The Pawns Gambit

Part 1: The Gift

The cryofoam had done its job. He was alive. If there was a bright side of these things, that was it. From his limited viewpoint what remained of escape lifepod could only be be best described as a crumpled wreak of twisting sparking wires and broken plasteel. He had landed face up so he had contracted view. From the corners of his eyes he could see debris from the lifepod flung far and wide. He must have hit land, hard. If this had been a water landing he would have drown long ago. But he was alive, for the moment. As his father used to say: You take the good, as much as you can.
The hatch to his lifepod had blown up and away during the landing. He could see the sky, a deep periwinkle blue above him through the visor of the face mask he had been fitted with when he had entered the lifepod. His head ached and the rest of his body shook and twitched in small but acutely painful muscle spasms and tremors. He winced as one rather sensitive nerve cluster under his left shoulder blade shot ribbons of molten fire directly into his lower back. He had read once that such physical reactions were common when a person was revived from an emergency cryogenic freeze. Just be happy you are alive and that you were able to feel that pain. The other option of not being able to feel the pain introduced other complications that were best to not contemplated at this time.
The readout on his faceplate showed that the atmospheric conditions on this planet were livable but not great. All things considered he was grateful he wasn't stuck on a planet without a breathable atmosphere. Could have been a horrific mix of ammonia and explosive methane combination that ate at you and then blew you up. Small miracles. As he began to slowly dig himself out of the cryogenic containment foam that had hardened around his body protecting it from outside stresses and physical duress he suddenly came to a disconcerting thought: I don't remember ever getting into the lifepod. Hold that thought, when did I board a ship?
There must have been a reason. He was here. He had almost freed his right arm from his cryofoam prison when he saw that the faceplate attached to the faceplate was blinking ready-standby. With his eyes he toggled through the faceplate interface looking for a recording of an injury to himself or a copy of the final ships log that should have automatically uploaded into the lifepods system in the event of the ships destruction. Nothing. He then pinged his lifepods primarily emergency beacon. It was unresponsive. He needed to activate the secondary beacon in the hard case. That caused a ball of ice to congeal in the pit of his stomach. His stomach! It was almost too late when he frantically tore himself free of the cryofoam and ripped off the protective head piece and faceplate. He then vomited up his entire world and parts of another. It was then and there that he decided it was even money on which was worse, the lifepod or the vacuum of space.
He sat back against the bent plasteel of the lifepod dry heaving the non-existent contents of his stomach. With several failed attempts at gathering himself together beside the plasteel shards and the chunks of glittering cryofoam that had been up until a few moments ago his lifepod he breathed in deeply of the alien worlds air. The nerve twitches and muscle spasms had decreased from being obnoxiously painful to just merely unpleasant and annoying.
The dark periwinkle blue sky above had lightened to a baby blue. After taking stock that there was nothing internally to revisit he put the helmet and engaged the faceplate readout back on so he could at least have a localized scan about his surroundings. The data was limited but at this moment something, anything, was better than nothing. He looked down at the corner readout that displayed the date and time. Had he not been sitting down he would have fallen. He had been in cryo for six years! Six years! He took a harder look at his landing site. None of the surrounding evidence of his impact on the surface was new. It was all worn and weathered down. No wonder the foam was brittle and the physical reaction he had had to it was so nasty. How long had it been since he had landed on this planet after being ejected from the ship? And why did he not remember getting into the lifepod at all. Concussion? Could it be that he had sustained some short term or long term memory loss caused by a reaction the cryogenic process. None of this felt right. None of this was right. Then he heard a noise above the hissing whistle of wind through the remains of intact frames of the lifepod. It was a voice. One he know. It was coming through the audio speakers in his helmet. The heads-up display on his face plate showed that the transmission wasn't live. It was a recording. One that must have been recorded quickly and uploaded into the suits system before he was jettisoned into the void. For some reason the playback was stinted as it skipped and jumped. But he knew that voice. It was LauRen his girlfriend and he had hoped one day to be his wife. He smiled. It was hard not to when he heard the softness of her voice. "A gift... from me.... your life."
She was always so good to him. He knew she was far above him in every way. So thoughtful and generous to a fault. Was she the reason he had survived to get into the lifepod? How did she get off the ship too? Inwardly he prayed that she had been able to save herself and had been rescued.
He still couldn't remember anything about the ship or what had caused him to have to abandon it. So many questions. No answers. Perhaps her last message to him would provide him with what he needed. Before he could delve into that any further he needed to get himself situated.
The survival hard locker near the top of his lifepod contained the emergency survival gear, freeze dried food, and a water reclaimer. He setup the expandable tent, turned on the emergency locator beacon and the water reclaimer. Now all he had to do is wait and work on resetting the video recording. Sadly he was not technically minded. His talents lay elsewhere.
On the third day he somehow managed to get the faceplate display to run a standard diagnostic without causing the system to melt. For him that was a major advancement. LauRen would have been proud. Whatever had glitched the recording and display of the logs had cleared itself up. There was no black box final log from the ship. No catastrophic disaster had been recorded into the pod log that would have caused the order to abandon ship. Nothing at all to suggest that there had been an emergency. Then he clicked on the recording LauRen had left for him.
"J'hordan. If you are finally seeing this I want you to know that what I have done, I did for my son. I say my son because I never told you I was pregnant. And if the gods are merciful he will grow up, lead a successful life, and die never once having heard you name. If any of the others were to find out about my mercy in allowing you to live they would deem it as dangerous sentimentality that could prove fatal to me and my son. That I have chosen to leave you this message is part of my foolishness when it comes to you. I have great plans and ambitions for the future. A future that you are not and will never be in a position to help me obtain.

I deserve, my son deserves more than just a parasitic sperm donor. You have served your purpose and to that end I have spared your life. You can thank me that I did not have you tossed out an airlock while we where in transit. But there wasn't time and the system will not allow a living being to be jettisoned into space without the proper command codes. A cryogenic lifepod ejection however  is automatic and can be written off as a system malfunction. If there is anything positive to be taken from this, it is that I have what I want and you have your life. Think of it as a parting gift from me to you. Goodbye.
The recording ended. The option appeared in his view screen. Save/Delete? He chose Save. There was a lot in that message and he was not in the right headspace to unpack it at the moment.

Given his current circumstances it was a proven fact that he was not the brightest star in the universe. But he had come to one absolute certainty. They were never getting back together again.