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There was a voice and a buffeting motion, as though they were breaking the atmosphere.
“Come on, damn you!”
Her eyes opened and she rolled her head, her muscles stiff and aching after such a long time in Sleep.
There was a man shaking her awkwardly with one hand. Brienne could nearly taste the relief that flooded his face when he saw that she had woken up.
“Get up,” he said, and his eyes kept dancing left and right in panic.
She was about to argue. That wasn’t protocol. It had been drummed into them; you take it easy when you wake up. You give your muscles time to adapt. Slow and easy movements only.
He must have seen it in her eyes. “Move! Now!” he barked at her with sufficient authority that her legs were already swinging over the side of the pod before he had finished speaking.
They didn’t run, but it was a quick walk. Even that was enough to make Brienne’s legs ache. A sharp pain flared in her back. Too much, too soon, but now she was up, she started to see the need for it. The other pods lay broken open, smashed like a child’s plaything. Some were entirely empty, but others... A hand here, a leg there. Bloody smears and dark stains patterning the machinery that had kept them alive in deep space for so long. There were bodies ripped open, many with faces that she recognised, their features still fixed in sleep. They looked peaceful and it was a strange juxtaposition with the twisted mess that surrounded her.
There was a service room at the end of the corridor and once inside, the man pulled open the box that housed the door controls and ripped the wires out.
“It might buy us some time.” He sank down to sit directly under the window, out of sight, and beckoned her to do the same.
She knelt, grateful for the rest, trying to process what had happened in the last five minutes with a brain that was still slow and foggy from Sleep.
“Jaime?” she said eventually.
“Memory coming back at last? It took me nearly an hour just to remember my own name.”
He looked rougher than she remembered – tired and scared and still cradling one arm. It was a million miles from the Jaime that she remembered, one who was confident and spent too much time laughing. And excited.
They had all been so excited. A journey of exploration, of discovery. The first travellers from Earth to be sent so far. The age of wonder. All those phrases had been used in the send-off. She thought about the broken bodies lying outside. They probably hadn’t even awoken. Maybe they were still so deep in Sleep that they hadn’t known. It was the only comfort she could find for herself.
“Are all the suites the same?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And you, are you alright?”
He smiled at her. “We’re all going to die. I’m peachy.”
“Stop dicking around, Jaime.”
“My hand never quite woke up, it seems,” he said, his voice more serious.
“How did you wake up? Is there anyone else?”
“No one. Just us. I think one of them knocked into my pod while... And it got damaged. The pod woke me up – damage protocol, but maybe the damage is why my hand won’t work.” He took a breath and looked straight up into her eyes. “There are things on the ship with us. I don’t know what they are or how they got in. They’ve killed everyone, killed but not eaten. We’re the only ones left, Brienne, and I won’t lie to you, I don’t know what to do. Two hundred people dead, and we’re in the middle of nowhere, so far as I can make out.”
“One hundred and ninety eight,” Brienne said firmly. It was disconcerting to see Jaime panic, but she was at least starting to understand why. “Them? Have you seen them?”
“Big things, clumsy looking but fast, oh very fast. They look reptilian but they aren’t. Lots of teeth. Tooth fairy would go bankrupt.” He flashed a quick grin again, seeming to calm down now. “You have no idea how glad I am to find you in one piece. I thought I was going mad.”
“How long since you woke up?”
“Maybe three days.” He reached around to his back and produced a small blaster gun. He pressed it into Brienne’s hands. “I seem to recall you were pretty good with one of these.”
She swallowed hard. It was amazing how much safer she felt with a weapon in her hands. Jaime soon managed to kill that feeling though.
“They don’t seem to be much use. Skin’s too thick, from what I can tell, but it hurts the bastards.” He jabbed at his dead fingers with his working hands, trying vainly to provoke a response. “I’ve been thinking... Perhaps we should find the kitchen.”
She caught the reasoning quickly. “Almost anything will die if you poke enough holes in it,” she said slowly. “Kitchen? Do we have such a thing?”
“Yeah. I remember it from training. The Captain insisted on it. He said that if we’re being sent out into the wilderness, the least they can do is make sure we have some decent food. Insofar as any of this space shit can be considered food.” He glanced up at the ceiling for a moment, as if in thought. “He’s dead too, you know. George.”
She nodded and looked up at the mangled door control. “Let’s go.”
