Here's chapter 3, I think...Would anyone like to be e-mailed when I update this thing. I've tried it on others and it seems to work pretty well.
Thank you for your reviews! Please enjoy!
"Completely out of the question!" Yelled Ivy, irate at the suggestion being thrown at her. "I refuse to send them, either of them!" She sat down heavily on the couch next to Red. "How can you ask this of me? You know as well as I that the trip has a twenty percent survival rate."
"Even if it meant the entire race's salvation?" Red tossed back quietly. "Being a leader is making these suggestions."
"Yeah, but you cheated, you always had Pur to fall back on and make the choice for you in a rational way involving no lasers." A wry smile crossed her lips. "One could say that you were merely a token, he used to say that if he was ever held for ransom they could trade you for him."
"No, he didn't!" A pause. "Did he?"
"I heard it with my own two antennae." Both their eyes had fallen to the floor, joking about Purple always depressed them. The former soldier slipped in and out of deep despair, seeming to grow thinner every day. "I miss him Reddy..." Ivy murmured using the old nickname and snuggling into the former Tallest's arms as tears formed in her green eyes.
"I know... and I hate myself every day for what I did." Ivy felt the strong arms around her tighten and felt something trickle down her cheek. As she reached up to brush the tear away she noticed it was not her own. Leaving it Ivy closed the pools of endless jade and allowed hers to mingle with Red's.
"Welcome back stranger." Shiroi said lightly looking up from her clipboard as the young orange-eye stepped into her room. At her waist was as low table with a tiny female resting on it, the pale purple and grey back pod connected to a charger.
"Another so soon?" Tegin whispered quietly walking over to stand at the metal slab.
"We figured out that it's only contagious in the first stage."
"How many stages does it have?"
"At most we think four." He waited for the spry female to continue. "Stage one is when it is first contracted, contagious, it presents itself in a mild cough and fever. Stage two, no longer contagious and resulting at least four to five weeks after contracted, is more serious. Violent coughing, chills, high-grade fever, headache, nausea...that can last for up to three weeks in itself" She paused to write down more. "We've lost them from stage two on..." The white-eye looked down at the little one. "Those who make it past stage two come to stage three. It results in rapid weight loss and increasing lethargy as well as the symptoms of nausea, fever, chills and headache, the coughing seems to disappear. It lasts for two weeks." She seemed unwilling to continue.
"And stage four?" Tegin asked, swallowing and grasping the sick child's hand.
"Coma and ultimately death before the week is out."
"It lasts so long..." he muttered sadly wondering what stage the toddler on the counter was.
"It's so dangerous because the stage one lasts so long...in that time, before one even knows what is wrong, hundreds can be infected that leading to millions. It's already a worldwide epidemic."
"How is it contracted?"
"Simply touch is enough; the virus lives on the skin..."
"Shiroi?"
"We've lost so many!" She cried, throwing down her notepad. "The ones that come in here are only to be experimented on! No one shows even the slightest bit of immunity...Even with supportive treatment we've only been able to delay the inevitable and make them all suffer longer. Every different city on this planet is in quarantine and we aren't even close to finding the cure."
"What else?"
"There is nothing else." Tegin used his free hand to grasp Shiroi's.
"I can see it in your eyes."
"I'm to be sent on an expedition to the Dan-ga-Jin planet; the bio-sweep has been delayed."
"What? Why?"
"To find out if we can develop a vaccine from them. Everyone is positive it comes from them." Tegin's antennae fell.
"Ivy, Ivy has been in contact with them! Oh, Mother of Irk...I've been in contact with them...I don't know how many of us have! What if I'm contagious? Oh no...What have I done?"
"There is nothing we can do about that now, no one could have warned you." She drew him into her arms. "That's why they're sending us, you, me and my medical team. Ivy's armor may well have protected her. It can't be breathed in."
"But..."
"Don't worry about that now, we launch in twenty hours. If we're lucky we'll have at least six weeks to complete this. The research has already begun."
"What will Ivy say...?"
"Absolutely no! I'm not going to send you out on some death trap of a space ship!"
"But Ivy, I have to go, it could be the salvation of the planet."
"Let the medical teams handle it then!"
"You don't have to yell..."
"Apparently I do because no one here seems to be able to hear me!"
"If you order me to stay I have no choice, but the ship needs a technician-"
"Let them find someone else!"
"There's no more time for that..." Ivy came forward as if to put her hands on his shoulders.
"No! Don't touch me!"
"What? Why not?"
"I am contagious..." Ivy's eyes filled with horror.
"No, you can't have it; it's a mistake!"
"Shiroi ran the testing, her and I, we both tested positive..."
"But..."
"Don't worry about that now. The teams have six weeks to find the cure, they can do it." He smiled weakly at her. "But in the meantime send the med room a blood sample so that you can be tested. Send one of Red's too."
"But...I don't want you to go..."
"I think it would be for the best, I'm too much a liability now, if you got sick because of me I wouldn't be able to live with myself." No matter how short a time I had, he said to himself silently. His orange-eyes glistened as his smile broadened. "Just think, If I help with this project I can become known as the Irken Who Saved Irk! With a little help from my colleague Shiroi of course." He bowed to an imaginary crowd. "I want to thank all the little people out there for all their help in sending me this far!"
"Oh, you fool; you still laugh, even in the face of death?" Tegin resisted the urge to reach for her hand.
"That's all I have left." He headed out the sliding door stopping only once. "I will come back, I promise."
"Oh, I thought you got lost, it took you long enough." Shiroi said without looking up from the crates she was tallying containing all the equipment, peering sharply at the technician when he bent over in a coughing fit.
"I had to say goodbye." He wheezed, he hadn't wanted to upset Ivy further with his health problem.
"Are you all right?"
"Just dandy..." he said sarcastically eyeing the rows of people boarding the spacecraft. It was a little less then half the size of the Massive and that was mainly labs and storage. The sick in stages one through three were being helped aboard, lab rats for testing, and Tegin felt a pang of grief stab through sharper then the rest of his sorrow as he noticed the tiny purple-eye wasn't with them. She had probably passed away hours ago.
"Shall we go then?" Shiroi asked, prying his attention away from the sad procession.
"Of course, my lady." He replied lightly, hooking his arm through hers and tramping away to the huge maroon ship.
"Why does it have to be them?" Ivy sobbed, burying her face in Red's neck.
"Only they can answer that."
Oh death and despair abound in this sucker! How will I ever wade through it all? With your reviews of course! Review peoples! As I love them so!