Darwin

by Amanda Bridgeman

  Welles pulled her gun up higher and steadied it. “Get the fuck out of my way, or I’ll blow your FUCKING BRAINS OUT,” she yelled at him, spitting blood and saliva in the process.

  Harris glanced at her. She was breathing fast, clearly starting to freak out, and although she was still unsteady on her feet, she managed to aim her gun alright. He looked back at Sharley and Logan. “Sharley, you know as well as I do that she will not miss. She will kill you. Now you’d better decide what your fate is going to be, because ‘I’m not sure how long I can hold her off’. Sound familiar?” Harris asked, pointing to his headset, indicating that he’d heard Sharley’s words to her before.

  Logan stepped forward, squaring his shoulders. “Why don’t you drop your gun and let’s see who gets out of here alive?”

  “Logaaan!” Sharley warned, his voice low and drawn out.

  “You shouldn’t have kept me at bay,” Logan spat back. “They need to be taught a hard fuckin’ lesson!”

  “Logan, trust me.” Sharley turned back to Harris, his eyes holding an unnerving sense of evil in them. “They will be taught.”

  Sharley and Harris stared each other down for a moment.

  “Captain Harris, would you like me to get your superiors at the UNF on the line to see what their orders will be?” Sharley said calmly, but tauntingly.

  “You do what you want, Sharley, but my decision is final, and for the last time I will fuckin’ repeat it,” Harris began, as Logan suddenly turned and eyed the corridor behind him. “Corporal Welles is a part of the Aurora team, and we will not … leave … without her!”

  “FUCKIN’ A, CAPTAIN!” Brown’s voice boomed down the corridor.

  Harris looked over Logan’s shoulder to see Brown and Doc creeping toward them, their red target lasers dancing over Sharley and Logan, weapon spotlights beaming down the corridor.

  What the fuck are they doing here? They should be on the ship.

  Harris hid his anger and pointed at Sharley. “That’s five guns now, Sharley! The way I see it you don’t have a choice.”

  Logan growled, hunching his shoulders, crouching for a fight.

  “You’re making a big mistake, Captain Harris!” Sharley’s face twisted into a snarl. “Tell your men to stand down, or I will make you pay for this!”

  Harris fought the urge to pull the trigger with all his might. Part of him wanted the man dead, but part of him wanted to see him locked up, to see him pay for the rest of his life for what he did to his soldiers.

  “Start walking to the bio cell,” he said through gritted teeth.

  Sharley looked around at each member of Harris’s team for a moment. “Are there none of you who will hand her over to me? You’re all going to defy the UNF, hmm?”

  Neither Brown, Doc, nor McKinley answered, they simply held their guns firm on their targets. Sharley turned back and glared at Harris for a moment, then dropped his snarl and replaced it with a smile, regaining his composure.

  “Very well, Captain Harris. You’ve made your choice. You’ve all made your choice.” He glanced around at the team again.

  “Start walking,” Harris said flatly.

  Logan glared over at Sharley, who turned and locked eyes with him. Sharley’s face was serene, but his eyes firm, as though he were communicating with him. Logan’s anger seemed to ease off. Sharley smiled again, put his hands in the air and slowly began to walk toward the bio cell.

  *

  Carrie watched as Sharley and Logan came toward her, then veered away slightly, skimming past her outstretched arm and handgun. Sharley’s smile and eyes chilled her to the bone with his haunting stare.

  “I’ll see you soon, Carrie Ann Welles,” he purred.

  “You’re mine,” Logan pointed at her, snarling viciously, his emerald eyes psychotic, “and I’m gonna fuckin’ make you pay!”

  Carrie felt a spike of fear shoot through her, as Harris forced him away from her and barked “MOVE!” Brown followed his lead.

  Doc locked concerned eyes with her briefly, then quickly crouched down beside McKinley and looked at his leg. He pulled out a needle and jabbed him with it.

  Carrie, not sure what to do, turned and followed Brown and Harris down the corridor. She had to see Sharley and Logan locked up for herself. They didn’t seem to be putting up a fight, for which part of her was grateful, but it made the other part of her feel somewhat uneasy. She would have preferred to see them dead.

