Fiona handed her a napkin. “You've planned everything else and come up with more solutions than I can track today. I think we can overlook this little screw up.”
“Only if you seal that sick bag properly,” Gary muttered over his shoulder.
“Don't worry, it's sealed and in the bin. Good thing I didn't close my vacsuit yet.”
“Doesn't it have waste management built in?”
“It does, but its cleaning systems really only keep your eyes, nose and mouth clear. Regent Galactic didn't exactly splurge on us.”
“You work for Regent Galactic?” Gary asked.
“I did until Captain Valance took over and hired us on with him. I'm a regular rebel now.”
“Good to have you with us. I worked for them for a year, worst year of my life.”
“What did you do?” Asked Fiona. The Triton was looming larger in the front window.
“Sanitation and recycling systems on a deep space mining station. There were only sixty-one people aboard, but man could they make a mess.”
“You were a janitor?”
“I was a janitor in command of a dozen cleaning bots. The only janitor, actually.”
“Wow, that sounds important,” Fiona replied, rolling her eyes.
“No insulting the pilot during docking operations,” Gary grumbled as he rotated the shuttle and turned it around so it faced an airlock just to the right of the bridge. “Did you guys see the boarders climbing along the hull? You might want to let the Captain know about that.” He said as he lined the shuttle up so he could back in.
“I didn't see it.”
“There were a dozen of them, looked armed.”
“Good eye.” Grace said as she opened a channel to the bridge. “Captain, we have a dozen or so boarders space walking towards the bridge. They're headed to an emergency airlock right below our mooring point.”
“They're ours. They're waiting until you dock then they'll be joining us on the bridge.” Cynthia replied.
“Good to know,” Grace said as she sealed the head piece to her vacsuit, tucking her shoulder length black hair into it.
Fiona followed suit. “Looks like we weren't the first to have this idea.”
“What worries me is the fact that they were armed, what could be in their way that they couldn't fight through?” Gary said as the shuttle made contact with the ship and bounced away gently. “Crap. One more try and I'll get it.”
“Do you want me to try?” Fiona asked.
“Shhh. Sane people are driving.”
“Hey! I'm uncoordinated, not crazy.”
“Anyone who takes the test and fails four times has got to be a little loopy.” Gary said as he lined the shuttle up carefully.
“Okay, we have to get focused on what we're here to do. The First Officer needs to be put in stasis of some kind or we have to use nanotechnology to get her stabilized. I don't see any stasis systems in here.” Grace said, looking around the small shuttle.
“You're right. Extended life support and a sustenance materializer, but that's about it.”
“Take the emergency medical kit under your seat. Every little bit helps.”
The shuttle made contact again. This time there were a satisfying series of clicks as it sealed perfectly with the station. Its rear door popped open and they stepped out onto the flight command deck. Grace rushed up the ramp to the main bridge and knelt down beside Stephanie. “You didn't move her?”
“Not a millimetre,” Answered Jake.
“Good, there's a lot of damage.”
Fiona and Gary set up a stretcher on the other side while Grace took a detailed scan of Stephanie and shook her head. “I'm out of choices here. If we were in main medical deep stasis might be an option, but even then.”
“What do you need?” Captain Valance asked.
“Space and quiet. We're going to inject her with mass bio gel and two ounces of nanobots. Whatever weapons they used stirred her up inside.” Grace whispered.
“So the nanobots will rebuild her internal organs from raw mass?”
“Yes, but it's not ideal. If this works it might look like she's back on her feet in fine shape but even with recovery meds it'll take at least a day for all of her tissues to properly recover from density loss and her circulatory system could suffer a blockage from any materials left over by the nanobots. These aren't surgical grade nanos we're using here, they're emergency units, quick workers.”
“Is there anything else we can do without getting her to the infirmary?” Captain Valance asked as he took a medical scan.
“A deeper form of stasis, but her chance of survival would diminish every minute she spends outside of a full suspension tube. We should treat her here.”
“If it's the only way.”
“It is.” Grace said as she prepared an injector. “Can you open her vacsuit in a few places?”
“I can.”
Grace and Captain Valance got to work with Fiona and Gary assisting. Price and his team came running up the ramp and stopped when they saw what was going on. They had to inject bio gel and the nanobots that used it into several different parts of her torso. The millions of nanobots would have to be activated all at once. Until then they would pool near the injection sites, mixing in with the gel they would use to rebuild vital organs until Grace activated them.
When Stephanie had been injected in over a dozen places Grace looked to Captain Valance. He glanced at the results his hand scanner was displaying and nodded. She sent the command to activate and Stephanie's body twitched as they went to work.
She sat back and waited, watching her wrist scanner. Captain Valance watched his own command unit, holding his hand out above her to take constant readings. Her internal organs were rebuilt, vascular system returned to its original condition, and any foreign matter was broken down into usable mass then used to repair bone, muscle and skin.
After a minute Captain Valance leaned forward and compressed her chest rhythmically. “The stasis is failing. Do you have an activator?”
Fiona pulled two tiny pads from her emergency kit and handed them to Grace.
“Oh please Stephanie, oh God please.” Ashley whispered as she lowered her face into her hands. She had kept her eyes on her station up until that point.
Grace placed one of the silver pads on Stephanie's temple and the other over her heart the pressed a button on her medical wrist unit. Her body was forced into taking a smooth deep breath, her heart started beating and her synaptic activity was stimulated. Stephanie's eyes snapped open and her whole body twitched. Her arms reached up with a twitch and her hands clutched at the air above reflexively.
Grace turned the activators off as Captain Valance caught one of Stephanie's hands. Even in death activators could force such a reaction from someone who had undergone so much nanosurgery, and Jake was as prepared as he could be to watch the life fade from Stephanie's eyes as the autonomic responses brought on by the activators stopped.
To his relief Stephanie looked up at him, smiled, gripped his hand tightly and said; “I need a bigger gun.”
Hernando Ramirez
Ramirez had staunched the bleeding in his leg and secured the vacsuit emergency seal around his left arm at the elbow. The grenade had done so much damage he knew he was teetering on death. Shrapnel had cut his left leg short at the shin, the other was burned so badly he couldn't move it and his left hand was gone. They had left him for dead but his vacsuit saved him.
He didn't have a communicator, it was destroyed along with his left wrist, but thankfully his vacsuit had an emergency package on the back of his neck and the pain medication kept him awake and the agony was bearable. “Now I know what Finn felt like,” he whispered to himself through broken front teeth.
He looked around. In front of him was one of the emergency shuttles the boarders had tricked them with. It looked military, but it had come in from the rear half of a destroyer. Everyone on his and Price's team thought that they were coming aboard for rescue, no one thought they would actually try to seize control. When he woke up and realized that his suit had saved his life, constricting as much as it could in its damaged state and applying pressure to slow the bleeding, it didn't take him long to realize that he was alone. The pain meds had already started flowing through his system, another thing to be thankful for. Emergency nanobots had done what they could, but there was too much damage.