My marines were still amped up and ready for a fight, most were sorely disappointed that the space pirates had cleared out of their recent plunder and escaped before we arrived on scene. The flight back to Kalypso Station was without the usual cheerful banter that you would expect from troops, the much-needed supplies for our garrison were missing and there were no survivors on the merchant freighter except for the mysterious woman in cryostasis.
Our combat medic, SSgt Jarreau aka "Doc", insisted that we move the cryopod with the living occupant still inside of it into the Murphy's Law for the short trip back to base.
"We have no idea why she is in stasis, and it would be a bad idea to wake her up without being in quarantine. For all I know, she could be sick or dying from some alien disease or parasite and could infect all of us," he insisted over the helmet comms, "Most of these pods have an internal power supply in case the ship reactor goes down."
"Okay, okay," I relented to our resident doc, "It will be up to you to monitor her vitals and standby with the pod when we arrive."
So that was how we ended up with a frozen beauty in the cargo hold of our dropship and I still didn't have any answers for the dreaded after action reports that waited back on station. The pilot calmly informed us that we were five minutes out from docking, waking most of us up from our "combat naps". Even aboard starships marines can still grab some shuteye in full battle rattle.
I raised the company commander, Captain Tanaka, on the commlink to let him know about the situation.
"Sgt Ruiz, you guys went out to snuff some pirates and brought me back a popsicle instead? Never a dull moment for you, marines. Eh?" the gruff officer's tone showed his disappointment in missing out on tactical missions. He reached a point in his career where he spent more time behind a desk instead of leading troops in the field. "I'll advise the staff to have the medical bay ready to receive our new visitor. Maybe we'll get some answers."
After docking we unloaded the crew and the single cryopod. I retired back to my own berth near the marine barracks in the aft section of the station to indulge in a quick shower. As I stood under the hot recycled water for a few moments to let my muscles loosen, I heard my personal commlink ringing from the desk. I grabbed a towel and hurried to answer the call.
It was Doc, and he looked nervous.
"Hey Boss, I think there is something that you should know about our new guest. We ran some tests on her with our scanners and there is something up with her genetic code."
"What do you mean?" I asked, still dripping with water.
"The test results told us that her DNA isn't fully human...they can't really ID it at all."
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