The young cadet opened his eyes. He could not feel his hands, and when he tried to lift them, they did not respond. In fact, he did not know what he was trying to lift, as the only thing he could feel was a deep numbness throughout this body. He tried lifting his head, and suddenly, a thick male voice bursts out:
Aha!
The voice is imbued with a slight, asianic accent. Was it a Kusari pilot? No. The voice was not as curt, but the "Aha!" was enjoyed...
I see that you have awoken. How do you do?
Allow me to intoduce myself...but first, analyze that question that I just asked you. How do you do?
Simple...right?
So amazingly simple, that you have no idea what I'm talking about right now. Does my didactic speech bore you, comrade?
How do you do, comrade?
You mostly do not know, and a seriously do not want to frighten you...but you are currently paralyzed. Courtesy of a special species of octopus.
Light growing dimmer?
Perhaps you are entering a tunnel. Do you see something bright at the end? Is that a nod? No? Yes?
Run! It's a train!
The voice chuckled.
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0400 Hours, Sirius Standard Time.
Location: ************
Smiling, the man rises from his original position. He is dressed in black, with a interesting suit buttoned all the way to his chin. One would be suprised if he were not sufflocating.
The man had light, but tanned skin weathered by nature. A barely noticeable scar across his cheek and his well-combed raven mane completed his features.
"Young man," said the man kindly to the cadet, "I made sure personally that you would not suffer."
The Cadet attempted to smile, but his expression seemed to convey constipation instead of cautious joy.
The man laughed at the cadet's attempts.
"Throw him into the Airlock," laughed the man happily. Another figure moved from behind him, seized the cadet by his feet, and dragged him into the airlock. He promptly shut the door, and the man walked over and tapped a small red button with his index finger.
He had not lied, the man thought to himself. The paralyzing agent wears off in four hours. Plenty of time for the radiation to eat the boy away. Plenty of time.
0800 Hours, SST
Location: **********
"It's a wonder we survived," said the man in black, tapping two fingers on his chest, while he unbuttoned a button on his suit with his thumb and the other 3.
The man who had dragged the boy out stared coldly, but reverently.
"Master," voiced the other man, "I think that...action...was unnecessary."
"It was," mused the man in black. "But Zhuang Li Zhi has a reputation to maintain."
"He could have had..." continued the other man, but he stopped himself.
"Family," finished Zhuang, the man in black, "He is in a better place."
"Master," said the other man, "but...you have read Pultolski's Thesis*..."
"Excuse me?" the other man was confused. "Belief in the afterlife is contradictory to Pultolski's theorem of a constant consiousness."
Zhuang laughed. "How does Pultolski know? His theorem is a theorem within a theorem."
"What Pultolski is trying to say is that without his own imagination, his theorem that the heaven does not exist cannot exist," continued Zhuang. "Pultolski's theorem has nothing to do with the afterlife. It is a statement...about the injustices and the faults of the Coalition way of life."
"What?!" burst out the other man.
Zhuang chuckled, "Calm yourself, Amer. All governments have faults, and the Coalition is most certainly a government."
The other man, Amer, stared in disbelief. His commanding officer...the great Zhuang Li Zhi had just criticized his own motherland. His reverie was broken by a crackle over the PA in the room.
"Zdravo!" rang the PA with a distinct crackle, "Captain, all systems are running vell! The deep scanners need some fiksing though!"
Zhuang reached over and depressed a button on his desk. "Yuri, you never should have been a mechanic."
"What??" crackled the voice over the other end.
Zhuang sighed. "Yuri, did you shield the transmitters before we followed the sleeper ships?"
For a brief moment, only the two men's breathing could be heard.
The PA sprang back to life again. "What?" cried the voice.
"Hold on," said Zhuang as he stood up, "I'll be back."
Amer, the other man, did not respond. He was only 23. At least, he thought he was 23. He was 23 when they engaged and followed the Hispania. Right before they had engaged hyperdrive, they had been briefed. "How many years was I in cryostasis?" Amer wondered. The captain, Zhuang, had been out before they had been for at least six months. So had Yuri Karpenko, the Engineer, Politik, and Mental health supervisor.
"Why had he been out last?" Amer asked himself. He stood up, and walked over to the Captain's desk. He lifted a small brass model of a Kiev-Class Crusier, and began to wipe the dust coated surface with his sleeve.
The brass, though stained, glistened in the flourscent lighting of the room.
To be continued........
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*Pultolski's Thesis: Mikail Pultolski, a Russian physicist theorized that the afterlife could not exist due the gradual expansion of the universe, and the existence of multiple cultures and religions. As the universe is increasing to infinity, Pultolski theorized, the number of cultures and/or religions must increase. As an infinite number cannot be reached, thus, there cannot be an afterlife. Only few people claimed to completely and actually understand his thesis, but it was widely adopted as a antithesis to all forms of organized religion, althought Pultolski only theorized the lack of an afterlife, not deity.
EDIT: Of course, Pultolski's Thesis was directed at proponents of a literal, tangible heaven.