  Harris locked the glass chamber on them, then pulled the lever to close the exchange windows with a loud bang that seemed to echo through the station. Sharley stood up close to the glass, near Harris, and gave him a big beaming smile.

  “This is not the end, Captain Harris.” His distant voice sounded over the speakers. “I might be submitting to you now, but the next time I see you, it will be you who submits to me.”

  “I submit to no-one, you fuck,” Harris replied with a deadpan face, seemingly not in the least bit threatened.

  Sharley laughed as he turned and walked over to one of the chairs left inside the cell. He sat down, crossing his legs, “I hope you don’t get into trouble for this, captain. I’m very valuable to the UNF, you know.”

  Carrie watched as Harris pulled on the door to ensure it was locked, took one last careful look around the cell, then slowly backed away, still targeting his gun. Sharley sat there smiling, bouncing his crossed leg, and Logan stalked up and down the glass frontage like a trapped panther, snarling at them.

  “Y’alright, Welles?” Brown asked, grabbing her arm.

  She managed a slight nod. The bright lights of the bio cell were hurting her head, and her eyes were refusing to adjust. Now that Sharley and Logan were locked up, she felt a wave of relief sweep over her that made her head feel heavier by the second. It was as though her neck were made of straw and her skull filled with concrete.

  They made their way back to Doc and McKinley, who was looking slightly better as the morphine had kicked in. Doc was just tying off a makeshift splint on his leg. He looked up at them. “They locked up?”

  Harris nodded. “I thought I told you to stay on the ship?”

  “Yeah,” Doc said, “and how were you going to carry McKinley back with those ribs, or Welles was with that head injury?” he replied firmly. “You left me in charge of the ship, captain, and I made a decision.”

  Harris merely grunted at him; from the look of his bruised and swollen face he was too exhausted to argue. Doc moved over to Carrie and placed his hand near her swollen eye, examining it. She pulled away at his touch, the pain excruciating.

  “Can you make it back to the ship?” he asked. She nodded, stealing a quick glance into his eyes. He turned back to Harris. “You right with those ribs?”

  Harris nodded. “Welles and I will cover you … just in case.”

  Doc, with the help of Brown, slowly lifted McKinley and began to head for the ship. Harris led the group and she tailed behind as they slowly made their way through the darkness of Section One. Carrie’s heart was still racing slightly from the sugar concentrate, but her whole body was starting to feel heavy with exhaustion, pain and throbbing. She felt as though she’d been in a car wreck, the muscles in her back and neck beginning to ache and burn.

  When they hit the dock, she squinted her eyes as they struggled to adjust to the brightness again. Each beam of light felt like a laser slicing through her retinas and piercing her brain. She moaned in pain and brought her hand up to shade her eyes. No longer able to provide coverage of any sort, she somehow managed to stumble her way back to the entrance of the ship, where Packham awaited them.

  *

  Harris watched as Doc and Brown took McKinley straight through to the hospital, and Packham slung Welles’s arm around her shoulder and followed them. Harris remained at the Aurora’s entrance, wanting to be sure the ship was sealed and safe. He even manually changed the entrance code again, just to be sure.

  As the door slid closed and locked i
n place, he exhaled in relief and rested his tired forehead against it.

  Thank god, he whispered in his mind. Thank fuckin’ god …

  26

  Morphine

  Carrie heard McKinley groaning as they put him on a bed. She noticed the bodies of their fallen soldiers were gone. Doc had been busy during the hours it had taken to decode their access. He’d prepped the hospital for the worst, and it was just as well he had. She opted to wait in his office, where Harris joined her, announcing that the ship was locked down. They both sat on opposite sides of Doc’s desk, staring tiredly at each other.

