Chapter Text
Waking up from deep space hibernation was never a pleasant experience.
Waking up from hibernation and realising that he had returned to events he had already lived through once somehow made it seem worse. As far as Commander Alaric Wilson was concerned, he had died a hero’s death, closing the rift that threatened to engulf Arcadia. Finding himself back at the start of the whole sorry affair and knowing the shenanigans that he was about to be forced to endure was almost enough to make him consider throwing himself out of an airlock.
Around him he could hear the sound of his soon to be ex-crew going about their business, oblivious to the fact that they were all lambs to the slaughter, about to be sacrificed by a woman who was following orders that she did not even understand given to her by people who thought their own calculations infallible. She had been instructed to destroy the experiments the Protectorate were carrying out on the Rifts and in her mind the people who were killed in the process were necessary.
The Sovereign of the Protectorate had lost his family, his mind, then his position as the Consul who had been supposed to support him had staged a coup. The final indignity visited upon him was the treatment to correct his mental state had instead reduced him to a vegetive state, ensuring that he would spend the rest of his natural life staring blankly at a wall. Admittedly the coup had only occurred several years after Auntie’s Choice had invaded, as the Consul tired of the Sovereign’s obsession with recovering his daughter from the rift, blaming it for their slipping grasp on control of the system.
Now, Alaric realised with a sigh, he would have to head downstairs and listen to Augustine De Vries lie through her teeth without saying anything too rude. If she suspected that someone had sniffed out her plans there was no telling what she might report back to the Earth Directorate and what punishment would be visited upon them. Which left him in the unenviable position of knowing that the team were heading towards events that would end with their deaths, though Niles would survive at the cost of an arm and a leg.
The knowledge made it even worse when, upon exiting the bridge, he found Niles waiting ready to deliver the time dilation device that all agents were expected to wear on active duty. Somehow Alaric managed to stumble through the conversation, gaze fixed on a point over Niles’s shoulder as the younger man enthused about serving the Earth Directorate. Telling him that they were a bunch of corrupt bastards who had bartered people’s freedom for access to skip drive technology would dampen his enthusiasm, but it did not seem fair to disillusion him so early. Condemning him to spend the next ten years with only a robot for company was not much kinder, but he would at least have time with Zebulon Tran (who Niles refused to confirm was an ex-romantic partner, though he had not denied it either).
“You all right Commander? You seem distracted?”
Alaric jerked back to the present to find Niles regarding him with an expression of concern.
“Just finding it hard to wake up…I’ll meet you downstairs.”
Before Alaric could talk to De Vries he needed to obtain his credentials, which were trapped inside his quarters. He found that he could not be bothered with the rigmarole of repairing the door, instead forcing it open with brute strength, which probably meant he could look forward to having to replace the burned-out door motor. His passkey lay on the table, for all the good it did him Alaric was tempted to leave it downstairs for the foreseeable future. It wasn’t as though the Earth Directorate ever sent him anything confidential, Sandoval was their blue-eyed boy and was, in all likelihood, sending them disparaging reports about the rest of the crew.
The pre-mission briefing was the train wreck it had been before, though this time Alaric made sure he spoke up for Helen Pascal and pulled rank on De Vries, trying not to grin at her apology, forced through clenched teeth. Once it was over he headed up to the control room and set course for Horizon Point, watching as the station came into view, as cold and desolate as Alaric remembered. As the ship began its landing, he wondered what, if anything he might be able to do to change the events that were about to occur.
Time was running out, and he was drawing a blank.
The landing, as expected, went off without incident, Sandoval and Jepsen both taking their positions to stand guard whilst the rest of the crew headed for the security controls. Turning on the power activated security, which Alaric then found himself sweet talking Cadet Corbin into deactivating once again.
It was a source of personal frustration for Alaric that despite racking his brain he could not see a way out of this situation without having to let Augustine De Vries drop the containment shields that would then allow the rift anomaly within to consume the station. The presence of the rift was the only thing that had prevented Auntie’s Choice from deploying their full military might to invade Arcadia, though the numbers that had managed the journey had inflicted enough damage on the planets they had tried to conquer. But if the station were consumed by the rift, then hundreds of innocent people would die, including the royal family.
Niles and Helen had already run towards the entrance of the sector, eager to start the next phase of the mission, which left him alone with his thoughts. Behind him came the sound of the propaganda video that was set to play on a loop, which Alaric was now sure he would be able to quote from memory. Cutting off communications would be a blessing if he no longer had to endure being told that he was THE vital cog that kept the Protectorate from falling into ruin.
“Cadet Corbin?”
