Darkness
Soldier Number Three, Shine to the technicians and the scientists, sat bolt upright.
A booming creak. A bang. Rattles. Darkness.
The whirring of the servos in Shine's arm could be heard faintly in the echoing vagueness of the nighted cargo cavern. He was wet, drippingly so, but he could feel the warm water chilling already- freezing to his armor.
Was that a shout, echoing somewhere in the vast blank? Creak. Hiss. Darkness.
Buzzing with tinny helmet feedback, and raspy from three centuries of disuse and cryostasis, a barely-audible voice came:
"What... When is th... Doctor... Kahn?"
Ferroceramic boots clanked on plasteel decking as Shine stood. Stood and then fell, crashing rattlingly against the deck, the roar echoing off into the darkness, bouncing off the sides of vast skyscrapers of crates and boxes, until the entire sightless world seemed to be filled with the sound of the crash.
Again, the rasp: "Doctor Kahn? Ah.. Ahg... Doctor?"
There came a scraping. Shine was crawling along the floor, gauntleted fingers clawing and skittering on smooth plasteel.
There came a thought to Soldier Number Three: His suit had a light.
A beam of radiance lit the metal surface of a titanic crate. Rayed onto the side was the label- "Assorted parts- hydrogen ramscoops (type 8, size 2)".
"Where... The lights? What's happening?"
The beam, trembling with the shaking of a nanite-boosted arm, illuminated a row of cylindrical cases- cryo-cases, matte-black and dead, standing in a metal cage on the decking. Soldier Number Three located his immediately- it lay open like a disinterred coffin, from which the walking dead were disgorged. It stood in a water which was cluttering with ice even now. It pooled and dripped on the plasteel surface, and icecicles hung from the edges. Hanging on the interior was extra equipment- was there a light in there?
A hiss distracted him. Steam began to vent from another one of the metallic coffins. The beam swept to it.
"Are you there? Are you awake?" came Shine's voice, floating to the unresponsive surface of the cryo-case.
No answer came.