The Girl in the Tank: Galactic Consortium, Season 1

Episode One: Attack! Part 4

Lana let her feet move on their own accord, following the directions from the holo-projection. She scanned the information the surveillance bots were feeding her about the life signs. She cussed to herself. A lot of regular citizens thought the surveillance net provided up to date medical information on everyone, but that was a half truth at best. It certainly didn't provide the details that her eyes did. The data the bots were giving her was faint and inconclusive. It was possible that her and her apprentice were taking a second stroll through radiation only to find their patient already gone. But she had to at least try. Especially when she heard the earth man say this was the one who had taken the shot, who had destroyed the missile before it could kill millions.

She looked up at the blue sky. Nothing showed that they were standing in the direct path of nuclear fall out, but then again life was like that sometimes, sometimes it looked safe when it was not. Lana paused when she reached the indicated spot.

"By the mother," she swore, looking down at the ruined wreck of a body beneath her feet and up at the sky.

"What?" Janda asked at her back.

Lana blinked, switching her vision to the bio-enhancement display. She began scanning the body. Lana's eyes were top of the line medical enhancements, the best in the Consortium. This was the kind of detailed medical information she needed. She knelt. "It's just, look up," Lana said, though she did not look up again. "It's open. Can you even imagine, just standing here and watching a nuclear blast?"

Janda shuddered. "I'd rather not, thank you. I still can't believe they had them."

Lana fished in the pack at her belt for a throat spider. "Nuclear weapons?" she asked. She shrugged. "They've never been off planet, so how would they know?" How would they know how many planets had been discovered with concentric bands of radiation surrounding ruins, and little else. How would they know that maybe one intelligent race in ten survived it's rocky adolescent period, when technological advancement outstrip social and political ones?

She flicked her wrist, engaging the quicksilver sterile barrier. There was a metallic flash as the barrier covered her hands like a glove. She put her right hand to what was left of the face, searching for a mouth that wasn't readily visible, so extensive were the burns.

"Yeah," Janda agreed as he knelt at the other side. His hands, too, were covered in silver. He looked the body over dispassionately. "It's hard to believe she's even alive." He lifted an arm. A finger fell off. He shuddered but set to work, applying burn paste over it. They would worry about debriding the bad tissue when they had her in a meditank.

Lana got the mouth pried open. Something came off as she opened it and she tried not to think about what it was, a burned piece of lip or a tooth. She dropped the spider into the open mouth. It went to work opening the airway and supporting ventilation.

"There's brain activity," Janda said. "I think she might be conscious, at least sort of."

Cheyenne floated in a haze of pain. On one side of the haze, the pain was sharp and blazing. On the other side everything went black. She wasn't sure which side scared her more. Everything was dark, not a-dark-room dark or even pitch black, but complete-absence-of-anything sort of dark.

She was uncomfortable where she was but she feared that any motion would cause the pain to sharpen and then she would lose to the darkness that wanted to claim her. She tried to catalog the pains, take stock of herself. Her legs burned and wouldn't move. Her arms and hands felt numb, like paddles. Her face ached. She turned her attention elsewhere, not wanting to concentrate too much on any of the pain, or to wonder what the darkness meant for her sight.