“Wusth ‘appenin’?” I managed to slur out.

  “Listen to me! If you want to save Amorina, you need to get up now!” Anne shouted.

  Save Amorina – yes, I thought, I want to do that. “Help me up,”

  I said, reaching out a hand.

  Anne took my hand, pulled me to my feet, and then ushered me towards an awaiting vehicle.

  “What are we doing?”

  “Get in! I’ll explain on the way,” Anne responded, shoving me into the vehicle.

  She climbed in behind me, ordered the vehicle to start and then pulled my face towards her. “Listen to me, and listen to me good, Raith. The soldiers, they will have loaded the prisoners onto the dropships by now and be preparing to lift off. When we get close, I’ll create a distraction, and you’ll sneak aboard the ship. Are you following me so far?”

  “Yeth.”

  “Repeat what I just said to you.”

  “You’ll be a dithtraction,” I shook my head to clear the lingering fog, “and I’ll sneak on the ship.”

  “Close enough,” Anne said with a sigh. “Keep listening. Chances are you won’t have time to find Amorina – hell, you might not even be on the same ship – but you should go to the same place. Find her and then find a way back. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Promise me, Raith – swear to me that you’ll bring my daughter home! Otherwise, she’ll end up just like your sister.”

  Whilst the knowledge of Livietta’s abduction was still new to me, I knew that she’d never made it home, and I didn’t want the same fate for Amorina. “I swear it – I’ll bring her home.”

  “Thank you, Raith,” Anne said as the vehicle came to a stop.

  “Alright, we’re here.” She picked up a glass bottle with a rag coming out the top.

  “Is that … is that a Molotov cocktail?”

  “You know what a Molotov cocktail is?” Anne asked with an eyebrow raised.

  “Yeah … apparently. Why? Is that unusual?”

  “Molotovs are old knowledge, forbidden really. I’d say you’d be hard-pressed to find many people who know what they are. Anyway, we’re wasting time. Wait until the soldiers have left the dropship to chase me and then get on.”

  Anne stepped out of the vehicle and started moving towards the ship. “Hey, assholes! Come get me, you sons of bitches!” she yelled, lighting the Molotov’s rag.

  With an overarm throw, she hurled the cocktail towards the ship. As the glass shattered, the liquid inside spilled out across the ground, then the flames took hold, igniting with a “woof.”

  “Come on, you motherfuckers!” Anne screamed.

  A dozen soldiers exited the dropship, sprinting towards Anne.

  They reached her and started beating her with the buttstocks of their rifles. As her muffled cries rang out, I wanted to help her, but I knew this was my chance. I stepped out of the vehicle and sprinted towards the dropship, checking to see if the soldiers had spotted me, but Anne was still the focus of their attention.

  Arriving at the dropship, I ran up the ramp and stepped inside and found four rows of cryopods, eight of them filled with prisoners. I peered through the glass of each pod, but none of them contained Amorina. I ran back to the ship's entrance and looked out, seeing that the soldiers had begun to walk back. I glanced around the ship again, this time spotting the gear storage along the outer walls. Scanning through the shelving, I spotted what I needed – a soldier’s uniform.

  I yanked on the trousers and the jacket, then headed for the nearest cryopod.

  How does this thing work? I wondered as I studied the controls.

  “Red initiation switch, wait for cycle selection, choose route default …”

  I flicked what I hoped was the initiation switch and let out a sigh as the screen lit up. I tapped on the screen and selected the default route. The door to the cryopod swung open, and I climbed inside.

  “Hit the green activation button …”

  I reached outside of the pod and hit the activation button. Sure enough, the door swung shut, and a mask lowered itself down onto my face. As the temperature inside the pod plummeted, an extremely sour liquid started pouring into my mouth. Unable to stop the flow of fluid, it streamed into my lungs. This must be what it’s like to drown, I thought.

  Whether it was the cold or something in the liquid, drowsiness rapidly enveloped me, and the darkness chuckled.

  “Sleep well … weakling!”

