18
Carrie let go of Doc as he placed her on one of the pod-beds in the ship’s small hospital. He moved away and started doing something to a machine beside the bed. She groggily looked at Colt who was watching her carefully, her eyes wide with concern. Carrie’s throat hurt. It was dry and coarse, like she’d swallowed fire. She brought her hand up to her neck. It felt tight, as though Grolsh’s hands were still on it. She coughed again, and her lungs burned as they tried hard to suck more air into them. Doc came back and placed an oxygen mask on her face. The air was cold and wet, and it made her flinch.
“Lay down,” Doc told her, pushing her gently back.
She tried to resist, but couldn’t. She felt weak. She closed her eyes for a moment as her head hit the pillow. She didn’t want this to be happening. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go … Harris was furious. How did this happen?
Doc walked away for a second, then came back and placed his thumb along her brow ridge. He flashed a light in her right eye, then did the same with her other.
“What’s wrong with her eye, Doc?” Colt asked, as he shone the light into the left one. “Why is it red like that?”
“Burst blood vessel,” he said, turning the light off and putting it back in his pocket. “How’s the oxygen? You feeling better?” he asked her.
Carrie nodded, her brain was beginning to feel less cloudy. He turned and walked out of the room.
“What happened?” Colt asked in a motherly tone.
Doc came back with a cup of water. “Sip this,” he said handing it to her and disappearing again.
Colt leaned forward and lifted her mask. Carrie sipped the water, then Colt took it from her and repositioned the mask on her face. Doc came back carrying a strange glove and a tube of gel or cream. The glove was covered in a thin metal sheeting, with wires protruding that connected to a small screen. He pulled the glove over his right hand, twitched his fingers and eyed the screen for a response.
He sat on the side of the bed. “Look up for me,” he said, as he tilted her head back.
Carrie stared at the ceiling, trying to stifle a cough that was wanting to escape from her throat. She felt something cold on her neck and saw Doc put the tube on the bedside table. He took his gloved hand and ran the metal-plated fingers gently over her throat and neck, spreading the cold gel around. He looked down at the screen again, now resting on the bed in front of him.
“Ok, this’ll be uncomfortable for a second,” he said as he pressed his fingers harder into her neck and throat.
Her head jerked forward in reflex and her hand shot out to pull his wrist away, as she coughed into her face mask.
“I’m sorry, Welles, I’m just trying to see if there’s any damage. I’ll be as quick as I can.” Doc held her neck still with his ungloved hand, locking her chin upward with his thumb. He placed his gloved hand firmly against her throat and massaged it over her skin. She started to cough again, but didn’t move as Doc’s firm grip held her neck and chin in place. It was uncomfortable, but after a couple of minutes he was done.
“It looks okay. There’s no serious damage,” he told her, wiping the gel from her neck. He got off the bed, wiped the glove down and put it aside.
“Welles, what happened?” Colt asked again.
Carrie’s eyes drifted to the corporal.
“I don’t know if she can talk yet,” Doc answered for her.
Carrie went to speak, but her throat was dry and her words caught and stumbled out in another cough. Doc took the water off Colt and moved back over to Carrie, sliding her mask down to her neck. “Have some more of this.”
She took another sip. The cold water felt good running down her throat, putting out the fire within, if only briefly. She went to speak again, but her throat felt cluttered with debris and she launched into another coughing fit.
“Just give it a few minutes, Welles. There’s no hurry,” Doc told her, with a concerned edge to his voice.
She took another sip of the water and cleared her throat. “I— I’m okay,” she managed to croak, her husky voice sounding as painful as it felt.
Doc looked down at her, skeptically. “How long did you black out for?”
Carrie looked away from him. She didn’t know. She vaguely remembered being on the floor, and how her knees and her cheek hurt. She half remembered hearing Smith calling for Doc. She assumed it was Smith. It was faint, almost dreamlike, but she recalled seeing his face. She didn’t know how long it was before she was suddenly upright and Doc was in front of her. Although, at first, that was almost dreamlike too. Until she started coughing and choking, that is.
She looked up at Doc. He was watching her closely, waiting for an answer. “You don’t know, huh?” he said putting her mask back on.
“What the fuck happened?” Colt pleaded impatiently with her for an answer.
Carrie looked at her and went to speak, just as Harris came marching through the door with Packham in tow.
“Colt! Out,” he barked, motioning back into Doc’s office, where Packham had stopped.
