This scene happens post-"Rise of Cyclonia". The crew of the Condor have made it to the Farside and after a while cruising, get found by a band of raiders. This is how the crew gets separated, and is the set up for Dark Side.
xxxxx
We were losing. And losing badly. Sure, they weren't as souped up as Master Cyclonis' Nightcrawlers, but I'd be lying if I said that Farside technology wasn't years past Atmos. They weren't using raw crystals, but a kind of living crystal, as best as I could wager, like someone had cracked the code of the matrix, and could meld them into whatever state of matter they desired – even in spirit. Accordingly, even the Joe Schmoes had weaponry that made ours look medieval in comparison.
The Condor had already taken serious damage. I could hear her howling in pain as she was battered by an array of fire from the small party of skimmers that zoomed about us. The engines were threatening to overheat – we weren't going to be able to take much more of this, and still have a ship.
"Guys," I warned through the speakers, my voice pleading, "the Condor can't take much more of this. I'm seriously about to lose her!" I was already fighting to keep her aloft, and could feel the power of the engines failing – she was slipping in altitude, and I think twenty minutes was a very optimistic guess at how much longer I could keep her in the sky.
"Hang on, Stork," Aerrow responded, sounding sure. He always sounded sure when his battle face was on. He had a dangerously one-track mind like that. He still hadn't learned from Arygyn. "Just hang on a bit-"
And at that moment, another scattering of fire peppered the hull, breaking the barrier that kept me from the unknown atmosphere outside my ship. I gave a yell, ducking behind the helm, until the skimmer passed.
"Aerrow, I'm taking serious damage up here!" I shouted into the radio. I was looking at the engineering dials, and they were not reading very pretty. I gulped, and corrected that twenty minutes to five. Outside the ship, the rest of the crew were skirmishing miserably. Piper flew by, evading an attacker, and I watched as he threw something at her, just as she flew out of my sight.
My eyes widened. I stared, in shock, and listened to the radio.
There was nothing. Not even static.
"Um, come in?" I cried, panicking. "Aerrow, Piper, someone! Answer me!"
A second later, but I still heard nothing.
We'd lost communications.
I let out a yell of sheer terror, and I could hear the engines giving one last desperate moan before sputtering. I grabbed the helm, and turned her to at least find Piper, make sure she'd survived that last attack.
To my horror and dismay, she was flying below me, whatever projectile the other had thrown sticking out of her in an unseemly way. I am sure I went white, as the bastard went on to pepper her blades with fire. I saw more than heard her cry out as the heliscooter gave a gut-wrenching jolt and started to fall, black smoke trailing behind her.
I set the ship to lunge. A glance at my dials said it was eventual that I was going to fall, and I decided I'd at least catch Piper rather than let her fall to her doom alone. Teeth gritted, I focused on nothing but her trajectory, diving down and down and down, the engines starting to growl as they gave way, and the controls protested with snaps and sparks at the abuse I was putting on the old carrier. She hit a cloud barrier, but I kept going, almost certain I wasn't breathing, or if I was, they were the shallowest breaths I'd ever experienced.
I broke through, and quickly scanned for Piper, and found I'd dived lower – quickly, I pulled back on the helm with a groan, the rudders banking her enough to catch the falling Storm Hawk with a sickening crunch (though not as sick a crunch as it could have been), and I kept pulling. Nose up, I knew I wasn't going to gain any altitude, but I wasn't going to crash land with my navigator on the outside. I watched her slide down the gangway, leaving a dark red smear that made me gag, but I managed to hold it back enough to watch her disappear before flipping the switch that closed the hatch.
I released the helm, and the ship gave a jolt. She jumbled back and forth before beginning a nose dive, and I then grabbed the controls again, just enough to keep her falling flat before pulling the emergency drag.
I eyed the landscape. It wasn't magma, fire and stalagmites like the Wastelands, but just as barren. I steered toward a mountainside, my eyes sweeping everything before – there! I spotted an overhanging, and aimed for it, flying low, before kicking the backup boosters, hoping it would be just enough to keep me aloft and –
In a horrifying test of fate, I pulled the boosters, and launched the docking claws. Claws met rock, and the ship gave a sickening lurch – I held tight on the helm, my feet gripping the floor as best I could – before rocking in her makeshift perch. My ears finally registered that there were alarms were blaring everywhere, but they died one by one as the ship shut down. I could hear the moan and groan as the engines shut off, but the antigravity crystals held.
I heaved a heavy sigh. We wouldn't have a repeat of the leechers Incident.
At the thought of crystals, I felt my ears perk, and "Piper" slipped out of my mouth before I was out of the bridge, down a ladder, and in the hangar bay.
It was a mess, crates strewn about everywhere, but leading from the doors, a path of dark something – I knew some of it was blood, and doubtless engine oil, but hoped the ratio was in Piper's favour. My eyes quickly followed the trail until it came to a pile of boxes, and I quickly shoveled them out of my way, finding her there.
