“Good! That’s good,” Doc told her, rubbing his thumb across her mouth, wiping the line of drool away.
Harris spun around to Smith. “What the fuck happened?” he barked.
“I … I don’t know! I was just going to change, a— and I saw Grolsh running off and then I found her there on the floor,” Smith said.
“You didn’t see what happened?” Harris glared at him.
“No, he just … just gave me this pissed off look and ran away, and th— then I saw her.”
Harris glanced at McKinley, whose face was hard and serious now. Smith looked over at him, too.
“How come you’re armed, man?” he asked quietly.
McKinley didn’t answer, he just kept his eyes on his captain.
Harris scanned the empty corridors around them, then looked back at Welles. Doc was holding her head with one hand now, resting it against his shoulder and rubbing her back firmly with the heel of his other hand, as she continued to cough and splutter and choke. She was still gripping hard onto Doc’s shirt, using him as an anchor, as her lungs struggled to get air into them.
“Doc?” Harris almost shouted, finding it difficult to contain his anger.
His medic pulled the corporal from his shoulder to sit in front of him. He angled her chin up slightly and examined her neck. The red looked darker, as though it were beginning to settle into a purple color.
“LIEUTENANT!” Harris insisted.
Doc looked at Harris, his face even harder than McKinley’s had been. “She’s been asphyxiated. He strangled her,” he said, clenching his jaw.
“What?” Colt and Packham came running up beside Harris, looking at Welles.
“What are you doing here?” he barked at them.
“Welles was missing. I was worried, sir,” Colt said, moving straight over to Doc. Packham just stood there looking wide-eyed at them.
Harris looked over at McKinley. “Get a team, go find him and bring him back here to me!”
McKinley nodded and headed back to the mess.
“Smith, lock this ship down, NOW!” Harris barked at him.
Smith nodded and headed off after one final worried glance down at the corporal.
“Can you stand up?” Doc asked Welles.
She nodded, seemingly a little more with it now, but still quite groggy. She burst into another coughing fit.
“Colt, help me get her up,” Doc ordered. “We have to get some oxygen into her.”
Doc and Colt took an arm each and lifted her weight off the floor. Welles put her feet on the ground, but they buckled immediately. They quickly caught her.
“Here!” Doc said, bending down to pick her up. “I’ll take her. It’s quicker.”
Welles looked like she was trying to protest as the lieutenant lifted her up off the ground, but no words came from her mouth. Doc shot Harris a concerned look as he carried her past him, heading down the corridor to his hopsital, with Colt following closely behind.
Harris turned around to Packham. “Get back to the mess!”
She turned and quickly started walking, but Harris soon overtook her as he strode angrily down the corridor. As they approached the door, McKinley, Hunter, Carter and Louis were heading off to search for Grolsh. They all looked down the corridor past Harris, no doubt watching Doc carrying Welles away.
Harris stormed back into the mess hall. Brown stood with his gun pointed at the three remaining survivors, who were still seated at the table, cards in front of them. Bolkov was by Brown’s side. Packham stayed by the door, not sure what to do.
“What the fuck, gentlemen?” Harris yelled at the three survivors, as he approached.
“What the fuck, indeed, captain?” Chet said calmly, albeit a little concerned. “What’s going on? Where’s Grolsh?”
“You tell me?” Harris stared at them.
Chet stared blankly back at Harris. He wasn’t offering any smiles now.
Harris glared at him. “Less than two hours. Less than two hours out of that cell, and one of your men attack one of my crew,” he bellowed at them.
“Attacked? What do you mean?” Chet asked.
“Like you didn’t know?”
“Captain, I’ve been sitting in here playing cards. Tell me, what should I know?”
“You didn’t hear it?” Harris stared hard at Chet.
“Hear what?”
“You didn’t hear your man Grolsh strangling Corporal Welles down the hall?”
Brown and Bolkov glanced at Harris a little surprised, then looked back at the men.
“Strangling her?” Chet sounded concerned, but Harris wasn’t buying it.
“She okay, captain?” Brown asked with flat voice, gun firmly on the survivors.
“She’s with Doc,” Harris said quickly, not taking his eyes off the three men. “Give me one good reason I don’t throw you back in that cell?”
“One good reason?” Logan piped up through gritted teeth. “We were sitting here playing cards. That’s not a jailable offense.”
Chet sat forward. “I’m sure there’s been a misunderstanding, captain. Grolsh is young, hotheaded. I’m sure he didn’t mean any harm to Corporal Welles.”
Harris put his hands on his hips and looked down at Chet. “Didn’t mean any harm. Didn’t mean to grab her by the throat and nearly kill her?”
“He doesn’t know his own strength. I’m sure he didn’t mean any harm. There’s just been some misunderstanding,” Chet said confidently. “What did she say to him, anyway? She must’ve set him off somehow?”
“You sound angry at yourself, captain,” Logan suggested. “Were you expecting this? Is that why you had some of your men armed? Were you supposed to be looking for something and you missed it?”
Harris gave the three men a cold stare. “I made the mistake of trusting you. I won’t make that mistake again.” He turned and headed for the door. As he approached it he glared over at Packham. “You come with me.”
