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Curiosity Kills Part 2

Posted on Wed Mar 4th, 2020 @ 5:31pm by Patricia Crow & Lieutenant Aemilia "Millie" Stepanova

Mission: To The Rescue

A clap of thunder startled Millie to consciousness. She winced, her whole body feeling like it had been tossed about like a rag doll. Her head fiercely pounded, and a touch to her forehead came away sticky. She'd been bleeding, her brain pieced together through the pounding in her skull. Through the darkness, she could hear the rain pound against the hull of the shuttle.

"Trish--" the words barely came out as a whisper. fingers fumbled at the seat's restraints. "Trish!"

There was no answer. The raindrops thudding on the shuttle found their own pattern of music. The inside of the shuttle smelled like burnt couplings and wires which had been extinguished by the rain.

Millie's heart pounded in her chest to the rhythm of the raindrops. "Damnit...Trish!" She grimaced as she braced a foot against the panel in front of her, taking some of the pressure off her restraints. She took a deep breath, wincing at the pain in her chest.

A solid tug of the buckle, and she slid out of the restraint and onto the floor. She yelped, every inch of her body throbbing. "Trish!" She pulled herself to her knees, bracing a hand on the chair as she tried to coax air into her lungs.

Now there was a groan and a string of lowly uttered profanities.

Millie's legs felt like gelatin under her, but she half-crawled her way on the damp shuttle floor to where Trish was strapped in. Moonlight filtered in through a large crack in the shuttle's hull. The viewscreen was splintered, and the console was bent and pressed into Banks.

"Hey..." Millie pressed a hand to Banks' face, brushing the woman's damp hair back. "I'm here. You okay?"

"Well..no. I'm stuck into the control panel and I'm pretty sure my right leg is broken. You?"

"Feels like I knocked my head, and my whole body hurts." Lightning cracked, illuminating what was left of the shuttle. The back end of the shuttle was missing from what Millie could see in the darkness and a crack ran down the starboard side. "Good news is that we are both alive. But this shuttle isn't ever getting off the ground again." She put a hand on her friend's shoulder. "Hang tight. I'm going to see if one of the medical kits stayed with us."

"I'll try not to go anywhere."

Millie started to laugh, but grimaced at the ache in her chest. "At least your sense of humor is in better shape than the shuttle, da?"

"We have to activate the emergency beacon. The control is on the back wall."

"You mean the back wall that isn't there anymore?" Going down on all fours, Millie reached past Banks' seat to one of the storage compartments.

"Okay, well..." Banks stalled for time out of habit. "We have see if we can get the comms up then and send a message on any possible frequency."

"And what if the friends of those three shuttles come looking for them, too?" Millie grunted as she pulled on the jammed panel of the compartment. In frustration, she slid around and gave the thing a kick--which did nothing to help the panel, but seemed to help her frustration a bit. "We throw up a general all-call, and we'll have more of those zombie creatures hunting us down."

The counselor gave the back of Banks' chair a pat. "For now, let's worry about getting you out of that chair, and making it through the night. Then we'll worry about finding everything else once this storm has passed and we have daylight, da?"

Millie fumbled her way in the dark along the consoles to the other side of the shuttle. She wiped more of the sticky residue from her forehead with the back of her hand, though this time it was joined by a mix of sweat and rain spatter leaking in through the cracks in the shuttle. Her fingers finally found one of the storage compartments, and she yanked open the panel. "Yes!" she exclaimed, as she pulled out and lit one of the torches. "We have light, at least..."

Her voice trailed off as the torch lit what was left of the shuttle. She stepped towards the aft section, and gasped as she saw the damage. One of the nacells was obviously ripped off the ship, leaving a large tear in the hull. The back half of the shuttle was missing entirely, leaving a wide gap open to the rain and the darkness. She saw the faint shadows of trees in the distance, but not much else through the thickness of the forest they had landed in.

The counselor gave a sigh. It was bad.

