Planet Qwonin Crystal Dreams

Resolution?

Blood spurting from his wound Jones screamed as he hit the ground, hard. Chadors, screams almost overwhelming Jones blooded curdling, full-throated explosion of sound.

Chador was the first to recover enough from her injury to do something about them. Leaving the spike in place she pulled the tube of NNB, Nanotech Neural Blocker, from her backpack and applied it to her wound. Stifling the resulting shot of pain as she did so used the whole tube. Screaming into her hands she waited while the nanites spread themselves over the area, blocking the damaged nerve receptors.

Her pain temporarily eased she dragged herself over to Jones, applying a second tube of the NNB to the entry point of Jones wound, before rolling him onto his side and flushing the wound with her canteen of half used water.

Luckily the spike had missed all of Jones vital organs even so, Jones wound was bad. Regretting the need to use it, Chador flushed Jones wound again before using the remains of Jones medical nanites to seal the worst of his bleeding, before she injected Jones with their last remaining dose of truth serum.

"Can you stand." She asked as Jones opened his eyes.

"Yes." Jones replied truthfully.

"Do you need help to move?"

"Yes."

"So do I. Maybe together we'll be able to help each other." And Jones nodded.

It took time but eventually, with the aid of freshly cut walking sticks, they found a way of supporting each other as they stood.

"Sorry about this" Jones mumbled in pain, through his teeth as they made their feet "I just didn't expect that."

"You can't know everything." Chador grimaced, supporting herself on his right side. "We'll be slow, and we'll need to stop regularly to check our wounds...but we'll live."

"I'm not sure that's true." Jones replied thoughtfully. "I appear to be bleeding badly." He continued glancing down as his side which had started bleeding again.

"Possibly. But the least we can do is to try to make the pickup point."

"Agreed."

"By the way... I've always wanted to ask you one particular personal question."

"Don't.' Jones replied truthfully "You might not like the answer."

"Don't worry I wasn't going to ask you that question. No, I want to know is...Why did the FSF save me on Adlioor? What I mean is that they already had copies of all my research so why save me?" she asked haltingly as they trudged slowly through the forest towards the river, angling for their distant pickup point on the beach, six kilometres away.

Finding it difficult to concentrate with the pain and compelled to tell the truth if he answered, Jones took his time answering, hoping Chador wouldn't press the issue, knowing that she'd hate the answer if she did.

"Well?" Chador asked, trying to divert Jones mind from his situation.

"Well what?" Jones replied playing dumb.

"Tell me why the FSF saved my life on Adlioor."

"You don't what to know." Jones replied temporarily resisting the drugs urge to blurt out the whole truth.

"I insist. Tell me the truth. Why did the FSF save me on Adlioor?"

"They didn't." Jones finally admitted. "I did."

"Pardon?"

"They didn't...I did." Jones repeated.

Chador suddenly stopped walking, and turned to look intently at Jones.