by Gun Brooke
“She may be on her way to Caya’s quarters. Something could have knocked out her communicator.” Briar prayed it was true. If something happened to Meija—she didn’t dare think of what it would do to Korrian. “It’s getting lighter up ahead. Am I getting closer? This is section one.” Briar carefully let go of the railing.
“Yes. You should see them there somewhere.”
Scanning the debris-filled area, she noted that some of it consisted of small pieces of brilliant-blue deck plating. This had to be the area. Something made her flinch. Part of a black boot stuck out from under a large piece of wall plating.
“Korrian. I see something. I’m moving ahead another two, maybe three meters.” Pushing gently with her feet so as not to stir up all the sharp-edged debris and send it floating around her body, Briar made her way to where she saw the boot. Carefully she lowered herself by grabbing a cord attached to the wall. She thought fast and then tied it loosely around her ankle, in case she needed to move away quickly.
She felt with her hand in under the wall plating, following the back of the boot up until she found it actually belonged to a person. These boots were common, as they were part of the Oconodian fleet uniform. The leg above the boot felt slender, but with her gloves on she couldn’t judge if it was warm. She pressed her fingers against the leg, almost pinching the person. At the same time, she opened her mind, trying to tune in to the person, which she hoped with all her heart was Adina. She couldn’t make out much, only a vague sense of urgency and pain. This meant someone under all this rubble was alive.
Looking around her, Briar tried to judge if she dared flip over the wall plating covering the person below. She had to take the chance. Cautious of the sharp edges, she gripped the wall plating and pushed it up over her head. As this object obscured what little light there was, she couldn’t tell who was underneath. Taking a deep breath, Briar hoisted the plating away from her, praying she wasn’t injuring anyone or making anything worse.
The plating floated, flipped twice as if in slow motion, and landed five meters away from her. Relieved, Briar returned her focus on the person at her feet. They were wearing half of a protective suit—jacket, hood, and mask. The mask was securely in place, and Briar crawled up along the person and peered through the visor.
Adina’s pale face made Briar whimper. Pale and so very still, the woman she loved was unconscious, and Briar had no idea what injuries she’d sustained.
“Ah.” The pain-filled voice made Briar jump, but it didn’t originate from Adina. She looked around her, frantic for the chance to get some assistance. Farther toward the blast site, a man in a black, long jacket sat up, holding his temple. “Fuck.”
Hadler Tylio. Suddenly so angry she could hardly speak, Briar was ready to kick his teeth in. “Mr. Tylio. Sir. Are you all right?” she asked, forcing herself to sound polite.
“Who’s there? Hello?” Hadler Tylio squinted toward Briar.
“I’m Nurse Lindemay. Commander Vantressa is badly hurt. Can you assist me?”
“Assist you?” Hadler sounded nonplussed. “Are you joking? I’m the president’s spouse, and your first priority should be to rescue me and help me back to the presidential quarters.” He began moving toward her on hands and knees.
“Don’t do it that way, sir. You’ll end up cutting yourself or coming in contact with whatever agent was used to cause the explosion.”
“Lindemay?” Hadler stopped suddenly, only about two meters from her now. “You’re the sister of that changer. I recognize you.” He pulled his upper lips into an ugly grimace. “Just my luck to be dependent on the woman whose sister brought all this mayhem down on us. You heard her threaten me. And when my team took care of all the fucking blue-floored tunnels, she arranged for this to happen here.” He spat the words.
Briar couldn’t believe how much venom could exist in one person. As she had her mind wide open still, she felt all his hatred and fear permeate her to the core. Appalled to find out what kind of man the president was living with, Briar slammed her mind shut. It still took her a few moments to cleanse her soul from the onslaught. “Listen, sir. I’m well aware of who you are, but as a nurse, I’m obligated to treat and help the person who needs me the most. You’re alert and communicating, that’s excellent, but that also means I need to focus on the commander. And I require you to help me.”
“Clearly you’re out of your mind.” Hadler shifted to the left. “If anything, I need to go farther down the corridor, to make sure my, um, associate is all right.”
