Space Ghost
Chapter 24
Rick put everything he had into the engine room. This ship needed to be gone before he took on the other two. Problem was he really needed Alexis but she was still sitting there, sobbing loudly. Another problem was that he was only too willing to join her. His heart was broken and there was only one thing to do about it. Take out his pain on the Xindi that had done this.
"YES!" Rick watched his screen as he saw the Xindi ship explode with massive hole where the engine area used to be. It didn't totally destroy the Xindi ship but it did cause it to stop firing at them.
"So where did the other two go?" They all had to die for what they'd done. His future with Lais was gone and while nothing he did could replace that, at least he could have his vengeance.
Alexis was still crying and he finally noticed that he had been unconsciously wiping his tears off his cheeks. He only noticed because he couldn't see his screens clearly.
He had to search for the two Xindi ships that remained after the one Lais had attacked had split into three. He had never in his wildest dreams ever thought of doing that. "So where did you two go?" he muttered. That was when he caught wind of an automated signal.
What didn't help was that there was debris and dead bodies everywhere that the two ships had collided. That entire place was a mess. "Are they hiding in this mess somehow?"
That was when he got a signal that sounded automated. "Life pods?" Rick's heart soared with hope. His ship had life pods. However, to get into them you had to reach one of them from wherever you were at the time.
Listening to Alexis crying wasn't helping him in his search. Hearing her anguish was hurting his heart in a way that he had never expected, let alone experienced.
"Okay, not a pod. …One big pod." He'd found it but it was in the middle of that mess. He was reminded that they had a number of fighters flying all around them like a mass of angry bees. But he had a plan for that. He warmed up the FTL drive. A moment later and he was somewhere else after a quick burst using his FTL. Though for this to work he needed for them to come to him. So he opened his communications screen. "Over here, scumbags." Rick put it on repeat until he finally saw all of the fighters headed his way.
When they were halfway and away from the life pod he used his FTL to make a really short jump close to the life pod. Except this maneuver sent debris flying in all directions. It meant he had to move fast so he applied power to the engines.
He knocked all the junk out of the way until he was directly over the pod. Then he went down to the point where they literally touched and he extended his shields around both of them. He still had a problem: how to get to the people in the pod. If it didn't have an airlock he couldn't risk it while out in space.
"Alexis. …Pumpkin." Rick touched her shoulder and she slowly turned to face him. The face he saw chilled him to the bone. Pain and anguish that said broken heart all over it all but crushed his heart.
"Life pod." Rick needed to reach her since he had an idea and having her assistance would be very helpful. "Life pod." He pointed at the floor since far below them it was just sitting there.
"What?" Alexis really wasn't thinking. It hurt too much to try and think. All she knew was the pain she was feeling.
"Life pod. I need you to find us a nice big deserted island for me to put it on so I can open it." She needed to help him.
"Life pod?" What in the heck was a life pod? "LIFE POD!" Alexis used both hands to wipe away her tears and did a search until she found the pod sitting right under them. "I've got two life signs." Alexis literally put both hands against the screen. Alexandre needed to be in there and be one of them.
"Island. …Deserted. …Isolated." Rick tried again since while she was still crying, she wasn't sobbing heart destroying sobs.
"Island." Alexis began searching. Then she stopped. "Why?"
"We need to put the pod on the planet so we can get into it. Find out who's inside and what condition they're in. Can you help me with that?" He was already starting to fly though in order not to lose the pod he needed to go slowly.
"Island." Alexis initiated a scan. "Dad, there are two Xindi ships down in the atmosphere." She showed him just where they both were.
Rick recognized the land mass. "Russia. And they're headed for Europe. We need that island and fast." It was going to be slow going and the longer this took them the more damage those two could do.
"I got one!" Alexis was happy now that she had a little hope. "It's three square miles, almost no trees, just a whole lot of sand. Here." She sent it to his screen.
"Middle of nowhere in the Pacific. Perfect." He liked the isolation a lot. In order to keep the pod under them he was going to have to go extremely slow and be very careful. Rick got to work on getting them down while Alexis spent her time scanning the pod for all she could learn about it.
She was learning the pod was made of a combination of materials, two of which she didn't recognize. There were two life signs in the pod. It was round, about 30 feet in diameter and about 16 feet tall, meaning it wasn't all that big.
She didn't find any engines; minimal power was being used. There was a breathable atmosphere on the inside. She had even tried sending it a signal but got no reply.
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Rick was being really careful as he settled down onto the island. However his ship would just crush the pod so it was sitting on sand and the was hovering just above it.
"I'm going down." Rick set the controls to keep them in place and got up.
"I'm going with you," Alexis informed him and saw the look he was giving her. "I'm going, Dad!" Hopefully Alexandre was down there and she wanted to see him.
"Fine, let's go." They both raced to the closest airlock and cycled out until they were both flying down to be under their ship and land next to it. "See if you can find a door." Otherwise he was going to have to cut his way in.
They both walked around it and Rick couldn't help but notice that it looked a lot worse for wear. It was heavily scared and burnt and had more than a few dents in it. But it actually appeared to be intact.
