A woman shrieked, but most of the crowd remained silent and still. Jude stood in shock behind the bar, his eyes shifting toward Stellan, projecting something like fear. Some rose from their seats, and they all looked to him, amazed at the spectacle that was his monster, a cunningly quick messenger of death.
Stellan feared that they all saw him now as a killer, no longer as a protector, no longer something of comfort and reassurance, but cold death. It was the identity he'd struggled to hide from them for as long as he secured the Atlas. He was afraid it was his truth, the answer to the riddle of who he was before he was chief of security on the Atlas, the answer to the question of who he really was.
Stellan holstered his sidearm and walked to Tom's body. He pressed Tom's carotid artery to search for a pulse and found none. He was gone, and as good as Daelen was, she couldn't bring men back from the dead.
Then he remembered Tom's shot had missed, so in a sudden panic, he turned and searched the crowd.
He found his closest friend who was like his adopted sister. Of all the people on the Atlas, of all the places she could have been, Wendy had stood behind him.
She looked down in disbelief to her stomach, her hands trying to catch the blood spilling from the dark rose blooming on her jumpsuit. She gasped, her young, pretty face contorting into a ball of pain, and then she fell.
Another shriek and a rustling of people who wanted to help but didn't know how, a murmur of voices expressing shock, doubting the reality of what they were seeing, praying to their gods.
Stellan rushed to her side, tears welling in his eyes. Words could not express his sudden grief.
He could have taken that bullet, but he hadn't. Was it fear that had caused him to dip his shoulder? He didn't know, but he knew this was his failure, too.
He touched Wendy’s face and reached under to feel her back. She cried out as he rolled her. No exit wound.
She tried to speak; only shallow, arrested breaths escaped her mouth. She looked at him with such reverence, and he knew she depended on him. Even on the floor with her blood spilling from her belly, she still looked to Stellan as her protector and guardian. It wasn't the urgency of her condition that spoke to him then. It was fear of letting her down.
So he took her into his arms, cradling the back of her neck, and ran as fast as he could toward the door and onward to the medical deck, leaving the crowd at the bar as silent as the dead.
Eight
The medical deck buzzed with tension, a burning at the back of Doug Fowler's brain. He woke slowly, sluggishly, and the pounding on the floor, the shuffling, he needed it to stop. It was like an old-fashioned train he'd seen in the movies, the ones that still used wheels and burned fossil fuel. When they rolled into the stations, they'd always knocked so irregularly on the tracks, like spooked horses stomping their feet, threatening to stampede.
The squint was there, and she was nervous. She wore a big T-shirt that reached down to her knees, and her hair was in shambles, like she'd just rolled out of bed. Her mouth produced sounds, but Doug couldn't make out her words. Then he saw the open chamber and the doc sitting against the wall, the blood beneath her and, in the corner, a man who was little more than a meat bag, sobbing. What a shitheap.
Doug's adrenaline ran through his veins like electrified water, shocking and soothing him at the same time. He stood, the pounding in his head continuing, though it was bearable. He wiped his forehead and found he was bleeding, too.
"Can you stand, Dr. Lund? I need to get you on this table so you can lie down," Margo said.
Doug saw the perplexed look on her face. She had no idea how she was going to lift Daelen off the floor and onto a table.
"I got her," he said, and the big man shoved Edward's chamber off its platform with a loud crash that startled Edward into a high-pitched squeal. He picked Daelen up, supporting her with one arm behind her neck and the other behind her knees. He was gentle, but as he lifted, she moaned in pain.
"What the hell happened?" Doug asked. Daelen and Margo knew she was having a miscarriage. Doug was afraid for her because he'd never seen so much blood, and he knew it was his fault. He could have stopped whatever had happened had he not passed out. Had he passed out? He didn't know what happened to him, but he knew it had to be his fault.
"I'm losing my baby," Daelen said, and between the bursts of pain in her abdomen, her heart sank; verbalizing it had made it real. It made her understand she was the one on the table, and that this crisis was not just a challenge for her to overcome. Her life was changing that very moment. If she lost her child, it would be her tragedy, no one else's. She had not expected she could feel such loss. She'd seen other mothers suffer miscarriages, and she knew their pain.