Colt nodded and left the room. Harris followed and closed off the hospital from Doc’s office.
Carrie sat herself up a little in the bed as Harris walked back over to her.
“What’s the story?” he asked Doc.
“She’ll be alright. I don’t think there’s any permanent dama—”
“Good.” Harris cut him off, turning to Carrie. “Now tell me what the fuck happened?”
Carrie looked nervously at Harris. He seemed angry and she wasn’t entirely sure whether it was directed at her or not. She went to remove her mask to speak.
“Leave it on,” Doc told her. “We can hear you.”
“I’ve got Smith working on the surveillance footage,” Harris said, his voice still angry, “but until I see that, someone needs to tell me what the fuck happened here?”
“I— I don’t know,” she began, her voice dry and husky.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“It happened so fast …” She shook her head.
“What happened so fast?”
“He just grabbed me by the throat … and slammed me against the wall,” she croaked.
“Grolsh?”
She nodded.
“Why? What did he say to you? Did you say anything to him? He couldn’t have just snapped like that for no reason. Something must’ve lead up to this.”
“Captain,” Doc said firmly, as a way of asking him to go lightly.
Harris shot Doc an angry look. Carrie felt an anger within her begin to rise too. She didn’t ask for this. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She hadn’t done anything wrong.
“Well?” Harris said impatiently.
“I was walking down the hall and I heard him following me,” she began speaking quickly, in a defensive tone, her eyes staring down at the bed trying to recall what had just happened. “He said, ‘I’ll help you.’ I told him I was fine, but he kept walking. He started saying, ‘I know why you’re here—’ and then he started saying things …” Her throat started closing up on her.
“What things?” Harris pushed.
She eyed Harris nervously then looked down at the bed again. “He said that it had been a long time since he’d seen a woman …” She starting coughing.
Doc held out the cup of water. She refused it.
“Then what?” Harris continued probing.
“We get to the store, I get the napkins and he said it had been a long time since he’d … smelled a woman.” She continued to cough. “I came out of the store and he was in my face and he said … it’d been a long time since he’d … touched a …” Carrie started coughing more now, almost choking. Her eyes began to water, and saliva flooded her mouth.
“Welles, drink this!” Doc ordered, removing her mask and shoving the water in her face. She took a few sips and coughed some more, then cleared her throat.
“Then what happened?” Harris asked, a little calmer now, finally appreciating the fact that she was struggling.
“I tried to push past him and … as I did, he grabbed me by the throat and slammed me against the wall.” She held her hand up mimicking Grolsh’s grip on her throat, and saw that the fingernails on her right hand were bloodied. She twisted her hand around eyeing them, both intrigued and revolted.
“That his blood or yours?” Harris asked, his eyes quickly scanning her over.
Carrie noticed her hand was shaking. She quickly put it back down in her lap to make it stop, but kept her eyes focused on the dried blood. “His …” she said remembering, her voice very croaky now. “I dug them into his face …”
“Good,” Doc said, folding his arms.
“So then Smith came along and disturbed him?” Harris asked.
“I don’t know … I dug my nails in and he lifted me off the ground by my throat … I started to pass out … he must’ve heard Smith coming. Next thing I know, I was lying on the ground … and someone was yelling.”
Harris nodded, rubbing his jaw, thinking.
Doc turned to Harris. “I’m pulling her off duty for a while for observation.”
“I thought you said she was going to be okay?”
“Yeah, she is.”
“So why does she need observation, then?”
“It doesn’t have to be me, captain!” Doc said tersely with his hands in the air. “Colt can watch her! Packham? I don’t care. But she blacked out and we don’t know how long for. That means her brain was starved of oxygen for a certain period of time. So someone needs to watch her to make sure she continues to be okay. 24 hours is the standard observation!”
Carrie wanted to stop them arguing. She didn’t want to be the cause of any trouble between them. She quickly sat up in bed and removed her mask.
Doc looked over at her. “Welles, what are you doing?”
“Stop arguing,” she croaked at them, as she quickly got up off the bed. “I’m fine.” She turned to Harris. “Sir, it’s okay, I’m ffffiii—” She took a step toward him, but suddenly felt lightheaded. Her brain seemed to briefly buzz out and she face-planted into Harris’s hard stomach. He caught her by the arms and a slight zap of static electricity shot between them. Doc stepped forward to assist and they both sat her back on the bed. She looked up at the two of them staring down at her.