Without thinking he had put his hand on the button to open the communicator and the sound of a heavy sigh from the other end had alerted him to his mistake.
“Cadet Mowry…what did I say about not pressing any buttons?”
It was all Alaric could do to stop himself from cooing at how upset Corbin sounded, remembering that the younger man was deathly afraid of being sent to Mental Refreshment and using the Cadet he was impersonating as a yardstick to measure what he could expect.
“I…sorry…but I saw strange people with guns.”
There was another sigh from the speaker.
“Those were not people Cadet Mowry…they were the combat mechs you had a problem with? I deactivated them for you…”
Even though he was probably racking up the demerits as they spoke Corbin was too kind to just cut the line, trying to reassure the man he thought he was speaking to. It brought a smile to Alaric’s lips even as he realised that if he followed through with the idea that had come to him it would render him unable to access and wipe Corbin’s demerits from his appraisal.
“But they’re still there…and they’re heading into the sector?”
Alaric saw one of the security cameras start to move, angling itself towards the tunnel where Niles and Helen were waiting. It was closely followed by the shrieking of an alarm and the Automechs beginning to reactivate. Helen noticed first, immediately turning to fallback to a more defensible position, Niles was a fraction slower to react, allowing one of the drones to line up a burst of fire that struck his right side, knocking him to the ground. Cursing under his breath Alaric aimed first to take down the surveillance, relying on V.A.L and Helen to draw the drones' attention away from his fallen comrade.
“Fuck Commander, we must have triggered some tripwire or something…”
Shaking his head to cut Helen’s apology off Alaric gestured towards Niles who was trying to crawl to cover on his uninjured arm and knees.
“Get Niles back to the ship. Take V.A.L. I am calling off the mission, get a safe distance from the station and wait. I am going to go extract De Vries, we will use the station’s escape pods.”
Alaric was surprised at how logical his plan sounded, since it was entirely off the top of his head.
“Roger Commander…be careful.”
Helen stooped to help Niles to his feet, supporting him as they began the short journey back to the landing pad. As tempting as it was for Alaric to watch them and make sure they got back safely he knew that he did not have any time to spare. The staff who manned the facility would be destroying everything to stop it falling into enemy hands, for all he knew that might mean that they would weaponise the rift to finish the job. Luckily, the trip through the next sector was quicker than before because he was not trying to infiltrate the communications or security arrays.
It was not until Alaric reached the next set of doors that it occurred to him that De Vries had not tried to contact him to find out what had gone wrong. Pulling the radio from his hip he held it up to his ear, realising that the signal was being blocked somehow, as he could not get a connection to the Incognito either. Muttering fresh curses, he clipped it back onto his belt and carried on through the doors taking quick evasive action to avoid the notice of the mechs that had taken up patrol of the area. Slipping around the side of the small hut that functioned as a security checkpoint it only took seconds for the mag-pick to pop open the lock, the doors sliding open to allow him access.
On his first trip through the station Alaric had spoken with Cadet Cecil Ivor Corbin through the plate glass divider that dominated one side of the building and had not set foot inside. Therefore, he had not found himself in the situation of Cadet Corbin drawing a weapon on him. As simple as it was to disarm the trembling teen Alaric still could not stop himself from giving the man a slap across the back of his head for being stupid.
“Where are the nearest escape pods?”
Corbin’s brows furrowed at the barked question, as if he were trying to parse some hidden meaning behind it. Then his face contorted as his mind placed where he had heard the voice before.
“You…but you’re not Mowry…which means that I let a stranger into the facility!”
Alaric repressed the urge to backhand Corbin, instead getting a firm grip on his shoulders and forcing his gaze up.
“We do not have time for this. WHERE. ARE. THE. ESCAPE. PODS?”
Each word was punctuated by a shake, which elicited the response Alaric needed, Corbin raised a trembling arm and pointed at a spot over Alaric’s shoulder. Twisting to look Alaric spotted a tunnel that boasted a sign above reading ‘escape pods.’
“Sorry Cadet should have brought some reading glasses. Come on then.”
To his credit Corbin did not put up much resistance to being dragged towards the escape route, allowing Alaric to place him into a pod, and depressing the button to seal him inside. That accomplished he chose a pod of his own, repeating the process and gritting his teeth as the launch sequence fired the capsule from its moorings and into the cold depths of space. Alaric caught sight of other pods launching, being jettisoned in all directions before the silhouette of Horizon Point seemed to distort as the rift within exploded outwards, consuming all that it found.
The warning sounded that emergency hibernation was being activated, and Alaric knew no more.