“ One squeeze of the trigger at a time,” Kira breathed. She paused, wondering where the expression had come from. It had to be a holdover from something Emily had picked up. She put it aside, realizing she was letting herself be distracted, and began to move around her chamber as carefully as she could.
She made it, though her entire body was numb with fatigue and she felt like blacking out would be a blessing. The next stage for her was in crossing the six feet of open space between her cocoon and Jeff’s. She gathered her strength and evened her breathing. Kira felt a deep ache in her head and neck, but she pushed it aside. Dehydration and fatigue, she suspected, but neither of which would help her crewmates.
Kira pushed herself off, moving slowly across the floor. She felt like she was balancing on a wire above a bottomless pit, with each footfall doomed to send her plunging. She gathered speed as she went, her legs burning with the effort, until she crashed into Jeff’s cocoon. She held on for dear life, fearing if she slid to the floor she might not get back to her feet.
As her heart began to settle she peered over the clear window, staring down at his shrunken chest and upper stomach. Seeing his body on display she remembered her own and could not help but glance down at herself. The prolonged stasis had robbed them all of both muscle and fat. Even her breasts, once something she’d taken a small token of pride in, seemed deflated and aged.
Kira mentally slapped herself, ‘No more distractions!’ She refocused on Jeff and studied both his sleeping body and the displays on the sleep chamber. He was alive but sleeping, the IVs continuing to pump nutrients into his body. She frowned, then regretted it for the cramp in her neck that ensued. His overall health score was still nearly thirty points from being high enough to initiate the automatic wakeup procedure. That must have meant hers had reached that level. Why then did she feel like she’d been run over by a military grade space frigate?
The ache in her body refused to abate, but the sharper pains faded into a numb background as Kira slowly checked on the rest of the tubes. They were at varying stages of recovery, with Tarn being the next closest to reaching the threshold. She had no idea how long it might take, but he only had five more points on the computer derived scale of wellness remaining. It could mean hours or days, for all she knew.
Kira staggered to a couch in the room and lowered herself carefully to it. The padding was thin and even sitting on it caused a puff of dust to arise. Nevertheless it felt heavenly to her. Before she knew it she had slid down further and fell asleep, succumbing to the exhaustion that claimed her.
Kira awoke to an insistent chime. She jolted her head up, looking around, and instantly regretted it. Pain blossomed in her mind, a holdover from the condition her body was in and the residual effects the drugs in her body had caused. She sat up, feeling certain she was going to be sick again, but several deep breaths allowed her to regain control of herself. She glanced around, finding a display and wondering how long she’d slept. She couldn’t remember noticing it before she’d fallen asleep, so it could have been minutes or hours.
The chime persisted, drawing a breathy groan from her. She warily climbed to her feet, startling herself at how cool the metal floor felt on her naked soles. That had to be a good sign, it meant her core temperature had risen.
After a few experimental steps she found her footing more stable. She glanced back at the closed sleeping tubes of the others then nodded to herself. Even if she could wake them up it would be hours, at best, before they would be able to do anything. More likely days if they felt like she had. She gathered herself together and set off through the ship. It wasn’t until she reached the bridge and moved to her station that she realized she had yet to think of putting any clothing on. She shrugged it away, the ship’s climate control system had adjusted the temperature to accommodate them before they awoke. The floor might be cool but at least there was no danger of her freezing.
She read the displays slowly, refocusing as she grew distracted. He stomach twisted, as though she needed a reminder that she was at or beyond starvation-level-hungry. “Soon,” she promised herself, though the simple words exiting her throat made her fear how painful eating would be.
Doubling her efforts, she studied the map of solar system, looking for opportunities. The ring of broken rock that rimmed the system was unusually dense, but not so much that she could not easily plot a course through it. She tested a few routes, judging that the minimal fuel usage would come from making minor corrections in the field, rather than trying to boost the ship above or below the central thickness of it.
She put in further instructions into the nav system, causing a slightly longer burn that would put the ship on an intercept course for a planet that preliminary sensor scans showed to be unusual. The modified mining sensors returned strange readings from it. The usual combination of metals and elements, but it also appeared to possess an unusual amount of water. Water in a liquid form, rather than frozen or gaseous.
Kira stood up too quickly, one hamstring cramping and her vision tinting dark as the blood failed to rise with her. She barely managed to fall back to her seat, crying out as she did so. She rubbed and stretched her leg, working the cramp out, then swallowed in an attempt to put out the fiery patch in her throat. More carefully this time, she rose up slowly with her hands on her station.
Vertical once more, she let out a faint smile at her triumph, then turned to head out of the bridge. She paused on the way, her fingers idly resting on the arm of the Captain’s chair. She glanced around as quick as her neck allowed, then sat down in Captain Sharp’s chair. She settled into it, an arm on each rest, then leaned back in it and enjoyed the unfamiliar comfort. From there she could see the entirety of the bridge, including the displays at each station.
“ I could get used to this,” she whispered, then enjoyed another quiet moment of reflection before feeling as though a knife speared through her intestines and twisted into her kidneys. She growled against the pain and rose up, slowly. “Fine, I’ll feed you,” she muttered, hobbling out of the bridge and towards the galley.
Years of dust and misuse covered everything in the galley. Even coaxing water from the faucet took minutes rather than seconds. The initial water seemed discolored as well, though she knew the ship’s automated systems would have stirred the potable water tanks, applying chemicals necessary to purify them. Nonetheless, she let the water cycle for several minutes before she dared to rinse out a cup and then fill it.
The feel of the water on her lips was beyond description to her. It was cool but it stung as it reached into cracks in her lips that she had grown accustomed to. The first bite of stretched and aggravated tissue in her throat soothed with each gentle swallow. It was only through supreme force of will that she stopped herself after only a few small swallows. Just in time, fresh chaos within her stomach made her knees buckle. Only by grabbed on to the counter and slamming her legs into the panel beneath it did she keep from falling.
Several minutes of fighting the seemingly shark-skinned monster in her belly passed in what Kira was sure took at least a lifetime. Finally she was able to pick her head up enough to see that her cup had somehow been thrown across the counter, spilling the precious water within it. The last thing she wanted to see at that point was more water, but she also knew it was exactly what she needed.
She gathered another cup, rinsed it out, then tried to drink again. The results were similar, though not quite as debilitating. If water was that hard to get down, how would she ever be able to stomach the solid food she really needed? Kira fought the tears of desperation that threatened to blind her. She looked around, blinking rapidly and sniffing just as rapidly to keep her nose from running. She was a mess. Why couldn’t Eric have woken up before her and taken care of her? Even the Captain would have been a welcomed helping hand. Tarn — no, okay, not Tarn. Jeff had given her some hungry looks too, so she didn’t think being this weak and alone with him while the others slept was a good idea either.