Blazer swallowed hard and looked back to the tub, nodding.

  “Get me when they start on the skin. If there’s not enough material left we’ll be better off keeping the arm in a nutrient bath until we can get him back to the academy.”

  The door to the bay opened and Arion and his Damage Control party rushed in. They carried the limp form of another cadet. “Make a hole! We found Dolian. He was still on the bridge and I can’t get a pulse,” Arion yelled.

  “Over here,” Marda ordered and waved them toward an empty blood-spattered gurney.

  Arion wasn’t gentle about laying Dolian down and neither was Marda as she shoved his spacesuit-clad form out of the way. The acrid smell of burnt electronics wafted off of Dolian as she slapped monitoring bands onto his wrist and forehead. The numbers appearing before her were unenviable. He was hovering on the edge of death. “How long has he been without oxygen?”

  Arion shrugged. “Last contact with him was just before we arrived. He was talking to Nash from the bridge.”

  Marda looked at the time. It had been at least half a hect. His secondary lungs and heart might have filtered the smoke-filled air for that long, but his pallid face told her they hadn’t done enough. She reached down beneath the gurney and pulled out an oxygen mask, sliding it over Dolian’s face. Pure Oxygen flowed in, filling his lungs as Marda ran a scan.

  A holographic representation of Dolian’s body appeared over the table, highlighting his injuries. His lungs were scorched and his secondary heart had failed; his primary pumped only twice a pulse. Marda looked back down at him: his aura was fading before her eyes. He wasn’t hovering on the edge of death, he was dang;ing. “Blazer. I need a set of cortical and cardiac stimulators, stat!”

  “Marda he’s crashing,” Arion called out, pointing to the display.

  “Oh no you don’t!” Marda called and began pumping Dolian’s chest in an effort to coax his hearts back to some function. She looked up at the display as Blazer arrived. Dolian’s blood oxygen level was too low to sustain him. “Put those on,” she commanded and turned to Arion. “Get me a blood-oxygen infuser! Cabinet three.”

  Arion turned and ran off as Blazer ripped open Dolian’s uniform to affix the cardiac stimulator.

  Marda turned back to the display. Even if they could get his hearts pumping again, his lungs were too scorched to pass oxygen. A shiver ran up her spine and she looked down at Dolian. A glow that she realized only she could see began to emerge from his body. “No. Not going to happen,” she declared and turned back to Arion. “Hurry Arion.”

  Before Marda’s eyes, Dolian’s spirit began to pull itself free; his brainwave activity flatlining. She raised her hands and looked at them. She’d been just a girl the last time she’d tried this, and had run on instinct. There was no way to train someone to do what she was about to attempt again. She had no idea if it would save him or not. She had to hold onto Dolian’s spirit until she could save his body. She looked over at the cortical stimulators and using her micomm, fired them.

  Dolian’s body jumped, but his spirit continued to separate.

  She fired the stimulators again, brainwave activity returning; weak, but it returned. His primary heart began to beat faster and with more regularity. His secondary heart remained silent. Marda swallowed, she had to hurry or he might lose the secondary heart. She looked back at his spirit form. It was free of the body. She grabbed hold of the spirit.

  Dolian’s spirit stared at her piteously, while relief from pain etched through his face.

  “I can save you. Just hold on.”

  “Marda, I have… what the Sheol?” Arion trailed off as he held the oxygen infuser out to Marda.

  Marda looked back at Arion. Recognition flashed in his eyes. She couldn’t waste time explaining and snatched the infusion cuff from Arion. Turning back to Dolian, she slipped the device around his arm. She grimaced, doing this one-handed was no easy feat. The device snapped closed with a reassuring click, lit up and the suction fans activated. Marda turned back to the display. Dolian’s blood oxygen levels increased as the cardiac stimulators commanded his heart to pump the oxygenated blood through his body. Even his brainwaves had begun to stabilize and Marda felt the tension of the escaping spirit lessen as it flowed back into the body.

