The starship was surprisingly silent at this hour as it limped through the vast empty void with its escort fleet close behind. She had signs that she had been through a massive furball. There were hull breaches in various places along with scars from lasers and torpedoes.
The Senior officers, along with crews, were busy sleeping in their quarters after a long brutal battle, leaving the Junior Officers for the most part to run the ship. There was always a senior officer on the bridge, security, medical, and engineering.
The smells of flesh and ozone from destroyed or damaged areas of the ship still permeated the air. But the Space Carrier Enterprise held together for being an Old Girl. Like her previous incarnations, even her fictional counterparts from the Star Trek series, she proved that she was still worthy of being SCV-06 Enterprise. But like her Navel-Predecessors, she still had an escort fleet. A fleet that watched over her as she limped to friendly territory.
There were crews doing maintenance on blocked corridors. Many of which damaged from the final assault on the Empress fortress. Many teams were tasked with retrieving the dead, a task that even the hardest of personal hated to do. Many ships were lost, but the mission deemed a success.
The Empress of the Imperium was captured, alive at that. Most of her generals slaughtered, and top advisors receiving life sentences on the harshest penal colony planets across the galaxy in exchange for the Empress location, her offensive, and defensive capabilities.
The mood on the ship should have been one of happiness. The ship was going home! Back to Planet 5924596, otherwise known as Earth. But nothing but apprehension filled the ranks, from the newly transferred wetback ensigns to the Admiral commanding the ship. Security teams regularly patrolled the available corridors. NO one was to be caught roaming the ship with such precious cargo.
But that wouldn't stop her when she should have been resting. The soft tacking sound of her slippers was herd as she wandered the corridors, more like limped. She gingerly placed her right foot down slowly placing her weight on it and slowly dragged her left leg. She inhaled stifling breaths through and grimaced with each right step.
Having yet rested enough, she had not healed from her recent fight. She could not idly wait while she recovered. Even when her inherited stubbornness told her to take it easy, she didn't listen, and here she was Hobbling down a corridor, determined to get to her destination. Determined to check on the "precious cargo."
From the top down, she was a mess. As if she went through hell and barely survived when she was discovered mere centimeters from killing the Empress. An Empress who deserved to die for all she had done to her and then some. Her hair was still disheveled, tangled, and burnt in some spots. Her left eye covered with a gauze patch and tape. On her left cheek was another gauze patch taped down.
She had a split bottom lip and various cuts on her face which were being held together by strips. She was wearing a camisole over the dressings on her chest and patches on her torso. The movement from putting it on, let alone the pressure it put on her injuries caused them to seep a little blood.
Her left hand was wrapped up in a gauze wrap and a cover wrap covering her palm to her wrist. Underneath both gauze-wraps was a dressing that covered a stab wound. Razor sharp pain was shooting through her hand as if all her nerves were on fire. Her fingers even though they were limber, felt stiff, and screamed at her in pain as she slightly moved them to let alone clenched a fist and opened it slowly. Her right arm was held up by a sling and held her right side where her kidney would have been, which was still screaming in pain at her.
Her left leg was in an immobilizing brace due to her shattered knee, and a laser shotted her ankle. She had various old scars all over her body, to old to heal, but she preferred having the scars just like her father. Most of them from her time in captivity, when she willingly let herself get captured by the Imperium. The majority of injuries were from whippings she had to endure. Others from brandings, being stabbed, cut, experimented on, and burned. When someone offered or suggested healing in an Optimization tank, she would become emotional and threaten them if they mentioned one ever again.
Her reddish-black hair was in a disheveled pony. She stopped taking stifling breathes also taking time to look at her clothes. She wore a fleece robe over her now bloodstained egg-shell white camisole which ended a couple of inches above her nabal. She wore black and red flannel pajama pants with wolf head slippers looking up at her. She sighed fidgeting uncomfortably even under her looks — the last time she had worn anything clothing related before taken to the Empress.
But she couldn't worry about that now. She was almost where she wanted to be - Cryo Storage. Limping it took her 7 minutes to get there, she hesitated when she arrived. The last time she saw these doors was moments before she passed out after "their" rescue. The doors opened up greeting her with the sight of various Federated Territories Cryo scientists and doctors monitoring the Cryo-tubes.
