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Everything was cold. So fucking cold. Cold enough that Tommy could barely even feel it, cold enough that it felt like the very blood in his veins was frozen. So incredibly goddamn cold that even his thoughts seemed to move in slow motion.
None of that, however, was more annoying than the alarm that had been going off for the past- however long he'd been awake. (It was hard to keep track.) The stupid thing wasn't loud, but it was persistent, and every time he thought it'd stop, it was back. Like a fire alarm that was running low on battery.
The cold would be from the cryonics pod, of course. He'd figured that out within the first few minutes. His memory was still returning in bits and pieces, but he knew that much. At the moment, he was somewhere out in space, hurtling through endless miles of nothingness, with nothing but the cold and the fucking fire alarm beeping to keep him company.
It may be a good thing that the alarm was going off, actually. It was giving him the motivation to move, if only to turn the thing off.
When he could start to feel his arms again, he pushed out blindly in front of him, bumping against the lid of the pod. Something clicked and hissed, and then warm air was rushing in, and if the cold was bad, this was somehow worse. He swore, violently, going through every word he knew, despite the fact that he could still barely move his jaw and it came out more like a grumbling hum. Wasn't like there was anyone to hear him anyway.
Thankfully, the warmer air outside the pod - though shocking at first - was helping him warm up, and after a few moments, he was able to look around and take better stock of the situation. The alarm was still beeping somewhere. Where exactly was a little harder to pin down. It was only beeping every few seconds, and it was really difficult to concentrate on the task at hand long enough to trace the slightly echoes sound to an actual source.
Aside from that, things looked… normal. Normal enough, at least. He wasn't sure what he'd expected there. He was the only person on the spaceship, so no one would've been around to mess anything up. The ship was small enough, too, that it was easy to see at a glance that nothing had gone catastrophically wrong while he'd been out. There were some faint marks on the windows, probably from stray bits of space rock, but that was only to be expected.
He turned to check on the cryonics pod. The pod was easily the most expensive piece of equipment on the entire ship. Cryonics tech was pretty new, after all, and this was a top-of-the-line model, one of only a few in existence.
… and it appeared to be broken. Fucking fantastic.
He hadn't been involved in the science-y part of creating the pod, so he didn't know how it worked, exactly, but there was a red light flashing on the control panel and a faint hissing sound was coming from one of the tubes that snaked into the floor. That likely wasn't supposed to happen.
The alarm beeped again, just as he'd begun to hope it was actually gone, and he swore loudly. "Where are you-"
Sadly, the alarm did not see fit to answer.
A second later, it occurred to him that there was a control monitor set up by the side of the cryonics pod. That just might be helpful.
He walked over to it, and the first thing he noticed was the warning flashing on the screen.
WARNING: POD OPEN
DISMISS? (Y/N)
"Yes, go away," he grumbled, hitting Y. There was a brief lyrical chime and the notification disappeared. And was promptly replaced by another, accompanied by yet another fucking beep.
WARNING: POD DAMAGED
RECOMMENDED ACTION: CHECK ALL CONNECTIONS AND RESET SYSTEM
(PRESS X TO RESTART, OR Y IF THIS PROMPT IS IN ERROR)
Very helpful. He totally hadn't seen the damage yet. Whoever designed this system should win a fucking award.
There wasn't much of anything he'd be able to do about it, unfortunately. Not when he was out in the middle of space with no real maintenance supplies in sight. To get the thing to shut up, he hit Y again. The red light on the control panel shut off and the computer chimed again. He held his breath for a few moments, crossing his fingers that he'd finally managed to turn off the alarm.
A few more moments of blissful silence.
Thank gods that worked.
The computer screen was now displaying a startup screen, because apparently it had shut off and needed to reboot. Which was a little concerning, given that the computer controlled the autopilot, which meant that he'd just been flying into space aimlessly for an unknown amount of time. Fucking fantastic.
He glanced out the window while waiting for the system to properly restart. Outside, everything was still. The sheer scale of space made it impossible to tell if the little ship was moving at all.
The console pinged, and he looked back to see another notification.
UNABLE TO LOCATE SATELLITES
RECALIBRATE? Y/N
"Yeah, obviously," he muttered to himself, hitting Y yet again. Things could never just be simple, could they?
