Chapter Text
The quiet hiss of Cryotube 42 opening was loud in the silent chamber, though there was no one around to hear it. It took several minutes for the short blonde man inside to wake properly. The room was pitch black, but that could have been done purposely by whoever had triggered his cryotube to open. He tried to move, but strangely found himself stuck halfway in the tube still. A malfunction? Frowning, he wiggled around and managed to get one arm free. He felt around and found that the foot of another tube had blocked his from sliding him out fully. Realization dawned, and he was on edge instantly.
This was not their ship.
First things first, he needed to get out of his cryotube. It restricted his movement and lying on his back, half immobile, was not a good place to be in should this be hostile territory. He had no way of knowing how long they'd been out, or how they had gotten off their ship and into this dark place. Sherlock's tube should have triggered him to wakefulness the instant their ship detected anything amiss. Chances were high that there was danger about. Sherlock would not have allowed him to wake alone if it could be helped and there were only a few scenarios where his tube was hardcoded to waken him automatically.
He listened carefully before making a move. There were no sounds of life beyond his own. There was no breathing, no rustling fabric or shuffling feet, not even the quiet pumping of blood in veins that he could now hear, thanks to the modifications the Baskerville Project had made to him and the others.
Deeming it safe enough, he carefully shimmied out of his tube. His combat boots touched the floor silently, but there must have been some kind of pressure or motion sensors because the pitch black of the room was flooded with low level lighting.
He cursed silently to himself. If this was hostile territory, he'd likely just alerted them to his presence. He needed to find Sherlock... Now.
At least the lighting would help with that, even he was unable to see in pitch darkness.
Glancing around, it looked like the appropriate number of cryotubes surrounded him, but he wasn't Sherlock and couldn't eyeball the exact number. Physically, Baskerville had greatly improved them, but messing with brain chemistry had been too great of a risk. Especially since there hadn’t been time for failure or retrials (though he suspected Mycroft had a hand in the decision not to as well). Fortunately, a look to his left showed Tube 41 (Filly, short for Fillamina, a stern woman who respected skill above anything else) and at his right Tube 43 (Alec, a sweet boy, far too young for this, but quick on his feet).
Whoever had placed them here had been kind enough to put them in numerical order, which was kind of them, but also very telling. Humans, most likely, or at least a race that understood human symbols.
It should make Sherlock easy to find though. I’m the leader. I’ll be in tube one. It will set a correlation in anyone’s mind that those in the tubes are ordered by importance, Sherlock had explained to him. And the rest of the tubes had been in order of rank and importance. Bernard (Second Officer, a bit of a bastard but one hell of a pilot) had been placed in tube two and John, First Officer, had been told to pick an arbitrary number somewhere in the middle. Not at the end, any intruders will think you expendable, nor too near the beginning. If something happens we need them to underestimate your importance.
So John had laughed and taken Tube 42. He’d had to explain it to Sherlock, of course. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? The answer to the greatest question in the universe is 42.
He’d expected Sherlock to scoff or, possibly, laugh but instead he’d stared at John and answered in all seriousness, Forty-two seems highly appropriate.
John had just found Sherlock’s Tube when bright light flooded the room followed by the near-silent hiss of a door sliding open. Before Baskerville, the sudden change would have blinded him temporarily, but now he was able to instantly crouch down, hidden by all the other tubes in the room and begin the manual waking sequence for Sherlock.
He wouldn’t have much time. Apparently his tube had been relatively close to the door and he could tell they found it quick enough. They also seemed to guess exactly where he went (or maybe they had sensors of some kind to tell them) because they dispersed themselves in a pattern that would quickly surround and corner him.
Well... Try to, anyway. He’d probably let them. He needed to know more about the situation and technology available before he did anything rash. He didn’t want to hurt anyone unnecessarily.
“Sir, we need you to stand slowly, and step away from the cryotube,” a voice commanded him. He glanced up at the reflective surface of the window plate of Sherlock’s tube. Fourteen. No, he could hear some beyond the view of the window. Eighteen at least. Possibly twenty.
Either they knew who he and his crew were and the stereotypes they had fought so hard and slept so long to get away from still existed or these people didn’t know the meaning of the word Overkill.
Or Sherlock had been awake at some point and had made a less than stellar impression.
... That was... Actually that seemed pretty likely.
John sighed in exasperation and typed the final number of the code to sync the waking sequence to the remote device on his wrist. He rose to his feet and, keeping his arms loose at his side, put on his most affable smile as he turned around. “Are the, um,” he paused to study the weapons the people held in their hands, they were unfamiliar to him and he was unsure what to call them, “Guns? really necessary?” he asked politely.
Apparently the guns were necessary because the people holding them neither lowered them nor gave him any kind of answer.
"Right, okay," John nodded his head. "I'm Dr. Watson," he told them, keeping himself from using his rank with Sherlock's words echoing in his ears, We need them to underestimate you. "I'm just trying to wake my commanding officer up," he added, playing up the natural I’m a doctor, you can trust me air that Sherlock always teased him about.
They didn't relax but the air became less hostile. "We need you to step away from him, Dr. Watson."
“Alright,” he agreed and held his hands in a placating gesture as he stepped away from the cryotube. "Where am I? What year is it?"
They finally relaxed a smidgen as he stepped away... Sherlock having pissed them off was looking more and more likely. One of them, the one that had spoken before, lowered his weapon entirely.
"I'm Lt. Bradley of Starfleet Command. You are currently on Earth.”
John frowned and his eyes drifted to the frozen man once more, if only for an instant. Why would Sherlock bring them back here only to allow them (and himself) to remain frozen? At least on the ship they had defenses and home ground advantage.
"Your commanding officer made a bit of a mess when he was awake. From my understanding you've been in cryostasis for over 300 years. It would be wise to get you to a medical bay. Will you cooperate willingly, Dr. Watson?"
John nodded. He would do Sherlock and his crew no good if he was suffering any damage from the lengthy period of cryostasis. So far, Lt. Bradley and his men had left the others alone and had been un-threatening once he’d shown he himself was not a threat.
For now, at least, he’d do as they asked. Once he’d determined his own state, he could determine that of the rest of his crew.