sure I’d want to at this point. There's also a few bottles scattered around. When I recognise them it's unfortunate only a few are broken. Their weird irregular twisted shape and pitch black colour immediately tips me off to its contents. Kanar... our other .. more clandestine cargo. Describing it as illegal hooch would be giving moonshine a bad name , this stuff was foul and toxic to humans like myself. I could drink it as a last suicidal resort.
There’s a control panel under my right hand, I can choose to open the hibernation pod. This leaves me with a few equally terrible, equally likely to kill me options.
First option; Open the hibernation pod, and hope that the escape pods’ computers are working. Then hope that they are able to get life support up and running. This should fill the cabin quickly enough with breathable atmosphere before I die , but probably not before I pass out. Should this unlikely scenario play out it would mean I get to live a bit longer in the pod, and then probably starve to death when my rations run out waiting for rescue that will never come.
Second option; Open the hibernation pod , then make a mad dash for the door before I pass out. Then I merely have to hope that the random planet I'm on has a breathable atmosphere. Presuming the atmosphere isn't face melting acid, I’ll get to die when my rations run out same as option one but I get to stretch my legs and build sand castles.
Third option ; don't open the pod. Die from suffocation.
I don’t notice the black shapes outside the window , and I don’t notice the proximity alarms over the cacophony of sounds the pod is assaulting me with.
I'm totally fucked either way.
I open the pod.