There was a small office which was large enough to hold a small table with a small computer on it with a chair pushed in. Behind the desk on the wall was a monitor monitoring, everyone, in cryo-stasis. There were other panels with other medical looking procedures that looked complicated and boring. "Shit she didn't need to know."
There was a small doorway leading into a to a half circle room with octagonal table center of it. On one wall were 12 locker-storage bins. There was a table set for doing lab work. On another wall were more medical consoles reading more medical garbage, the woman couldn't tell from the location. The half-circle room leads into another room where there were five medical beds with individual monitors at the head of each bed waiting for use.
A doctor saw her peering from the doorway through the glass partition to the central cryo-store bay. Where dozens of Federated Territories cryo-tube could be seen. Being the area was a sterile, highly sensitive area, he approached her to throw her out. The bay needed to remain wholly sterilized, no exceptions.
Especially with someone who had a fresh blood stain from her left breast almost down her hip. Someone who looked like she also went months of not properly bathing in captivity. But she neither heard or cared about the Cryo-Doctors insisting on leaving.
She had a somewhat apprehensive but blank on her battered face. The Chief Medical Officer was about to tell her this was a restricted area until he saw who it was. Instead, he gave the okay for her to be here. He walked up to her, but she barely even registered his presence or that he was talking to her.
She was so caught up in whatever was in her mind his voice just zoned right out. He started filling her in on what they were doing. She leaned against the doorway, not listening to him. The doctor continued talking to her for a couple of minutes before realizing himself she wasn't listening to him. He sighed, showing her the way to the cryo-chamber. He knew who exactly she was there to see and knew she wanted to be alone.
The doctor moved, told the staff to finish what they were doing and clear the room. After five minutes, the woman finally had the chamber to herself. She faintly heard the doctor say, "take as much time as she needed." Her stomach was filled with butterflies thinking on what she would say, how would she react, could she endure the walk, would they be awake and recognize her? She found she had no control over her body as she started walking forward.
Her body was met with temperatures around -50 degrees Fahrenheit. She adjusted her robe to cover herself. As she continued into the cryo-chamber, the colder it seemed to get, her breath was a visible indicator of the temperature change along with her shivering body. But she also had an ace up her sleeve so-to-speak. She shook her body once, and her body started to flush.
Her body trembled as she walked past dozens of tubes. Many wondered why a person of her parentage was afraid of cryo-tubes, optimization tanks, and other similar tanks. But that was something she would keep to herself to the day she drew her last breath. A fear that one other person knew and understood why, and he was gone.
She came across a tube which was of Imperial design. She offered a meek smile as she placed her wrapped hand on it. The hand scanner activated scanning her hand. The outer metal housing hissed a little slowly opening up. A soft light flickered on to reveal a male figure frozen solid. Personal monitors from the tube slowly came to life, giving readings of a person typically barely alive in cryo-sleep.
He was missing his body from just under the chest. He was also missing his whole left arm and right arm up to his mid-bicep. He had burns on his face and various cuts on his face with blood that looks like it had just flash-froze. There was also a natural two layered indentation in his for head barely covered by singed hair. He also showed details on his body that looked like armor.
The woman smiled, knowing who it was and the irony of the situation, not escaping her. Nearly 30 years ago, their roles were almost the exact way. But he was standing on the outside looking at her tiny form in a tear-shaped like status-tube, her first memory of him. Battle-scarred like he had just gone through hell like she is looking now.
Tears of joy started to well in her eyes as the realization that her sole mission was over. A task that nearly ended in complete failure had it not been for her being pulled back from the fringes of her murderous rage towards the Empress. She was needed for the revival process, and killing the Empress would have made the woman's suffering for naught.
She flushed that memory out of her head as she looked back down at the tube. In a faint whisper, she fought her emotions overflowing the dam whispering "Hi daddy…" Talia started talking to the figure in the status-tube as if he were wake in the room with her, and she was that happy little Pre-K girl before the war took him away from her. She lost track of time when she was shaken awake by her friend Kolratok (Koal rah tock).
