While Scout continued working on Blastarr, Jonathan had gathered up the sixteen mutilated Bio-Mechs so he could pull out their memory banks. Time was of the essence. They only had a few more hours before the data would be wiped out completely due to their built-in self-destruct mechanisms that start their count downs after losing communication with Volcania.
"Throw me a screw driver, will you?" Jonathan asked Scout.
"One good old-fashioned screw driver, coming up." Scout grabbed the tool out of Pilot's tool belt and whipped it high into the air. Jonathan caught it nicely with one hand. "You know what you're doing there?" Scout asked.
"I think so."
"You'll want to take the head off first. Then it's just a matter of digging around near the base of the neck. Clear the area of all the wires so there's room to pull out the memory cartridge."
"Got it."
Scout noticed Jonathan checking his watch yet again. Pilot had been in surgery for nearly four hours now, and they still hadn't heard anything. Feeling Scout's eyes on him at being caught looking at the time repeatedly, Jonathan frowned.
"If we didn't have all this work to do, I think I'd be going insane," Jonathan nervously remarked as he yanked the head off his first victim. "I'm giving it fifteen more minutes, and then I'm going down there."
"We're all holding our breath, Captain. I don't like this waiting either, but you need to give Hawk the time and space to do what he needs to do. Busting in there before he's finished and demanding what's going on isn't going to help Jennifer."
Jonathan knew he had to somehow concentrate on the task at hand to get his mind off the waiting. So he took a deep breath and returned back to leadership mode.
"We need to re-establish connections to the outside," Jonathan said, trying to steady his shaky hands while he eased out the memory cartridge from the trooper. "When you're done here I want you to contact Freedom Two, see what's going on over the wires. Dread's got to be up to something now that we're essentially trapped inside our own Base. And he's probably figured out that Blastarr is down for the count."
"And Soaron's probably flying around the transportation gate."
"Yeah. Maybe we can come up with a plan to get him off the grid too."
"Now you're talkin'!"
Hearing footsteps coming from down the hall, the two men stood alert. Jonathan grabbed his laser gun out from his holster just in case.
"There you guys are," Tank said as he came into view. "I've been looking all over for you. The com link is down, otherwise I would have just called you."
Relieved to see that it was just Tank, Jonathan re-holstered his gun. But the relief quickly turned into grave anxiety as he realized why Tank was looking for them. Tank stood uncharacteristically in hospital scrubs covered with spattered splotches of blood. Jennifer's blood.
Jonathan suddenly felt like he just got the wind knocked out of him. He was paralyzed at the sight and couldn't form any words. Tank spoke first, not wanting to leave the troubled Captain in suspense any longer.
"She pulled through. Hawk did good. Got the bleeding to stop. Still can't breathe on her own yet, but she just woke up. Hawk wanted me to come get you, Captain. She's scared and confused. Maybe when she sees you she'll calm down."
"She's…alive?" Jonathan swallowed hard.
A jubilant Scout slapped the Captain hard on the back, trying to snap him out of his disbelief. "Hey! She's alive! Hah Hah! She's alive! That's our Pilot! See, I told ya!"
Jonathan needed a moment to gather back his nerves before he allowed a faint smile to finally creep up on his face.
"Well? Go!" Scout exclaimed. "Go see her! Sounds like she needs you. I'll finish up here and then I'll see what I can do about re-establishing communications."
His voice still emotionally on edge, Jonathan rasped out, "Tank, why don't you get cleaned up and then help Scout? I'll be in the Med Bay."
"Sure thing," Tank answered.
Jonathan turned back before walking out. "Tank…thanks. Thanks for-"
"No need, Captain. I'd do anything for Pilot."
"The Captain's on his way to see you. Just try to relax. I'm going to give you something that will help take the edge off."
Hawk filled the syringe with what little pain medication they had left in supply and pushed the needle into Jennifer's shoulder. Caressing the top of her head with the palm of his hand to help ease the stress he knew she felt, he tried once again to get through to her. "Do you remember what happened?"
Jennifer barely was able to move her head yes in a nod. Now that she had been awake for a few minutes, it was all coming back to her. She had awoken abruptly from the nightmare of Dread choking her to death, but she soon realized that in reality she was living another nightmare- the attack on the Base. The last thing she remembered was thinking she was going to die in Jon's arms. So what happened between then and now? Fear and pain pulsated through her core. The breathing tube wasn't making her any more comfortable, either. She felt trapped in her own body.
"We were able to repair most of the damage you suffered internally. You're going to be hurting for a while though as your broken bones and torn muscles heal. Hopefully we can get this breathing tube out of you soon."
Jennifer blinked back the tears in her eyes. She was going to be okay? Then why was it hurting so much? What about the Base? Where was Jon? More confusion settled into the pit of her stomach.
