Excerpt

It's been a little while so I thought I'd update with something that I've been working on for a long while now (something that will *hopefully* **hopefully** turn into an actual novel at some point).

Unfortunately it slipped to the wayside for a while (sort of hit a wall), but in the last few weeks I've managed to get back into writing it and other related stories. I still think that the beginning has some problems (infodump again) so I'm not going to put that up just yet but some of the rest of it seems generally readable - so that's what you're going to get. An excerpt.

One last note, back in typical form, this is very definitely science fiction (soft - don't think I have the ability/background to write hard sci-fi) so reader beware. (Or don't, even if it's crap it might give you the idea that maybe you should read some and I have a rather long list of good novels that I can suggest).

Anyway, without further nonsense here is what (as I have yet to name the story itself) for the moment will simply be called Exile.


Exile


I wake early. I’m still in the cell and someone is unlocking the door. It slides open with a hiss. Presently a guard and two med-techs enter. I feign sleep. I’ve never really liked the faux-doctors that seem to gravitate towards the prison system and I always try to avoid having conversations with them. But that’s not what they had in mind. One of them, aided by the guard holds me down, while the other, moves in with the needle. I don’t struggle. No much point really. There is a quick jab in my right arm, then another sharper one in my lower neck. The second one lingers, eventually fading enough so that I can feel something cold pressed against my skin. I taste metal. Bio-monitor. Definitely Cryo then. I can feel them pulling me onto a stretcher, darkness takes me.
I’ve never liked Cryo, let’s just make that clear from the start. Never have, never will. Practice should have been abandoned as soon as the we broke the light barrier.

Sure I can understand the necessity aboard something like a prison ship, but that does not mean that I have to like it – and no, before you ask, my reasons aren’t the typical ones that people seem to bandy about all the time.
Sure before my first time I had the usual worries. Worries about the failure rates of the early days. Worries about the couple of sleeper ships that drifted into stars or things they shouldn’t have simply because someone somewhere made a mistake. Worries about the ships that simply disappeared. But like most of the rest I convinced myself that those were all issues that had been fixed for decade. That I had nothing to worry about. I didn’t even think about the actual freezing process, about how it might feel. That changed very quickly after the first time.

While your frozen you’re not supposed to feel anything as your supposed to be, exactly that, frozen. Not asleep, not unconscious. There is no thinking, no moving. You’re just frozen. Every cell in your body, every cell in your brain shuts down and remains shut down until they thaw you out at the other end. Or that’s how it’s supposed to be.

For me it’s different: I swear to god that each time I go under I dream. And they’re not your run of the mill dreams either. They’re vivid. I see people and places I haven’t seen in years. Old friends come and go, talking to me as if no time has passed at all. I can’t talk back, or even move, but that doesn’t seem to bother them. They just continue on their merry way, quickly replaced by some other familiar face. And this whole time, as if that wasn’t enough, I can feel the cold. The chill is shocking, almost unbearable. There’s no escaping it either, it’s in you, in every fibre of your body and there is nothing you can do to make it go away.

It’s much the same on the way to Fecund. I try to ignore as much as my half conscious mind can ignore anything, but like always it never works. After a while a single face keeps coming back to haunt me, and that hurts more than the cold. I try and run, but there’s nowhere to go. I’m stuck in my own head. Quite literally.

As far as I can tell this isn’t something that happens to other people. They go under. They wake up. No dreams. No visitations. Nothing. Simple. The only thing I can think of that makes me different is the implant. Makes sense in a weird sort of way. It’s part of me: it’s hooked into my brain but it’s not biological, so it reacts differently to the cold and the chemicals. While the rest of my brain is frozen, it still ticks away, and I think part of my consciousness bleeds into it. Not enough to be totally aware, but enough to remember. I hate the thing sometimes. Wish it had never been put in. Not that I had all that choice when it was. Not that there’s anyway now to take it out.
They bring us out in orbit. I come awake groggy and sick. Cold hands brush over me. I wretch as one tube is pulled from my throat, running on gag-reflex. I barely feel the one they yank from my arm. The chill left over from Cryo is everything. My bones feel like they are made of sloshed ice. The light is blinding and I want to vomit. But there’s nothing to bring up. Someone tries to get me to drink water, but their gone by the time I register that I’m actually thirsty. Stupidly I struggle, try to lean forward. For my trouble something cold brushes against my ribs and I collapses back onto the bed, writhing from the sudden electrical discharge. For a while all can do is lie there and pant, barely registering the alarm ringing in my head. Sometime later the pain subsides and my vision begins to clear. I’m no longer on board a ship. The ceiling is too clean - not enough grime or cables - and it’s much too big. Craning my neck I see dozens of other pods surrounding mine, most of them closed. Here and there are med techs, decked out in that sickly green that they seems to like so much. Every so often they crack another pod, bringing the occupant out of cold storage and checking to see if he’s still alive. A single tech stands back from the others, shock lance in hand, just in case a convict gets to lively.

It takes them a while to wake everyone and by then some of the other prisoners have managed to find their voices. A few shout insults, or call out for others they think might be nearby. To me it’s all a blur. A few stupid ones shout threats at the techs, and are swiftly shocked into submission. The guy next to me is one of those. It takes him a while to stop thrashing around and afterwards he just lies there, looking blankly in my direction. I try to catch his attention but he just looks through me. Face a mask of despair. I look away.

After what seems like an eternity the tech begin to finish and move away. Somewhere up above a red light begins to flash. One by one the pods begin to slide closed again, setting a few prisoners off again as claustrophobia kicks in. I lose the yelling behind the thick Perspex screen and my own nervousness is quickly washed away by the warm air pumping into my pod. It feels too good for me to be scared. There’s no smell to give away the knock out gas, but my implant chimes in with a hazard warning just the same. A wave of exhaustion washes over me as text scrolls in front of my vision, showing what exactly it is that I’m breathing. Fat lot of help to a man tied down. I find myself laughing at the repetition. The constant shift between awareness and oblivion, totally beyond my control. The text distorts and swims as my concentration dies and I slowly slip into unconsciousness.