Star Side

Chapter 10

The life pods had been built to house a total of two people and a gecko. It had two separate rooms, if you could call them that, with one assigned to piloting and the other for everything else, from pooping to medical care. The seats in the piloting room served as beds.

Naomi and I extracted the helmetless, bleeding body of Joshua from one of these said seats. The entire cabin reeked of puked carrots.

Despite being in a nearly pure oxygen environment (to the point of toxicity, since Joshua had been drowning for air with his argon full lungs), Joshua didn't react to our rough dragging of him over the armrests and through the narrow doorway of the space hub.

Naomi strapped an oxygen mask to his face.

"We need to do the sterilize shower first," I said, somewhat breathless beneath his bulk. I had never been more grateful for my mannish strength than I was then.

"Then we need a rope or something—"

"We can prop him upside down against a wall—"

"He won't be able to breathe!"

"He's already not breathing!"

Thankfully, Levi stumbled into the sterilizing shower just as we got it started. The doors sealed tight behind him and a loud beep signaled the start of the mist. Thankfully, there were benches in there, and with Levi's help we managed to somehow maneuver the bulky Joshua at an upside down enough angle with his rear on the narrow bench and Levi and I holding his legs against the wall. Naomi took his head, making sure his airway's stayed open.

Fresh blood trickled from within his space suit, along his throat, his face, and into his hairline. It was dark from lack of oxygen.

"How long does he need to stay like this?" I asked.

"Until his oxygen levels are back to normal," said Naomi. "I have a monitor up in medical bay, we have to move fast."

And we did. I feared, for a bit, that I'd be left to heft Joshua's weight myself since Naomi was tiny and I'd never seen Levi heft more than a tool-box. But, surprisingly, Levi got under Joshua's arm and hefted him with just as much strength as me and we managed to fly down the halls to medical bay at a brisk run, our boots squeaking with dripping disinfectant spray the entire way.

The bed clacked against the wall when we threw him down.

"Upside down!" squawked Naomi.

Levi and I rushed to obey. We floundered with getting his legs up the wall until Naomi pulled down some restraints from the ceiling. I wanted to know what those were there for once this was all over.

Once his ankles were strapped him, she pushed a button and the restraints pulled him up like a dead cow ready for gutting at a butcher. Not a good analogy.

"Help me get his suit off."

I went at the zippers, but it was Levi who came to the rescue pulling out a huge, mean looking pocket knife out of his pockets and making quick work of slicing this off.

"Have you had practice in this?" I asked, a little alarmed. There'd been no hesitation in his movements.

"Story for another day, Jo," he said tersely.

Beneath the space suit, Joshua was a mess. His clothes had been thoroughly soiled by just about every body fluid there was. I couldn't help but gag at the smell, though Naomi and Levi took it with stone-faced determination.

Medical scanners and monitors I'd never had to see in use came down with a whisper at Naomi's touch to curve around Joshua's dangling form. Levi made sure the oxygen mask was still strapped on.

"Broken wrist, several ribs, metatarsals, his ankle looks close," Naomi bit her bottom lip.

"Where's the blood coming from?" I asked.

"The suit was punctured several times in a line around his legs," said Levi.

"There's one near his hip," Naomi scraped her fingers down the touchpad, bringing down more mechanical nozzles from the ceiling. "Levi, his clothes."

So the first time I got to see a naked man was when he was dangling, half-dead, from a ceiling by his ankles. Exciting stuff. Not that I even had the time to look as Naomi kicked me into my own job.

"Jo, get the memory card from his suit and incinerate it along with his clothes."

The memory card was kept on the back of the neck and kept a history of all his vitals and functions of the suit. It clicked out easily enough and I left it on the stainless steel pan built next to Naomi's touchpad screen before getting the rubber and cloth mass of yuck and running for it. There was no telling what else would need another pair of hands.

Thankfully, there was an incinerator shut just outside medical bay. I'd just gotten it all stuffed into the metal maw, door closed, and the button pushed, when a strange noise made me stop.

I paused, straining my ears through the whirring and beeping of the medical bay on the other side of the wall. I couldn't even entirely describe what it was. Just something that my brain had ticked as 'un-space-station-y.'

Then it happened again, something high-pitched, like a whine, just on the edge of my hearing. It reminded me of those super high tones people lost the ability to hear as they aged.

I thought about the life pod still pumping 100% oxygen into an empty compartment. Would it turn off on its own? Oxygen was highly flammable, it could be a safety hazard.

"Jo!"

I put that on my docket of 'take care of once this was over' and rushed back into medical bay.