9 Login: Surge

Elena slumped against the terminal. The drug’s effect was wearing off. She was herself again—mostly. But as she looked at her reflection in the dark glass, she saw a flicker. A shadow behind her eyes that wasn't hers.

She slammed her fist against the frosted glass of the pod. Surge 9. The ninth deep-wake cycle. Her ninth time being thawed from cryo to troubleshoot the ship’s dying fusion core. The first eight times, the login had taken four seconds. Now, with the ship’s memory banks corrupted, it was treating her like a stranger. surge 9 login

She didn’t know if she had logged in as the captain. Elena slumped against the terminal

“Ship,” she said, changing tactics. “Who am I?” But as she looked at her reflection in

Elena reached into the med-kit Velcroed to her thigh. Her fingers found the auto-injector of synthetic neural accelerant—a black-market drug she’d confiscated from a crewman on Cycle 2. It was a ghost in a needle. It could mimic neural firing patterns, overwrite her own synapses for a few precious seconds.

“Surge 9 Login,” the soft feminine voice of the ship’s AI repeated. “Authorization: Dr. Elena Vance. Genetic match: Pending.”

“Override unrecognized,” the AI replied. “Surge 9 Login required to initiate emergency thrust.”