10 hours left.

The discovery of flint had been the miracle that propelled ancient monkeys to become something worse. When Strehin had last woken up, fire had been a thing of ancient pre-history, reaching all the way into the Oil-Age. More than three hundred thousand years later, it all came down to the classics again.

Her left hand held a wooden stick wrapped in clothes while her right pointed a plasma projector at it. She squeezed the trigger and then she had brought down fire from the mountain. Torchlight illuminated the tracks in front of her. Several trams stood where the lack of power had left them. Three hundred thousand. Ridiculous.

“Heart run a full-scale diagnostic on your time module”, she said as her light fell on a row of trams that were curiously intact, despite every spaceship behind her being floating debris. Three hundred thousand years. She snorted. Yeah. Sure. How many hours was that in overtime payments? Strehin heard a faint voice at the back of her head but paid it no mind. She had better things to do.

The vehicle in front of her was covered by thick dust. Her sleeve didn’t so much brush it away as smudge it. Following a sudden impulse, she used the dirt to paint a grinning, then immediately wiped it away. Just what was she doing? She needed to be in her office, there was a concert to run and factions to bully.

.: Administrator Strehin. :.

“What?!”

.: In ten hours, we will need to wake additional people. This can’t be postponed. :.

Strehin raised her eyebrows, “What people?”

The central command golem didn’t answer and it was just as well. She pressed against the wagon door until it swung open with a loud crack. Three hundred thousand. That was just... impossible. Unlikely. If that were true, she’d be lost. Everything would be dead. She would be a dead woman walking, a revenant of a past so long forgotten, nothing she had ever done would have mattered. Something cold touched her fingers and when she glanced down, she found herself kneeling on the ground at the back of the cabin. Her fingers had latched onto a lever. Why? She gave it a pull and a maintenance panel swung open.

“The brake mechanism? There are no brakes where we are going, are there?”

.: I’m afraid I don’t follow, Administrator Strehin. Please, I require your cooperation. :.

“For what?”

.: The City of Citadels is in critical condition. Catastrophic failure is more likely with each passing hour. Your people are in stasis slumber, but the failing reactor makes it necessary to keep waking them up. The current air supply is provided by the broken biosphere containment. Administrator Strehin, you will all die unless you start helping me. :.

“Give me a break”, she snapped and then pulled on the lever. Best joke ever. Strehin felt the heart in her chest thump violently. She had asked for a break while unclutching the manual brake of the cabin. People had actually said she was devoid of joy and humour and here she was, laughing. When had she started to laugh? It didn’t matter. It was all so funny. A station full of people had fallen out of time and when they opened their door, they would find... probably nothing. Nothing at all.

“Alright? I’ve had it. Since this morning, people have trampled over my nerves. Strehin do this, Strehin fix that. Oh Mistress Strehin, we absolutely can’t park our oversized compensator next to those folks from the Original Kin. Their compensator is much bigger than ours”

Her eyes fell on the lush forest that had interwoven with the docking bay. She wrinkled her nose.

“So what if we missed a few years? We finally got the plants growing! That’s grand! So shut it Heart, go back into your little shell and let the grown-up do her emperor cursed work”

Didn’t she have a torch at some point? Her eyes fell on a glimmering pile of wood on the ground. She frowned.

“See, that’s what I’m dealing with. There are trees growing through everywhere and people just leave fire hazard laying around”

She suddenly stopped. Her motions, her breath and maybe even her heart. Probably not. She was still alive after all but it certainly felt that way to her. The tall woman just stood still, her hands were formed to fists and every muscle was tensed. Without warning, she punched out a window while screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Three hundred thousand years!”

.: Actually, it’s precisely 319.081 years. :.

“You didn’t think to wake us any earlier, did you? Like, a couple hundred thousand years maybe? Just a thought, think about it for a second. Done? Why didn’t you?”

.: That was not possible, Administrator Strehin. :.

“Why?”

.: Your survival was my top priority. :.

“And you did great, saved us from the explosion. Amazing! Let’s say there was some fallout and debris, alright, give it a hundred years of slumber. Why not wake us then?”

.: It was forbidden. :.

Strehin collapsed on the ground. Her hand was a sea of agony and drips of blood fell to the ground. The tall woman pulled her legs to her chest and wrapped her arms around herself. She closed her eyes and when next she spoke, her voice was suddenly devoid of anger.

“Just tell me there was a reason for all of this”

.: There was a reason for all of this. :.

“And what was it?”