The map loaded only a few seconds later anyway. Why it needed to find satellites was anyone's guess. From what he could see, he was on the verge of uncharted space; about a third of the console space was entirely blank, while the rest was marked with the usual planets and other such space landmarks.
And then the screen glitched.
Or maybe it wasn't a glitch, and this was how the system was supposed to work- either way, the map now looked entirely different and showed a different part of space, one that he at least somewhat recognized as being within his home solar system. Which couldn't possibly be right. From what Phil had told him, in the chaotic last moments before he'd gone into stasis and been thrown out into space, the ship was supposed to be self-sustaining enough to get him far away from any imminent disaster.
In other words, the map fucking better be wrong.
A second later, the screen glitched again, now showing an entirely unfamiliar section of the map. Which was just great! He really needed to have one more thing to fix!
He grumbled some more curses under his breath, clicking around the display to try and learn anything about what was going on. Diagnostics were still rebooting, and the list of errors was growing by the second, so he clicked away from that quickly. The calendar was completely unhelpful, as it had apparently decided the year was 1652 (which was, in fact, several hundred years before Tommy was even born, so. Y'know. Probably not accurate).
Then he stumbled across the comms panel. Fuck yeah, this was perfect. Sure, there was no guarantee anyone was within broadcasting distance, but it was better than nothing!
He had a few options now. First, text messages. Those were only really good for communicating with specific people, and usually, it was hard to get a good connection while in the depths of space. He could, however, send a message to Phil - just something short, like "hey, I'm not dead!" - and let it send whenever he found somewhere to land.
Second was the radio. That could be more helpful in his current situation, but only if there was someone close enough to hear him.
There was a handheld microphone thingy attached to the console's keyboard, and he picked it up to say, "Testing, testing." Some lines on the screen moved up and down, as if to show sound waves, so he was going to assume that meant it was on. "Anyone out there?"
No response.
"Helloooo?"
Still nothing except, annoyingly, yet another warning beep from the console.
"Shit fucking damnit- I swear to God, if I have to hear that shitty alarm one more time-"
"Unknown vessel, this is the Zephyr. Do you copy?"
Tommy froze mid-rant. Now that he'd taken more than half a second, he could see that the "warning beep" had actually been a notification about the incoming call request. Apparently (and thankfully) the ship's systems had automatically accepted it.
… however, the person who'd picked up his distress call sounded very formal. Tommy had never bothered to learn the scripts for how one ship was supposed to communicate with another while out in space. To be fair, though, no one ever actually used those, unless they were on a military vessel or some shit.
Wait.
Oh fuck.
"Do you copy?" The other person repeated after a few seconds, and with a sinking feeling of dread, Tommy realized he'd have to answer. Unfortunately, finding someone else (someone with a functioning map, maybe, or any idea as to the current year) was his only way out of the mess that was this spaceship.
"Yeah, I copy."
"Is this a distress call, or were you yellin' into the void of space for fun?"
Tommy huffed at that. "Obviously a distress call, bitch. The system keeps giving me errors and the alarm won't fucking shut up, and I don't know where I am because the map on this thing is shit."
"You're in Syndicate territory right now."
"Where the fuck is that?"
There was a long pause from the other end of the line, followed by a quiet sigh. "Alright, is this an actual distress call, or are you just messin' with me? Because it really seems like you're messin' with me here."
Ah shit, that wasn't good. "I'm not, I swear," Tommy said hurriedly. "I just- never heard of the Syndicate before. Is that, like, a gang? Am I gonna get mugged?"
"The Syndicate is the biggest governin' body anywhere near here, so no, they're not a gang. Not sayin' you won't get mugged, though."
"Could you just help me out here? I don't need a lot, I just-" he was interrupted as the alarm decided to chirp again. "Oh my fucking God, what is it now?"
The communications display was replaced by the map, which was currently showing a space that was 90% blank nothingness and 10% loading screens. That is, aside from the large Thing the radar had just picked up. Whatever it was, it seemed to be approaching, and based on the scale of the map, it was almost like he could look out the window and see it just- there.
Which was ridiculous. He'd looked out the window just a minute ago and there was nothing out of the ordinary.
"Everything alright?" Prompted the voice on the radio.