  Trying to get a grip on their injuries, Doc, with the help of Packham, scanned Harris’s chest, then Carrie’s head, although she had to make a slight detour to vomit first. The ice pack Doc had given her when they first got back, burned cold against her swollen face, and the throbbing in her head became so bad it had made her empty stomach feel sick. Thankfully, he’d steered her over to a sink in time, where she offloaded a small amount of red liquid. At first, she worried it was blood, but Doc assured her it was the syrup from the sugar concentrate. He’d wet some paper towels and gently patted the good side of her face and the back of her neck, cooling the sickness away, then gave her a small dose of morphine to take the edge off the pain.

  Feeling marginally better, she had her scan, then Packham led her back to the chair opposite Harris at the desk, and she and the captain stared at each other again: eyes tired, faces swollen. Despite the hazy state of her mind, she thought she noticed a curiosity in her captain’s eyes as he stared at her.

  “Ok, now the hard part.” Doc walked back into the office reading their results. “Prioritizing the casualties.”

  Brown appeared in the doorway between Doc’s office and the hospital, where he’d been with McKinley.

  “Welles, you’ve got a fractured cheek, the top left of your zygomatic bone. You’ll have a mild concussion, but there’s no further sign of any major swelling or bleed to the brain. Captain, you’ve got two fractured ribs, one of which is pressing close to your right lung, and McKinley’s got a badly broken leg.” He looked up at them both. “You’re first, captain.”

  “I’m fine. See to the others,” Harris waved him off.

  “Your lungs take priority, captain. You stop breathing, you die.”

  Harris looked over at Carrie. “She doesn’t look so good.”

  “No, she doesn’t, and the longer you keep me talking, the longer it takes for me to see to her. Now move!”

  Harris looked over at Doc, and tiredly arched his eyebrow at him.

  “Sir …” Doc added with a smile.

  Harris held out his hand and Doc assisted him out of the chair. He gave a grunt and groan of pain as he stood.

  Doc looked at Packham. “I’ll bring out some oxygen. Keep her talking. She has to stay awake.”

  “Brown?” Harris called as he followed Doc. “I manually reset the ship’s access codes. Just in case. I want them changed every 30 minutes.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  *

  Carrie sat on the chair for what seemed like an age. The oxygen mask was soothing across her face, but that combined with the morphine was making her want to fall asleep. Packham tried to keep her talking, but she found it hard to pay attention. Brown came back and positioned himself in the doorway, occasionally glancing at her in between checking the security feed he’d patched through from the flight deck, which showed the ship’s external cameras.

  Eventually, Harris came back out with Doc. She’d heard their voices in the other room, but only now really listened to them talk.

  “Doc, I’ll cope. I need to make sure this ship takes off and I can’t do that if I’m doped up to the eyeballs. As soon as we’ve taken flight, you can give me something, but I’m not going to lay down right now.”

  “You need to stay still or that rib will puncture your lung,” Doc said heatedly.

  “My pilots will escort me to the flight deck, where I will sit still until we leave, I promise.”

  Doc turned to Packham. “Go with him and do what you need to do, but make sure he sits still and rests!”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, moving over to Harris.

  Brown went to go with them, but Doc stopped him. “I’m going to need your help later when I try and straighten out McKinley’s leg.”

  Brown shot him a look of revulsion, but nodded, then turned and left with the others.

  Doc turned to Carrie. “Okay, let’s take a look at this head of yours.”

  *

  Carrie sat on the last empty bed, looking down the line at the others. McKinley lay on the far bed against the wall, eyes closed from the heavy dose of morphine he’d been given, and Hunter and Colt lay asleep in their pods in between.

  Doc shone a light into her eyes, and she winced in pain as he tried to open her left eye more. “Sorry. But your pupils are reacting, that’s good.”

  “How long until the ship takes off?” Carrie asked wearily.

  “It will be a couple of hours yet until the full re-gen is complete,” he replied.

  “Jesus! Shouldn’t we be on guard or something?!”

  “They’re locked up in the bio cell and the ship is sealed. We’re fine. We’re safe.”

  “Are we?” she eyed him tiredly. “Never thought I’d want to be back on Earth so much.”

