Embracing Oblivion: Wolfpack Book 3

by Toby Neighbors

  “Is this working, Owens?” Dean demanded. “I’ve got it hooked up, but nothing happened, over.”

  “I’m activating the emergency oxygen supply now, standby.”

  Dean waited. There was no atmosphere inside the shuttle, even though the hatch had finally closed and sealed. Dean couldn’t hear the hiss of air rushing through the plastic tubing and into Esma’s space suit.

  “It should be working, Captain,” Lieutenant Owens said. “Give it a minute to fill her helmet, but the positive pressure should feed into her lungs, over.”

  Dean watched with a sense of fear he’d never felt in his life. His feelings for Esma were strong, but it wasn’t just his affection for her that made him feel so helpless. Dean had no illusions about living a safe life as Recon officer. He was the front of the line, the first in the fight, the tip of the spear. Danger was a part of his life and he didn’t mind facing it. He believed in the mission of OWFR, and felt that even if he died he was making a difference to his race. But the hardest part of his job as a Force Recon platoon leader was watching the people under his command die. Esma wasn’t technically under his command, but he felt responsible for her just the same. He should have made her move to the alien ship as soon as they found breathable air. His decision, or rather lack of decision, was the reason Esma was teetering on the edge of death.

  “She’s not breathing,” Harper said. “I can’t see her chest moving.”

  “We can’t take her out of the suit,” Tallgrass warned. “There’s no atmo in this shuttle.”

  Dean lifted Esma’s body, which was easily done without gravity to hold her down. He was careful not to pull her too far away from the seat so that the tubing didn’t get pulled loose from the node on her helmet. He wrapped one arm around her stomach, the other around her chest, then he squeezed. He tried to be gentle, yet firm enough that his efforts weren’t wasted on just the thick insulation of her space suit.

  “She looks pale,” Wilson said.

  “Damn, you think her heart stopped?” Chavez said.

  “There’s no way to know,” Dean said, continuing his efforts. “Her suit doesn’t read vitals like our armor.”

  “How long until we get back to the ship?” Ghost asked.

  “Lieutenant,” Dean said, “what’s our ETA, over?”

  “An hour,” Owens said. “If we don’t run into trouble. There’s still a lot of debris out there and I don’t have radar on this drone. It’s strictly a civilian space craft. We’re using the shuttle’s cameras to give us a composite image of surrounding space, but we have to take things slow and careful. I launched as soon as I had confirmation that you were alive after crashing into the alien ship. Took us two hours to travel from the space station to our position, and we barely made it to you in time, over.”

  Dean switched back to his platoon channel. “At least an hour.”

  “And no atmo in the shuttle that whole time?” Harper asked.

  “There isn’t enough oxygen in the reserves to fill the shuttle,” Dean said. “If this doesn’t work, she’ll die.”

  He kept squeezing and releasing Esma, silently praying that she would come around. He was wracked with guilt, and worry, but being able to physically help, to actually wrap his arms around the woman he loved and help her breathe, was exponentially better than watching helplessly.

  “You sure she’s breathing?” Kliner asked.

  “Lieutenant Owens said the emergency oxygen would create positive pressure that should fill her lungs,” Dean said. “All we can do now is hope it’s enough.”

  Two minutes passed with no signs of life from Captain Dante. Dean wished he could see her face, but he was behind her, the rest of his platoon crowding in close and watching for anything that might give them a glimmer of hope.

  “That’s a shitty way to go,” Chavez said. “We face aliens, risk all the danger, and she runs out of O2.”

  “At least she isn’t suffering,” Tallgrass said.

  “She’s going to make it,” Dean insisted, but there was no real conviction in his voice.

  “If we keep breathing for her all the way back, you think they can revive her on the ship?” Wilson asked.

  “We have to hope,” Dean said.

  Then, without warning, he felt a little jerk. None of the others saw it. The movement, inside the thick space suit, wasn’t noticeable and Dean couldn’t be sure what he had felt. Hope sprang to life like a tiny flame growing from a spark, but he knew it could have simply been a muscle spasm or reflexive tick. He wasn’t raised on a farm, but he’d heard of chickens running around after their heads had been cut off. Then he felt it again, and he eased his pressure on Esma’s chest.

