Fiona and Gary set up a stretcher on the other side while Grace took a detailed scan of Stephanie and shook her head. “I'm out of choices here. If we were in main medical deep stasis might be an option, but even then.”
“What do you need?” Captain Valance asked.
“Space and quiet. We're going to inject her with mass bio gel and two ounces of nanobots. Whatever weapons they used stirred her up inside.” Grace whispered.
“So the nanobots will rebuild her internal organs from raw mass?”
“Yes, but it's not ideal. If this works it might look like she's back on her feet in fine shape but even with recovery meds it'll take at least a day for all of her tissues to properly recover from density loss and her circulatory system could suffer a blockage from any materials left over by the nanobots. These aren't surgical grade nanos we're using here, they're emergency units, quick workers.”
“Is there anything else we can do without getting her to the infirmary?” Captain Valance asked as he took a medical scan.
“A deeper form of stasis, but her chance of survival would diminish every minute she spends outside of a full suspension tube. We should treat her here.”
“If it's the only way.”
“It is.” Grace said as she prepared an injector. “Can you open her vacsuit in a few places?”
“I can.”
Grace and Captain Valance got to work with Fiona and Gary assisting. Price and his team came running up the ramp and stopped when they saw what was going on. They had to inject bio gel and the nanobots that used it into several different parts of her torso. The millions of nanobots would have to be activated all at once. Until then they would pool near the injection sites, mixing in with the gel they would use to rebuild vital organs until Grace activated them.
When Stephanie had been injected in over a dozen places Grace looked to Captain Valance. He glanced at the results his hand scanner was displaying and nodded. She sent the command to activate and Stephanie's body twitched as they went to work.
She sat back and waited, watching her wrist scanner. Captain Valance watched his own command unit, holding his hand out above her to take constant readings. Her internal organs were rebuilt, vascular system returned to its original condition, and any foreign matter was broken down into usable mass then used to repair bone, muscle and skin.
After a minute Captain Valance leaned forward and compressed her chest rhythmically. “The stasis is failing. Do you have an activator?”
Fiona pulled two tiny pads from her emergency kit and handed them to Grace.
“Oh please Stephanie, oh God please.” Ashley whispered as she lowered her face into her hands. She had kept her eyes on her station up until that point.
Grace placed one of the silver pads on Stephanie's temple and the other over her heart the pressed a button on her medical wrist unit. Her body was forced into taking a smooth deep breath, her heart started beating and her synaptic activity was stimulated. Stephanie's eyes snapped open and her whole body twitched. Her arms reached up with a twitch and her hands clutched at the air above reflexively.
Grace turned the activators off as Captain Valance caught one of Stephanie's hands. Even in death activators could force such a reaction from someone who had undergone so much nanosurgery, and Jake was as prepared as he could be to watch the life fade from Stephanie's eyes as the autonomic responses brought on by the activators stopped.
To his relief Stephanie looked up at him, smiled, gripped his hand tightly and said; “I need a bigger gun.”
Hernando Ramirez
Ramirez had staunched the bleeding in his leg and secured the vacsuit emergency seal around his left arm at the elbow. The grenade had done so much damage he knew he was teetering on death. Shrapnel had cut his left leg short at the shin, the other was burned so badly he couldn't move it and his left hand was gone. They had left him for dead but his vacsuit saved him.
He didn't have a communicator, it was destroyed along with his left wrist, but thankfully his vacsuit had an emergency package on the back of his neck and the pain medication kept him awake and the agony was bearable. “Now I know what Finn felt like,” he whispered to himself through broken front teeth.
He looked around. In front of him was one of the emergency shuttles the boarders had tricked them with. It looked military, but it had come in from the rear half of a destroyer. Everyone on his and Price's team thought that they were coming aboard for rescue, no one thought they would actually try to seize control. When he woke up and realized that his suit had saved his life, constricting as much as it could in its damaged state and applying pressure to slow the bleeding, it didn't take him long to realize that he was alone. The pain meds had already started flowing through his system, another thing to be thankful for. Emergency nanobots had done what they could, but there was too much damage.
He did his best to remember what he had left. A working brain, right arm and the will to do something, anything to stop the boarders. Ramirez rolled his eyes around, craning his stiff neck a little to get a better view of the large hangar, then he spotted a working communicator on the wrist of a nearby corpse. He pulled himself to it with his right arm, it took forever to cross less than two meters.
He was just about to contact Captain Valance when he heard a hatch open, followed closely by three more. Another escape vessel must have landed, and he heard the sounds of boots hitting the deck. The troops he could see from his vantage point were checking their rifles and taking a moment to muster. After falling into ranks they started running to the lifts. Oh no you don't, he thought to himself.
He opened a private channel with Captain Valance. “Captain, decompress hangar two. You have at least forty more boarders on their way.” He caught sight of a few of them running by. None even noticed him.
“Ramirez? We thought you were killed.”
“I'm fine, I'm secure. Just flush these bastards out into space.”
“I don't see you on our internal systems.”
“I'm secure. Flush 'em out.”
“Brace yourself.” The main hangar doors opened quickly, several meters per second. Air rushed out and anything not secure was pulled with it.
“It was an honour Captain,” Ramirez managed to say into the communicator before it was ripped out of his hand. He tried to grab hold of a landing strut as he slid by at an increasing speed and missed it.
His body turned as he skidded across the floor and he could see the doors wide open, the darkness of space beyond. It had been years since he had looked at it for what it was. Distant stars, billions of them out there, glimmering.
In the space of a short life he'd seen over a hundred worlds, more cities, and met even more people. On the Samson alone he had seen people come, go, die, and survive with him. His acquaintances became friends, his friends became loved ones and before he knew it the Samson was his home.
He crossed over the edge of the launch bay and drifted out into space. The bitter cold embraced him as his body turned. Pain killers made the cold a distant sensation. The Triton loomed. Make her a home Captain, make it their home. He wished as his sight faded and his body became absolutely still.
Rash Acts
“Ramirez? Ramirez!” Captain Valance shouted into his communicator. He spun on his heel. “Frost! Close the hanger bay doors and look for him. Cynthia, find out where that communication came from!”
They set to work as Captain Valance looked to the front of the bridge, where the field of stars in front of the ship was displayed.
“I can't find him sir,” Frost reported. “He's not coming up anywhere and I know I'm using this right.”
Cynthia turned in her seat. “The transmission came from hangar two. I double checked. The signal went dead shortly after the doors opened,” she said quietly.
Captain Valance ground his teeth and balled his fists, standing motionless, looking out into the stars beyond