She was moaning, her eyes drowning in tears, as her hands shook. A rod of some kind had pinned her thigh to the heliscooter. My eyes widened as I realised that she wasn't dead yet.
"Piper, you need to stay still," I warned, and quickly jumped away. She didn't really answer.
Where was it? I thought quickly to my last time using it – it'd been a few days, ago, and I'd put it...
I hurried to a door, opening it, but everything was trashed, all over the place. With a growl, I dug through the pile, not reacting as blades and rough edges scratched and tugged at my skin. At last, I pulled out my prize, and returned, my own dark blood starting to shine on my hands.
It took a couple tries, but I got the saw going. As I approached Piper, she started to scream, her hands above her face.
"STORK! NOOO!" she screeched, but it wasn't like she could move.
"Move your head," I ordered, a disturbingly serene voice, and she did so, ducking fearfully from the fast-flying blade. I brought the saw to the back or the heliscooter, the sparks flying and catching us both. She was crying, panicking, shouting, but I kept on. Piece by piece, I sawed the heliscooter away from her, moving her broken limbs where she couldn't, until it was only the pole.
"Piper," I warned, "This is really going to hurt. So I'm going to restrain you." I did so as I spoke, tying her hands behind her so that they didn't get in the way, and she began to weep again. "Please... Forgive me." I put a foot to her hip to hold her still, and tried to keep the pole as firm as I could, and sawed away it. She screeched like a banshee, and I bit my lip as I forced my eyes to watch the projectile that was covered in an almost black coat of her life, protruding from her leg. Her hands twitched uselessly behind her, until I'd finished the front, and had to go to the back. Her howling was beginning to fall on deaf ears as I started the other side, and before long, the pipe was as short as I felt safe cutting it.
"You're going to need serious treatment for this," I said, trying to keep up this calloused face I'd found somewhere between Merbia, the Wastelands, and here. I had no idea where, and how I'd come upon it, but it was certainly useful. I tried to tell myself that it was just like fixing skimmers. Only they screamed. The look on her face was killing me, and I did my best to focus on the task at hand. "I'm going to need to remove this. I'm taking you to the sick bay – try not to move."
She was weeping again by now, but I pulled an arm over my shoulder, one hand gripping her hip, and another slipping under her knees, doing my best to keep the injured leg firm. It was awkward, with her strange body structure, but we managed. She wasn't exactly light, but I'd carried heavier. I made my way through the halls to the lift, the iron-rich smell of blood poisoning my nose, but I fought the instinct to faint. Carefully balancing, I jabbed the button with a toe and the hatch opened. I quickly clambered inside, and repeated the trick.
In my arms, Piper had her face buried in my shoulder. Her weeping was covering my ship suit in warm tears, and I could feel my skin puckering ever so slightly at the salty intake. I swallowed, already starting to taste it, and could smell my own stench of panick reinstating itself. I could feel the reality of what was happening beginning to sink in, and immediately thought of mechanics. I was cataloging what we had in the sick bay that I could use for this situation – we always had tons of replenishing things on hand (considering how often we get beat up, it's a necessity), so lack of fluids wouldn't be what kills her. More like infection, but no one knows how to keep a wound clean better than me. The question of whether the room was actually sterilised or not flitted through my head, but I determined that it was something I could fix easily enough.
It was enough to keep my mind busy for the long moments in the lift. I'm sure that giving her some verbal comfort would be ideal, but I couldn't get in a sympathetic mood at the moment. We could do that later, and quite frankly, she was the better one for giving comfort.
When the rest of the crew made it back, she'd need to be in one piece. As officer on the watch, that was my duty, to protect the crew, and with my pilot duties pretty much taken care of, she was my top priority.
There were a couple loose potted plants splayed on the floor, but I could deal with that later. I trudged through the corridor, paying no mind to the coarse grounds mingled with the carpet underfoot, and made my way to the sick bay, doing the balance-jab trick yet again. I hadn't realised how often I'd practised the trick when lugging boxes around the ship, nor imagined how it would be life-savingly useful one day, but as always, I was grateful I had.
When I entered the sick bay, I was pleased to see it had actually done rather well. The cupboards were shut right, so there wasn't wasted medicines and broken glass on the floor, and Piper had done a good job of keeping it mechanically clean. Considering how no one used this room, I supposed I shouldn't have been surprised, and yet I was, pleasantly so. It certainly smelled clean, which was a delight, and I pulled out a fresh cover for the medic's bed – I must be in much better shape than I thought. Then again, it could be the adrenaline.
With a sniffle, Piper gave a tiny, weak little moan.
