Sleeping Beauty’s Cryochamber - Part One
By Sarina Dorie
Happy New Story Sunday, Daily Tomorrow readers! This week, we have a fairly tall tale from the fantastical Sarina Dorie. Don’t sleep on this one. - The Editor
Sleeping Beauty’s Cryochamber
By Sarina Dorie
Captain Noelani Prinz surveyed the planetoid from the window of her cockpit in the Ka’iulani. The planetoid was covered in debris, seemingly desolate and without life. Metal caught the light of the solar system’s double stars, twinkling with promise. Gray dust covered ancient ships that looked like they had once been in a battle.
Something had once happened to create this spaceship graveyard, but Noelani didn’t know this system’s history as well as the ones closer to Earth.
Noelani leaned in toward the window, her eyes feasting on all the alien vessels waiting to be collected. “That’s a scrapper’s dream come true.” It would be the haul of her lifetime.
“Would you like me to pilot us closer to Planetoid 367A?” the overly cheerful voice of Jimbot, the ship’s AI asked.
“Hell yeah!” she said.
Noelani had more experience with alien tech than most twenty-four-year-old scrappers from Earth—more experience than those twice her age—but this was beyond anything she’d ever seen. At the epicenter of the bent and buckled ships, she spotted a sleek vessel that might have been a Dernian design. And if it wasn’t Dernian, it had to be one of the other alien races Earthers had encountered when leaving the solar system.
It stood out against the others in this junkyard as it was the only one that looked intact. Noelani had no doubt it would contain a treasure of technology.
As the Ka’iulani landed beside the abandoned vessel, her own ship felt immense and clunky compared to the sleek ship only touched by a coating of dust. She could have fit the entire ship inside her cargo bay and had room left over, but she had learned in the past to be wary of what she brought onboard the Ka’iulani. The last time she’d pulled in an entire ship into her cargo bay, she’d brought in a stowaway. Things hadn’t ended well.
Sarina Dorie has sold over 200 short stories to markets like Analog, Daily Science Fiction, Fantasy Magazine, and F & SF. She has over one hundred books up on Amazon, including her bestselling series, Womby’s School for Wayward Witches. A few of her favorite things include: gluten-free brownies (not necessarily glutton-free), Star Trek, steampunk, fairies, Severus Snape, and Mr. Darcy. She lives with twenty-three hypoallergenic fur babies, by which she means tribbles. By the time you finish reading this bio, there will be twenty-seven. You can find info about her short stories and novels on her website: www.sarinadorie.com
Copyright © 2025 Sarina Dorie