Banks tried to free herself from her situation with very little progress and even then the searing pain in her leg reminded her all was not bright and happy. "If we lost the back half then my supplies are somewhere that won't do us a lot of good. That means we'll need to improvise and find food and water, make some kind of weaponry, all that fun stuff."

Millie shone the light around the shuttle. She began to open compartments, looking for anything that might be helpful. "So, we've got two torches, two blankets..." Her eyes wandered back to her own seat, where the knife she'd used on the creature was firmly lodged in the headrest--mere inches from where her head had been before. "We still have a knife. That's a start." With a grunt, she yanked the knife from the upholstery.

She came back to Banks, shining the light on the console pinning her friend in place. "Let's see if we can get you out of there." She set the torch on the console, and set to work cutting the restraints holding Banks in the seat.

Being helpless wasn't something she was used to but Banks did what she could and kept her frustrations mostly quiet until she felt the final restraint let go. The lack of stability caused her leg to howl, shortly followed by her mouth.

Millie quickly set the knife down, reaching out to support her friend. "I've got you," she said softly as she wrapped an arm around Banks' torso.

"Tomorrow we need to find me a tree branch I can use as a crutch. I'm no good laying here on my back." Banks took deep breath and held it. "Pull."

Millie held tightly to Banks, and with a grunt, pulled hard on her body.

Another scream but she was free. It took a moment or two to regain her breath. A quick look over thankfully didn't show any deep cuts or worse from the metal. Being thankful for small favors Banks glanced around, catching sight of Millie. "You're bleeding."

"Da." Millie gently eased Banks down so she could sit on the floor of the shuttle. "How's the leg?"

"Broken." Banks smirked a little. "Have you heard any kind of wildlife out there?"

Millie knelt next to her friend. "Stop deflecting, Trish. We take care of you first, da?" She set the torch on the deck next to them, and reached across Banks to grab the knife. "I hope you're not horribly attached to this pair of pants."

Banks did her best to be a model patient but it wasn't easy. "If I can't get up and about I'm not going to be much help."

"All the help I need is up in that brain of yours." Millie managed a smile as she cut away the right pant leg. "You just tell me what to do to keep us alive long enough to be rescued."

"Food, water, shelter and..." she let out a scream as Millie made contact with her break...."pain meds."

Millie's brow furrowed with concern. She finished cutting away the pant leg to expose the extensive bruising on her thigh. "We're going to need to stabilize this...and you're going to have to stay completely off of it."

"Yea that's not happening."

"Look at me." Millie took both of Banks' hands. "I need you." She gave both hands a squeeze. "But I need you alive. I don't have much medical training, but I have enough triage training to know that this break is bad. From what I can see, it's practically a jungle out there, and I doubt you are going to be able to navigate all of that on just one leg." She swallowed back the lump in her throat. "I'm scared, Trish, and none of my training ever included crash landing on an alien planet. So I need you to survive this so that both of us do--which means I can't have you dying because of infection or a clot or something else because you were too stubborn to let me do the heavy lifting."

Having the situation laid out in such a manner clearly resonated. "Splint the leg with anything hard on both sides and use one of the seat belts to tie it. In the morning I'll need you to do some basic scouting outside so we know our immediate area. We'll need to find water and then maybe have you do some hunting. By tomorrow night we'll need a fire too."

Millie nodded. Knowing that Patricia was on the same page seemed to calm her nerves. She stood, taking off her uniform jacket and tossing it across a chair. She turned on the second torch, and unfolded the blankets, laying both of them across Banks. "No matter how long I'm gone, you stay put, da?"

"Doesn't seem I have a choice."

Millie tucked the knife in her belt. "I'll have to recommend broken leg to your husband when we get back. Might keep you from going on these wild missions of yours." Millie forced a smile as she looked down at her injured companion, took a deep breath, and then climbed her way out the missing back end of the shuttle.

Left to her own devices and limited options Banks could only wait for Millie's return.

 

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