Home Planet: Awakening (Part 1) Read Free

was in right now.
    I checked once more for her pulse—now there was nothing. I wouldn’t tire or give up on her.
    “Come on, Kate … Breathe, damn it!”
    There was still no sign of anyone else.
    “Help! We have a medical emergency—is anyone there?” I called.
    No reply.
    I rose once more and continued compressions. Even with her pale pallor in the eerie half-light, she was a beautiful woman. Her eyes stared into the distance, glassy and still. I gently closed them on my next mouth-to-mouth. I wouldn’t let her slip away. I couldn’t. But as one minute turned into five minutes then became fifteen, it seemed I’d failed her.
    Continuing frantically for another five, I ignored the aching in my shoulders. Tears welled in my eyes.
    I stopped compressions and looked down at the departed Kate Alves. Twenty-seven years old. Too young to die and I didn’t even know why.
    I bent down and stroke her cheek, kissing her forehead.
    “I’m sorry, Kate. I tried.”
    She died a long way from home, but she didn’t die alone. Small comfort in her final minutes, but now she’d found peace. I hoped there was a place called heaven for Kate Alves.
    After easing myself from the stasis pod, I closed the canopy then sat down, wedged between my pod and Kates for a while, feeling sad and numb. For over a century, we’d slept six feet apart and this was what it had come to.
    With my muscles cooling from their exertions, once again I felt the chill creeping back into me and remembered the other light at the bottom of my other neighbor’s pod. I hoped in my melancholy that I hadn’t left that one too late as well. I stood up and glided to the foot of the pod in zero-g.
    The status light was still solid red. There were no sounds of struggle from this pod. Once again, I quickly cleaned the plaque near the status light to remind myself of who the guy was.
    Evert J.A. Rietmuller
    DOB 04-Jan-2025
    The Netherlands
    Colonist JA-01014
    Yes, that was his name: Evert. A tall, skinny Dutch guy with floppy blond hair and glasses who looked young for his forty-five years. I seemed to remember he was a research engineer of some sort from his former life. Serious, nerdy guy—quiet, civilized, courteous. I didn’t know him well; just that he planned to do some experiments once we got to the planet. Unlike Kate, Evert was married with kids. They had remained back on Earth. When he’d told me this, I wondered what the hell would possess a guy to leave his wife and kids with the knowledge he’d never see them again. I knew it took all sorts, and we all had friends and family, but to me, leaving a wife and kids was something else. If things had turned out differently for me, there’s no way I’d have done the same.
    I slid up until my face was a foot above the canopy and then paused for a moment, floating and looking down at the dirty stasis pod. Pushing past my hesitation, I wiped away the century and a bit of grime. It took a second for my eyes to adjust to the dim interior and a second more for my brain to what I was looking at.
    “Whoa!” I cried, reflexively pushing myself away until I gently impacted the grating of the level above.
    “What the hell happened to you, Evert?” I murmured.
    Clearly dead, his eyes were gone, leaving only dark pits beneath his round plastic frames; the fleshy part of his nose had decomposed leaving just skin and bone. His face looked gaunt and mummified. I’d seen plenty of corpses before in my former life, but not many decomposed ones like this. Not a pretty sight. I looked away, aghast. Less than a perceived hour ago, I’d been speaking to the poor guy.
    Whatever befell Evert Rietmuller might give a clue to what was happening on the not-so-good ship Juno . With only emergency power coursing through the pod’s circuits, I once again went for the emergency release. And once again, it was ceased solid. Sighing at my sore fists that had pummeled the last canopy, I decided to go looking for a less nerve-bundled