.: Unknown. You told me to tell you. :.

Strehin reacted with a nervous chuckle. There had to be a reason. Maybe the explosion had caused a cosmic anomaly that made it impossible to survive. Or, a war had broken out. That was certainly a possibility, enough minor faction leaders were tucked away in the bowels of the station to cause a few ruffled feathers.

“So, who forbade you from waking us up earlier?”

.: This answer could cause considerable damage. :.

“Overwrite. Who was it?”

.: Administrator Strehin configured the Edenleap Protocol for a time span of one million years as part of the maximum allotted time frame. This happened in the final hours of prototype testing before the shutdown of the project. :.

Her body slumped to the ground. She didn’t cry. That was not her thing. Strehin just curled up on the floor and suddenly grew quiet. The dying embers of the torch faded out and soon left her in darkness.

7 hours left.

.: Administrator Strehin. Please move. It is imperative that you act now. The station needs you, everyone on board needs you. You must act. :.

The woman on the floor mumbled an incoherent answer.

.: You are the iron dragon. In the battle of Kernroot, you alone held off the invading army. They say you are an immortal spectre of the emperor’s anger. Unbeatable, insurmountable. :.

“Funny thing about immortality”, she whispered, “We all are. Until proven otherwise”

.: You still must act. :.

“And do what? What can I even do? Maybe invent the time machine, pack up and go back our merry way. Hey, we’ll just drop off in Emperor’s Cradle and stop the assassination too while we’re at it. Know what Heart? Go out the airlock. Play with an asteroid or two”

This time, the golem gave no reply and it was just as well. Strehin scratched a fingernail over the ground. In the last seconds, minutes... maybe it had been hours, she had scratched all manner of weird symbols into the floor. Drips of blood from her thumb had given it a special artistic flavour. Archaic. Prehistoric. Like cave paintings. She suddenly stretched her limbs. There was nothing she could do. It was just impossible.

With a sudden burst of energy, she jumped up and paced to the front of the cabin.

“Nothing at all. Heart ready my private ship. I’m leaving”

.: Can’t comply. Your ship has been destroyed in the explosion. :.

“Give me the nearest escape pod then.”

.: Can’t comply. No escape pods are functional. :.

“A space suit?”

.: Negative. :.

She hung her head and slumped back onto the floor. This brought her back to a time when she had stood on the bridge of a massive warship. Planetary defence fire had cracked the shields. Projectiles as large as one meter effortlessly punched straight through all the armour, past her bridge and continued on to the other side. Everyone else was dead. It had just been her that was left. With a grin, she had called upon the Gates of Magic and created primitive fins and wings on either side of her giant dreadnought. The fires of re-entry had burned all around her falling battleship but now it wasn’t a clump of metal but rather a projectile. She aimed it straight at their central command complex. Strehin had been the iron dragon. That curled up thing on the floor with the same name as her was more like a floppy cereal newt.

“What can I even do?”

.: You can start by selecting a list of candidates to wake up. Someone will wake up, but only you can make sure it’s the right people to salvage the situation. :.

Something. Anything. She got back on her feet and jumped out of the tram. Her voice brimmed with a bravado she didn't feel.

“First. Erase any footage of my actions in the last couple of hours. This has never happened. Second. Compile a list of candidates, filter by positions as followed”

Strehin gave the tram a gentle push but that was all it took to send it tumbling towards the docks. Her problem was a many-headed hydra. On the technical side, the station was falling apart. Food, water and waste were another problem and as more people woke from slumber, there would most likely be wounded. Wrecks, trees and the emperor knows what else would need heavy duty machinery to clean up as well.

“Alright. Give me medical, agricultural, nano-engineering and drone operations. Give priority to those with a wide selection of skills and aptitude scores for leadership positions. Ideally, they can be reached by the tram system with little effort. Pool in from the list of guests as well”

.: Confirmed. Preparing data. :.

She had one person in mind already and she was close. Strehin followed the tram to the platform and made her way up. Her first candidate was a couple of steps down the dock, wore gaudy robes and had been the cause for this mess. The Star of Ashina was wrapped in a thick cocoon of silver dust that hid most of her form.

.: Should I wake this one up? :.

“Not yet. She can be an obvious asset and if everything else fails, she’ll be a walking power supply – but I want her under surveillance at all times. That girl has a dark past that doesn’t add up”

That was an understatement. Mages were bred for battle and raised with ludicrous martial training all through their childhood. The little minx knew how to fight but her combat expertise was a joke. No one of sane mind would keep attacking a FLOW mage in direct combat as the Star had done. Strehin kneeled down and narrowed her eyebrows.

