Chapter two: Silver Linings~
The Narcissus is old indeed - though Nattie had informed all of them that the pod's serial number was recorded as being part of a 57 year-old ship, one had to see it to believe it.
Its outward appearance is boxy and bulky, made from an obviously outdated blueprint that he'd previously only seen in pictures. The little pod's title, Narcissus, is scratched and faded almost to the point of being unrecognizable; most likely due to the decades upon decades of sun rotations and the occasional brush with an asteroid. Jernigan tries to peek inside before they bypass the doors, but the viewing windows are so cruddy and crust-ridden that any attempts to do so would be impossible.
They set up their one good boarding mech and program it to start cutting through the door, waiting patiently as it does its thing. They know the cut is complete when they feel the vibration of the heavy metal door 'thunk' against the inside of the emergency pod, and Jernigan taps into the flexi on his wrist to send the drone in. Even though no one on The Icarus really believed anything dangerous would be onboard, it was still worth it to check the interior of the tiny spacecraft and scan it for any anomalies. In this day and age, one could never be too careful.
He's not sure why, but he can feel his heart rate rising, as one would expect when approaching imminent danger. Bad juju, Clarke would have told him had he voiced his thoughts. The drone's scan comes back and the results show on Jernigan's flexi, which he forwards to the rest of the crew. The interior is cold and empty, with everything coated in years upon years of crystallized dust. The only movement to be seen is from the tiny particles drifting through the air, glinting in the sunlight that is allowed to stream through the door they had forced open.
"Seems okay to me," Halloway says, looking up from his flexi.
"Wait, what's that green light?" Clarke pipes up, sharing her screen so everyone can see what she sees. "Right there, you see it?"
Jernigan squints. There is indeed a green light, albeit very faint, hardly noticeable. He's surprised someone as scatterbrained as Clarke was able to catch it at all.
"Looks like it might be a life pod," he surmises, and the other two's spirits dampen.
If there was ever anyone alive aboard a craft that was assumed to be either empty or abandoned, by law, salvagers lost any and all rights to whatever they found. Which of course would not be ideal for their situation, but they weren't troublemakers; if anyone was alive in there - however unlikely - they would obey the law.
"Okay, everyone. Lights."
One by one, each crew member activates their helmet lights, Clarke grumbling at how much harder it will be to find anything of use what with the pod's lighting system being of the non-functional type. For the most part, however, The Icarus crew were simply happy to have found anything to investigate at all, considering their unlucky dry spell.
Jernigan slowly scans the darkness with his light, sweeping the room. His heart rate rises again. They had searched ships in the dark before, but this one...he can't even begin to describe it. A certain eeriness fills the air, and although no signs of anything particularly wrong can be seen, and the drone scan has been 100% correct in its findings, there is still an undeniable feeling of unease. Like walking through a cemetery and realizing you've just stepped on someone's grave.
The crew make their way over to the hypersleep chamber, the only source of artificial light in the entire ship. Clarke finds the touch pad by the entrance, and the pod's security system responds in a voice that is even smoother than Nattie's.
ACCESS DENIED. EMERGENCY POWER ACTIVATED. ONLY PRIMARY FUNCTIONS PERMITTED.
Well, that was to be expected. Pods were only designed to last about 90 days, not six decades. He was surprised there was any power at all.
Clark sighs. "Ah, shit."
The two men creep closer to the dust-covered hypersleep capsule, Jernigan leading. Had this been the main reason the system had gone on emergency power? To keep whoever was in there alive? Would they even still be alive, after all this time? Were hypersleep chambers even designed to last that long?
"Internal pressure positive," Jernigan reads off his flexi. "Assume nominal hull integrity. Hypersleep capsule circa late twenties..."
Someone goes 'wow' in the background, he's not sure who, but he pays the sideways comment no mind as he reaches out and wipes a layer of dust off the top of the capsule. Light bursts through like a sunbeam, unexpected to be sure, and Jernigan leans closer to peer inside.
A woman.
Young.
Brown hair.
Quite beautiful, too.
Certainly not the sixty-plus year-old corpse he'd been expecting.
And is that a cat beside her?
Scanning the capsule with his flexi, Jernigan waits curiously to get his readings back, honestly surprised that the pod's hardware had been advanced enough to link with today's tech.
"Well?" Halloway inquires, just as curious as he is.
The readings finish loading. Jernigan's face falls from beneath his bio-suit's helmet.
"Lights are all green. She's alive."
Seeing that the air is breathable, he takes off his helmet and sighs down at the sleeping woman and her feline companion.
"There goes our salvage, guys." He lifts up his arm to tap into his suit's flexi, prepping to share the bad news with everyone else. "Hey, Nattie?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Call this one in. There's a survivor. Well, two if you count the cat."
He can practically hear the confusion on Nattie's end as she hesitantly acquiesces to his request, probably trying to decipher whether he's joking or not. Better clarify for the books. "Seriously. We have one female and one feline survivor aboard The Narcissus."
"Yes, sir. I'm typing up a report as we speak."
"Good. Thanks."
As they all stare down at the unknown woman and her sleeping cat, a mass feeling of disappointment fills the air like a fine mist.
"Well...at least we got to save someone's life," Halloway offers. "I mean what are the odds that she'd still be alive, or that we'd be the ones to find her? I mean this has gotta be a new record somewhere, right?"
Jernigan smiles.
Ah, Halloway.
Always the optimist.
Always finding silver linings in clouds that didn't exist.
Not all the way out here.
