Page 31 of Bred

“I thought it would be easier if she was unconscious.”

“Does this seem easier?” I growl at him as she flails about in obvious terror.

“It would be easier than her seeing the...”

“Shut up. She’s conscious enough to remember what she hears now.”

“What’s going on?” she mumbles as she lunges for her zipper, pulling it all the way up to her neck. “You can’t have my organs. They’re my organs. Not yours. I don’t consent to be your organ donor. Give my spleen back, you bastard. Give it back now!” She lunges at Shank’s neck, her fingers curled like claws. If her nails were anything more dangerous than nibbled down keratin, he might be in real trouble.

“You have my spleen, you fucking asshole!” she screams at the top of her lungs.

Shank’s expression is priceless. We have bigger problems to contend with, but this is the most hysterical one by a long way. Lyra came out of sedation like a wild thing, kicking and flailing and screaming and I can’t say she’s improved in the last few minutes.

Maybe I can distract her from her madness. “Are you hungry, Lyra?”

She stops and looks at me. “Yes,” she says. “I want a burger and fries, please. Hold the mayo.”

“Okay, we’ll see what we can make.”

“What is a burger and fries?” Shank mouths the question at me.

“Look it up in the Earth database.”

“Do we still have that database?”

“You better hope we do. Don’t forget to hold the mayo.”

“Whatever mayo is,” Shank growls to himself as he leaves.

This is a mess, but we’re both grateful for the opportunity to focus on Lyra. The events of the last three days have been traumatic for all concerned. She has no idea how long she’s been out to it, and I intend to keep it that way. With any luck, she’ll never know what she encountered.

“Where’s Luca?”

“He’s offline,” I tell her gently. I know it upsets her to talk about him that way, but I can hardly say he’s asleep, because he’s not. He was instructed to tuck himself away in a spare corner in the center of the ship and deactivate himself.

“I want Luca. Bring Luca back.”

It does not take long to wake Luca and bring him to her bed. She reaches for him and he falls in next to her, wrapping her terrified form in his arms. I feel a pang of jealousy before realizing I’m essentially jealous of a stapler. Luca is not competition. He is my tool.

Lyra settles almost immediately, and a few minutes later she’s fast asleep, giving us a chance to retrieve the various items she mistook for her organs. I hand Shank his ‘heart’ back and we leave the room, satisfied that she’s going to be alright. Luca will take care of her, or alert us if he can’t.

“We have got to formulate a proper defense to that thing. How many did we lose this time?”

“Five,” Shank says. “An exterior crew failed to vacate the hull before we were engulfed.”

“Bodies?”

“None, sir.”

So there will be nothing to mourn. Another funeral ceremony with nothing but nametags to stand over. If we ever return to our home world, it will be with heavy hearts for many families.

“This isn’t your fault, Talon...”

“It’s my ship. Everything that happens on it is my fault,” I growl. There will be no abdication of responsibility. There will be no excuses for what happened. I’m not going to tell myself that these long missions are dangerous and we are over-crewed for a reason, knowing we will lose some to the whims of the universe. It’s my job to get everyone back safe, and I’ve failed in that aim so many times now it makes me sick.

“They knew what they were up against,” Shank insists.

“Not disappearing into nothingness while on routine maintenance.”

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