Echo-1 The Whale

41: An Aftermath

Sunshine stirred behind us and brought us back to the real world.

I carried Sunshine and Dixon into the Unicorn. Dixon was still unconscious. Sunshine opened her dazed eyes for a moment. "Who was the hot chick?" Then she passed out again.

Death brought in the wolves and the two that had been burned came whimpering around. He brought them inside too. We went down one level to the control room. It smelled like burnt hair and wet dog. I couldn't risk starting the ship and having it be infected but I could still communicate to the crew with resistant communications.

"Mox, tell me you didn't let the Mildabbar go?" I looked at Faye's wand and thought about releasing the communications block and said it again.

"Of course I didn't, my good man. I've got him safe and sound in his box. How goes things back there?"

I didn't know how to sum up everything that had happened, let alone the extreme emotional manipulation I had experienced.

"It's over. Faye is dead. The Vedma are defeated."

Death said he was going for Veronica's avatar and jetted off in his diamond suit. He was shaken, that was for sure. He was still a military man and having an order to fulfill helped. I put Dixon in a chair, then Sunshine, who was coming around. Death was able to shake off being stunned on two different occasions, but I was worried about Dixon, having been shot repeatedly. Physically she seemed ok and she was breathing normally. Sunshine acted drunk, mumbling incoherently from time to time.

The wolves lay in a heap on the floor. I went over to them. I reached down and pet Nidi. Her fur was damp and cold, but her skin underneath was warm enough.

"How are you feeling?"

She opened her big eyes and gave me her werewolf smile.

"Why Nidi, what big teeth you have."

She smiled more and said, "the better to eat you with." She was going to be fine.

The two wolves that Faye burned certainly had 2nd-degree injuries and splotches of missing fur with red blistery skin showing. They were probably in a great deal of pain.

"I'll be back."

I went down two levels to the medical bay and grabbed two injections of painkillers and two stimulants. On my way back up I stopped at one of the underwater windows. Out there in the water was Veronica and Jonas on either side of Vronsky holding him up at the surface. There was a huge amount of blood in the water. All the other whales from both pods were gathered in the area.

"What should we do?" I asked.

Veronica took charge. She ordered a transport to move Vronsky to the whale medical bay of the main sea. She would need to accompany him there with her avatar and she needed the Save the Whales team to help.

Charlie tried to explain the situation. We could still drive no vehicles or use any of our equipment or we would lose control of them. The Vedma virus still infected the ship. Additionally, the entire Save the Whales team was out of commission. Death did chime in and said he was almost to Veronica's avatar. I told them I had Faye's control device. It wasn't exactly clear how to use it, but I was able to free communications. Charlie said they still appeared completely under Vedma control but they were open.

I had an idea. I sat down holding the wand. I thought about the large whale moving transport vehicles. I sent robots to it. They manually started it for me and were heading to the frozen sea. I then thought about allowing access to the sensor array again. Charlie came over communications.