Star Side

Chapter 18

I don't know how we did it, but we somehow managed to drag the bleeding body of the alien to med bay, where Naomi happened to be finishing up on some last night prep work.

She at least had the control to cut-off her scream mid-way.

Beside me, Levi held the most truly irritated expression I'd ever seen, bordering on murderous.

"Lifters, Naomi."

"Whatever the hell for?" she looked faint, even had her knuckles to her temple. "What the ever...holy god above..."

"To get it onto a table, what else? It's still alive."

Her dark eyes, so like Levi's, widened impossibly wide. Her hands moved to clutch her throat.

"No way."

Levi glared and clenched his jaw.

I had enough sensibility to look ashamed.

"Jo woke up to it. Said it was sleeping right next to her like a god damn dog, so can you—fuck it."

He dropped the arm of the alien he'd dragged it by and jabbed the control panel himself. Mechanical white arms came whirling down from the ceiling, the same ones that had help us hang Joshua upside down by the ankle restrains.

He maneuvered them down to the shoulders and hips of the monsters, or tried his best to. They latched around okay but once they tried heaving they whistled and whirred. Naomi elbowed him aside and did some magic to get even more arms down and, next thing we knew, we had a half-conscious alien on its back on the same table Joshua had died on, it's long, draconic legs dangling off the end. It hissed beneath its breath, making Naomi jump back in alarm.

"Why the hell didn't you kill it?"

"Trust me, I would, but Jo suddenly got compassionate."

I couldn't help but flinch at Naomi's accusing glance. She wasn't stupid. She could piece together Joshua's weak description of a 'demonic alien' and figure what this thing was on her table. Why she hadn't killed it yet herself was probably only in part because of her shock and need to understand.

I held up my hands. "It was trying to communicate with me! Maybe it's not the one to kill Josh—"

"It only hitched hiked in god knows where on that tight as shit life pod," snapped Levi. He'd been swearing more and more, and his voice held a new level of vitriol. "And nearly tried to kill you and me."

"It didn't try to kill me. I told you, it was asleep right next to me, it wasn't even a threat."

"But you called me anyway, right?"

"Give me a break! I was scared out of my mind!"

He growled, spat to the side (which made both Naomi and I grimace), then swung his leg over the back of a chair and leaned on it, bringing around his slung rifle into his hands. Half of me wish I hadn't even bothered to stop Levi if this was how he was going to act about it.

Naomi swallowed and looked askance at the bleeding alien.

"You're not seriously asking me to treat the possible murderer of my husband, let alone an alien, are you?"

"No way, I can do it, if you're okay with letting me use the tools, that is."

Naomi hesitated, looking like she wanted nothing better than to grab a surgeon scalpel from a drawer and stab it into the alien's eyes. I readied myself for a jump just in case she did.

But, she showed more self-control than me and stepped back.

"Shoot it the moment it seems aggressive."

Levi squeezed his gun. "I was already going to."

Naomi gave a stiff nod and handed the control panel to me without looking at me. I suspected I'd hurt her on some level, but she didn't mention it as she left with a hiss of the medical bay door.

"Your bleeding heart's going to get us killed," grumbled Levi.

"Yeah, probably, since you can't shoot worth a damn."

He stiffened, dark eyes like blades. "Want to say that again?"

Even as I pulled up the Xray arm to find the bullet in its thigh, I stared him down.

"It was five feet in front of you and you couldn't get a decent head shot in."

"Funny, you're sounding awfully ungrateful for your pet alien being alive or that I nearly ran myself to death to come save you."

"And you're sounding awfully sensitive for someone who usually would care less."

Levi did pause at that. We both knew what I said was true. Levi and I had never had a fight, and we'd both spoken to each other bluntly and never taken offense to it. To do so now felt somehow hypocritical. A part of me didn't understand why Levi had gotten so high strung. He'd always been so cool headed, no matter the emergency, and especially when Joshua had been in danger. Me being in danger shouldn't have been any different.

I stopped watching his stiff face so I could focus more on stopping the alien, now looking at me from beneath heavy-lidded, hairless eyes, from bleeding out. I met its gaze, tickled, stunned, and uncertain by the steadiness in which it held my gaze. I couldn't help but remember its expression when I had thrown my pillow at it.

It clicked its jaw once. Then gave a short, soft, closed-mouth croon and closed its eyes.