Crust Vol 1

Somewhere, in the vast frontier of space, a being, on the mission to secure truth, slumbers in a long, dreamless sleep, cradled in the lonely, clinical confines of his cryogenic chamber.

A jolt to the senses, instantly breaking that slumber, bringing a cease to a timeless hibernation, also brings with it that all to familiar feeling of drowning, as the cryogenic fluids are purged from the chamber.

A momentary blurriness of vision, and then blackness, as the shock of consciousness brings back the instantaneous want of sleep.

The soft blinking glow, of orange lighting, gradually brought the environment into focus.

The deck.

Telbur could feel the warmth, emanating from the decks' heating panels, coursing up into his frail, thin body, through his hands and legs.

A welcome comfort, given the cool, steely feel of the cryo compartment.

To weak to stand--an undesirable side-effect of cryostasis--Telbur began to take slow breaths, as the conditioning of his training began to take control.

Warning lights.

Coming out of transit soon.

How long was I in stasis.

Struggling to his feet, Telbur wobbled, knees threatening to fold, with every step, to the control panel, on the compartment wall.

Indeed the ship was about to exit trans-dimensional travel, but to Telbur's dismay, nearly five million light-years short of his intended destination.

Stabilizing himself, with a hand against the hull wall, momentarily forgetting his fatigue, he moved his hand, deftly across the control panel, initializing manual control. Running a quick diagnostic, he saw that his vessel had suffered no damage, and was operating at maximum efficiency, for trans-dimensional travel.

The ship had, in fact, picked up a trans-dimensionally shifting anomaly.

Could it be?

The computer seemed to be unable to gain a clear set of readings, noting that it had taken the initiative of launching a temporal probe, which had subsequently lost contact, two days ago.

Better check this out.

Entering a series of commands brought up the navigational protocols. He would be exiting transit within the hour.

"Excellent. Enough time to gather myself", Telbur said, aloud, feeling the sound of his voice. It cracked, he thought, thinking of its' lack of use, over the last 14 months.

Activating the ships ears, Telbur let out a hearty grunt, clearing his throat.

"Ship, wake and transfer all protocols to Silya."

The control panel jumped to life, symbolizing that it was acting on the commands.

After a brief moment of silence, a familiar soft, female voice chimed. "Good to see you again, Telbur".

"Good to hear you, as well, Silya." Though Telbur had never had much love for artificial intelligence, he had gained a lasting appreciation for companionship, of any kind in the void of space. "Can you tell me what we've stumbled across?"

"My analysis is inconclusive, however the anomaly appears to be possessed of multiple dimensional properties. The magnitude has placed my protocols on high alert."

"Interesting", Telbur stated, as his curiosity became more heightened. "For what reasons?"

"That information is currently unavailable. I lost contact with the temporal probe, shortly after it began transmitting it's data. The probe is what activated my alert protocols, however was unspecific, as to the reasons."

Telbur gave this information some serious gravity. "Was it malfunctioning?"

"Unknown. All of the probes instrumentation were reporting nominal, prior to loss of contact."

"Are you picking up any vessel signatures?", thinking of possibly stumbling across a "private" find.

"Negative. There is a high amount of variable distortion, which may cause inaccurate scanning probabilities."

Taking this last into consideration, Telbur thought, better to be safe and possibly, avoid unpleasantness. "Silya, retrace the probes telemetry and bring us out of transit a parsec behind it's it's initial re-entry."

"Navigational protocol set", the computer responded, in confirmation.

To be continued...