Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 3

At the End of the Hall

The ship was silent, and dark, thrumming only with the throbbing power of the distant warp core. it rolled upwards through the metal of the ship pulsing like a beating heart, sending its power through the pipes and the electrical wires, like the heart sends blood through the body.

Its life pulsed through the ship, helping it to move, giving it life.

Dr. krill felt like he could feel it as well, pulsing through him, giving him just the slightest bit of extra life he always felt when aboard the ship, a cell placed exactly where It was supposed to be, fulfilling the function that it was supposed to fulfill, clear and whole.

He didn't often feel this way, mostly at night when the rest of the crew was asleep, and the sound of the distant warp core could fully permeate the silence. He floated quietly over the floor in the medical bay, the solitary watch for a solitary night. The rest of the crew would be asleep leaving only a red eye skeleton crew on duty for the night. Dr Krill didn't sleep, so he had taken the night shift as his duty. He had been busy for most of the day as a mild accident in engineering maintained most of his focus. It was only now that the night was quiet and everything had slowed down that he got the chance to look at the mercenary.

Dr Katie had been indisposed as of the early morning, so neither of them had had the time to get a good look at the body. Some of their less experienced medical officers had been given the task of tending to the body and had reported nothing out of the ordinary, though they would leave the final determination up to Krill on what had happened.

Certainly something had gone wrong for her to have lost her higher function, but there was no indication of outward physical trauma. The leading theory had soemthing to do with poisonous gases or asphyxiation, but the absence of petechial hemorrhaging in the eyes and bruising around the neck indicated that choking or smothering wasn't a likely suspect. Not to mention that Drev were significantly more difficult to suffocate, smother or choke, considering the Drev equivalent of "nostrils" was located on their upper chest just above where the collar bones might be on a human, so that made it impossible to crush and difficult to cover.

Gas was a possibility, though Drev were relatively less susceptible to poisoning by way of gas than other species.

Having evolved on a primarily volcanic planet will do that to you.

Krill stopped at the edge of the Drev's bed, looking down at the limp body, whose carapace glittered with the sickly yellow of an infected wound. He pulled up his tools, readying himself for the deep dive into this investigation.

He began with an examination of the vitals, like any good doctor would, finding a steady pulse and observable movement of the chest, up and down with the slow mechanical sameness of breath controlled only by the brain stem and nothing more.

The eyes were as unresponsive as ever and would certainly require imaging to determine if there was any other brain activity, though he doubted that very highly. He was showing no signs of higher functions other than the most basic functions required to live.

He had observed the breathing of course, but it wouldn't do to simply report upon an observation. He was, after all a doctor and a scientist, and he would not base his report on simple observations without observing the facts.

He leaned over the body to grab his stethoscope, but that is when something strange caught his attention. He wouldn't have noticed it, if he had not leaned over the body, it wasn't an observable sensation, so much as a tactile one. Where his bare neck and chest hung over the Drev's upper body, and the extra cervical breathing holes in the creature's chest, he felt it.

Or it was more about what he didn't feel.

No breath.

Dr. Krill pulled back in shock for a moment, and then reached a hand forward pressing his palm over the holes which flared and contracted at regular intervals.