“I— I just got up too quick,” she said groggily, rubbing her forehead.
Doc put the mask back on her and pushed her back to lie on the pillow. “Stay there, Welles. That’s an order!”
She saw Doc look over at Harris with a self-assured look.
“Okay, Doc, that’s fine. But I need you.” Harris pointed at him, then walked to the door and opened it. He motioned for Colt and Packham to enter, which they did.
“Doc is going to finish up here with Welles, then he is going to escort you three back to your quarters, where you two will keep an eye on her until I send someone for you. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.” They nodded.
Harris headed for the door.
“Captain,” Packham said, stopping him.
“What, sergeant?”
“Shouldn’t we be armed? Like the others.”
“Doc’s carrying.” He nodded in Doc’s direction, then turned and left.
Carrie and the other women looked at Doc. He eyed them all back for a moment, then sighed. He reached behind his back, pulled out a UNF handgun and showed them, then put it back in place.
“You’ve had that the whole time?” Carrie croaked.
“Not the whole time,” he said quietly, then quickly looked away as he walked over to a cabinet and fished something out of a drawer. He walked back holding a camera and threw it at Colt, who caught it.
“I need a record.” He motioned toward Carrie. “Get a shot of her face, her neck and her hand.”
Doc disappeared again, as Carrie sat up a little and tried to stretch out her back and winced.
“Is your back hurt, too?” Colt asked, pulling her forward to take a look.
Doc walked back in and saw Colt studying her back.
“Doc, should I get a shot of her back, too?” the corporal asked him.
He walked over and leaned behind Carrie, pulling her singlet out, and pressing along her shoulders and upper back. “Yeah. He’s a strong bastard …”
Colt took a couple of photos, then showed Carrie the image on the screen. She had a purple bruise from shoulder blade to shoulder blade, from where she was slammed into the wall.
“Your neck and eye are worse,” Colt told her.
Carrie lay back down for a minute, placing her oxygen mask on again. She looked over at Packham and asked as clearly as her bruised throat would allow, “What’s going on out there?”
“McKinley took off with Hunter, Carter and Louis to find him. Smith’s locked the ship down, and Brown and Bulk are guarding the other three survivors in the mess hall. Harris and I armed Bulk and Smith, but Brown already had one, like Doc.”
Carrie nodded to herself. That must have been what McKinley had a word to Brown about … She remembered glancing up from the floor and seeing McKinley looking around with a gun in his hand. She hadn’t clicked at the time that he shouldn’t have had one on him. So, McKinley, Brown and Doc were all armed. She bet Harris had been, too.
Her mind began to churn over as rapidly as it could in her recovering state. This was not how she’d planned her Space Duty debut to be. This simple mission had just taken a serious turn, and she suddenly felt very uncomfortable with being smack, bang in the middle of it.
*
Harris waited outside the mess for McKinley to return, trying to remove the images of Sibbie and Etta that had suddenly appeared, like splintered little fragments of mirror shot deep within the flesh of his brain.
He refused to wait inside with the three remaining survivors. What Logan had said had struck a chord with him. He did feel responsible. He should’ve been watching Grolsh. If he had been, he would have seen him leave after Welles. He would have followed him and stopped anything from happening, and they would still be playing cards right now.
Yeah, but for how long, Saul? Until the next time he was alone with her or one of the others?
He sighed, disappointed. He’d dropped his guard and Welles had paid the price for it. He knew it and it unnerved him that Logan knew it, too. The last place he wanted to be was in that room with Chet and Logan trying to get inside his head, like he was some prisoner in Hell Town. He pictured Welles lying in the ship’s hospital again, her bloodshot eye, bruised neck, bloodied hand.
He dreaded his next conversation with Command, having to explain to them that he’d fucked up the one thing that Isaack had been drilling into him: keep the female recruits from harm. There goes their fuckin’ PR exercise. He stood there wishing that this was just a bad dream. He wanted to wake from his sleep, go release the survivors and start the evening over again and do things differently.
He’d let Smith go to change his clothes and left Brown and Bulk, now both armed, watching the men. Thirty-two minutes had passed since McKinley left and still there was no sign of him.
Harris started pacing along the corridor, his mind ticking over. Something that Welles said had stuck in his mind. She’d stated that Grolsh said he knew why they were here, as though the survivors had been expecting them. But what did that mean? Expecting the Aurora or expecting the new recruits? Expecting to be saved? Or expecting something else?
