Markov doesn't question me. He uses the stretcher to drag the more severely injured patients into the other room and I assist the ones that are able to walk.
Chimes start wailing loudly, freezing my blood. I look at Markov with wide eyes.
"Hurry!" he yells.
We drag the last guard in and I reach to seal the door. Through the crack I see the energy wall flicker. I push the door hard to seal it and step back.
I stare at the door and hold my breath. I can hear the air rush out of the compartment we just vacated. I take another step backward. Not that it'll help if this door doesn't hold.
Nothing happens. I look at Markov who looks like he's going to pass out. I give him a weak smile.
We stand there for a few minutes longer taking in deep breaths.
"I think we're fine. For now." I wipe sweat off my forehead.
Markov sits down hard in a chair next to a darkened console.
I look around the room. "Let's triage these patients and then we'll figure out a way out of here. Or a way to reach help."
Markov stands and gives me a grateful smile. He starts at one end of the room and I start at the other. We work well together, bandaging up gaping wounds and stabilizing broken bones. I can tell Markov enjoys is his job, and he’s very good at it.
I'm wrapping a young guard's broken arm when I hear, "Muerta."
I freeze. It's one of Derek's friends, Anders. I turn to find Markov looking strangely between us. It's not only Anders here in this room, but I notice several of his other buddies. Great. I glance around the room until I find Derek. My heart skips a beat. He was one of the unconscious ones. I suck in a breath as it takes all my strength to not rush to his side. Even after the way we left things between us, I’m still worried about him.
I stand up and stare daggers at Anders. "Well, this muerta just saved your pitiful life."
He snorts and then winces as the long gash on his forehead oozes. "No, he saved our lives." He points to Markov.
Markov stands up to his full height, which is quite impressive now that he’s right next to me. I think he might actually be taller than me. "What's going on with you two?"
I glance over at Derek before I answer. "I'm Brenna Teves, the coroner's daughter. They call me muerta." I glare at Anders.
Markov looks at my med bag and then me. Then he turns to Anders. "Who cares if she's the coroner's daughter? They have more training than I do, and I've been doing this job for five years. And she's the one that saved you, not me. All I did was hear your distress call. She's the one who got us all safely in here before the energy wall breached. You were within seconds of being spaced." Markov’s hands are balled up and he's trembling with rage.
Anders and his friends all find the floor suddenly very interesting. I smile. "Thanks, Markov. I appreciate that." I place my hand on his arm, noticing in doing so that he's very muscular for a medic.
He looks down at me, unclenching his fists as I remove my hand. He grabs his med bag and steps over to Derek's friends to treat them so I don't have to. I watch Markov tend to the now very silent guards.
I make my way across the room, checking and treating the other guards. Thankfully, most of these guys aren't in serious condition. They must've had a few walls between them and the explosion.
I get to Derek and see that he's awake now and has been watching me. I kneel down next to him. He has a nasty bruise on his head, but no visible open wounds.
"Hi, Bren." He smiles slightly and winces as I check his arms and legs. They seem to be bruised, but not broken. I pull up his shirt slightly to check his abdomen for internal injuries. As I press, he twitches with pain.
"Sorry." I gently place his shirt back down, not wanting to cause him any more pain. Although I'm used to seeing naked bodies, it seems very personal with Derek and my face gets warm.
I rock back on my heels and pull out a penlight to check for him for a concussion. He just quietly watches me with those familiar dark eyes, and I feel my pulse increase.
"How much of that did you hear?" I tilt my head toward Markov and Anders.
"I've been somewhat awake since I was dropped here." He smiles that crooked smile that makes my heart skip a beat.
"We did not drop you. But if we did it was to save your life." I return the smile.
He looks past me, suddenly serious.
I glance over my shoulder to see Anders glaring at us.
"Do you think you can sit up?" I ask Derek quietly.
He looks back at me and tries to ease himself up. He groans and falls back down.
"What is it, Derek?"
"My shoulder." He uses his right hand to point to his left shoulder.
I frown. "Let me help you then. We need to get out of this room and all of you guys to the hospital." I take his good arm and help him to a sitting position. He sits up against one of the computer consoles. His eyes flick across the room and back to me. His mouth presses into a firm line.
Markov finishes and stands up. "You doing all right, Brenna?" He glares at Derek. "Do you want me to finish with him?"
"I'm fine. He's pretty bruised up and might have a concussion, but I think he can walk out of here."
Markov doesn't move. He and Derek are staring at each other.
"It's all right. I'm done anyway." I get up without looking at Derek. I've got to stop hoping that he'll return to the Derek I knew on the Tempest. He's known his friends for a lot longer than me, and they seem to have considerable influence over him.
I sigh and step toward the opposite wall. All of the consoles here are powerless. I can't remember if they ever did work, or if this is one of the unused rooms. I wish I had my data cube. I could've looked up the diagram of the station to see which direction to look for the next compartment.
I turn to study the room again. There are only two walls without consoles on them, so the door has to be there. Both walls seem to angle toward the breach, however. I step toward the first one and run my hand over it.
"Stop, Bren."
I freeze.