It took awhile to wedge the door open far enough to get out, and they made their way through long, partly lit corridors back to back. Brienne thought she saw something moving out the corner of her eye more than once. It’s just the fear, don’t let it get to you, she told herself, over and over. They talked in whispers, not wise perhaps, but the only thing keeping either of them from going over the edge. They found a second blaster as they passed through the ship, next to another corpse.
“Looks like we weren’t the only ones who woke up,” Jaime said quietly and took the gun.
“Once we’ve killed all the bastards, what then?” Brienne whispered. “It’s just us.”
“Repopulate the ship?” Jaime suggested, earning himself a sharp elbow in the back. He became more and more like his old self the more they spoke.
“I’m not popping babies out, Lannister. I’m not a brood mare.”
She felt him shrug. “We could just take the ship and go wherever we want. Or we could just go back into Sleep.”
She shuddered involuntarily and remembered the peaceful faces of the corpses. “No. No, they might come back. There could be more of them. If I die, I’ll die facing them and I’ll take as many with me as I can. I don’t want to just go to Sleep and never wake up, never knowing what happened.”
“You might get your wish,” Jaime said and stopped.
Brienne risked a quick look around, over his shoulder. There was only one of them, but one was more than enough. He had been right to suggest a reptilian nature, but it was like comparing a chicken to a dinosaur – related but so far removed that one could not give you an accurate picture of the other. He was right about the teeth too. She shuddered and turned her head back. There was one on her side now, blocking the way back. Its eyes were fixed on her, but it made no move. She wondered if they were pack animals, if they would synchronise their movements.
“Regrets?” he asked simply.
She nearly laughed. “Dying here. I wanted to walk on another world. I wish this could have happened on our way home. I wanted to see a sun rise on an unfamiliar landscape. I wanted to be an adventurer, like they kept telling us we would be.” She gave a short laugh, never taking her eyes off the creature. “I’ve never been kissed, did you know that? How did I manage to get on to the program and never manage that much actual living?”
She felt him go still. “Brienne, you make the Marines look like little boys playing at war. You’re better than most – no all – of the men I’ve worked with. You can’t get sentimental on me now.”
She didn’t say anything. It was like a blow to the chest. About to die and I still can’t get a man to see me as anything other than one of the boys.
The silence must have been telling. “I’ll kiss you.”
“That’s very nice, Jaime, but we’re a little busy at the moment. And I had hoped some affection might be involved rather than pity.” The words came out through gritted teeth. The creature in front of her made a sliding movement to the right and she turned, positioning her body so that she was still facing it head on. It seemed to be confused, curious even, but then all the people it had thus far encountered had been tucked away in metal pods. She wondered if there was an intelligence in there that they could make some effort to communicate with.
He was laughing at her, silently. She could feel his shoulders shaking. “I don’t pity you. Actually, I’ve always quite liked you.”
This time, she was the one who went still. She didn’t even know how to begin to respond to that. Her eyes fixed on the creature, looking for any hint that might betray which way it would move first.
“Maybe we can remedy a few of those regrets, but we have to get ourselves out of this first," he continued.
“Have you got a plan?”
“Perhaps. See if you can reach into my back pocket.”
Brienne stared fixedly ahead and slowly reached around behind her. It took a certain amount of fumbling before she found the top edge of the pocket and got her hand inside. Her face was hot and she knew from past experience that she would be flushed red with embarrassment.
“Take as long as you need.” She didn’t need to be looking at him, she could hear the grin in his voice.
She found something and pulled it out. A switch blade, small, but perfectly serviceable. She flicked it open and sighed. “The smallest knife in the world. How does this help?”
“The skin is thick, but maybe if you can slice it open first the blaster might do some good. You’ll need to be fast and go for anything that looks like it might fall open and present a bigger target. Big, wide cuts, you understand?”
“Got it.” She hefted the knife in her hand a moment and looked at the creature, looked at the hideous rows of tiny, razor sharp teeth. “Jaime,” she said very quietly. “I don’t think that I want to die.”
“We aren’t going to die,” Jaime said confidently. “We’re going to kill these two and then we’re going to hunt the others down. Then we’re going to take this ship and play at being space adventurers, just like I wanted to when I was a boy. Is that ok with you?”
She nodded.
“Anyway, you can’t die. I haven’t kissed you yet.”
Brienne held the image in her mind and spun, blade outstretched.