  Marda breathed a sigh of relief as Dolian’s vitals started to look more normal. She forgotten how exhausting holding a spirit could be. She rubbed her eyes: she had saved Dolian’s life but his problems were far from over. A ping from the autodoc behind her drew her attention. The cadet within was ready to come out. Dolian’s condition made him next in line for it. She looked around for a free hand to remove the other cadet and noticed that Arion had gone.

  Why had he taken off so fast? She spotted Telsh heading towards the autodoc. “Telsh. I need to get Dolian in there ASAP. Set it for traumatic heart and lung damage.”

  “Aye, just be letting me help Veri’es out first,” she replied pointing to the Drashig cadet. “You be having any idea why Arion be running out of here so quick?”

  Marda shook her head. She wasn’t sure but then a flash of memory hit her. A. Scotts. She glanced towards the door: No, it couldn’t have been. She searched her memory for that cycle, the Drigist priest. Her memory was fuzzy, but he seemed familiar, where else have I seen him? Her hand fell away as she remembered. The wedding. He sat on Blazer’s side of the church, right next to his son, Arion.

  “Marda. Veri’es be clear. Be getting Dolian in there,” Telsh called, pulling Marda from her memories.

  Personal Quarters 106, UCSBTS-27413

  Darkness engulfed Arion’s shared quarters as he sat contemplating what he’d a few hects earlier. The sight had plagued him the rest of the cycle. With the emergency over, his mind had drifted back to what Marda had done. He didn’t want to believe it. Marda had held Dolian’s soul in place so that she could revive his body. Just like, he realized, she had done to him so many annura before.

  Rapping from the door drew his attention. He looked up. Only one person on this ship ever knocked on the door instead of keying the announcement chime. “Come in Marda.”

  The door slid away and Marda took a tentative step in. “Hello Arion. Can we talk?”

  Arion motioned to the bed across from his. Marda took a seat, ducking down to avoid the upper bunk. She looked around for a moment, at each of the four bunks, before she turned towards the viewport.

  The pair sat in silence. Arion cleared his throat and turned to the viewport himself after several tense pulses. “Did you know? When we met that is? Did you know it was me?”

  Marda shook her head. Her mane of auburn hair was a disheveled mess, a strip of medical tape barely keeping it in place. “No. I didn’t until I saw the look on your face earlier. I’m sorry Arion. Had I known I would have…”

  Arion held up a hand and turned back to her. “It’s fine. How many times have you done that?”

  Swallowing hard, Marda turned back to the door as if looking for an escape. “Including this cycle, four times.”

  Arion nodded. “I see. Have any of them died since?”

  Marda looked back at Arion. “One. And she did pass. She wasn’t trapped. Even so, what I did for her was more like how I handled Dolian,” she looked away a moment, considering how to continue. “It was right after my first kill. She was one of the hostages…”

  The discomfort with reliving that moment reminded Arion of his own experiences with his team’s first kill. Her answer, while what he wanted to hear, was still incomplete. “Was I your first?”

  Marda tensed, she was ready to run if this turned ugly. “Yes.”

  Arion stood up and walked to the viewport. He stared out at the majesty of space beyond. This was hard; he’d hated mediums for so long. Hated them because of what, he now realized, his friend Marda had done to him. For the first time, he considered what she had done for him, not to him, and why. The Black Vises transport came back into view eclipsing the nebula beyond. He turned back to Marda. “Thank you. Thank you for saving my life back then.”

  Marda’s shaking stopped and she stared back at Arion for a long moment. “What?”

  Arion swallowed and leaned against the bunk. “You saved my life. Thanks to you I’ve seen the universe, found love and become this near-perfect specimen before you.”

  A reluctant smile creapt onto Marda’s face.

  “I can’t hate you for that. Not anymore. For a long time, I hated you, not knowing it was you. I can’t anymore, not that I know you and I know that what you did wasn’t to hurt me.”

  “You’re welcome. I guess.”

  Arion took a deep breath and walked back to his bunk. You’ve told her this much. You have to take her all the way. “Marda, I want you to see something.” He lifted his shirt, revealing the faint trace of a scar over one of his ribs.

  Marda looked at the old surgical incision and had to resist touching it.

  Does she realize that that’s the spot where she pushed my spirit back in? “That’s the only scar I have. It’s why I always wear a shirt when I work out.”

