Awakening (Completed)

This wasn't normal. Or, rather, something wasn't normal. What "this" was seemed to be unclear to the little being that was still hovering in a cryostasis. It was a new sensation, whatever "this" was. The being took a subconscious catalogue of the chambers. Still had fingers that twitched clenched, though not much; something there needed to be held, though that was another "this" that had yet to be determined. Still had toes to curl and relax. Ankles to roll, but only slightly. Nothing felt numb. No, in fact, something felt a bit more... energized. It was stimulated. But what?

It took longer than it should have, but finally eyes with thick, dark lashes began to flutter open. After being closed for so long - What time is it? - the rhythmic changes in brightness did not register immediately. However, after they did, other gears began to turn. No, this really wasn't normal. The human knew these lights. They were in her mental database - That's memory. - and they were an alarm system. Oh, yes, now that she saw these lights, she could hear, in an adjacent room, the alarm blaring. Why wasn't it blaring in this room?

She was starting to slump, and before she could think to right herself, her face was pressed against the viewing window of her cryogenic freezer, her nose pressed flat and her brows furrowed by the force. She blinked those big hazel eyes of hers as she gazed around the room. None of the other chambers seemed to be open yet. It was hard to tell due to the flashing red light whether or not there were people in any of them. The glass started to fog under her breath, which was growing hotter as her body continued awakening, and she realized quite suddenly that she was cold. Very cold.

She righted herself and pressed her palms against the glass. Well, sort of. Her hands, which were themselves covered with black gloves, gripped some soft, round stick-things. Not stick things, legs. Those were legs. Little black legs attached to a fat white body, with two more legs falling below and a head with blackened ears coming from the top. She breathed onto this little thing. It wasn't alive. "Panda!" she suddenly cried, and the sound of her own voice booming in the chamber startled her and she flinched back into the back wall of the chamber, dropping her little stuffed animal.

"No," she whispered softly to the bear, her voice softer now. She pressed her palms on the glass, bracing her rump against the back wall and pressing against the door - or what should have been the door. She grunted and an automated voice said, "Lifeform active. Cryogenic container lock disengaged." The pressurized hinges let out a hiss and, under the girl's weight, flung open, leaving her out to fall upon her face in a pathetic little scramble. She recovered rather quickly, her entire body having awakened and the training she had been given in her slumber going into practice.

She got to her knees, turning to grab her panda by the ear before standing up and clutching the precious little thing to her chest. Her long hair she suddenly seemed to notice; it fell in pretty waves, the bottom being pink and the middle being a cake-blonde color. The top, which was barely in her range of sight, was brown. I have cool hair, she thought contentedly, and she made her first smile. She gazed around the lodge, but no one else had moved as of yet. Surely no one could sleep through the alarm - oh, yes, the alarm.

Gazing up at the alarm, or where the light was flaring, she discovered why the actual siren wasn't going off in this room. The alarm was, in fact, detached, the wall having been dented. It was hanging by a few cords, and one of them, apparently the one to enable the siren, had frayed and ceased to work. Why was the wall damaged? What had happened? Though calm, she understood the urgency to discover what was happening. Something needed to be taken care of, because something had happened that wasn't right. That in mind, she left the room, a bit tentatively, and gazed out into the corridor.

A series of passageways strung off in every direction, leading to other chambers and probably to other parts of the ship. However, that was not the priority for acknowledgement. There was a man - a very, very tall man - yelling at the computer terminal off in a commons area. Click went the training, in both medical assistant and the man; upon hearing the sound of the door opening, he had turned around to prepare for self-defense. Though startled by his sudden willingness to attack, Althaia stepped completely from the doorway and made a tiny salute, sputtering, "Medical Assistant Althaia Rahael reporting for duty, Sergeant Demidov, sir."

Once again a little startled by her own voice, Althaia took a fleeting glance into the room behind her before trotting closer to the man she knew through her freezer-assisted slumber's teaching. She looked at the computer, which, honestly, was still not coming to her memory, and she returned her gaze to Edik Demidov before noticing the bleeding makeshift bandage on his arm. Her face turned from one of confusion to one of concern. "You're hurt. How are you feeling?"

Jasten's entrance into the room was greeted with salutes from both Althaia and Edik, much to his surprise. While Edik, being military, was likely conditioned to the core to leap up at attention the second a superior officer so much as walks past the room he was in, Althaia was completely civilian. The captain could help but smile at her move, equal parts pleased at her respectful gesture and amused at the fact she had done it pretty well, even when compared to Edik himself. "Edik Demidov and Althaia Rahael. Pleasure to meet you two. Unfortunate that this is happening while that bloody alarm is going off." Glancing over at Edik, he listened to the military man's words, before spotting the wound on his arm. A quick glance at Althaia showed him that she really wanted to work on the wound, but it seemed Edik couldn't be bothered with it. Fair enough there. Good to see we have a man who doesn't get distracted.