“Now little girl, are you just mysterious as part of your brand or are you an anomaly?”

When she stood back up, she carried the musical star under one arm as if it was nothing. That wasn’t part of her mage heritage, the Star was just that thin. She carried the stiff statue back to the tram and then put her down on the ground.

“Now, I’ll need a couple more things”

6 hours left.

Strehin sat with crossed legs. Right at the front of the tram sat a bowl of metal and a large metal bar. To the back, the frozen dress of the Star of Ashina served as a make-shift fruit bowl, filled with various vegetables and... well, fruit. Strehins fingers smelled of earth and trees but that would soon change. One of the plasma projectors lay to her feet with the magazine to its side.

The tall woman grabbed the magazine and held back the safety lock with her thumb. Cartridges poured out of the magazine and fell to the ground with a metallic clang. Springloaded. Archaic. Technology that was cheap and easy to make but paled in comparison to something like her solid state railgun. There was one noted key difference, however.

Each of the cartridges was made from three components: A plastic shell, an exciter and the gel chamber. The shell was just there to hold it together. Her fingernails convinced it to do something else. She tilted the cartridge sideways and then poured the gel into the bowl. Like this, she emptied all but two of the cartridges.

“The key advantage of primitive tech is that it still uses thermal reactions”, she mumbled and reinserted the remaining shots into the magazine.

“Cheap, sandwashed, borderworld tosh...”

The cursed spring kept flinging the cartridges in her face while the latch refused all cooperation.

.: It is my observation that you need to use the latch at the end first. :.

“Oh, really now? I would have never thought of doing that"

The latch finally snapped back in place and she jammed the magazine into the plasma projector.

.: It’s been a pleasure to help. :.

“You need to work on your sarcasm module”

.: In fact, I have. For example, see my statement about needing to use the latch. :.

Strehin stopped fiddling with the magazine and stared up, “Well, congratulations. You’re really helpful”

.: Was that sarcasm? :.

“No, just plain old cynicism”

Strehin walked back a few steps and then aimed the weapon at the bowl filled with gel. A sizzling plasma bolt jumped out of her gun and set the gel ablaze. The resulting flame instantly pulverized part of the ceiling but also quickly simmered down to a bright glow.

“That’s how you make a fire in the... year three hundred thousand something? Emperor alive, we need a new calendar”

With a steady light source at her side, she paced towards the open door, grabbed the metal bar and made herself comfortable. With the bar in hand, she pushed down against the tracks and the wagon lurched forward.

“What’s the status on the list?”

.: Done. :.

“Alright, give it to me, before I’ve got time to think about that number again”

Her body worked autonomously, pushing and pushing while the wagon zoomed deeper into the space station. At the same time Heart listed a steady stream of names, positions and background information.

2 hours left.

As far as headquarters went, this was about as good as it was going to get in the foreseeable future. Strehin stood in front of the central command golem. Or rather what it had turned into. A ginormous tree had taken the central spine of the station as an invitation to grow. The golem had been half-swallowed by the tree and now stuck out of the bark like a dryad. That impression was further helped by moss growing over the armour plates.

She turned around and continued her examination. It wasn’t the only tree down here. A veritable forest had sprung up, one interwoven with cables and thick fog. Blue light pulsed from the crystals that mixed grey particles with standard appliances. The weirdest aspect of it all was what she intended to use as a desk but was currently occupied by one Sovan Terastris. She vaguely remembered the young man that was stretched out on what looked like an altar made of cables. A crown of flowers had sprung up all around him and in contrast to most other survivors, he was the only one whose statue didn’t look like it was about to freak out.

“Tell me again why I can’t just remove him from there?”

.: Because I will not allow it. :.

“By whose authority?”

.: Mine. :.

Strehin narrowed her eyebrows and let out a sigh, “Tell me again why I don’t just deactivate you?”

.: Because this is ultimately a minor inconvenience to you while finding a new golem might prove difficult or even impossible. All things considered, I might be the last of my kind. :.

“You’ve gotten cheeky, you know that?”

The golem didn’t answer and Strehin decided to not pursue it further. She could indeed wait a couple of hours and once more people were awake, they’d have a look at Heart and figure out what had gone wrong with it. For now, she played along.

Her eyes fell upon the other survivors. Three of them stood close to her, all of them in various states of action. Those that looked like they were mid-motion, Strehin had put down on the floor. That way their wake-up wouldn’t begin with a spontaneous rendez-vous between face and ground. Several dozen more were in the antechamber and the deeper parts of the techno-forest.

