Kidnapped (22 page)

Travis looked around, confused, but relaxed when he realized where he was and who she was, and struggled to sit up. There was a deep throbbing pain coming from his arm that resonated through his body, and he felt hot and cold at the same time. He mumbled, "I'm getting too old for this," but told himself what he felt wasn't really relevant, and he fought to push away the darkness that threatened to close in on him.

Patricia tried to say something, but he cut her off, saying what he always said when she got anxious, "Don't worry about me, it's not important."

He took a deep breath, clinging to consciousness with pure will, and continued, "Help me up, I need to get to the bridge."

She started to object again, and he knew she was right; he should probably lie still, but there wasn't any time for that. She didn't move and it would have been easy to snap at her. He wasn't in any shape to be patient, but he did his best and asked simply, "Do you know where we're going?"

She shook her head and said quietly, "No clue. We can end up anywhere."

A shiver went through his body and he knew he needed to hurry, but it was difficult to be coherent. "You've been doing so well, sweetheart, and I don't want you to crash into a star or anything, so please just help me up and we'll go to the bridge."

He was weaker than he'd like to admit and leaned heavily on her. The pain was easier to bear this time than when Veronica had sawed his arm off, but it still seemed too much for his body to take, and the corridors seemed endless. Maybe he had just been through too much during the years. He sighed with relief when he sank down in his chair on the bridge, thinking his legs wouldn't have carried him much further. "Sweetheart, I need you to go to the infirmary."

It was difficult to concentrate. The world was simmering in and out of focus, and he felt freezing cold at the same time as he was sweating. He shook his head to try to clear it, but the effort only made the darkness larger. "There's a big shiny locker. Inside you'll find a hyposyringe. It looks a little like..."

He wanted to close his eyes and think about it, but knew he couldn't. It was just his body tempting him to give in to unconsciousness.

"Eh, it looks like a spanner, but with a sharp side to it where one can attach a needle. Bring that back, some of the needles that are stored right next to it, and some of the little tubes from the shelf under it."

Trying to explain with words what he needed wasn't doing any good. He could see the terms went right over her head. It made him frustrated, partly with her even though it wasn't her fault, but mostly with himself for not being able to do it better. He took a deep breath that turned out much too shallow before trying again.

"Forget about that, they're color-marked. Bring a brown, a yellow and a white tube. You can bring a red one too, but don't give me red unless I pass out, okay. I'll try not to, but there's a... uh..."

He was forgetting what he was talking about, and squeezed his eyes shut for a second. "A setting... you can choose the dosage, it says on the... eh, you'll figure it out."

It felt like the world spun around him, and he fought to get the last things he needed to say over his lips. "Then just put a needle in it, press it against my neck, and press the button. You can do it, baby girl."

There was so much more he wanted to tell her, but time was running out, and there were still things to do, so he just nodded towards the door. Patricia flew to her feet and out into the corridor. Travis pulled his remaining hand over his face, not at all liking the clammy feeling of his own skin, and tried to focus on plotting the course.

*****

Patricia was very afraid. Her lover was so pale, his skin was almost grey except for the scars that burned red, he had dark rings under his eyes, and that poor arm... She was trying not to look at it, trying not to see how fibres from his uniform had fused together with the flesh. His instructions made sense, but she was afraid she would forget them, or somehow mess up.

The ship had never been this big and the corridors never this long. She was running, and she almost fell over when the ship changed course abruptly. She found sickbay at last, and the cabinet was there just as he had promised, but she groaned when she looked inside it. It was packed with foreign objects, and she didn't see any hypo-spanner-whatever.

Shuffling through things, throwing some of them on the floor even, she finally smiled a little and mumbled, "This has to be it." On the shelf under it were rows upon rows with little tubes with colored lids, and she exclaimed, "You've got to be kidding!"

There weren't just yellow ones; there were shades of yellow, and she finally decided to grab the entire assembly.

When she returned to the bridge, Travis was leaning forward in the chair, slumping over the console in front of him, his head resting on his remaining arm. She called out his name, but this time there wasn't an answer, and when she ran her hand over his hair, it was damp with sweat.

She wasn't far from panicking, and she tried to recite to herself what she could remember from school: "Shock. Don't move the subject. Put the feet up high and keep subject warm." Yeah, none of that would work.

Feeling for his pulse didn't do much to reassure her. It was as shallow and rapid as his breathing, and somehow, trying to cling to the fact that he still
had
a pulse didn't comfort her as much as she thought it would. What had he said? Give him red if he passed out?

Thankfully, there was only one type of red, and she pulled the little tube out and read the label. Adrenaline, that was a word she could understand. The rest was gibberish to her, and she skipped through the tiny print to instructions about dosage. The hyposyringe felt foreign in her hands, big and clumsy, and she double-checked she'd gotten everything right several times before putting it against his neck, squeezing her eyes shut, and pressing the button.

*****

Travis returned to consciousness immediately, gasping for breath. He sat straight up and looked around, confused at first, but when he fixed his eyes on the frightened young woman next to him, it all came together. "Red, okay, you gave me red, good."

It was something he hadn't wanted, but he supposed it had been necessary. At least it wasn't as bad as the Alliance painkillers, and it would keep him on his feet for long enough to do what had to be done.

His heart was racing, his entire body wanted to tremble, and he had problems controlling his voice when he spoke, "I need a shot of the white one, and one yellow in the arm, sweetie."