Hawk continued to talk to her, wiping her tears away and trying to console her with his gentle voice. "You're gonna make it. You're so strong, Jennifer. Such a fighter…so incredibly brave." Becoming more emotional he added, "We don't know what we would have done if we had lost you. You scared the hell out of us."
"That's an understatement," Jonathan nervously gasped out as he stood outside the door of the Med Bay, watching what was going on and overhearing Hawk's confessions. "Is it okay to come in?"
At the sound of Jonathan's voice, Jennifer's eyes perked up.
"Oh, I see how ya are," Hawk playfully whispered to Jennifer with a smile. "You only get excited when he's around!"
Hawk gave her a wink and squeezed her hand before releasing it. He walked toward Jonathan, motioning for him to come in.
"How's she doing?" Jonathan asked Hawk out of Jennifer's ear shot. It was the burning question that had been blazing in his mind for the past four hours.
"Holding on. But she's scared, and I'm sure she's in a lot of pain."
As Jonathan approached the medi-bunk, he was shaken up at seeing her in such a state, but he held it together for her sake. Jennifer wanted so much to be able to speak. She had so many questions, so many things to say. Jonathan could see her struggle against the breathing tube, and taking in her pallor and seeing the wetness on her face from the tears of fear and pain that had spilled, all he wanted to do was hold her in his arms. But that wasn't an option at the moment.
"Jennifer…"
Kneeling down to her level, he grasped her hand in his and nuzzled her cheek with his lips, covering her with soft kisses and whispering quiet reassuring words until she noticeably fell into a peaceful state. When he noticed her eyes starting to get droopy, he said, "I'm staying with you. I'm not leaving. Just rest, go to sleep. I'll be here when you wake up."
Those were the words she needed to hear. As long as he would be there when she woke up, she wasn't afraid to relax and go back to sleep. Giving her one more kiss, Jonathan waited for her eyes to close in sleep and then he stood.
"I figured you'd be able to calm her down," Hawk told him as the two men gazed at Jennifer in awe of what she had been through.
"Matt…how can I ever thank you for what you've done."
"Save it, Captain. I love her too, ya know. It was the right thing to do. We got lucky. The doctors at the Passages were able to tap into our laser machine remotely and program it to cut exactly where it needed to. They had it all graphed out according to the scans we uploaded from Mentor. And our patient here, well, she did amazing. She has so much fight in her. But Jon…I don't want to ever have to do anything like this again. With Dread's forces pushing us harder than ever, something this bad could happen to any one of us at any time. We may not be so lucky the next time around. We really should think about adding a real doctor to our team."
"I know. I've been thinking that very same thing. It's worth considering adding another team member. We do have three extra power suits."
"Two. We have two extra power suits. Pilot's going to need a new one. When she's ready for it, of course," Hawk said as he handed Jennifer's damaged suit to Jonathan.
Jonathan fingered the laser burns and holes that covered the mid-section of the suit. It was beyond repair. A lot of the fabric and circuitry had been completely obliterated, which meant that Jennifer took the full brunt of most of Blastarr's hits.
Anger rose up within him as he thought of Locke, the informant who betrayed them and got them into this mess. The Team's creed of "preserving life" was getting harder to follow given this circumstance. Jonathan felt like punching the wall a thousand times over, pretending it to be Locke's face. It went completely against his morals, but for the first time since his father's death, Jonathan felt the need for vengeance against another human, to get revenge for what happened to Jennifer. He knew he had to keep his composure, at least for now. Jennifer needed him. But God help Locke if they ever crossed paths again.
Handing the suit back to Hawk, Jonathan grabbed a chair and returned to sit next to Jennifer's side. "So what's her status?"
"Well, she's stable but still in critical condition. The next step is to watch for infection that could set in and also for any more internal bleeding. Barring any complications, we've upped her chances of survival considerably. Full recovery will take time. We need to get her transported to The Passages as soon as possible. We don't have the resources here to continue her care. The blood supply has been depleted and I just gave her the last of the pain medication that we had left. Mentor currently doesn't have the right components to synthesize more. When she wakes up again, she's going to be in pain and there won't be much we can do."
"We'll have to find a way to sneak out of here, then. It's not going to be easy. I'm sure Dread has us under heavy surveillance."
Hawk agreed. "What ended up happening with Blastarr?"
"Scout got him disabled permanently. He won't be regenerating."
"Finally. The metal mouth monster is dead. Well that's some consolation, anyway. I don't know about you, but I'm ready to fight Dread full force for what he's done here."
"Oh you better believe it we're striking back. We'll make him pay," Jonathan said with true grit and determination as he glanced at Jennifer. "We just need a good plan. And we don't have a lot of time."
