(Reserve battery power running low: Disengaging Cryo Stasis on pod 1, reactor repairs necessary) rang out the hollow mechanical woman's voice. A product of 3 centuries of advancement in text to speech devices. Beads of moisture began to run down his face as he slumped down out of the pod. His muscles long atrophied. Henry slumped to the ground in a stupor. Breathing out cold, incredibly stale air, He collapsed onto the floor and soon fainted into silent dreams.
Even before entering the pod he had been one of the oldest humans alive, at least to his knowledge. His dreams took him back, back to his youth at the turn of the 25th Century only 4 centuries after Humanity achieved genetic immortality, thousands of years before he would enter the pod that he now lay below. He saw his university where he first discovered his love of science and exploration, a field that took on a whole new meaning later in the dawn of space travel. He saw his first love, whom he had married for over 2 millennia; he saw her death in a tragic transport accident. After that he threw himself deeper into his work and despite myriad discoveries he never felt satisfied. He arrived at the colonies at Alpha Centauri and a dozen other worlds, finally returning to earth when he heard of a shocking new discovery. Another dimension, layered over their own. Travel through it would allow humanity to achieve heights unreached in all their years until today. He rode one of these ships, and soon enough once these "warp drives" were in use, humanity met their first opponents in the galactic game, a dangerous race called the Kyell. He himself fought in one of the mighty battleships of humanity against their biological monstrosities, and ultimately humanity proved victorious, though thinking of the genocide that followed always made him sick to his stomach. Humanity continued to expand meeting and conquering dozens of new races, and this was when the first psyonics began to appear. Capable of telepathy and guiding ships on longer trips into the warp, they allowed humanity to succeed where other species failed. Through some genetic modification it was even possible to produce extremely well-tuned psykers as psychic genes were modified, and these genetic codes were distributed across the species. It was discovered later, that the older one is the more powerful these psychic genes became, this could be amplified even further through infusion in a "warp regulator" a creation that drew in the energy psychics used enhancing the gene, and this led to his current position. He had always been a daredevil of a sort since Mary died. And despite almost 5000 years of overworking himself and risking his life he had had enough of it. Thus he volunteered for an experiment to test the effects of long term Criostasis warp infusion on human psychic capability. The pod was to be reopened in the year 12000, 3000 years after he entered it. The ship built on a warp matter cycling reactor could hypothetically function forever, in defiance of entropy. It even featured a cold fusion backup drive that could run for tens of thousands of years. He remembered stepping into the pod, and the blackness overtaking him
That's also when he woke up. Laying wet and naked on the plasticite floor panels the Cryo pod behind him slowly crackling with electricity, had the blasted ship failed and woken him up early? He wandered aimlessly down the hall, dragging what was left of his atrophied body with him. He spotted an interface on the wall; there he could talk to the ship.
"Oa,*cough* status report?"
Silence
"Dammit"
He remembered the rough layout of the ship, making his way slowly down to the reactor core through several maintenance stairways, his body aching every step. Not to mention he was cold, and the air blown gently through the maintenance section was unpleasant below. He looked down at what had once been a pristine trans warp 9000 warp matter conversion engine, a hole ripped through its side like the hull of the Titanic, though looking around he could not see any signs of damage to the rest of the room. Finally he saw the cold fusion backup. Displaying a power bar below 10% he found the command key and opened fuel storage. Slowly removing a deuterium/Gadolinium cylinder from within before placing it in a side dock which removed the mixture inside with a slurp, before refilling the cylinder with the ship's emergency hydrogen. He replaced the cylinder in its place, and slid the storage tray back in. The ship burst to life. Emergency lights replaced with the bright ceiling ones, and Oa began initiating its reboot process.
"Hello Mr. Henry I am glad to see you returned from Cryosleep"
"I'm not happy Oa; if I'm out early the experiment will be botched."
"That's hardly a worry sir" a series of whirring noises followed as data trays were moved into place and checked
"Given the current processed amount of hydrogen since the main reactor imploded, the experiment is approaching 28 thousand years late."
Henry almost fell over, managing to steady himself on the main reactors plasteel carcass.
"28 thousand years!?, and no one sent the order to pull me out?"
"Human contact using required methods became silent around 11000 Anno Domini sir, other Human transmissions have continued, but on channels not approved for release orders."
Henry was struck dumb as the thought of how predictable this was hit him. In almost 7000 years of life, he had lived through a hundred filing systems and methods of communication. Why would he expect it to stop when he left?
"Well Oa, can you brief me on the current state of humanity?"
"No sir, non-warp communication ended around the year 18000, and around 25000 the warp event that compromised the reactor also blew out all remaining psyonic scanners. The last notable events I received in transmissions received detailed an AI rebellion on a massive scale. Which humanity eventually won. However that was almost millennia before transmission stopped entirely"
"Leave it for another time. What this warp event?"
"Around the year 25000 a massive surge of psyonic energy ripped into us. It rent open the warp matter reactor and blew out our psyonic scanners. It is frankly miraculous that the concentrator was not damaged or destroyed, probably due to your presence inside."
"My presence?"
"Yes sir, while the event destroyed the scanners I possessed for such things, your psionic level had vastly increased during the 15000 years before the event. It is likely your considerable mass in the warp protected objects in which you were in direct contact."
"I don't feel particularly stronger, though I do not know if my telepathy might have a longer range. Regardless, I suppose we should try to find whatever humanity, if any, is left today. Surely in 28000 years they will have either perished or attained greater heights than any world I knew. Do you have any idea on the star chart where they might be? Or more importantly, where we are?"
"I do, but a more pressing matter just came up. We appear to have an intruder in your cryopod, though my sensors cannot get a proper read."
Henry looked towards the nearest wall panel. "An intruder?, how did they get on?"
"I do not know but it does not appear like anything my data records."
"So be it then." Henry climbed into the lift to the midship. What he saw there would be the first of many things in the days to come that would haunt his nightmares.
Monster, that was the only word he could think of to describe it. Red skin that burned like magma, great Horns atop a lizard like head, a blade that churned in black metal in its hands, standing and seeming to grow taller in his former cryopod.
It saw him as he saw it. And immediately it charged forward raising its sword. He was unarmed facing this murderous monster. He thought back to his training in basic psionic self-defense, a class he took in his free time after having psy genes implanted. He lifted his hand and focused his mind as the monster before him seemed to slow to a crawl. And then a force shook the craft as it was directly blasted back through the cryopod and through 2 bulkheads, into the cold vacuum of space. The Force fields of Oa then sealed the breech and a series of liquid metal was sprayed to replace the outer hull damage. Henry looked down at his hand.
"Would you kindly avoid damaging me sir?"
"I apologize Oa; I didn't know I could do that."
He was telling the truth, in self-defense class he could barely throw a man across a room without exhausting himself entirely, now he felt nothing changed after throwing that monster through a reinforced survey ship.
"Apology accepted sir, and now that that's over with, might I suggest a nanobot bath, you look atrocious and your body could use some muscle structure."
"I agree Oa; we can move to explore this universe once I am done." Henry pulled his naked body back onto the lift, and directed it up to his quarters.