18
Oxygen
Carrie let go of Doc as he placed her on one of the pod-beds in the ship’s small hospital. He moved away and started doing something to a machine beside the bed. She groggily looked at Colt who was watching her carefully, her eyes wide with concern. Carrie’s throat hurt. It was dry and coarse, like she’d swallowed fire. She brought her hand up to her neck. It felt tight, as though Grolsh’s hands were still on it. She coughed again, and her lungs burned as they tried hard to suck more air into them. Doc came back and placed an oxygen mask on her face. The air was cold and wet, and it made her flinch.
“Lay down,” Doc told her, pushing her gently back.
She tried to resist, but couldn’t. She felt weak. She closed her eyes for a moment as her head hit the pillow. She didn’t want this to be happening. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go … Harris was furious. How did this happen?
Doc walked away for a second, then came back and placed his thumb along her brow ridge. He flashed a light in her right eye, then did the same with her other.
“What’s wrong with her eye, Doc?” Colt asked, as he shone the light into the left one. “Why is it red like that?”
“Burst blood vessel,” he said, turning the light off and putting it back in his pocket. “How’s the oxygen? You feeling better?” he asked her.
Carrie nodded, her brain was beginning to feel less cloudy. He turned and walked out of the room.
“What happened?” Colt asked in a motherly tone.
Doc came back with a cup of water. “Sip this,” he said handing it to her and disappearing again.
Colt leaned forward and lifted her mask. Carrie sipped the water, then Colt took it from her and repositioned the mask on her face. Doc came back carrying a strange glove and a tube of gel or cream. The glove was covered in a thin metal sheeting, with wires protruding that connected to a small screen. He pulled the glove over his right hand, twitched his fingers and eyed the screen for a response.
He sat on the side of the bed. “Look up for me,” he said, as he tilted her head back.
Carrie stared at the ceiling, trying to stifle a cough that was wanting to escape from her throat. She felt something cold on her neck and saw Doc put the tube on the bedside table. He took his gloved hand and ran the metal-plated fingers gently over her throat and neck, spreading the cold gel around. He looked down at the screen again, now resting on the bed in front of him.
“Ok, this’ll be uncomfortable for a second,” he said as he pressed his fingers harder into her neck and throat.
Her head jerked forward in reflex and her hand shot out to pull his wrist away, as she coughed into her face mask.
“I’m sorry, Welles, I’m just trying to see if there’s any damage. I’ll be as quick as I can.” Doc held her neck still with his ungloved hand, locking her chin upward with his thumb. He placed his gloved hand firmly against her throat and massaged it over her skin. She started to cough again, but didn’t move as Doc’s firm grip held her neck and chin in place. It was uncomfortable, but after a couple of minutes he was done.
“It looks okay. There’s no serious damage,” he told her, wiping the gel from her neck. He got off the bed, wiped the glove down and put it aside.
“Welles, what happened?” Colt asked again.
Carrie’s eyes drifted to the corporal.
“I don’t know if she can talk yet,” Doc answered for her.
Carrie went to speak, but her throat was dry and her words caught and stumbled out in another cough. Doc took the water off Colt and moved back over to Carrie, sliding her mask down to her neck. “Have some more of this.”
She took another sip. The cold water felt good running down her throat, putting out the fire within, if only briefly. She went to speak again, but her throat felt cluttered with debris and she launched into another coughing fit.
“Just give it a few minutes, Welles. There’s no hurry,” Doc told her, with a concerned edge to his voice.
She took another sip of the water and cleared her throat. “I— I’m okay,” she managed to croak, her husky voice sounding as painful as it felt.
Doc looked down at her, skeptically. “How long did you black out for?”
Carrie looked away from him. She didn’t know. She vaguely remembered being on the floor, and how her knees and her cheek hurt. She half remembered hearing Smith calling for Doc. She assumed it was Smith. It was faint, almost dreamlike, but she recalled seeing his face. She didn’t know how long it was before she was suddenly upright and Doc was in front of her. Although, at first, that was almost dreamlike too. Until she started coughing and choking, that is.
She looked up at Doc. He was watching her closely, waiting for an answer. “You don’t know, huh?” he said putting her mask back on.
“What the fuck happened?” Colt pleaded impatiently with her for an answer.
Carrie looked at her and went to speak, just as Harris came marching through the door with Packham in tow.
“Colt! Out,” he barked, motioning back into Doc’s office, where Packham had stopped.
Colt nodded and left the room. Harris followed and closed off the hospital from Doc’s office.
Carrie sat herself up a little in the bed as Harris walked back over to her.
“What’s the story?” he asked Doc.
“She’ll be alright. I don’t think there’s any permanent dama—”
“Good.” Harris cut him off, turning to Carrie. “Now tell me what the fuck happened?”
Carrie looked nervously at Harris. He seemed angry and she wasn’t entirely sure whether it was directed at her or not. She went to remove her mask to speak.
“Leave it on,” Doc told her. “We can hear you.”
“I’ve got Smith working on the surveillance footage,” Harris said, his voice still angry, “but until I see that, someone needs to tell me what the fuck happened here?”