"We're in the sick bay, I got you," I said softly. Now that I'd made it (and been a bit cheered up by one less thing to do) I could be more doctor, less mechanic. Although, the difference wasn't likely much, I thought. Docs had to be just as methodical and heartless from time to time...
I carefully set her down on the bed, and when I backed away from her, I was horrified by the pure amount of dark, warm, wet and sticky that was covering my ship suit.
I shook for a long moment, closing my eyes. Engine grease. Engine grease that smelled of... blood. But mostly grease, I lied to myself. It was a terrible lie, and I knew it, but something in the back of my head smacked another, and my feet started to move towards the cupboards.
"Fix it," I said. "Fix it, and she'll be fine."
I gave a sick gulp, a shaking hand reaching up to the cupboard door and opening. Like I'd thought, a good number of blood and energy replenishing tonics – I grabbed a bunch. Ah... tools. I looked down, pulling open a drawer. This one had sharp things. I carefully picked one, each individually bagged, and tried not to look at it too much as I set it on the table. I grabbed a needle, as well. And a bobbin of thread – I cut a length. Likely too much, but I'd err on the side of caution. Another drawer had dressings – I pulled out a bunch of those. Another, gauze and sterilisers. I helped myself. There was a tray nearby, and I put everything on there, trying to keep it in a sensible order so I could get to it later. I tried to steady my breathing, my grip tightening around the tray, feeling my shoulders tremble. I can do this, I lied to myself. I can. I can fix this. I can help...
From behind me, Piper let another sound, this one a long, drawn out moan, mixed with a weep. It was squeaky and heart-wrenching and full of pain. I felt my breath catch, and I'm sure I felt tears come to my eyes. My throat caught, and for a horrible moment, I was choked. Her piercing shrieks of pain returned to my mind, and I gave another swallow, forcing myself to take this tray and set it at the bedside.
Piper was a mess. All of her was sweaty, and along with the usual battle scrapes and scratches, there was the sickly projectile still sticking from her thigh. I could hear an instinct telling me to gag at the sight of the flesh, clutching the intruder not unlike roasted barbecue on a spit, only the sauce was blood. Reminding me again why I can't eat that stuff. Something cold and calculating clicked in, and instead of Piper, I saw only this pipe which needed to not be here – it had missed her bones, but I was going to have to cut down to the pipe and pull it out, then stitch it back together. Impalements were dangerous – usually loss of life was not because of the injury itself, but because of blood loss and shock. Or infection. I had to be quick and careful, and make sure she didn't bleed out when this proverbial cork was removed. I swallowed again, feeling my mouth go dry, and turned back to the supplies.
I fetched a rag and set up a bowl of hot water. Instead of thinking, I just watched the waterline rise, retrieving, threading and knotting the needle as I did. and then returned it to my station. I cut away the fabric and cleared away the blood that was around the wound, and felt a bit of pleasure when I had only the true danger zones left. They were still oozing quite a bit, but I wrapped some fabric around it to reduce. It took time, but I eventually had a good dam of sorts going. I opened the scalpel, but set it aside as Piper once more caught my attention with a fearful sound, and I found some restraints.
"Can't be doing that, Piper," I said, anticipating her body's instinct to fight the pain as a priority. I bound her arms to the bed – perhaps too tight, I thought, but the skin wasn't puckering so much, so it would likely be more unpleasant than dangerous. Long as she stayed still.
I returned to the task at hand, and took a grip on the scalpel. Her blood-curdling screams fell on death ears as I dragged it through the flesh, joining the two holes. Dark red life tried to escape, but I caught it as well as I could. I tossed the collection of red to the side as I worked, and eventually saw the pipe in all its glory. I shimmied it out (not without plenty of outcry from my patient) and tossed it aside. I could clean later – right now I wanted it out of my sight. I sopped up what I could, and joined the flesh like a grotesque patchwork. I threaded the needle through, my jaw shaking just slightly as my eyes focused only on making each stitch as careful as I could. When I'd finished, I dumped the water, setting up a new bowl.
The crisp white was transparent on the silver, but clouds of red formed anyway. My own, usually green hands were black and bloodied, but my mind only focused on the colours. At the right height, I shut it off, returning.
Piper said nothing. I tended to anything else bleeding, wrapping and covering with fresh dressings after the blood had been wiped away, and the wounds sterilised, unbinding her as I treated any injuries I'd created in removing the heliscooter from her person. Her breathing was ragged, and tears still trailed from her cheeks, but she said nothing.
I didn't say anything either, but pushed the tonics into her lap. Her shaking hand tried to open one, but her fingers couldn't get a grip. I took it from her, opened it, and returned it. I did the same for a second, and she gasped at me, in what I think was an attempt at a grateful smile.
I couldn't manage one either. My lips were a grim line, and I turned away, looking down again at my hands.
My fortitude was at its end. I quickly made my way out of the room, slamming a switch, and when the hatch closed shut, my body hit the floor.