He heard footsteps and spun around. It was Doc.
“Are they secure?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Doc said, reaching him.
“Welles make it without falling over?” he arched an eyebrow.
Doc nodded. “She just needs a few hours to get herself back together. You saw that big handprint across her throat, Saul. He nearly killed her. I think she’s in shock to be honest.”
“Yeah, well, I think we all are. We were expecting something, but not this and not this quick.” Harris put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “Four armed men and we all missed it, because of some spilt juice and wisecracks.”
“Yeah, we did,” Doc sighed. “But Saul, I don’t think any of us thought they’d be so bold as to attack one of our soldiers less than two hours out of that cell. Why do you think he did it?”
“Well, from what he allegedly said to her,” Harris answered, shrugging, “the motive appears to be pretty clear.”
“I don’t know, Saul. I don’t think the motive was sexual assault. Her clothes weren’t torn in any way and from what she said he didn’t try anything else. It seems like he was just literally trying to strangle her or subdue her and that’s it.”
“But he was interrupted, Doc.”
They looked at each other for a moment.
Harris shook his head again. “I don’t know, but did you hear Welles say that he said he knew why they were here? Or why we were here? Like it’s not just a rescue.”
Doc nodded. “But what does that mean?”
Harris shrugged. “Means something.”
Just then McKinley and the three other men came walking down the corridor toward them. Grolsh was not with them. Harris stared hard at McKinley waiting for an answer.
“He must’ve got off the ship before Smith locked it down. We’ve searched this place top to bottom and he’s not here, captain,” McKinley told him as he approached.
“Fuck!” Harris hissed.
“Is Welles okay, Doc?” Hunter asked.
“She’s a little bruised, but she’ll be alright.”
“Where is she?” McKinley asked. “And where’re the other two?”
“Secure,” Harris said, his voice tight.
Just then Smith’s voice came over the ship’s PA. “Captain! That footage is ready when you are, sir.”
“Right, I want to see this shit,” Harris said, turning and heading for the flight deck, as the others followed.
When they reached the flight deck, Smith looked around at him.
“He definitely got off the ship. I saw it on the footage,” Smith told him, “He hid somewhere for a bit, then just slunk out when no-one was looking.”
Harris nodded. “Show me, Welles. I want to see exactly what happened.” He moved to stand behind Smith’s chair while Doc, McKinley, Hunter, Carter and Louis gathered around them. They looked at the large screen across the window in front of them.
Harris watched the footage carefully. It was as she had described it to him. They were walking along, Welles slightly in front, and Grolsh close behind, staring at her. She got the napkins, came back to the door and turned to close it. As she turned back around, Grolsh was blocking her path, standing right in her face. She eyed him for a moment, then went to step around him, but he moved in her way, blocking her. She tried the other side and he blocked her again. He said something to her and she eyed him strangely. She then went to push past him, but his reflexes were lightning fast and he had her by the throat and slammed hard against the wall in an instant. Her feet briefly left the ground.
He held both hands on her throat, as Welles struggled to free herself. Quickly realizing that she wasn’t going to be able to remove his hands, she began punching him hard in the face. In response, he used his right arm to pin one of her wrists against the wall, and used his left elbow to pin her other arm back. As he squeezed his left hand around her throat, he moved his face in very close to hers, his nose touching her cheek, saying something to her that Harris couldn’t make out. To her credit, she continued to attempt to fight him off with everything she had. Harris watched as the corporal managed to free the arm pinned by the elbow and punched at the arm holding her throat. She kicked at his legs and brought her knees up for his groin, but he pressed his weight against her limiting her movement. Finally, she clawed his face, viciously grabbing hold of his cheek and digging her nails in hard. He reeled his face away, tearing the flesh as he did, and the blood spilt down his cheek.
“Oof, jeez,” Hunter muttered, wincing.
“Go, Welles,” Smith smiled.
“She’s feisty, I’ll give her that!” Carter added, crossing his arms.
They continued to watch as Grolsh’s torn face only seemed to make him angrier. His eyes turned wild and he lifted her off the ground by her throat, as high as his arm could hold her. Welles looked alarmed now, her legs flailing about in midair.
“And he’s stronger than he fucking looks,” Carter noted, dropping his folded arms and placing his hands on his hips.
