She was unimpressive. She was short, barely five feet. She couldn't have weighed more than an hundred pounds soaking wet. She didn't speak to anyone, in English anyway. So why had the great Lieutenant Up brought this little girl to his starship?
Maybe it was because of what he had observed on the battlefield that had once been her home.
She was faster than anyone he had ever seen. She was fearless, not caring if she died as long as she took a few of those bastard robots with her. She was the only person other than a commander to ever yell orders at him.
So, seeing as she had no where to go, he let her tag along (not that she wouldn't have followed him anyway). She had sustained quite a few injuries, including a concussion. Her left arm was in a sling and a large white bandage covered most of her left cheek. She slept most of the time.
The third time Up went to check on her, four days after he brought her there, he realized he knew nothing about her. They hadn't spoken since he saved her from being smashed open. He didn't even know her name. The infirmary had her labeled in numbers, but he couldn't just call her 000-394. He decided he would ask her when she woke up, and plopped down in the chair next to her bed. As he looked at her sleeping face, he felt bad. Her entire family, gone in a flash, and now she was in a strange place with strange people. Her face was screwed up in a pained expression. Nightmares, most likely. Nobody goes through things like that without a few nightmares.
"Lieutenant Up?" Up turned to see an ensign standing in the doorway sheepishly.
"Yep," Up replied, standing.
"The Admiral wants you to report to him at 1800 hours, sir," the ensign stuttered. Up nodded and the ensign ran off.
Sinking back down into the chair, Up wondered what Admiral Rapp wanted to talk to him about. Glancing back at the girl in the hospital bed, he realized with a dropping gut that it was probably because of her. He hadn't been thinking properly when he towed her to the Academy with him.
At 1755 hours, Up left the infirmary and walked toward the Admiral's office. He passed a few ensigns who shrank from his path. It was nice to know his reputation preceded him at all times.
He knocked on the Admiral's door and took a deep breath as it opened.
"Lieutenant," the Admiral was standing behind his desk, shifting through papers. Up saluted him stiffly. "At ease, soldier." Up dropped his arm, but his mind started racing. What was the Admiral going to do? His mind kept coming back to one word: demotion. "Have a seat, Up."
The Admiral sat down in his cushy desk chair. Up sat down on one of the hard wooden chairs in front of the desk.
"Do you know why you're here, Up?" Rapp asked, idly shifting through papers.
"No, sir," Up replied, crossing his fingers.
"You're being reassigned, or, rather, the rest of your crew is. You are going back down to Dead God Forsaken, Mexico. We've located a robot base not far. Your new crew will be ready at 0600 hours," Admiral Rapp said, and laughed at Up's puzzled face. "What were you expecting?"
"Honestly, sir, I was expecting punishment," Up said, shifting in his seat.
"Punishment? Oh, for the girl. No, I wouldn't have expected any less, Lieutenant. The girl will be taken care of, and then taken to a refugee camp," Admiral Rapp smiled. "Have a nice night, Lieutenant. I'll see you on the drop deck at 0600 hours."
Hours later found Up back in the infirmary. The girl had woken up briefly, they told him, and muttered something in Spanish, but nobody had caught it. He was reading a book when she spoke to him.
"¿Qué estás leyendo?" she uttered weakly, turning her head toward him. He almost jumped. He hadn't expected her to wake up.
"No hablo español," he managed, trying to sound apologetic as he choked the words he had learned in high school. The girl rolled her eyes and groaned.
"What are jou reading?" she said after a held the tattered book cover up for her to see.
"Of Mice and Men," he said, taking it back into his lap and closing it.
"Is it any good?" she asked with a pained look. Up was worried now.
"Yeah, I like it. Do you need a nurse or," Up dropped of as she furiously shook her head.
"No, I just have a headache from trying to come up with these estúpido English words," she claimed faintly, lying her head back down on her pillow.
But Up saw the thin trickle of blood dripping from her bandage. And when she stopped breathing, he had never moved faster. He leapt from his chair, knocking it over as he hit the emergency button next to her bed. He put his ear next to her nose, checking that she was not breathing. He yanked the thin blankets off of her small body, and began CPR. He tried to keep an even rhythm and after what he recalled to be the correct number of compressions, he took a deep breath, pinched her nose, and pressed his open mouth to hers, forcing air through to her lungs, feeling her chest rise under his hand. When she didn't respond, he continued with his compressions. After the second set of compressions, he took another deep breath and forced it into her lungs, willing her to breathe on her own. Suddenly, she gasped into his mouth. A nurse pulled him away as doctors flooded the room.
…
The girl was going to be okay. He had nearly gone crazy waiting for them.
"She's fine, Up. If you hadn't been there, though… well, you saved another life, Lieutenant. Now, go to bed. I hear you have a new mission, starting tomorrow," the girl's doctor told him.
"Thanks, doc," Up said, making to leave the infirmary. But once he reached the door, he doubled back to the girl's little cubicle, where she lay sleeping. Her heart had stopped. The doctors said it was because of blood loss and over exertion. It sounded like bullshit to him. But he studied her face, and for the first time she was relaxed. She couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen he realized suddenly. She had already lived through so much. But so had he. She seemed like a tough son of a bitch. She would make it.
A/N: So, I'm newish here. New account, old author. This came to me while I was watching HMB, go figure. I've enjoyed writing again. Maybe I'll finish it...