“Farther down, they should be all right, possibly evacuated. I urge you not to go down there as the debris can be harmful.” Fed up with this man, Briar tore off her gloves and pressed her fingers to the pulse point on Adina’s neck. Her heartbeat was too fast but stronger than Briar had dared to hope. She bent down and placed her visor against Adina’s right ear. “Adina. It’s me. It’s Briar. I’ve come for you, like I promised. No matter what happens, I’ll do everything to help you, to keep you safe. But I need you to look at me. Can you do that? Please?” She carefully examined Adina’s arms and legs with a universal medical scanner, relieved not to find any fractures or arterial bleeding. She engaged her communicator. “Briar to Korrian.”
“Korrian here.”
“I’m in section one with Adina and Mr. Tylio. Adina is unconscious but stable at the moment. Mr. Tylio is—”
“Damn. My hand’s bleeding,” Hadler called out, as if reading her mind. “Unless the commander is hemorrhaging, shouldn’t you make sure I’m taken care of?” Leaning against a column in the center of the corridor, he was shaking now.
“Hang on, Korrian. I’m leaving my channel open.” Crawling through the debris, she tried to be careful. “I’m coming. Stay still.” Briar reached the now sickly pale man. She cursed inwardly at the stupid man who couldn’t just do as she said and remain where he was in the first place. “Let me see.”
Pulling out the scanner again, she ran it over his bleeding palm. As the machine began to beep insistently, Briar winced and put on her gloves again. “Sir. Remain very still. I need to help you clean that up.”
“What the hell’s going on?” Hadler slurred his words now. “I’m all dizzy.”
“You’ve cut yourself on a piece of debris contaminated with some of the explosive agent. I can’t tell you what it’s made of, but since they used white garnet last time, we need to take the necessary precautions—”
“It hurts like hell.” Hadler was gray now. “Like fire.”
Digging into the EM-kits, Briar found a thick syringe with the neutralizing compound. If whatever he had touched had permeated his tissues and entered the bloodstream, it was a matter of seconds. It wouldn’t be enough to dip or rinse his hand in the neutralizer. She would have to administer it intravenously.
“Listen to me. It’s important that you don’t move. Sit perfectly still. I’m going to give you a shot, and hopefully that will help with the pain and keep you going until the medics get here.”
“A shot?” Hadler stuttered and glanced quickly her way as she ripped open the packaging and produced an infuser. She pressed the neutralizer from the syringe into the infuser and shoved it against Hadler’s carotid on his left side. Briar had only performed this task twice before, under the supervision of the head nurse. Now, the presidential spouse’s life hung in the balance.
Briar pressed the sensor on the infuser, and the content rushed into Hadler’s artery with a hissing sound. He cried out, jerked, and fell toward her. Briar caught him and carefully eased him down onto his side. She tore off the lid of one of the EM-kits and placed it under his head. “Lie still.” She glanced over at Adina and made sure she was breathing. “Korrian? You still there?” she asked into her communicator.
“I’m here.” Korrian’s voice was hollow. “You did the right thing. I’m told the medics have begun making their way down your corridor. Just sit tight and make sure your patients breathe. That’s all you can do.”
“What’s wrong
?” Briar’s heart impossibly picked up speed, and each beat hurt her ribs. “I can tell something else is wrong.” Korrian, formidable and a living legend, sounded as if her will to live was in jeopardy.
“It’s Meija.”
Chapter Eighteen
Briar whimpered and gripped the opened EM-kit hard. “What happened?”
“She…um…she was on her way here, and a secondary explosion took out the ventilation duct by the main entrance to the governmental units.” Korrian sounded dazed and then grew quiet.
“How is she?” Briar’s breath trembled as she wanted to just give up and cry. “Please.”
“She’s alive, but they told me she’s been impaled.”