"Yeah, I just- the radar's telling me there's something pretty big out there. Looks like it's getting closer."
"… yeah? We've been headin' towards you since we picked up the signal. You said it was a distress call, remember?"
Tommy cursed under his breath, practically diving to get a look out the window. Sure enough, a large spaceship - more of a space planet, if you ask Tommy, because since when did spaceships get that big - was steadily approaching, gradually blocking out more and more stars as it did.
"That's you?!"
There was a vague noise of acknowledgment from the other end of the line. "This is one of the Syndicate's flagship vessels. We were takin' it for a test drive today."
Well, that sure did solve a lot of problems. Tommy had been worried about the possibility that the other ship wouldn't have room for his little spaceship, and despite how shit the systems were, he was pretty attached to the thing.
… it also did bring up more questions, though, and possibly more problems he really didn't need. For instance: the oncoming ship was Really Fucking Big. Probably cost an entire small planet's income to build, and there was no way the fuel was cheap. Which- that made sense, given that it was a "flagship vessel" or whatever, but it did mean that whoever was driving the ship would have a lot of power and all that. Not super encouraging for Tommy's chances.
Now that it was clear his rescuers weren't just some guys like him, that put the whole situation in a much different light. Onboard Tommy's ship was the cryonics pod, which may well be the only one like it in the universe. (Not that the freezing technology was hard, it was waking up again that was usually the problem.) If they happened to be the kind of people to see the pod and immediately think about how much they could sell it for, it would be so easy for them to just… do that. Get rid of him and keep the technology, or sell it, or any number of things.
"Can I ask a question?" He started.
"Depends. What kinda question?"
"You're not gonna kill me, right?"
There was a worryingly long pause from the other end of the line before the response came. "Why would we do that?"
"I dunno, maybe you want to steal my ship or something."
"No offense, but I'd hardly call that a ship. Definitely not worth killin' someone over."
"Fuck you, my ship's perfectly fine," Tommy grumbled, belatedly realizing that wasn't the smartest argument to make in this situation. "Besides, I've been attacked over this thing before, so sorry for thinking the people flying a giant fucking space city might not have my best interests at heart."
No response for a few seconds, then Tommy was thrown into the console as everything onboard halted abruptly. He glanced out the window frantically, only to see the smooth metal walls of a landing dock.
"We're here," his unknown correspondent said unnecessarily. "Atmosphere is regulatin', please wait to leave for at least thirty seconds so we can make sure it's workin'-"
Tommy was out the door before the monotone voice could finish its instructions. He'd grabbed a wrench on the way out, just in case, and held it ready now as he strode out into the landing dock, doing his best not to stumble. It was really hard walking for some reason.
The place seemed bigger on the inside, if that were even possible. Mirrored observation windows lined the upper half of the room and large panels blocked off what looked to be entrances. One of the panels slid open as he watched, and two people walked into the landing dock.
Or- maybe "people" was the wrong word. They certainly looked human, almost, but there was just… something off about them. Like, one was really fucking tall. Limbs vaguely like spaghetti. They had really cool split-dyed hair, though, and-
A tail swished out from behind them as they walked, and okay, yeah, definitely not fully human.
The other one was a bit harder to read. Long pink hair, could be normal. The slightly-annoyed deadpan expression also wasn't an unfamiliar sight; Tommy had definitely had people give him that sort of look before.
On closer examination, though, Tommy realized the other person had an entire extra joint in their legs, kinda like a cat? Or a goat. Or maybe a pig. Definitely not the way human limbs were supposed to work, though.
"What the fuck?" he muttered under his breath, tightening his grip on the wrench and hoping they didn't notice. Element of surprise, bitch- no one expects getting hit upside the head with a wrench! Or at least, he hoped they didn't expect that, because a 2 v 1 didn't sound very fun right about now.
Neither of them reacted to the swearing, but the one with pink hair paused, digging in a pocket to pull out what looked like a headset. When they'd gotten closer, the headset was offered to Tommy, who took it hesitantly. The pink-haired guy stepped back to just outside of swinging distance. Must've noticed the wrench, then. Damnit.
He put the headset on as best he could manage one-handed, and got a nod of approval in return. "What's this for?"
