Espial Space Station, Mission Day 12, continued
Mila paced the length of the observation room. "I'm gonna die, aren't I?" She groaned, holding her head low.
Silas put a hand on her shoulder, still trying to give her the space she wanted. "You're not going to die. Not on my watch."
She lifted her head up, looking over her shoulder at Silas. She patted his hand twice. "Thank you, Silas." Mila moved away and continued pacing. "So what are you going to do now?"
Silas held up the four vials of blood, two from each specimen. "I'm going to test their blood. It'll take me a few hours to isolate any blood-borne diseases they have. Then saliva for air-borne." He held up two more vials.
"Okay. Okay, okay." Mila nodded. "Do I have to stay here with… them?"
"Yes, I'm sorry. We're wearing the only two hazmat suits we have." Silas moved towards the antechamber. "I'll bring you food and water in a bit. Do you want a book while you wait?"
Mila huffed, leaning against Silas' desk. "Sure."
"Sit tight and don't worry." Silas went into the antechamber, decontaminated himself, and exited. He looked back at Mila once and felt a pang of guilt. He should have been the one in there with a torn suit. He should have been the one subjected to the possibility of dying.
Silas took a deep breath, setting the vials down in a tray as he removed his suit. He took the vials with him as he went down to the lower lab, where Aiden was continuing to work on the holding cell.
Meanwhile, Mila threw her gloves on the ground. "I need to get out of this suit. No need for it now," she huffed. She pulled the helmet of the suit off and slipped her arms out. She shimmied out of the rest, kicking the boots off. Mila gathered it all up and tossed it into a corner, trying to get out some of her aggravation. She let out a scream no one would hear before collapsing into the desk chair.
Mila felt the tears brimming in her eyes but refused to let them spill onto the inside of her helmet. 'I'm the captain of this ship, I can't afford to cry,' she thought. 'Get it together, Mila.'
After a few hours, when Mila had gathered herself, she started thinking about the specimens. 'Am I even allowed to call them that anymore?' She rubbed a hand over her helmet, wishing she could run her fingers through her hair. 'They're sentient, conscious… They've got free will. Feelings, emotions. Oh. Oh no. They're probably scared out of their minds. We kidnapped them! Ugh, noooo…' Mila slumped forward, resting her arms on the desk. 'All I have to do I ask them and they can tell us everything about themselves and their planet. No kidnapping necessary.'
Mila dropped her head to let it rest on her arms. 'The male, it talked. I mean, he talked. My language. His. Ours. I don't know why the female isn't speaking the same language. I originally thought it was just savage, barbarian jabbering, but… I don't know. They don't seem like savages. More like… cornered animals that we've forced into a horrifying situation. Oh no… we're the savages, aren't we?'
She felt a flash of anger and pulled her helmet off. She threw it against the wall and it bounced off with a loud clang before hitting the ground. "Fuck!" She went over to her helmet and kicked it. She ran her fingers through her hair, finally, and slowly started to calm down. She kicked her helmet again.
The female suddenly woke up, gasping for air. Her eyes were wide and her chest heaved with each breath. She calmed down within a few moments. When the female realized she was strapped down, she started thrashing and struggling to free herself.
She must have felt Mila's presence because she stopped moving. She slowly turned her head, lifting it to look at Mila. The female's eyes widened once more and began to hyperventilate.
Then it dawned on Mila. 'My helmet!'
The female let out an ear-piercing scream. She writhed on the table, pulling on the straps to get her as far away from Mila as possible. "What the fuck?! What the fuck?!"
'So the female does know our language,' Mila thought. 'Ugh, focus! You're turning into Silas. Focus, focus.'
Mila held her hands up to show they were empty and she was peaceful. "I'm not going to hurt you, I promise."
The female screamed even louder. "How the fuck do you know English?! Get the fuck away from me!"
"Please, just stay calm," Mila tried to keep her voice soft and gentle.
"Don't come any closer to me!" She yelled, straining against the wrist straps and the restraint across her chest.
As the female's wrists grew red and raw, Mila called Silas on her comm. "Silas! The female's awake. I need to sedate her."
"I'm on my way," Silas answered in her ear. "If you need to sedate now, injectors are in the second drawer in the desk all the way to the right."
"Okay, okay." Mila rushed to the right-most desk, pulling open the second drawer. She pulled out an injector full of sedatives, popping the cap off. She moved back towards the female, who was still struggling.
She saw the needle in Mila's hand. "Don't you fucking drug me! Don't touch me, you fucking freak!" She yanked at the wrist straps, desperation filling her voice. "Stay away from me! You fucking alien!"