But feeling was different than knowing.
Surprised at the revelation that Daelen was pregnant, Doug saw the bruises appearing around her neck and pieced it all together.
"You fuck!" Doug yelled, and he lunged at Edward, the sobbing, dripping pile of mess in the corner. Edward launched into unintelligible screams and shrieks of gibberish between his whimpers.
"No!" Daelen said. "It's not his fault."
Another bolt of pain colored her face.
"What do I do, Dr. Lund?" Margo asked, her confusion and distress apparent in her wide eyes.
Stellan burst through the door, and everything stopped. They saw him carrying Wendy, blood dripping down the front of his uniform and down her dangling arm, her head lolling back. When Stellan saw Daelen lying on the examination table with blood darkening her pants, he understood. His balance faltered, and everyone looked at him, completely baffled, their minds a bullet train derailed between stations.
"She's been shot," Stellan said, and it shattered the ice that had frozen time.
Margo looked at Daelen for instruction, and all she found was a woman laid out in agony, unable to give her the direction she sought.
Doug scooped the instruments and what he considered junk off a nearby counter. The crash this time was like shattering glass, and indeed, some of it was.
"Put her over here," he said.
"Yes, that will do," Margo said.
Stellan swiftly carried Wendy to the counter and laid her down. As her body stretched out, the pain surged in her abdomen, and she screamed. That only fueled the searing pain, so she bit down on her own arm. Blood flowed around her lips.
Margo waved her link over Wendy's midsection and inspected her wound. The bullet had entered low and to the side of her belly button, passing through her small intestine without damaging any of her other organs. Fortunately, it had also missed her celiac artery. There was no exit wound, and she found the bullet on her link.
"I see it," Margo said. "She's losing a lot of blood. I need to get her to surgery now, or she's going to bleed out."
Wendy and Daelen moaned in unison.
"Stellan, I can't treat them both," Margo said, her eyes asking if he understood, pleading with him to understand so she wouldn't have say it. He would have to choose Wendy or his child.
He understood, and the feeling went beyond helplessness. Of all the things he ever hoped to give the world in return for the lives he had taken, he realized now a child was the purest thing he could offer. Perhaps the only thing. Though the thought of fatherhood paralyzed him with fear, the potential that person could represent made him feel empowered, as if the future could be brighter. He supposed this was what it truly meant to be afraid, what it meant to feel loss. In one moment, all the hopes and dreams he never knew he had were fulfilled. And he could do nothing to stop them from shattering.
"What about Daelen?" he asked.
"She'll live."
Daelen opened eyes she couldn't bear to wipe dry, the grief and pain intermingling in a way she couldn't understand, fix, or fight. She and Stellan held onto each other's gazes then, a moment they could feel burning into their memories, a time they would decide later if they would reflect upon with grief or with joy because, in that moment, they saw in each other t
hat they both wanted a child. Losing this child would be tragic; from its loss, they would learn the meaning of love, legacy, and creation.
"How I can help her?"
"Keep her comfortable," Margo said, and nothing ever made Stellan feel so helpless. "There are some painkillers in that cabinet. We'll evaluate for a D and C later." For every life he'd taken, he'd known someone was behind it, grieving and feeling helpless. This knowledge brought on his guilt.
But feeling was different than knowing.
"Help me," Margo said to Doug, and he picked up Wendy and followed Margo to another room where they delivered her into the arms of God, which, on the Atlas, was a machine that would remove the bullet, repair her broken body, and grant her life once more.
Nine
When Margo had Wendy stabilized, Doug came for Edward, his face a snarl. Doug, so loyal to Stellan, so eager to please his Chief. It appeared to Stellan that Doug was going to bring his boot down on Edward's whimpering head, and Stellan decided he wouldn't stop the big man. However, Doug grabbed Edward and restrained him.
"What do you want me to do with him?" Doug said.