  Chapter 3

  The Place Between Worlds

  2147, Common Era – Machina Station, Mid Rim, Tynan Empire

  I couldn’t remember having experienced cryosleep, and yet it felt so familiar; perhaps it was part of my forgotten past, or just the echoes of old astronauts recalling their experiences. On Gaia, I’d listened to their recollections many times that cryosleep felt like a long, dreamless sleep. But my slumber was not dreamless. I spent my time in the ocean of darkness, alone and drowning in the turbulent waters as I had done every night on Gaia. The difference was that I could escape my nightmares at home when each morning dawned. But in cryosleep, there were no mornings, and so my nightly hell had transformed into an endless loop: I would drown, then find myself on a beach coughing up seawater, only for the waves to pick me up and sweep me out once more to begin the cycle again.

  Finding myself coughing up liquid once more, I thought it was another cycle of the dream until I heard a voice.

  “That’s it mate, cough all that shit up.”

  I looked up, surprised to see a grizzly older man sitting before me.

  With another retch, and another lungful of liquid expelled, I asked, “Who are you?”

  “Names Arty,” he replied.

  “I’m Raith,” I said, clearing my throat and wiping the cryo juice off my face. I winced as I ran my hand over my nose, discovering that my nose still felt bent and swollen.

  “Mate, that looks like you took a fair knock.”

  “How long was I asleep? Should I not've healed?”

  “You were out for a year, but mate, you’re basically an ice block in these contraptions – as far as your body knows, you’re carrying on from your yesterday!”

  I nodded. “Right, that makes sense.” I looked around at the other now empty pods. “Where are we, Arty?” I asked, continuing to wipe off cryo juice.

  “We’re aboard Machina Station, but surely you knew you were coming ‘ere, right?”

  “Um …” I muttered, trying to recall what I knew about Machina Station. “Not really.”

  “Where’d you come from?”

  “Gaia. The soldiers came and took a whole bunch of people … including someone dear to me.”

  Glancing down, I realised I was still wearing a soldier’s uniform.

  “I’m not a soldier!” I said, starting to unzip the jacket.

  “I know, mate – don’t you worry,” Arty replied, reaching out and stopping my jacket removal.

  “You … you know?”

  “Well, for starters, you’re missing most of the uniform, aren’t you? The jacket was a smart move, enough to fool most people at a glance, but anyone givin’ you a closer look would know you wasn’t the full package.”

  “Are you going to report me?”

  “Mate, if I were gonna report you, we wouldn’t be sittin’ here right now.”

  “Why aren’t you reporting me?”

  “Mate, you startin’ to sound like you want me to report you.”

  He raised an eyebrow at me.

  “No!” I exclaimed. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful … I’m just trying to understand you.”

  “Fair ‘nuff – well, I’m a member of the Insurgency, and that sure as shit means I ain’t no friend of the Empire. It strikes me that any fool dumb enough to sneak aboard an Imperial dropship probably isn’t a friend of the Empire neither.”

  “Ah, well, you’d be right there.”

  “First time?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “First time what?”

  “You know – takin’ an icy nap?”

  Oh right, I thought. I momentarily entertained the idea of explaining my amnesia and the likelihood that I’d done this before but had no recollection of doing so but decided against it.

  “Yeah, the first time. Can you help me? I need to find that someone I mentioned … they’ll be on one of the dropships that arrived when mine did.”

  “Sorry mate … I’ve stuck my neck out as it is, getting you outta your pod ‘n’ waking you up. Best I can do is take you before the Insurgency leaders ‘ere on the station.”

  Better than nothing, I supposed. “Yes, please,” I replied.

  With a pained grunt, Arty stood and then offered me his hand.

  I took hold, and he pulled me up.

  “Follow me,” he said.

  ***

  As I followed Arty through the corridors of Machina Station, I used the trip to observe my surroundings. Each hallway was industrially designed, dimly lit and cold, making for a rather sombre journey. Passing a porthole, I stopped and pressed my face against it, staring out into the void.

