Chapter 2: Will to Live
Dylan arrived in Med Deck in time to see Rommie laying Trance gently down a bed. Harper beside her. Without missing a beat, despite being visibly out of breath, the young man began setting up equipment, while Rommie silently gathered medical instruments, nano injectors, and medications. Harper took two medical sensors and carefully attached them to the exposed skin on Trance's chest. Readouts of Trance's condition appeared on the screen next to her bed. The girl was still save for the uneven rising and falling of her chest. He could hear her wheezing as he moved closer to the bed. Dark circles stretched out beneath her eyes and her normally radiant skin was dull and sallow. Her red curls splayed across the pillow like a crown.
"Patient condition critical. Blood oxygen at 60%. Temperature 46 degrees. Heart rate 130 bpm. Respiration uneven and labored. Brain activity appears normal, but there is severe swelling around the brain..." Andromeda said, beginning a running report on Trance's vitals.
"Harper, I would advice against touching Trance's bare skin right now. At this temperature, prolonged contact will cause burns," Rommie said as Harper reached out for Trance's hand. The boy pulled back his hand took a step towards the head of the bed and instead rested it on her clothed shoulder. Rommie worked around him easily, her movements decisive, her programming overriding the concern Dylan knew she felt for her friend. With a few taps, she programmed some nanobots and injected them into Trance's system and very quickly followed with a milky white medication.
"Respiration stabilizing," Andromeda announced a moment later. Trances chest began to rise and fall more steadily. "Pulse oxygen now at 65%"
"What can you tell me, Rommie?" He asked as she ran a scanner over Trance's entire body, Med Deck's harsh lighting gleaming off of it. He had spent this last year helping a frightened and confused Trance sort through her memories and figure out who she was. He had given her his strength so she would have the courage to do what needed to be done. He was her protector, destined to be so if the legends were to be believed. This situation felt like personal a failure. Trance had in turns been his conscience, counselor, friend, and charge. What if he lost her? What if they all lost her, he thought, seeing Harper standing there beside her bed, more still than he'd ever seen him, with one hand touching her as if to make sure she didn't vanish in front of him the way his homeworld had.
"She's sick," she replied matter-of-factly. It was the android's way of putting him off because she didn't have any answers to give, but that didn't stop him from pressing further.
"I can see that, Rommie. Why is she sick? How?" Rommie glanced at a readout and her eyes slipped out of focus for a brief moment as they often did when she was searching her databases and making calculations.
"I do not know the how," Rommie said, looking directly at him, "but, I assume the why is because her immune system appears to be consistent with that of a newborn infant." That didn't quell his need for information, but he could tell he wasn't going to get anything more from Rommie and she had a job to do, so he turned to his engineer.
"Harper, come with me for a moment." The younger man looked up at him, a shell-shocked expression on his face. He hesitated, looking down at Trance and then up again at Dylan. "It will only be a moment. Let's give Rommie some space to work." Harper nodded, gave Trance's shoulder a squeeze, before followed Dylan to Trance's normal workstation along the wall. Neatly organized boxes, each labeled with their contents, lined a brightly lit countertop. A couple of leafy plants added color to the sterile environment. Monitors flashed with charts and diagrams, evidence of Trance's earlier work.
"What's up boss?" Harper asked, not looking at Dylan, his eyes still fixed on Trance's motionless form. A new worry suddenly gripped Dylan. What if Rommie couldn't save Trance? Could losing her, someone who had been Harper's best friend, be the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back? Don't worry about that, he thought, it isn't going to happen.
"Can you tell me what happened? Did she say anything?" he asked. He kept his voice level and calm despite a desire to interrogate him, extract every bit of information he could. Information was power and right now he was feeling pretty damn powerless.
Harper remained silent. Not in obstinacy, Dylan understood, but from the sheer weight of the situation. He grabbed the younger man's arm and gave what he hoped was a comforting squeeze.. Harper finally turned to look at him, but remained silent.
"Let's start with why she was in the cargo bay and why Andromeda's sensors couldn't find her. You knew where she would be," Dylan said. A shadow of a smile crossed the younger man's face, the ghost of a pleasant memory, quickly erased and replaced by a frown.
"There is an old smuggling closet down there. She used to hide down there before we found Andromeda. Even Beka doesn't know where it is, but I guess the gig is up now. She'll have to find a new spot. I mean, if…"
A shrill and insistent alarm sounded. It rang in Dylan's ears. He felt his breath catch. Harper jumped and tensed, his attention once again focused on the two women across the room.
"Heart rate and blood pressure are dropping rapidly." Andromeda announced, "Cardiovascular failure imminent."
"That did not work the way it was supposed to," Rommie stated, frustration lacing her voice. Harper tensed. Rommie moved quickly to program and inject more bots.
"Sinus rhythm irregular. Cardiovascular functions failing," Andromeda reported. The alarm continued its persistent cry.
"Shut up!" Rommie snapped at herself. Faster than humanly possible the Android injected Trance with a clear medication and then pressed a pair of pen-like defibrillators to Trance's chest. Her back arched as the electrical current ran through her. There was a beat, a moment of silence in which Dylan closed his eyes and held his breath. Then, amazingly, the alarm shut off and he could hear a steady beeping on the vitals monitor indicating that Trance's heart was beating like it was supposed to.
"Sinus rhythm restored."
"Well, that's something," Rommie said. Dylan heard Harper exhale heavily. He studied his engineer's face, so full of sadness and unmasked anxiety.
"I need you to tell me everything. It might help her," he told the younger man.
"She can't die. Dylan, tell me she won't die." Dylan rubbed his face with his hands.
"I can't tell you that. I really wish I could." Harper turned towards him again.
