To Awake

by Timothious Clayton Smith

As I awoke from the battle frenzy three bodies laid in front of me. There were more lying around the room. The floor was slick with blood and other body juices. I quickly scanned the room. Nothing was moving so I holstered my blaster.

I hate it when this happens. How long was I blacked out by the frenzy? As matter of fact where am I? I don't remember this place! The structure looks like every other hole in the wall I had ever been to but I don't ever remember being here before.

I reached down pulled the entrance badge off the body right in front of me. I might need this later.

I walked over to the bar and found a relatively clean glass. I started to look for a bottle but they were all broken. I poured myself a drink from the stainless carbon flask I had hidden under my shirt flap. I started to drink from the glass when I noticed the stars outside.

"Rasche," I spoke as if I hadn't spoken the language in many years. Just then I remembered that I hadn't. I had been in so many off world dives lately that to speak anything other than Universal speak would feel down right alien and it did. To speak my own home language was strange.

I looked around the room again. Nope no one from the home world was in the room. Strange, this does look like the Rasche system. This bar should be chocked full of Raschenites. Not a one was there.

I finished my drink and decided to be on my way. Whatever direction that is. Slipping back and forth from the slime on the floor I stepped over bodies as I made my way to the doors.

The door opened. I stepped out onto the main passageway. It must have been earlier morning because it was extremely quite. Either that or everyone on board was dead. That wouldn't be the first time that had happened. I wiped the blood from my boots on the decon mat in the front of the bar and proceeded to walk towards the main area.

The halls were dimly lit, just as I had thought, it was the third hour of the station day. Strange, there should still be guards. That might be a good thing though, as I am wanted in several systems because of my frenzy.

I came out into the main area. Except for the turned over waste receptacle the place looked normal for this time of station. The shops were open and there were a few people still walking around.

I walked into one of the shops. Behind one of the counters to my surprise was an Earthling. Of all places to find a human being was here. But where was here?

"May I help you?" said the human in that squeaky pitch voice they have when speaking Universal. It was unmistakably a female of the species.

"I think you can," I said politely. "What station is this?"

She looked surprise at my request and said, "why this is the Aurora Station in the Rasche system."

I must have looked stunned for I was. "How can that be? Where-where are all the Raschenites?"

I must have said it in Raschenese because she said, "What was that? I'm afraid I don't understand those words."

I repeated my query in Universal. The answer the female gave me was surprising. I'm not sure exactly how I reacted but the human female’s reaction was that of terror. She reached for the alarm under the counter. I know that she must have thought it silence but the high pitch squeal pierced my ears. I had to cover them and run out of the shop.

I ran across the main area and down a corridor and into a public restroom. I turn the water on splashed it on my face. What was it the human female said? Could I believe my ears? Dead? She had said that all the Raschenites were dead. Had been for 10s of thousands of years. Just then I looked up into the mirror. I jump back in surprise.

A human face was staring back at me. I blinked my eyes in disbelief. I then looked down at my hands. Human hands! They were human hands! I stumbled backwards and looked at the face in the mirror then again at my hands. Somehow I must have morphed into a human for protection. But why? Why a human?

Just then a human came out of one of the stalls behind me. "Hey buddy are you alright?" he asked.

"Fine. Just fine," I said as I noticed his badge on his shirt. It said Aurora Station PD on it.

"Well you look a little pale. Maybe we should get you to the Medic. Can't be too careful with this new flu running around. The medics think it's the same one that killed off the Raschenites all those thousands years ago. Ain't that a laugh."

I must have looked even paler at what he had said because he first looked nervous then scared. "Hey there don't pass out. I'll go get the help. I'll be right back," he said as he hurried out the door.

Rasche dead for thousands of years. How had I survived? Why didn't I know? Even with all my travels through space you think I would know that Rasche had died. Some one would have told me. I would have found out somehow. I have to get out of here.

I walked out the door and looked both ways. I then proceeded down the corridor to docking bay A12. I would need a ship to get off this station and I wouldn't be able to use my own. The Authorities have probably found the bodies in the bar by now. I know that it's only 3:30 time of station but the local patrols should have check there by now. Not to mention the alarm at the shop and the guard in the restroom.

I headed down further down the corridor. Passed down the section of rooms and compartments that connected the outer portion of the station with the main corridor.

I passed through the entrance to the docking bay and ducked into a passageway on the right side. I would have to get by the port authority. I thought of morphing into another form but that would take to long and there is no safe place to do so. I checked the charge on my blaster. Good it's at three-quarters charge.

"The time of station is now 400," chimed the station's computer.

I looked out the glass of the passageway at the spaceships moored there. There were several that caught my eye but there's one that I saw that would best suit my purposes. I knew it would be locked and no one inside.

Being a spacer myself, I would spend as much time off ship as I could when I was in port. Besides this spacer wouldn't be coming for his ship any way as he was laying dead in the bar where I had left him.

I made my way to the dock where the ship was moored. I inserted the Entrance badge into slot next to the door covering the gangway and slide it through. The door slide back allowing me through. I walked up the gangway to the hatch of the ship. I pushed the entrance badge up against the hatch panel. The panel slide back revealing a touch pad.

"Place your right hand against the panel for identification," the ship's computer spoke in a feminine voice.

I pulled out my own computer from my coat. I wrote some quick calculations into it with my stylus and plug it into the computer port under the panel.

There was an immediate change as my own computer spoke through the ship's computer in its masculine voice, "you may enter." The hatch opens. I disengaged the computer from the computer port and entered the ship through the hatch.

I had downloaded my system into ship's computer and it was busily taking over. Lights flashed on and off as it quickly learned the system. The lights flashed three times more then everything went dead.

The power came back up and light flooded the command station I had made my way to.

"The system has been change. System is up and running perfectly," the computer reported in its masculine voice.

"Good," I acknowledged. "Prepare ship for take off."