Chaos Rising

10

Dray waited at the entrance to the engine room, investigating the workings of the medical scanner he had swiped on the way through extended care. The device was a thin, silver wristband that sat tightly around Dray's wrist. From this housing, the scanner projected a blue holographic panel along Dray's sleeve that synced with his implants to display a series of relevant medical problems to his situation. Currently, it was running him through gunshot wound training that he already knew. The better thing about the scanner was its ability to scan any being within a few metres and run diagnostics on their vitals and internals.

The sound of scuffling feet made the doctor look up and see the three people returning. The captain of the ship, a female Techara looked quite conflicted, if Dray was reading her emotions correctly. Kiron was being supported by Hael, as they hobbled back to the engine room. Dray ran up to them, scanning Kiron with his new favourite tool. The machine displayed a graphic of the psychic's body scan, highlighting his preexisting bullet wound and a high levels of neuronal hyperpolarisation. He was mentally exhausted.

"Kiron, are you okay," Dray asked.

"I'll live," the young man replied. "Just give me a minute. Where's Leif?" The psychic's head shot up and looked Dray in the eyes.

"I don't think you should go in ther-" the doctor tried to say, before the psychic pushed past him and walked into the engine room. Dray hurried after him, his mouth flapping as he tried to think of words to say.

The engine room was covered in scarring from ricocheted bullets. It was a huge grey bunker of a room, with large yellow emergency lights and little in the way of decoration. Dray was thankful that the lights were slightly brighter than the rest of the deck's emergency lights; he'd been getting sick of straining his eyes. As he looked around, his eyes were drawn to the two massive round sides of the main ion drives that stuck through either side of the room. Both of them had been battered and pockmarked by the firefight. Crates and barrels had been moved onto the floor to provide cover to the engineers. Dray saw five or six faces tentatively looking out from among the makeshift barricade. He didn't blame them for being distrustful.

Dray's eyes were drawn back down and he saw that Kiron stopped and knew instantly what he had found. The body of a tall, fair haired Human lay sprawled on the top of a crate. His face... It bore a telling resemblance to Kiron.

"Kiron, I-" Dray began.

The psychic interrupted him with an amused laugh.

"Kiron-"

"Look, it's a decoy," Kiron said, waving his arm through - through - the body. "Leif isn't dead. I can still feel him in my head."

"So you're brother's like..." Hael began.

"Me?" Kiron asked. "No, not quite. He's lethal."

"If that's a decoy, why is it dead?" Hael asked, moving up to poke the holographic illusion.

"No one shoots a dead body. There are unarmed engineers hiding behind those crates," Kiron began, before he pointed to the back of the engine room, up on the port-side ion engine. "There."

"I can't see anything," Dray said, straining his eyes in the half-light. The engine looked like a normal engine.

"Well done, brother," Kiron said loudly. "But I think you can come down now."

Dray watched as a man appeared from behind some panelling on the engine. In his hands was a long-barrelled sniper rifle. The man slide down to the floor and pushed a button on the side of his rifle, making it whir and collapse into a box about the length of his forearm. Kiron mounted the crate and went to his brother. Dray felt a moment of happiness when he saw them hug. It was good to finally see something good on this ship.