“Ohhh, my head …” Cooper moaned as she stirred and opened her eyes, then squinted at the brightness of her room. She grabbed the sides of her head as the CMO entered.
“You’re awake,” he said. “Here, this might help a bit.” He reached for a panel beside the hatch and lowered the ambient light.
“I gave you something for your headache, but it doesn’t look like it helped much,” he added as he stood beside her bed and peered at the overhead ARI display. Scarecrow had spent the night in her room, quietly snoozing in the corner. He awoke with a start when he heard the doctor’s voice.
Cooper was agitated when she was informed of the reason for her throbbing cranium. Scarecrow held her hand as the doctor described the nature of her assault. Then she spotted the Marine squad in the passageway outside her room.
“Hey! You jarheads have three seconds to return to your duties, or I’ll have you scrubbing toilets for the next week!” She yanked her hand away from Scarecrow’s as she spoke. The squad looked at each other, then disappeared from sight.
“Those two can leave as well!” Cooper yelled as she swatted the air in the direction of the security officers, “Your services are no longer required!”
The pair was reluctant to leave, regardless of Cooper’s threats. They cast a troubled gaze at each other then back at the major.
“Go!” she shouted once more as she continued to shoo them with her hand. She groaned as she sat up and slid her legs off the side of the bed. Scarecrow nodded at them. The pair sighed in unison as they turned and departed.
“You men!” Cooper said as she and Scarecrow walked back from the wardroom after a mid-morning meal under his watchful eye. “I can take care of myself.”
“That may be so, but I’m glad Frank was on hand yesterday when you passed out after being drugged. If it wasn’t for him, who knows what would have happened to you.”
“That was different,” Cooper replied. “But now I’m in complete control of my faculties. I’m fully capable of taking care of myself. I don’t need the admiral’s henchmen following me around like a pair of lap dogs everywhere I go.”
“Regardless, I’m glad you’re okay.” Scarecrow put his arm around her shoulder and offered a gentle squeeze as they walked down the empty passageway.
“Hey, isn’t the captain’s in-port cabin that way?” Cooper motioned down an adjacent passageway as they walked by. “Where are you taking me?”
“Back to your own stateroom,” Scarecrow said. “Security has finished upgrading the lock on your hatch. It now has a biometric activation system. Requires live DN–”
Suddenly, Scarecrow felt a sharp blow to the back of his head and he dropped to his hands and knees on the deck. Surprised by his unexpected fall, Sandy spun around to see a young, burly Marine toss a length of pipe onto the deck and reach for her, grasping her arm and trying to get his free hand over her mouth.
Instinct kicked in and Cooper went into Marine combat mode, stomped on his foot and drove her fist up into his gut just beneath his ribcage. He jerked with violence and staggered back, winded from the impact. The major pivoted on her left foot and delivered a roundhouse kick to her assailant’s head, spinning him around to slam face-first into the bulkhead. He dropped to the deck with a heavy thud.
Sandy stood ready to inflict more pain, but she spotted a dark blur out of the corner of her eye. Before she could respond, Scarecrow jumped onto the Marine’s chest and began pummeling him. Each blow he delivered was faster and harder until the Marine, who initially tried to ward off the commander’s assault, began to succumb and his hands flopped to his sides. Driven by rage, Scarecrow continued to hammer away at the Marine’s face until his fist was bloody.
“Steve!” Cooper shouted. “Steve, stop it! You’ll kill him! Steve!”
Scarecrow wasn’t listening as he maintained his frenzied attack.
“Commander Richardson! Stand down! Steeeve!”
Sandy realized she had to pull him off the Marine, or he would kill him. She lunged forward and slipped her right arm under Scarecrow’s armpit, hauling him backwards with a half-nelson. She staggered back with him still flailing as they crashed to the deck with Scarecrow landing on top of her. Cooper maintained her grip on him when he stopped struggling and began to convulse.
“Steve! What’s wrong?” The major managed to pull herself out from under him, at least partially, to lean her back against the bulkhead with Scarecrow lying across her lap. He stopped convulsing, and went limp. “Steve? Darling? Steve, talk to me! Stay with me!”
