Two things nobody told me about cryosleep -- first, the process was imperfect, so you were likely to wake up for a couple days every decade or so. Second, going in and coming out hurts like a sonofabitch. Of course, I suspect nobody told me because nobody else knew. After all, the Icarus was one of the first ships that set out to explore the Cluster after the development of ion-vacuum drives that made it practical to attempt interstellar exploration. After First Contact, and before they showed up.

Shit. I must be coming around again. The shiver from the cold made the IV needle rattle in my arm again, and I let out an audible grunt of pain. Another one of those notes to put in if I ever get picked up... the insulation in these things stinks, which isn't an issue when I'm all the way under. But for those two or three days every decade when I'm conscious and staring out into the black void of space around me, the 3K temperature outside is perceptibly cold and uncomfortable.

That's about when it occurs to me that this time, what's coming through the view hatch isn't black. It's bright and it's white and it's "Oh nonexistent gods my eyes hurt and did they find me?"

Down near my right hip, my fingers twitch and try to grab onto the knife that I'd grabbed as I had crawled into the sleep pod trying to hide, and adrenaline started to flow, fighting the drugs that had held my biochemistry at a near standstill for the last... come to try to think of it, I wasn't sure how long it had been.

Outside in the airlocked OR, the monitors on your computers began to beep more quickly.