"Over here!" Alexis had found something and Rick ran to join her.
Looking it over didn't show just how you were supposed to get inside using it. "Step back. Looks like I need to cut our way in." Rick motioned for Alexis to take a few steps back and then lifted his arm and pressed a panel. A beam came out and he slowly but surely cut a hole in the door large enough for them to get through.
"Careful, it's still hot." Rick went first knowing Alexis would be right behind him.
Lais was still in her chair and while Alexandre was also in his chair it was no longer secured to the floor. The interior looked like his chair had hit almost everywhere.
"It looks like their bridge." There were controls everywhere and they had screens much like theirs. Though most of them were damaged. There was a little light, but not much. Most of the light came from the now open door.
"Lais?" Rick gently and carefully put his hands to either side of her face and ignored the now dried blood that almost looked to be everywhere.
"DADDY!" Alexis had found Alexandre and her heart was hurting all over again.
Rick left Lais for a moment since she was out cold but was alive. "Oh, shit." Alexandre had something sticking out of his belly and something else sticking out of his left leg. His face was clearly damaged and there was dried blood all over him, or so it seemed.
"We need to get him out of that chair." He looked like shit and needed the most medical attention. But they both soon learned that the things poking out of his stomach and leg had also gone through his chair. He was effectively secured in place by them.
"Go fire up the medical bed." Rick needed to cut him free and Alexis didn't need to see him doing this.
"NO!" She was staying and that was final.
"Go warm up the medical bed and make sure it's operational. Now go and don't give me any lip." Rick didn't want to be brusque with her but he needed to be.
She didn't say a word but at least she left. That allowed Rick to get busy and cut him free and then removed his restraints that looked a little old fashioned. More like an old fashioned harness. Still it had kept both of them in their chairs.
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Rick walked into Medical with Alexandre in his arms and saw Alexis standing at the controls. He quickly put him down on the medical bed then unceremoniously pulled the rod out of his belly followed by the one in his leg. It caused blood to start flowing just as he feared which was why he had waited until now to remove them.
"Activate." Rick pointed at Alexis who pressed a panel that closed it around him and did a scan from tip of his toes to the top of his head.
"Oh, God." Alexis was reading what the scan was showing her. Rick moved next to her.
"Give it a chance. It fixed Kate so it can fix him. I'm going to go get Lais." Rick turned to leave.
Alexis moved next to the bed instead of at the head of it. She leaned against the glass and stared at him. He looked like shit. She was scared but was certain that she loved him.
She barely even noticed when her dad came back with Lais in his arms and took her to one of the bunk beds. They only had the one medical bed so working on Lais was going to have to be done using hand-held equipment.
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Rick had a device strapped to her head and another strapped to her chest. Then there was the other one strapped to her leg and one at her hip.
The one on her head was working on her concussion. The others were knitting bones back together. It took him three tries to get the IV needle into her arm then used that to inject the medication the computer told him to use based on the information he put into it.
Alexis was draped over the cover of the medical bed looking Alexandre over from head to toe. Rick had located a chair and was sitting next to Lais, holding her hand. All of the machines that were strapped to her were still working hard at healing her injuries.
Rick saw her slowly open her eyes and that had him out of his chair and down on his knees. He moved his face in closer so she could see his eyes first thing. "Hi." Lais saw Rick and smiled gingerly since it hurt. She saw tears running down his face. It took a little effort but she raised her hand to his face, intent on wiping his tears away. But he intercepted it, brought it to his mouth, and kissed it.
"Hi." Lais knew she had said the word but she didn't recognize the voice that had said it. If that was her she sounded like shit. Then she noticed that she felt like shit, too. "What happened?" Thinking hurt but the last thing she remembered was they were fighting a Xindi ship when suddenly another ship showed up and that was about where her memory stopped.
"There was a small problem and you and Alexandre were injured." Rick wasn't sure she was awake enough to understand a long explanation.
"Alex? …Where is he?" She didn't see him. In fact she didn't even know where she was now. Nothing looked familiar.
"He's in our only medical bed. He's beat up pretty badly." It wasn't anything the auto doc couldn't fix, but he was going to be there for a while.
"Hurt?" Lais tried to get up and that's when everything really began to hurt. Her head, her body, her hip, and even one of her legs. Her free hand moved to her head and found a device strapped there.
"Leave that alone. You have a concussion." Rick used his free hand to move her hand away. Lais tried to get up again and groaned from the pain. "You really need to lie back and rest. Let the machines do their work."
"Take me to my son," Lais insisted since her only concern was Alexandre. When Rick tried to stop her she said, "Help me up and take me to my son. Would you listen if it was Alexis?" Lais tried to reach him over just how important this was to her.
"Fine." Rick thought this was a really bad idea, but he got his arms under her and easily lifted her up since he was still wearing his suit. Then he walked her over to the medical bed and very carefully and slowly put her on her feet.
