II. Meeting
Joanna awoke, blurry eyed, to a light being shined in her eyes and something gently slapping her cheek.
"Hey, you awake now?" an unfamiliar voice asked her aloud.
The voice was feminine with a British accent. Joanna reached up and shielded her eyes from the light.
"Is that you, Velvet?" Joanna asked, hoping it was her sister.
"'Fraid not, Miss." The voice replied as the light was shined upwards, revealing the face of a beautiful young woman, "Name's Croft, Lara. Designation: Human. And you are?"
"Dark, Joanna. Designation: tremendous amounts of pain." Joanna replied as she put her hand on her head and sat up.
The young lady that had identified herself as Lara shined her light on Joanna's side as the injured agent slowly and painfully began to pull herself to her feet.
"Careful now." Lara cautioned as she helped the young agent up, "Try not to move too much. You've taken a rather nasty wound to your right side."
Looking down to where Lara was directing her light, Joanna noticed a large portion of her waist had been bandaged. The cloth was stained a dark crimson where Lara was directing the beam.
"You were bleeding pretty badly when I found you. I patched you up as best I could, but I've never bandaged an alien before, so I don't know if there was anything further you'd need."
Joanna looked over at the young woman.
"Are you mad?" she said, "Do I look like an alien to you?"
"Well you are in an alien spacecraft." Lara came back, "Or is this just some new shuttle the Americans have cooked up?"
"No, it's an alien spacecraft alright-" Joanna stopped as a thought hit her, "Oh, no. Elvis."
"The rock singer?" Lara inquired as Joanna moved away and began to stumble down the corridor.
The young treasure hunter quickly followed.
"I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Elvis died." she said, "He wasn't kidnapped by aliens. Or was he?"
"No, Elvis is the nickname of the pilot of this ship." Joanna responded, "Before I passed out he was trying to guide the ship down safely to…"
Joanna stopped and looked back at Lara.
"Where are we?" she asked.
"The Brazilian rain forest." Lara replied, "I was repelling down a cliff when your spaceship came down a good distance away in a blazing fireball. Quite a brilliant display, actually. Probably could have seen it for miles."
"Well, I suppose it's better than landing in the middle of London Square." Joanna commented as she continued along, "Is anyone else with you?"
"'Fraid not, Miss Dark." Lara replied, "It's just you and me and maybe your friend if we can find him. Do you actually know where you're going?"
"Now why does that sound familiar? Here it is."
Finding the lever on the wall, Joanna pulled on it hard, but to no avail. It would not budge. The pain form her injury forcing her to stop, she drew back and held her injured side.
"Let me give it a try." Lara said, handing the flashlight to Joanna.
Gripping it with both hands, Lara slowly pulled the lever down. The large doors opened part of the way.
"You're pretty strong." Joanna commented.
"Well, you have to be strong in my line of work." Lara replied, "Here, let me look at that."
Joanna shined the light on her side while Lara checked for more bleeding.
The pain was subsiding, but Joanna was starting to feel a little light-headed. She'd taken enough first aid to know passing out could deadly.
"What do you do?" Joanna inquired trying to keep her mind occupied.
"Looks like you started bleeding a little more, but not much." Lara said, her attention too focused on Jo's condition, "Should seal up just fine on its own, but I'll need to get you outside where I can take a better look at it."
Joanna shook her head. "No, we have to find Elvis first, make sure he's alright."
"Alright." Lara agreed, "But you hold on to the torch. You don't need to be running into anything or doing something else to aggravate that wound."
Joanna nodded and moved to the door. Squeezing through, the two women looked around the dark remains of the bridge. All was silent.
"Elvis?" Joanna called, panning the room with the flashlight, "Elvis, are you here?"
Lara looked around, attempting to adjust her eyes to the dark. The light of the flashlight being too close, she instructed Jo to try searching over to the right, while she searched over to the left.
"Elvis?" Joanna called again, still sweeping with the flashlight, "C'mon you little bugger, answer me."
Lara looked around as she moved, her eyes were adjusting but not by much. She could hear the irritation in Joanna's voice and recognized it as one laced with fear. A thought coming to her mind of distracting Joanna's thoughts, Lara spoke.
"Sorry, you asked me what I do. I'm a treasure hunt-oof!" Lara said as she tripped over an object in the dark.
"You alright?" Joanna asked, shining the light over at Lara.
"Fine." Lara replied, "I think I found your friend."
Walking over to where Lara was sitting on the floor, Joanna shined the light on Elvis' silent body.
"Oh, no." she said, kneeling down and shaking Elvis' body slightly, "Elvis. Elvis, can you hear me?"
"Uh…Jo…an…na." Elvis' voice barely rang in her head, "Auto…pilot…green button…send me home."
"Don't worry, Elvis." Joanna reassured him, "You're going to be alright."
"What's going on?" Lara asked, not having heard what Elvis had said.
"Elvis is alive. Never thought I'd hear myself say that." Joanna replied as she made her way to the control panel, "I'm going to set the autopilot to take him back to his home planet. The Mayians will be able to take care of him…I hope."
Finding a large green button, Joanna pushed it and said, "There. That should do it. Let's get out of here."
"Hand me the torch." Lara said once they had reached the partially opened doors, "Follow me."
Joanna handed her the flashlight and quickly followed her through the maze of corridors as the two women felt the ship's engines begin to start. Finally coming to a large hole in the ceiling, Lara quickly jumped up, grabbed the ledge and pulled herself up. She then reached down and helped the injured Joanna out as the ship began to vibrate.
"What about this hole in the hull!?" Lara shouted above the noise.
"Mayians don't breath air!" Joanna replied, "He'll be fine! Let's get out of here!"
The two women quickly ran to the edge of the craft and jumped off into the underbrush. With the sound of crashing trees, the space craft skidded off into the sky.
"Well, this is a day I certainly won't soon forget." Lara said.
"Nor I." Joanna replied.