Athena and I spend every minute together we can, which is most of the time since both she and my parents know about us and approve. So, we spend the nights in her room until, finally, it’s our turn to enter cryo.

  We head down to deck 5 to the infirmary, where we’re both given a once over, procimed healthy enough to enter cryosleep, and sent to different rooms to change.

  In the room, I’m handed a pair of white briefs that will leave nothing to the imagination and then sent off to change in a curtained-off area.

  Once changed, I wait in the hallway leading to the cryo pods for Athena to join me. She soon comes out. My eyes widen, and I have a shit-eating grin pstered across my face.

  Now, I’ve seen her dressed, nude, and in between, but this… it’s just sexy as hell. They have her in low-rise bikini bottoms and a small sports bra. Actually, a bikini would have been more modest than what she’s wearing.

  Seeing my expression, she twirls in pce, and asks, “You like?”

  “Duh, it’s on you, so of course, I like it,” I reply, trying to py it cool. Of course, she didn’t buy it for a second because she rolls her eyes and giggles.

  “Come on, stud,” she says with a smirk, slips her hand into mine, and we walk down the short hallway.

  Entering the cryo pod room, the temperature drops dramatically, and both of us shiver. The cryo pods are in the middle of deck 5, which provides the best protection, and the pods also have individual backup power sources. The room is dimly lit with ten rows of fifty cryo pods each. Two rows of them are standing, but the majority are in their reclined position. Deck 6’s cryo pods contain all of the seeds, fertilized animal ova, insects, and such that we brought along.

  We’re led down the middle of the standing cryo pods, and we stop a couple of rows back. Luckily, Athena and I have cryo pods directly across from each other. The technicians have Athena step into hers first, then attach numerous sensors to her as I watch. Looking over at me, she winks, grins, blows me a kiss, then says something that I can’t hear over the noise in the room, but I assume it’s along the lines of ‘I’ll see you soon.’

  They have her settle back against the padding, and she again smiles at me and gives a little wave. The technicians finally put an oxygen mask on her, step back, and the pod door closes. Then it begins filling with the stasis gel. Once full, the clear door quickly frosts over, and a technician presses a button on the side, lowering it to its reclined position. That done, the technicians walk over to me.

  One of them says, “Mr. Marks, if you’ll step in, we’ll get you all set up.”

  A little nervous now, I ask, “What is it going to be like?”

  “It doesn’t feel like anything. From your point of view, you will go to sleep, and the next second, you’ll wake up, although 5 years will have gone by.”

  If you remember, I originally said it would be hundreds of years, but that was before Dad informed us of the ship having hyperspace engines. To any sci-fi fan out there, a third of a light-year per day may seem slow, but considering the alternative, it’s fast as hell.

  After they finish my preparations, I’m asked, “Are you ready?”

  I nod, yes.

  ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇

  I open my eyes, but can’t see anything. Everything is dark other than the status lights on my pod, which should be green, but glow amber. The gel drains away, and I remove my mask and take a deep breath of the cold, damp air. Then I hear the pod door whine open and smell something burning.

  Apprehensively, I call out, “Hello?”

  Sitting up in the pod, I hold on to the lip of it because I’m still unsteady.

  “You’re alright, kid. Just take a few breaths, and calm yourself. Someone will be with you soon,” I hear from some distance away, and a light turns on and shines in my direction. “We have another one,” he yells to someone. I can hear several people talking in the distance.

  I remain seated inside my pod because I’m too nauseous and groggy to do anything else. I wait for someone to come to get me. Slowly, the feeling comes back into my limbs, and my vision clears up a bit more. As I wait, I can hear the electric arcs snapping and popping, and the all too revolting smell of burnt meat. It takes a couple of minutes, but two people come up to me.

  “What’s going on?” I ask anxiously, slurring my speech because I can’t feel my tongue yet, and my mouth feels like it’s filled with cotton.

  “Rex. You’re alright,” says a woman, though I can’t see her through the light being shined at me.

  Trying to remember where I am and why I’m here, I finally remember that I’m onboard the Avalon and I just emerged from Cryosleep. Has it already been five years?

  As my thoughts begin to coalesce, it dawns on me that my pod should be upright and not horizontal. Brilliant lights turn on at each end of the room, giving me my first good look at the state it’s in. I wonder, ‘What the hell has happened? Don’t tell me that the Harbingers attacked us again.’

  I try to get out of the pod now that I’m more coherent, but they both stop me. “Rex, and just stay put for a little bit longer.”

  I merely nod and continue to look around the smoke-filled room, and it finally occurs to me to check on Athena’s pod. It’s open, and thankfully, it looks to be undamaged.

  The woman, whose nametag reads Nakamura, says, “Do you know who and where you are?”

  I look at her as I reply, “Avery Marks. I’m onboard the Avalon, and we’re heading for Kepler-22.”

