I turn as agitated shouts come from down past the hospital. The security docks. I throw the med bag over my shoulder and jog carefully through the mass of panicked people.
The crowd is thicker here and desperate. I look for my dad as I get closer to the dock and finally spot him helping one of the security apprentices limp away from the chaos. I rush toward them just as another blast hits. The concussive wave is so strong that it takes me off my feet and throws me backwards. I hit one of the support pillars, which knocks the air out of my lungs. I blink back tears and pull myself to my feet. A quick check and I don't find anything broken, so I carefully take a few steps. People that were just a minute ago up and helping the wounded have all been knocked down, creating more injuries.
I limp toward where I last saw my dad and find him lying on his side, next to the security guard he was helping.
"Dad!" I kneel down beside him. "Are you all right?"
He looks up at me. "Bren, you need to get back to the other side of the station where it's safer. The situation is worse here than I thought." He tries to sit up, but winces as his arm gives out.
I grab his good arm and help him to sit up. His arm is bleeding from a jagged cut that has a piece of metal sticking out.
"Well that's not good." I tease.
He wrinkles his nose at me. "Just pull it out quickly. I'll be fine. We need to help the others." He looks back toward the docks. One of the massive entry doors is ajar, knocked out of its hinges by the blast. It looks like a piece of crumpled tin foil. "Let's hope the emergency airlocks hold."
He flinches and narrows his eyes at me as I pull the metal quickly out of his arm.
I smile sweetly back at him.
"What are they doing to stop that ship?" I ask as I wrap his wound.
"I'm not sure. We've lost all communications."
I dig around in the med bag. "We have these. Annie gave them to me." I pull out the bulky emergency radios.
He smiles. "That should help."
"We need to get them to Clarke and his team right away." It's unnerving not knowing what's going on out there.
We check the guard next to us and find that he's unconscious now, but breathing, so we attach a yellow tag to him, and head in search of Annie's father.
Other medics are combing through the people around us, tagging them, and loading up the most severe cases to take them to the hospital. I can't help but wonder if our small hospital can handle all these casualties.
We step inside the twisted doors, and I see through the glass airlocks that the security teams have put on their space suits so they can frantically continue to work. One of the blasts must've cracked the seals out there.
We walk down the narrow corridor that joins the airlocks. All the other security rooms adjoining are filled with space-suited guards as well. In one room, I spot Annie's father. I can tell it's him by his stance even though he's suited up.
"There he is. How do we get this to him?" I hold up the radio.
Dad doesn't answer so I turn and see that he's got his hands flat against the glass, a horrified expression on his face. I follow his gaze past the security booth toward open space and the giant ship firing on our security ships. They look so small compared to it. The attacking ship looks to be similar in design to a large mining ship, but with fully functional laser weapons on at least two sides of its oval body.
"We need to find a way to get to Mr. Clarke now, Dad. They need to know help is on the way."
We both start pounding on the glass airlock door. One of the closest guards looks up in surprise. He waves us back the way we came.
I shake my head and hold up the radio as Dad points to Annie's father. A flash of light shines bright as one of the security ships in the distance blows up.
I fall to a crouch against the glass wall and brace myself for the shock wave. I clench my eyes closed, hoping this inner seal holds.
Briefly, I wonder where Derek is and if he's safe.
When the rocking stops and I find myself still alive, I open my eyes, my heart racing in my chest.
Dad is sitting on the floor holding his bad arm. I stand up to look back at the security booth and see they are slowly picking themselves up from the floor. I bang against the glass again as hard as I can. As Mr. Clarke stands up, he's facing me so I wave my arms to get his attention.
He frowns and then sees the radio in my hand. He nods, smiling and gestures to the next airlock over and hurries across the room.
I help Dad up and wait for Mr. Clarke to cycle through the airlock into the corridor we're standing in. He takes off his helmet and greets my dad warmly before his face creases back into concern.
"You two really need to get out of here."
I hand him the radios. "We figured. But Annie needs to talk to you right away."
His eyes widen, and he turns the radio on. For a few seconds all we hear is static. He clicks a button and finally we hear Annie's voice. Annie greets us with a shriek and then hurries to give us an update. The three of us turn to watch the ship outside as Annie informs us there should be several large corporation vessels surrounding it.
"There!" I point to the right where an equally large ship floats nearby. Several others join it and it seems the attacking ship is surrounded. I get a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach as I watch the ship stop firing and go still. All four ships seem to just hang there against the blanket of stars. I hold my breath.
Then I see it. The attacking ship's main thrusters fire and it seems to grow larger as it heads right toward us. I look at Dad and Annie's father, and we all turn and run back down the corridor, Mr. Clarke giving orders to evacuate as we push emergency buttons on the walls along the way to create seals behind us.
We get just past the twisted doors and get a glimpse of the last few injured personnel limping away when we feel the ship hit us. This time I throw myself down on the ground behind a pillar to avoid the concussive force.
