Blood Impulse

Part 31.2 - THE SECOND SURVIVOR

Legot Sector, Battleship Singularity

Okara Schmindaro woke to the weight of the worlds. It had settled upon his chest, and no matter how he heaved, it would not ease. But, as he panted, he felt a gust of air, the mask atop his face dispensing oxygen-rich air, and slowly, ever so slowly, he began to calm, satiated. Eventually, he realized there was no weight upon his chest, but his torso was tightly bound.

His hand felt foreign to him, clumsy, but he dragged it up his body, recognizing the feel of cheap sheets and gauze before finally landing on the breathing mask covering his unshaven face. I lived. Hours, he had hovered near death, and now, he just wanted to feel truly alive. With a trembling hand, he took hold of the molded plastic mask and dragged it down, gasping in the stale air around him until he thought his lungs would burst. The sensation of it flowing past his chapped lips was heavenly, compared to what he'd been though, and he was content to drink it in for several long minutes. Only then did he open his eyes.

Looking up, a completely unadorned gray ceiling hung above him, but the fact there was an 'up', was surprising enough. He'd spent the last few hazy hours of his memory pinned and weightless, praying that the filters in his helmet wouldn't fail, subjecting him to drown in his own blood. Still, his inner ear gratefully registered the pull of gravity, relieved to be alive.

Pain was a constant to him, but this was nothing compared to what it had been before – immobile, feeling life slip further away with every beat of his heart. Once he'd felt the metal spear go through his back, he'd thought for sure he was dead. The Gargantia had been dealt a fatal blow, and he had watched the bodies of his crewmates drift into the infinite sea of space wearing blank looks and slack jaws tainted blue from ice and asphyxiation. He'd expected to die with them, given a slower, grosser fate.

But, somehow he'd lived. Rescue must have come, but that seemed unlikely given who had caused the damage that forced the Gargantia to collapse on top of him. Not a rescue, then, he supposed, a prisoner recovery.

Yet, he found his hand in front of him again. He wasn't bound to this bed, and there was a beautiful blonde woman asleep in the chair beside the bed. The Gargantia's ship patch, ringed in gold, was sewn onto her sleeve, but he didn't recognize her. Why was she here? She wasn't bound either, and she looked healthy, but this wasn't the Gargantia. He'd known that the instant he saw the ceiling above.

Carefully, he studied his surroundings in greater detail, wondering if they may reveal his fate. The ceiling and the floor were both a dark gray. They were clean, but not unblemished, and the floor, he recognized the sectional pieces of flooring by their size and texture. Deck tiles. Ship to ship, the material changed, but the design rarely did. That and the low hum behind him promised he'd found himself on another ship, and the tasteless gray curtains hanging from the rail were standard-issue. A military ship. Even the distant sound of the engines supported that conclusion. Their hum was quiet and constant, but the tone was foreign to him, lower than the Gargantia's engine sound had been.

But if Command had recovered them, then why wasn't he bound? Did Command think one engineer was not much of a threat? Too unimportant to restrain as he was transported back to Ariea for execution?

Their reasons didn't matter. Okara refused to be caught helpless again. With a shaking hand, he threw the blankets off and stood, wound stabbing at him in protest. Satisfied he could stand, even if it was hunched and cradling his stomach, he took an experimental step, but the needle in his arm pulled him back. Tracing the rubber tubing bandaged to his arm, he found a nearby IV stand. It would do for a cane, he realized, and grabbed it to help steady himself. Next, he found the monitoring sensors below his thin gown, taped purposefully to his skin, and with a deep breath, he tore them off. The alarm began to screech almost immediately, reading the patient now lacked a heartbeat, but Okara didn't wait to listen to it. He took off in the fastest hobbled run he could manage.