The door slid open, revealing a worn and exhausted woman. Iana’s blond hair was disheveled and face swollen from crying. Keryn could see the look in her eyes and knew that she didn’t look much better. They stood in silence in the doorway, sharing an unspoken bond of kinship.
“I owe you such a huge apology,” Keryn said finally, choking back the tears that threatened to spill down her face. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”
Her tears started to fall as Iana stepped forward, embracing her tightly. Standing in the doorway of Iana’s quarters, the pair released months of pent up emotion as they sobbed into each others’ shoulders. After minutes had passed, they slowly pulled apart until they were holding hands across the chasm of the doorway.
Softly, Iana started to laugh. “We look like hell, don’t we?” she asked.
Keryn laughed with her. “Yeah, I really think we do.” Reaching up, she wiped away the tears once more before continuing. “Iana, I am truly sorry. If you’re up for it, I really need to hear your story.”
“I’ll pour us something stiff to drink,” Iana replied, suddenly serious.
Keryn followed her inside and sat at the table as Iana poured them both drinks from a clear bottle of liquor. Sitting across from her, Iana sipped her drink as she began telling her story. Keryn finished three drinks and felt lightheaded by the time Iana was done talking, finally finishing with her flight from Yen in the hallway and eventually hiding on board Keryn’s ship. When she was done, they both sat in silence.
“What are we going to do?” Iana asked, seemingly relieved to finally be able to tell someone the truth.
“I don’t know, Iana,” Keryn replied, shaking her head. “I just don’t know.”
CHAPTER 36:
Keryn awoke in a strange bed in a strange room. Groggy and disoriented, she rolled to her side and was surprised to see the mop of blond hair splayed across the pillow beside her. Keryn remembered her long talk with Iana the night before and, knowing that she probably felt as emotionally drained as Keryn did, slipped out of the bed without waking her. Though she looked disheveled from a night full of heavy emotions, Keryn quickly got dressed and left the room, heading back toward her own room. As the door slid open to her quarters, she noticed Adam sitting at the table.
He eyed her curiously before he spoke. “You look like hell, love.”
Keryn nodded. “I’m fine, just still exhausted even after sleeping through the night. Iana and I had a lot of catching up to do and a lot of tears to share.”
“Is everything alright?” he asked. Keryn could tell that he wanted to pry, but wouldn’t.
“Everything’s fine now,” she answered as she walked over to pour herself a cup of coffee. “We just had a whole lot to discuss. Girl stuff, mostly, you know how it is.” Noticing his look of skepticism, she quickly changed the subject. “So, I’m surprised to see you still awake after such a long shift on the bridge.”
As if on cue, Adam yawned loudly. “I’m beat. I was just worried about you after I got home and saw the place untouched. After everything that’s been going on, I have a tendency to fear the worst.”
“You really are a sweetheart,” she said as she leaned over, kissing him softly on the cheek.
“It’s why you keep me…” he was interrupted as red fire warning lights illuminated the room and sirens sounded throughout the hall. The screeching siren pierced through their door and drove a spike into Keryn’s tired mind.
“That noise is Gods awful!” she yelled to be heard over the sound. Activating her radio, she called to the bridge. “Where is there a fire?”
Alcent’s voice called back. “It’s nothing serious. We’re shutting down the sirens now.” As he finished, the lights and noise ceased.
“What the hell was that?” Adam asked, activating his own radio.
“It was a fire, but it was quickly contained,” Alcent answered.
“What was the location of the fire?” Keryn asked dubiously. She knew how dangerous an uncontrolled fire could be onboard a ship. With only a limited amount of breathable — and flammable — oxygen and all the explosive rounds, fires could be deadly in space.
“The location was the science wing, laboratory three,” he replied.
Keryn and Adam turned to one another. “Wyck,” they both said as they leapt to their feet and hurried toward the door.
They reached the lift quickly and tapped their feet impatiently as the elevator slowly took them upward, toward the science wing. Used mainly for the Terran’s biological research, the science wing was a converted wing of living quarters on board the ship. After its discovery, the new crew had added some modifications, making it the optimum area to conduct their research into the Deplitoxide cure. Wyck and Tora had been working in the lab most of the night, which left Keryn dreadful of any fires that might have broken out.
As the elevator doors opened on the floor, however, laughter flooded from down the hall. Keryn came around the corner just in front of Adam to find both Wyck and Tora collapsed on the floor, giggling like children to one another. A group, mostly technicians with a mild amount of scientific knowledge, gathered around the pair. On the floor, both the young geniuses were covered in soot, their hair unkempt and singed from an obvious burst of flames. Undaunted, though, they continued to laugh as they shared insights into their obvious failure.
“Next time,” Tora said as she was overcome with laughter again, “we probably shouldn’t be looking down on the results when we mix the chemicals.”
“Oh yes,” Wyck added sarcastically, laughing as well. “Mixing the chemicals with our faces a mere foot away was the only mistake we made tonight.”
“How do you feel about robots?” she asked, trying to sober up from her fits of laughter.
“They’re not really my type,” Wyck replied, laughing again. Tora punched him hard in the arm and humor fled from his face.
“I’m being serious here,” she said, feeling little sympathy as he rubbed his bruised limb. “What if we designed a robot that could mix the chemicals remotely? I think we could make it out of one of the loaders, but we’d have to cannibalize it for parts.”
Wyck still sulked, but his scientific curiosity got the better of him. “Combine that with the blast shield off the front of one of the fighters, and I think we could conduct the experiment again under much more controlled circumstances.”
Keryn cleared her throat loudly as she and Adam stood above the pair. Looking up in surprise, they both scrambled to their feet. Though they were both still smeared with ash and parts of their clothing had obviously caught fire in the blast, the dominant look on both their faces was embarrassment.
“So,” Keryn said, drawing out the first word, “what experiment?”
Their faces brightened as they both tried to explain at the same time. Having only worked together over a short time, the two technological geniuses were now inseparable. Adam held up his hand, stopping them both in mid sentence.
“One at a time or I can’t understand you,” he said, talking to them both like a patient father. He quickly turned his open hand into an accusing point. “Speaking of understanding, keep all your scientific jargon out of the conversation.”
“We think we found your answer,” Tora started, elbowing Wyck in the ribs when he started to talk too.
Keryn looked around the corner at the destroyed laboratory. White circles stood in stark contrast on the blackened table, marking spots where beakers and plates had once stood. Shattered glass lay strewn throughout the room and was noticeable in the areas that the flame-retardant foam hadn’t covered the floor. Both chairs were ruined; their foam backs had obviously caught fire, smoldering long after the rest of the fire was extinguished.
“That’s my answer?” she asked.
“Well, not so much now, but it was,” Wyck answered, stepping in front of Tora before she could explain. “What that was just prior to the explosion was a mixture of Deplitoxide and a new chemical formula we devised using the Terran data we recovered as a baseline.”