Stellan wanted to tell Doug to do whatever he wanted. For the first time ever, he was sorry to have saved a life.
"Lock him up where he can't hurt anyone else," Stellan said, knowing Daelen wouldn't be able to treat him anymore. He would have to heal the old-fashioned way.
"I didn't mean to hurt you," Edward repeated. "I'm so sorry!"
Her cramps fading, Daelen nodded her approval with the intention that, once she was back on her feet, she would do for him what she could in his cell on the security deck. Pierce had been right. Pierce was always right.
Doug lumbered off, dragging Edward behind him.
Daelen slept. Though the drugs helped with the pain, she was exhausted from the grief that was still too near; her body knew it. When she awoke, she would face the horror of realizing all her medical training and resources amounted to nothing if she couldn't even save her own child. That pain would never subside. It would be a grief she would carry with her the rest of her life, and in the quiet times, when the world receded like a tide, she would remember, and in those times, she would find strength. It would reinforce her will to do better and be better.
Stellan stood over her, watching her breathe. They were alone. They were almost never alone anymore. They slept together every night, but since the Shiva, regimen mired those times, both of them too exhausted to do anything other than slip into unconsciousness.
Even after what she'd been through, she was beautiful. Her dark, tangled hair lay in a pile, natural, wild like the summer breeze had styled it with nimble fingers. Her soft face, while fragile and innocent, exuded strength. All evidence of her grief, all the worry wrinkles and tears, were erased from her fair skin.
Then she stirred. She took a deep breath, and her brow tightened. A quiet whimper escaped her mouth, and she blinked in the soft lighting.
She looked to Stellan, and before he could say anything, she said, "I'm so sorry."
"For what?"
"Not telling you. You shouldn't have had to find out this way. Maybe if I'd told you…"
Stellan had never been good with words in times of tragedy, so he remained silent. To let her know he forgave her, he caressed her cheek. Her hand shot up and grasped his, pressing it against her face. Fresh tears sprang from her eyes.
"Everything is going to be all right. Now, you need to rest," Stellan said. "Doctor's orders." He meant Margo, and he smiled at the role reversal. She managed a smile, too, weak though it was.
"I know that."
"Sure you do."
"How's Wendy?" Daelen asked.
"Fine," Stellan said. "Surgery went well. Your protégé already has her in recovery."
Daelen sighed with relief. At least it wasn't for nothing. Their sacrifice.
"You know, I've never been so scared in my life," Stellan said. "I've looked down the barrel of guns. I've looked into the eyes of men determined to end my life. But when I came through that door and found you, I didn't know what was happening. I just knew my world was falling apart, the pieces slipping through my fingers."
He bent and kissed her softly.
A fearful look crossed her face. "Stay with me," she said. "Promise you won't leave."
"I'm not going anywhere."
"After everything we've lost, I can't lose you, too."
"I'm not going anywhere," he repeated, a look of concern crossing his own face as he wondered if she knew about Tom and the shooting yet.
"Rest." He hushed her. "Everything will be all right."
Daelen slipped back into sleep, and a moment after he was sure she was out, Stellan's link chirped. A small window leaped into the air, a voice message from Pierce. His voice sounded grievous and grim. It didn't ask anything. It simply ordered Stellan to report to the Captain's cabin.
Ten
When Stellan stepped into Pierce's cabin, he had the distinct feeling of entering a church, going to make a confession. He smelled the musty odor of aged oak, and the lights had been turned down low, elongating shadows as if by candlelight.
Stellan crossed the threshold into Pierce's office and found the Captain behind his desk as usual, still and silent, staring at Stellan with a hard look that lacked passion of any kind, offering no insight for whether he felt anger or love, disappointment or pity. His chiseled cheekbones jutted like a rock face. His jaw muscles tensed and released. His thumb rubbed the worn spot on the lip of his desk.
The hard, unyielding chair before Pierce offered no relief from the discord in silence. It supported Stellan only in a physical sense. A moment passed where Pierce only gazed at Stellan, as if considering a move in a game of chess. Finally, he relaxed and leaned forward, hands folded and elbows on his desktop.
