The second that the shuttle docked back on Destiny Rush was on board pulling Lieutenant Scott out of his suit with angry mutterings of hurry the hell up and faster damn it while Volker shredded his own brown-gold suit as fast as possible fearing an angry mother; Rush was bad but he felt Chloe would be worse. The parents put dressed at lightning speed while TJ and Varro loaded the small white pod containing Cressida onto the shuttle where Brody waited quietly, it had been patch welded and TJ just prayed the girl's heart held out long enough to get to the ruined Nakai ship.
"The welding will hold through the vacuum, she'll be safe long enough to get her into that chamber." Said the blonde man in a comforting tone.
No one said a single word on the short trip over to the Nakai vessel, Rush was too focused on his task for speech and Chloe just couldn't stop thinking about what would happen if they failed; Brody just feared the Chief Scientist blowing up at him. It wasn't exactly an awkward silence, simply a quietude where everyone was lost in their minds. Nicholas had to quickly sidestep a few larger pieces of debris left over from the explosion and each time he did Chloe feared for Cress who was sloshed violently inside her pod. Had her mind been more focused she'd have wondered if the start had been the foreshadowing of the end, they'd found Cress unconscious inside the pod and there she was again; lungs full of an unnamed ooze that breathed for her with an uncertain future.
Docking took a little longer than expected thanks to the amount of damage Cressida had managed to do to the enemy ship and Rush felt his muscles grow even more tense over it, he managed to stay calm though – or at least as calm as Doctor Rush could get – he had to save his daughter.
Brody guided them quickly to the large room he and the others had found at the back of the ship, not too far from the shuttle bay which had been a relief. The room was gargantuan and shaped in a half circle - oversized for the single glass tube that occupied it's centre – the walls were a charcoal colored metal with concentric rings of white light breaking up the black flooring. It was a strange layout but neither parent or the engineer noticed as they carried her rather light pod to the glass tube she'd been born in. The chamber wasn't too dissimilar to their stasis pods back on Destiny only this one was free-standing and had a large and tall black slab fitted to its right side with a single lit up display sowing a humanoid shape and a fixed reading of what looked to be vital signs, on the left was a similar slab only this one had a cut out that perfectly fitted her pod. As soon as Rush and Brody set it down the system roared to life, some kind of docking clamp fixed the white pod in place and the control terminal lit up like a Christmas tree, after a second or two the empty glass tube filled with more of the strange ooze and Cressida's unconscious body flooded into it leaving her to just float there like a specimen in a jar. The previous vital reading updated and Chloe gasped.
"Nicholas please tell me that doesn't mean what I think it means!"
"Rush, this is Young. What's going on?"
"Not now!" He yelled back before turning to Chloe. "Can you understand what this says? It'll take too long for me to figure out. I need a defibrillator, find something about an electrical charge."
Their daughter's heart had finally given up and Rush was growing more frantic by the second, Cressida was dead. Chloe's beautiful blue eyes raced over each and every symbol trying to find what Nicholas had asked for, slowly the markings started to make sense.
"Chloe you only have a max of six minutes." Rush told her quickly, his whiskey eyes locked on his child.
"What?"
"Without CPR a brain can only survive about six minutes now please God hurry up."
It was a beg. Nicholas Rush was known for being abrasive and angry but he didn't beg, he'd beg for his daughter's life though, to anyone or anything that stood a chance of saving the eight year old he'd beg until his voice gave out, until his tears dried up and his mind failed him.
Chloe blinked quickly banishing the well of tears that blurred her vision as she searched, it wasn't like learning Ancient where she had to understand what each symbol meant, it was more like the markings fading away until she could see the words in English.
"Found it!" She cried, hand flying up to point at it. "That button and the dial."
Rush waisted no time, now he knew what he was working with he cranked up the dial and slammed his hand down on the button, suddenly a large bolt of electricity surged through the goo and Cressida's body seized violently and Chloe's heart wrenched. The vitals on the terminal remained the same, flat and blank, Rush didn't give up though and slammed his hand back down on the button. Once more Cress' body went rigid and then, finally, her heart started; Chloe nearly collapsed with relief. Everything calmed for a moment, a much needed moment.
She may have been alive but there was still a long way to go, Brody and Rush poured over the terminal asking Chloe to translate bits. Eventually they found that they could enlarge sections of the humanoid shape which granted a view of organs, almost every single one of them were shutting down – her kidneys being the worst – but her brain remained healthy and revealed far more synapses than a standard person; which helped to explain her intellect and ability to comprehend at such a young age.
"Rush- " Brody paused for a second not wanting to upset or worse yet anger the Scot. " - I don't see anything here that can help rebuild her organs, they're too damaged."
"Shut up! If you're not going to be useful go stand in the corner like the dunce you are!"
Normally Chloe would have made the scientist apologise but there and then she couldn't care less what he said to Brody, Cress was more important... then it dawned on her.
"They used us to grow her right? And they sped up her ageing. What if we tell the system that it's not done building her? That her organs aren't done yet. Couldn't it repair them?"
Chloe didn't know if any of that had come out sounding feasible or if it was just the desperate rantings of a mother; it was more of the latter but it sparked an idea in Rush. When they'd found Cress she'd been in perfect condition, no cuts, no bruises, not a patch of damaged skin caused by spending too long submerged; she should have but didn't. If the Nakai had designed her to be absolutely perfect them maybe he could use the base program to return her organs to pique condition.
XXXX
The infirmary was nothing but a void of sound; Varo sat on a chair hunched over, Young leaned against the wall by the door with his radio in hand, TJ had slid to the floor beside him with her knees pulled up against her chest as she stared off into space, Camile was the only other person in the room and just stood dead centre with one arm folded while the thumb of the other got chewed on. Every single person in that room had only one thought, Cressida. She was just a little girl, the Nakai had no right to take her. Children weren't supposed to die. In her short life that little girl had been through more than anyone could imagine but had never let it stop her, she was brave like Chloe and just as stubborn as Rush. Cressida couldn't die. She couldn't.
TJ blamed herself for not noticing something was wrong with her, for not being able to do something about it. Varro wished he'd found her sooner. Camile felt guilty for failing to help her when they'd first found her. Young though, he hated himself for how he must have made her feel, for the mistrust and fear for the crew that must have just seemed harsh and cruel to her; Cress had told him she understood his actions and that she liked him but Young still hated how he'd treated her.
In the grand scale Cressida Isobel Rush had only been with them for a short time but she'd made their lives happier, she was one of them and they wouldn't just let the Nakai take her from them.
If anyone deserved to live it was that little girl. She was pure and good.