The universe around me felt like some kinda dimensional traffic jam...It seemed like as soon as everything sped up, it came to a screeching halt again. All I was really able to do in the moment was stare at everything...Stare and try to process what'd just happened. What was STILL happening.

Everyone else looked to be doin' the same thing...Lime was frozen where he stood, pistol still in hand, looking at me. Blue was on his back, hoisted upright by his arms, and turning his head every second to look at one of us...Cyan was on the floor, motionless, and a small puddle of blood was starting to form beside his head.

I told myself right then and there so I wouldn't have to go through another wave of shock later on.

He didn't make it.

He's dead.

He saved Blue, but now he's dead.

I repeated it to myself over and over again so that I wouldn't find myself in any form of denial.

Don't get your hopes up, he's dead.

...He's dead.

"Don't..."

...But he wasn't.

"Get 'im...Don't worry about me, Brown, get..."

My body and mind finally caught up, and I took a step closer to Lime, my hand getting ready to reach out and grab whatever part of him I could and my legs preparing to spring forward and pounce on him before he got the chance to retaliate.

But before I could do either, he cocked his hand gun again and pointed it back down at Cyan.

"...You're apparently not very smart, Cyan, taking the bullet for Blue...Did you think that was my last one? It wasn't."

He slowly moved his aim off of Cyan and back onto Blue.

"...Now both of you are going to die. And Blue. Before I do the same to the brilliant detective you put so much trust in, I'll make sure she gets a clear view of the show...Nothing would please me more right now than to see her watch herself fail."

"Oi, Lime. You forget to bring me into this, mate?"

The fourth voice came from right behind the offender...Its owner towered over him in all his ram-horned grandeur.

Lime tried to re-aim his weapon at Black's head, but he was a second too slow. In one swift motion, the real brit bent his arm, launched himself towards his target and plunged his elbow right into Lime's gut as he simultaneously slammed him into the corner of the wall, back first, with every ounce of strength he had in him...And that amount of strength was apparently enough to bust something in the Impostor's back unit; it was no sooner than the moment he collided with the hall corner that I heard a crack and a hiss, followed by an alarm starting goin' off from inside his suit.

WARNING
CRITICAL DAMAGE TO LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM
BREACH: PRIMARY OXYGEN TANK
SEEK AIRLOCKED AREA IMMEDIATELY

"You're not gonna need oxygen where you're goin'."

To spread the icing overtop of Lime's mistake cake, it turned out that he'd dropped his weapon during the impact. Black eyed it on the floor, and both of them flew down to try and grab it...But the latter got to it first, and as soon as he did, he aimed the tip of the barrel at the Impostor's right leg and fired it...Lime suppressed a scream as he caved in under his own weight and fell onto his knees, hands pressed over the bleeding site of the wound.

"That's so you can't run from any of us."

"You...living piece of-"

Black didn't let him finish. He just took his hand and whammed it against his helmet, sending that careening into the corner, too...He didn't give much protest in response to the bash; a sure indication that it'd knocked his brains off kilter.

"THAT'S so you can't think straightly enough to try...Blue. Run and open the airlock. I'll bring 'im over. Brown...Tend to Cyan if it isn't already too late."

Without another word, Blue dashed off towards the cafeteria with Blue lagging behind him as he dragged Lime through the halls.

"You...Did you get him...?"

Cyan's breathing was labored and his speech was painfully hushed...But he was still alive. The bad news? I had NO idea how bad the damage was, so I didn't know whether or not he had a chance of STAYING alive. And the apparent blood loss wasn't helping the situation either.

"Cy...I'm gonna take you right to medbay and I'm gonna do everything I can...ALL of us are gonna pitch in and do everything we can. Can you stand up at all?"

"I...I don't know..."

I heard him wince as he tried to push himself onto his feet...If he could so much as ATTEMPT to stand up, he might not be in TOO bad shape, but it was probably more painful for him than it looked.

He only managed to sit upright and lean back against the wall, and it was when I saw the front of him that I found out where he'd been hit: not far below his left shoulder, but too off to the side to have went through a lung, let alone his heart...We could work with that.

But we had to hurry.

"Cyan, lemme see your arm."

He tried to be quick to comply, but he couldn't exactly help being sluggish...If he got much worse, I feared Lime's intent might come to fruition. So once I had him, I hoisted his weight onto my shoulder and headed out through the cafeteria as quickly as the burden allowed me to.

I entered the cafeteria just as the airlock door was shutting again, and I turned and watched Lime finally come to his senses again and look up at Blue and Black.

ACTIVATING AIRLOCK DISPOSAL...

"I am shocked, and I am utterly disgusted...We were supposed to work together with MIRA, not gain the power for just ourselves. Why did you do it, Lime?"

"I was...doing what I was ordered to...They're waiting for me and Red on Polus as we speak, and we were supposed to keep Blue alive...What do you think they will do to you when they find out two of us were killed by you? You won't receive, agh...a very warm welcome."

"We've got two months to figure something out, so you can bet that's what we'll do...Not going to lie to you; for a while I thought that the two of us made a good team...But I'm willing to bet you just wanted to keep me around you more so that I could be your next victim. Look where that got you...the post-it note on your head speaks the downright truth about you"

"Urgh...You..."

