Into The Void

by Ryan Frieda

  As Jamie removed the suit, she found out the body was bloated due to gas bubbles forming inside him because of his prolong exposure to the vacuum of space. As the suit was opened the bubbles either popped causing the swelling to suddenly collapse unto his already weakened bones making them snap like twigs or it caused the skin to rip off the body, which caused massive external bleeding. Sometimes both happened. Jamie worked throughout the next several hours just trying to get him out of the suit and tending to those wounds that bringing him out of the suit brought on. After several hours, Jamie had finally finished getting him out of the suit before moving onto the intestines, stomach, and kidney. She quickly looked down, and saw that the room was flooded several inches deep with fluids from the external bleeding. That meant that the drain in the room had clogged from the coagulated blood, gangrene, liquidized flesh, and other fluids.

  Jamie looked back at Captain Steele and noticed that the kidney was completely salvageable so she put it aside and out of the way for now. She then moved onto the stomach and cut the ruined parts off. She knew that she had to be careful or else the stomach cavity would be cut into and ruining the entire stomach. She then moved to the intestines, cutting off the ruined, burned, and dead parts before putting the organs carefully back in their proper places inside his body. She used special medical cables to attach them and tie them in place so that in time they would eventually become part of his flesh, connecting the tissues together.

  Jamie then moved onto treating the bones by either breaking them and moving them back into place to be repaired by a compounding healing agent or by removing them altogether and melting them down, pouring them into a mold, then setting them aside to cool so they can reform into the right shape so that they can be put back into their proper place. After causing all the bones to be reformed and put into the right place, she then used a healing agent that glues the bones back together. This process for his bones alone took an entire day. Captain Steele screamed, fought, and passed in and out of conciseness multiple times as Jamie removed the bones and put them back in.

  Jamie then needed to repair the burned muscle and the only way to do that was to cut it out and let it regrow in time. She then proceeded to cut out the muscle that was burned so it could grow back with exercise. Captain Steele continued to struggle and scream in pain as Jamie cut his muscles. She then sowed it together with nanocables; something highly illegal and discouraged because of the danger and potential for the muscles to absorb the nanocables creating incredible strength that was undetectable until used. She also did a muscle graft where she could. She then reattached the leg by using a healing agent to reattach the bone and then mended the skin and muscle around it.

  Jamie moved onto the skin. For the gangrene she cut off the dead skin and made sure blood started to flow to the areas again by poking holes in the flesh deeper than the gangrene went. She would then add special tubes that would act as veins to his flesh that would cause the blood to flow through to them. She then took the internal organs in the torso that had been burned and apply special internal burn fluid to them to help them heal. She had to cut open the stomach, small intestines, bladder, and liver to apply the special burn liquid. After applying the fluid she then sowed them together with a special fiber cable that would remain in him the rest of his life and become part of him. After she had fixed all the major problems she then finally was able to administer an anesthetic and put him into a medically induced coma. Jamie kept the doors to the med bay closed as she tried to move the ship to a safe location until the droids could fix the holes in the ship and until Captain Steele got better to help fix the ship.

  Eight Weeks later Captain Steele was on his feet still stuck in the med bay. He was going stir crazy trapped in there.

  “Jamie, let me help with repairs. You need me to help,” Captain Steel said.

  “You just finally started walking again,” Jamie said.

  “But the droids can't fix everything. They don't have the dexterity to do what needs to be done. They can't hold bulkheads closed and wield them together, they can't do a lot of the electrical work, and they can't manipulate what needs to be manipulated. Face it, they were designed to help, not actually build everything. It's impossible for them to do that. Besides, I am going crazy in here and it reeks. I've pulled what I can from the drain, but there is still about an inch left of man made jelly in here.”

  “That's disgusting John! You need to wait until you can fix the plumbing from outside the med bay. I've tried the droids but they just can't get there to fix it. Besides,you are too weak to do what needs to be done John. Besides, you have that droid I programmed to talk that can keep you company.”

  “Come on! This thing speaks in a very generic voice and also frequently overheats. Besides we are way behind schedule. We are years behind.”

  “I know we are John but if you hadn't left the ship we wouldn't have been years behind,” Jamie said.

  “If I hadn't left the ship? If you hadn't come back for me we wouldn't be years behind! Besides, you recommended that I leave the ship,” Captain Steele said.

  “You would rather me had left you?” Jamie asked.

  “Eight weeks! EIGHT WEEKS! If I had known it was only eight weeks of being cramped in a small room with human protoplasm soup because you pretty much destroyed my ship I would have preferred to die out there.”

  “I can still flush you out of the air lock and let you die if you wish John.”

  “You can't do it. Face it, you love me and that's why you came back. Besides, you need me. You really couldn't make it without me.”

  “Our relationship is strictly platonic John.”

  “Keep dreaming bot, you know it's true,” Captain Steele said.

  Jamie sighed.

  “How have you ever had any romantic relationships with all the insults you throw around?” Jamie asked.

