And like that the tendrils released him and Morigin felt breath hit his lungs and the air was so crisp, so inviting that he sat up straight from the dead and screamed.
But even that was too much energy for him to handle, so he fell back down in the pod, asleep – absolutely worn out from screaming to life.
“Morigin?” Jade’s sleek, female metallic voice whispered into his ear. “They will be back soon. You must wake up. The mission is lost if you don’t get up. They need direction. They need guidance. They are so young and both need you. Please wake up, Morigin.”
Opening his eyes, Morigin saw the ceiling grates of the Jade Tendril…home. He remembered installing those panels and the complex wiring and piping beneath them. He remembered screaming. Explosions. Plasma. A TON of plasma being volleyed around. He remembered holding the laminate cube under his arm, then scorched earth and the two thuds of the plasma bolts searing into his chest.
Then death.
But he was not dead. He clearly was in his ship, in his clothes, save for the nasty plasma burns through them. Reaching out of the medical pod, he slapped the cool plastellic shell of the device. It felt real. But maybe in death you live forever where you most desire? He sat up and looked around. If this was where death brought him, he was elated. A smile spread across his face. “Happy to be alive…again?” asked Jade.
Morigin twitched and then reached to his neck and pinched the skin around it. “Ow!” he wailed. “I guess I am alive. But if I’m alive, where are those two dingy sods that don’t have a mind between them? And where is my cube?!”
“The cube was taken,” Jade said.
“By whom?”
“Your killer.”
“I’ll kill him for that,” Morigin said. “And the others?”
“Taking Odiacz back to her hovel.”
“Ah,” Morigin said. “That explains my aliveness.” Morigin reached to the side of the pod and attempted to get out. “No haste makes waste and all that. Time to get to work again.” And as he pulled himself up, he fell crashing to the floor, unable to stand.
“Captain,” Jade said. “You need to rest. You need to regain your strength.”
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