"Translator," the pink-haired guy said simply. "The comms systems automatically do translation, so I figured we might need that for talkin' face to face. Anyway, my name's Technoblade, I'm the commander of the Zephyr. And this is the first mate, Ranboo."
"Nice to meet you!" The tall guy said, holding out a hand in a gesture that was incredibly oblivious, considering the fact that Tommy was still holding the wrench.
He resisted the urge to swing, instead nodding shortly and switching the wrench to his other hand so he could properly shake hands and - hopefully - seem like a friendly person they wouldn't want to immediately murder.
That… might've been a mistake, because their hand felt almost burning hot, and he nearly cursed aloud on making contact. "I'm Tommy," he managed to say, pulling away almost quickly as the other guy did (Ranboo, they had a name, he might as well use it).
"You're really cold," Ranboo said in response.
"You're a fuckin' furnace, is what," Tommy grumbled. Actually, now that he noticed, the whole room felt vaguely like a furnace compared to his ship. He still wasn't entirely certain where he was, but… maybe that was normal here? He wasn't sure how long he'd been out, after all, so maybe he'd reached a solar system that just worked differently.
Which reminded him. "Where are we again?"
"Syndicate territory," Technoblade answered, as if that wasn't obvious from their earlier conversation.
"Yeah, you said that- that doesn't fucking help," Tommy snapped.
Technoblade shrugged, entirely unapologetic. "Sorry for assumin' you knew about the biggest government in the area. One you were right in the middle of, by the way."
Alright, time for a different approach. The important thing here, Tommy reminded himself, was getting back home. Or to what was left of home. Once he'd woken up, he was supposed to take control of the ship and meet back up with Phil and any of the other researchers who might've survived. All he had to do was get his ship repaired and get the hell out of here.
Which would require knowing where he was, because the fucking map was broken, but at least he could try and get information from these guys.
"Right. So. Hypothetically, how long would it take me to get to Greater SMP from here?"
The question was met with blank looks.
"Greater SMP?" Technoblade repeated. "Why? You're not goin' there, are you?"
"And what if I was?" Tommy challenged, crossing his arms (awkwardly, he managed to jab himself with the wrench twice before doing it properly).
"You don't want to," came the quick and - yet again - unhelpful response. "There's nothin' there that hasn't been blown up ages ago."
Tommy sighed aloud, making the sound as loud as he possibly could. "Fine. I just want to know how long it would take to get there."
"You wouldn't be able to make it," Ranboo interjected, seeming far too excited at the prospect. "No one could. Even assuming the average person could live to a hundred and fifty years old, the last time it would've been possible was back before space travel was invented, just based on the expansion rate of the universe. Anyone who even tried since then would be dead before they got there. And that's not even to mention-"
They continued for a few more seconds before trailing off, but Tommy had already stopped listening. That… didn't make sense. Phil had set a timer on the cryonics pod, meant to go off in five years. The timer going off was supposed to be the thing that woke him up. It had woken him up, because he was here, awake, alive-
He was alive, right?
"You alright, kid?"
Technoblade's voice cut through his thoughts, and he looked up to see both of them giving him a worried look. "What year is it?" He asked, unable to get his voice to go much higher than a whisper.
"Twenty-three hundred fifty-seven," Ranboo rattled off. "Why?"
What the fuck was that.
"Can you say that again? But like- slower?"
"Twenty thousand, three hundred and fifty-seven," Ranboo repeated, slower, and holy shit, that was so much worse than Tommy had thought. 2357 was still a lot further in the future than he was meant to be, but- twenty thousand? Assuming they used the same calendar system, that was-
Holy fucking shit. That was a lot of years. God, was anyone from back then even alive anymore??
Apparently oblivious to the terrible realizations Tommy was coming to, Technoblade huffed, sending a quick glance to Ranboo before starting towards Tommy's ship. "Right. I'm gonna check the diagnostics so we can get you out of here."
Tommy turned abruptly, about to go- he wasn't sure what he was going to do, actually, but he didn't want Technoblade finding the cryonics pod. There wasn't much he could do to stop that, though. His limbs were feeling weirdly… tingly? Like they'd fallen asleep and were just now waking up.
Regardless, it was pretty hard to move at all, and the most he could manage was a confused "What? Why?"