  “I'm just good. There was this one lady. She was a fine soldier and a finer woman. We met at training and all the stuff we did... wow! This one time we-”

  “Yes John, I understand,” Jamie interrupted.

  “Snuck into our commanding officer's-”

  “Yes John, I heard you.”

  “Quarters and we-”

  “Okay Jo-”

  “Got into his bed-”

  “Shut up John! Just shut up and suit up and help repair the ship,” Jamie interrupted.

  “Jealous?”

  “No,” Jamie quickly and sternly replied.

  “I thought so,” Captain Steele said.

  “Suit up already! Your starting to annoy me.”

  “Fine, I'll put on a suit and go help,” Captain Steele said, “But we both know it's true.”

  Captain Steele put on the DSSM suit and asked Jamie to open the door to the rest of the ship. When she did he felt the rush of air leave the med bay and the sound of silence that accompanied vacuum, as the coagulated fluids slowly spilled out into the hallway. He always loved that rush of air leaving the airlock, then the quick sound of nothing that followed. The only thing he could hear was his footsteps from his magnetic boots echoing throughout his DSSM suit and his breathing from inside his own DSSM suit. He did not, however, enjoy it this time. It was far too similar to what happened on the last planet he set foot on.

  The hull breaches were all over the ship. The ship looked like it was about to be seared in half. Every section had a major hull breach where he could look out into the emptiness of space, except there were debris all around him. He could see objects in the ship floating due to loss of gravity on the ship. As he walked by them he would gently touch them and they would float off away from him, maybe even bounce off of a wall then come back towards him. It was eerily peaceful, unlike his journey to the last planet he was on.

  Captain Steele went to the storage room near the back of the ship and grabbed some repair parts and headed to the bridge. He started to repair a hole in the bridge when he realized the navigation system was offline.

  “Jamie, did the navig
ation system go down during your return?” Captain Steel asked.

  “Yes it did John.”

  “And how the hell are we supposed to go anywhere then? We don't know where we are or where the Milky Way is or anything else!” Captain Steele said.

  “I can repair it. I have the general idea of where we need to go.”

  “We are about a decade behind schedule.”

  “When have you ever cared about schedules and time frames John?” Jamie asked.

  “I just want to get this mission done, that's all.”

  “Are you alright John?”

  “Yeah, I just want to move on from this place.”

  Captain Steele proceeded to repair the hull breaches by wielding them together with spare parts and was able to repair most of the electrical systems. He knew he need to get the lab back on the ship but it was going to be hard. The first thing to do is to find the lab in all the wreckage.

  “Jamie, can you scan for the lab?”

  “I have been trying but there is far too much debris everywhere.”

  “Then let's take it slow and go look for it.”

  Captain Steele stood on the bridge looking out and occasionally wandered to where the lab use to be so that he could try to figure out a plan on how to get it get it attached to the ship again. He would need to wield it from both the outside and inside and get the electrical systems hooked back to it. He had only started repairing the ship and much was still needed. The ship had almost been ripped in half. He was grateful for Jamie's quick rescue. He still wasn't sure what kept his suit functioning for as long as it did. Jamie told him that he was practically dead and beyond any medical treatment and yet he was repaired in a ship out in the middle of intergalactic space.

  Captain Steele looked out and thought he saw something.

  “What's that out there Jamie?” Captain Steele asked.

  “Still scanning.”

  “Bring us closer.”

  Jamie turned the ship toward the object and Captain Steele saw it was the lab. Some of the equipment was missing, but for the most part it looked like most of it was there.

  “That's it Jamie. Bring us in close and try to rotate the ship as the lab rotates.”

  Captain Steele knew that it was going to be almost impossible to wield the lab together with the way it was rotating. It was rotating upward with it bottom rotating up end over end but was also rotating backwards so that the back came around to the front and the front came around to the back. The end rotating upward was going much faster than the end that was rotating backwards to forward.

  “Do you think we can sync the rotation of the ship around the 'Y' and 'Z' axis at the same Jamie?”

  “It is possible, but it will be very difficult. If we are not careful we could do more damage.”

  Captain Steele weight the options. Don't attach the lab and close the bulkhead doors that separate the lab and main ship and hope that the weight distribution won't cause any more problems as they run FTL, or try to attach the lab possibly causing more problems in the process but not have very many problems with traveling at FTL speed.

  “You think we should just continue without the lab Jamie?”

  “I can help repair it,” the droid said.

  “No. Go away,” Captain Steele replied.

  “I recommend we reattach it but first let's fix a lot of the ship. This ship is in a bad enough condition. I understand that it's important to attach now because the longer we let it sit out there in the debris field the greater chance there is of it being destroyed by the debris,” Jamie said.

  “Your right, let's fix what we got to fix now. It will take a week or two, but I believe we can do it.”

  Captain Steele went back to work fixing the bulkheads, holes in the hull, the electrical systems, working on the engines, and building a plan to attach the lab back to the ship. After several hours of work, he would go back to the med bay and sleep. Day after day the ship had more and more gravity and life support restored.

  For once, Captain Steele was happy to be on his god forsaken ship.