"Don't open that one. I'm pretty sure it leads to a room that was already blown away with the first breach." I turn to see Derek struggling to get up. Markov stops what he's doing to step toward him. I mouth to him that it's all right as I hurry over to help Derek.
"Let me help you." I put an arm under his good shoulder and let him lean into me. The warmth radiating from him makes my skin tingle.
"I know this area very well. Since I'm the newbie on the team, I have to do all the maintenance and stocking of all the rooms. I was just in this room last week working on the wiring to these old consoles." He waves his good hand, which is draped over my shoulder, toward the dark computers.
I glance over at Anders and see he's clenching his jaw as he looks at me. I tilt my head toward Derek and whisper, "Are you sure you should be talking to me? Anders looks like he's going to explode."
Derek locks gazes with me, our faces just inches apart, and raises his voice so everyone in the room can hear him. "Markov is right. It doesn't matter that you're the coroner's daughter. You're very good at what you do, Bren. And we all owe our lives to you." He casts a hard glance over to Anders. "I shouldn't have let them dictate who I can or can't be friends with." He pulls me closer with his good arm, sending shivers down my spine.
"Thank you, Derek," I whisper.
I force my attention back to the problem at hand. "All right. Where is the other door, then?"
He steps forward and I help him walk to the second clear wall. He removes his good arm from my shoulder and leans his weight against the wall. He passes his hand over it and finds the recessed panel. He hesitates. "Ready? Let's hope both rooms aren't breached."
I look back at Markov. He signals that he’s ready. I turn back to Derek and smile. "Let's do this."
He shows me where the pressure latch is, and puts his arm back around my shoulder. I reach up and press the indention, praying like crazy that I'm not exposing us all to the coldness of space.<
br />
The familiar click gets my heart racing and I pull the door open. I let out a breath and smile at Derek. Another intact room. "Let's get everyone moved." I help Derek into the next room and set him down on the floor up against a bunch of gray storage tubs. I notice he's favoring one of his legs and I make a mental note to take a look at that as soon as I can.
"Another storage room?"
"Yes, this should be the farthest storage room on this side."
"Oh! I know where we are then. The morgue should be on the other side of this room."
Derek laughs. "Yes, another reason I was volunteered for the work back here. No one else wanted to work next to the morgue."
I cross my arms and look down at him.
His smile sobers. "Sorry. The stigma against the morgue was around long before I showed up here."
"But you ended up helping me on the Tempest." A shiver goes up my spine as I remember the night on the couch and the intimate conversations we had. With the way he acted afterward I almost thought I imagined it all. But now with him in front of me, my body flushes with warmth. "And you stood up to your friends just now." Before he has a chance to answer, a memory flashes to mind and I blurt out, "Annie!"
Derek's eyebrows rise up.
"Sorry, I was just thinking it's kind of nice being friends with you again, and that reminded me of my friend Annie. She works in the comm room. If we can get a message through the main comm system somehow, she can track it. She's monitoring all the comm systems, including the short distance radios."
He stares up at me. I tend to jabber when I'm in a high adrenaline environment. "Sorry. I know that was random."
"So we're just friends?" He tilts his head.
I realize my mouth is gaping and shut it quickly as I look into his dark brown eyes. Warmth creeps up my neck. Before I can answer, I hear noise behind me as Markov comes in with several more security guards. Grateful for the interruption I turn to help Markov.
24
Bone Laser
We get everyone into the storage room and seal the door again. Markov and I go through and check everyone again. A few of the more severe patients are getting worse, so I pull Markov to the side.
I make sure to keep my voice low. "I'm not sure some of these guys will make it if we don't get them to the hospital soon."
"I still can't reach anyone on my comm." He pats his lapel comm. "No one knows we're here."
"The emergency wall that went down probably blocked communications with your ship as well." I turn in a circle to look at the small space we're in. "I think I know where we are though. If I can get us into the morgue, we should be past the emergency door. I hope. Then we can head toward the hospital or the public dock to take them to the hospital ship."
Markov smiles. "Why didn't you say so? If it's that easy, let's go."
I shake my head slowly. "The problem is that Dad and I secured the main door between security and the morgue." I lean closer. "I found out that one of our security guards has been working with the ship that attacked us, and I think he knew we had figured out he was part of it."
Markov narrows his eyes at our patients, who are all security guards. "One of these?"
"No. Well at least I hope not. The one guy I know about was escaping through the docks." I look at Anders and the others. They've all made school hell for me. What if they're in on it as well? What about Derek? Even though he's being nice to me now, can I trust him? I shake my head. "Either way, we need to get out of here. Do you have a laser bone cutter? Maybe we can cut our way through the lock." I frown. I'm not sure if it will work, but it's the only thing I can think of to cut through the bar inside the security door.
Markov pulls his bag off the floor and plops it on one of the stacks of tubs. He starts digging around in it.
"What are you guys doing?"
I spin around and end up grazing Derek with my elbow. He bends over holding his stomach.
"I'm so sorry, Derek. You shouldn't sneak up on me like that."
Derek slowly stands up, his hand pressed to his side. "I was just wondering what you guys were so serious about." He tries to smile.
"Let me look at that." I point for him to sit down on one of the tubs.