"You haven't got the time to say anything else of meaning...Say 'ello to your buddy Red, you maggot."

DOORS OPEN

I'd exited the cafeteria at that point and was just about to turn into medbay, and I was still able to hear the woosh of air as Lime was exiled to the vacuum, and the monitor above the doors beeped as it spelled out its reassuring message.

Lime was An Impostor.
0 Impostors remain.

"That takes care o' that, Blue. Now come on, we gotta get to medbay. Cyan's in a pinch, he is."

It was a good thing they finished when they did...As I've said before, I do have some medical training under my belt, but we never went into specifics like, per say, how to treat a gunshot wound. So I was gonna need all the help I could get and hope someone knew more than I did.

The two other crewmates entered the room just as I was getting Cyan onto one of the beds.

"Status update, Brown. Is Cyan still hangin' in there?"

"I think so...Black, why don't you contact ground control and ask them what to do? Blue and I are gonna pressurize the wound site."

"On it."

He was out as soon as he came in...Putting pressure on the wound would help to slow the bleeding, but it wouldn't get rid of the bullet or properly close the wound, so we could only do it for so long.

"Wait...Let me see for a moment, Brown."

I was already pressing down around the hole in Cyan's suit, but Blue still managed to get a decent look at it before doing the same.

"Brown...That does not look good. It's in deep, even with the suit having kept it from going deeper. And it cannot stay in there with us just putting pressure on it; for all we know that bullet could be lead, and it could lead to not only infection, but even poisoning, Cyan MUST have a professional remove it and within the hour, or else..."

"No...No, we're already too far from earth, how are we gonna-"

"Guys!"

Black came storming back in at that exact moment.

"Listen. I just spoke to ground control, and they understand how dire the situation is...There are four hyper-speed escape pods in storage, all of which have a predetermined course set for HQ back on earth. They can travel at a top speed of 8 million kilometers an hour. Faster than the Skeld itself. AND they're equipped with a life support system in the case of a problem like this...If we can take all of the proper precautions, we can send him back and he'll be in the hands of a proper surgeon in less than half an hour. But we gotta hurry before the Skeld can get much further and he runs out of time."

"Let's go, then!"

Blue knew that time was of the essence, so with just one arm he lifted Cyan up onto his shoulder and followed Black out of medbay, I tailed a bit behind the two of them; I made it my job to make sure he remained conscious.

"Cy...You still with us?"

"I...I'm sorry if I don't...if I end up..."

"You're not gonna. We won't let you."

...I wasn't sure whether or not I was telling him the truth, though. But all I could really think to do at the time was keep his hopes up. After what happened between the two of us in electrical, I couldn't let him down...I'd never be able to live with myself.

With the press of a few buttons on the corresponding panel, Black opened the hatch for one of the four escape pods lined up along the storage wall...It was only meant to carry up to two people, but all of us were still able to squeeze inside and assess the situation.

"I've already received instructions on what to do. We gotta get one of the plasma bags stored in the medical hatch, hook Cyan up to it, then we connect him to the ECG, which will activate the FBRS and keep his condition as stable as possible until he makes it home. Then we launch the pod. Let's hope that it gets there soon enough..."

Blue tilted his head to the side as he opened the medical hatch for the plasma bag.

"FBRS?"

"Full body regulation system. Like life support in a hospital, but it can do more without human intervention, but the details don't matter right now! Get the needle!"

"Okay..."

It was a relief to learn how quick it took to attach the plasma bag to the needle via the tube and then insert it into Cyan's emergency IV port on his lower left arm. The less time it took, the better his odds were. And I already knew what to do with the ECG cord from back when Orange and White turned up dead, so I did that while the other two took care of the rest...We managed to set him up in no longer than fifteen seconds. But every second counted, and the amount of blood Cyan had spilt into the pod cabin wasn't a comforting sight...Just plasma wouldn't cut it for much longer.

As soon as the cord was plugged in, the entire escape pod made some kind of whirring noise, and mechanisms along the walls and on the ceiling started powering up...One of them came from above, scanning over Cyan's entire form and sending down two of its arms to press down on his chest wound...That would come in handy without anybody else on board with him.

"Set for launch! Everyone clear out!"

Black gave the order for us to leave...But even with the clock still ticking for Cyan's chances, I couldn't send him off without a farewell...not after what he did for us.

"Cyan...Y-you think you can hold your own without us for another fifteen to twenty minutes?"

"I...I don't know, Brown...I'll...try..."

He was startin' to lose himself, I could tell...I know what I've said about getting attached to people who might end up dead. That it'd do a number on whatever sanity I was still clingin' to...But at this point, I think I've lost what little I had left, so I didn't much care.

"Try to stay awake on the trip, Cy...Please."

I shook his hand one last time, and then crawled out of the pod back into storage.

"I'll...try...Th...ank you...for...everything..."

That was the last thing he said to me before the doors shut and the pod shot out of the ship. It whizzed down, made a U-turn and passed under the Skeld's engines...It was gone from our view before I even realized it.

...Now all we can do is hope.