She gave the four people a glance over. There was Kathrain of Orion. Technically not a citizen of the crazy king as the stocky build would attest, she still bore the name of his kingdom. Thanks to the hyper adaptation to gravity, the medical officer would pass as something like a dwarf from fantasy stories.

“Good service record, can double as psychological counsel, got an actual education and not just a nano-surgery instruction”, Strehin recalled. The doctor was a good pick.

“Cheeky too. Did you know she at one point called me an airlock reject? It supposedly was her way to tell me I wasn’t entirely useless”

.: All crew communication is on file. Do you want to hear the recording? :.

“Spare me. This one here, what was his name? Tim?”

.: Xim. Former convict prone to aggression, now pacified by a regulator implant. One of our guests and not technically a crew member, but a leading figure in the cultivation of plants. :.

Strehin stepped up to the average looking man. The bald head showed part of the regulator implant while tattoos marked him as a former criminal. He hadn’t been her first pick but Xim was competent and didn’t have the faction baggage that the other candidates had. She absolutely wasn’t ready for whiny faction coddling.

“Are you sure the next one is alive?”

.: Affirmative. Lieutenant Sarina Istengrad is very much alive. Her appearance is owed to a phenomenon known as operator decline. As operators increase their time linked to a machine... :.

“They neglect their physical body. I know, it’s just... that’s a tad extreme. She is more skeleton than human at this point”

.: She is also the most qualified amongst our crew. Istengrad commands the respect of her fellow operators and is certified to pilot civilian and military drones alike, both in augmented and virtual mode. :.

“Fair enough. Alright, the last one is Sovan Terastris. Curiously, when browsing through the list of nano-engineers, they all had the same name, picture and service record”

.: He is the one most qualified. Out of your selection, centuries of experience with him have left me with no doubt that he is the correct man for the job. :.

Strehin stared at the grown over doll. Lifeless eyes stared back until the golem slightly turned the head.

“Didn’t think so. I’ll let it slide because obviously, he was here to reactivate the secondary systems. That’s some acclaim at least”

She then turned around and sighed. There was still so much to do before they woke up.

1 hour left.

Sovan yawned. Best sleep in centuries! It had even included what felt like a thousand dreams of happiness in the company of a beautiful and caring wife. That, now that his brain started spooling up, had looked suspiciously like the command golem. Emperor alive, what? His body still felt drowsy and when he jerked up, a sharp pain ran through his neck.

“Slow down!”

The voice was too faint to make out. Strong hands on his shoulders locked him in position and then, Sovan locked up himself. What was that sensation?! Something icy and slimy slid out of his spine. It scratched all the way to his belly and back up. With a strange suction sensation, it slipped out of his neck and his eyes suddenly fluttered open.

“Wow, okay that was weird. Very weird... I think I need to vomit” he said and was handed a bowl. A moment later, the world stopped spinning and the strange sensation was gone. He looked up and stared directly at the face of the iron dragon and another woman next to her.

“Don’t tell me you saw that?”

Aye. Yeah. They had. Well, that was just grand. He closed his eyes again but before he could lie down, his body suddenly dangled in the air. Both his eyes flew open again and his boss stared into his soul. The icy-murder eyes judged him with a simple look and whatever it was she was looking for, he obviously came up short.

“Put him down over there, thank you”, the voice of a shorter woman said. She really looked like a brick that had grown legs and muscles. Kinda interesting, as far as he was concerned.

Strehin put him down next to a small handful of people that looked just as confused as he was. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw weird several dozen more statues that looked a lot like people he had known at some point or other.

“Thee hundred thousand years”, the iron dragon suddenly said. She was standing on his former bed. Desk. Altar. Emperor alive, what was it she was actually standing on? Was that a neural interface? That meant the disgustingly long needle had been... ugh.

“Mark that number, all of you. You’ve all been asleep for that many years. Everything you’ve known is gone and won’t come back. Deal with it. Right now, the station is falling apart and we five are responsible for keeping it going. Got that? You’ve got one minute to freak out”

Sovan blinked and looked to either side. The bald man to his left just stared ahead while the skeleton to his right actually moved and made a rude gesture towards the Administrator. Amazing. Should he do something like that? Wait, how many years? That was impossible. Everyone would be... dead, wouldn’t they? She had said so. No, that was just a prank but the iron dragon didn’t even know the meaning of humour. When the grey gods made her, they gave her one deadly weakness and that was probably laughing. A strange ache spread through his body, everything tensed up and an onslaught of emotions rapidly shifted his expression through laughing, sadness and euphoria. Suddenly, a loud voice cut right through it.

