The Sleeper Ship
#1 of Aether Rising
AETHER RISING
An interactive story series by Rumbunk
Chapter I: The Sleeper Ship
Limitless quiet sourrounded the drifting vessel, that made its lonely way through the depths of space. A hull pock-marked with countless craters of celestial impacts that had happened so long ago, that not even dust remained of the projectiles.
The Aether was a sleeper ship, sent into space by a species that had seized to exist eons ago; people destroyed by their own xenophobic hatred and seething malcontent. Now it was the carrier of all that remained of them and their civilization.
Records of history, technology and art. And artists they had been, these lost people. The one art they had become the most proficient in, was working the strands of life into any shape their minds would conceive, creating beings much like themselves, but unique and different in their own ways and they called them the genomorphs.
But they would not treat their creations with respect, nor give them any love and care, for they would soon tire of them once the process of forming them was complete and they had spent some time watching their behavior. Usually then, the creatures would be either released into the wilderness below the floating city ships of their makers or put into stasis for later evaluation or, in most cases, unending oblivion.
And oblivion continued, now no longer on earth, where they had been born, but in the depths of space, where this time capsule, this sleeper ship had brought them. Well over nine thousand earth years had passed and even in the slow dreams of the frozen mind, this amounts to a great length of time.
Inside the ship a tireless chronometer began to slow down and stopped. Soundless alarms flared up throughout the frayed nervous system of its hulk and triggered change. The long sleep was coming to an end.
* * *
The first feeling was one of pain, as Sanyu opened her eyes and quickly shut them again. Gradually it faded to a more bearable level and she dared to look down on the rest of her body, that was still firmly strapped into the nanomed unit.
The sight of her own skeletal lower body did not shock her, since she had been among the few, who had actually been briefed about what to expect. For storage over such extensive periods of time it was impossible to efficiently sustain the body. Instead the mind would be virtualized and stored in a more resilient buffer matrix.
While time ate away the frail flesh even in its protective shell, the mind was safe from harm, until it was time to decant it back into the body. The buffer matrix had a complete record of brain structure and of the tissues of other volatile organs, skin and bones only had to be reactivated.
She watched the nanomed complete her left leg and felt the soft tingle of the activated nerves. She moved her toes experimentally and was surprised about the familiarity of the resurrected limb. This was the leg she remembered, down to the very calluses between her claw-tipped toes.
Soon afterwards the other leg followed and then her arms. Now all that was left were her intestines and she felt a little uneasy seeing the nanomed unit insert a vat-grown uterus into her abdomen, then the rest of her organs. Finally the machine even filled her bowels with a nutritional paste to keep her from loosing strength after release from life support.
Sanyu was wondering, how many of the others would be around. She had been told that the survival rate in permanent storage was about 80%, but there was an additional risk of trauma where the mind had either not been able to stand separation from the body or had been damaged while being decanted into the reconstructed brain.
They had been 20 operators, but the ship needed only three. This told her something about the odds they were facing. And of course there were the passengers - both humans and genomorphs. They numbered in the many thousands and dispite the losses there would still be thousands left.
Having finished its procedure, the nanomed unit released Sanyu from its grasp, but she knew better then trying to sit up. The surface below her began to move and she knew, that the antigrav sled would see her safely to her assigned quarters. Tired from the hardships of her resurrection, she decided to sleep, entrusting herself to the care of the tireless machine. After nine thousand years she would have another night of rest, before what passed for morning on this timeless ship would bring about change for thousands more.
[edited for typos]
So far completely yiffless, but a good story has to start somewhere. Maybe there is already someone reading who wants to contribute an idea?
Post anything you like for consideration, but foremost I still need the following:
Sanyu's physics (like which one or more types of morphs she represents; I was thinking fox, but maybe you have different ideas?)
Other characters to incorporate as operators who awaken in ways similar to Sanyu's own ressurrection
Please tell me what you are thinking and tell me your ideas :)