  “Is that where they inserted the anti-Kemtil bacteria capsule?”

  Arion nodded and pulled his shirt back down. “Yeah, and it’s where they inserted my booster right before I joined up.”

  Marda sat back and stared. “That can’t be right. That would mean you still had a Kemtil infection. You can only get Kemtil once.”

  “And I’ve had it once. I contracted it and it very nearly killed me. The thing is, when you saved me, some of the Kemtil survived and mutated. It went to ground in another rib. The doctors can’t explain it, but they figured that it’ll take another ten annura to kill all the Kemtil at this rate.”

  “How were you allowed to join up then? You have an active terminal infection.”

  “Inactive, technically. I’ll need one more booster and I’m done. I’ll always carry the scar,” Arion explained, rubbing it.

  “Why wasn’t this in your medical file?”

  “It is. It’s just umm… buried. Besides, what difference would it make?”

  Marda sat back, contemplating that. “Not much in the long run, I guess.”

  “Here’s the thing Marda. Some cycle I will die Whether it’s the Kemtil, some Geffer or if the universe smiles on me and its old age.”

  Marda bit her lip and nodded.

  “We both know that if you didn’t put me back in right, I’ll be trapped.”

  Marda nodded again, tears welling up in her eyes.

  “The only way we can ensure that that doesn’t happen is for you to be there and set me free. So I want you to make me a promise…”

  “I will Arion. Be it in a cycle or a century, I’ll make sure to be there when you die. You have my word on that.”

  “You better. Now come here,” he said and Marda met his wide-armed embrace. Despite his attempts not to Arion felt tears beginning to seep out of his eyes. They dropped to his chest and mixed with Marda’s. He realized that even though the specter that had hung over him since childhood wasn’t gone, he now had some assurance that it could be corrected.

  UCSB DATE: 1003.182

  Grid G-12, Second Planet, System: T-18-E-38

  Huffing from the excursion of the climb, Rudjick gazed out from the cliff face across to the valley below. “This is better than sex.” He knew that few others would find this view appealing. It wasn’t the desolate landscape which inspired him, but the position. He hadn’t had an opportunity to go out for a climb like this in far too long; the mission to this planet had presented the perfect opportunity. A tiny winged insect fluttered past him and he followed its flight down towards the rest of his team.

  He marveled at the tenacity of the creature, and that of any life which had evolved on this strange world. He looked out upon the distant sea. For now the waters crashed against the shore, soon however the planet would enter its winter phase. If their readings were correct, the whole of the ocean would freeze.

  Turning around, he gripped the rock again and found the stress fractures where the last summer’s boiling seas had cracked it open. He slipped his hand around the solidified magma flow, feeling for his next handhold. Only a few tridecs ago this had been an active volcano. Now the planet’s orbit was taking it to the extremes of the star’s habitable zone. The gravitational tug of war between the star and a nearby gas giant tore at the planet as it neared the larger world.

  A violent gust of wind clawed at Rudjick, chilling him to the bone despite his protective garments. He clung to the cliff face like a newborn to its mother. A jerk on his line told him that his fellow climbers had been hit just as hard. He glanced up as the wind subsided and spotted an open crag in the cliff face. We have to be close. Piton gun in hand, he surged ahead, dropping a spike into the rock face their line clung to. “I found our crag,” he reported back to the group. “Looks like it should give us some nice shelter from the wind, at least long enough to grab some chow.”

  The group didn’t even reply as they followed Rudjick into the crag. Hanging in his climbing harness above the others, Rudjick watched each of them enter the massive fissure; securing themselves to the walls. “Why couldn’t we use powered ascenders or take a dropship?” one of the Drashig team members asked as she removed her mask and the nose tube feeding her oxygen in the thin atmosphere.

  Pretending to ignore her protests, Rudjick removed his own mask and nose tube. He drew in a sharp breath of the thin air then pulled the glove off one hand to probe his nose with the uncovered pinky. Extracting his finger, he inhaled again; blew a thick ball of mucus into the far wall of the fissure. “Blasted thing’s been bugging me for the last fifteen hundred metra,” he exclaimed. Smiling, he reinserted the breathing tube and slipped the glove back on. “In answer to your question Tekly. The winds are too high to make an aerial insertion. Even powered ascenders would require someone to drop a line from the top first. But I mean, come on, you’re Drashig. This climb should be nothing to you.”

