9. Ree

9

Ree

My hand is still trembling as I press the touchscreen 'open' option, but my mind is back under control.

I take a relieved, painful breath when it allows me to exit. After being stuck in a cell for weeks, the thought of being trapped in an even smaller space is terrifying.

I push myself out, gritting my teeth against the pain and then hobble over to Silver, my heart breaking when she continues to lay still. Then I see the slight movement of her breathing as I keep moving toward her and let out a relieved whistle.

I don't like the idea of moving her without knowing if she has spinal injuries, but her weight is steadily making the broken glass-like material of the chamber cut deeper and deeper into her stomach.

It goes against my training, but it's better to risk permanent spinal injury than to leave her to die to gravity. I put my arms under hers, then lift with all my strength.

She slips out and I tumble backwards under her weight, then shift her off of me.

I feel terrible when I see the deep scores I've left down her hips and legs because I wasn't able to fully lift her body off the jagged edge.

Then it occurs to me that considering how much larger she is than me, deep scrapes are a small price. She's a tall, curvy woman. I'm not even sure how I could lift her at all.

In fact, now that I no longer have that spike in strength, I struggle to drag her away from her chamber so I can lay her flat.

I have to take a moment to catch my breath and steady my shaking hands, then I ensure her neck is stabilized. Her stomach and head are bleeding heavily and I have nothing to use to staunch the blood flow. Nothing to use to stitch it up.

Her pulse is still steady and her breathing is even. It's possible her nanites will heal this, but I have no proper way to know.

I look around wildly, already knowing there is nothing here to help me, but still hoping.

There is no longer any light coming from the ship, with just our chambers providing internal illumination. I look up at the ceiling, noting that there is some muted natural light coming from above. It's a miracle we landed upright.

I'll have to figure out a way to get up there and see where we are, but that will have to wait.

I feel sick at how helpless I am.

I'm a trained professional, but I'm used to having a hospital and all its many tools available to me. I know that without them I can do very little to save this woman.

I jerk my head toward my cryochamber, realizing it's her best option. I hate the idea of putting her back into what equates to a jail cell. After her last experience, they are probably her absolute worst nightmare.

I hope she'll know that my intent differs greatly from the slimes when they put her in the one that lays broken open behind us.

I clench my jaw against my pain, hoping I'm not about to cause her further injury, and then start dragging her the few feet needed to get her to the base of my chamber. I step on broken glass, hissing in pain but simply keep pulling.

I doubt she has much time.

When I get her there, I'm unsure how I can get her in it.

I try to heave her up, but the small burst of strength I had in order to save her from the broken chamber doesn't come a second time.

"Think, dammit!"

I haven't been this rattled in years, but there is a process to follow and tools to use in an ER.

Here I have nothing and living in terror for weeks has left me frayed.

The amount of blood pooling on the ground lets me know I need to figure something out very, very quickly. The flow seems to have slowed, but I know she can't afford to lose much more. I look around, but there's nothing I can use to leverage her weight.

I panic, then remember the touch screen of the chamber.

My hand smears blood across it as I tap through different settings. I ignore 'close,' 'freeze,' and 'open.' When I see 'load' I jab it quickly, then yelp when I lift off the ground.

A quick glance lets me know Silver is also being raised into the air. I throw my arms out, bracing myself against anything I can find, which really just comes down to squeaking along the wall.

Luckily this slows my movement down just enough for the chamber to get Silver mostly lifted into it ahead of me.

Suddenly we're unceremoniously dropped. I bang my jaw on the edge of the chamber, then fall hard on my left elbow and hip. I only allow myself a moment to process the new layers of pain this adds before pushing myself to my feet.

She is only partially in the chamber and I have to heave her legs inside, a small scream trying to bubble up from the pain it causes me.

I don't know how much time she has and so I press 'freeze' as quickly as I can.

The glass door moves sluggishly and I help it snick into place with shaking hands. I take a relieved breath when it fills with a mix of different colored gas. A moment later they clear and I can see Silver resting within.

Blood is no longer flowing and I let out an explosive puff of air.

Then groan from the pain.

"Fuck."

With that task done, my energy plummets and my back slowly slides down the glass of the observation room. I take a moment to yank out the shard of glass embedded in my foot and with that, I complete the only task left to drive me and help me keep it together.

