The Solar Wind

by Laura E. Collins

  Kaden and his crewmember, Torian, rented some work space in the lower levels of Sceptrum to complete their project. Kaden preferred to work with Torian on this one because of his welding skills and experience as an electrician. Torian was also extremely competent at repairing the Draconis, when needed.

  “This should be it. Now all we have to do is assemble everything,” Torian explained to Kaden as he set another plastic crate filled with supplies on their workstation.

  “How long?”

  “A day or two.”

  “Perfect.” Kaden laughed heartily as Torian began to unpack the crate. Suddenly the two men looked up as they sensed someone was approaching them.

  “What the hell do you want?” Kaden growled as a brown haired, blue eyed man suddenly appeared out of thin air in front of them.

  “Thought I smelled, I mean, sensed that the two of you were down here,” Bryant replied cordially, eying the two men while keeping his distance in the dimly lit room.

  “You’re not very smart are you? Did he hire you to locate me? Otherwise why else would you be stupid enough to stand in my presence?” Kaden stood up to his full height, ready to attack this unexpected visitor.

  “Hey, take it easy. Robinson would be the last person I would work for. I hold him responsible for my wife’s death. He deserves whatever you are working on here.” He moved swiftly around the other side of the large table opposite Kaden and picked up one of the small parts and studied it briefly before putting it down. Kaden’s patience began to wear very thin with this nosy uninvited guest.

  “You have about two seconds to get out of here before you join your wife, bounty hunter.”

  “No problem. I was just passing through. Carry on.” With that he vanished, leaving Kaden and Torian standing for a few minutes waiting to sense that Bryant had left before starting back up at working on their project.

  Bryant chose a discreet dark corner with no one around to materialize again. Bryant was no fool. He feared Kaden and his crew because he knew what they were capable of. He had searched everywhere tirelessly for his target and had come up with nothing. He wanted to interact with Kaden and Torian to find out if he could sense his target on them. Again, no luck. It was worth a shot, he thought to himself. Bryant could see for himself exactly what this monster and his sidekick were up to from the brief look he was able to get at the workstation. He wondered if he would be able to carry out his own plan before Kaden carried out his. Bryant walked swiftly to the lifts, ready to get back to the hangar to move on to the next station in search of who seemed to be the hardest person of his kind to find. Back on the main level he paused for a drink at one of the bars. He stopped dead just before leaving the place, that voice! He could not mistake it. One of Geodesic’s songs was being streamed into the bar. Finally, Bryant had his lead, now it was only a matter of time.

  Chapter 18: Investigation

  Ava’s experience after the kickboxing class with Elaine concerned her. The on and off again discomfort in her left leg plagued her mind. All in all she felt wonderful, in fact, invigorated since she recovered from the virus. The only thing that didn’t feel normal was her leg. She decided it was time to have it checked out. The next day Ava made an appointment with one of the orthopedic doctors of the OMC. Luckily, they had a cancellation and were able to fit her in right after work.

  She sat in the waiting room, filling out the electronic forms easily before her appointment with Dr. Alanis, the orthopedic surgeon she sometimes referred her patients to. Ava always liked Dr. Alanis, a man with a large stocky build in his fifties. She had only met him in person a few times in passing at the clinic and often described him to her patients as a happy, jolly man. Her patient’s often concurred with her opinion on their return visits with her after being treated by him. After a short wait, a medical assistant called her back to one of the exam rooms to take the history.

  “What can we help you with today Ms. Amherst?”

  Ava didn’t really know where to begin. Should she tell them what she knew of her injury, or let them figure it out? She decided to keep her explanation brief.

  “I recently started a kickboxing class with my friend and I have noticed a dull ache in my left leg after class over the past few weeks. I was wondering if something was wrong.”

  “Have you experienced any redness or swelling?”

  “No.”

  “How bad is the pain, on a scale of one to ten?”

  “About a three. It’s not bad.”

  “When does it happen? During the class or afterwards.”

  “Usually at the end of class, and my leg kind of aches while I am walking home.”

  “And this has only gone on since you started the class a few weeks ago?”

  “Yes.” She decided to leave her previous injury out of the explanation.

  “Okay, let’s take a digital X-Ray of your leg and then the doctor will be in.”

  The medical assistant led Ava down the hall where she sat on a small machine with her left leg outstretched in front of her. After she was positioned properly the assistant hit a button on the computer and a green laser-beam like light scanned her leg. The medical assistant then had Ava position her leg for a side view and scanned again. The assistant didn’t say anything about the X-Ray as she led Ava back to the exam room. She turned on the computer in the room and pulled up Ava’s chart and secured it for use for the doctor, when he came in.

  Ava felt as though she had been waiting for years before Dr. Alanis arrived. It was still hard for her to sit still without fidgeting.

  “Hello Ava.”

  “Hi Dr. Alanis.”

  They chatted for a minute or two before he got down to business. “So you’ve been having a little pain in the leg?”

  “Just a little.”