“Creator of everything.” Briar couldn’t take being this remote and the whole damn ship falling apart around her. Doing what came increasingly more natural, she opened her mind to Korrian. The fear and rage pouring toward her were hardly surprising, but they weren’t the only emotions reaching Briar. From somewhere else, a slow-glowing steady wave of love and reassurance washed over her, and without thinking, she relayed it to Korrian.
“Briar?” Korrian whispered huskily. “What the hell’s going on? I can feel her. Oh, no. Is she gone?” Fear soared again, but Briar met it with more of Meija’s love, using herself as a conduit to soothe Korrian’s pain and thus calming Meija. She sensed some of Meija’s physical agony, but it was slowly receding, and Briar guessed the medics had given her something for the pain.
“She’s there, and she wants you to know she’s hanging on.” Briar spoke softly. “Can you feel her?”
“Yes.” Korrian’s voice held tears that Briar knew the older woman wouldn’t let fall while still performing her duty. Tears would come later.
“Her pain is lessening,” Briar said as she monitored her patient’s breathing. She could feel the all-overshadowing love Meija harbored for Korrian with every breath the chief anthropologist took. Sharpening her senses, Briar felt, rather than heard, scattered words. “She says she’s been through worse.” As she ran a rudimentary scanner that came with the basic EM-kits over Adina, she was aware her breathing was more shallow now.
“Meija would say that.” Korrian sighed. “You and she are very alike in many ways. She too has risked her life for strangers without even stopping to think. I believe that’s why she’s so adamant that we protect you and Caya. She’s found a kindred spirit in you, Briar.”
“I feel she’s being moved now. I would bet they’re taking her to the hospital.” Briar agreed with Korrian’s deduction when it came to Meija’s attitude toward her. She had felt it from the beginning, even if Meija never spelled it out.
“I need to call the medics’ coordinator on another communicator. Keep this line open. You should have people approaching soon.”
“Yes, do that. Check on her, please.” Briar registered the status of her own patients and now worried about Hadler’s breathing as well. Each new breath sounded wetter, which told her his lungs were becoming filled with fluids. Running the scanner again, she saw that his heart rate was increasing. “Hey, Mr. Tylio, if you’re going to make a fool of yourself by acting like you do in public, you have to be alive to do so.” She increased the oxygen to maximum, which was a last resort. This meant she had nothing else to amp up the treatment if his condition worsened further.
“Briar? Turn on your light if it works. Briar!” A voice on her communicator that she immediately recognized as Dodgmer’s made her jump. With hands that shook, she managed to get ahold of her light and set it to flicker. This would make it easier to distinguish her in the hazy air. “Be careful, Lieutenant,” she said. “Lot of sharp edges, and many are coated with an unknown chemical compound. I have two injured: Commander Vantressa and the president’s spouse.”
“I hear you, Briar. You should be able to see our light soon.”
She squinted into the mist-filled darkness at the other end of the corridor. After a few moments, she saw muted light, looking more like distant moonlight than high-powered portable light.
As Briar turned back to Adina and Tylio, Adina coughed sharply twice and groaned. “Fuck…”
“Adina!” Briar checked her vital signs. Adina had shifted and now she could scan her left side. Cringing at the injuries her readings revealed, Briar wished she could give Adina pain relief for the broken ribs but couldn’t because of her head injury. Examining Adina’s scalp again, Briar judged the bump wasn’t the worst she’d ever seen, nor was the skin broken. This didn’t necessarily correlate with potential brain damage. She knew that too.
“I see you now, Briar,” Dodgmer said in her communicator. “Any other injured on this level?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t been able to leave these two and search the perimeter,” Briar said. “Just hurry, Lieutenant. We need to transport both of them to cube eleven. They require specialized care. Especially Mr. Tylio.”
Debris moved next to her and then Dodgmer was there, kneeling next to her. Briar was so relieved to see him she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him despite his protective gear. “Thank the Creator,” Briar said, her breath exploding as if she’d held it for a long time.
Adina interrupted them by coughing sharply again, and then what was left of her color drained from her cheeks.
