Zane sagged into his chair as the ship lurched and Cybel took full control. He pressed his fingers to Kalie’s neck. Her pulse was faint. Trembling, he scanned the dashboard. Eighteen minutes to Renan. Then they had to take the connector, board the frigate, get her to surgery…
Tears fell, turning to beads of ice on his cheeks. He shivered as he seized her frozen hand. Then, closing his eyes, he prayed.
Not to Mordir, but to her gods. To Azura, whose blood allegedly ran through Kalie’s veins. To Calla, the first duchissa. To the goddess of hope, Samora. To the sun god Kalie was named for, Kallus, and to the god of healing, whose name he forgot. If the god was real, he hoped he didn’t hold it against him.
“Please.” Zane clutched her hand. “Please, save her.”
“Vitals aren’t stable.”The woman’s voice warbled like it was deep underwater. “Third degree burns to the lumbar region, shrapnel lodged near his spinal column… he’s lost a lot of blood…”
“Take him to room two.”
Excruciating light pierced Zane’s closed eyes, but serene darkness swiftly replaced it.
Erratic beeping pulsed in his ears, blaring and painful, like a holocomm’s whine during a hangover. Groaning, Zane cracked his eyes open. The light still stung. He threw an arm over his face. As he tested his leg, there was only a cramping twinge of pain.
Blankets covered him, and a plush pillow propped his head up. The frigid ship must’ve been a nightmare, he was so warm…
The beeping fell silent, then grew more persistent.
“Her pulse is dropping!”
Rubbing his sleep-crusted eyelids, Zane turned towards the commotion.
Medics scurried around a bed across the room. One rattled past with a supply cart, jostling the metal implements laid across it. One was firing up a regenerator. Another was huffing for air, doing rapid compressions on a patient’s chest. Long golden hair fanned across her pillow. She wasn’t moving.
Zane gasped. It wasn’t a dream.
The man bent over Kalie and blew air into her mouth. He started the compressions again, but the green line racing across the monitor flattened. “We’re losing her!”
“No,” Zane mumbled.
The woman holding the regenerator flicked a switch. Its glowing purple light dulled, and she set it aside. “It’s no use. She’s too far gone.”
No.Nononono?—
The man doing compressions glanced at the monitor. Zane stared at that damning green line, and blinked, and blinked again, and stared some more. But it didn’t change. The monitor kept wailing. His stomach gave a gut-wrenching heave, and he tasted acid in his mouth as he forced his eyes towards Kalie.
The man pressed on her chest again and again. But the line was flat. She was still.
And hestopped.
“No!” Zane lunged to his feet, but blankets tangled around his ankles and yanked the world out from under him. His elbows bashed into the floor. “She’s alive! Save her!”
A woman crouched beside him. “Sir, calm down.”
“She had a pulse!” His chest heaved as he fought for air. The world fractured around him as they just stood there, staring at the unending green line. “She had a pulse! I felt it!”
Two nurses stepped around Kalie’s bed and pushed him back. He flung his arm at one and launched a kick at another, but his heel slipped and he lost his balance. Something pierced his neck as he crumpled onto his bed. His eyelids crashed down. The machine kept screeching.
“There’s nothing more we can do.”
Dynarian Outpost, Sector 7
Undecemmensis-22, 817 cycles A.F.C.
Machinery chirpeda soothing rhythm in Zane’s ears as dull, burning aches dragged his eyes open. Dim yellow bulbs sparkled in his vision, dangling from a ceiling of grimy metal grates. Sterile air gusted down. He burrowed deeper under a scratchy gray blanket and tracked a bulb swaying under the vent. Back and forth, back and forth, as it clinked against its chain of rusted metal beads. The peaceful rhythm lulled his eyes closed.
There was something to be done, something important, some matter of life and death. He remembered screaming in a cold, bright room. Screaming, because?—