The thought of slimes coming in right now turns my trembling to violent shaking, but for the moment my body is not responding. Recognizing the symptoms of shock doesn't help me overcome it any faster, unfortunately.

Not only that, but I also suddenly realize that I opened my chamber with no idea if the air was breathable.

All I know about bacteria and viruses bubbles up uninvited. My brain burns from an overload of fear and my breathing is ragged for several long minutes.

Eventually I push all the unhelpful thoughts down and slouch in a daze.

I'm not positive how long I take to collect myself, but no slimes come in to check on me. I hope they're all dead, but if they provided us chambers to protect us I highly doubt they didn't have as good of protection, or better.

I really need to get out of here while I still can.

I look over to Silver, feeling extremely guilty. If I couldn't even lift her, there's no way I'll be able to take her chamber with me. There are no doors. Only a jagged hole in the ceiling. I can't figure out how to get her out, but the thought of leaving her is heart-wrenching.

It's just plain wrong.

But there's no real choice. I wouldn't want her to stay because of me, though I would hope that she would return if she could. I'll come back if I can figure out a way to heal her or get her chamber out of this hellish place.

"I-I'll return for you, Silver. I promise."

That decided, I make myself stand, which hurts like hell, but now that I've decided to leave, I don't want to stay here a moment longer.

I can't.

My throat is raw from how fast and harsh my breathing is and I take another moment to center myself. Then I look back up and see the hatch that has opened dozens of times, bringing torment with it, and I'm locked in place by remembered terror.

My heart is pounding and my vision is blurred.

"Fucking move, bitch," I growl at myself.

I lick my parched lips, tasting the sweat that is beaded on my lip, then pull a shaky hand across my forehead to prevent more of the stinging liquid from getting in my eyes.

I move jerkily, with great pain, toward the edge of the room to a ladder. Before the crash it went to a locked access tube. Now I'm able to use it to raise myself, one trembling step up at a time, just high enough to grab ahold of the shredded remains of the ship's hull.

The realization that less than a foot of different layers of metal once separated us from outer space is terrifying to know. The giant gash in the hull is a testament to how unsafe the voyage had been, but it seems like a species that could invent cryochambers that just survived flying through the sky should be able to keep their ship together.

What do I know? I'm no engineer.

When I finally manage to scramble up, I get a good view of the ship. We're in a small remaining hunk of it. Or at least I assume there must have been more of it than what now seems to amount to not much more than my cell, the hallway the other women were stored in, and the observation room.

Where we were severed from the ship looks like a surprisingly clean, straight cut.

From the shape, I assume we were in some sort of outer wing. There are burn marks and it's obvious the ceiling lost structural integrity because our entire section split off from the rest of the vessel. Had it stayed intact we would have all remained together. After a moment of regret that the other women were scattered to who knows where, I realize that without this tear we would have also been trapped.

Likely simply waiting here until we were recovered and sent along to auction.

"But how can I possibly protect them now?"

Who am I kidding? I can't even get Silver to safety.

The stark reality of just how fucked up all of this is doesn't remove my sense of duty.

I'm the only person who knows where they are. Well, kind of knows where they are. Either way, I guarantee no one else on this planet will consider them as anything but slaves.

Which is probably a best-case scenario.

Aside from maybe Kira, I doubt any of the women were awake and aware long enough to have the same sense of responsibility. And she seemed like a hard woman who might not consider it a worthwhile risk to search for them. I let out a broken, mirthless laugh.

If I'm their only hope, lord help them.

I have to keep wiping away tears as I look out to the forest surrounding us.

I don't think it's just because I live in a city that it seems particularly thick and wild. It feels completely untamed. And now that I know we aren't attached to the rest of the ship, where I assume all the slimes were, I'm wondering if my plan to leave is wise.

From the brief conversation I overheard, I assume we've crashed on an alien hunting ground, where their prey are likely to be as deadly to me as the hunters.

Can I believe what the slimes said about our tracking devices not working on this planet? What dangers lurk in that forest if hunters—who I assume don't come here if they aren't confident they can survive—get torn to pieces out there?

I bite my lip until I taste blood and continue scanning, hoping that something about the view will help me decide.