"I'm sorry we had to meet under these circumstances," Pierce said. "How are you holding up?"
"Fine."
"Good. And Daelen?"
"She's going to be all right."
"Wendy?"
"She'll be fine, too."
"Good, good," Pierce said. "I want you to know this is just a formality. Anytime something like this happens on a Council ship we have to do an assessment. We have to try to salvage what's left."
"I know," Stellan said. "I understand." He didn't like the way Pierce said, "we," when it didn't include him.
"Good," Pierce said. "And I'm here for you as your friend. I chose you for this job because I knew I could trust you, so I know you'd tell me if there was something wrong, if something had compromised your decision-making."
Pierce gazed at Stellan with those stone eyes, neither judgmental nor sympathetic, impossible to read, awaiting a response.
"I would."
"Yes, you would," Pierce agreed with certainty. He opened a document from his link and spread it out over his desk, swiping through pages and passively scanning them.
"From the report one of your officers filed, it looks like it was a clean kill. Tom wouldn't comply. Your life and the lives of your crew were threatened. You defended yourself and them admirably against an eminent threat," Pierce said.
He paused, closed the report, and then leaned forward with a warm smile that felt somewhat mechanical and deliberate.
"You know, I'd give you some downtime if you needed it, but so much has been going on lately that hasn't been right."
"I know."
"I need you at the top of your game."
"I am."
"Are you?" Pierce asked. "You did everything right according to your report, but you've failed to ask questions. The right questions. Remember, I told you the first rule of being a soldier was to stop asking questions, and the first rule of leading was asking the right ones?"
"I remember."
"Really?" Pierce asked. "Then why is it that you haven't really looked into where Tom got his weapon?"
Stellan had asked Tom directly, and when he’d gotten no response, he’d left it at that. At some point,
maybe he thought it didn't matter where Tom got the weapon. With everything that happened after, maybe he simply forgot, or maybe it was the fact that seeing someone point a gun at him wasn't so odd. Granted, it had been a long time, but the mind had a way of recognizing circumstances. It was how he knew what to do. It was instinct.
"He must've brought it on board with him," Stellan said.
"Likely," Pierce said with a nod. "The simplest explanations are probably true. Still, so much has not been simple about this run. I have to consider the alternatives, and so should you."
Stellan thought back to the fire in the water plant, the feeling that it had been meant as a diversion. At the time, Tom had been in holding; Floyd slept. Security was completely accessible.
"Skinner," Stellan said.
"Have you seen her?" Pierce asked with a furrowed brow that resembled worry.
"Not since the Shiva."
"Do you think she's still on board?"
"I know she is," Stellan said. "You don't think she caused the accident?"
"Edward," Pierce said. "How did he get out of his chamber? How did a man recovering from explosive decomp overpower Doug Fowler?"
"How could she be responsible for all of that? And why?"
"I don't know," Pierce said. "It's unlikely, but you know how they work. Never see it coming until they hit you sideways. If you find her, maybe you'll get the chance to ask her."
"We done playing nice?" Stellan said eagerly.
"I said I wasn't about to see lives end out here. Now, Tom's gone. By your hand, but it was forced. Edward. Wendy. Daelen. It's time we find Ms. Skinner and have an open discussion. That's what I need you to do now. Find her, and bring her here."
Stellan stood, feeling empowered with understanding. Using his imagination to fill in the blanks, it all became so clear, like wiping the fog away from a window.
"One more thing," Pierce said. "You lied to me."
"What?" Stellan asked, turning uncertainly. He wracked his mind trying to think of when he had lied to Pierce and couldn't come up with anything.
"You're not okay."
"Yes I am."
"No, you're not. Sit."
Stellan sat back in the uncomforting chair, the air between them more open. He again felt they were on the same team, but that confession feeling lingered. Pierce wanted Stellan to tell him something, and Stellan didn't know quite what he wanted to hear.
Carrier Page 19