  “Let’s take a look.” Dr. Alanis asked Ava many of the same questions that the medical assistant did while he palpated her left leg and moved it through the normal range of motion, assessing for pain. “Seems like your discomfort is more when you are bearing weight on it, right?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Everything feels normal. Let’s look at your X-Ray.”

  Dr. Alanis pulled up the images on the computer screen and enlarged them so that they could take a good look. Ava did not regularly read X-Rays, but could clearly see a small thin line on her tibia, the strongest bone in her lower leg.

  “I don’t see anything new. This old fracture here has healed quite well.” He used a small stylus to point to the small line on the image.

  Fracture? Ava didn’t know what to say. She never had any broken bones that she could recall in her life. She stared at the image with her mouth slightly open.

  “Is this where you are aching?”

  “I think so,” Ava replied numbly, still staring at the image.

  “Sometimes when a bone is broken you can still experience some soreness months to years later. Looks like it was a nice clean break. I can tell you that who-ever set this leg did a perfect job. It’s healed so well it’s probably a few years old, am I right?”

  “Right.” She didn’t know what else to say.

  “I don’t see any evidence of any new fractures or injuries. I would recommend that you take it easy on the leg. You may want to post-pone that kickboxing class for a while. If the soreness is troubling for you I can prescribe you an anti-inflammatory medicine that you can take for a while. It might calm it down, but I think this is something that will lessen for you with time.”

  “Thank you Dr. Alanis. I don’t think I want any medicine. I can let you know if it gets worse.”

  “I think that’s a good plan. Let me know if you have any more questions or if the pain continues.”

  “I will. Thank you Dr. Alanis.”

  “Good seeing you Ava, take care.”

  Ava sat on the exam table for a few minutes before putting her shoes back on. Although she felt stunned, her mind raced. A broken leg? None of this made sense, but she had seen the proof with
her own eyes. Slowly she rose from the exam table and walked quietly out the door of the room, and then the clinic, barely glancing at the receptionist as she left. Ava proceeded out of the OMC and down to the Square where she sat down on one of the public benches. The droplet precautions had been lifted the day before as no more cases of the virus had been reported since the two patients after her had died.

  What could this mean? Ava kept seeing the X-Ray in her mind. She knew the only injury she had ever had to her leg was from the incident on E.S. #1. What if her “twisted leg” had been more than that, she wondered. How could that be? She closed her eyes and thought hard about that terrible night. The memory was the same. She remembered the fall, hitting her head but it didn’t seem right. Something was missing. But what? What if her leg had been broken on that disintegrating space station? How could a break like that have healed so quickly? She remembered waking up, seeing Wesley sitting at the side of her bed, looking exhausted. She remembered her leg aching, then getting up and walking directly to the small shower in her quarters, standing the whole time, rinsing the dust and debris from her body.

  Ava opened her eyes and looked around the Square. She saw Fruition, the café where she met Wesley and Naomi for the first time. She remembered how she had fainted and they came to her aid. How kind they were to her. She smiled at the memory. How lonely she had been then. She realized that she felt lonely now. Lonely and lost. Then, she remembered something, something she had forgotten. She recalled the faint electric sensation she had felt when she touched Wesley and any of the other crew members. She no-longer sensed it when he touched her, not since Valentine’s Day. Ava’s mind began to wander again. She knew that sensing electricity was not normal when touching other people, yet she had dismissed it over and over again. Wesley had given her an explanation, but was it realistic? Why did she believe it? Had she been too naïve to realize what was happening? She reasoned that it was because she wanted more than anything to have them for her friends, because she felt she belonged with them. Then, why would the sensation disappear suddenly. Wesley’s explanation centered on the idea that it was static from space travel. Weren’t they always travelling? Why would she abruptly quit noticing the sensation. This didn’t make any sense either.

  Ava’s mind moved swiftly through her relationship with Wesley. She loved him intensely, more than anything. She trusted him more than she had ever trusted anyone, but now there were three things that needed explaining. One, she wanted to find out why she had felt static electricity when they touched, but no longer sensed it. Two, she wanted to know what really happened with her leg on E.S. #1. She knew with a great degree of certainty that this is where the break occurred, but what she didn’t understand was how it could have healed so quickly, especially in the middle of no-where with no medical intervention. And three, why did she feel so fantastic after recovering from the virus? She had energy and strength she had never known before. As Dr. Tom pointed out, the only difference in treatment of all the cases was her blood transfusion from Justin. Ava did not believe in aliens or weird forms of extraterrestrial life, but what she did hypothesize was that the things that had happened to her had no reasonable explanation. She would press Wesley for these answers when he returned, she just needed to wait and find the right opportunity. She hoped that she was not just being paranoid.