“Shit.” Briar scanned her quickly. “All right. She’s now the first priority. One of her broken ribs just tore a hole in her lung tissue. She needs a thoracic surgeon. Or any surgeon who can attach a chest tube until we fix the fractures and get our hands on a deep-tissue fuser.”
“Scoop and go, people,” Dodgmer said and moved to let two ensigns with gurneys forward. “The commander first. Asshole…ah. Hmm. Mr. Tylio second.”
“He cannot be touched without protective gear. It’s important you relay this fact to the medical professionals, all right?” Briar struggled to get on her feet but found she could barely move. She’d been crouched over in the same position for a long time, and now, after everything else that had happened during the last few days, her body had decided to go on strike. “Dodgmer, I think I need help.”
“I can tell. Don’t worry about it.” He lifted her up the same way Adina had—oh, my, was it only a day ago?—and carried her steadily through the corridor.
“You should put me down,” Briar whispered, but clung to his broad neck. “We should hurry.”
“We are. We have an EM-jumper ready at the end of the corridor.”
The EM-jumpers were able to use the tunnels as well as maneuver through the narrow corridors on Pathfinder at great speed when necessary. “That’s good,” Briar murmured. She hated feeling weak like this, but she’d exerted herself physically as well as mentally and couldn’t do anything about that now.
They reached the end of the corridor, and Dodgmer pushed his way through the large group of security and law-enforcement officers, then stepped into the EM-jumper. Adina and the president’s husband were already strapped in, and now Dodgmer placed Briar on a seat behind Adina’s head. The EM-jumper launched as soon as she was strapped in, pressing her sideways in her seat.
Dodgmer motioned toward Adina and looked down at his commanding officer with a stalwart expression. “She’s tough. She’ll pull through if she has something to fight for. At times in the past I saw her be careless with herself. Only when she realized how much she loved her job did she find something to truly live for. Lately, I’ve seen a shift in her focus. Her work matters a lot still, but her true motivation is you. You know that, right?”
“I do.” Briar cupped Adina’s cheeks from above. She wanted to kiss her damp forehead, but that would have to wait. Instead, Briar tried to open her mind to Adina’s. She sensed only thick mist, not entirely unpleasant, but it gave her a feeling of being lost and not sure where to turn. “Adina. Please, wake up. I know you can hear me. Follow my voice and wake up. We all want you back with us. Please. Please.” Her tears fell into her mask.
Slapping her communicator, Briar paged Caya. “It’s me. I’m safe
and escorting Adina to the hospital. She’s injured.”
“Oh, no. How is she?” Caya asked, her voice husky. “Will she be all right?”
“Dodgmer’s here. He’s certain of it. I choose to trust him. I can’t do anything else.”
“Briar, this is the pres—this is Thea. I’m sorry about the commander. I have to ask. Did you find Hadler?”
“I did. He’s in a bad way, but he’s alive. His system has been compromised with the chemicals they used. I managed to infuse him with an antidote, but I’m not sure I was fast enough. I’m so sorry.”
“You went beyond the call of duty, Briar. Nobody can fault you in any way for the courage you showed today.” Tylio cleared her voice. “As soon as the presidential guards give me the all-clear, we’ll join you at the hospital. In the meantime I have quite a few briefings to listen to.”
“Thea, wait. Promise me you won’t leave Caya there alone. Please?” Briar clenched her hands.
A moment passed and then the president spoke in a low voice. “You have my word. Now, here’s your sister again.”
A rustling noise was followed by Caya’s soft voice. “Did you realize you had us kind of connected? I could sense you so clearly when you were working your way to Adina, and that certainly wasn’t my doing,” she said. “I’m not sure if anyone else felt you like I did, but that’s how I knew you were alive. At one point, I felt you reach out to Korrian and Meija. Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”
“Meija was injured in transit. As soon as I know what’s going on with Adina, I’ll go find Korrian. She shouldn’t be on her own if Meija is hurt.” Briar was amazed that she could have projected her experience to her sister, but as they were so close and of the same family, perhaps that was how this worked? Briar drew a trembling breath.