“Done. Welcome back aboard. Due to a lack of staff, you five are promoted to lead. No, you will not be asked for approval. If you’ve got complains, redirect them to the nearest airlock, cause that’s where you’ll go if you mess this up. Further, each of you will have a compliment of staff working under you with the task to restore basic functionality to the City of Citadels. Now, Introductions. In turn”, Strehin said and pointed at herself, “Strehin. Get Heart to read you a history book on me. Kathrain, head of medical. Xim, you get to feed all of us. Sarina, get the machines going. Sovan, you are responsible for structural damages and power management. The people back there will wake up in one hour. By then you will all have a plan ready. Congratulations, you’re it”

Sovan felt as if a blast of fire had just scorched his breakfast.

10 Minutes left.

Sovan put down the bowl of soup. It tasted awful but Kathrain had whispered to him that Strehin herself had cooked it. That explained the taste. If a creature of hate wrote a romance novel, it’d probably end up as a religious document somewhere. Those were always full of doom and gloom. Now if that same creature made a fruit-soup, it would taste just like this.

He rubbed his temple and looked at the other leaders. Each of them was talking to themselves. Sarina looked like she had cried at one point and Sovan himself? The slavedriver hadn’t even given them enough time to process all of this. Every time his mind wandered, she’d be there and...

“Are you making progress, Sovan?”

His eyes went up and as sure as grey particles dine on nano-machines, there she was.

“Uh, yes madam. Good progress, I’m getting an overview of all our systems. Should have something ready within the minute”

“Continue”

And with that, she was gone again. Cursed iron dragon. He focussed his mind and a large sheet of numbers appeared on a virtual screen inside his head. The list shrunk considerably once he filtered it by active positions. As far as situations went, this was about on par with the bloody stuffing. Out of all twelve reactors, only one was still active and it was whining under an excess of load. Most active positions were running on the bare minimum.

The light was kept on because it didn’t need much energy in comparison to everything else - like the gravocore. The artificial gravity slurped up a fourth of the energy output and the command golem took another chunk. By far the biggest drain was the so-called Edenleap stasis system. If that system failed, all hundred thousand humans would wake up at once and that would be the end of them all.

He had seen the numbers. Not even life support was active. All current air was supplied by the plant infestation, as was the food. Sovan frowned. Even if he had enough power to run every system at peak performance, there was no way to know whether they actually worked until flipped them on. Sovan suddenly got up and walked over towards Kathrain. She brushed her thick hair aside and glanced up at him with raised eyebrows.

“Shouldn’t we wait until our third date?” she said as a greeting.

“Uh... huh?”

“Relax. You don’t remember me, do you? Let’s have a talk later, there’s something on your mind? You always had that look on your face”

“Sure I remember you. A couple of years back. Great times. Listen Kathrain, simple question. If we cut gravity by let’s say a third, how dangerous would that be on the human body?”

The short medical officer tilted her head to the side and he felt a dull ache in his chest, “So you don’t remember. Nevermind. Lowered gravity, hm? Short term, the effect will be negligible. Some injuries as people misjudge distances and speed. Long term, you’re looking at muscle atrophy, organ failure, joyful things like that. Limit it to a couple of weeks at most”

Sovan nodded his head on autopilot. Lowered gravity would decrease the drain on the reactor until they found out what had happened to the others. His eyes flickered back towards the doctor. Who was she? Had he ever started something with a high gravity girl? Not that he knew off. She wasn’t ugly and he liked the fit type with visible muscles – a bill Kathrain fit well –but no. Kathrain suddenly patted his back.

“You look like a lost puppy. Let me help you out”, she said and leaned towards him, “We never met. Nope. No interest either. I was just messing around to distract you. Look, we better get ready. They’re going to wake up soon”

He stared after her as she walked away and rubbed his neck. When Kathrain had tilted her head, that gesture had triggered a memory. He did know her but it was all...

“Did you sort your priorities, technician?”

The dragon was ever present. Unrelenting. Unshakeable. He looked up at Strehin and he realized that he also looked up to her. The woman was a force of nature. If she ever stumbled, Sovan was sure, the world would end.

Loud groaning announced the great awakening of the grumpy humans. He put on his best smile and walked up to one of the groups.