  Chapter 13

  Cataclysmic Changes

  Captain Steele could feel his skin being burned and his bones burning. He felt his skin starting to liquify. He could hear the screams in the distance. He knew that it was just seconds away. The pain became more and more intense, the burning more and more painful. He wished the screams would come already, he wished the darkness would fall. Everything hurt, and he could feel that he was starting to become liquid. He knew that if he could just hold on for a just a bit longer than everything would be better.

  “Just a couple more seconds,” he though.

  He tried everything he could to tolerate the pain and when he though he couldn't take anymore it hit. The darkness. He was completely covered in the darkness. He breathed out as if he was going to sleep and he felt like he was becoming stiff and then nothing.

  Captain Steele awoke later. He tried to move but couldn't. He felt as if his mind was awake and his body was not. He thought carefully. He tried to remember what had happened. He remembered that he was on a planet. That something was coming for him but he couldn't remember what. He moved his eyes and saw nothing but darkness.

  “Am I blind now?” he thought.

  He was only able to move his mouth. He spoke to see if he could hear himself and he could. He wasn't sure if he was in his suit so he tried to activate the suit to see if he could get any readouts and he didn't. What was he running from? Screaming. Darkness. He remembered now. He was on a planet and something happened. Darkness and screaming. Weather that caused all matter to fail to exist.

  “Am I dead?” He said out loud hoping someone would answer him.

  He waited a long time but there were no other sounds. He tried to move his body again but couldn't. How long ago was that storm? A couple of days or weeks? Maybe it was more. He wasn't sure, but he knew he was tired. He knew there was nothing he could do, so he decided to take a nap. He would worry about it when he awoke.

  After sometime Captain Steele awoke again. He was still confused about what happened and where he was. He tried to think about how he was in the place he was at. He remembers shooting rocks and mercury came out. Mercury came out... came out of the rocks. He remembered stepping into the waterfall of mercury that came out of the rocks. He remembered being burned. He remembered it so clearly that the emotions of what happened came back to him.

  “No! No! Not today!” He yelled.

  He tried to move. His breathing became heavy. He struggled to move but he had no luck. He tried to move and gave it everything he had but the pain became too intense. He then became tired and fell asleep again.

  Captain Steele awoke again, this time in lots of pain. He though about what happened and wondered if he was standing or laying down on the ground. He though he was standing but he couldn't see or feel so he wasn't sure. He tried to move his legs but he couldn't. He tried his arms, tried turning his torso, tried move his head but it was all a failure. He became depressed, and wished that the darkness had taken him. He wished the screaming had taken his life. If he had known he would die alone, unable to move, from starvation and dehydration he would have let the darkness take him. The pain of death from being dematerialized was much better than this hellish place.

  He was alive but nothing he could do would help him. He couldn't eat, drink, move, or count how much time has passed. He felt stuck in limbo with the end result being a slow, agonizing death. He though about how he foolishly thought this would be like being preserved like a fossil only he would be alive but unable to do anything, even think. In this case he can not do anything but think. All he could do was think about his life and his failures. He wondered if he could have done anything different and he knew the answer. He knew deep down what the answer to that was. He knew but it was already too late. It was too late to redo his choice. He was filled with grief and became tired so he went back to sleep.

  Captain Steele awoke again and tried to move ag
ain. He was still unable to move. He wondered if this is what it felt like when they were testing the failed cryosleep projects. Able to only think and not able to move. The was a significant difference and that was that there was no one who could get him out of it. He still didn't know what was going on. He became tired again, and decided to take a nap hoping that he would never awake again.

  Captain Steele awoke to a very loud sound. He finally heard something. It was very loud. It sounded like an old fright train. A very large fright train. He heard something burning. Something was clearly on fire. He then heard a very large explosion. He wasn't sure where he was at this point. Was he still on the planet? If so what would be making those explosions? What could have started that fire?

  There was another explosion and he felt a large shock wave hit his body. Another major explosion and shock wave followed shortly after.

  “Is this how I die? Unsure of what is going on?” He thought.

  Another explosion, another shock wave. He heard something big rumbling overhead. It was massive. More explosions and shock waves. He then heard the largest explosion yet. He felt a massive shock wave that caused his body to be thrown against more rocks resulting in him being able to see out of part of his helmet due to part of the mercury rocks that covered him breaking off.

  He remembered it all now. The mercury froze him when the darkness came encrusting him in rock. He was part of the rock wall and the last shock wave separated him from it. His body was still covered in cooled mercury but he could see out of his helmet and what he saw scared him.

  He looked out and could see a massive rock falling down onto the planet. The debris trail was very long and was raining down upon the planet. He tried to move his body and he couldn't because it was still encrusted in rock. Another explosion and another shock wave followed by several more. He could see the massive rock burning up upon entry. He knew that it must be a comet because of its shear size. He knew that if it hit the planet he was a goner. He tried to move his legs but couldn't. There was another explosion and another shock wave that caused the rocks along his right arm to crack enough so he could free his arm.