She fumbled with the hyposyringe, seemingly afraid go anywhere near his arm. He made a little grimace and took the needle away from her, with a hand more unsteady than he would have liked it to be. It was sweet she worried for him, but it wasn't exactly what he needed at the moment. "It's okay sweetheart, right now I don't feel a thing."

It wasn't entirely true. He felt a lot of things, but he figured it was all she needed to know.

Leaning back in the chair, he started to tell her about his plan, trying to make it quick while he could still focus his thoughts somewhat. "We're going to a rendezvous with the Redeemer. It's not all that far, but it will take..."

He fell silent. He had no idea of how long it would take, and the fact he couldn't figure it out disturbed him. It was just too hard to think when each heartbeat echoed like a drum in his head. He made a dismissive gesture and continued. "Anyway, when the ship comes out of hyperspace, William will teleport over here. If I'm not around, he'll bring you back with him, blow up this ship with me in it and take you home."

Tears were welling up in Patricia's eyes, and she whispered, "Please don't say things like that."

He surprised her with chuckling joylessly. "I'll try to stick around, Sweetie, I promise, but we both know the odds for that aren't too good right now. If I'm still here, he'll take us both, and they have the technology to get the transmitters out of my body. If he succeeds with that, he can blow them up together with the ship, and with any luck, the Alliance will think I'm dead."

Pausing for a second, he squeezed his eyes shut. The lights on the console in front of him appeared to lift up and hover in the air, and the illusion made him want to try to press them down to where they were supposed to be. He shook his head a little and tried to tell himself it was only in his mind, he shouldn't think about it, and continued talking in a distracted voice, "Then... we can go do whatever you want to do. How's that sound?"

She didn't answer at first, and he guessed what she was thinking. It was hard to even imagine a time that far ahead. "I love you, Travis."

He managed to smile, and answered honestly, "I love you too. Now, I have a couple of things I need to do while I still can. You just stay here and keep an eye on the ship, okay."

The ship didn't need her keeping any eyes on it, and if anything happened, she wouldn't be able to do much about it anyway, but he wanted her to stay put, and he was relieved when she didn't argue.

When he got to his feet, it felt like he was swimming in a pool of tepid water, but the lights were too bright and all noises too loud. He said absent-mindedly, "Oh yeah, you'll want to throw the rest of that stuff away," as he headed out the door, and Patricia didn't ask what he was talking about.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Travis went to sickbay. He didn't look forward to what he would have to do now, but he figured the worst part was behind him, and since it would have to be done sooner or later, sooner would be better. Both from a strictly medical point of view, and from the fact that his brain was numbed by Alliance's special, extremely potent and addictive concoction to keep wounded and tired soldiers going.

The overhead lights had started to look red and blue to him, and he was filled with a pleasant feeling of detachment. None of the things happening seemed to really concern him. He still grimaced when he peeled the uniform jacket off. It had fused with his arm, and pulling the sleeve off took portions of his wounded flesh with it.

He poured a cleansing solution out in a big container, clenched his jaw and sank the remains of his arm into it. The pain was immediate and searing, even through all the drugs in his system, and he whacked his closed fist into the wall before he knew what he was doing. It did bring him back somewhat to the real world, and he supposed it was a good thing.

Somewhere far back in his mind he knew he would eventually have to go through all this again. If he lived, that was. Getting another artificial limb attached would mean having a physician opening up the wound, connecting muscles and nerve-endings. He pushed the thought away, thinking there was no need to worry about it now. He reached out to get another container, and a nano-solution much like the one he had treated Patricia with after the explosion.

His arm was bleeding a great deal; life was pouring out of him with every shallow heartbeat, and the cleansing solution had turned first pink and then darker red, but he only felt a distant interest when he looked at it. He tipped some things over, but didn't bother with picking it up or even looking at it. It didn't make all that much of a difference anymore.

Dipping the stump into the nanites felt better than cleaning it had. The solution was cool and soothing, but it started to itch at once, as the invisible robots started to stitch flesh together. He both wanted to look at it and not. He was curious if he could see the insides of his own bones, but he decided he probably didn't want to know.

Once done in the infirmary, Travis headed for his quarters. There wasn't much there of any value, but he did have one thing he wanted to pick up, one thing he didn't want blown up with the ship.

The drugs shouldn't be wearing off already, but his body and mind had had all they could take, and the darkness was starting to creep back, making his field of vision smaller and smaller. He fumbled with the little item hidden in the room, and leaned against the wall as he trudged on towards the bridge.

He made it almost all the way back. He collapsed just a few steps from the door, sadly not into a merciful oblivion but into a world of horrid hallucinations.

*****

When Travis left, Patricia saw his pupils had shrunk to tiny black dots, and she was starting to wonder what "red" really was. He didn't have to tell her to get rid of it twice. As soon as he was out of the room, she gathered all the little tubes up and tossed them down the garbage chute, into space. That taken care of, there was nothing to do but wait.

She was stressed and nervous and tried passing the time through reading the labels on all the colorful little tubes in front of her, but the long and complicated words quickly began to freak her out, and she stopped. "Computer, how long has it been since Travis left the bridge?"

The machine sounded like it was mocking her, but it was probably just her imagination. "Using the measurements of your world, the Commander has been gone for five minutes and thirty seven seconds."

He'd be irritated if she went trotting after him so soon, and she rubbed her belly, wondering what to do.