Carmen wrapped the dressing with strips of cloth, and tied the ends tightly over the wound. It wasn’t perfect. Fred really ought to have a proper cleaning and surgical care for his leg. But it would keep him from bleeding to death for now, and that would have to do. Carmen let go of Fred’s leg and he wiggled it experimentally. He gave what sounded like a satisfied grunt and then looked up at her.
“Come on,” he said. “We need to move. I’m surprised nobody else has wandered in here yet. Let’s get somewhere more quiet.”
“Jacob, we’re moving now,” Carmen said. No response came back over the radio. “Jacob?”
“They’re jamming him. Which means they know we’re here and where we came from. Let’s go,” Fred said.
Fred pushed off from the cargo, carefully favoring the injured leg but working his way across the hold with an agility that Carmen envied despite his injury. He led them off to the rear of the hold, near the engines, and opened a hatch.
“Inside, quick,” he said.
Carmen ducked in. Lights flickered on as motion sensors picked up her presence. The space wasn’t large, and was mostly crammed full of space suits. It felt positively claustrophobic once Fred joined her inside and closed the door.
“We should be safe here for a bit. Now, tell me how you planned to take on an entire ship full of armed soldiers?” he asked.
“I didn’t,” she replied. “I planned to cure them. I find that people who aren’t in immediate danger of dying tend to do less stupid things. This whole mess happened because people are afraid. Take away the fear…”
“And you take away the reasons for these guys being assholes? Might work.”
Carmen sighed. “It might have, if I’d gotten here a day or so earlier. Now I’m not so sure. The infection is pretty advanced in some of these people.”
“Will it still work?” Fred asked. He looked alarmed, and she felt the same. What if Patrick and her father were already bleeding in their brains? She wasn’t confident that her cure could save someone that far along.
“Maybe,” she said, trying to sound more confident than she felt. “But they’re likely to be irrational, even violent. They’re not just going to sit down and listen to reason just because we have a cure.”
It was a real mess, and she didn’t see an easy solution. The problem wasn’t going to solve itself, either. In fact, it would get worse, the longer they waited. And every minute that went by dropped the chances that her cure would help the people she loved.
That word was still sending an icy ripple down her spine, but it still felt right. Which made her more determined than ever to find a solution.
“Fred, how do we disable everyone on the ship without killing them?” she asked. There had to be a way, and if anyone knew it, she had a hunch it would be him.
“Well, a few ways. Most of them require a little more prep work than we seem to have time for,” he replied. “But the easiest is jus’ to mess with the air from the environmental control panel. Change the gas mix a bit, and people will likely jus’ pass out.”
That wouldn’t be great for patients already ill, whose bodies were fighting for their lives against the virus. But once they were out, she could get them on oxygen if she needed to. The first aid station on the shuttle wasn’t bad. The aid station back on the moon was even better, of course – but they’d be stuck in quarantine until it was certain that none of them were infectious anymore, so that was out. Earth was the best bet, but it was days away. She’d be stuck with what resources she had on the shuttle – or what could be carried in from the moon base – to keep these people alive until their immune systems could take over.
“We’ll do it. Where is the panel?” Carmen asked.
“Either the cockpit or engineering. The cockpit will be guarded like mad. Engineering is a better bet, but for sure they’ll have someone down there too,” Fred said in a warning tone.
“Who’s sick, and who already knows he is dying from an incurable disease. I doubt he’ll be at his most vigilant,” she replied.
“Fine, we’ll try it,” Fred said. Then he started shucking off the top of his ship suit.
“What the hell, Fred?” she said.
“What?” he asked, tossing the top aside. “Got to be in space suits, otherwise we’ll get knocked out at the same time as everyone else does, right? Space suits are here. Now get undressed.”
Carmen grumbled, but he was right. Someone needed to invent a suit you could just get into with street clothes. She stripped her top off, grateful for the sports bra, and ignored Fred’s struggles to get his pants off over the dressing she’d put on his leg. Carefully not looking his way at all, she shucked off her pants as well so that she could slip into one of the skin tight coolant suits you had to wear inside the suit.
But the tight garment got stuck somewhere around her shoulders. She blushed furiously, knowing what she had to look like. She had no leverage, nothing to push against. No gravity to help her guide the garment down her body. And enough of it was covering her face that she couldn’t see where it was stuck.
“Hold still,” Fred’s gruff voice was gentle but firm. She did as he asked, blushing so hard that she was sure her bare midriff was bright red too. His hands reached up and pulled something by her shoulder, and then pulled down on the coolant shirt. It was magically unstuck now, and slid easily down over her body. Fred’s fingers avoided her skin with the same grace that he glided between cargo boxes outside.
When she could see again she looked up at his face, half expecting to see a leer there, but his face was bland and businesslike.
“There,” he said. “You should be all set. I’ll need your help getting the leggings over this dressing.”
She pulled the rest of the coolant suit on herself, wondering at how badly she’d misjudged the man. He was much deeper than she’d figured. But then, he was a friend of Patrick’s – so deeper made sense.
