A TALE OF BROTHERS

— by Jeff Karamales

Chapter 9
 

Automated hatches had closed off the stairwell a landing at a time, the sensors that had been incorporated in the facility’s construction having been programmed to react automatically to several different circumstances such as loss of air pressure, extreme thermal changes and seismic events. It was slow going as the team had to verify that there was atmosphere on the other side of every hatch, though they finally made it to the first level of maintenance.

  “How do you read us, Van Zant?” Elias asked the Chihuahua at the top of the transit hub that was monitoring the rest of the team.

“I’ve got you five-by, Chief. There’s a little scratchiness to the signal, but nothing to really worry about. The particulate matter up here’s messing with things a little, but nothing I can’t compensate for,” the small canine replied.

“Copy. We’ll make reports every fifteen minutes,” Elias told the nervous seeming tech. “Just in case we get preoccupied broadcast a recall signal twenty minutes before our shift is up. Tivnan out.” The fox turned to Sergeant Strader. “Okay, this level seems to follow the same pattern as the rest of the sublevels and is divided into three primary chambers. Three individuals per section. Sergeant, I’ve got the third. You take the first, and Giselle you take the second. No fiddling around. In, look for survivors, and out. Understood?”

“Sounds like a plan, Chief,” Zoe Giselle, a four year veteran agreed. The Akita motioned the two SPOs that were on her search team along, her pink tongue hanging out as she tried to cool off, the suit’s system not able to compensate for the junior sergeant’s thick fur.

  Elias shook his head at the discomfort that the female was suffering due to being a little too vain to trim her fur shorter and activated the controls to the large hatch that was painted with a bright red 3. The fox turned on his lamp as the lights were out, the assessment that what power was available having been shunted to life support.

  “Someone forgot to pay their electric bill,” SPO Davies said.

  “Cut the chatter,” Elias responded, the otter flinching at being called down. Elias cast a look at the young SPO, Davies having been in for a little over a year and therefore should have known better. “Make sure your external pick-ups are turned up. We need to hear if anyone’s calling for help.”

  They made their way further in, Vanna making sweeps with her multi-scan, following the path of the sensor wand with her own light. She paused and looked at the readout screen for a moment before proceeding along with the other two.

“Something wrong?” Elias asked.

  The mouse shook her head. “I don’t know. I keep on getting an intermittent reading that the scanner can’t make out.”

  Elias frowned. “Keep an eye on it and let me know if it happens again.” The fox sighed. This part of the chamber looks clear. Just heavy mining equipment. Let’s see if we can find in the next one.”

  Vanna nodded while Davies lagged behind a bit, looking at a large tracked excavator before shrugging and following the others. “That blast was something else,” the otter commented. It shook things up enough to move even the heaviest equipment a little. That digger’s tracks gouged the flooring.”

“Yeah. It was powerful alright,” Elias said as his own light played over the scratches another mining vehicle had made as the trio progressed further into the section. The fox recoiled slightly when the next set of doors opened of their own accord into another dark section that had been cut from the rock of the asteroid before deck plating had been installed and the walls sprayed down with a plastic sealant. “Huh. There’s still some power getting here somehow. Those doors wouldn’t have opened of their own if they were getting juice.”

  “Hold on, Chief!” Davies called out, the otter seeing something on the floor of the previous section.

  Elias and Vanna paused on the other side of the huge automatic hatch and the fox only had enough time to ask “What?” before the curious SPO picked up the lead of a plasma torch.

Normally used to liquefy metals for easier harvest, the end flared to life with a purple-white light bright enough to cause the faceplates of the three suited individuals to darken automatically. From that point of ignition a fireball that looked to Elias as if someone had just dropped a star in their midst erupted. The fox was blown well into the next chamber, his head impacting hard enough so that he saw a brilliant light exploded behind his eyes. He was barely able to register the automatic closing of the doors, though it was what happened a split second afterwards that truly frightened him as a large section of the ceiling came down, his light illumination the several hundred tons of rock that piled against the door.