Grolsh only had her in the air for a matter of seconds, but they watched as Welles began to black out, her eyes rolling back in her head, fighting to stay open. Then Grolsh suddenly turned and looked over his shoulder. He snapped his head back around to Welles, somewhat panicked, then dropped her and ran off. She fell like a rag doll to her knees and then onto her torso and face. Within seconds Smith was there leaning over her shaking her shoulder trying to wake her, before he turned and yelled for help, then bolted off screen yelling some more.
Harris stared at the screen, mind ticking over, while the men shuffled restlessly, throwing each other looks.
Louis shook his head. “She turned her back on him. Stupid!”
“Would’ve made no difference, Louis,” McKinley said, staring at the screen.
Carter agreed. “He lifted her up with one fucking hand, man,” he told Louis.
“You do not turn your back on the enemy,” Louis continued defiantly.
“She didn’t know he was the enemy!” Doc said bluntly, shutting down the discussion.
The footage continued to roll. Smith ran back onto the screen and knelt by her side, trying to lift her up, as she slowly began to respond. McKinley came onto the screen then, gun in hand, glancing down at Welles, and then scanning the perimeter. Doc came running in next and took her off Smith’s hands, pulling her up to her knees.
“Stop it,” Harris ordered Smith. “Fire up the visual comms. We’re going in. Doc you stay here and be my eyes and ears. Let’s move out!”
*
Harris and McKinley made their way onto the Darwin, using their two-by-two cross-cover, with the other three men following close behind. They began to go over the path they’d taken when they first boarded the station. Moving from room to room, checking carefully any spots that Grolsh could hide. Everything seemed somehow quieter and cleaner than when they’d first come aboard. They took their time and checked everything thoroughly, but they cleared the three sections and found no sign of him. The station was empty. Quiet. Completely deserted.
“Fuck!” Harris hissed, dropping his weapon to his side. He took hold of his mouthpiece. “Doc. Did you pick up anything? Over?”
“Negative, captain. Over,” came his reply.
He looked at McKinley. “You sure you checked every spot on the Aurora?”
“Captain, I assure you we did,” he replied firmly.
Carter backed him up. “Captain, we checked everything. There was no way that little fucker could’ve been hiding on our ship.”
“How the fuck can he just disappear like that?” Hunter asked, brow scrunched. “We’ve missed something.”
Harris looked at him, thinking. “Head back to the ship,” he ordered, then turned and led the way.
He strode ahead, thinking hard as to where Grolsh could be. His gun was by his side, but he gripped it tight, ready for anything. As he made his way through Section One, back toward the dock, he heard Louis whisper loudly behind him.
“What the fuck is it?”
Harris turned and saw that McKinley had paused and was aiming his gun at something. Louis was close by his side, and Carter not far behind them.
“What?” Harris asked, sidling up beside him, gun at the ready.
McKinley’s eyes were focused as he inched slowly toward one of the offices. “I don’t know, sir,” he said quietly. “I saw something move. I think it was a …”
A cat leaped out at them, narrowly missing Louis’s face. McKinley went to fire, but dropped his gun when he saw what it was.
“You fuck!” Louis spat, firing his gun at it as it ran away. He missed.
“Louis! Louis, HOLD YOUR FIRE,” Harris yelled.
Louis dropped his gun, as Carter gave a throaty laugh.
“Fuck you!” Louis spat at Carter.
“Where was that fucker hiding before when we came in?” McKinley asked, not sharing the amusement of the others. “We didn’t pick it up on our heat sensors.”
“They’re cats, McKinley,” Louis said. “They fucking sneak up on people. That’s what they do.”
“Move out,” Harris said, as he strode ahead again, making his way back to the Aurora. He didn’t speak, but his mind was racing furiously. McKinley had just raised a very good point indeed.
*
As they entered the Aurora, Harris spoke to Smith over his mouthpiece, ordering him to lock the ship down behind them. He made his way to the mess hall with McKinley, Louis and Carter in tow. Hunter broke off and headed for the flight deck, telling Harris he wanted to check something out.
They entered the mess hall and saw the three survivors playing cards, while Brown and Bolkov stood and watched.
“Where is he?” Harris glared down at the three survivors.
They looked up from their card game, innocently.
“Where is he?” he continued. “He’s disappeared. He has to be somewhere? Is there some sort of panic room or something on the Darwin that’s not on the plans?” Harris stared at them.
“Captain, your men have just missed him,” Chet said calmly. “He’s scared and he’s hiding. Maybe if you back off with your guns, he’ll come out.”
