MidReal Story
Echoes of Betrayal
Scenario: create an oil painting based on the scene from the movie "Alien":
Create my version of this story
A growling alarm jolted me from a deep sleep, and I sat up in my hypersleep pod, chest heaving.
I switched off the alarm and looked at the digital clock on the wall.
It was 9:34.
We weren’t supposed to wake up for another ten months.
I shook my head, trying to clear the fog of hypersleep out of my brain, and climbed out of the pod.
The rest of the crew was climbing out of their pods too: Kane, Parker, Brett, and even Ash.
I was the last to emerge from hypersleep.
We were all warrant officers; I was third in command.
The captain, Dallas, and the science officer, Ash, should have been the first to wake up.
Captain Dallas passed by me on his way to the bridge, his dark eyes wide with excitement.
“Rise and shine, Ripley,” he said in a low voice.
“We’re going home.”
Home… I liked the sound of that.
I’d been away from Earth for two years and had missed it more than I’d ever imagined.
I hurried to put on my duty uniform—gray pants and a white shirt—and followed my crewmates to the bridge.
The ship’s AI, Mother, announced over the loudspeakers: “All flight crew to the bridge immediately.”
I glanced at Kane as he hurried to keep up with Dallas.
Kane was tall with brown hair and a deep tan from all his time spent working in space.
We’d been friends for years but had never been more than that.
I’d always thought he might like it to be more than that—he’d asked me out a few times—but I wasn’t interested in getting romantically involved with anyone on board.
It was just too complicated.
And too close for comfort.
We were all part of the same crew, and we needed to be able to trust each other with our lives at any given moment.
Falling for someone could make things messy.
Not that he wanted what I didn’t have to offer him anyway.
He seemed to have an eye for one type of woman only: blondes with long legs—women who looked nothing like me.
As soon as we arrived on the bridge, Dallas sat in his captain’s chair and switched on his monitor.
I took my seat at my station, which was next to Ash’s, and waited for Dallas to say something.
“Mother, what’s going on?”
“You’re awake early,” Mother replied.
“I’m aware of that, Mother,” he said in a clipped tone.
“Why did you wake us?”
“Our current course will take us past Thedus in ten months’ time,” she said evenly.
Kane blinked at her.
“What happened to Earth?”
“We’re not gonna stop there?”
Dallas shook his head, his mouth pressed into a thin line.
Ash frowned at his own monitor, then turned toward us.
“We had a change of plans.”
I pushed away from my station and faced him, my heart pounding like a drum.
“What sort of change of plans?”
I asked in disbelief.
“We were supposed to go back to Earth.”
Dallas arched an eyebrow at Ash, waiting for him to explain himself too.
“You heard me right.”
“I’m sorry, you’re telling me we’re not going home?”
I felt a surge of panic rise up inside me—my heart was beating so fast I was certain they could hear it—and I struggled to control my breathing.
“What do you mean we’re not going home?”
Parker asked, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned against Dallas’s chair.
“The company changed our course,” Ash said smoothly, his pale face expressionless as always.
“The new orders were uploaded while we were asleep.”
Brett groaned and buried his face in his hands as he slumped in his chair next to Kane’s.
“This is bullshit,” he muttered under his breath.
“If I knew we were gonna be out here for another year, I would have never signed up for this mission.”
“What are you talking about?”
Parker snapped at him.
“You would have signed up for another year if it meant getting paid double your salary for the trip.”
“That’s true,” Brett admitted, nodding his head vigorously as he sat up straight again.
“But what about our bonuses?
We were supposed to get those when we got back to Earth.”
Kane raked a hand through his hair and glared at Ash over my head, as if he was the one who’d changed their course in the middle of the night without telling them first.
“Will you just shut the fuck up for a minute so we can figure out what’s going on?”
He was annoyed by Kane’s outburst, but he was also right: we were all talking over each other, so caught up in our own shock that we hadn’t stopped to think about anything else yet.
Dallas leaned back in his chair and eyed Ash warily over his shoulder.
“And why did the company change our course?”
“A transmission of unknown origin was intercepted by Mother,” he said.
Dallas’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Where is it coming from?”
“We don’t know.
It’s more than two weeks away.”
“So why should we investigate it?”
Parker asked, raising an eyebrow as he looked at Ash.
“Because it’s company protocol,” Ash replied.
“And we’re obligated to follow company orders.”
“But we’re not gonna get paid for another year,” Brett argued.