"That sounds like a fair enough plan. I wouldn't mind having something on me, myself. We've no clue where we are, whether or not there are hostiles, and if anything from the outside got in. It'll be nice to be armed. As for getting to the bridge... yes, that is probably our best bet. The computer here might be gone, but the bridge is heavily fortified. The computers there should still be intact." Approaching the malfunctioning computer terminal, Jasten hit it a couple extra times just to be safe. Still nothing. A pity. "As for getting the computer to stop speaking in Russian... we can probably get that fixed at the command center as well. Shouldn't be too much of a problem to order the damn system to stop that."

It was then that Althaia brought up the fact that she needed to check Edik's wound because otherwise, he could get infected and die. Jasten was taken slightly by surprise hearing that specific word choice from the medical assistant, having already begun to assume she was more upbeat. Probably the hair. The declaration that Edik could probably die soon if things weren't good on board the ship was certainly different from that. Granted the following realization promptly made Jasten force back a laugh, before nodding in agreement. "I'm inclined to agree with Althaia here. Not only do we have no clue whether there are any hull breaches, we also don't know if any one else is awake. We could be the only three people awake right now, and I don't particularly like the thought of dealing with threats while the only soldier I'm sure is around is laying on the floor dying from god knows what space filth might be flying through the air."

Glancing from Althaia to Edik, Jasten sighed, and shrugged. "Guess we'd better get going. The quicker we make our way to the armory, the quicker we can head over to the bridge and shut this infernal noise down." He paused, before staring up at one of the alarms on the wall with a poorly disguised look of contempt. "If this keeps up much longer, I'm going to be making my first official act as Captain of this vessel removing the entire bloody alarm system for something a bit less irritating."

Jasten turned his attention back to his two new companions. "Well then. Unless there's any other suggestions, we should head out. Edik, I'll let you lead. I'm pretty sure I've got combat conditioning, but I don't fancy my chances against anything right now, unarmed as I am."

Captain Jasten Macala. Despite being born and raised for the purpose of serving with and under him, Althaia couldn't help but feel both awed and jubilant being face to face with him. Jasten. Wow. She was just a medical assistant, and here she was standing with a weapons specialist and the Captain of the whole ship. She felt kinda special, actually, especially when Jasten said he was pleased to meet them. Both of them. They all shared the apprehension regarding their current predicament, which was probably good. If she was the only one that cared, then maybe that meant she was flawed... But Jasten and Edik both cared about finding out what happened and where they were, so she was fine. Clearly.

Just like Edik, Jasten didn't seem to interested in the wound, and this almost - almost frustrated Althaia. Almost. Not quite, though. She understood that it was imperative to get their bearings before they could really even do anything. In fact, as she had stood grumbling and glaring and fussing over the wound, they had come up with a sound plan. It was a good plan, truly. Armory, then command center. Althaia made sure they knew the wound also needed to be taken care of... in an uncharacteristically dark way. She felt guilty for being so... well, she thought it was harsh. And rude. Both the men with her seemed surprised. However, Jasten did agree with her. Her concern was valid. Really.

Having made herself extremely self-conscious by her depressing display, she sort of sank down a little, seeming even more small and fragile than she had seemed before - which was really quite impressive. She hugged her bear up against her collar bone and tucked it under her chin, only to notice something she had not noticed prior. Oh my gosh. Oh. My gosh. She bit her lip and her eyes shimmered as she looked between Jasten and Edik, and though still a bit uneasy about what she said, she felt this overwhelming happiness building up inside her. She had discovered the most wonderful and amazing thing she had thus far discovered in her short life - well, conscious life.

The full-blown happiness didn't entirely last long, for Edik commented after handing Jasten a weapon, "Well isn't everyone just so optimistic and morale boosting?" Althaia shifted her gaze again to avoid both Jasten and Edik's gaze. She felt really bad for what she said. Still, Edik and Jasten didn't give her much time to feel guilty: it was time to move. Apparently her super depressing comments had stuck, so they had a legitimate reason to get going. It got really quiet and intense, and Althaia found herself holding her breath. Her skillset was in medical assistance, not in military missions!

Edik pushed into the hall and Althaia followed. The large man spoke articulately and efficiently. Althaia fell into position as he directed, moving like a cat slinking through the darkness. Granted, she was a paranoid cat. A very paranoid one. She was like a panda. A panda with hiccups. Startling herself. She was like a panda. A PANDA. She looked back over her shoulder at Jasten and squeaked, "Uh-uhm, Captain, Captain Macala? Um..." She fell back a few paces, forgetting in her excitement that she was supposed to maintain a meter distance. "I-I'm a panda. Well, I look like one, I mean." She beamed as she motioned to her black and white nanotech suit that, quite frankly, really did look like a panda - black legs and arms and a white body.

Someone who'd been in charge of Althaia really liked pandas.