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“Good,” Rafael whispered. “Because I don’t even have a guess as to what this is.”
He turned away from the bubble and back to Jim’s body, then plucked a sheathed knife from the floating tools and sliced a half moon over the crown of Jim’s scalp from ear to ear. He peeled Jim’s skin forward and back, folding his hair and forehead over the front of his face.
Sasha stared through the hatch as Phillipa turned in Mark’s hold and buried her face in his chest.
Rafael grabbed the handheld rotary saw and brought it to Jim’s skull. There was a whir and then the high-pitched squeal of metal grinding through bone. Bits of bone and blood-specked dust spattered Rafael’s gray T-shirt.
Rafael flicked the saw off and let it go. Drops of blood ballooned off the blades, quivering as the saw twirled toward the bulkhead and bounced down the length of the lab. The cup of Jim’s skull floated away after Rafael popped it free.
A fountain of blood exploded out of Jim’s skull cavity. It was thick and congealed, like the hemorrhage in his chest, clumps and chunks shooting in all directions. “Massive hemorrhage leading to a subdural hematoma. The bleed pressed against his brain. No wonder he had ICP.” Rafael reached into Jim’s skull, fingers digging beneath the swollen, bloody brain. “I found his brain stem. It’s bursting through the foramen magnum.”
“Jesus,” Mark whispered. “His brain was pushing out of his skull down his spine.”
“That’s what killed him in the end. Mark, if you can slow down the bleeding in the brain, slow the hemorrhage, you should be able to buy some time.” Rafael pulled his fingers out of Mark’s brain. They were blood-covered, all the way up to his wrists. “Go, Mark,” he finally said, “Do what you can for Michaela.”
Sasha hissed as he saw Rafael’s eyes. They’d turned a vivid red, a violent, vibrant hue, the formerly bloodshot scleras hemorrhaging and filling with blood.
“Thank you,” Mark whispered. “You might have given us a fighting chance.”
Phillipa wept silently inUnity’shatch, doubled over, hands wrapped around her head. Mark and Sasha bracketed Michaela’s backboard, Sarah at Michaela’s head and armed with the suction machine. All three wore full-face masks and O2rebreathers.
Joey had hidden inDestinyand refused to come back toUnity.
“Ready?” Mark waited for Sasha and Sarah to meet his gaze and nod.
“Doctors do this all the time,” Mark said softly. “This is a standard practice for surgeons.”
“They don’t use a power drill,” Sarah pointed out.
Mark glared.
“Sasha, ready with the gauze. Sarah, suction as soon as I breach the skin.”
Again they nodded, and Mark brought the drill bit to Michaela’s temple.
Sweat beaded on Sasha’s neck. His heart hammered as hard and fast as it had during launch, as if it was going to burst out of his chest. He forced his hands to still. How was Mark staying so calm, so in control, with a power tool pressed to his friend’s skull?
A different hum filledUnity: the whine of the drill. Mark went slowly, drilling through flesh until he hit bone. The sound changed, moving from a wetsquelchto a high-pitched whine. Sarah placed the catheter at the edge of the hole and turned the machine on, and the rhythmic suction pushed out the sound of their heavy, shaking breaths.
Again, Mark pushed forward, the tiniest bit, and the drill chewed through millimeters of Michaela’s skull. Soft whirring, the whine of bone against metal, the slurp of suction—
And then Mark pulled back, exhaling hard, and pushed away from Michaela’s backboard. A stream of dark blood poured out of the hole in her skull, and Sarah suctioned it away. Sasha dabbed the edges of the drill hole with his gauze, catching the loose droplets that escaped the catheter.
In minutes, the blood slowed, moving from a steady flow to a trickle and then to a slow ooze. Sasha pressed more gauze over the hole, taping a wad to Michaela’s skull before wrapping her head in a bandage. He grabbed a syringe of antibiotics from his pocket and injected her shoulder before he too floated away. Sweat stung his eyes, and he blinked to try to clear them behind the mask. He stretched and consciously unclenched his muscles.
Sarah checked Michaela’s blood pressure, reading off the wrist cuff strapped to her arm. “Her B-P is falling. It’s returning to normal levels. And her pulse is rising. You did it,” Sarah said breathlessly. “You fucking did it.”
Sarah grabbed Mark’s arm and squeezed, pulling him in for a hug. Mark hugged her back, still staring at Michaela on the backboard. “Let’s hope this holds,” he said. “Let’s hope this works to save us. We could help Rafael, if he needs—”
A cry from the airlock made them all jump.
Phillipa hung in the center of the hatch, silhouetted byDestiny’sglow. Her arms and legs jerked, rhythmless spasms thundering through her as her back arched and her teeth clenched hard enough to bite through her tongue. A piece of it hung between her lips, and blood ballooned in front of her face. Her neck jerked left and right, violently, almost enough to crack her spine.
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31
Kremlin
