CHAPTER TWO:
AWAKENING

Wolf slowly moved his fighter closer to the frozen furless, attached to the back of his Wolfen was the cargo trailer that was usually used for taking supplies back to the Great Wolf from Sargasso. When he came to what he thought was close enough to the soon-to-be hostage, he radioed Leon.
"Is this close enough?" the lupine asked.
"Yeah, that should be fine. Now you're sure you turned off the artificial gravity in the trailer, right?"
"Yes, god dammit, I'm sure. You've asked me that damn question like a thousand times and I've told you every time that I'M SURE!"
Panther's voice came over the radio "Stop arguing, both of you. Wolf, this is going to need intense concentration on your part, so I suggest you calm down."
"Right, whatever" grumbled Wolf. "So now I just turn this around and try and get him in the trailer without bumping him to hard. Correct?"
"Correct" Leon responded. "Just remember to take your time."
Wolf smirked. "Weren't you the one who, just a few minutes ago, ranted on about how we couldn't waste time?" he asked in a mocking tone.
"Well if you rush it and he ends up shattering into a million pieces, all our time will have been wasted."
Wolf frowned. Leon had made a valid point. He opened the hatch on the cargo trailer, turned the ship around until the open hatch was facing their cargo, and began to apply reverse thrusters slowly and carefully. When he was sure that he had the furless completely in the trailer, he closed the hatch and began heading back towards the Great Wolf's hangar.

When the airlock had sealed, Wolf opened his cockpit and hopped down. After a few minutes he saw Leon and Panther hurriedly heading towards his Wolfen. When they reached his position the three of them went about carefully detaching the trailer. When it was on the hangar floor, Leon went to the trailer's controls set it up to heat the inside to 24 degrees Celsius.
"Now one of two things could happen" Leon told the other two. "It depends on what kind of gas he froze in. If it was oxygen, it should turn to gas pretty quickly and he'll be fine. His cells may be a little dehydrated, but that's nothing we can't fix."
"What will happen if it's not oxygen?" asked Panther.
"Well," Leon continued, "the only other thing he could've frozen in, other than oxygen, would be the fuel. It's a lot less likely, considering the chances of it not exploding when the tank was hit are a lot slimmer-"
"Wait," interrupted Wolf, "won't he suffocate when the fuel turns into a gas?"
"Don't interrupt me!" Leon snapped. "He won't even make it that far. The fuel will take a lot longer to become gaseous, and while the fuel is in liquid form, his dehydrated cells will suck too much of the liquid in and burst. He'll be reduced to a pile of mush."
"Oh god!" Panther exclaimed as he winced. "Let's hope that does not happen."
They waited a bit longer until the controls indicated that all the contents of the cargo trailer had reached room temperature. "The moment of truth" said Leon. He pressed a few buttons to reactivate the artificial gravity within the trailer and open the hatch. As the inside of the trailer slowly came into view, so did the cargo – all in one piece. His skin was no longer blue, but extremely pale. He also wasn't breathing. "Someone grab a med kit now!" Leon shouted. "We have to resuscitate him!" Wolf grabbed the kit from his Wolfen, sprinted back around to the trailer, and got to work. He lifted the furless' head, put the breathing apparatus over his mouth, and began squeezing air into his lungs. He then started chest compressions with his other hand. Just when Wolf thought the poor guy was surely dead, he took a sharp, raspy intake of breath and began breathing somewhat normally. The lupine reached over to his wrist to check his pulse. After a while, he found a slow, but steady heartbeat.
"Excellent work Wolf!" Panther said happily, patting the lupine on the back.
"Yes, yes, good job, gold star, whatever, we need to get him to the infirmary now."
"Well, well, well Leon, I thought you didn't care about this guy" Wolf smirked.
"I don't. I do care about the fact that we put way too much effort to not get our hostage. Besides, we could make enough money off of him to be set for life."
"Whatever." Wolf said as he hoisted their prisoner over his shoulder and hauled him to the infirmary. When the prisoner was safely on the bed, he left him in the care of Leon and headed back towards his quarters.

After rehydrating the furless and getting him into a stable condition. Leon left the infirmary and went back to the bridge. When he got there, he saw Panther at the controls, and no Wolf. Typical he thought. "Hey Panther, did you already activate the autopilot?"
"Yes, I already activated it." replied Panther.
"You used the coordinates I recorded earlier?"
"Indeed I did."
"Good, I'm tired. Gonna head to my room. There should be an alert when the prisoner regains consciousness. Come get me when he's awake." Leon left the bridge and headed back towards his quarters.

