Fear and Loathing

[Fairchild]

Jera's Guardian had just settled in one of the Atka hangars. She finished her report and prepared to visit her guest in the cargo hold. Her hand wandered off towards a compartment to the left, from which she took out a small injector filled with translucent, violet liquid. She pressed it into a vein on her forearm and hissed as the needle pierced her skin and injected the drug inside. AlderFluid started flowing through her bloodstream, spreading the satisfying chill throughout her body. Her pupils became small, her breath slow and controlled.

Her heart rate lowered. See this?... It started beating a distinct, four-beat rhythm. See this?... Three rising. See this?... One falling. ...That's right.

The woman rose from the pilot seat and walked to the cargo hold. She glanced over the escape pod. A small piece of scrap metal, usually mounted on light fighters. Life support was calculated on no more than a couple of hours. And this one seemed to be breached. She hoped it was the result of the tractor beam getting it into her hold - a dead Outcast wasn't worth much more than a bounty here.

The pod couldn't be opened from the outside. She took out her monoknife and started looking for a breach.

A monoknife or, as it would be known technically, a monofilament knife had been patented by a small company called Dreaming & Sons in the first century A.S., when the nanoweave had originally been discovered by Ageira. In principle, it was the ultimate archetype of a cutting tool - a strand of nanoweave fiber that's exactly one atom wide and high could slice through carboncrete like butter. The knife looked like it was composed just of the handle, with a small bead seemingly floating at the end. Upon pressing a button in the handle, an electric current would flow through the nanoweave to the bead, firming up the nanoweave. At that point anything between the bead and the handle would be split in a very neat fashion.

Monoknives had their downsides though. Because of their construction they were only good for slicing - its tip was only made of dull, metal bead which rendered any attempts at stabbing fruitless. That's why she had to first locate an opening.

See this?... There it was, just on the top of the pod. She dropped the bead inside and firmed up the blade.

See this?... The blade cut through the top part of the pod. Her friend would be located somewhere lower.

See this?... She cut open the pod, leading the blade all the way to the bottom. She heard oxygen pipes splitting and releasing their content. The pod still had oxygen, that's good.

...That's right. She finished the cut and the pod snapped open, revealing an unconscious man inside.

Had she not taken AlderFluid before, she might have even considered him handsome up to a point. But as it stood, she was only focused on what she had to do. She glanced over his body, looking for injuries. Apart from some blood around his face, an inevitable result of high g-force, he seemed healthy. No fractured ribs, no broken bones. That was good, she wasn't up for carrying him.

Jera pushed the pod and the man fell down on the cargo hold floor. He was still unconscious. She kicked him in the abdomen and spoke curtly. "Rise and shine."