  “I’m a Plains Drashig,” she bit back. “My people haven’t been climbers for millennia. If you wanted a climber you should have brought that Cliffer on your team, Gokhead.”

  Rudjick regarded her with a mock serious eye. “He’s much too busy monitoring our probes and helping refit the Black Vises ship. You know that.”

  Alieha pulled away her mask, flexing her jaw before she gazed up at Rudjick. “How far are we from the summit?”

  “About another fifteen hundred metra. I figure we can rest for a hect then press on.”

  Tekly shot Rudjick a death stare and scoffed. “A hect! Are you insane? We’ve been going non-stop for the last five hects. We need more time to rest than that!”

  Rudjick hung there for a moment, thinking. This Drash’s behavior was very strange and curious. He remembered something Zithe had once told him. He leapt from his perch, his line zipping out behind him. The air rushing against his face felt great and he would love to just fall like that for a while. Instead, he snapped the brake shut so it jerked him to a stop in front of Tekly. He looked her right in the eye, something he could never do if they were standing on level ground.

  “Let me lay out the facts here sweetness. Fact one: we have three and a half hects until this area loses the light. We will then have to climb in the dark or wait until dawn. Fact two: even in this rock’s low gravity it will take at least a hect for me to drag the lot of you to the summit. Fact three: once the local star dips below the horizon, these winds will get far worse and could even blow us off the mountain. Fact four: Zithe put my scrawny ass in charge. So when I say we rest for a hect, then we rest for a hect, and move on. Do I make myself apparent?”

  Tekly’s nostrils flared so hard she almost blew out her breathing tube. “We aren’t as skilled at climbing as you are. Nor do we have your experience. We’re cold, we’re tired, and we’re hungry.”

  Rudjick shook his head. Gokhead’s never this stubborn. Is this a Drashig female thing? “So then get something to eat, turn up your suit heaters, and get some chow.” He turned to look at the others as they did just that. On the opposite wall Bichard had already sucked down one of his nectar tubes. “We have a job to do here. Sheol, if it were up to me I would climb every part of this mountain, explore every snap, cave and little rock I could find. But we don’t have that kind of luxury. Bichard—the data share is in what, twenty four cycles?”

  Bichard’s antennae quavered back and forth. “No, twenty-three. Some ships are already starting to head our way.”

  “Right, twenty-three cycles. If our readings are correct we have a legacy probe waiting for us on top of this rock, with a full data packet. Once we have that, we can kiss this place goodbye and join the others as they survey the last planet.”

  He figured that that would get them motivated, as it sure got him running at the chance when Zithe had told him the cycle before. Sheol, even Gokhead wanted to get his hands on the probe, but Zithe needs him on the ship too much.

  “It’s still not worth our lives,” Tekly snapped.

  That’s it! Tekly, you just crossed the line! Rudjick swung around to face her. Matriarchal society or not, he was in charge. She just called his competency as climb leader into question. “No one dies on my climbs Tekly, no one!” he snapped in all seriousness, dropping his normal demeanor.

  Tekly just stared back at him, her eyes hard. She wasn’t about to back down.

  Rudjick had to defuse the situation, but that wasn’t his thing. It’ll be better to make myself scarce for a few pulses. He looked over his shoulder at Bichard. “Hey Bichard! I’m going to go and scout ahead. Cook me up some dinner would you?”

  “No problem,” Bichard replied.

  Rudjick shot back up to his perch, sliding his mask back into place along the way. Once there, Rudjick stared back up the interior of the crag. He had to cool off and getting in a few pulses of shielded climbing should do just that. Piton gun in hand, he proceeded up and out of view of his team. The crackle of his link however made him shake his head. They had to remain on an open link the whole climb thanks to the wind. He didn’t dare close the circuit, so now he’d be privy to whatever conversation the others had. It wasn’t spying to him, not exactly. He had to know what they were thinking. If they don’t want me to hear, they can always just go to a private channel.