  “Was that movement?” Chavez asked.

  “She’s breathing!” Harper shouted.

  “Holy shit,” Adkins said. “That was too damn close.”

  “She’s not out of the woods yet,” Tallgrass said. “There could be residual damage from lack of oxygen.”

  “But we’ve got to hope, right?” Wilson asked.

  “That’s right,” Dean said, lowering Esma into the plush seat of the shuttle.

  He could see her chest rising and falling, but her eyes remained closed.

  “We’ll take turns watching her. Two people at all times,” Dean ordered. “Adkins and I will take the first shift. Everyone else spread out through the shuttle. Lieutenant Owens needs eyes all around this craft.”

  It took Dean a minute to connect the open channel to the platoon frequency so that everyone could communicate directly with Lieutenant Owens on the Charlemagne. He suddenly felt exhausted, the searing pain in his hip where the laser blast had burned through his armor was agonizing and made it hard to concentrate, but watching Esma breathing made him forget everything else. She was going to live, he was certain of that. And he wanted to be the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes again.

  Chapter 15

  It took longer than an hour to return to the spaceship. Three times Lieutenant Owens had to change their trajectory to avoid debris from the alien vessel. Dean stayed with Esma the entire time, his hope slowly dwindling with each passing minute. She was breathing, he could see her chest rise and fall, but her eyes never opened.

  When the shuttle finally settled into the small hangar bay, Dean and Chavez rushed Esma through the long shaft and into the Charlemagne’s spinning personnel area that looked like a giant wheel. The false sense of gravity hit Dean like a sledge hammer. The pain in his hip exploded with every heavy, lumbering step, and Esma felt as if she weighed three hundred pounds. He didn’t stop, forcing himself forward and ignoring Chavez’s wisecracks as they rushed Esma to the med bay.

  The Charlemagne didn’t have a doctor, just med tech that also served in the galley preparing food when he wasn’t needed in the medical bay. Dean helped get Esma out of the bulky space suit and watched impatiently as the tech placed several sticky probes on her chest, arms, and head.

  “Pulse ox is good,” the tech said. “Heart rate, blood pressure, all in the normal range. Was she injured at all?”

  “No,” Dean said. “She just ran out of O2 before we were evacuated from the alien ship.”

  “We’ll have to keep an eye on her. How long was she out?”

  “She’s been unconscious nearly two hours,” Dean said.

  “How long was she without oxygen?”

  “I’m not sure, she was sluggish when we first saw the drone coming for us, and unconscious before we were rescued. I’d say three, maybe four minutes.”

  “Well,” the tech looked skeptical, “Five minutes is the longest the brain can go without oxygen before its damaged, but sometimes that number is shorter. I’ll get the EEG hooked up and we’ll see what it says. Otherwise we’ll just have to wait.”

  “There’s nothing more you can do for her?” Dean asked.

  “Unfortunately not,” the tech said. “Any kind of oxygen deprivation can cause damage, and there’s no treatment or cure. She’ll either wake up or she w
on’t.”

  “What are you saying?” Dean snarled, lurching to his feet and ignoring the pain in his hip. “That’s she going to die? That after all we did there’s nothing anyone can do for her?”

  “Captain, please,” Chavez pleaded.

  The tech held up his hands in a placating gesture. “We’re taking care of her, sir. I’ll do all I can, I promise. In the meantime, would you let me take a look at your injury?”

  “It’s nothing, just a burn.”

  “Well, I can help you, if you’ll let me.”

  “Of course he’ll let you,” Chavez said. “We’ll go and get this armor off, then I’ll escort him back here myself.”

  “I don’t need a babysitter, Staff Sergeant,” Dean said.

  “Never entered my mind that you did, Captain, but the entire platoon wants to make sure Captain Dante pulls through. Come on, now, let me help you get that armor off.”

