Page 10 of Life-Debt

I made a note in the file that the derelict’s engine failure had prompted a safety check, something nobody would think twice about. Anyone with a single grain of sense in their head would’ve done the same. Once accomplished, I headed for my medical room, which held my revival equipment. After an hour of preparation, I temporarily deactivated gravity so I could move the man into place without breaking my back.

With gravity restored, I checked to make sure nothing had been broken or damaged, put an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose to assist with potential oxygen deprivation, prepared the IV with the appropriate medications to improve his chances of revival, and picked up my prized revival unit, which contained a clear shiftgem. While it wasn’t technically a core crystal, mine came close, from one of the deepest mines in the universe.

In reality, most classified it as a core shiftgem, as it had come from the appropriate layer in the planet to possess some unusual properties.

In my hands, it increased the survival rating of revival patients.

I’d received it as a gift for one of my rescues, worth far more than the token fee I otherwise would have received for the unexpected rescue of a diplomat. It remained one of my true treasures, and one of the reasons I held such a good revival success rating.

I sent out a prayer to any benevolent deity that might be listening that the man would revive without complications.

I placed the device over his heart, connected the unit to the chest pads, and pressed the green button, which would begin the process to reverse stasis. The device, as bodily functions resumed, mimicked the pattern of a regular heartbeat. I observed the machine monitoring his vitals, and ten minutes into the process, the computer reported his heart resumed beating and he drew breath.

I sighed my relief at the evidence he would survive stage one. With blood flow restored and his heart beating, I inserted the IV and began phase two, which involved giving him a dose of a medicinal cocktail designed to prevent a series of complications, including stroke, heart attack, and seizures.

The entire time, I kept an eye on his vitals, which reported an acceptable blood oxygen level and stable heartbeat matched with the revival unit.

The moment of truth would be with the removal of the unit, which would allow his heart to beat without intervention. An hour after beginning the process, I turned off the device, tensing while waiting for the monitor to show me the changes in his heartbeat. After several erratic beats, his heart worked on its own, leaving me with the final stage of the process, which involved reversing the sedative used with stasis.

Those who entered stasis unconscious enjoyed a higher chance of revival.

As I had no idea how much of the sedative the crew had used, I began with minimum dosage, administered it, and waited the prescribed ten minutes for a reaction before administering the next incremental dose. After six doses, I began to worry.

The seventh bore fruit in the form of stirring, beginning with eye movement and subtle shifting of his body on the table. I settled in to observe, keeping an eye on his vitals. All remained steady.

Three hours later, my living cargo blinked, revealing rich brown eyes, which would need at least another hour to focus properly. If all went well, coherency would return within twenty minutes, although he’d twitch for the next twelve hours as his nerves misfired and the remnant side-effects of stasis eased.

“Try not talk yet. You’re at risk of biting your tongue right now,” I stated in my most authoritative voice. “I recovered you from your ship, and you’ve survived revival from stasis. In twenty minutes, I’ll give you some water and see how that goes. For now, you need to keep still. You were given a high dose of the stasis sedative, and the reversal drug needs time to eliminate it all. I used minimal dosage to prevent long-term consequences of revival.”

While he struggled to move, he managed to lift his right hand in an acknowledgement of my words.

“My name is Viva, and I’ll be taking you to a spaceport near Cremora Delta 005-26. I don’t particularly care what your name is. As far as I’m concerned, you’re living, breathing cargo I need to transport along with your ship, so I’m going to call you Delta. I am regretful to inform you the rest of the crew perished. I was several weeks late in locating your vessel, which had suffered through catastrophic shiftgem failure, likely due to the brown crystal drive core. I have since done repairs to the ship, but it is uninhabitable until detoxified. We’ll also be required to undergo a minimum of ten days of quarantine. The quarantine period has already begun, and I have been assured we will have a quarantine bay upon arrival at the nearest spaceport, approximately fifty hours and a single jump from here. I’m certain you will have questions, and once you pass your basic health checks, I’m happy to answer them for you. In the meantime, try to relax as much as you can.”

With my speech out of the way, I began removing the excess pads from his chest for the revival unit. Applying the alcohol-based rub to remove the glue residue tested me more than I liked, especially as the revival twitching confirmed he spent a great deal of time maintaining his physical fitness.

In any other situation, where he wasn’t the equivalent of cargo and a patient, he would have tested me in more ways than one. I would regret the circumstances of our meeting for quite a while, however.

It took work to find a compatible male to have an energetic dalliance with when traveling the great empty reaches of space.

Twenty minutes later, he passed his health checks, and I helped him sit up so he could drink. “I’ll leave the IV in for another twenty minutes in case you have an adverse reaction, but at this stage, you should be fine. If you try to talk, do so with care. Your tongue might still be stiff or twitchy, and I don’t have a supply of blood should you injure yourself, Delta. Try not to be too offended. I don’t do the names thing much.”

“Yet you told me your name is Viva,” he replied in a raspy voice.

“She who drives the ship can do what she wants,” I countered.

Rather than become annoyed, as most tended to do when I made it clear I had boundaries while on my ship, he chuckled. “You dodge attachments with your cargo, I see. Delta’s fine. Your ship, your rules, and that’s not an unreasonable rule.”

That simplified matters. “Precisely. What do you remember before you were put into stasis?”

“Very little. The ship had a life-support system failure, which we weren’t able to repair. None of us had any knowledge or training in repairing shiftgem systems, and the ship lacked tech manuals on how to replace the crystals.”

What in all that was holy and pure was a four-man crew doing venturing through the far reaches of space without a competent shiftgem mechanic? “And your stasis system requires three people to use.”

“The captain had us draw lots so one of us might get out alive. I drew first, but I got lucky, so I went into stasis. The ship’s life support system had an hour left on the clock when I went in. Our suits run on a two-hour tank, but we only had one each of those. The spare tanks are twenty minute tanks. We tried everything we could to bring the alternative systems online, but without knowing how to install and calibrate the shiftgems, we were stuck. If the comm system hadn’t failed, things would be different.”

That explained a few things; once in the stasis chamber and the first twenty to thirty minutes of the process was completed, the rest of the procedure required little monitoring. The patient would either live or die. The crew had spent their final moments observing and waiting for their oxygen to run out, likely sending out some unheard prayer for salvation that would come weeks too late. “Still, I’m sorry. You were the sole survivor.”

“Surviving was more than I expected, truth be told. We only had rudimentary training using the stasis machine. Enough to turn it on and use it, but that’s it.” Delta’s eyes focused on my ears. “May I inquire about your species designation?”