Chapter 6

'The cold.. So cold.' came a thought. Conscious gradually returned, and as my higher brain function returned, along with it came memories. My purpose for coming this far, what I did that day, who was hunting me. As I woke up, my muscles ached, screaming in protest as I willed them to move. But they did not. My eyesight returned, but everything was Murky and my vision transitioned back and forth between foggy and blurry. The room I was in faded in from pure white.. And my nerve endings suddenly started receiving signals from my brain. I could feel the cold metal on my skin, the heat of the outside of my chamber rushed in, and I felt gentle hands on my shoulders, pulling me out of my entombment…

My hearing returned, and I started hearing noises, muffled. Distant. Voices. People. My vision focused. As my eyes adjusted slowly, the form of two shapes focused in my line of sight. They held two long objects. As my eyes refocused and went back and forth from intense light to darkness as my nervous system came out of stasis, my ears adjusted to the pressure inside the room and the voices became more legible.

"Oh stars, she is awake! Get the mistress!"

As I heard dulled footsteps rush out of the room, light, but purposeful, another pair of light footsteps got louder as they approached me. My head lulls to the side to look at the approaching figure. Still blurry, and my brain was slowly being flooded with sensory input from a strange sense. One that got more and more familiar as the seconds ticked by. I started to poke around the room with it. A scalpel on the tray next to my resting place. The cryopod I had been in laid out on the floor nearby..it seems they had just transferred my frozen body out of the pod onto an anti-gravity gurney.

I continued to poke around with this regained sense, the aching muscles in my body finally jolted as the signals I had attempted to send to my body from my brain earlier finally fired off through my neurons and nerves, which had thawed out enough to work, and after a moment I finally settled after some brief spasms. Weakened by my time in stasis and the dehydrated state of being frozen for an extended period, and with a shaky arm resulting after the sudden shock of thawing of my body, I extended an arm out to the blurry figure nearby, I struggled for words. "W-w-w-at-er.." I managed that much. The figure turned, looked at me, then silently fetched some water., getting a container of it, they let me drink for a few seconds, and I managed to guzzle down an amount that only made me crave more, but they pulled the container away and gently informed me. In a gentle voice "If you drink too much, you will kill yourself. You are severely dehydrated. Rest. we mean you no harm, human."

As my senses slowly came back, my sense of touch sharpened first, they had put a blanket over me to allow my body temperature to heat up. my sense of smell was next, the room had no scent in it, just the fragrance of a perfume. It smelled of Altherian spice and herbal ingredients. Was I with the Altherians? Or was I somewhere else? Lastly, my vision came back to me. My heart sank when I saw who was in the room with me. Humanoids. Specifically the Iridians.

A humanoid species, with pointed ears, small feet, long legs, slender hourglass-shaped bodies with slanted eyes and thin lips, all Iridians had alabaster skin and dark olive hair and were all female. They usually were considered temptresses and vixens by Humans, with very delicate physiques, they relied on subterfuge, seduction, and deceit to achieve their goals. Not all were bad, in my experience. But dealing with Iridians comes with a catch, strings attached usually. What did they want from me? A wordless moan escaped my lips, my senses were overwhelmed, and my body felt stiff and aching, My muscles persistently protested with every movement I willed them to do.

Nevertheless, I forcibly willed my body to throw my legs over the side of the gurney, and stand. Almost immediately the attendant rushed over to try to coax me to lay back down with a gentle push of her hand. "Rest. The cryostasis has weakened you and you need time to recover. We had to pull you out suddenly or you would not have survived." the woman sighed softly and after a moment of silence, she inquired with me "what is your name?"

I searched my mind for a reply but refused to give them my real name.. So I settled on a pseudonym. "My… My name.. Is… Elise…" I managed to say with a ragged breath, my lungs still thawing out some.

"Elise, please, lay down and rest. My mistress will see you when you are ready to talk." the Iridian smiled at me and helped me lay back down, re-covering my body with the blanket. "We truly mean you no harm, please believe me" she smiled at me again for a moment and went back about her work. I closed my eyes to rest.

When I opened them, A white ceiling with white-colored artificial light greeted my eyes. I sat up slowly, mindful of the aches and pains I still had from my bones not being fully thawed out yet. Looking around, there was a tray of surgical tools, human ones, nearby. Along with these, the Cryopod I had spent what felt like an eternity in was on the floor with the glass pane smashed to pull me out of the pod quickly. "They really did not waste any time." I mused out loud.

"That is because you were going to die if we tried to pry it open." Another feminine voice replied from my left, I turned my head and immediately saw the owner of the voice. Another Iridian woman with darker hair, this time Teal. this mysterious Iridian was obviously different from the others, but how? She elaborated "your cryopod was damaged. A meteorite struck your shuttle and killed the other two pod occupants with you. Were you close to those men?" I shook my head no in reply before she continued on "my name is Farsa, and any other Iridian would have you return the favor of saving your life, but I am not going to take advantage of your situation, and we have many more problems than a human woman who was adrift and dying."

This was a revelation to me, and I shoved my surprise down, showing no expression to indicate that. Instead, I put on a blank expression. A front. Something I learned to do well from the time spent in the military. "So let me get this straight, you are letting me go, no strings attached?" The Iridian woman gazed at me a long moment "I am, but if you wish to assist us, I will not turn down the help, and I will compensate you fairly for your assistance." she stood "take some time to think over it, I will be somewhere on the ship. And miss Elise?" she gave me one last glance "welcome aboard the IIS Valdara." she leaves right after that, her long flowing hair trailing behind her.