  Elias wasn’t sure if the moan he heard was actually coming from him or Vanna as he slumped to the decking, the world blotting out as he slipped into unconsciousness. 

*** 

  “What the hell was that?” Valencia asked as the alarms onboard the Vanguard began to wail a second after a shudder rippled through the docked frigate.

“Captain! We’ve had an explosion down here!” Sergeant Strader said over the communications console as others on the bridge turned to their own instruments, each calling to the other stations to make sure there wasn’t a threat to the wellbeing of the vessel.

  “Belay that noise!” the tigress roared to her subordinates before darting to the comm. “An explosion? What’s happened?”

  There was a slight burst of static before the liger responded. “It came from the section that Chief Tivnan was investigating. I’m not getting any sort of telemetry from his group’s suits. Unfortunately whatever’s happened has sealed some of the doors that were still functioning. It’s going to take us a bit to get to his location to assess the situation.”

“Understood, Sergeant. Proceed with all due caution. We don’t know what triggered that blast. I don’t want anybody taking any chances they don’t have to. You understand me?” Valencia all but snarled, her stomach knotting with the thought of losing any of her crew, particularly one that she admired.

“Understood, Ma’am. Will send updates ASAP. Strader out.”

  Valencia looked up, her face slipping into an expression of calm and control, more for her crew than an indication of what was churning inside of her. “Back to work, people,” the tigress said with a soft firmness. She made sure to meet the eyes of each of her bridge crew, but when she looked at the pilot’s seat it was conspicuously empty. “Where’s Chief Gordon?” 

*** 

“Hey, Vanna? You okay?” Elias asked as he tapped the faceplate to the mouse’s helmet. He felt the lump of cold fear and nausea start to ease from his gut when the rodent opened her eyes, her lids flickering up and down as she came to, her visage almost ghostly in the illumination from his hand lamp.

  “Wh…what happened, Chief?” Vanna asked in a whispery voice.

  “Davies…” Elias managed to get out. “I think that the readings you were getting was more of the residue that did in the refinery portion of the station. It’s not really made to take readings on that stuff.” He sat back though his eyes didn’t leave the mouse’s. “I don’t know how long we’ve been in here. I took a pretty hard hit that knocked me out and scrambled my HUD.”

  Vanna shifted slightly. “L-looks like an hour or so,” she said after consulting her own Heads-Up-Display. “Hey, you’re bleeding.”

  “Huh?”

  “I think you’re head’s bleeding. The fur under your right eye is red.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me. I hit my head pretty hard and I feel groggy. Probably have a concussion.”

  “Let’s see what I can see,” Vanna told the fox. She started to get up before screaming and falling back to the deck, her paws going to her left leg.

  The sudden cry of agony was enough to get Elias moving, perhaps faster than he should have and fought off a wave of dizziness as he focused on where it seemed that the mouse was hurt. “Vanna, I need you to move your paws,” the fox husked and swallowed hard at the return of nausea in his stomach. It took some work to get the rodent to lay back so he could inspect the problem.

  Sticking out of the mouse’s left thigh was a metal rod. The angle indicated that there was a good chance that it had missed the femur, and there wasn’t much blood as Vanna’s furred flesh formed a seal around the object. As he continued to scrutinize the injury Elias found that the metal went all the way through. It had to have struck with tremendous force as the padded shell of the environment suit was some of the toughest material that the fox had ever seen. Then again, the explosion that had almost claimed both of their lives had been powerful.

  “Vanna, I have to pull it out so I can get some biogel into the wound,” the fox told her. “I wish I didn’t, but with the gunk that’s floating around here we can take the chance of infection setting in.”

  The mouse’s lower jaw trembled slightly and she sniffed delicately. “Are…are you sure? The others will be looking for us and then I can get to the infirmary and-”

  Elias shook his head. “There’s tons of rock blocking the door. It’s going to be a while. C’mon. You can do this.” He smiled reassuringly though the look he got back indicated the mouse wasn’t buying into his false confidence.