"No. I know you can't, but I need to hear it right now. She didn't say much, you know Trance. She said she went home because her people were calling and she was afraid they would come after us. She said they punished her. She said they took everything, that she was like me now." Harper explained. Rage flared inside Dylan. Her people had done this to her. A people who were supposed to be the embodiment of light and protectors of life.
"Like you. Like me. Organic. Damn them," he said, his sudden anger clear in his tone. Her own people had done this to her. The Lambent Kith Nebula, a people meant to represent all the light in the universe, had issued her a slow death sentence as an organic.
"That's the conclusion I came to as well."
"Is that everything? You're sure there was nothing more."
"We didn't exactly have time to chat while she was struggling to breathe," Harper snapped. Dylan stepped in front of his engineer so that they were face to face and put a hand on each shoulder, not in the least bit phased or upset by the younger man's angry outburst. He had been through so much in one day.
"Harper, I understand. Thank you for telling me, and thank you for being there for her," he said sincerely. Harper didn't respond. "One more question, please." Harper nodded. "How long were you down there?"
"An hour, maybe a little longer." Dylan lifted his hands and Harper moved back to Trance's bedside without saying another word. Rommie didn't acknowledge the younger man's presence, but kept working, focused on the job at hand. Dylan moved over and stopped a few steps away from the bed. Rommie put down her equipment and stood beside Trance, looking down at the girl. Her chest continued to rise and fall evenly and her heart rate beeped rhythmically on the monitor. She was stable, for now.
"Rommie, Trance has been organic for no more than five hours. How did she get so sick so quickly? " He asked, trusting that Andromeda had been listening in on his conversation with Harper.
"I try to keep my air and surfaces clean, but I can't catch every virus or bacteria that comes on-board and I have no control over those on the Eureka Maru. This virus has a very short incubation period in general, but would not have affected a human, even one with a weak immune system," at this she gave Harper a significant look, "as more than a minor annoyance. In Trance it is thriving. Her new organic physiology is similar to a human's in many ways, but she is decidedly not human."
A new alarm, less insistent than the first, sounded. An image of what Dylan assumed was Trance's brain appeared on the screen, readouts that he could not understand surrounding it. Rommie's face fell. A very human expression.
"What's going on?" Harper asked desperately.
"I haven't been able to reduce Trance's fever. I estimate that her body temperature should actually be somewhere around 39 degrees. At 46 it is dangerously high. It has caused severe widespread swelling around her brain. While I am not seeing any obvious brain damage, she has slipped into a coma."
Harper made a strangled sound that could have been no or another negative exclamation, Dylan couldn't quite make it out.
"Please, Rommie, there has to be something you can do," he begged. No innuendo. No pet names. Just a man asking for the impossible. Rommie's response was filled with the same anger and frustration Dylan was feeling right now.
"I don't know what else to try. Her respiration is being sustained by nanobots at the moment, as is her heart rate. I tried bringing her heart rate down with medication earlier since she was not getting enough oxygen, but the small dose I used nearly sent her into cardiac arrest, which makes me reluctant to try other medications. I've deployed anti-viral nanobots, but they are barely making a difference in the number of viruses in her system. I don't have the instincts of an organic physician to guess what is safe to try and what isn't. I think the only thing we can do now is keep her as stable as possible and allow her to fight off the virus on her own. It's up to Trance now whether she will live or die."
Rommie reached up and placed a hand on Trance's forehead tenderly. Trance was her friend. He remembered Rommie once telling him that they should have maintained a professional distance from the crew, that they were both too emotionally involved. He knew these tough emotions were hard on her, a warship who was accustomed to having a clear enemy that she could attack with state of the art arsenal. He felt much the same. He also knew that for both of them, the benefits of becoming friends far outweighed the drawbacks.
"I can say that if she recovers, her immune system will get stronger over time. She does not lack one, it is simply immature."
"Well, that is hopeful, at least." Dylan said.
"There is nothing more we can do here. You need to rest," Rommie said, turning to Harper with a look of concern.
"I'm not leaving her." He replied. Rommie withdrew from Trance's bedside and moved to the workstation, pulling out some medication and programming an injector. She moved back to Harper and gently steered him to another bed a few feet away from Trance's.
"You can take this bed. I am going to give you something to help you sleep. You are no good to anyone, especially not Trance, dead on your feet." Defeated, Harper nodded and climbed onto the bed Rommie indicated. She pressed the injector to his wrist and he closed his eyes. He was asleep in less than a minute. Dylan took in the scene before him and it struck him how young they both were. He knew Trance's years had to number in the billions, yet he also knew without a doubt, and without knowing how he knew, that while her sun was the oldest and brightest, her avatar was barely more than a child.
"So young," he said. Rommie walked over to him and put a hand on his arm.
"They are both fighters and survivors. They have proved it to us on numerous occasions,"
"I hope you are right."
"Captain," Andromeda's hologram said, appearing before him, "the First Triumvir is contacting you in regards to the Magog worldship." Dylan felt the weight of his exhaustion and stress pressing down on him, threatening his composure. With a sigh he replied,
"Send the communique to my quarters. I will be there in a moment."
"Aye captain." The hologram disappeared. He turned to Rommie.
"If there is nothing more you can do here but monitor her, I am going to send Doyle down. I need you in Command while Beka sleeps. After speaking with the Triumvir, I am going to try and get some rest myself."
"Dylan, shouldn't we tell her what has happened?"
"We will, as soon as she wakes up. She needs to sleep now."
"Understood. Captain, the faster you get this meeting over with, the faster you can get some rest yourself."
"Right." He silently looked over med deck once more as Andromeda dimmed the lights and turned his back to his youngest and most vulnerable crew members. Time would tell how strong both their wills to live were.