He obediently sits, obviously tired from his short jaunt across the room.
I kneel down and lift up his shirt. I wince as it looks like several of his ribs are probably cracked. "Sorry, I got you right where a nasty bruise is forming. I really need to get you scanned to make sure there isn't any internal bleeding." I chew on my lip as I run through my anatomy lessons in my head.
"Bren?" Derek motions behind me.
I turn to find Markov handing me a tool that looks like a metal straw. I stand up and take it. "This is amazing! I've never seen one so small." I roll the laser in my hand.
Markov is shaking his head and grinning. "Instead of bullying you, these eggheads should be afraid of you. Very afraid." He winks at me.
"Bren?" Derek is looking wide-eyed at the metal in my hand. "What is that?"
"A bone laser." I grin at him.
"And what exactly are you going to do with that?" His face goes pale and he looks over at the unconscious men on the floor.
I follow his line of sight and start laughing. "I'm not going to cut anyone's limbs off, Derek.” I give his knee a nudge with mine. “Even though that's what it's for."
He grabs my knee with his good hand, the contact sending tingles up my leg. I lean down closer to him, so our faces are only inches apart.
"I trust you, Bren. I just would like to help. I've been thinking about our situation, and I figure the only way that ship got this close to us was because they had help from someone in security. Someone had to have alerted the ship that we found the crew." He's watching my face, so I try to keep it as neutral as possible. I can feel the others staring at us.
"And if I'm right, I think you've already figured that out. And you're not sure who else you can trust." He takes a deep breath. "You're not sure you can even trust me." His dark eyes flash.
I think about all my options. I look up at Markov who has a dark expression on his face. I place my lips close to Derek's ear, his hair tickling my cheek. "As I tried to tell you earlier, I’m certain it was Sergeant Scott. But I'm not sure if he has involved others." I pull back slightly and watch Derek's face. It looks like he does believe me, although he looks a bit shocked, which smooths out my nervous heart rate. "I need to trust you. I need your help getting us out of here."
His eyebrows furrow. He whispers, "Are you sure about Scott?"
I nod.
He lets out a deep breath, frowning. "Okay, then. Why can't we just open the door to the morgue?"
"We activated the security bolts on our side. Because of Scott." I give him a lopsided smile.
“Oh.” He squeezes my hand. "So what's your plan?"
I hold up the laser. "Cut our way through."
"Will that work?"
"Not normally, no. It would take us hours to cut through a door this thick. This tool is meant to cut through bone only."
Derek wrinkles his nose, making me laugh.
"The energy would be drained before we could get through. But what I think will work is targeting the bolt itself, inside the door. Do you think that we could crack open a door enough to get the laser aimed at the bolt?"
His eyes become unfocused as he stares at the door.
"Yes, it think it'll probably work." He points to the wall where we can barely see the outline of a hidden door. "The door you’re talking about leads to the morgue refrigerators, right? I know it's also the largest one, but should be easier to target the inner workings."
"How many more compartments over do you think it is? Some of these guys we probably shouldn't be moving more than necessary."
Derek lets go of my hand and struggles to stand up. I put an arm under his good shoulder and help him.
"I think it's two more compartments like this over. Can they do that?"
I look at Markov
who shakes his head.
I adjust my footing to better support Derek. "I think maybe just a few of us should go ahead, then. Markov can you stay here with the most injured patients? Derek and I and maybe a couple others that aren't as injured can go ahead. Once we get in, I can send the others back with stretchers from the morgue."
Markov narrows his eyes at Derek. He looks back at me and nods. He chooses two guards who don't have as severe of injuries. And, I notice they aren't Derek's friends. I smile to myself as I press open the door into the next compartment. It's nice having friends looking out for you.
25
The Morgue
The next compartment is full of racks of uniforms. There's barely enough room to walk. We make it to the far end of the room, but there's so much stuff in here I'm having trouble finding the door.
"I'm going to need to set you down." I ease Derek onto the floor. One of the guards helps me pull a few racks away from the wall.
"Guess you guys weren't worried about needing out of this room, huh?" I trace the door with my fingers until I find the pressure sensor. It opens and I step inside to look. It's completely empty and cold. Across the room is the double door to the morgue. A jolt of excitement goes through me.
I go back for Derek. "Found it." I smile and help him up. "Are you all right?" My smile fades as I feel something warm and sticky on my hand.
I lean Derek against the nearest rack and pull my hand out from behind his back. It's bright red with blood. "Why in Phobos’ dust didn't tell me you had an injury on your back too?"
He shrugs. "I didn't feel anything until I sat down just now."
I turn him so I can pull his shirt up. My breath catches as I see a long gash down his back. "How could you not feel that?" I chide him. "Just stand still." I grab my med bag and pull out bandages and med tabs. I clean the gaping wound and bandage it, but it's pretty jagged. He must've cut it as he was thrown around from the explosion.
"You're going to need stitches." I watch as the bandage turns pink. "And maybe more blood if we can't keep it from bleeding." I place a pain tab on his tongue and check his eyes as he watches me.
Delta Fringe Series Boxset: Books 1-3 Page 12
