Recovery
Five years before the letter.
“Silv’, Silv’! Get up! We’re nearly there,” yelled the driver of the deuce.
“Then wake me up when we get there…” Silver murmured in response to what looked to be a private driving the god-forsaken steel trap of a military transport.
Silver was a light grey, skinny beta male in his mid forties. He didn't mind the looks, he knew he was a nerd, but at least he didn't lack the decency of a common wolf to let a brethren sleep. Usually, he wasn’t as short tempered as he was today.
Today, however, Silver had been sitting on a piece of cold hard goverment steel for the past ten hours, after being told he was needed for a recovery project. The reasons he was out in the middle of nowhere, on the edge of wolven border was beyond him. Silver wasn’t an archaeologist, he was a technician, a bloody technician. One of the best. He didn't need to be called out to dust off some old war-torn piece of junk, he was needed back home, designing more efficient motors and other ‘things that could wait’ as the government put it. And after thinking this through in his mind over and over, Silver moaned.
“Why are we here?”
“Well, sir,” the combat wolf began, “I’m a bit religious, so it might seem slightly different from your point of–” was all he got out before Silver intruded.
“NO!” Silver screamed in pure rage before relaxing, realizing how loud he yelled even though it was just the two of them. “No, I meant, why are we here, in the middle of the tundra, miles from the nearest city?”
It was true, the truck was in the middle of a tundra, like the rest of the Wolven Empire. The empire was surrounded by snow and trees, but that’s how the wolves began, so they just lived on. Some better than others.
“If they didn’t tell you, they probably told me less. We’re just to meet with the rest of the team,” the ‘private’ answered.
“Figures, the one time I go out of town, it was t – team? What team!?”
“Looks like we’re here though,” the ‘private’ announced, breaking the peeved wolf’s concentration.
What met the two wolves made them both forget about their previous conversation. There, out in the frozen wasteland, illuminated by massive industrial spot lamps, was a massive, armored, armed, triple-decked, behemoth of a train.
The combat wolf just stared, unsure what he was looking at, questioning his first thought of it even being a train.
The technician standing next to him however, looked in awe. He knew exactly what it was. During his days back in the university, he took a class in the history of trains. He was able to rattle off some facts and model codes, but this, this was history in the making. This was the Titan class freight convoy, the Iron Clad.
During the beginning of the war, a railway was built strictly for the military to get troops and supplies to the coast. Back then, they just used rerouted freight trains to get the men down and back. As the threat of invasion was looming over the Empire, the design for the Iron Clad began. The idea was that if enemies invaded, the Clad could push back forces and resupply their brethren. Its first, and regrettably last, field test was a shipment of medical research supplies back to the capital from the retreating forces. The plan seemed to go flawlessly, up until the cargo was loaded. As the train began its trek for home, it ran into a team of invading saboteurs, who had blown miles of track in preparation for the invasion. The train was lost in the ever-changing tundra, never heard from again.
“And here you are, my beauty,” Silver muttered to himself, advancing to the train. As he approached, two wolves in kevlar armor, more for the heat than protection, introduced themselves to Silver. He didn't care in the least to know or remember their names.
“We are truly sorry for the short notice, it’s just this needed to be seen,” one of the wolves finally said as they reached the outer edge of the hull of the Iron Clad.
“My pleasure!” Silver replied. “I might not be a historian, but in the tech world, this, this has its own tale. I'm just thankful you called me here to oversee this project.”
Both of the accompanying wolves to Silver exchanged confused glances, before one interjected, “Well, Dr., this might seem odd, but it wasn’t the train we called you to see.”
“Oh?” Silver questioned, slight shock in his voice.
“Just follow us, you’ll see,” the other wolf said, gesturing to a dislodged panel of one of the cars.
As the team continued through the abandoned legend, Silver’s irritation began to return to the level it was aboard the truck. ‘They call me to the Iron Clad, a train lost in time, a train I studied, for what, led aboard to find what exactly?’ Silver questioned himself. None of this made sense to him, none! He wanted answers. Now!
“Ok, I've had it, I'm done being in the dark. What exactly does this have to do with me if I’m not going to work with the trian?” Silver yelled, receiving no reply.
The team exited the train parallel from which they entered. At noticing this, Silver realised he never examined the interior well enough to quench his thirst for knowledge, all that he remembered was that he nearly slipped on the iced floor.
Silver, now grumbling to himself about the cold, his ride, the lack of sleep, and anything else that came to mind, nearly tripped over a recently placed tarp. On said tarp was a large, sealed metallic container of sorts. The size of it was about the size of a large refrigerator.
“Let me guess, this is my job. A box?” Silver inquired with much distaste.
“We called you here,” began one of his guards, “because there was more than just medical research aboard the day this train derailed.”
The doctor just rolled his eyes while the two military officers began opening the box. Silver peered inside, trying to hide as much suspicion as possible. Inside the box were two ‘tubes’ (not knowing a better way to define them) about a few meters long. At the ends of the ‘tubes’ were frosted over screens. Looking over at the two officers and seeing concern in their eyes, Silver turned back and slowly brushed off the view port. Through the newly cleared ports, to Silver’s complete disbelief, was a wolf, staring right back.
A pale look came over Silver, now stumbling back, “W-what, a-a-are th-they?” Was all he could muster, still working out what just happened.
“This is why we called you here. What do we do now?” the first officer asked.
After a minute of silence, Silver finally directed, “Get them back to the empire. By means other than a truck. I wish to join them on the trip.”
One week later.
It was first consciousness that met Dawn, although, he was unaware of this fact. The wolf was only interested with thought and exactly what he knew of it. ‘OK, I’m actually thinking, good. This could mean that I'm being unfrozen, also good. This also could mean that the freezing process failed and I’ll be alone with my thoughts for, probably years on end. This is not good.’ The wolf continued with more simple thought processes for some time, until a voice pierced his rambling thoughts for good.
“…Dawn… Dawn, can you hear me? Dawn Eclipse, can you hear me?”
Conscience finally made itself aware to Dawn, as he slowly began to awake.
With all of his will, Dawn slowly attempted to open his eyes. In return, he was blinded by the new found light. He was able to mumble a few words with the little strength he had.
“For wolven sake, do you mind turning the lights down?”
There was a small chuckle to Dawn’s right. As his eyes slowly adjusted to the ambient light, Dawn squinted to find his spectators were what looked to be two doctors and presumably a high ranking official. The lead doctor stepped forward, a slight grin on his face.
“Welcome Dawn, it’s nice to have you back.”
“Nice to be back,” Dawn softly muttered, memory slowly returning. “But seriously, these lights are ki–” he cut off, remembering what just happened to him.
“Anything wrong, sir?” the doctor inquired, slight concern in his tone.
“Where am I, where is my brother?” Dawn barked, more literal than metaphorical. At this point, he was sitting up in his bed, causing him much discomfort, but Dawn didn’t care.
“Don't worry, your brother is being taken care of,” the official spoke up, gaining the attention of Dawn. “After all this time, we’re glad just to see him in the state he’s in.”
One question came to mind at the last phrase the second wolf said.
“How long? How long have we been under?” Dawn pleaded, hints of horror in his tone.
“Sir, this might not be the best time to ask that ques–” the doctor began, before Dawn interjected.
“Tell me!”
“You’ve been frozen ‘round one thousand years Dawn,” the official answered, silencing Dawn for the rest of the day.