That last word stung deep inside Mila's chest.
Silas burst through the lab doors, ready to help Mila. But he froze when he saw the female awake and Mila standing over her with no helmet. "Mila, what have you done?!"
"I didn't mean to!" Mila shouted back, failing to hide the panic on her face.
"Sedate her then!" Silas yelled back at her, going to put his hazmat suit back on.
"Don't touch me!" The female yelled.
Mila felt her anguish as she held her arm down. She injected the sedative.
"No!" The female struggled against the straps, slowly losing her strength. "No, no… no… n…" And then she was sedated.
Silas put his hand against the glass. "Mila… Mila, what have you done?"
Mila threw the empty injector on the floor. "I'm gonna fucking die, Silas! Screw protocol! These two humans are… they're not science experiments! We can't go through with what the Senate wants! It's not right," she proclaimed.
Silas pulled his helmet off, tucking it under his arm. He looked at Mila and nodded.
"It's not right," Mila repeated, quietly.
Silas nodded again. "It's not right."
Mila stepped up to the glass. "Si, get me out of here."
"The tests are almost done."
"I can't stay stuck in here with them." Mila shook her head. "Knowing what we've done to them." She sighed. "Can you move me to the lower lab?"
"I don't think I should. This lab is better outfitted with medical supplies. You should stay here, just in case your concussion is more than mild," Silas explained gently.
Mila let her head hang down.
"Aiden's done with the holding cell. I can move the… the humans down there on the gurney," he added.
Mila looked back up at Silas. "Okay."
"The tests will be done in a few hours, I promise."
"Okay."
"Don't worry."
She took a deep breath. "Okay."
[-]
Marco slowly started to wake up, thinking he was back home in Iceland. His head and chest felt the warmest, where he normally piled on his blankets. His hands and feet were ice cold. He wiggled his fingers and toes to get some circulation going. He thought he left a blanket over his face, making him only see blackness.
But that wasn't the case. The memories came back, fuzzy on the edges, but still harsh nonetheless. He had been kidnapped, strapped down, prodded and studied. The last thing he remembered was climbing into what he assumed was a stasis pod. Then his body when cold and his mind went still.
His vision was slowly returning but his hearing came back faster. He heard a few mechanical beeps and the noises of a commotion. A struggle, a fight.
As he began to see the bright ceiling light above him, the edges of the pod on either side of him, he heard shouting he could recognize.
Mandarin.
'Oh shit, they took someone else,' Marco thought, adrenaline started to kick in. Energized, he knew he had to help. Shaking the last of the frozen sleep away, he hauled himself out of the pod. He landed on shaky feet, but his strength returned with each step he took. He eyes finally focused.
He saw a young woman, just a little older than he was, dressed like she was ready to travel the world at a moment's notice. She was being held in a chokehold by one of their captors, her eyes rolled back into her head, her breathing nearly non-existent.
Marco knew he had to act fast. He charged at the two, slamming the captor against the wall. They hit their head hard against the wall, losing their grasp on the woman. She slumped to the ground, unmoving, and Marco didn't know if she was dead or alive.
He turned to wage a fight against the captor but froze when he heard the click of a gun behind him. He looked over his shoulder to see the two other captors entering the lab, one holding their gun at Marco.
Marco stepped away from the captor inside the observation room, instead moving closer to the woman on the floor. He knelt down, trying to remember his high school survival training. Marco pressed two fingers to the woman's carotid artery, feeling a slow but strong pulse underneath her skin. Marco felt relief wash over him but he knew the woman wasn't out of the weeds yet.
He cradled her head, trying to be gentle with her neck. "Hey, hey, wake up," he tried softly. "Can you hear me? Are you alright?" He asked a little louder.
'Okay, if her pulse is good, the next thing to check is… breathing.' Marco went step by step as he recalled his training.
He brought his head down, close to hers, turning to feel her breath on his cheek. He felt the hot air cross his cheek in a slow, even rhythm. Marco straightened. 'Okay, breathing's alright. Now… now what?' He gently shook her shoulders, hoping she'd gain consciousness. "Come on, wake up. You can do it," he encouraged.
As he studied her face for any reaction, he felt like he knew her. Or that she was familiar somehow. Like he had seen in face before. Marco tried to remember his schoolmates, people he had known from his hometown. He just couldn't place her face. He thought he wouldn't know her, if she was speaking Mandarin, a language he neglected to learn.
That's when he felt the pinch of a needle in his shoulder and the world slipped away from him.