Page 10 of Elanie & the Empath
My feet, and heart, skidded to a stop.
he commed firmly, like I needed to pay better attention. And he was right. I did.
A bionic. Thermal generators. Stims. An airlock.None of this made any sense. Had a bionic somehow wound up on the wrong side of an airlock? There must have been a malfunction.
Rifling through my drawers and cabinets, gathering the necessary supplies and shoving them into my bag, I commed, Even though it could be any one of the bionics on the ship needing help, the only face I could see, possibly swollen and bruised and unconscious, was Elanie’s.
My knees wobbled in relief. It wasn’t her.
the captain asked.
Zipping up my bag, thinking on the fly, I commed,
I ran as fast as I could, breathing hard while I weaved through the late-night crowds. Whipping around the corner, I passed the holo floating at the entrance to the docking bay,its soothing voice telling me, “We hope you enjoyed your stay aboard theIgnisar. Please come back soon.”
Far from soothed, I reached airlock C-3, and dread landed like a brick in my stomach. Then it swelled, ballooning as I absorbed the fear and confusion pulsing outward from the captain and the huge Aquilinian twins who ran security flanking him.
Stepping closer, I began to understand why. I’d seen the damage a being could take from exposure to the vacuum of space in medical texts and vids. But witnessing it in person chilled my blood.
The bionic was a rigid mass on the floor. His lips were tinged blue from hypoxia, his arms and legs so grotesquely swollen that his shirt and pants had ripped at the seams. His skin was mottled with bruises, and his face was a deep and angry red from radiation exposure.
“Dr. Semson,” Captain Jones said with a tight nod, concern vibrating all around him.
“Captain.” I nodded back while the Aquilinians stepped aside to let me through to my patient, broadcasting—quite effectively—pure intimidation.
Stepping between the twins the way someone might step between spike-lined walls, I knelt next to the bionic. “How did this happen?”
“He took a trip out the airlock,” one of the twins replied.
“A trip?” I felt for a pulse at the bionic’s neck. Weak and thready, but there. Thank the Saints. “He’s alive,” I said, then frowned up at the airlock. “Was there a malfunction?”
The captain remained silent, but he didn’t need to speak. He was hiding something. The twins too. I felt it: a tingle in my chest, a tightness in my jaw.
“Captain,” I said, watching all three men stare at eachother, trying in vain to hide their emotions from me. “What is it? I have to know what I’m dealing with here.”
“We aren’t exactly sure what happened,” Captain Jones admitted with reluctance. “But I cannot stress to you the importance of not alarming our guests.”
Ah, that was it. They had considered not even calling me over, hoping to sweep this bionic situation under the proverbial rug. Well, not on my watch. He’d survived. He needed medical attention. They’d just have to learn to trust me.
It was only then that I noticed that the C-wing of the docking bay was completely empty. No guests leaving or arriving, no staff members milling about. Not even a single cleaning drone buzzing along the floor. The slightly more enormous twin stood above me with his arms crossed and a brow cocked, his vibe saying,That’s right, Doc. And I can clear your ass out, too, if you step out of line.
“Can you save him?” Captain Jones asked, kneeling beside me.
Rolling my neck until it cracked, I said, “I can try.”
I clasped two thermal generators around the bionic’s wrist and ankle, passing the other two to Captain Jones to apply to the bionic’s other side.
“How long was he out there?” I asked, misting three shots of hyper-roids into the bionic’s nostrils, watching as his limbs began to shrink, his swollen hands and feet deflating while the medicine went to work.
“The Vcams recorded him walking into the airlock sixteen minutes ago,” said the slightly less enormous of the twins.
Sixteen minutes.I shook my head. Nobody could survive sixteen minutes in space without a suit, not even a bionic. “How long ago did you find him?”
“Rax saw him floating out there from the B-wing.”Captain Jones pointed an exasperated finger at the twins. “Then these two idiots strapped themselves together and opened the airlock so they could grab him and reel him back in.”
