Chapter 1
Sylvia read over the paperwork outlining her mission parameters. When she joined the privately owned spy agency, she imagined a life of adventure and travel. Although that was true, going to another planet entirely had never entered her mind.
Tryfes was a world like Earth, but the atmosphere had slight differences in the chemical make-up which made the sky red instead of blue while the sun was up. The people were aggressive, but friendly, and controlled some valuable mineral deposits on the planet.
The agency believed that if they could gain control of those minerals first, it would give them an advantage against any government in the world and could make them all rich.
Of course, if Sylvia refused, she would not only lose her job, but they also threatened her with jail time on some bogus charges. Really, she didn’t have much of a choice, but truth be told she was more excited than anything.
No other agent was ordered into space – just her!
Her first solo mission. She had tried to tell them she wasn’t qualified, but they were quite insistent.
It took weeks of training, but it had all sped by too quickly. Before she knew it, she was waking up on the day of the launch. The ship would auto-pilot to the planet while she was put into cryo-stasis.
Despite advances in technology propulsion systems, it would still take years to reach the planet. The cry-stasis would keep her body frozen in its current state, preventing her from aging.
The events of launch day went too quickly. One moment they were doing a final health check to make sure she checked out, then suddenly they were finishing the systems check. Hours of work all seemed to pass in a blink.
Sylvia looked around, trying to process the fact that this was actually happening as they hooked up the last diodes to her torso and head.
She sat on the edge of the cryo-tank, her feet in the surprisingly lukewarm water. Somehow she’d expected it to be cold.
“It’s not the water that will freeze you. We have synthesized hyper-sugars that will flash freeze. The water will freeze so fast that the moisture in your cells won’t have a chance to produce ice-crystals. This prevents the freezing process from actually damaging your cells, which makes the reanimation process possible.”
Everything the scientist said blew right over her head. All she could think of was that she was going to be dipped into the tank and frozen.
The world she was born on, that she grew up on, it would be gone. Everyone she knew would be millions of miles away.
The true horror of it began to strike her, and instead of excitement, she began to panic. When they started loading her into the tank, the monitor nearby began beeping a furious beat.
“I can’t do this,” she said.
Spinning her arms, she tried to fight them off. Instead of letting her go, however, they rushed her and forced her into the tank.
“No, let me go!”
The lukewarm water splashed as she kicked, but they held her down. Worried about drowning, she fought just to keep her face above water. Some droplets landed on her lips, and she could taste the sweetness in it.
“Sedate her,” one of them shouted.
“No, if that’s in her system when she freezes, it could put her into a permanent coma.”
A permanent coma?
This was supposed to just be a diplomatic mission.
Why were they forcing her to do this?
She tried to grab onto the sides of the tank and lift herself out, but someone pushed her hands free as another one pushed her head under the water.
When she tried to come up for air, her face hit the plexiglass. There was no air!
Sylvia beat her hands against the case, now terrified she was going to drown. Then, just as the thought crossed her mind, there was a split second of intense cold before everything went black.
Chapter 2
In her frozen state, Sylvia had no concept of what happened outside of her tank. For her, everything happened in a single blink of an eye,
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