by Ryan Kirk
“Derreck, do you want blood shut off to your left arm?”
Derreck only thought about it for a moment. “Do it.”
Kindra sent the command to Derreck’s suit and she heard him gasp from a new wave of pain. But he remained on his feet and stayed focused. She didn’t know how he was managing it.
Derreck picked the young man up and threw him over his shoulder in what was known in Fleet as a safety carry. Kindra winced, expecting Derreck to grunt under a new wave of pain, but he didn’t. It was the suit taking everything over now, guided by Derreck’s mind. One step at a time, Derreck moved towards the dropship. Kindra pulled up Derreck’s positioning. He was less than a kilometer out, but at the speed he was moving, it would take him over twenty minutes to get back to the dropship.
Kindra’s brain kicked into high gear. She could sit around and watch Derreck struggle, or she could make good use of her time. She was responsible for both biology and medical, and she would be responsible both for Derreck and for the creature he was bringing with him. Suddenly, twenty minutes didn’t seem like enough time for everything that needed to be done.
She called Eleta as she walked swiftly to the medical bay. Eleta said she’d be willing to keep an eye on Derreck’s progress. He didn’t need any coaching from them, but Kindra needed to know if anything happened to him right away. She felt the burden of command on her shoulders.
Kindra was third in line for command of the ship, but it had never been anything but a joke for her. Below Derreck, they were all equals. But Fleet had suffered enough problems with ship command during the Rebellion, and now everyone was assigned a place for command. With Kenan out of touch and Derreck in danger, there was a very real chance she could find herself with her first command.
The thought had no place in her mind, and she pushed it away. Derreck was going to live. When she reached the medical bay, she summoned both of their medical pods to life. Her role as a doctor was limited, and that was good. She had more extensive training than the others, but she was still far from a full physician. Most everything could be done by the pods, but they still needed human supervision. She keyed in the emergency activation codes and they booted to life in under a minute.
The first pod she prepped for Derreck. She described his injuries as best she could. It would give the pod a focus for its scans and repair work. Typically all the information could be communicated by the exosuit, but not with the biosensors offline. The second pod she prepared for the creature. She didn’t know what to expect, but the creature had the approximate dimensions of a human being. She ensured perfect containment and restraint. The rest could come later.
Kindra finished less than fifteen minutes after leaving her desk in Biology. Just as she did, Eleta’s voice spoke in her ear. “He’s less than a hundred meters from the ramp.”
Kindra didn’t have time to wonder how Derreck had gotten back so quickly. Using neurocontrol, it should have taken longer than fifteen minutes to make it back. She rushed to the door, ready as she would ever be for Derreck’s return.
When he first stepped into sight, Kindra couldn’t help her gasp. She had only seen things from Derreck’s perspective, and it didn’t do his suffering justice. Blood leaked freely from his left armpit, and the trail he left was easy even for Kindra to follow. If those creatures were as dangerous as they seemed, they’d have no trouble tracking the ship now.
Even more disturbing was the crater on Derreck’s chest. He had taken an anti-personnel round directly to the chest. The rounds were designed to expand on impact, being maximally lethal to non-armored personnel. Derreck was armored, but the armor on Derreck’s exosuit was weak under the best of circumstances. It was a general purpose suit, not armored for combat like Kenan’s. Kindra was certain they would find shrapnel in Derreck’s chest. The fact that he was on his feet was remarkable. The fact that he had made it back to the ship was nothing less than a miracle.
Derreck collapsed on the deck of the airlock and Kindra triggered the cycle. The airlock closed and began the decontamination process. It took a full minute and there was no way around it. Kindra opened a direct channel to Derreck. “Hold on, Derreck. I’m almost there.”
Kindra summoned two small work drones, waiting impatiently for the cycle to finish.
When the decontamination was complete, Kindra slammed open the inner airlock. She ordered the work drones to pick Derreck up and drag him out of the airlock as gently as they could.
As soon as Derreck was out of the airlock, she closed it again. She expected the creature Derreck brought would remain unconscious for a while, but for now the chance of contamination was far too high. She summoned the drones to follow her.
Kindra got Derreck into the medical pod, which immediately began the process of repairing his body. It started out by scanning the area and deciding if it was safe to remove his exosuit or not. Kindra allowed the pod to proceed, channeling its feed into her own holographic viewscreens. The pod was far more capable than she was, and if a decision needed to be made, it would contact her.
While the pod went to work on Derreck, Kindra returned to the airlock. The creature was still unconscious, but Kindra flooded the airlock with a mild sedative just to be certain. Then she sent the drones in and placed a sample bag on the ground. They pushed the creature on top of the bag and sealed it around him. The membrane allowed gases through, so she wasn’t worried about him being able to breathe. She keyed in a full decontamination process, then had the drones pick him up and bring him to medical.
A few minutes later, the creature was in the second pod, being restrained as the pod began running scans and tests.
Kindra slumped back against a wall of the medical unit and sighed as the pods went to work on the two men. Even though Derreck was her friend, and the other was an alien, she couldn’t help but hope that both of them managed to live through their ordeal.
