“Ensign, he’s awake,” the woman before him called out to someone beyond Drew’s field of vision. He tried to stand up, but the pounding in his head slammed him back down with a grunt. “Woah, steady there, don’t try to move just yet. You took quite the beating out there. I’m glad the Ensign was able to heal you up…but I don’t think you’re back up to ops normal quite yet.” The brunette grabbed his shoulder and helped him back down, moving the pillow behind his head to ensure he didn’t bang it on the hard floor.
Drew’s eyes closed again, and he realized that it had not been a dream. He turned his attention inward; the pain he remembered was mostly gone, but small aches and pains remained. His clothing was still stuck to him, the blood and sweat not having been washed off. With his eyes closed, he could still see the flashing blue box in the corner of his vision, but he opted not to give it any credence until he was surer of his current situation. “Lights? How?” His voice felt raw and dry. The blanket covered his hands and he began the process of casting major refresh on himself, wanting more clarity for the situation.
“Easy there shipmate, just hold up a minute and you can talk to the Ensign. She’s in charge,” the brunette said. He could feel a hand on his shoulder trying to comfort him. “Ensign Rothschild?” She made the question, with her voice tilted away from him. Drew was aware of other sounds in the room, cloth shifting, and footsteps sounding as they approached him. Major Refresh went off and he breathed a sigh of relief. His eyes opened, and he moved to sit up again, the headache no longer affecting him.
“Alright, I’m up.” The ensign came into view. She was young, early twenties at best, about what Drew would have expected from an Ensign. She looked him over, “So, Petty Officer Michalik,” her pronunciation of his name being horrible, with the emphasis on the ch rather than the second i. “You show up at the door, mostly dead, covered in blood and who knows what else. Care to tell me who you are and what’s going on?”
Drew laughed, “Ma’am, I have no clue what’s going on. I’m IT2 Michalik and I’m…no, I was the Cyber Security Operations Command mission lead. When the lights went out and the blue boxes appeared, I left the watch floor and went looking for my partner, who was on his lunch break.” Drew scratched his forehead, flaking pieces of dried blood falling onto his hand. With a grunt, he shook his hands, causing the flakes to fall onto the ground. “I ran into a six-foot spider that almost killed me, and then came here hoping you all were still here and alive.” He shrugged and looked around the room for the first time. He was sitting in a corner. The two women standing next to him weren’t the only people in the room; he could see the prone shapes of two more people sleeping in the far corner. The room was lit with several small, stone-like, white lights that were scattered around the room.
“Have you had any contact from the outside? All my lines were dead,” Drew asked the junior officer
“No, we’ve…been here for the last couple days. Same situation. All the lines are dead, the power is off, and every time we’ve ventured outside something has attacked us.” The Ensign replied.
“Days?” Drew asked, confused, “How long was I out?” He moved to stand up, the 1st class helping him, and he smiled at her in thanks.
“An hour or so… We haven’t had much sleep, and healing you took a lot out of me,” the ensign responded and Drew frowned. He hadn’t ever really felt tired after casting spells. Then again, after pretty much every fight he had cast major refresh, which would theoretically have removed all the negative effects of the casting.
“That…doesn’t make sense, it’s only been a couple hours since the voice said ‘begin’ and all this craziness started.”
Sabin shook her head, “No, IT2, it’s been a couple days. Why don’t you tell us what you remember, and we’ll figure out what happened?” She gestured to the polished cherry wood table where the higher-ups of the coast guard had their daily briefings and the very nice seats that surrounded it.
“Alright. So, me and Rob were on night watch together this week, Rob… that is IT2 Omondi was on his lunch break, and suddenly the voice said ‘Begin’ and the blue boxes appeared. They told me my stats and then gave me some xatherite for being close to a central nexus or something. Then I went through the tutorial, which only lasted a handful of minutes.”
“Wait, tutorial?” Ensign Rothschild interrupted him, “What tutorial?”
“Uh, the Aevis lady appeared in front of me and gave me a rundown on the whole Human Protectorate, slotting xatherite, linked skills, and all that stuff. Not a ton of information, to be honest.” Drew looked between the two women, taking in their blank glances. “I mean, I guess it said I was selected for it, so I guess it isn’t ubiquitous. Guess I got lucky there. But anyway, then I slotted a bunch of xatherites and lost consciousness for a bit, no idea how long.”
“Two questions; What is the Human Protectorate? And exactly how many xatherite did you slot? Caballos is the only one that lost consciousness after he slotted all five of his at once, and even then, that was only for a few minutes.”
“All five? I did six that first time-three intermediates, and a couple of commons and basics. Wait, you guys only got five? That means you have like…50 nodes? The tutorial said I had more than average, but I didn’t think it would be that much higher.” Drew looked between the two women as they stared at him with slightly agape mouths.
“Three intermediates? The first time? I have 37 slots, Katie and Mitch are in the mid 40’s, and Juan has 55. How many did you get?” Ensign Rothschild asked him.
“Uh, 73,” Drew said a little embarrassed.
“Holy shit-dogs!” Sabin exclaimed. Rothschild shot her a glare for her language as she considered the ramifications of his words.
“And the Human Protectorate?” Rothschild prodded.
“Oh uh, they own Earth and like 8,000 more planets, and they installed the mana accumulators and, uh, humans here. Earth has been split dimensionally-is that a word? — a couple times, this is Earth-3 but all the Earths are a military training facility and we’re effectively shanghaied into their Navy,” Drew answered, just now realizing how crazy that all sounded as he watched Rothschild and Sabin’s faces.
“I’m sorry, what? I already signed one dotted line to join the military. I’m not okay with being force conscripted into another.” Sabin’s voice had a hard edge.
“Hey, my contract is up in a year; so, I get that, but I don’t really see it affecting us much. They want us trained first, and unless they have a way to modify the collective memory of humankind and created a massive fake human history, I get the feeling that this whole thing has taken thousands of years. I don’t imagine those of us here now will have to go out to space.”
“Did you say food?” Rothschild asked, clearly changing the subject.
“Yeah, I guess I left it at the top of the stairs when I began to follow the blood trail.”
Rothschild asked, “Blood trail? You didn’t mention a blood trail.”
“Sorry, hadn’t gotten to it yet. Where was I? Oh yeah, it was super dark.” Drew looked around the room, “Where did you guys get all the light by the way? I had to make a torch out of a mop and shoe polish.”
“Ahh, one of my xatherite is major glowrock. I’ve been casting it as soon as the cooldown comes off.” Sabin seemed somewhat mollified by Drew’s words and the more pressing matters at hand. She picked up one of the rocks off the table and tossed it to Drew, who caught it and turned it over in his hands, amazed at how simple their solution was.