Part 4: The Spear of an Indifferent God
"Halstead? What's going on?" Leel Halstead ignored the voice of Chief Newton as he watched the silver spear vanish from sight into the Star. And then every piece of starship in this disposal yard at the edge of Union space in orbit around that Star began falling toward the point of the spear had impacted the Stellar mass until even the Space Station accelerated forward.
Technician Halstead was instantly thrown away from the console until the force exerting acceleration reached him and pulled him directly at Star in the Ops observation window. His strange fall slowed until his acceleration matched that of the station.
"Computer, Emergency Counter-thrust now!" The Star flared to a terrifying brightness and then imploded in on its wound until every ounce of plasma from its surface flowed into that opening and vanished from sight. The precarious nature of Leel Halstead's personal situation was made all the worse by the safety systems of the station applying a calculated counter-thrust to the ungodly force he alone was now witness to as he fell with the station.
Suddenly he no longer matched its acceleration, and out of reach of any hand hold as the station alarm sounded, Leel impacted on the unyielding glass of the Ops observation window, a shuttle from the Shuttle bay, along with a corpse in medical green accelerating toward the Star the last thing he saw.
...
"No." Despite the horror of her failure Claire Finn felt relief when Captain Mercer's medpod slipped from her hands, its terrible weight no longer tearing her muscles from their bones. She could only watch as Captain Mercer's medpod impacted against the now shuttered Shuttle Bay and she now searched for her Sons. There beyond the medical team crushed to death by the chaos that had impacted the Space Station stood Alara Kitan with a solid grip on the two medpods containing Ty and Marcus. "Thank God."
Claire exhaled with utter exhaustion and considerable relief at the welcome sight and collapsed into unconciousness.
Alara left Ty and Marcus near the lift and moved quickly across the shuttle bay to the remaining shuttlecraft and found a single medical officer crushed to death against the wall by the station shuttle. As she dragged the shuttle off the broken form of Ester Janeel, Alara completed her head-count. She had lost the station's entire medical team. The dying would now die and the injured, uncared for, lay.
"Alara to anyone who can stand..." Alara Kitan checked the medpod containing Captain Mercer and found it no longer functional, though the Captain was still somehow alive. First things first. Deliver Ty and Marcus to Medbay. "Report to the shuttle bay."
"I have four injured, one confirmed deceased, and two missing." The lift opened and the unconcious and scalded body of Chief Engineer Corlis Newton revealed itself. Alara Kitan checked the Chief's body and finding him still alive, propped him up in the corner of the lift making room for the two functioning medpods. "Make that five injured. One deceased, two missing."
"Medbay." The lift moved away from the shuttle bay. "Ops what the hell happened?"
"Ops, are you there?" After it became apparent that Ops was not going to respond any time soon, Alara closed her eyes at the prospect of even more dead station wide. "Someone check on Ops."
"Lieutenant Malloy," Kelly opened her eyes at the sound of Isaac's voice. "Captain Grayson is recovering."
"Awesome!" A bare chested Gordon Malloy stepped into Kelly's field of vision. "How are you doing Captain?"
"Your body is..." Kelly Grayson smiled that the horror show of Gordon's head on a Kaylon body was gone and she placed her hand on Lieutenant Malloy's chest to see if this was real. "...back to normal."
"Yeah, Isaac grew me a new one." Gordon laughed and nodded as he added his hands to hers. "It has all the Bells and Whistles. I'll let you take it for a ride later if you want."
"Isaac?" Captain Greyson's voice caught the attention of the sole remaining Kaylon in the Universe as Kelly extracated her hand from Malloy's grasp. "Is Lieutenant Malloy fit for duty?"
"Yes Captain Grayson," Isaac touched a metal finger to Gordon Malloy's cheek and watched it regain colour once he removed it. Gordon turned his head and mouthed the word 'dude' at Isaac for the unexpected physical contact. "He is perfectly healthy."
"Good." Kelly pointed at the only naked guy in the Medbay. "You. Uniform. Bridge. Twenty-four hour shift."
"Aww..." Lieutenant Gordon Malloy put his flirting on hold. "...Captain."
"Don't 'Aww...Captain' me Lieutenant Malloy." Kelly indicated the exit and Gordon walked naked out into the hallway and headed for his quarters. Kelly smiled. "Flirting with Command comes with consequences."
"So Isaac..." Kelly focused her attention on the Kaylon standing next to her with curiosity. "...explain to me how you grew Lieutenant Malloy a new body."
Note: On to Part 5... The Gods of Genocide
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