  Kaden and Torian followed the loader Tuesday morning as it transferred their newly packed crate onto their chosen cargo ship, bound for Orionis the same day. Kaden could hardly harness his excitement for the execution of his plan, so much so that he brushed off the incident with Bryant. Now that he was this close to getting even with Wesley he could take no chances for it to be ruined now. He decided to accompany his precious crate while it was “shipped” to Orionis by a different vessel than his own. The rest of his crew besides Torian remained on Sceptrum to finish repairing The Draconis after Wesley’s last assault. He knew that Wesley and the others would be on the alert for him, however he was quite certain that they would never see this coming. Darius, Cassidy, and Ranieri would stay with the Draconis until he and Torian completed their mission and flew back to Sceptrum just in time to miss the excitement.

  Chapter 19: Something’s Wrong

  Ava felt the day drag by on Wednesday. Now that she had decided that some things were wrong either with herself or with Wesley and the others, she had difficulty concentrating at work. The possibility that Wesley had not been honest with her on several different issues bothered her the most. She could feel her anger beginning to build. Ava coached herself to take a few deep breaths to try and calm down the everlasting energy she now seemed to have. She loved Wesley, she sensed that he loved her truly too. He had made promises to her that he would never hurt her and now it seemed as though he had in some way. Ava had never lied to Wesley about anything, that sort of thing was not in her nature. She needed to focus on how she would approach him. Where should she begin?

  “Ava,” a familiar voice pulled her away from her thoughts. She looked up from her desk and saw Dr. Tom looking down at her.

  “Hello Dr. Tom,” she said as if it were a reflex. She didn’t appreciate being separated from her strategic thoughts. She looked up at him with her attempt at an effortless friendly smile. “How are you?”

  “I’m busy as always, I hope I didn’t disturb you.” He must have sensed her frustration.

  “No, no. Of course not.” She began to calm down, realizing she was needlessly stressing out for no reason at the moment. Wesley wouldn’t even be back until Friday night.

  “I wanted to stop by to see how you were feeling. I saw you cancelled your second follow up visit.”

  “Yes, I did. Sorry about that. I’m doing okay,” she stretched the truth a little on that one. “Things have been a little crazy at work lately.”

  “Yes, I know. It seems now that the virus has virtually disappeared off of the station we’ve been plagued with a variety of other strange things.” He smiled casually at her.

  “You haven’t had any new cases of the virus?”

  “Not for a few weeks now, thank goodness. Although, I hear that Capri has had a case that sounds very similar. A colleague of mine contacted me about it, looking for ideas on how to treat it.”

  “That’s terrible. I hope it’s not the same thing.” She shivered slightly as she recalled how awful she felt when she was in its grip, before the transfusion.

  “Ava, I wanted to ask you again if you could convince Mr. Gaines to allow us to test his blood to try and find a cure for this thing.”

  “Dr. Tom, I know how important this is to you. It would be a breakthrough I know. However, at this point, I think that it is out of the question. Justin only went through the testing and transfusion to help me out. I’ve already asked him and he has declined. I don’t know what else to say.”

  “What about you Ava?”

  “I’m really not interested, besides, you already have tested me. What else do you want me to do?” She didn’t mean to sound annoyed, but that’s how it came out.

  “I’ve noticed that you seem somewhat different since that transfusion.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your mood for one thing. It’s almost bi-polar. One minute you seem delightfully happy and the next, like now, you seem like you’ve hit rock bottom.”

  “I have a lot on my plate right now.” She turned slightly away from him.

  “I don’t doubt that, but perhaps I can help you sort things out. . . over dinner maybe. I’ll be finished here in a little over an hour. What do you say?”

  What was that? Did he actually ask her out? She remembered when he first started in the clinic that he seemed flirty with her, but all of that died down when she did not return the effort. He was a good man, and she was grateful for his care during her illness, however she had no interest, despite her current uncertainties regarding Wesley.

  “No thank you Dr. Tom. I appreciate your concern, but I’m fine, and you forget, I’m in a relationship, yo
u remember my boyfriend, Captain Robinson?”

  “Your boyfriend that’s never around? Ava I am not trying to pressure you, but only offer you some friendly advice. What kind of a relationship is it if you only see each other on the weekends?” His voice was calm and gentle.

  Ava could not hold the anxious energy building from within any more. She ignored his last irritating comment. “I am not interested. Do you understand?” She said the words slowly and firmly. Her eyes burned with contempt as she looked at him. The look on his face turned from hopefulness to disappointment.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you Ava. You’ve certainly been through enough. I shall bother you no more.”

  Ava didn’t respond, but watched him as he slowly walked away. She turned back to her computer. Two more patients and then she’d be done for the day. She focused on taking a few deep breaths and calming herself down before it was time to get started. She bolted out of the clinic when she closed the last chart.

  Ava felt too worked up to go home right away. She couldn’t go to the gym either, as Dr. Alanis had warned her to take it easy on her leg, which was now feeling much better. She decided to take the tram to the lifts and make her way down to Infinity on Level 9. Might as well get some shopping done, she thought. Since being released from the hospital she had been eating a lot more than usual, creating the need to visit the grocery store more often.