"That's what you wanted, right?" Technoblade said over his shoulder before climbing into the ship (because of course Tommy hadn't locked it behind himself- that's what he got for being in a rush). "With the distress call an' all."
"Hey, are you doing alright?" Ranboo asked in a softer tone. "You seem kinda… shaken."
"Of course I'm not fucking alright," Tommy started, swinging back to face Ranboo far too quickly and nearly tripping over his own feet in the process because they wouldn't fucking move. "I don't know where I am, or what's going on, and-"
"Hey Ranboo, can you come here for a second?" Technoblade called from inside the ship, voice echoing oddly. "Found something you might want to see."
Ranboo shook their head, holding out a placating hand to Tommy. "Not right now, I think- he looks like he's going to pass out. We should get him to the medical wing."
"Medical wing?" Tommy repeated. "No, I'm fine." Sure, maybe he was hyperventilating a bit, and maybe it felt like the walls were closing in, but that was just because it was way too warm in here. And anyway, he really did feel fine! Aside from the panic. But he wasn't about to pass out, because this was not the time to be doing that, and he went to say so aloud.
"I'm not going to…"
-----
So maybe he was about to pass out.
That realization didn't happen until he was blinking his eyes open to the bright lights and white walls of- a research facility? It had to be, right? There was a heart monitor beeping somewhere nearby and the familiar sensation of an IV needle taped to the inside of his left elbow. He'd just passed out during tests again. That's all. He just had to take some deep breaths, make sure he didn't stand up too fast, and hope they'd figured out something useful this time.
Something trilled nearby, the sound entirely foreign, and Tommy startled, then forced himself to calm down. That was becoming rapidly more difficult as his memories started to slowly trickle back in. The familiarity of the setting was quickly fading, replaced by more than a little bit of fear (or terror, even), because what the fuck were they doing to him-
Someone appeared in his line of sight - lanky, split-dyed hair, that would be… Ranboo - and reached out a hand towards his head. Which, obviously, Tommy smacked away (with the arm that didn't have an IV in it, because he wasn't an idiot).
That earned him a series of chirping trills. Entirely indecipherable. Ranboo didn't seem to be deterred, though, and just tried again, more slowly. Apparently they were going to be persistent about this, so Tommy just braced himself for whatever might be coming.
They pressed the back of a cool hand against his forehead, then hummed, nodding, before turning and moving out of his field of view.
What the fuck?
"Where am I? What's going on?" He asked, pushing himself up while trying to keep his left arm stable. The room they were in seemed pretty standard as far as medical rooms went, if a bit more high-tech. Ranboo didn't seem to care enough to respond, so he tried again. "The fuck are you doing?"
Someone tapped his shoulder, and he nearly jumped, turning quickly to see- Technoblade. Because apparently he'd just been standing there. He was holding out the headset from earlier; Tommy hadn't even noticed it was gone, but it would certainly explain why he couldn't understand Ranboo anymore.
"You had hypothermia," was the first thing Technoblade said, before Tommy even had a chance to start yelling at either of them (or both, he wasn't picky). "You're in the medical bay right now. Don't try an' take out the IV, you could start bleedin' out all over the floor."
"What's it for, anyway?"
"It's got saltwater."
"The fuck-"
"Again, you had hypothermia. Warm saltwater can help with that."
Tommy huffed, suddenly feeling the urge to rip out the IV just to spite Technoblade. Fuckin' know-it-all bitch. Instead, he took a breath, noting with some surprise that the air was actually a reasonable temperature now. "Well, I'm better now. Can I go?"
"Not yet," Ranboo said quickly, hurrying over. "Give me a second. I just have to take a few more samples, now that we're sure he's gonna be okay."
"Ranboo," Technoblade said in a vaguely disapproving tone, crossing his arms. "We talked about this."
"It's cryonics! That's a lost technology, we can't just- think of the possibilities!"
Oh, so they were doing tests and shit. That was fun. They must've found the cryonics pod, too. Given that Tommy was still alive, and they'd apparently tried to keep him that way, they probably wouldn't be trying to sell it or anything, which was… good? He was going to assume it was good, because he really needed to have some good things happen right about now.
"What kinda samples d'you need?" Tommy asked.
