Chapter 5: Old Friends and Enemies

"I still don't think we're ready to begin bringing these people out of cryo." Julie stated.

"Well it needs to be done and the sooner, the better." Mark replied.

"Fine then, I am going to doing it one at a time. If something goes wrong with the first person I'm putting a halt to everything until I can get a better understanding of just how everything in the system works." She fired back.

"If anything does go wrong, I will give the time you need, but for now. We need these people. Even with all of the knowledge that is being implanted into everyone's brains people are still finding certain aspects of the advanced research difficult to understand. And I don't want any mistakes that could be avoided by misunderstandings. Now please begin." He said calmly.

Julie turned to some assistants giving last minute instructions. Finally turning to Mark and gave a nod. She went up to one of the bed like chambers and began keying in a sequence on the control panel. "I am starting with one of the military commanders. Hopefully this way if something does go wrong we will still have all of the researchers to aid in freeing our world."

The chamber began to go through a reanimating process. "The awakening will take a few minutes as the person body functions are restarted. Once that is done we will get the person onto sickbed and transport them to the med bay. If everything goes smoothly the person will be coherent within the hour. If not then I don't know." Julie finished.

Several minutes later, Julie told everyone to get ready. "Okay, it's in the final stages of bringing her out now. Any moment the chambers canopy will retract and then we will begin the move. So far vital signs are good, but there's no telling how brain function will be until we get to med bay." Just as she finished speaking the chamber let out a long tone and the canopy slid back reveling the body of a middle aged woman in a military uniform with no rank insignia or name.

Julie and her assistants jumped into action getting her transfer to the sickbed and then beginning to move her out of the room and towards med bay.

About half and hour later, Mark was asking Julie questions about the patient.

"As, I have already told you there is just no telling until she wakes up... if she wakes up. All of the scans show normal brain function, but with the extended stay in cryo there is no telling if she will ever regain consciousness."

"Okay, well you and your team have done great. I guess all we can do is wait now. I just wish that Moon could tell us who she is, but they seem to have permanently deleted who was left behind just in case the facility was discovered and they were revived by the Enemy."

After waiting nearly two hours for the woman to awaken Mark decided to go back to the control center and try to get some work done. He gave Julie strict instructions to contact him if she woke up.

Everyone in the base continued to work for the next two days, while the mystery woman that was awoken still slept in med bay. Mark was still getting hourly updates on her condition. Nothing had changed since her being taken into the med bay.

The new researches continued to do what they could, and had even come up few some plans for new ship designs. One of which Mark was very excited over. And Jen was giving him an update on the progress of design changes of their new craft they were building.

"Okay, so we have planned with the designs for the Heavy Cruiser a bit. We are changing the layout to allow for a 'crash' landing bay. For any fighters too damaged to return to their tubes, it was also pointed out that without the bay no other small craft could land on the ship. With this small landing bay added we had to cut back to amount of living space to just enough room for 450 people and loose two conventional missile tubes and one of the missile replicators." Jen said.

"I would really rather have that missile replicator if at all possible, even if we had to give up some storage. I would like to be able to produce more if they are needed than be able to store more at once. I believe that would be better for along engagement. Also, how are the new fighters coming?" Mark replied.

"Well I'll see if we can play around some more to fit the replicator back in. And the fighters are coming along quickly considering that we are designing them from the ground up. We have finally got the power issue fixed, but now they are going to be slightly larger than we projected. This has some advantages though, along with now fitting in a rudimentary A.I. in the fighter, the extra power allowed us to upgrade the lasers and shields. We are also playing with making another model that carries rail guns instead of lasers that could be used for different roles in combat. I should have some final plans for you sometime this week." She responded.

Lana spoke up at this point saying, "Instead of a whole different model could somehow come up with an interchangeable weapons pack so the lasers and rail guns could be swapped out? This way you could have the whole force of fighters fitted to whatever role was needed instead of having them split permanently into certain roles."

"I will have to get back to you on that, but it sounds workable and would really help once we get out there and start fighting. We still do not know how well the rail guns are going to work on the Enemy ships." Jen responded.

"Well get back to us when you can, right now I am about to get some rest and then do a tour of the facility just to get out and see how everyone is doing." Mark said dismissing Jen.

Mark and Lana had been going from department to department for a couple of hours when he received an urgent message from Julie. The woman they brought out of cryo had just woken up.

"Now, she is still somewhat groggy so try not to bother her too much. I haven't even gotten her name yet so be easy on her." Jen told Mark as they were entering the room where the woman was sitting up in her bed.

"Hello, I'm Commander Mark Evans. Can you tell me who you are?"

"Well," She said horsely, "that depends. Who are you with and how did you get into the base? Also, how long was I out for?"

"I am with a group of people that I brought here from a nearby town after I discovered the facility while hiking. I just happened upon the entrance to Hanger 3 and Moon brought me in from there. For you other question, you were out for quite a long time, about 1500 years."

"You must be kidding; there is no way I was in that chamber 1500 years. The Empire should have returned to this planet within a decade at the most. We were developing new systems that would have helped turn the tide of the whole war."

"I assure you, that it is true. The Empire never has return to this system. We don't know what happened after the system fell. I would not be here right now if I hadn't stumbled upon the entrance. And you would still be asleep in the cryo-chamber."

"If you did not come from the Empire, then how did you get the rank of Commander? Is there an active resistance in this sector?"

"I received my rank from Moon after I promised to help turn the Enemy out of this system. As for a resistance, we are it as of about a week ago. Now may I ask who you are?"

"Your rank from the A.I.? No resistance? Well this all seems very odd. I am not sure what is really going on here, but until I do I will not divulge any information that could aid an attempt by the Enemy to gain the knowledge of this base."

"I understand where you are coming from if I woke up in a base that was supposed to be abandoned on an occupied planet, that had no resistance for 1500 years and the Empire had not liberated it then, I might be a little wary at first too, but I assure that I am telling you the truth. Is there any way to prove this to you?"

"Give me access to the A.I. and a terminal to inspect the records of the base. Then we will see if I believe you."