The panel set into the wall was nearly finished its countdown.  The last ten seconds ticked by as a thick silence fell over the airlock, interrupted only by the rhythmic pulsing of the ventilation and the occasional whine of warping metal as the plane trembled in flight.<br/><br/>The soldier stepped away from the airlock door when the timer was in the single digits, her helmeted head pointed down at her boots, shoulders slumped into a round arch.  The sterile light did not glint off her ceramic jacket or the matte-black fabric of her kit, but they seemed to glow dully nonetheless.<br/><br/>The timer on the panel stopped at 0:02.<br/><br/><hr/><br/>It came as sudden rush of warmth.<br/><br/>It wasn’t like the searing blast of air from an open oven, nor the dry comfortable heat of an electric blanket, but a pleasant, liquid warmth.   It bloomed deep within your chest, as if you had just sipped from steaming hot chocolate laced with liquor after an long hike through white-capped mountains.  It filled you,<em>suffused</em>you, spreading from your heart to your head and groin, down your arms and legs to the fill your most distant extremities with pulsing heat.  The bitter cold fled before the flood of warmth, melting from your flesh like snow puddling beneath boots left next to a roaring fire.<br/><br/>Around you, the faces of the others in the airlock grew flushed and bright.  The soldier began to turn, her shoulder rounding with agonizing slowness.  She moved slowly, too slowly and too smoothly for it to be at all natural.  It was like watching one of those slow motion videos of water balloons popping or bullets punching holes through colorful fruits.  An odd and not quite disturbing sensation of surreality fell over you.<br/><br/>With all of the agonizing slowness of a tree nestling its roots deep into lush soil over a century, the 0:02 flickered into a 0:01.<br/><br/>If you tried to move during this odd experience, you’d find that you’re limbs responded far too slowly, only moving seconds after you first willed them into motion.  When they did finally move, they were sluggish and unwieldy, like the limbs of a marionette being forced to dance in a vat of clear pudding.  Somehow, this felt natural, or at least expected.  All but the sharpest panic was smothered beneath that benevolent glow that had blossomed beneath your solar plexus.<br/><br/>The soldier beyond the airlock door was in the process of looking down, his helmet the moon inching its away across a dark sky, his visor cutting a deep crescent that was occluded millimeter by millimeter by the rim of the porthole.<br/><br/>A memory tickled the back of your mind.  In a burst of déjà vu, you recalled with sudden lucid clarity, like a trout pulled from murky water by a leering fisherman.<br/><br/>The voice, clear as the tinkling sound of breaking ice, followed you back through time and whispered through the airlock.<br/><br/>“Who are you?”<br/><br/><hr/><br/>Like a video editor carefully cranking up the playback shuttle, the world around you accelerated smoothly back into a natural speed.  You found that you could once more move normally, but the blooming warmth continued to smolder within you, dampened but not extinguished.  You found that the chill air no longer bothered you.<br/><br/>The soldier finished the turn she had begun what had felt like an hour before.  Her eyes were once again wide, but now with shock and surprise rather than anger or pain.<br/><br/>“Kai,” she said, simply, her voice that of a woman who had just been told that there had been an awful accident and they were so sorry but you really should probably sit down before we tell you this.<br/><br/>Behind her, the timer finished its monumental countdown.  The 0:00 flashed on the LCD screen.<br/><br/>With a hiss of compressed air that made your ears pop, the airlock door slid open.<br/><br/>Kai turned on her heel to face the soldier on the other side of the portal.  He cocked his helmet quizzically, hands resting loosely on the rifle he had slung across his chest.  Behind him crowded at least a half dozen other soldiers, identical in their featureless kit and opaque visors.<br/><br/>There was a long pause as the soldier stared at Kai.  Kai stared back.<br/><br/>“I’m happy you’re okay,” he said finally, his carefully neutral tone nonetheless subtly laced with relief.<br/><br/>Kai didn’t say anything.<br/><br/>“You four,” the soldier said, looking past Kai.  When he spoke again, it was with the measured cadence and sterile tone of a man reading off an unseen script.  “Major Llewellyn, Dr. Calhoun, Dr. Gallegar, Ms. Graham.   You’re wanted in the CIC ASAP.  I understand you’ve just been through something traumatic, but there’ll be medics and triage waiting if you have sustained any injuries.”<br/><br/>He paused, tilting his helmet slightly, as if chewing his lip in thought.<br/><br/>“Look,” he said after a moments deliberation, his voice strained and hushed.  "If we're going to make it to ground, we're going need your help, okay?  You can talk as we walk, even ask me questions -- I think you deserve that much -- but I can't guarantee any answers.  Not yet."<br/><br/>He turned, bent his wrist, and the soldiers set off at a trot.  He followed behind them, setting a brisk pace.  Kai attempted to pass him and enter formation, but he held her back so that she was walking between him and yourself.  She walked with a slump, as if her rifle was an anvil strapped about her neck, and said nothing.<br/><br/>The hallway consisted of a narrow catwalk set into a corridor no larger than the one that was just now impacting the Antarctic wasteland several kilometers below you.  The walls were unpainted aluminum, the dull metal still scarred with bolts and burns.  Dim strip lights lined the low ceiling.  Every few seconds, the floor would lurch slightly, and those lights would flicker in tune.  Given the evenness of the floor, the corridor seemed to run down the belly of the airplane.