Tev came to awareness slowly. His memories were the first to return, and they left a bitter taste in his mind. He remembered the actions of the hunters that had brought so many of them to the brink of destruction. But as devastated as he was, the anger couldn’t take hold. It was as though he lacked the energy.
He remembered being pummeled by a power he couldn’t understand. And then he thought he was dead. That would explain why he wasn’t able to get angry. He had finally joined the great hunt with Lys. Tev opened his eyes, but he was greeted only by a perfect blackness, the like of which he had never experienced.
He tried to move, but found he couldn’t. There was something holding him down, and as feeling returned to his body, he felt something soft and unnatural against his forehead, chest, wrists, hips, and ankles.
A moment of panic seized him, but he forced it down. The same exhaustion which prevented him from being angry also prevented him from being scared. Perhaps he was dead, but he didn’t know. He had never heard of an afterlife where one was tied down.
Tev took a series of deep breaths, focusing on the rising and falling of his chest. He wiggled his toes, breathing a deep sigh of relief when he felt them move. He whispered, afraid of any more sound in this silent place. The words of his prayer caressed his ears, and he was grateful once again that his body seemed to work.
The world was still black, and it made no difference to Tev whether his eyes were open or closed. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the image of Lys, the one who had always been with him. Whatever happened, he knew she wouldn’t abandon him. His breathing calmed and he could feel his heart slow down.
There was no way of tracking time, but Tev guessed that almost half a day passed before anything changed. Though his eyes were closed, he didn’t allow himself to sleep. His body felt tired, but he was in a strange place, and he feared that if he slept again, he’d never wake up. He wasn’t afraid of death, but if he could avoid it, he would.
When the lights came on, it was as though he had been slapped in the face. His entire world abruptly went white. He closed his eyes, and when he attempted to cr
ack them open again, the light had dimmed.
Being able to see raised far more questions than he’d had before. The first thing he noticed was that he wasn’t anywhere he had ever been before. The space was unlike anything he had seen, covered in textures he didn’t understand. Images danced along some parts of the walls, and Tev had no idea what any of them meant.
His mind raced, but he could only come to one conclusion: he was in the lair of the creatures he had been hunting earlier. They were the only unknown Tev was aware of, and only they seemed capable of doing something like this. Tev’s heart raced, but he focused on his breath and forced himself to study his surroundings.
The light continued to get brighter, and as it did, Tev noticed he wasn’t alone in the room. There was another person, similar to but completely different from anyone Tev had ever seen. The man, for it looked like a man, was on a table much like the one Tev was lying on. The difference was the man’s table wasn’t covered. Tev was enclosed in some sort of clear tube. He could see through it, but the slight distortions made it clear that something was between him and the rest of the room.
Everything else was nonsense to him. The light was coming from the wall above him, but Tev didn’t know how that was possible. Other lights flashed upon darker sections of the walls, but Tev wasn’t sure how it was even possible for him to see what he was seeing.
Tev turned his attention to the only object in the room that made any sort of sense. He twisted his head around as far as he could to look at the other man. He was wearing clothing that covered much more of his body than Tev had ever worn. The man wasn’t strapped to the table like Tev was, but he looked as though he was sleeping.
The man also had a complexion Tev hadn’t ever seen before. His skin was pale, whiter than Tev had ever seen skin. It was almost as if the man had never been outside in the sun.
All of Tev’s thoughts were washed away when one of the walls slid open and a woman came through. Tev’s first instinct was to get away, but he recognized it was foolish before his body could start to respond. His body was still sluggish, and even if it hadn’t been, he was still well secured to the table.
So he focused his attention on the woman. Like the man, she wore clothes from her neck all the way down to her feet. Her skin was closer in color to Tev’s, but still different. She didn’t move like anyone Tev had ever seen. Tev got a glance at her feet before they disappeared from view, and they were the only part of her that seemed misshapen to him. There was too much foot there, and she walked out of balance, shifting side to side with every step.
Tev couldn’t focus on her feet for too long. She walked over to the table where he was and pressed her hand against the clear covering surrounding his tube. More lights lit up, and Tev wondered if the images had anything to do with him. The woman seemed to be staring at the lights intently. Finally her gaze moved to Tev, and to him, it looked as though she was concerned.
She spoke to him, but Tev didn’t understand. There was something familiar to her words, almost as if they sat on the edge of his understanding, begging him to pay closer attention, but no matter how hard he focused, he couldn’t make out what she was saying.
He tried to respond, but the look of confusion on her face was enough to tell him she didn’t understand what he was saying either.
After a few attempts, Tev stopped trying to speak to her. There was no use trying to communicate that way.
Tev tried another approach. He tried to move just one of his arms. He saw the woman track the motion with her eyes, and when she looked back at him, he tried to give her a quizzical look. She frowned and then nodded.
The woman turned away and Tev watched in fascination as a part of the wall slid out. She grabbed something and brought it back over to him. It was square and fit in her hand. She held it over him, and Tev saw his own reflection, as clear as day, for the first time. It wasn’t that he didn’t know what he looked like. He had seen his reflection in pools of water plenty of times. But this was a perfect reflection, not marred by ripples or dirt in the water.
