Blood Impulse

Part 27.2 - SPECIAL ATTENTION

Polaris Sector, Battleship Singularity

The Gargantia's second survivor slept. His eyes had not fluttered since he was brought aboard. He looked almost pensive. Drawn up over his chest, the thin bed sheets concealed the bandages that covered the entirety of his torso. In the last few days, patchy stubble had grown along his chin, but still, he did not stir.

Lieutenant Foster was slumped in the chair at his bedside. While she didn't know the engineer, she stayed with him. If he woke, he should not wake up alone. Even if they hadn't known each other before, they had been comrades aboard the Gargantia and that bond meant something to her.

Everything aboard the Singularity was different. The people. The technology. The mood. Nothing was familiar to her, but that strengthened her kinship to the other survivor, because he too would wake to find himself a stranger in a strange place.

Over the last few days, Foster had many random crew check on her. They welcomed her aboard ship and asked about the engineer, assuming that they'd been friends, given her constant presence at his bedside. She didn't know how to tell them that she and this engineer were strangers. Only the memory of the Gargantia would bind them. Still, the crew's concern was a kind gesture, and truly, she was grateful, but fact remained, they weren't her crew. This wasn't her ship. It was the concern of strangers.

Some part of Foster was still awed to be here, awed to be alive at all, let alone treated this way. She was shocked that the Singularity had bothered to rescue her. She knew now that the operation in the Wilkerson Sector had endangered the entire crew to rescue only two lives: hers and this unfamiliar engineer's. It was a difficult thing to wrap her head around. What had made it worth it? She was left to wonder.

Save the Admiral's brief visit, there had been no inquiries and no guards. The crew treated her like one of their own, not as a stranger or a potential threat, though they had no evidence of her honesty. It seemed her word was good enough.

When she finally worked up the nerve to ask one of the crew, he'd had simply told her that no orders had been given to shadow or restrict her movements. Similarly, no orders had been given to bar her knowledge about the ship's condition. It seemed that unless the Admiral said otherwise, the crew was to welcome her into their fold, and they embraced that wholeheartedly.

From what she'd gathered from her visitors, despite taking a severe beating, most of the Singularity's battle damage would be entirely repairable. The only point of concern was the damaged engine. Removing the wreckage among its machinations was a delicate process, and inspections had to be thorough, so there was still no word on if it could be repaired.

Similarly, the records gathered from the Gargantia had been partially corrupted. Powerful electrical surges had damaged the data banks as some sort of virus had been trying to purge the data. So, while the obtained records had revealed Lieutenant Foster's identity, they had not done the same for the other survivor. His medical summary, hung on the end of the bed was marked as 'Ensign Unknown,' his rank identified by the uniform he'd been wearing.

The ship's doctor, Macintosh, seemed particularly uncertain about the engineer's condition. The piece of metal that had impaled him had missed his spine, heart and lungs. Donations had replenished his blood, but he was still unresponsive, as if still in shock. The doctor claimed he'd done all he could, and that they could only hope this patient would get up and walk out at some point.

However, at the moment, judging by the stampede of feet Foster could barely see under the curtain, the doctor had his hands full. He was in no position to deal with the survivor's sudden revival – though from the grumbling Foster had heard earlier, he may have preferred it.