I woke slowly, from what felt like the first good sleep in ages. Out of habit, I cocked my head from one side to the other, but nothing popped. Strangely, my neck didn’t hurt. Neither did my head.

  “Anomaly detected in MatTrans tube number two. No station personnel present. Automatic override activated.”

  I opened my eyes and saw McKenna grinning at me from the other side of a glass barrier. She seemed to be standing to my right side. And she was both naked and clean. Did she find a stream to bathe in? “Hey there,” I said. She mouthed something in reply, but I couldn’t hear her through the barrier. A pair of tiny speakers near my head began griping at me in a monotone woman’s voice.

  “Welcome to Gateway Station 25. Your metadata is missing your sending station and affiliations. Please exit the tube.” The tube clicked a few times and then my ears popped. I hadn’t noticed the higher air pressure before, but it became obvious as it equalized with the area outside my pod. Then the lid silently retracted into the bed. I rolled into a sitting position with my feet on the floor and falling into habit, tried cracking my neck. It didn’t hurt and nothing slipped around in there as I torqued it.

  “I can’t remember the last time I woke up without reaching for Ibuprofen.” My voice sounded weird. I forced myself to focus and it suddenly dawned on me that I hadn’t been sleeping on a dirt floor. McKenna giggled as I started looking in every direction at once. The floor looked like it was made of silver carbon fiber, with polished copper footpaths flowing from the door to the half dozen pods. The room’s walls were made of some kind of plastic-looking material, and a pale blue. There were steel lockers against a wall.

  “She made us young and healthy,” said McKenna.

  “What?” I was still wondering where the cave had gotten to.

  “Lady Sophia. She gave us younger bodies.”

  As if waiting for the sound of Lady Sophia’s name, a rush of memories flooded in. In the span of a single breath I relived my last moments alive and the strange conversation with a goddess. “I remember!”

  “You remember?” she asked, as she came to stand next to me. We stood in front of lockers number one and two. Besides their number placards, they seemed rather boring.

  “I remember the old ways.” I glared at her with my best feral impression for a moment before suddenly opening my locker.

  “You’re a nerd.”

  The inside of the locker doors held full-length mirrors. I barely recognized myself. If I were twenty years younger and built like a fitness model, this is what I’d look like. And I was more generously proportioned than the last time I’d been awake. I looked from the mirror to my waist, but it was no trick of the mirror. Lady Sophia must really like me.

  “Lady Sophia must really like you,” joked McKenna. “You went from ‘all right’ to ‘dreamboat’ overnight.” She did a slow twirl while I looked on admiringly. “Look at me. I don’t look like I’m starving, and I’ve never had muscle tone like this!” She did look good.

  “You are a babe,” I agreed. We reached into our lockers and pulled the clothing out. It was a white jumpsuit made out of some kind of sturdy material. The underclothes felt like cotton, but seemed sturdier. The boots were carbon fiber and as with everything else, sturdy. We were fastening our boots when several of the remaining pods began equalizing pressure with the room. We’d have company shortly. I reached for what looked strangely like a massive auto-injector. A quick read of the English warning label confirmed that it was an auto-injector containing a full nanite package. Yes! Daddy is getting some upgrades! I jammed the injector into my thigh.

  I hissed in pain as my veins suddenly felt like I’d injected hot sauce into them. McKenna looked at me in concern, but I just stood quietly and tried to imagine what was happening inside my body. Two more injectors rested on the same shelf. Screw it. I reached in and injected both of them into the same thigh.

  McKenna took the empty third injector from me and read the label. “Raw fuel for premium package.” She looked meaningfully at my crotch. “The upgrade wasn’t premium enough?”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “That’s. Not. My bag. Baby.” The burning had traveled past my lungs and was entering my brain. My brain felt like it was being massaged with razor wire.

  “Are you going to be okay?” She hadn’t sounded this concerned since I’d almost frozen to death in that river. To be honest, hypothermia was probably worse. My entire body felt like it was marinating in acid, but this was actually better than losing control of my limbs as I succumbed to that all-encompassing cold. The pain stopped all at once and an overlay appeared in the corner of my vision. There was just one word.