Scarecrow’s eyes rolled back into his head while his mouth dropped open and his throat began to gurgle. Sandy cradled his head in her right hand and shook his torso with her left.
“Steve! Come back to me! Steve?” She tapped her comm tattoo. “This is Major Cooper to sick bay! Medical emergency in the passageway outside the Marine officer’s quarters! I need help! Now!”
Then Cooper glanced over at the Marine, still lying on the deck not far away, who was just beginning to stir. She tapped her comm tattoo a second time.
“This is Major Cooper to Security. I need a team to the passageway outside the Marine officer’s quarters now!”
She stared back down at Scarecrow who was completely torpid, his eyes still rolled back into his head.
“Steve? Darling? Please …! No! No! No! This isn’t happening! Please God, No!”
She felt something damp in her right hand, and pulled it out, letting Scarecrow’s head slip down into the hollow of her elbow. She gazed down at her hand as it trembled uncontrollably.
It was covered in blood.
“No! Steve! No! Somebody help meeee!”
At that moment, the Marine stirred and peered around, his eyes groggy, blood oozing from his nose, mouth and ears. He glanced over at Cooper, holding Scarecrow in her lap. With some difficulty, he gained his feet, and staggered like a drunkard down the passageway to disappear around a corner.
Sandy didn’t notice him leave. Her eyes were filled with tears as she stared down at Scarecrow, begging him to wake up. She looked up to see a team of corpsmen racing down the passageway towards her.
“Hurry! I need help right now! Hurry!” She urged them at the top of her lungs, her voice frantic.
Then Scarecrow began to convulse again, this time with much more violence than before. The lead corpsman reached them and didn’t waste time trying to diagnose Scarecrow. He slapped a device onto the pilot’s chest and punched it with his finger to activate it, and Scarecrow vanished from off of Sandy’s lap. Then he leaned against the opposite bulkhead to tap his comm tattoo.
“Sick bay! Emergency medical transport incoming! Stat!” The corpsman pushed himself away from the bulkhead and staggered forward to stoop in the middle of the passageway, his hands on his thighs, gasping from his sprint as he stared down at Cooper. Sandy held her arms up in front of herself, her right arm, side and lap drenched in Scarecrow’s blood. She began to weep, her body quivering with great, wracking sobs. The corpsman squatted in front of her and grabbed her wrists, trying to calm her as the rest of his team reached them.
“Report, Doctor,” Rear Admiral Reynolds said as he entered the trauma bay.
“It’s bad,” the doctor replied with a heavy sigh.
“Y’know, Reg, I’m getting tired of these visits to your sick bay. Give me the Reader’s Digest condensed version.”
“He suffered blunt force trauma to the back of the head. It wouldn’t have been as bad if he hadn’t suffered that TBI from his F-35 crash in Afghanistan last year. We had to let that injury heal naturally because we didn’t have a DNA baseline of him for the regeneration pod to work from. There was still some residual scarring which aggravated this latest injury. We now have that DNA baseline, and we’ve added the marker. Dr. Forbes, who as you know is our genetics expert, has tweaked the commander’s DNA profile so the regeneration pod will have a clean master outline to work from.
“We had to perform emergency surgery to keep from losing him, but it was successful. We’re prepping the pod right now. If all goes well, he should be back in the land of the living by this time tomorrow.”
“Good work, Reg.” The rear admiral let out a heavy sigh of relief.
“Don’t thank me. Thank our emergency medical transporter, and the corpsman who had the presence of mind to use it. Another couple of minutes, and we’d have lost him.”
“Thank God for our advanced technology.”
“Amen to that.”
“Where is she?” Reynolds glanced around the trauma bay.
“She’s in the pod room, waiting for us to bring him in and start the regeneration procedure.”
Reynolds entered the regeneration pod room to find Sandy sitting in a chair off to one side, her arms crossed. A look of concern marred her tear-streaked face, and she was still covered in Scarecrow’s blood. The rear admiral stopped in the open hatch-way and tried to offer a hopeful smile. Sandy glanced up at him and became self-conscious, turning away as she wiped tears from her eyes in an attempt to look more presentable.