  She nods. “Good. Right on all counts.” She looks at her partner. “Inform the Captain that Avery is awake and seems to be fine.”

  He says, “Roger that. I’m sure he’ll be gd to hear some good news,” and walks off.

  “Can you tell me what happened? Why does the cryo room look like this?”

  She irks the hell out of me when she ignores my question and asks, “Do you want to try standing up?”

  “Sure, but I’d like an answer to my question.”

  She frowns, and as she helps me out of the pod, she says, “Apparently, we emerged in the path of an asteroid swarm when we exited hyperspace. Our defense systems didn’t have time to engage them. As you can see, we’ve sustained some damage.”

  Some? It looks more like a shitload to me. “Did anyone else get killed?”

  She merely nods and leads me down the aisle back toward the infirmary. How many died this time? I hope not many because we can’t afford a lot of losses, not if we want humanity to survive.

  I’m taken to a shower room connected to the infirmary. “Take a shower, there are gowns by the exit leading to the infirmary, where they’ll give you a check-up and then some clothes when they release you.”

  She turns to leave so quickly that I end up saying, “Thanks,” to her back.

  The shower room only has emergency lighting, so it’s rather dim. Stripping out of the briefs, I step into the shower and allow the hot water to run down my body, rinsing away the sticky residue of the stasis gel, then begin washing. The long hot shower goes a long way to making me feel much more human again.

  Stepping out, I dry off and walk over to don a gown, then step through the doorway into the controlled chaos that is the infirmary. It’s much brighter in here than in the shower room, but if the ship is having power problems, the infirmary might be using their backup power systems. I see Dr. Mayes look up from the patient he’s working on and nod to acknowledge me. A nurse comes over and leads me to a bed, says that someone will be with me shortly, and closes the curtain.

  As I wait, I again wonder how many we lost. Dad told me that we had 426 people left after the attack, so, as I said, we can’t afford to lose many more, especially the women. I pray that Athena is alright.

  I wait approximately 15 minutes, allowing my mind to wander until Dr. Mayes pulls back the curtain and steps up beside the bed. “Hi, Avery. I’m happy you’re alright.”

  “Is Athena okay?”

  “She is, and she’s resting in our cabin.”

  I slowly let out a relieved breath. “Thank God. How many did we lose this time?”

  His expression tells me that the situation isn’t good. “84, almost all of them are women.”

  I’m fbbergasted for a few moments. “So, we’re screwed.”

  He shakes his head. “No, your father and the medical staff have come up with a solution, but I’ll let him talk to you about that. Now, y back, and let me get you checked out so that you can get out of here.”

  He does a quick scan of me, asks a few questions, and then says I’m clear. Then he directs me to go change and tells me that I should message my dad because he needs to talk to me.

  I nod, head off to change, and slip on my device. Then I message my dad telling him I’ve been cleared by the doctor.

  A couple of seconds ter, he tells me to come to his ready room. I already had a bad feeling about things when I woke up, but now it’s much worse because if he wants to see me, something really bad must have happened since he’s probably very busy trying to put the ship back together.

  Walking out into the hallway, the first thing I notice is that the once-pristine ship is much worse for the wear. Panels all over have been removed to make repairs behind them, there’s a huge patch and many smaller ones on the floor and ceiling along the hallway, along with other signs of damage.

  Making my way to the elevator, I see a note saying that it’s out of order, so I take the access stairs up to deck 1 and walk to my dad’s ready room.

  Upon reaching the ready room, I wave at the Marine on guard, who nods at me, knocks on the door, then opens it. Inside, my parents and little sisters are scattered around the room in various seats. Kay and Kathy jump up, run over, and glomp onto me tearfully. Now, I’ve always considered the two of them to be a bother since I had to watch them, but I do love my little sisters. I gently stroke their hair and murmur, “Hey, I’m fine, so loosen up so I can breathe.”

  “You can’t bme them. They’ve been like this since they heard your section was the worst hit,” Dad says with a grin. “They wouldn’t believe me that you were alright until they saw you.”

  “Well, you’ve seen me, so can you two let me go?”

  Kay shakes her head, and Kathy follows suit. The three of us have always been fairly close, but more so on their end. I suppose it’s because we’ve had to spend so much time together, and they consider boys their age to be idiots and not worth their time. They get a lot of attention, or at least they did at school because they’re quite pretty. I teasingly called them brocons several times until the two of them looked me in the eye and ftly stated, ‘So? What if we are?’ As they say, ignorance is bliss, so I let the subject die and never brought it up again.

  “At least, let him sit down. He just woke up not long ago,” Mom says with a grin.

  They each grab an arm, and we sit down on the sofa facing our parents.

  That done, I say, “So, I heard the bad news from Dr. Mayes. What now?”