  Dean didn’t want help. He was hurting, but he hated to show any kind of weakness. Logically he knew the human body, even the strongest, needed rest and care. But his emotions rejected the idea that he wasn’t as strong or as tough as the next Recon officer. Still, he couldn’t keep from limping as he and Chavez made their way back to the ready room.

  His wrist link buzzed before he had time to hook his TCU up to the charging pod. He glanced down and saw that he was wanted on the ship’s bridge. He pulled off this armor and Chavez looked at the burn.

  “Third degree,” he said grimly. “It’s going to take some attention, sir.”

  “No time for that now,” Dean said. “I’m needed on the bridge. You make sure everyone’s armor gets a full download onto the ship’s databank. The vid feed from that mission is invaluable to EsDef.”

  “I’ll see to it,” Chavez said. “But you should really see the med tech first thing.”

  Dean snatched up a gauze pad and a tube of antibacterial cream with an analgesic. He squirted a generous amount onto the gauze and placed it gently over the burn, which was nearly an inch wide and burned all the way across his hip. A few strips of tape held the pad in place and Dean pulled on the loose fitting utility fatigues. He needed a shower, food, sleep, and medical attention, but he would report to the bridge first.

  “Everyone gets grub and rest,” Dean ordered. “At least eight hours. Then we clean every inch of this armor. Chavez, get my boot that was covered in the goo that creature spit at us and seal it up in a bio capsule. The geeks back at EsDef will want to examine it.”

  “Yes sir, Captain.”

  Dean limped down to the bridge. The anesthesia in the cream took the edge off his burn as long as it didn’t rub too harshly against the fabric of his fatigues. Dean knew third degree burns were bad, but he also remembered that they burned through the nerve endings so that the victim didn’t feel the pain of the burn. Dean was in plenty of pain. He told himself that was a good sign, and did his best to ignore it.

  The doors to the bridge swished open and Dean saw immediately that Vice Admiral Duncan had been at his station for countless hours, probably longer than the mission took, but certainly while Dean’s platoon had been active away from the ship. There were others in the room as well, the Communications and Navigations Officers were both at their stations. VA Duncan looked up and waved Dean over to his command chair.

  “Good to see you all made it back, Captain,” Duncan said. “What’s the latest on Captain Dante?”

  “She’s in the med bay, unconscious. Her vitals are good, but the med tech is running tests to see if she suffered brain trauma,” the words nearly stuck in Dean’s throat and made his eyes burn.

  “You did all you could out there, Captain. I’m guessing the breakup of the alien vessel had something to do with you?”

  “In all fairness, sir, you’re probably right.”

  “You mind filling me in. I’ll watch the vid feed once it’s uploaded, but you could hit the highlights for me.”

  “We made our way into the ship,” Dean said. “It was sealed with the same gelatinous material that was used to hold the Roosevelt to their ship. I think it’s a key component to their technology. They seem to have complete control over it.”

  “You have evidence to back that up?” Duncan asked.

  “Yes sir. The interior of their ship, past the goo, was pressurized with breathable air. We moved past what looked like holding cells, much the same as the area where the crew of the Roosevelt was held. Eventually we were attacked by more of the feline creatures, but pushed our way to the interior of the ship.”

  “And what did you find?”

  “We can’t say for certain who they were, Admiral, but I believe we saw the Kroll.”

  “You saw them?”

  “Yes sir, they attacked us as well. The center of their ship was a huge open space with a structure at the center of it. They’re avian beings. Our non-lethal ammunition was useless against them. They never came in range of our weapons.”

  “Then how did they attack?”

  “They spit the same thick fluid that binds captured ships to their vessel,” Dean went on. “I was hit in the foot, which pinned me down. We had to cut through it with thermite.”

  “That doesn’t explain how you destroyed their ship.”

  “We didn’t,” Dean said. “Harper used her AAV on the structure at the center of their ship. It was the only ordinance we had. She sent it against the central structure to give us cover for our retreat.”

  “And it blew up their ship?”

  “No, I believe they released all the captured ships as a diversion for their own escape.”