Helping each other out, they were quickly suited up. Instead of hooking up to large backpacks full of air, Fred connected their air supplies to small bottles of oxygen that could be clipped to their belts.
“Less bulky than the big ones, so we can move around faster. But only good for an hour,” he said. “You’ve got to get another before then.” He showed her how to change out the bottle. “You can find these in the emergency lockers all over the ship.”
And then they were out of excuses to wait any longer. Carmen took a deep breath of canned air, the taste odd on her tongue. They had a time limit now, even beyond the one they had before. She was acutely aware of each second passing by as she tucked her clothes away into a cubby. She took out the big injector first, though. She had a hunch she might need it. That, she tucked into a loop on her thigh, and fixed in place with a velcro strap.
Fred opened the door cautiously and peered out. He was moving more slowly than he had exiting the cargo airlock, and it wasn’t just pain from his wound. Carmen realized he was taking the soldiers much more seriously now than he had before. They were a deadly threat. She followed his lead, looking all about for any movement before leaving the suit locker.
“Engineering is right this way,” Fred said. He led the way out of the cargo hold into the rear of the ship. A door waited at the far end of the hall. It was closed. Fred didn’t pause. He tapped a code into the panel. Carmen heard whooshing sounds from the other side, and shouting.
“I pulled the fire alarm,” he said. “Compartment inside is being filled with non-flammable gas. My guess is anyone in there will spill out here about…”
The door snapped open. Two men floated out, retching and gagging. Neither of them was armed. Fred punched the first in the head, hard enough that Carmen felt the crack of the impact. The man went limp. The other saw the threat but was so miserable that he tried to raise his arms in a position of surrender.
Fred seemed to pause a moment as if considering that, and then shook his head. “Sorry, bro,” he said, and slammed a huge fist into the second man’s head.
“Let’s go,” Fred grunted. “That fire alarm will alert the cockpit and the rest of the ship.”
Once they were both inside, Fred shut the door and keyed in a code to lock it. “It won’t hold them forever,” he said, pushing off from the door and drifting over to a console.
The door had a glass window, so Carmen kept watch, worried that the enemy might come at them any time. “How’s this going to work?” she asked anxiously.
“I got to override all the safety protocols an’ then flood the ship with the wrong mix of gasses. I’m telling the computer to do something it was programmed not to do. Gimme a few minutes.”
Carmen saw a head peek around the corner down the hall, only to duck back. “I don’t know if you have a few minutes,” she said. “They’ve found us.”
Fred mumbled “Shit,” under his breath, but kept typing away.
She kept her eyes peeled down the short hall, watching for movement. The soldiers knew where they were. What would they do? Storm engineering? If they figured out what Fred was trying to do, they could just get into space suits and changing the gasses wouldn’t even help anymore.
But they didn’t do either of those things. Instead, they shoved two tied up men into view. Carmen sucked in her breath, hard. It was Pat – and her father. Both of them looked all right, although Pat had some bad bruises on his head and her father looked more scared than she’d ever seen him before. It wrung her heart to see them like that, floating at the end of the hall, their hands tied behind their backs, gags over their mouths, their eyes wide.
“Fred,” Carmen said, barely able to speak. “We’re out of time.”
A hand holding a pistol slid into view. The gun was aimed casually toward Pat, and Carmen almost shouted in fear and anger. Then the man holding the gun dropped into view. He was middle-aged, with dark hair that was cropped short, dressed in military fatigues. She guessed this had to be the man in charge of the soldiers who’d taken the ship. The man gestured with his gun toward the door – clearly, he saw her through the port-hole in the door.
She shook her head. There was no way she was going to open the door for him!
The man shrugged, his face almost a little sad, and aimed the gun back at Pat’s head. He said something that Carmen couldn’t hear through the door. Pat closed his eyes. The soldier pulled back the hammer of his pistol.
“Wait!” Carmen screamed, banging on the window. “No!”
She reached down and keyed open the door, pulling it ajar just enough to shout out through the gap. If they rushed, she hoped she could close it again in time. “Wait! You don’t need to hurt anyone!” she shouted. She hoped they could hear her – she knew her suit was muffling her words some. “I have the cure!”
“That’s a bold claim,” the soldier called down the hall to her. But he lowered the pistol a little.
She sucked in a deep breath. “Who are you?” Carmen asked.
“I’m Colonel Pierce. I own this ship now. You must be Carmen Rosa – the good doctor has told me about you.”
“That’s me,” she said, aiming for a bright tone and falling somewhere short.
“Girl, if you really had the cure, why not just wait on the base for us to get there?” Pierce asked.
Carmen tried hard to take the man’s measure. He was sick. Even at this distance, she could see the beginnings of bruises under his eyes, so the virus was in his brain. He’d be irrational, and reasoning with him would be hard. But she didn’t have a lot of choice.
Should she tell him that the shuttle wasn’t headed to the moon? That Pat had set a course which would doom the shuttle to drift off into deep space? No, she decided. He might not believe her. And even if he did believe her, he might react irrationally toward Pat, even kill him out of anger at the betrayal.
“The sooner a patient gets the treatment, the more effective it is,” she replied. Which was true. It just wasn’t the whole truth. “Every hour counts.”
