Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Four, Part One

 Notes: It's been a while since we've had some action, hasn't it? No more! 

Title: Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Four, Part One

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Chapter Four, Part One

 

“Try putting your helmet on.”

Kieron shook his head. “There’s no sense in it now. I’m already exposed to whatever pathogens this place might have, and we know the environment is breathable.”

“Humor me,” Elanus said flatly.

Kieron sighed. “I can’t. You already saw that, I—”

“I said, humor me.”

He wanted to push the fight about it, but Kieron had to admit that he’d acted rashly. If this was a small step he could make in the direction of Elanus forgiving him, then he’d put his weakness on display again. He reached back, lifted up his hood, and—

It slid perfectly into place. He blinked. “What the fuck?” He took it off, then put it back on. His arms had no trouble making the motion now. His mind didn’t shudder or come to a standstill. He was fine. “What the fuck?”

“Situational incapacity,” Elanus said. “I thought that might be it.”

“What the hell is that?”

Elanus sighed. “You didn’t get very far with Danielle when it came to coping mechanisms for stressful experiences, did you?”

Kieron paused, then said, “Who’s Danielle?”

Now it was Elanus’s turn to swear and shake his head. “I forgot that you wouldn’t remember her, not with the…medical situation.” He went to wipe his hand over his face, then set it back down when he remembered his helmet. He’d gotten his EV suit on in record time, to come after Kieron so quickly. “Never mind. Think of it as a mental pressure valve. You were under a lot of pressure regarding an unknown situation when we landed, and it resulted in situational incapacity. Your mind didn’t allow you to put your helmet on, probably for a whole cocktail of reasons. Then you took another path to get the same result, just less safely, and now the incapacitation is gone. Probably just temporarily, but gone.”

“Oh.” That made sense…kind of. Kieron didn’t like the idea that his mind had laid a series of mines for him to stumble over at who-knew-what-times, but he didn’t know what he didn’t know. He’d just have to keep Elanus close and hope for the best. “Um. Sorry about that.”

Elanus wouldn’t quite meet his eyes. “I don’t even know what you’re apologizing for, and frankly I’m too tired to care right now. Just…what are we doing now?”

A sinking feeling of guilt suffused Kieron’s chest, but he pushed it down and brought his palm light up. “Let’s take a quick look in the front. We won’t go farther in until it’s light,” he added in an effort to show Elanus he had some basic understanding of safety precautions, “but we’re already here. Might as well get a glimpse. Catie?”

“Yes, Kierrron?”

“Any large signs of life?”

“No, Kierrron, but there is a mineral component to the soilll that dampens my scannning ability.”

“Thanks for letting us know.” Kieron glanced at Elanus, but the other man was already stepping into the building. With a bit-back sigh of contrition, Kieron followed him.

The room was on the small side for an entrance, perhaps twenty by thirty feet. The walls were covered with empty cabinets, and there were two desks as well, and one abandoned chair on its side that was missing three of its four legs. A thick layer of grime coated the floor, and with every step Kieron could feel a grittiness under his shoes that scratched unpleasantly at his brain somehow. It was filthy, abandoned, and useless.

He felt more stupid than ever for suggesting they come here. Fuck, the colony headquarters would just be more of the same, more of a disgusting past filled with deranged people who had given less than a damn about him while he was a child and would hate him even more now if they could somehow see him. He’d dragged the man who loved him and their daughter here, left the other daughter at home with the refugees they were supposed to be sponsoring, done it all while he was brain damaged and ought to be listening to Elanus better than ever because look at the fucking bullshit that happened when he didn’t listen to Elanus, he ought to—

Elanus took two more steps, then fell through the floor with a choked cry. He vanished from sight a moment later.

“No!” Kieron ran over, then had to step back again as more of the floor crumbled away beneath his feet. What the hell, this space had been hollowed out. How? By who? “Elanus!” He shined his palm light down into the hole and saw Elanus lying awkwardly on his side about ten feet down, one of his lower legs bent at a bad angle.

“Well, shit,” Elanus said through gritted teeth. “That’s broken.” It went unsaid that on almost anyone else, it wouldn’t have been a bad enough fall to result in a break. Elanus, being afflicted with Elfshot Disease, was unpredictably vulnerable to injury.

“Daddeee!” Catie’s worry pulsed through their implants, so loud that it made Kieron’s vision blurry for a moment. “Daddeee!”

“I’m going to be okay, honey,” Elanus said, projecting admirable calm despite the pain he had to be in. “Catie, get the grapple out and ready to go. Kieron, go drag it in here and throw it down to me.”

“I’ll come down to you with it,” he said instead.

Elanus shook his head. “There’s no sense in both of us being stuck in this hole, you might as well—”

A shiver from Catie’s signal interrupted him. “Daddeeee, something is coming toward you…something alive! And it’s big!”

Kieron didn’t even let himself think. Sheer instinct, sharpened by paranoia, took over, and he wrenched the final leg free of the chair and dropped into the hole just in time to place himself between Elanus and a reptilian creature with a body like a crocodile, a mouth like a shark, and the flexibility of a catterpet. It arched its long back, growled gutturally, and clawed the ground.

“Holy fucking—”

“Catie, shoot the grapple in to us!” Kieron called out, brandishing the leg in the reptilian’s face. He’d surprised it, but it knew a good target when it saw one, and if it could get past him and to Elanus it would. If it got its teeth onto him and dragged him into the tunnel Kieron could make out behind it, Kieron would probably never get him back.

“I willll, I—”

The reptilian launched itself at him. Kieron couldn’t sidestep, not with Elanus right behind him. He’d have to go toe to toe. He smashed the chair leg down hard on the beast’s head, enough to rattle it, then kicked the underside of its jaw, which clacked together hard. It stepped back, shaking its head from side to side. There was a whoosh noise from above, a rattle, and—

“Sorryyyyy, I missed! I’ll tryyyy again!”

“Try quickly, honey!” Elanus called out. “Kieron, I’ll be fine, get back up there and guide the grapple down here.”

“No.”

“Kiero—watch out!”

The reptilian tried a different attack—using its long, pointed tail like a flail over its head, trying to batter Kieron out of the way with it. He dodged the attacks, not bothering to try and smash it with the chair—that would just leave an opening for the mouthy part of the reptilian, which would end this fight a hell of a lot faster. He feinted toward the head, driving the creature back, and when the tail came around again Kieron caught it in one hand and yanked, hard enough to force the reptilian onto its back.

Whoosh. Rattlerattlerattle… The grapple made it into the hole. Kieron didn’t have to look to know Elanus was attaching it to his belt. His fiancé started to rise. “Come on!”

“I have to hold it down!” Which wasn’t easy—the tail was useful, but too powerful to maintain a grip on. He’d have to let go soon, and once he did…

“Kieron, get over here!”

“You first!”

“Kieron, grab my fucking hand!”

Kieron chanced a look behind him and saw Elanus almost at the top of the hole. He let go, turned, jumped up—

And was grateful he’d pulled his legs up behind him, because the reptilian launched itself up and snapped its massive jaws together less than an inch beneath his tucked-up feet. He and Elanus were tugged over the edge of the hole, and as soon as Kieron could stand he picked Elanus up and ran back out into the rain. Catie’s hatch was open for them, and a minute later he and Elanus were slumped side by side in relative safety, cold, wet, and adrenalized as hell.

That had been way too close, and it was all Kieron’s fault. Fuck it. They were getting out of here.