Thompson is barely aware of it, yet an urgent, repeating tone draws him through the murky folds of slumber, carving past his blunted senses to find consciousness within. The sound is a beacon, a singularity in the distance, summoning him, reeling him toward it. It gets closer, stronger, clearer. He cracks open one eye. The smeared red glare of a flashing diode assaults his vision and blinks in synch with the tone, its color conveying the same urgency as the sound. He strains to focus, and the thick fog of his eyes recedes to a haze, giving the light a halo with each flash. As his sight clears, he squints at a cramped cockpit, every centimeter covered in frost. The red light continues to flash in unwavering tempo, its light refracted by the crystals of ice around it. He can feel the iris of his eye dilating and constricting as his eyes adjust, and he notices more lights around the cockpit in random locations, all red or deep orange.