The screeching of tearing metal is amazingly loud. It's like nothing I've ever heard before. I cover my head with my hands and curl up in a ball, hoping my dad and Mr. Clarke are doing the same.
The deafening sounds of metal and airlocks collapsing mixes with human screams. I can feel the station shudder and buck beneath me. My body is tense as minutes feel like hours as I wait for the tremors to stop.
Slowly, the station settles into stillness. Aside from the ringing in my ears are the sounds of falling debris and screams. I start coughing as dust particles settle around me. I reach into the med bag and put on a temp space mask, breathing deeply to clear my lungs. I have four more, and I know Dad's med bag has ten.
I don't feel the cold pull of space so the station must be maintaining its atmospheric seals so far. I stand up and carefully step out of my hiding place. Dust swirls around human shapes that are sprawled all over the floor amid large chunks of debris. The station creaks all around us. A glowing energy wall has replaced the door I just escaped out of. Delta's emergency systems have sealed the breach, protecting us from being sucked out into space. My pulse races as I realize how close to death I was just now.
I step toward it and get vertigo as I look through the thin wall of energy and see that I'm standing at the edge of nothingness. I force myself to look outward to ground myself and see that the whole dock has been torn away. The attacking ship is nowhere to be seen.
22
Triage
I hear coughing behind me. Turning away from the breach and destruction beyond, I look for my dad. I find several others that don't have obvious broken bones, so I put masks on them and move on.
I find my dad on the other side of my hiding spot. He's slumped over his med bag.
"Dad!" I carefully assess him before I try to move him. Once I have him sitting, I place my final mask on him. His eyes flutter open and he smiles at me. I let out the breath I was holding and hug him.
"Oof." He grunts.
"Sorry." I check his ribs and find that he's cracked a few, probably when he lan
ded on his med bag. His arm is also bleeding again. "Let me tape you up." I quickly strap his ribs and re-bandage his arm. I can still feel ripples running through the station, and it makes me nervous.
Dad pulls down his mask. "You need to help the others. Find Mr. Clarke and his radio." He looks around. "I'm not sure where mine went. We need to find out if that ship is gone for good, and let the comm team know we need more help down here." He stops to cough. "Make sure the engineering team knows about that." He waves his hand toward the energy barrier.
I frown. "You'll be all right here?"
"Yes. Fine. Take my med bag." He nudges it toward me, his face stiff with pain.
I pull some pain tabs out and place them in his hand. I curl his fingers around them. "In case the pain gets worse or you have to move." His obsidian eyes are already scanning the area for the injured.
“Dad.” I narrow my eyes at him until he focuses back on me. “Just wait here until the next group of medics arrives. Don't try to do anything yourself."
He gives me a weak smile.
"Mr. Clarke can't be too far away since he was right behind us." I stand up and sling the larger med bag over my shoulder.
I work in ever expanding circles around my dad, assessing and tagging the injured as I come to them. The medics should be here soon, I keep telling myself. This close to the blast there are a lot of serious injuries, so it's slow going as I need to treat each one so they'll last until help gets here. I hope Dad has a backup plan for this bad of a crisis. The morgue is already full with the Tempest ship's victims.
I'm starting to feel discouraged when I finally spot Mr. Clarke. He's pulled himself up against a wall quite a distance from the doorway we came out of. I kneel down next to him.
"How are you doing, Mr. Clarke?"
Half of his head is covered with blood, his hair matted and wet. I gingerly feel around his skull and neck as he looks up at me. "Not very good I'm guessing."
I try to see if he has injuries elsewhere. It seems everywhere I touch he winces. "You must've come down hard after the blast?" I try to smile at him.
"You could say that."
I take out a mask and fasten it as gently as I can to his bruised and bloody face. "It must hurt to cough so this should help." I put a few pain tabs on his tongue. I sit back on my heels and assess whether or not I can move him.
He looks down. He can barely move his fingers. Looks like both arms are broken. "Radio."
I look where his finger is pointing and my heart leaps at the sight of the metal radio a few feet away, unbroken. I grab it and bring it back to Mr. Clarke.
"Turn it on," he whispers hoarsely.
I frown and look around. I hope the medics get here soon.
I turn on the radio and look back at him.
"Call her." It seems to take all of his energy as he slumps lower down the wall.
I push the button. "Annie? Annie, are you there?"
A loud squelching noise startles me and I almost drop the radio. "Brenna?" Annie's small voice sounds amazing right now.
I smile at her father, whose face is smiling as much as it can. "Yes, Annie. I'm here with your father."
"Really? Oh my goodness, I'm so glad. We just saw the dock fall way from the station. I thought for sure he was out there."
I grimace. "He was. We were. We made it out the blast doors just in time. Although…" I pause and look as he drags in a breath. "He's been injured pretty badly. Have them send everyone with medical experience this way. There are a lot of injured and dying people."
"Yes, the crisis manager is right behind me. He's sending more help now. Several ships have docked at the public docks and are sending in medics."
"Good. What about the ship that attacked us? It seriously came full force at us and rammed the station. Is it still out there?"