“I— I don’t know,” she began, her voice dry and husky.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“It happened so fast …” She shook her head.
“What happened so fast?”
“He just grabbed me by the throat … and slammed me against the wall,” she croaked.
“Grolsh?”
She nodded.
“Why? What did he say to you? Did you say anything to him? He couldn’t have just snapped like that for no reason. Something must’ve lead up to this.”
“Captain,” Doc said firmly, as a way of asking him to go lightly.
Harris shot Doc an angry look. Carrie felt an anger within her begin to rise too. She didn’t ask for this. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She hadn’t done anything wrong.
“Well?” Harris said impatiently.
“I was walking down the hall and I heard him following me,” she began speaking quickly, in a defensive tone, her eyes staring down at the bed trying to recall what had just happened. “He said, ‘I’ll help you.’ I told him I was fine, but he kept walking. He started saying, ‘I know why you’re here—’ and then he started saying things …” Her throat started closing up on her.
“What things?” Harris pushed.
She eyed Harris nervously then looked down at the bed again. “He said that it had been a long time since he’d seen a woman …” She starting coughing.
Doc held out the cup of water. She refused it.
“Then what?” Harris continued probing.
“We get to the store, I get the napkins and he said it had been a long time since he’d … smelled a woman.” She continued to cough. “I came out of the store and he was in my face and he said … it’d been a long time since he’d … touched a …” Carrie started coughing more now, almost choking. Her eyes began to water, and saliva flooded her mouth.
“Welles, drink this!” Doc ordered, removing her mask and shoving the water in her face. She took a few sips and coughed some more, then cleared her throat.
“Then what happened?” Harris asked, a little calmer now, finally appreciating the fact that she was struggling.
“I tried to push past him and … as I did, he grabbed me by the throat and slammed me against the wall.” She held her hand up mimicking Grolsh’s grip on her throat, and saw that the fingernails on her right hand were bloodied. She twisted her hand around eyeing them, both intrigued and revolted.
“That his blood or yours?” Harris asked, his eyes quickly scanning her over.
Carrie noticed her hand was shaking. She quickly put it back down in her lap to make it stop, but kept her eyes focused on the dried blood. “His …” she said remembering, her voice very croaky now. “I dug them into his face …”
“Good,” Doc said, folding his arms.
“So then Smith came along and disturbed him?” Harris asked.
“I don’t know … I dug my nails in and he lifted me off the ground by my throat … I started to pass out … he must’ve heard Smith coming. Next thing I know, I was lying on the ground … and someone was yelling.”
Harris nodded, rubbing his jaw, thinking.
Doc turned to Harris. “I’m pulling her off duty for a while for observation.”
“I thought you said she was going to be okay?”
“Yeah, she is.”
“So why does she need observation, then?”
“It doesn’t have to be me, captain!” Doc said tersely with his hands in the air. “Colt can watch her! Packham? I don’t care. But she blacked out and we don’t know how long for. That means her brain was starved of oxygen for a certain period of time. So someone needs to watch her to make sure she continues to be okay. 24 hours is the standard observation!”
Carrie wanted to stop them arguing. She didn’t want to be the cause of any trouble between them. She quickly sat up in bed and removed her mask.
Doc looked over at her. “Welles, what are you doing?”
“Stop arguing,” she croaked at them, as she quickly got u
p off the bed. “I’m fine.” She turned to Harris. “Sir, it’s okay, I’m ffffiii—” She took a step toward him, but suddenly felt lightheaded. Her brain seemed to briefly buzz out and she face-planted into Harris’s hard stomach. He caught her by the arms and a slight zap of static electricity shot between them. Doc stepped forward to assist and they both sat her back on the bed. She looked up at the two of them staring down at her.
“I— I just got up too quick,” she said groggily, rubbing her forehead.
Doc put the mask back on her and pushed her back to lie on the pillow. “Stay there, Welles. That’s an order!”
She saw Doc look over at Harris with a self-assured look.
“Okay, Doc, that’s fine. But I need you.” Harris pointed at him, then walked to the door and opened it. He motioned for Colt and Packham to enter, which they did.
“Doc is going to finish up here with Welles, then he is going to escort you three back to your quarters, where you two will keep an eye on her until I send someone for you. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.” They nodded.
Harris headed for the door.
“Captain,” Packham said, stopping him.
“What, sergeant?”
“Shouldn’t we be armed? Like the others.”
“Doc’s carrying.” He nodded in Doc’s direction, then turned and left.
Carrie and the other women looked at Doc. He eyed them all back for a moment, then sighed. He reached behind his back, pulled out a UNF handgun and showed them, then put it back in place.
“You’ve had that the whole time?” Carrie croaked.
“Not the whole time,” he said quietly, then quickly looked away as he walked over to a cabinet and fished something out of a drawer. He walked back holding a camera and threw it at Colt, who caught it.
“I need a record.” He motioned toward Carrie. “Get a shot of her face, her neck and her hand.”
Doc disappeared again, as Carrie sat up a little and tried to stretch out her back and winced.
“Is your back hurt, too?” Colt asked, pulling her forward to take a look.
Doc walked back in and saw Colt studying her back.
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