Kolratok, a half Zoalord/half-alien hybrid, gingerly helped her stand. She moaned a little wincing as her entire body started screaming at her once more. He was not the typical hybrid humans were accustomed to seeing. He was blue-skinned with natural purple hair in a top knot style he adopted from humans. He had hyphen like marks on his face, which to humans had the appearance of freckles. His sclera was almost a mustard yellow with pitch black cat slit irises. He had the temple horns and a diamond shape and three circular shapes on each side going up and towards the back of his head. He took baby steps so her body wouldn't strain too much.
When they were about to leave the area of his pod, she moved to check to look back. Understanding, her friend helped her turn around to look back at the Imperial-pod. She smiled contently through the agonizing pain, knowing he was still there, and that is where he will remain until they reach Earth. She nodded, let Kolratok start leading her back to her quarters.
A walk that should have taken no more than ten minutes took nearly an hour between her limping and taking multiple breaks. It was quiet except for her groans and whimpers of pain. Kolratok who towered over Talia by almost an entire foot, looked down at her with a worried but stern look.
He broke the silence first: "You really shouldn't have done that. You should have stayed in bed and waited to see him." She sighed slightly annoyed; she answered: "I had to do it." He looked at her, inquisitively, "Why?" She was silent, thinking her answer over for a couple of seconds "So I knew what I went through was not a cruel nightmare. So he knew he wasn't alone." A smile crept onto her face remembering when she first saw him.
The liquid was green and bubbly. A beaten-battered-bleeding black, blue, grey, and red creature destroy a door. The circle object in the forehead started flashing and seconds later, a warm feeling washes over from head to toe as a small baby sized hand can be seen reaching out. Other creatures that were similar to the black/blue/grey/red creature attack it only to brutally die.
The black creature attacks and grabs the leader by its neck, forcing it to the pod. The leader did something the creature wanted, and the black-creature in response looked at it with a mean look and flinched its hand ever slightly. Not just crushing its throat but snapping its neck. It fell limp to the ground, and the black creature delicately reached into the pod. Fear surges as the hand of the creature thrust forward and clamps down with delicate but firm hands. The creature's body gets close and then pivots, so it is at an angle. It looks down, and it's look softens quite a bit. The circle object in his head continues to flash, and the warm feeling returns.
Silence enveloped the two friends again as they continued walking to her quarters. He was about to ask sarcastically "how a frozen-possibly dead man knew she was there" but held his tongue.
They arrived at her quarters not long after. Her friend helped her sit on her bed and take her camisole off and changed her dressing. Exhaustion had just about put her down for the count, so he helped her lay down and pulled the blanket up to the middle of her stomach. The minute her head hit her pillow, she was out. He took a look at the extent of his friend's injuries, hating that she had suffered so much and that she willingly put herself through it.
He saw a faint flashing halo just under the skin of her freckle-covered forehead. As if sensing he was looking at her, she hazily said: "Stop worrying I'm done wandering." He smirked turning and walked away, hearing her soft breathes. He stopped at the door as it softly whooshed open. He turned to see her head resting against a soft wolf plushie, and walked out of the room, thinking to himself "better be, you need your rest" before walking away to report back to his superior. He turned a corner to leave the Crews-Quarters-Block of that deck uttering "Guyvers… Full or Hybrids, they don't know when to take it easy on themselves…"
In her quarters, she rolled over, opening her eyes. She had a soft, beautiful smile on her lips as she saw the familiar flash glow of a circle. The same feeling washed over her past.
The creature was at an angle but then looked down. The circle object continuing to flash as warmth drowned out any fear. But there was something else to it. As blood stained and scratched as the circle thing was in its head, it held a reflection. A reflection of a tiny baby girl. A baby girl about 1-month-old with a tint of red hair and freckles. In that very reflection, there was also a small circle flashing just under her skin as it seemed to match up with the creature's shining forehead circle with the feeling of everything is going to be okay.
She reached, feeling her indented forehead "You see Kolratok, I had to return a promise…"