“Are you even allowed to use those weapons in our facility?” Logan challenged.
“Yes, I am,” Harris said firmly, “and if this is just a misunderstanding as you say, then why is he hiding?”
“I just told you why, captain. The guns,” Chet’s tone, although civil, had an acidic edge to it. “Put them away, face him man to man, and he’ll come out. Now, are you going to insist on keeping us prisoner? I thought we had an arrangement?”
“The arrangement didn’t include you attacking one of my soldiers,” he said, placing his hands on his hips.
“I didn’t attack one of your soldiers, captain, neither did these two men.”
“So, help me find Grolsh, then?”
“So you can do what, exactly?” Logan’s eyes narrowed in accusation.
“Eye for an eye …” Brown’s voice was low and threatening as he gave Logan a cold empty stare.
Harris flashed Brown a glare, then turned back to the survivors. “So I can lock him up and have him charged with assault on a UNF soldier.”
Logan continued eyeing Harris as though he was trying to get inside his head. Harris did his best to ignore it.
“Will you assist us, gentlemen? Or will I have to throw you back in the bio cell for withholding information and obstruction?”
Fairmont looked over at Logan and Chet, who continued to stare, unblinking at Harris. The silence sat thickly around them for a few moments.
“How can we assist you, captain?” Chet said slowly, in a deep voice. “If you can’t find him, how are we supposed to?”
“You can start by telling me whether you have some sort of hidden room on the station that he could be hiding in?”
Chet shrugged, and Fairmont mirrored him.
They’re lying. All of them.
Just then, Doc’s voice came over his earpiece.
“Captain, I think you should come up to the flight deck for a moment. There’s something you should see.”
“Copy that. Over,” he said into his mouthpiece, then turned to the others. “McKinley, with me. The rest, stay here.”
*
Carrie had fallen asleep on her bed. She’d wanted desperately to stay awake, but the attack had taken its toll. She’d told the other two women what had happened, and they were concerned. It was fairly obvious that it could have been any one of them. It was just Carrie who’d drawn the short straw and walked off by herself.
After she’d told them, Colt urged her to roll over and rest, so she did. She faced the wall and closed her eyes. She thought about Grolsh, but didn’t want to. She was angry. She should’ve seen it coming, but she hadn’t. She went through the incident in her head and wondered whether she could’ve done anything to avoid Grolsh’s attack, but she thought of nothing. He was too quick. She kept seeing his face as he strangled her. She thought of the words he’d spoken to her; his face had been so close. His eyes were dead, yet somehow alive with the excitement of it all. When she dug her nails into his face, the excitement had turned to sheer fury as he reeled back, then lifted her off the ground. The strength he possessed had scared her.
She knew she had to get her mind off Grolsh or she would never sleep. Without even thinking about it, her thoughts traveled to Doc. She remembered seeing those brown eyes staring into hers and his voice telling her to breathe. She remembered grabbing onto him, as she choked and coughed, struggling for air. She remembered him carrying her to the hospital, although she hadn’t wanted him to. She knew Harris and the others were watching, so she’d wanted to walk herself, but she remembered how groggy she’d been, and how nice it felt to rest her head against Doc’s shoulder and neck.
She recalled the last time she’d spoken to him that day, when he’d walked into the mess hall to get some coffee. She felt a little bad that she had been cold to him, but what did he expect? She ran their earlier conversation through in her mind. She remembered him saying that they needed to watch the time spent alone. She remembered the look on his face and his hand on the door, blocking her exit. Just like in the mess hall when he stood in front of her. It was as though he didn’t want to have to do it, she thought. He was doing it because he had to. Did he want her to understand it wasn’t coming from him, but he couldn’t tell her? And what was the cause of that heated discussion he had with Harris in the hospital?
The captain was behind it. Of course. He was the one who wanted to control their time spent alone.
And that was the last thing she’d remembered when the tiredness finally overcame her and she’d fallen asleep.
*
When she awoke again, Packham was reading on her bunk and Colt was dozing. Packham heard her stir and tipped her head over the bunk to look at her.
“Hey, that wasn’t long?” she whispered, looking at her watch.
“What’s the time?” Carrie croaked, in desperate need of some more water.
“Almost 2130. You’ve been out for about 45 minutes,” she whispered again, but Colt stirred anyway.
