Wake-Up Call

   Romeo circled the green dragon, looking for a chance to close in for the kill. The green turned with him, keeping its sword-like fore claws ready to block any attack against its neck or chest. Blood still flowed from the gash Romeo had delivered to its hind leg, but the green as yet showed no signs of favoring it. Romeo made several feints, hoping to draw the green into over exerting the weakened limb, but it remained defensive, minimizing the stress to it.

   Romeo began to circle faster, with quick, jabbing attacks. The green was forced to move its hindquarters around its front to keep up with the faster turning rate. Romeo changed directions; and again. The wound was definitely slowing it, now.

   The green got slightly off balance and was forced to step hard on the injured leg, reflexively raising its head as it winced in pain. Romeo saw his chance to go for the jugular.

   He had the green’s neck in his jaws, now. Soon it would be over. The world was slowly going black...But wait! He was winning! Why...?

   Romeo grudgingly became aware of his body as the support feeds retracted. Impeccable timing, he groused as he flexed each limb in turn before climbing out of the stasis pod. At least no alarms greeted him as he re-acclimated himself to reality, so nothing catastrophic was wrong. Unless the alarm intended to warn of that particular catastrophe was wasn’t functioning. That was always a possibility.

   Being BioStasis crew meant his pod was within spitting distance of one of the five habitat/operations stations on the ship. Even so, he had to fight down a momentary urge to flap his wings and glide the short distance to the control room, reminding himself that this body didn’t do wings. “I’ve been Dragon Dancing too much,” he muttered to himself with vocal chords rusty from disuse.

   No urgently blinking lights greeted him as he entered the control room, always a good sign.

   Madison had already brought most of the consoles online by the time he was awake enough to process what they had to say. He first glanced at the forward view, which was both familiar and strange. Stars, stars, everywhere, and not a constellation he could name. Also no impending planets, unexpected ships, or space debris threatening to collide with the ship.

   He checked the ship’s status. No hull breaches, intrusions, or power failures.

   He went over to the intership console, and checked the display. The constellation of blips showing Madison and her fleet mates was all green. He tapped out a quick query, wondering if anyone else was awake. Pound, Arkansaw, Sturgeon Bay, and Luck all reported conditions nominal, all personnel in stasis.

   He went back to navigation, checking for space dust, RF concentrations, or any kind of anomalies that might prompt the auto-nav to ask for a second opinion. Nothing.

   Well, at least it wasn’t a serious problem that had awakened him. Maybe there was a smaller problem that Madison wanted a human opinion on. He checked the power management and distribution systems, looking for fluctuations or unusual consumption. He checked the Stasis Management, looking for unusual vital signs being reported from any stasis pods. Everything was normal.

   He sat back and looked around the room, hoping an explanation would show itself. Almost of its own accord, one hand dug out his dog tags and began to finger the charm strung on the chain, a ruby heart enveloped in a fiery glass comet. Tag charms were about the only personal expression crewmen had room for, and Romeo tended to use his as a worry stone.

   Why had Madison awakened him?

   Perhaps it was a scheduled maintenance check. But the Virtual Environment Manager usually gave some kind of advance warning before awakening a crew member for scheduled checks. Could the VEM programming have developed a glitch?

   Romeo went to the VEM station and checked the maintenance schedule. Seeing it was almost time for a scheduled maintenance inspection, anyway, Romeo canceled the next wake-up call and began the inspection. He systematically walked through the corridors, checking that distribution nodes were supplying power to all the stasis pods and making sure no one had crimped or dislodged feeds in a manner that might have confused the computer. He thought he might find something to explain why he was awake, or at least come up with something else to look for, but the four-hour check revealed nothing. Until he got back to the BioStasis crew pods.

   He had deliberately left the BioStasis area until last, and as he passed the pod of a lanky Asian, he happened to notice the dog tags lying on his chest. An incongruous spot of green peeked out from under the stainless tags. Romeo squatted down to get a better angle. Between the tags, an enameled green dragon curled around the chain. Hmm....

   Romeo went back to the VEM station and took a closer look at the schedule. Sure enough, the crewman who was scheduled to be making this check was Tatsuo Takahashi. Romeo dug deeper into the “alarm clock” coding. Eventually a wry smile spread across his face. He put the control room back to hibernating and went back to his pod, passing Takahashi’s on the way.

   “Boy, are you going to get it,” he said to the slumbering figure.

   Romeo settled back into his stasis pod, relaxing as the feeds reattached themselves. Within minutes, his body had returned to the comatose-like state of his fellow shipmates.

   In a cave beneath a mountain towering over a valley scorched many times over by flames, a red dragon awoke with a roar that shook the land...