  “There’s nothing but wreckage out there,” RA Duncan said. “They didn’t escape.”

  “Sir, we felt the separation. And their artificial gravity was reduced just to the one section of the ship where the avian creatures were. I doubt we did much damage. We certainly saw no signs that we hit anything vital.”

  “But the ship came apart,” Duncan said. “You must have done something.”

  “I think we were being watched, sir. They could have left the system at any time.”

  “Frankly that’s hard to believe, Captain. Why would they stay if they had the capacity for FTL?”

  “That’s exactly my point,” Dean said. “They stayed to study us. We didn’t just surrender. I don’t know what type of information they have on us from the Urgglatta, but it seems reasonable to me that they would want to find out as much as possible.”

  “Well, that is an interesting hypothesis,” Duncan said. “Are you hurt?”

  “Not seriously sir.”

  “And the rest of your platoon?”

  “No casualties.”

  “You’ve given me enough to hold off Rear Admiral Chancy for a while. Long enough to get you some treatment before he insists on debriefing you.”

  “That sounds wonderful,” Dean said sarcastically.

  “Get checked out, grab something to eat, and meet me back here. He’ll want us to meet on his ship but to hell with that. We’ve got the most valuable intel in the entire territory. I mean to leave this system and return to Sol ASAP.”

  “That sounds wise, sir,” Dean said. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

  “See that you are, Captain.”

  Dean left the bridge and returned to the med bay. Esma was still asleep, but there were more wires connected to her body, which was covered by a thin blanket, and more machines around her.

  “Captain Blaze,” the tech said as Dean came into the room. “Good news. Her brain activity looks normal. I’m not a neurosurgeon, but I don’t think there’s any permanent damage.”

  “So why hasn’t she woken up?” Dean asked.

  “She’s been through a lot of trauma,” the tech explained. “Running out of oxygen is taxing on multiple levels. Sometimes the body shuts down to protect itself. Sometimes the shock to the mind can cause a deep mental regression. It’s not damage, just self preservation. It could just be that she’s exhausted. I’ll be administering an IV drip and mo
nitoring her vitals. You can trust that she’s getting excellent care.”

  “I’d feel better if she were awake.”

  “That’s reasonable, but a deep sleep is the most restorative state a person can be in. Her body is totally focused on healing anything that’s impaired. It’s a good thing, Captain, I promise. You mind if I take a look at you now?”

  Dean wanted to argue, but he knew he needed to get medical attention before he was scheduled to report to Rear Admiral Chancy. That would not be a fun conversation. Debriefs were the part of his job that Dean dreaded the most. To have people with no experience in the field picking apart his every decision was frustrating as hell. And Dean had no doubt that Corporal Chancy was already telling his father a lopsided report of the events.

  “That looks painful,” the tech said once Dean had removed his utility fatigues and the bandage he had hastily applied in the ready room.

  “Hurts like the devil,” Dean replied.

  “I can treat it,” the tech explained. “We have burn protocol on board. A few shots, a gel regrowth application, and light therapy. It won’t take more than twenty-four hours.”

  “It’ll have to wait. I have a debrief in forty-five minutes.”

  “The sooner we treat this the better our chances of success. It’s a deep tissue burn. Not quite third degree, but serious enough. It can get infected, Captain, I’ve seen burns get nasty if they aren’t taken care of.”

  “I’d love nothing more than to get treated, but Rear Admiral Chancy won’t wait. As soon as I’m finished there I’ll come back.”

  “Well, I’ll clean it, but it’s going to hurt.”

  “Hurts anyway. I can take it.”

  “I’ll use a local, that should help. Normally we put people under for this sort of thing.”

  “Just do what you can and get me out of here.”

  Dean laid on his side while the tech worked. He was given nearly a dozen shots around the wound, each one felt as if a giant needle was inserted straight into a nerve ending. Dean closed his eyes and clenched his teeth against the pain. He didn’t want to show weakness in front of the med tech. It wasn’t that he believed himself impervious to pain, but he didn’t want to cry over a simple shot either.