"No, they finally have it disabled."
I breathe out a sigh of relief. "That's awesome to hear. And is engineering on its way here? We kind of just have an emergency energy wall separating us from space." I look back down the corridor at the wavering light.
"Seriously? Wait a minute." She keeps the radio on and I hear a lot of voices in the background. "Okay I found them. They do have a team coming your way, but apparently, when the dock went down all the people in the dock areas went drifting into space, so they're trying to retrieve them before they lose air. Everything is just falling apart." Her voice rises in pitch. Even though I've only known her for just a short while, I can tell she's close to breaking.
I look at her father. His eyes are big and he's trying to beckon me closer with his mangled hand. I lean forward, holding the radio close to his face.
"Annie?" he whispers.
I hear movement behind me and out of the corner of my eye I can see medics in different colored vests bending over helping the wounded. I'm so relieved I feel like crying.
Annie's sobbing voice brings my attention back to the radio and Mr. Clarke.
"It'll be all right, sweetheart. Just tell me exactly what is going on. Are my men on the docks all right? Will they survive?"
A chill goes down my spine. All those men in the control rooms where we found Annie's father were all still in there when the ship hit us. While we ran toward the blast doors, they were all still locked in the clear control rooms overlooking the dock. And these were Mr. Clarke's men, those that he trained, worked with every day, and who he was responsible for. My heart breaks as I wait for Annie's answer.
She sniffs and there's silence before she finally speaks. "The team says they've attached to the structure, and can see some of the guards moving around. Galactic and a private fleet hospital ships have just arrived and one will take your men on first."
"That's great news, Annie. Thank you. You're doing a great job. I'm going to go now, there are medics that want to look at me. Love you."
"Love you, Dad! See you soon."
He smiles at me as I take back the radio. I feel someone behind me and turn to find several medics standing over us.
I get to my feet and let them tend to Mr. Clarke. His injuries are severe, but now that help is here I'm hopeful he'll be all right.
"We need to get all the injured past the security area." One of the medics says. He’s tall, with blond shaved hair, and looks young, maybe a few years older than me. I figure he’s most likely from one of the visiting ships circling above the station, judging from the unfamiliar uniform. "In case the energy wall weakens, we need to get everyone on the other side of the emergency wall."
I look at him, confused.
He points to the ceiling. "Your station has emergency walls that can compartmentalize the whole station in case of a breach." He smiles. "You haven't been on Delta long, have you?"
I smile back. "Not really. That's good to know." I look nervously back at the shimmering wall.
"We'll get this guy if you want to help us move some of the more able bodied patients?" He points at my med bag.
I slowly stand up. He doesn't know that I'm the coroner's daughter. The muerta.
I work with the medics clearing everyone away from the breach and into the safety zone. I look up at the ceiling and can see the line that marks the opening for the solid walls that will come down. Impressive.
My dad's gone from the spot I left him, so I assume the other medics took him to the hospital already. I'm relieved they were able to get here so quickly.
"Hey!"
I turn toward the shout to see the medic I was talking to earlier waving me over. I hurry toward him.
"I need help down this corridor. My team just took patients out to the hospital ship. Can you come with me?"
"Sure, where?"
He hurries down the corridor, his med bag bouncing on his shoulder. He also has a portable stretcher tucked under his arm. He stops at the end of the corridor and puts everything down on the ground. To our right the energy wall crackles just inches away. He takes out a metal bar from his bag and starts prying open the door to our left.
I l
ook over at his name badge. "Umm, Markov, how do you know there are people in there?"
He looks at me with sweat beading on his forehead. "When I was doing a sweep down here, I heard banging on this door." He turns and continues prying open the metal.
A section of the door peels open with a loud metallic screech. Through the small opening I can see several Delta security guards huddled against a far wall.
Suddenly, we're bathed in red strobe lights. I look at Markov. "That can't be good."
"They're shutting this section down." He points behind me. "The field must be about ready to fail." He turns and continues ripping the door open.
I reach in and help him. When we finally get it open, we see that most of the guards are pretty severely injured. Only a few are able to hobble toward us.
"Scarp it all to hades." I say.
Markov looks at me, his eyebrows raised.
"Sorry. It's just doesn't look like we'll be able to get them all out in time."
"Triage. We'll just take as many as we can." He grimaces and climbs in through the mangled door.
23
Peer Pressure
Avoiding the sharp metal edges, I follow Markov into the room. I walk quickly around the perimeter, tracing my fingers along the walls.
"What are you doing?" Markov asks as he pulls one of the prone guards onto the stretcher.
"This is one of the security back rooms. I've been here with my dad. All the rooms in this section are interlocking, and each one can be sealed off in case of a breach. There's an emergency door here somewhere that should lead to the next compartment." I walk around a table and run my hand over the wall until I find what I'm looking for. I hear a satisfying click and push hard.
Fresh air blows the curls off my face. I smile and turn around. "Hurry, we need to get them all in there."
Delta Fringe Series Boxset: Books 1-3 Page 11