Ranboo blinked at him. "Um. Blood samples, mostly. I'm trying to figure out the long-term effects of cryonics. Because like- you seem fine? But you've been dead to the world for…" they trailed off, eyes flicking away. "A while."
"Yeah."
"Sorry about that, by the way. It's gotta be a shock, the whole-"
"Can you not?" Tommy snapped, interrupting their stuttered ramble. It wasn't helping anything. It was the opposite of helpful, actually. He didn't want to be reminded of the fact that everyone he'd ever known was dead and gone across countless miles of empty space, and he didn't want anyone pitying him over that.
"Right. Sorry."
"Take the fucking samples. I really don't care. I just need to get my ship fixed up, then I'll be out of here and I won't be bothering you anymore."
Ranboo immediately took him up on the offer, going to grab a syringe from a nearby table and starting to explain the process of drawing blood. Tommy tuned them out. Despite having done this a million times before, it never got easy to watch, so he went to pick something else to focus on.
Which happened to be Technoblade, who was standing right nearby and was kinda taking up most of the area Tommy could've been looking at.
"You know you don't have to let Ranboo do their experiments on you, right?"
"Yeah, I know."
"Just sayin'. They can be persistent, but it's up to you."
Tommy felt the needle slide into his arm, and to distract himself from focusing on the sensation, just snapped, "Can you just fuck off? I said it was fine."
Technoblade sighed, but didn't press the issue. "Your ship's alright now, by the way. Most of the damage seemed to be from small amounts of space debris. The map wasn't workin' because it hadn't been updated recently, and because the only information it had saved was from the Greater SMP area. And, uh… we're pretty far away from that, so it got confused."
"Oh."
"The cryonics thingy was kinda screwed up, too. Something was broken and neither of us know enough about that sort of thing to fix it. Looks like the closing mechanism isn't workin' anymore, and several of the…" he waved a hand around vaguely. "Wires? Tubes? Those things. I dunno what they're called, but they'd been cut at some point. There were some loose tools lyin' around that might've done it."
Tommy hummed acknowledgement. He didn't know much about the technology himself; only that it was taking a huge risk to try and freeze someone, even under normal circumstances. And like- having your home planet on the verge of nuclear destruction was far from normal circumstances, so really, it was a small miracle he was even alive right now.
"All done!" Ranboo chirped, and Tommy realized Technoblade had been successfully distracting him the whole time. They'd neatly packaged up the blood samples they'd taken and now pressed a bandage to his arm. "I think we should be good to take out the IV, too. You seem to be back to a normal temperature."
Technoblade moved away so Ranboo could access Tommy's other arm, and the IV was removed pretty painlessly. Definitely one of the better experiences he'd had being a test subject!
"So, can I go now?"
"Go where?"
Technoblade was annoying, Tommy was coming to realize. What with his stupid logic and reasonable-ness and shit. The question seemed genuine, but that made it all the worse, because- because really, Tommy had no idea where he was going when he took more than a second to think about it.
Greater SMP was gone. Phil and everyone else were gone, too, either from the nuclear war or the sheer amount of time that had passed since then. And trying to go back was apparently a fool's errand. Which left him with approximately… zero options for what to do from here.
"I dunno," he mumbled in response, hoping they'd let that be a good enough answer. "Somewhere."
"You could stay here, if you wanted," Ranboo offered. "Not for forever, but- I mean, this place isn't really meant for long-term living, anyway, we'll be heading back to our base soon enough. But in general. We can find a place for you to be."
"Could always join Niki," Technoblade added, almost as an aside. "She's been lookin' for an apprentice lately. If you like bakin', that is."
"Oh- or he could join the flight program! Tubbo's just gotten in, and I could introduce them, so he'd at least know someone."
"Pretty sure that would require findin' legal documents, though. They're pretty strict on who they let in."
"True, true."
Tommy thought about telling them to shut up. To stop planning his future when he was right there, fully capable of making his own decisions.
But…
Well, it was kinda nice to be looked after for once. There was a sort of security that came with that. With the knowledge that he wasn't on his own anymore. That he wasn't still floating in space, by himself, drifting through millions of miles of void in the hopes that he might someday wake up.
Maybe this could work out, after all.