Tev was fascinated by what he saw. These creatures, these people, seemed to have a technology far beyond that of his own people. He couldn’t even guess how the object worked. The woman saw he understood, then angled the reflection downwards. When she reached his stomach, she stopped, and Tev saw what she was getting at. There was a fresh scar forming there, a large hole that was still open.
But although there was a hole in his skin, there was no blood. He struggled to understand. He was still alive, and the woman, at least from what Tev understood, seemed kind enough. She didn’t seem like she was trying to hurt him in any way. Pieces started to fall together in his mind. Somehow, they were trying to help him.
Tev nodded, trying to show he understood. Then the woman pointed at the other man who was in the room with him. Tev nodded again. They were both being fixed. They probably still worried about him. He had tried to kill them, after all.
The two of them sat in silence for a few minutes, until finally the woman pointed at herself. “Kindra,” she said.
Tev understood. He replied, “Tev.”
The woman nodded, studying him for a few more moments. Then she stood up, saying something to him he didn’t understand. But the tone of her voice was clear. At least for now, he wasn’t in any danger. The wall slid shut behind her, and Tev’s world plunged into darkness again.
Tev drifted in and out of sleep, losing all track of time. He could have been asleep for days or just minutes. With no light in the room, there was no way for him to judge the passage of time. Kindra came back to check on him every time he was awake. He tried to read the expression on her face. She seemed nice, but at the same time, there was a certain hardness to her. Tev didn’t judge her for it.
He had plenty of time for thinking. Until just recently, he had been on a hunt to kill these creatures. The people in front of him had to be the same kind, and if that was true, it meant the ones he had fought were wearing some kind of armor, some kind of protection. He saw Kindra without armor, and if the other man was also being fixed, he had to be the one Tev had wounded.
He was still restrained, and with nothing to do but let his body heal, his mind often wandered. One subject he thought a lot about was what he was supposed to do next. He had been sent by his clan to hunt these creatures. Should he still? They seemed to be trying to help him, even after he had tried to kill them. Or was there more he didn’t understand?
Tev wished he knew more. He wanted to know who these creatures were and why they were here. Did they mean to harm his people or not? Where did they come from? Tev had hiked hundreds of kilometers in his life, and had heard stories from much farther away. These creatures were outside of the experience of any story he had ever heard.
Complicating the decision, or perhaps simplifying it, was the fact that he was still restrained. Even if he wanted to do something, there was no way of doing so. He had tested his restraints, and no matter what he did, there was no give. So for now, he had to wait.
Tev also wondered how many of the creatures there were. He only ever saw Kindra and the man called Derreck. Were they the only two here, or were there more of them? Tev didn’t have the answers to the questions, and the lack of communication was starting to bother him.
One time the lights came on and Kindra came in. There was a look of hesitation on her face, but she seemed determined. Tev tensed up. He had never seen her like this before, and it indicated something important was about to happen.
Kindra paced the room a few times, for a reason Tev couldn’t guess at. Finally, she stopped directly above him.
She held up her hands. In each one was a small item, almost like a small stone that was shaped strangely, another thing that would never occur in nature. As he watched, Kindra took one of the items and put it in her ear. She pulled her hair back and tilted her head so he could see it inside her ear. Then she gestured at him.
Tev nodded as best he could. He wasn’t sure what was ha
ppening, but he knew that unless something changed, he would never make it out of this room. If escape was a possibility, he needed to figure out what these creatures were and how to kill them.
Kindra put on something over her hands, and with one final hesitation, opened the tube. Tev sniffed cautiously at the air. The smell was different than within the tube, but subtly. The air was different here, lacking the diversity of scents he was used to. Although he lacked the language to describe it, the best he could come up with was that the air here was empty.
Tev felt Kindra place the item gently in his ear. He wondered if he would feel pain, but none came. As soon as Kindra was satisfied with whatever she was doing, she stepped back and closed the tube again. Her hands ran over the now-familiar lights, and she seemed to be relieved by whatever she saw.
Kindra turned her attention back to Tev, and he could almost see her mind working. She pointed to herself and said her name. Then she pointed at Tev and named him, and at Derreck and named him. She went to one of the walls nearby, which opened to her touch. She pulled out Tev’s sack, and as she pulled out his supplies one by one, Tev named them. He paid particular attention when she pulled out his weapons. He hadn’t known they were so close. But it didn’t matter. As long as he was restrained, there wasn’t anything he could do about it. They might as well be over a mountain range for as useful as they were to him.
The process went on for some time, with Kindra making Tev attempt to name objects. Unfortunately, most of what was in the room he didn’t have words for. Then she moved on to actions. She would act out doing something, and Tev would name what it was. If Kindra hadn’t been so serious about it, so lost in what she was doing, Tev would have laughed. It was not what he had expected, not at all.
After this had gone on for a while, Kindra stopped acting. She seemed to stare off into nowhere, something Tev noticed she did quite often.