“Then you brought the cure with you,” Pierce said. “Give it to me.”
This was dangerous. While she had the cure, she had an edge. As soon as she handed it over, he wouldn’t really need her anymore. But she really did want to do the injections. The cure was also laced with a powerful sedative. They’d all be knocked out in short order. But she needed to get all of them at once, or as close to that as she could.
She put on her best ‘doctor voice’, loud and paternal – “Do you know how to administer the right dose, in the right spot, at the right times? It takes more than one dose, and each one needs to be administered correctly for the drug to work.”
Pierce paused for a moment, seeming to consider her words. Then he laughed, and spread his arms wide. “Please, then. Come minister to the sick.”
Both Pat and her father shook their heads. It was pretty clear they wanted her to stay put. Pierce saw their movement as well. He brought the pistol back up again, this time aimed at the side of her father’s temple. Carmen watched her father close his eyes, saw his lips moving through the cloth gag.
“Or I can redecorate the interior of my ship in crimson,” Pierce said in that same affable tone he’d been using all along.
“No!” Carmen said. “I’ll come.” She slipped out into the hallway, carefully closing the hatch behind her. She heard it latch solidly, and hoped Fred would be able to lock it. At least he’d be safe – she might need his help shortly.
Chapter 18
SHE PUSHED OFF from the door and drifted down the corridor toward Pierce. Once she was about halfway down, two soldiers slipped into view and pulled themselves toward her. She flinched when the first grabbed hold of her arm, but neither of them were rough with her.
“Please just come along, miss,” one said.
“We’re not gonna hurt you,” the other added.
She wasn’t sure if she should believe them or not, but she had a feeling they meant it. They were both young – not much older than the soldier she’d fought earlier. Young, impressionable boys, that was who Pierce had brought for his little coup. That made her even angrier with the man. These kids were scared, more than anything. They were dying, they knew it, and she’d tossed the worst sort of golden apple into the middle of this mess: hope.
They presented her to Pierce, who floated with one hand on a rail, the other still holding his pistol. He tucked the gun back into a holster on his belt. With the free hand, he reached out toward Carmen’s face. This time, she did flinch – but all he did was undo the clasp for her helmet’s faceplate and lift the glass shield. It rose like a visor away from her face with a hiss of escaping air. She glanced at her tank – already two thirds empty? How had so much time gone by?
“Why the helmet, Doctor? Why the space suit? What were you up to down here?” Pierce asked.
“Avoiding undue exposure to the virus. It’s medicine, not a miracle cure,” she said. “Speaking of which, would you like to go first?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Pierce said, drawing back from her a little. “I’m not feeling so trusting right now. Your friend is still back there in engineering, after all – yes, I have video feeds, and I know there are two of you.”
“But you have me here, now,” Carmen said.
He shifted his grip a little, his eyes flickering over her. She’d rarely felt so uncomfortable under a man’s gaze. “Yes, but how do I know that’s the cure, and not poison? No, I think we start with your people first, and then you can help my men and I.”
Carmen had to fight back a smile. She’d more or less expected that. There was no way those soldiers were going to let her inject them without some sort of proof. So there wasn’t any poison, nothing that would do lasting harm. Just a little sedation that would put them out for an hour or so. Enough time for her and Fred to find a more lasting solution.
But there were a l
ot of them here. She looked around. Pierce had eight soldiers here. She’d have to move fast, or the first people she injected would pass out before she got a chance to finish with the last ones.
“I’m fine with that,” she said, masking her concern with nonchalance. “The sooner people are injected, the better their odds of survival anyway.” That got the attention of Pierce’s men right away. She could see them forming a line already, jostling for position. Each of them had such desperate hope written across his face that it was almost painful to see. She’d do what she could for those men. Some of them might be too far gone for her to cure – but she’d try her best.
Carmen turned to Patrick. He was younger than her father, and probably would pass out from the sedative a bit more slowly. Seconds might count. She’d inject him first, then her father. Her eyes met his as she drifted very close to him. There was so damned much she wanted to say to him, but right now was completely the wrong time. There would be time for that later – if she pulled this off.
“This will sting some,” she warned, reaching down onto her suit leg and pulling up the injector. She made a big show out of dialing up the dosage. It wasn’t a hard process, but better they didn’t know that. She found his deltoid easily enough. Even through the space suit’s gloves, running her hands over Pat’s should raised goose bumps on her arms. Her mind flashed back briefly to the moments they stole together during the solar flare.
Then she brought the injector up and against his arm. A quick tap and a hiss, and the medicine was in. Carmen saw Pat flinch, and knew that arm was going to be sore for a while until the medication spread out a bit. “Sorry, Pat,” she said.
She drifted over to her father, who was saying something through his gag. She could only make out one word: “How?”
“Neuraminidase inhibitors gave us the start, Dad,” she said. “It’s not a vaccine. But it will give the infected a fighting chance. Earth already has the formula.”
He said something else as she prepped the injection. She thought it was “I’m so proud of you.” But it was hard to tell for sure. He jerked when she injected him, reacting even more strongly than Pat had.
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