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Mr. Smuggles :P Meet Mr. Smuggles, the portable muse!
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Chapter 3
"It's ready," Andromeda said a few minutes later, her image coming on the viewscreen.
"Good," Dylan said. "Rhade, Nietzscheans can withstand vacuum, right?"
"Not for very long," Telemachus replied. "But long enough for me to get out of the EVA suit and get to a pressurized area, if that's what you're wondering."
Everyone but Trance (who was in the Med-Deck) stood in front of the airlock to the hanger Andromeda had drawn the Rose into.
"Good luck," Beka said, handing Telemachus his helmet and the extra EVA suit for the child.
"Hey, big guy," Harper said. "Make sure you come back."
"Would you even notice?" Telemachus retorted.
Harper grinned. "Of course I will, Rhade. What other Nietzschean would put up with me?"
Dylan looked at him seriously. "Are you ready, Rhade?"
Telemachus nodded. "I'd better go," he said. "The girl is suffering even as we speak."
"As soon as you and the others get to another corridor," Rommie said to Dylan. "I'll depressurize this section and the other sections."
They stood for a moment, silent. Telemachus raised an eyebrow. "Andromeda can't depressurize this corridor until you leave," he prompted.
Beka blinked and shook her head. "Right. Come on, Dylan, Harper, Rommie, let's get out of here." As the others walked ahead of her, Beka turned to look at him as Andromeda sealed the door and all the air was pumped out.
Telemachus listened to the air whooshing out, waiting for the red light to come on the wall; the one that signaled complete decompression. The seconds seemed to crawl by. What am I doing? he thought. His every survival instinct was screaming at him, telling him decompression= bad. Telemachus took in a deep, calming breath, held it, then let it out slowly.
The red light blinked on, and Telemachus palmed the sensor to open the airlock to the hanger, walking through the hanger bay to get to the ship. It was a little bigger than the Eureka Maru. As Telemachus opened the airlock to the Rose, an evil-looking blue mist boiled out, engulfing him and began slowly spreading throughout the hanger bay. "Child?" he called. "Child, are you there?"
"I'm here," he heard a weak voice say as the girl began hobbling toward him.
"Can you put the suit on?" he asked.
She nodded hesitantly, reaching to take the suit from him. Once she was in it, they began to walk down the ramp. Telemachus heard the pained gasping over his helmet comm.
"Would you like me to carry you, child?"
She nodded slowly, and through the slightly fogged helmet, he saw her bite her lip as if to keep from crying out.
Telemachus picked her up and she put her arms around his neck. "What's your name?" he asked.
"Liara" she said. "You're Telmakus Raid, right?"
He smiled. "Telemachus Rhade," he corrected her. It was amazing how many people got his name wrong! "Just call me Rhade. Everyone else does."
"I can pronounce 'Telemachus'" she said, a little defensively.
He smiled, pleasantly surprised that someone could say his name that wasn't part of the family. "How old are you, child?"
She held up eight fingers, then dropped them with a gasp of pain, curling tighter against him. "It hurts, Telemachus," she whispered, and he felt his heart breaking.
"We're almost to Med-Deck, Liara," he told her. "Right around the next corner. Trance will take care of you." Telemachus gently set her down at the door.
"That girl has been through hell," Rhade told the others, toweling off his hair after taking a hot shower. Logically, he knew there wasn't any of the bio-weapon on him, but the shower made him feel better. They were gathered on the Command Deck, anxiously waiting for Trance to tell them some news, any news.
Trance came on the viewscreen. "Uh, guys?"
"What is it, Trance?" Dylan asked quickly.
"I have news, but its not good news," she told them. "This is like nothing I have ever seen, and nothing I have will cure it. Liara has about 72 hours before all her skin is eaten away, and then," Trance paused. "Liara will die," she said softly, sadly.
"I do have some good news," Rommie said, and everyone looked at her. "I've been able to locate coordinates to where they were developing Omega Blue. It's a small, abandoned research station in the Olon System."
"The where?" Beka asked. "I've never heard of it."
"It's quite out of the way," Rommie told her. "Which is probably a good thing."
"That would be the best place to find a cure," Dylan said. "Beka-"
"I'm on it," she said, already pulling down the Slipstream controls. "Olon System, here we come."