  INITIALIZING…

  “I appear to be initializing.”

  That got her attention. She’d called me a nerd, but she was a bit of a geek herself. I could see visions of sweet visual overlays dancing in her eyes as she jammed all three injectors into her thigh one after another. She tensed up as the pain hit her. “Holy…”

  “Yeah. It’s fun, but it only lasts a minute.”

  I could hear capsules opening behind me, so I turned to greet the newcomers. Rolling out of their capsules were Katy and Kaylee, and four others. The newcomers seemed like they knew each other and quickly huddled together whispering. Katy and Kaylee were pointing out their new breasts to each other as they pranced in my direction. They looked at me expectantly once they’d arrived.

  I stepped aside and pointed to their lockers. “There’s clothes and injectors. Don’t take too long to jam those things in your thighs.” The girls got serious and began pulling on their jumpsuits.

  McKenna straightened up. “Definitely don’t wait on those injectors.” As she said that, I received a notification of a friend request from a McKenna Findlay. I mentally confirmed.

  McKenna turned toward the four strangers and audibly sucked in her breath. I turned and looked at them myself. There were two men and two women, in a mix of Asian, African, and Latin. The Latina was focused on McKenna.

  McKenna took two steps forward, then curtsied. “I, Lady McKenna Findlay, offer the fealty of my house.”

  As she said that, a new energy filled the air. Everyone in the room was now staring at the Latina, who looked like she was about to speak. “I, Queen Angela Alvarez, accept the fealty of House Findlay.” As the last word was spoken, I felt the gathered energy dissipate into everyone present. As I looked at Queen Angela, my overlay suddenly updated to list her as my sovereign. I looked at McKenna in surprise to discover that she was noted as my liege lord.

  Well, that’s interesting.

  Our reverie was interrupted by the sound of an explosion on the other side of a hatch. I crept up to the door and looked through a small window. There was a gunfight happening in a hallway, and several dead bodies littered the floor. The hatch blocked out the sound of the energy weapons, but people had started throwing grenades. A display next to the door noted that it would unlock in one hour. That was not good news.

  “There’s a gunfight going on out there. Everyone needs to get dressed and take their shots.” The queen briskly nodded and led her party to the lockers. I took a hard look at the only other hatchway in the room. It appeared to lead to an armory. Katy and Kaylee were inside and looking around in wide-eyed wonder. I joined them a moment later.

  There were pistols and harnesses, and what appeared to be environmental suits. In moments three of us had pistols strapped to our legs. We could defend ourselves now. The back of the room held the environmental suits and and an airlock that looked big enough to fit all of us at once. I approached the door and peered through. My overlay quickly identified several ships that it noted were unclaimed; several destroyers and light cruisers in the near distance, and larger ones farther away that it said were heavy cruisers and a battlecruiser. That’s what I’m talking about! I poked my head into the main room and called to McKenna. “My Lady!”

  McKenna raised an eyebrow, but walked over to join me. I gestured toward the airlock. A smile broke out onto her face as she exclaimed, “Screw hallway gunfights. Let’s form a navy!”

  “A navy?” Our new queen had joined us.

  “Yes, your majesty,” I replied. “We need to get outside this station before that door unlocks itself.” I pointed at the visible ships and continued, “and those ships’ naval guns are a hell of a lot better protection than these pistols.”

  “I believe you’re correct,” Queen Angela replied. “The Lady and I will join you on your ship.” She signaled for the other three to join us.

  The African introduced himself with an Alabama accent as he entered the armory. “Hey, y’all. You can call me James.” He gestured toward the Asians following him, “and these two are Toshio and Mariko. We’ve known each other for a few weeks.”

  McKenna pointed our group out one member at a time. “This is Conor, Katy, and Kaylee, and I’m McKenna. We’d prefer not to get into a gunfight, so we’re going for a spacewalk to those unclaimed warships outside.” She gestured toward the airlock. “We’re on the clock, so we’ve got to get these environmental suits on.”

  James, Toshio, and Mariko didn’t waste any time. In moments they had their own pistols equipped and were slipping on the environmental suits. The airlock had cycled us outside the station a full twenty minutes before our room’s hatch unlocked.