Lais saw Alexis draped over something and the look on her face was a look Lais didn't ever want to see again. She looked worse than she felt. Then she looked down and saw her son lying there. He looked like he'd gotten into a fight and had lost badly. "How bad?" What she really wanted to do was to touch him. To kiss his forehead and tell him everything was going to be fine. But there was a barrier between them.
"Can you stand?" Rick needed to move to the head of the unit to answer her question. "Alexis, come around here and hold up Lais for me." Amazingly he actually reached her and Alexis came around and tried to hold Lais up who was standing on one leg.
Rick moved to the head of the unit after a test to make sure she could stand. "He has a concussion that's worse than yours. His brain is actually expanding slowly. His left eye socket is broken in several places. His nose is broken as is his jaw." Rick heard her moan just from that and he wasn't even done yet. "He has four fractured ribs. One of those ribs punctured his left lung and it collapsed. Both of his knee caps have been fractured. Both of his legs are broken and his feet have been shattered. He's taken a real beating." Rick moved back to replace Alexis and hold her up.
"Oh, God." Lais felt tears running down her face. Her baby was barely alive and it was all her fault.
"He'll be fine, love. The auto doc can fix everything. He'll be as good as new. It'll take some time but he'll be perfect again." Rick did his best to reassure her.
"This thing can fix all that?" His systems must be better than hers. "What exactly happened to us?"
"Another Xindi showed up and you moved to intercept it," Rick began.
"I remember that part…, I think." Lais touched the device strapped to her head since her head was pounding and it hurt.
Rick kept it simple for her. "That ship split up into three then one of those three rammed you. Both ships were destroyed in the explosion that happened. We thought sure you were both killed."
"Our bridge was toward the center of the ship. It was built to survive if the rest of the ship was destroyed. We used scans and screens to see everything," Lais explained as best her pounding head would allow.
"A bathtub." Rick was impressed. "It's an Earth saying. Meaning the bathtub is where you want to be when the car around you is destroyed. It's saved a lot of race car drivers' lives. That's impressive, I never thought of that."
"The Xindi destroyed my ship." Lais felt new tears falling for a new reason.
"Let's get you back in bed. You need to rest and heal." Rick lifted her a little and helped her limp back to her bed and gently assisted her to lie down.
"Are there any Xindi left?" Had he managed to kill them all?
Rick nodded. "The first ship is a dead hulk but it still exists. The two parts from the second ship still exist. Last I knew they were in Russian headed for Europe and destroying everything in range."
"And you're in here? Go kill them. What's wrong with you?" Lais was ready to hurt him.
Rick stared at her in disbelief. "We needed to save your lives." Losing either or both of them would obviously destroy him and Alexis.
"At the cost of hundreds if not thousands?" He had lost his mind. "Go kill them. We'll be fine." He had Xindi to kill. That was why they were both here. Lais raised both of her eyebrows since he was still here.
"I…" He really wanted to stay but she had a point. People on Earth were dying because he had rescued them instead of leaving them out in space to die. "I'll be back." Rick leaned in and kissed her with as much passion as he could. "I love you."
Lais held his head in place and kissed him back. "I love you, too," she whispered into his lips.
Her eyes followed him as he ran away from her. "You should go with him, you know." Lais looked at Alexis who only had eyes for her son.
"No." Alexis said. She was needed here. Alexandre needed her to be here.
"He's unconscious and doesn't even know you're here. Your father needs your help. There are still two Xindi ships. If he loses this fight we'll all end up dead. Now go," Lais pleaded with her.
"Alexis…, please. Nothing will happen unless we lose. You want to help Alexandre? Then go kill the Xindi that did this to him." Lais was now certain that she loved her son. Then a memory came back to her. She was pretty sure she saw her son's head between her spread legs. It was something she knew she shouldn't have seen. It was just the Xindi hadn't given her a choice. "Now go." Alexis looked between the two of them and finally walked toward the door. "Run, silly." It was going to take her time to make it if she simply walks.
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Rick sat down and ran a scan. The Xindi were no longer in Russia. In fact there wasn't all that much of anything in this long line. Until he finally saw both of them just exiting the coast of France and headed out across the Atlantic. Behind them was a wide area that looked destroyed and burning.
"What a mess." He had gotten up into orbit just to find them. Now he was diving back down into the atmosphere to chase them both down. Once these two were totally destroyed he would return to the first Xindi ship. He was hoping it was too far damaged to be repaired. At least that was what he was hoping.
Then he saw Alexis come in and sit down and start scanning. "Crap, Dad. What a mess." The line she saw was miles wide and even miles longer and that area looked like a war zone. Buildings were either gone or shattered. There were countless things burning on the ground.
"Power reserve is at 64%. We only have eight recently constructed missiles in each pod," Alexis reported. "The main power coupling on the port side is showing signs of distress. You might want to take it easy with that side. A number of our secondary systems are down. I'm assigning bots to repairs," Alexis added since it was looking like they were damaged.
"I'm glad you're here, pumpkin. I don't know what I'd do without you." This fight might be a lot harder without her.
"You can thank Lais for that. I like her." She briefly turned to face him and gave him her two cents. "You should marry her."