  “We’re in space.”

  “Yeah, mate,” Arty said, stopping and turning to look back at me.

  “We’re in fucking space!”

  “Yeah, mate, I know – space. Big, empty, an’ only one fuckin’ metal wall between you and nothin’ness.”

  Outside the window was darkness, filled with a splattering of stars. It gave off the faintest vibe that reminded me of my nightmares. But here, staring out into space, I felt no fear of drowning; instead there was a sense of peace that filtered through my body.

  “Come on, mate, best we keep movin’, aye?” Arty called out.

  “Yeah … Hey, this place, it just … it floats out here?”

  “Pretty much. As I understand it, way back when the Empire had colonised the Inner Rim, they’d discovered the habitable planets in the Outer Rim but found nothing liveable in the Mid Rim. So, they built Machina, a vital link in their growing chain of colonisation.”

  “With the cryotech, couldn’t they’ve just slept through the journey from Inner to Outer Rim?”

  “I ain’t no cryotech expert or nothin’, but unless it’s gotten better, most folks can’t go more than a year in an icy nap. This station is a midway point – a year from Earth, a year from Gaia.”

  I turned to look out the porthole once more, taking in its vast and dark splendour.

  “Come on, mate – we had best be gettin’ on.”

  I carried on walking, following Arty through more of the station. For a midway point, it was a lot busier than anticipated.

  There were soldiers, of course, and plenty of people wearing similar uniforms to Arty, whom I assumed were the staff – maintenance workers, janitors, cleaners, etc. There were prisoners, too, including a few faces I recognised from Gaia. We finally arrived at a doorway, where Arty knocked four times. Moments later, the door slid open, Arty stepped inside, and I followed. As the door closed behind me, I looked around at the new environment I found myself in. In contrast to the hallways outside, the room was large, open, and warm. Two dozen faces were watching me intently, instilling a sense of unease within me.

  “Who’ve ya brought in whit ya, Arty?”

  “A stowaway from on-board one of the newly arrived dropships. He’s no friend of the Empire.”

  Despite Arty vouching for me, a large man stepped forward and began frisking me. After a few moments, the frisker pulled out my still unopened Arachnobot.

  “We’ve got an unclean device!” they yelled out.

  A different man ran up and grabbed the Arachnobot, then raced off again.

  “I don’t understand … why’s it unclean?”

  “Quiet – you don’t get to speak yet,” the frisker replied.

  Satisfied with his search, the man turned away from me and called out, “He’s good, boss.”

  I looked around for the “boss”, spotting them as they replied.

  “I’ll decide who is or is na a friend of the Empire, ye hear?” said a hulk of a man, leaning forward into the light. “Come forward, laddie,” he added, beckoning me closer.

  Arty gave me a shove, and I stumbled across the floor until I stood before my beckoner.

  “State yer name.”

  “I’m Raith.”

  “Raith, who?”

  “Just Raith, sir – I’ve no other names.”

  “De ye hear that, lads? He called me sir.”

  If it were possible for the already quiet room to grow more silent, it did. The sound waves abandoned the air for what felt like an eternity, adding to my earlier unease. Then the big man broke out into thunderous laughter, and the crowd followed. Feeling calmer, I let out a chuckle.

  “Did I say ye could laugh?” the big man inquired, returning the room to a state of silence.

  “N-no,” I said, almost adding sir again. “My apologies.”

  “Righto … Mr Raith, tell me, where’ve ye come from?”

  “Ah, from Gaia. Farming district 42. I farmed, funnily enough.”

  “Did I ask ye what ye did?”

  I shook my head.

  “Right, well dinna answer questions ye weren’t asked.”

  I nodded, noticing that my palms had become sweaty.

  “Arty said ye were stowed away aboard an Empire dropship. How come?”

  “The Empire came to Gaia to do a Soul Harvest … they took my partner, Amorina. Her mother helped distract the soldiers, and I snuck aboard, slipped on part of a uniform, and jumped into a cryopod, to try and rescue Amorina.”