  He gave her a soft smile in understanding. “Let’s clean up this face of yours.” He gathered some supplies and came back. He took a bowl of warm water and a cloth, and began cleaning up the dried blood down her face and neck. Despite the dose of morphine her head still hurt when he touched it.

  She groaned.

  “I know you want more morphine, but I just need you to wait a little longer. I need to monitor you for a bit and make sure you’re going to be okay first. Same with any fluids or food. It’s nil by mouth for a couple of hours.”

  She sat in silence while Doc cleaned up the rest of the blood. When he was done, he took a good look at the cut that seemed to mark the spot of the fracture Logan had given her.

  “That’s going to need stitches. It’ll scar, too.”

  Carrie looked at him, tiredly, “You mean I’m finally going to look like a real soldier?”

  Doc smiled. “If that’s what you want. I can stitch it real messy and make it real ugly.”

  She smiled back. “Nah … I like it when other soldiers don’t take me seriously.”

  Doc shot her another smile, then started tipping a strong smelling solution onto a swab and held it up to her face. “Alright, this is going to sting a little.”

  He started cleaning the cut with the solution, making Carrie reel backward.

  “Ah, Jesus!”

  “I know, I know, but it has to be done.” He took his free hand and held the other side of her face to keep it still. He continued cleaning the cut and she grabbed onto his arm as a reflex, quickly sucking in air to combat the pain, as it burned like acid.

  They suddenly heard the ship begin to murmur. Doc stopped for a second and listened. “We’ve got enough power to idle her. God, that’s a beautiful sound.”

  “I’ll be happier when it’s louder and we’re moving,” Carrie said.

  He stared into her eyes for a moment, then looked back at the cut. He finished cleaning it, and threw the swabs away, all the while leaving his free hand on the side of her face to keep it still. She felt another wave of exhaustion and relief wash over her. She was so glad to be on the ship, so glad that they’d made it back alive, so glad to have Doc standing there right in front of her. She felt safe now. So safe that she was ready to relax and shut down her body for some much needed sleep.

  She turned her head in toward his hand that still cradled her face. She pulled it down gently until it brought his palm to her mouth, closed her eyes and gently kissed it. He quickly moved his hand away, however, and she looked at him a little surprised.

  “Did I ever tell you the hospital ha
s a surveillance camera?” he said quietly, pretending to mess with the items in the tray beside her, then he very subtly glanced around at McKinley’s bed.

  “Oh,” her eyes fell to where McKinley lay, but noted his eyes were closed. She quickly scanned the room for a camera.

  “Yeah.” Doc’s eyes flicked up to hers briefly, then subtly motioned to a spot behind her. “Command might choose to access the footage, given what’s happened up here.”

  Carrie looked at him, her eyes hurting along with her head now. “And the examination room?”

  Doc shook his head. “No. That … conversation, wouldn’t have happened otherwise.” He spoke quietly, subtly looking around at McKinley again.

  Carrie nodded and they stared at each other for a moment.

  “I have to do these stitches,” he said gently, breaking the silence.

  She nodded, her tiredness growing, and the solution making her head throb even more.

  “I’ll put in a little local for the stitches,” he said, walking away. She closed her eyes for a moment and thought about how good it would be to lie down and go to sleep.

  “Welles!”

  She snapped her eyes open.

  “You have to stay awake!” he said walking back over to her.

  “Are you sure, ’cause I really could do with some sleep right now.”

  “I’m positive. Just a little while longer, then you can sleep. I promise.”

  He injected the local anesthetic, then pressed beside her left eye. “You feel that?”

  She shook her head.

  “Okay. This shouldn’t take too long.”

  She nodded again and looked over at Colt’s face in the pod beside her. She looked somewhat peaceful, despite the large bandage across her neck and shoulder, soaked with blood. Carrie would give anything to be her right now, sleeping soundly.

  She felt Doc tugging on the cut. It didn’t hurt, but she could tell when he was doing each stitch. She looked at McKinley and saw him blinking his eyes slowly, then close them again. Did he just wake up? Or has he been awake the whole time? She brushed it off, too tired to care.