“He’s going to be fine.” Reynolds tried to sound confident, but he wasn’t sure he was convincing. “The doctor assured me he’ll be alright.”
Sandy looked to one side, trying to retain her composure. She remained silent.
“Watch out, Sir. Comin’ through,” a corpsman said as he and another guided an anti-grav gurney carrying Scarecrow into the room.
Reynolds jumped to one side as they pushed the gurney over to the nearest pod and opened it. Meanwhile, the two doctors entered behind them and the CMO sat at the control console with Dr. Forbes peering over his shoulder while he brought up Scarecrow’s vital information.
Sandy stood and tried to look inconspicuous while they removed a sheet from on top of Scarecrow and slid his naked form into the regeneration pod, then placed the gossamer sheet over him.
“I’ll take those.” Sandy turned to a nurse who was about to hang Scarecrow’s dog tags on a hook located on the end of the regeneration pod. The nurse cast Sandy a mild, confused glance as the major held out her hand. Even through her reddened, tear stained eyes, her expression indicated she wasn’t prepared to take no for an answer. The nurse hesitated, then dropped the tags, along with Scarecrow’s chronograph, into Sandy’s waiting hand.
Sandy returned to her chair while the corpsmen secured the pod. The doctor activated the system, and then everyone except Reynolds and Cooper filed out of the room. Sandy stared down at Scarecrow’s dog-tags as she held them in her blood-caked hand, still refusing to look up at the rear admiral.
“Y’know, it wasn’t that long ago that Steve was in that chair, and you were in the pod.” Reynolds’ voice broke the awkward silence. “He told me he hates that thing. He said it reminds him too much of a coffin, and he couldn’t stand seeing you in it.”
“And that’s supposed to cheer me up?”
“I’m sorry, Sandy. I’m not very good at this. And to be honest with you, I don’t really want to get any better at it. I’m tired of having to come down here and see my people–my family–suffering from such serious injuries.”
“Did you find the animal that did this?” She motioned to the glowing pod with Scarecrow’s dog tags dangling from her hand, jingling softly as she did.
“Security is sweeping the entire deck, as well as those above and below, but no, we haven’t located him yet. They’ve reviewed the security images, and they have him fleeing down the passageway away from you, but then he rounds a corner and the adjacent cameras lose him. It’s like he vanished. Internal sensors don’t show anything.”
“Better check and make sure one of the stealth suits isn’t missing.”
“They’re all accounted for. He may have found a dead spot in the security grid and slipped into the venting system or something. Security is doing a thorough sweep of the area. We’ll find him.”
Sandy sat silent for a moment, still refusing to look at Reynolds. Finally, she spoke, “He almost killed him, y’know.”
“Who? The Marine?”
“Steve. If I hadn’t intervened, he would’ve beaten the guy to death.” Sandy was staring at the pod as it glowed with soft light, but now she turned and looked Reynolds in the eye. “Why would he act that way, Jonathan? It’s completely out of character for him. Why would he do such a thing?”
“My guess would be he was trying to protect you. He’s pretty single-minded when it comes to you. With everything that’s been happening lately, his emotions have been running on overdrive. It was probably just an outburst. Keep in mind, he spent an entire day staring at you through that little window.” He motioned to the pod as he spoke.
“That’s no excuse. You weren’t there. You didn’t see what I saw. This was much more than a simple case of miss-guided zeal. It’s like it wasn’t him … like something else took over. I’m scared. What am I going to say to him when he wakes up? ‘Hello Lover, everything’s gonna be just fine?’” Sandy turned away and fought back more tears.
“I don’t know what to tell you. I’m afraid you’re on your own with that one. But I do know that Steve is a decent, moral man. Whatever he does, he has a good reason for doing it. When he gets out of there, talk to him. Work it out. I do know he’s worth it, and I know he loves you more than his own life.”
With that, Reynolds turned and paused. Then he walked out of the pod room, and headed out of sick bay.