Into The Void (14 page)

              “Five rocks... shaped... zero.”

              Jamie looked for five rocks shaped like a zero. She looked and saw nothing of the sort. As she was looking, one rock scrapped up against the ship causing a massive hull breach in the electrical area. This ship's controls became very ridged and caused the ship to not maneuver correctly. She knew she had to slow it down. She looked for five rocks shaped like a zero again, only this time to make sure to watch everything else around her as well. Another rock came close and she tried to move the ship. This caused the ship to rotate as the rock hit the ship causing the lab to split open. The ship went into a spin.

              Jamie tried to recover from the spin but in the process caused the lab to tear off from the ship. The ship started to spin in the other direction as the loss of the lab and what little air it had caused the ship to be propelled in the other direction. She sealed the bulkheads to try and prevent any more air from being lost. She continued to look for five rocks that were shaped like a zero. Then a though came to her.

              “Do you mean that there are five rocks that look like a zero or that five rocks that form a zero? Please John,” Jamie begged over the radio.

              Jamie waited for a long time.

              “Second...”

              Jamie started to look around for five rocks that form a zero, and not five rocks that have a hole in them. She looked around when she saw them. She knew that getting close was going to be tough. There were tons of rocks moving around the ship as it was and there were even more near Captain Steele. She considered moving a droid into retrieve him but his condition was probably far too bad to be dragged so far back to the ship by a droid. The droids would probably run into a rock and she had no idea how badly damaged he was. She would need to send several bots, probably six total, one for each limb, then his head, and his torso. The last thing she wanted to do was tear off a leg by dragging him across the void. She had no idea just had bad his condition was, or even if he had a limb left on him.

              “John, what's you condition?” Jamie asked.

              Jamie waited for seconds, then minutes. 10 minutes went by before she tried to scan for his bio readings again. Nothing was transmitting. This meant only a visual inspection would help find him and help her decide what to do. She couldn't afford to loose any more droids. She knew she had to move the ship closer to him. Jamie piloted the ship carefully, to make sure she avoided the rocks around her. She moved the ship as close as she could before she knew that she was unable to move any closer. She was so close to him, only several hundred feet from him. She was still unable to get a clear visual on him due to all the debris. She sent out a droid to check on him and what she saw was not pretty.

              Jamie hardly recognized him. It was clear that he had sustained multiple 4
th
degree burns that burned through his skin and muscle to the point of burning his bones, multiple open fractures, skin that had succumb to vacuum and had lost all water molecules drying the skin and causing it to be cold and turn black with gangrene. Being exposed to vacuum also caused gas bubbles to swell up in skin so that parts of his suit appeared to be busting at the seams. His skin also had signs of frost and he had clearly developed muscle atrophy causing his muscles to waste away, and with him being exposed to zero gravity without any exercise his bones would likely have lost 50-60% of their bone density meaning his bones would snap like twigs upon returning to normal gravity. It looked like part of his body had become liquid as well. There was skin, muscle, and bone looking liquid floating all around him. She could see that his face mask was split, and there was a slight shimmering coming from the hole meaning the suit is trying to keep oxygen inside it.

              Jamie got out the droids and sent them to retrieve him. As she watched them go out she noticed that one of Captain Steele's legs was disconnected from him and one of his arms was only connected by his broken collar bone with his collar bone pointing out at a 60 degree angle towards his head. There was no skin or muscle tissue connecting his arm to his body. She couldn't fathom the thought that his arm was only held attached to his body by a broken and a protruding collar bone, that if there was any skin left around his arm pit area, would be outside of his shoulder.

              Jamie also saw that a large chunk of his suit was missing around his left side, causing some of his ribs to be burned along with some of his internal organs. She also noticed that 15 feet of his intestines were floating outside of his body along with what appeared to be his liver, stomach, and possibly a kidney. This means that the impact that hit his right side was so violent that it tossed his organs out an open wound on his left side. The flesh connecting these organs would have have had been ripped apart during the hit. She could also see some of them were inflated due to vacuum and burned as well. Having so much of them exposed to vacuum may make them completely unsalvageable. She also saw that part of his helmet was missing and massive burns were on his head that seem to go deeper than the skull which means part of his brain may be burned.

              Jamie wasn't sure if it was best to leave him or try to revive him. The damage was far too great for him to ever live the life he had once lived. He would be nothing more than a burden, unable to carry out the mission as successfully as he could have once done. She considered leaving him there but decided she would need his help to repair the ship.

              Jamie had a droid that was on the ship grab a space suit, a DSSM, a bunch of tools, plenty of food and water, extra medical supplies and had it store them in the med bay in the shielded middle section of the ship. She also knew she needed to reduce gravity in the med bay or else his bones would break when she brought him in there. She sent the message to the droids retrieving Captain Steele's body that they needed to be careful.

              The entry area and the hallway to the med bay had lost gravity and all life support systems, but the med bay near the middle of the ship still had such necessities. She didn't need to worry about getting him to the med bay. She just needed to know how far his bones had deteriorated so she won't break them when she turned the gravity up.

              The droids carefully brought Captain Steel on board the ship and floated him to the med bay dodging the floating objects in the hallway as a droid in front of them carefully move the debris. Jamie had the droids bring out the med bay cot, had them put Captain Steele on it, and then moved the cot inside the med bay. She then let half of the droids outside the med bay to help maintain the ship. Jamie then slowly turned on gravity inside the med bay so she could operate properly. Injuries this great required some gravity because gravity meant some stability. She wasn't sure how much gravity was needed but some gravity was better than none. She wasn't even sure he was alive anymore. With no more bio readings coming from his suit it was impossible to know for sure until she started to work on him.

              Jamie turned the gravity up slowly. Once it had reached .25 standard Earth gravity she heard a bone break, Captain Steele scream in pain, and then stop moving. Jamie at last knew he was alive. He may be beyond help, but he was alive. She did a close detailed scan and found that Captain Steele's lungs had deflated making it so he couldn't breath without his suit helping him, and that his heart was only beating because his suit was forcing it to. His brain showed minimal activity, but when pain was brought on his brain's activity flared up. He was as good as dead, with only the suit to keep the most basic bodily functions running. She then started to remove the suit carefully, making sure to use equipment that would keep his heart beating and continue to help his lungs pump oxygen in and out of his lungs.

              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.”