A/N: It's been a long time coming, but it's here! It seems people are enjoying this, and that makes me happy. ^_^ It encourages me to continue with it. This was a long chapter in the word document, but then I uploaded it and it's a short little thing. Sorry about that, but adding another scene to the end would have just messed up the flow. Anyway, hope you like this one, and please review.
Chapter Two: Out
Ty lay in a heavy metal suit on the table in the physical therapy ward. The suit was what all the physical therapists were using these days: a gentle hum, calm electrical current and the muscles were forced to relax. The therapist didn't even stay in the same room. She had put Ty in the suit, turned it on and declared she would be back in an hour.
Ty counted the ceiling tiles and hummed the ditty floating around inside his head. He glanced at the clock: fifteen minutes more.
When he had handed the Dr. Gorak's note to Commander Nebula, he had been laughed at by the rangers standing around. Well, not laughed at, per say, but smiled at with shifty eyes that seemed to ask: "Is he serious? How weak can he be?" Ty probably should have given Nebula the note in his office instead of the command deck.
"Come on," Ty groaned under his breath as he stared at the clock. "Move faster!"
His first mission was in an hour. It was traffic duty, but at least he was seeing some action. A month ago he would have done all he could to get out of such a menial task, declaring his skills were being wasted, but that day all he wanted was to go out there and fix those traffic beacons. He wanted to prove he was still a space ranger and that nothing had changed. He glanced at the clock again: thirteen minutes left.
"Hurry up, will you?" he commanded the clock and suit. "I have places to be."
The humming died away. Ty listened, waiting for the suit to turn on again, but it did not: even the lights were off.
"Um, doctor?" Ty called towards the open door. "Doctor, I think I'm done."
The doctor came in, surprised.
"Has it been an hour already?" she asked, stepping into the room and approaching the table. She inspected the machine.
"Well no, it hasn't," Ty admitted, hoping she wouldn't make him stay there or put him in a new machine. "But the machine shut off. It finished early, I guess."
"It shut off because the battery's dead," she corrected, pressing the buttons without response. "I'm sure I charged it this week... Well, your time was almost up anyway, so we'll just call it a day."
Ty sat up and spread his arms so the doctor could unstrap him. The doctor removed the suit and carried it to the wall, setting it on a different table and plugging an inch-thick cable into the back.
"I'll recharge this and see you tomorrow," she said, clearly still confused.
Ty had gotten his wish, so he didn't press the matter. He slid down from the table, put his coat on, saluted and left. He felt better, refreshed, but he figured the therapy would have done something about his muscles. Maybe it took some time to kick in. In the meantime, Ty had traffic duty.
XXX
Ty dressed into his ranger suit and checked the time: he had just enough to get out to the remote location he had been assigned. He couldn't help feeling that Commander Nebula was still hesitant to trust him. Ty set his jaw firmly: he would prove his loyalty with this mission. This would be the most commendable, thorough, heroic traffic beacon duty ever undertaken.
Ty walked through the corridor interspersed with other rangers. Their heads turned towards him as he passed by like nails to a magnet. He pretended not to notice and walked faster towards his star cruiser, or at least the one he would be using. Ty didn't actually have one reserved only for him and his team – mainly because he didn't have a team.
As he approached star cruiser number thirteen, he saw a gangly young ranger leaning on the railing of the docks, peering down into the pit of machinery from down below the ships. Ty hoped he wasn't spitting into the expanse.
He had forgotten he was taking a rookie on his traffic beacon duty. Hey, it was nice Commander Nebula trusted him enough for that.
When Ty approached, the young man jumped back from the edge and quickly wiped his mouth. Ty rolled his eyes but put on a smile as he closed the gap and held out his hand.
"Hello. My name is—"
"Ty Parsec," the rookie finished energetically shaking his hand. "I know. I've read all the major ranger files. I'm Blayne Luna."
Ty was pleased to be considered a major ranger, but deflated a bit when he realized it was only because of the wirewolf thing. He was beginning to wonder if he would ever live that down.
"Hm, well that's…uh… that's… something," Ty muttered as he walked past Blayne and into the ship. The blonde rookie bounded after him.
"I've never been on beacon duty before," he announced. "Do we run into very many felons? Is there any combat?"
Ty chuckled to himself. "I think you'll be alright so long as you keep your wrist laser handy."
Blayne was silent for a moment and Ty smiled wickedly as he climbed the ladder up into the star cruiser.
The area they had been assigned took hours to reach, all of which was filled with Blayne's questions and personal stories brought on by Ty's mistake in asking the rookie how his year had been going. The rookie had finished his time at the Academy less than a year ago. One year! Traffic duty was obviously among the least risk missions available. Out in the black vacuum of space, as out in the middle of nowhere as possible, a string of traffic beacons blinked in a one hundred mile line interspersed with several asteroids. Fortunately, they were only checking ten of those miles.
After tutoring Blayne quickly on the procedure of checking traffic beacons, Ty offered that they start from opposite ends and meet in the middle. As a result, Ty had some rest from Blayne's chatter as he checked the fuel gauge of his first beacon.
Ty had had beacon duty before, so he expected it to be the usual waste-of-time, struggling-to-stay-awake experience it usually was, but that time it was different. He felt… good, dare he say it. Better than he did waking up that morning. His joints still hurt, but he felt energized and healthy. If a fugitive passed that way, he had no doubt he'd be able to stop him. Well, a little doubt thanks to his many failures. But he felt better than he had since… Ty frowned. …Since he was first bitten by Nos-4-A2.
"Come in, Ranger Parsec," Blayne's voice came through the communicator built into Ty's suit.
So he's found the communicator, Ty thought jokingly as he held up his own. "Parsec here."
"Permission to explore the asteroid in my path."
Ty looked up from his communicator and scanned the asteroids. He saw Blayne standing on one reasonably close by. The kid should not be climbing on rocks: he should be checking traffic beacons. Ty was not about to do the whole job himself, no matter how good he felt.
"We didn't come out here to play, Blayne," Ty stated into his wrist communicator as he flew to the next cone-shaped beacon. "These beacons need checking and the sooner they are, the sooner we can jet back to Star Command." Static filled Ty's ears and after a few seconds of listening, Ty pressed the communication button again. "Blayne, are you there?"
"Yes, Ranger Parsec," Blayne's voice came through the static. "But I think one of our communicators is busted."
Ty hadn't used his suit for a while. Maybe it was his. His throat tightened. The response surprised him. Did the fact that he, the more experienced ranger, was the one with the problem bother him that much?
"It might be mine," Ty confessed through the pressure in his throat. "It hasn't gone in for maintenance for a long time." The static was nearly deafening. "But it's okay. We can see each other. If something happens, you can just wave for me to come over."
"I didn't catch…could you rep— I'm losing—" was all Ty heard through the static.
Ty breathed more deeply, to get the lump out of his throat, only to find that the extra oxygen was not present. This wasn't a lump.
His suit was losing power.
Ty gasped for air, his lungs burning.
"I'm losing power!" he coughed frantically into the communicator, but all he got back was static. He tried again, but there was no response at all.
His head felt vacuum packed and his ears buzzed. Ty knew the symptoms well, regrettably: he was passing out. The last sight his eyes picked up as his senses retreated from the physical world was the far off light of Blayne's jetpack.