  “I don’t want to do this, Elias,” the mouse whispered with a fearful expression.

  “I know,” the fox replied softly. When he put a gauntleted paw on her leg, Vanna stiffened, her eyes squeezing closed as a whimper escaped her mouth. “It’s okay. I haven’t done anything yet,” Elias told her with a small chuckle. “Hold on a sec.”

 When his paw was removed from her leg, Vanna opened her eyes to find Elias working the seal of his helmet. As it came off he discovered that it wasn’t really doing him any good anyway as there was a large crack in the shell that he could see the ambient light from his lamp through.

  “Wow. If I hadn’t been wearing this I’d be dead,” Elias commented drily as he turned the ruined helmet over in his paws.

  Vanna looked at the fox. “I don’t think the cut on your head’s as bad as it could have been, but a little biogel would be good for you, too.”

  “First things first,” he replied, setting the helmet off to the side. He shifted position to get more leverage to remove the rod and put his paw back on the female’s thigh. “I’ll count to three and then pull it out, alright?”

  “On three, or after three?”

“On three.”

  Vanna nodded and swallowed again, her eyes closing. “Okay,” she whispered tremulously.

  “Okay. One…”

  The fox didn’t even get to two as he felt Vanna relax under his hand in preparation for tensing when he actually hit three and pulled the rod out, trying not to let the façade that held his fear at bay show as the mouse screamed for a moment before passing out. He dropped the rod with a clang and disengaged the locking clip on the canister of biogel. His efforts were in vain as he couldn’t get a good lineup on the wound with the suit in the way and set the can down before reaching for the locking seals of Vanna’s suit.

  “I’m sorry, sweetie,” he mumbled as he struggled to get the mouse out of the environmental suit. “I swear to you I’m sorry. I have to get to the injury, though.” His paws trembled with adrenaline as his vision swam, Elias snarling in frustration when the fastener that would allow him to get to the wound proved difficult. With a slew of swear words, the fox finally got the fastener uncoupled and slid the suit down. Fortunately like the others Vanna was wearing a body glove and had at least her dignity intact, though was unaware of the fact.

  As soon as he could get to the perforation, Elias filled the oozing wound with the dark blue-green gel that carried all manner of anesthetics and antiseptics. It would also absorb particulate matter so that when the Vanguard’s surgeon removed the semi-solid plug there would be a clean wound to treat. He didn’t stop until half the canister was expended and sat back hard, letting his breath out in a strangled sob before sucking in a lungful of cold, burnt smelling air. It felt as if his whole body were vibrating and Elias held up one gauntleted paw, seeing that not only were his fingers shaking, but so was his whole arm.

  The fox only allowed himself a moment of respite before he pulled his emergency pack from the belt of his suit. Though a little bulky there was a reason for every item. The first item he needed was an inflatable sleeve that would help keep Vanna’s leg as immobile as possible. Once that was in place and inflated, Elias pulled out a thermal blanket and wrapped the still unconscious mouse in the heat reflecting, silvery Mylar sheet.

  Once he was sure that she was as comfortable and safe as he could make her the fox lay back, his breath passing in and out in ragged inhalations as he acknowledged the fear inside him and fought it back. Closing his eyes for a moment he worked to calm himself, and it only felt as if a moment passed before Vanna was shaking him almost violently and screaming his name.

  “Wha…?”

  “You can’t sleep, Elias! You have to stay awake!” the mouse was shouting. “You have a concussion and if you go to sleep you might not wake up! C’mon,” Vanna said with more force than the fox had ever heard from her before. “Sit up!”

  “Okay…I’m…I’m up…”

  “I really need you to stay awake, Elias,” she said and slithered closer to him, her arms wrapping around his still suited chest. “I’m too scared for you to die and leave me alone!”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” the fox replied groggily as he blinked his blue eyes several times to clear them. “We got this,” Elias said with more alertness. “We’ll be okay.”

— NEXT CHAPTER —

Unless otherwise noted, all material © Ted R. Blasingame. All rights reserved.