Page 3 of Needed in the Night
We had three minutes. Three and a half at most.
Hidden by the holo projector, and with Vila and the female crew member on watch, I opened a crate at the back of the pantry with a visibly damaged bottom corner.
I pulled out a coverall and handed it to Novee. “Put it on over your suit,” I said. “As fast as you can. Leave the front open.”
As she quickly stepped into the uniform, which had additional padding and body armor to protect her and disguise her slim figure, I was already halfway out of my gown. Unlike Novee's suit, this ridiculous dress could not be hidden under any coverall. It would go into the crate along with my shoes and other discarded items.
Under the gown, I wore a bodysuit similar to Novee's. I kicked off my high-heeled shoes, stepped into my bulky coverall, pulled it up and over my shoulders, and sealed the seam in the front.
At the bottom of the crate, under the rest of our disguises, I found a medical kit.
Nausea rose. I swallowed hard, steeled myself, and opened it. Gloves, plasma scalpel, transdermal analgesic and tranquilizer patches, extraction instruments, suture kit. And a collection tube.
“Gods above,” Novee whispered at the sight of the kit’s contents. She sat—nearly fell—onto a nearby crate, her face ashen.
If we had more time, I would have held her close and stroked her hair and said reassuring things until she felt brave or at least less afraid. But we had no time to spare. I could be brave for her if I had to be. Someone had done the same for me only three years ago. I’d been just as desperate to escape as Novee, and just as frightened.
“You won’t feel any pain,” I said. “Keep your eyes on my face or close them. Just don’t look at what I’m doing. I only need thirty seconds. But it is now or never, Novee. Freedom is right outside on the landing pad.”
“A lot of people have risked their lives for you,” the crew member in the respirator said, her voice harsh. Her name badge readERGIN. “If you cannot be brave for your own sake, be brave for ours.”
I glared over my shoulder. Novee inhaled sharply and straightened her spine. “You are unkind,” she told the woman. Then she startled me by meeting my gaze and adding, “Do it, then, and let us be gone.”
I didn’t appreciate Ergin’s tone, but it had snapped Novee out of her paralysis. Sometimes kindness only got you so far.
With the scalpel, I cut a hole in the fabric of Novee's practice suit so I could access her bare skin just below her ribcage. The tracking device had been implanted where it wouldn’t affect her muscles or ability to bend in the sinuous, almost boneless way necessary for her style of dance.
I slipped an analgesic patch under her suit near the hole I’d made and pressed it to her skin. The drug was strong and itseffects would be swift—an absolute necessity for an operation of this kind.
“Put this against your stomach,” I said, handing her a towel. “Press it tight and hold.”
Trembling, she did as I asked.
For her sake and mine, I didn’t hesitate. No time to think or second-guess, or remember when it was me who had to sit still while a virtual stranger cut into my flesh.
I checked to make sure Novee was staring at something above my head and not at her abdomen, and then I cut.
With the scalpel’s plasma edge, I incised a three-centimeter opening into Novee's smooth cerulean flesh. She didn’t so much as gasp. No pain, as I’d promised, and such a fine edge—only nanometers thick—did not even tug at her skin, but blood gushed from the wound. My right side ached in memory.
I dropped the bloody scalpel into the kit and picked up the extraction instrument.
“How many times have you done this?” Novee whispered, her gaze on the ceiling as her green blood soaked the towel.
Not enough times, was what I wanted to say. Not enough to save as many as I wanted to save. Only enough to be a drop in a vast and endless ocean.
“Many,” I said instead.
I slipped the long tip of the extraction tool into the wound. Its sensors found the tracker immediately. The fine teeth at its tip gripped the device, which was no larger than my thumbnail.
Holding my breath, I attached the collection tube to the back of the extractor and activated it. Novee’s blood filled the tube. Any contact with air would activate the tracking device, alerting the Erotovo that it had been removed—and more critically, cause it to either release deadly poison or ignite an explosive. Trackers served as jailers and merciless executioners.
Clink. The tracker landed in the tube and was sealed inside by the extractor. I exhaled.
Ergin took the extractor from me and hid it on a shelf. I sealed the wound with a suture patch, took the towel from Novee, wiped up the blood smears on her skin, and glanced at my wristcomm. Time was almost up.
I tossed the towel into the crate. “Seal your coverall,” I told Novee, offering my hands to help her stand. “And put on the respirator.”
She still trembled from fear, adrenaline, and maybe a little blood loss and shock, but she stood more quickly and with more fire in her eyes than I’d expected. Maybe making it through arguably the worst and most dangerous part of this process had given her some confidence.