Zack awoke to the sound of a sequence of mechanical beeps. He tried to open his eyes, but it was far too bright. The first thing he noticed was that he was sore all over. He couldn't move his arms or legs immediately, but when he regained mobility, he noticed he was strapped down rather tightly. When he finally got the courage to try opening his eyes again, he found he couldn't see anything. Was he just disoriented or was he blind? He couldn't tell. In fact, he couldn't tell much of anything. He tried to sort his thoughts, but he was so sore, the pain was making it hard to focus. He hoped it would go away soon.

"The subject in the infirmary has regained consciousness" came the voice of the computer, rather loudly. Panther, who had started to doze off, nearly fell backwards off his chair when he heard it. He sat back up, shook himself a bit, and got up to head to Leon's quarters. He left the bridge and was about to head down the hallway to Leon, but instead decided to pay a visit to Wolf first. When he knocked on the door, he was immediately greeted with a "Buzz off!" from the lupine inside.
Panther tried to open the door from the outside panel but found it locked. "Wolf, the prisoner is awake."
"Why should I care?" Wolf responded lazily.
"Well, you are the leader. You should probably be the one to inform him of his situation" Panther reasoned.
"Leon can handle it" came the muffled voice of Wolf.
"Wolf," Panther said with a concerned tone, "You want to leave the poor guy alone with Leon?"
There was no response for a good while before, much to Panther's surprise, the door slid open. "Yeah, I guess you're right" said Wolf, as he brushed past Panther and headed off to the infirmary. Panther smiled a little and headed off to get Leon.

Zack heard what he thought was a door slide open and footsteps. "Hey," sounded a voice, "You awake?"
The voice was deep, a little gruff, and obviously belonged to a man. "Do…you mean me?" Zack asked slowly.
"No, the other furless strapped to the bed"
"I can't see anything." Zack told the voice.
"Oh, sorry." Though short, it sounded genuine. "Um, you've probably just got temporary blindness or something. It should go away. What's your name?" the voice asked.
"It's Zack. Zack Bruyevski." Zack told the voice. "Could you tell me where I am?"
"That's of no concern to you." This time it was from a different voice. It also sounded male, though it was severely higher-pitched than the other and also quite a bit more raspy. The voice came again "All you need to know is that you're our prisoner."
"Prisoner?!" shouted Zack. "What have I done?"
"We'll be asking the questions here" said the harsher voice.
"Lay off him, he hasn't done anything!" yelled the deeper voice.
"Regardless," said the harsh voice "he's our prisoner. You said your name was Zack Bruyevski, correct? Well then Mr. Bruyevski, how old are you and what year is it?"
"I'm 18, and…" Zack thought for a second before continuing "it's 14356. Why?"
"Thank you. That is all for now. When you are fully recovered, you will be taken to the brig."
Zack heard footsteps that grew fainter and fainter until they were no longer audible. He heard the deeper voice say "I think it's only fair that I tell you the year is really 14380. You've been in suspended animation for 24 years.
"WHAT!?!" screamed Zack.
"Whoa, calm down there" said the voice. "We found you amoung the wreckage of what looked like a battle that took place a long time ago. Were you in some sort of battle before you ended up here?"
Zack thought back for a second. "Yeah, I…I think so. I remember being in a fight before I woke up here." He was still trying to process what the voice had just told him.
"Well, we think a shot hit your oxygen tank, but the tank didn't blow. Instead it leaked and the extreme cold of space froze the oxygen around you and you ended up frozen as well" the voice explained.
Zack thought about what he said when something hit him. "Um, can you tell me what happened to the population of Zoness Epsilon?" he asked, somewhat nervously.
The voice was silent for a while before it said "Wasn't that the fifth moon of Zoness that used to have a really big mining colony? If I remember correctly, the whole colony got wiped out by a pandemic. I think Corneria sent a shipment of enough vaccine to get rid of it, but the convoy got ambushed by pirates or something. The next shipment was too late. I seem to remember there being a survivor of the convoy, but I'm not sure. That was a long time ago though, I was pretty young when it happened. I'm surprised I remember that much…
Zack was silent for a bit. "…Oh. Thanks for…telling me."
"Are you okay?" the voice asked.
"Yeah, I'll…I'll be alright" Zack responded.
"Well, I'm gonna head back to my quarters" the voice told him. "By the way, I'm Wolf. I'm uh…I'm sorry for this…situation." Zack heard footsteps and a door sliding shut. He cried for a little bit before finally falling back to sleep.

Wolf headed back towards his room. He really felt bad for Zack. He could tell something about the news of Zoness Epsilon really upset him. Also, he was being imprisoned for no reason other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He decided he would go see him again tomorrow morning, he figured the least he could do was a little explaining.