  My interrogator nodded, a thoughtful look on his face.

  “You left to command!” hissed an unwelcome voice.

  I realised this was the first time the darkness had spoken since awakening from cryosleep – why’d it been so silent for so long?

  “Not now,” I muttered under my breath.

  “What was that?”

  “Sorry … I just said where now – I was wondering where Amorina was now.”

  “Aye, well, stop wonderin’ and just answer my questions. What’s wit’ the scar on yer head?”

  I reached up and ran my fingers across the scar that circled my head. “We believe I was operated on, but we don’t know for certain.”

  “What was the op for? Whose we? An’ why aren’t ye certain?”

  “I don’t know because for whatever reason it was done, it left me with extreme brain trauma. I don’t remember anything prior to two years ago. We being my doctor.”

  “De ye know anything, anything at all, about yer life from before?”

  “Only that I’d come from off-world – relative to Gaia that is – as the doctor said that the technology used to operate wasn’t present in the Outer Rim worlds.”

  “One last question: the bruisin’ on yer face, and yer broken nose – how’d ye get those?”

  “During the aforementioned Soul Harvest, some of the soldiers took objection to my objections.”

  The big man leaned back into the shadows, and the room remained silent. I didn't know whether this was good or bad, but I was growing more nervous by the minute.

  “Assert yourself, weakling! Command them before they command you!”

  I cocked my head slightly, willing the darkness inside to dissipate.

  “Assert yourself!” it yelled louder.

  I closed my eyes, focusing. The last thing I needed right now was for it to take control. A sudden outburst wouldn’t help my case right now.

  “Assert …” it started to yell once more, but then the big man leaned forward.

  “I’ve decided that Mr Raith here … is na a friend of the Empire!” he exclaimed.

  The room gave a cheer and returned to their conversations, the spectacle of my interrogation seemingly over.

  The big man reached out a hand. “The names Ally McDougal, laddie, but folks round ‘ere call me Doug.”

  I shook Doug’s hand. “It’s ah – nice to meet you.”

  “Aye.”

  “Might I ask a question, now?”

  “Aye, laddie, but make it quick. Ye interrupted my drinkin’ with yer arrival, an’ I’m keen to get back.”

  “Can you help me find Amorina? She must be on the station too, right? People can’t go more than a year in cryosleep, so they’d have to wake her up before carrying on?”

  “It’s true, they’d have woken her, but twelve hours is all the time they need between wakin’ up an’ goin’ back to sleep. It’ll not be long before she’s away again, laddie.”

  “We need to find her now then!”

  Doug grimaced and shook his head. “I canna do that. The Insurgency has a purpose, an’ that is to take doon the Empire. I’ll not risk my men for the sake of one woman. I understand what she means to ye, but we must all make sacrifices.”

  “Then let me go and find her.”

  “I canna let ye out right now neither.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because right now, it’s the dead of night in those halls. There was enough risk in Arty bringin’ ye here, and he knew the station. On yer own, yer as good as lost, and if ye run into a patrol, it’ll be bad news for the lot of us.”

  “So what I am to do then?”

  “Ye’ll stay here fur the night. Arty will show ye to a room. In the morn’, we’ll send ye on ye way.”

  I could tell arguing would get me nowhere, so I nodded. “Thank you.”

  I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around to see Arty standing there.

  “Come on, mate. I’ll take you to your room, yeah?” he said, also handing over my Arachnobot.

  I nodded. “Hey, ah … what did they do to this?” I asked, holding up the device.

  “The lads’ jailbroke it – took off the Empire’s spyware and unlocked its full functionings.”

  I nodded again, and Arty started to lead me away. As I followed, the darkness had one last thing to say.

  “Fool! You’ve let yourself be commanded.”

  ***

  I sat in my lodgings for the night, musing over my frustration at the situation. Amorina was on-board the station, but two dozen men stood between me and my opportunity to find her – two dozen men that wouldn’t let me leave until morning. Amorina would have been refrozen and shipped further towards the core worlds by that time.