Carrie was feeling weird. Not just because of what had happened, but because of the dream she had just had. She got up slowly, making sure she didn’t fall over again, and headed for the bathroom. Turning on the light, she looked at herself in the mirror. She was taken aback, at first. She hadn’t seen herself since the incident. Half of her left eye was no longer white, but dark red in color. Bloodshot. The cheek underneath was a light purple from where she’d hit the floor. She looked down at her neck and saw a clear handprint across it. There was a distinct bruise from a thumbprint under the left side of her jaw and four small bruises along the right side of her neck. In between these darker bruises, the rest of her neck had turned a faint purple color.
She bent down to the basin, cupped some water in her hands and drank it. She cupped some more and drank and drank until her belly felt full. She turned away, undressed and stepped into the shower. She had to wash the past couple of hours away and refresh herself. She closed her eyes, held her face under the water, and tried to clear her mind, but she couldn’t shake the vision of Grolsh’s face, nor the dream she’d had, from her mind.
In her dream, she’d been standing against a wall with her eyes closed and felt she couldn’t breathe. She opened her eyes and saw Grolsh strangling her again. He was sweating and shaking, squeezing the life out of her. She looked over his shoulder and saw Harris standing there. He gave her an unimpressed look. She turned back to Grolsh, but suddenly realized it wasn’t him strangling her, it was Doc. He was staring at her, sweating and shaking, one hand around her throat, and one on the wall beside her. She panicked and grabbed onto his arm and tried to pull it away from her throat. She looked back at Harris, who was now standing there with his hands on his hips, shaking his head. She looked at Doc and suddenly realized that he wasn’t actually strangling her. His hand was on her throat, but he wasn’t hurting her. He was trying to push himself away, sweating and shaking as he did. Her eyes flew back to Harris and saw he was walking away. She looked at Doc again. He was closer now, failing to hold himself back, shaking, sweating and wincing, one arm against the wall. Her hands slid onto his shoulders. She tried to help him, pushing and pushing, but nothing was happening. His arms slowly began to fold, bringing him closer and closer, until his body was on hers. Her heart was racing and she could feel his was, too. Still fighting to hold himself back, still straining, somehow he movd closer and closer. She felt his breath on her face, his nose touched hers, then brushed her cheek. Then, with her heart racing and breathing rapid, his lips touched hers. Just. That’s when she suddenly woke up.
She stood in the shower, trying to shake the dream from her head, despite her body wanting to be back in it. She took a deep breath and put her arms out against the wall and dipped her head down so that the water ran freely over it. It’s just a stupid dream. Like all the other stupid dreams you’ve been having since coming on this ship. Your subconscious is running wild. Just because Harris wants you to keep your distance, does not mean Doc has feelings for you. Doc is just friendly. He’s a medic and it’s his job to care for people. He said it himself, don’t read anything into him being good at his job.
So why did he block your path both times? Why did he care about what you thought? Why didn’t he just let you go and get over it?
Oh man, the shit you’re in, and this is what you’re thinking about? Grolsh nearly killed you and he’s still on the loose. You’re stuck in the far reaches of the UNF Space Zone, out by The Belt, with a team that barely acknowledges your existence. There are bigger things to think about here!
She sighed and rubbed her hands over her face, resting her forehead against the wall of the shower. Pull yourself together, Welles! You’re screwing this whole thing up. You have to go out there and get back to it. You can’t sit around while they deal with this. You need to step up. You need to be the soldier you know you can be. This shouldn’t have happened, so don’t let it continue to happen. Take responsibility. Go out there and show them your resilience. Show them you can take anything they throw at you.
She pictured her father’s wary, concerned eyes, but it only spurred her on. Don’t fail this! Don’t let your father be right. She climbed out of the shower, dried and dressed herself and when she came back out Packham and Colt were sitting on their beds waiting expectantly for her.
“You okay?” Colt asked her.
Carrie nodded a sharp soldier’s nod and moved to sit on her bed. “How long do you think we’ll be stuck here for?” she croaked.
Colt shrugged.
“I think we should head out and find the others,” Carrie suggested.
“Are you kidding?” Colt looked at her wide-eyed. “Have you not learnt one thing about the captain yet? He’s quite particular about his orders, you know.”
Carrie sighed and slumped back on her bed. “Just tell me where Grolsh is, give me my gun, and I’ll shoot the bastard!” she said.
Packham and Colt grinned at her, then started laughing softly, but it grew, and within seconds they were howling with laughter.