Reformation: Chapter Fourteen

Notes: Back to Jonah. I've never had to work quite this hard before, but trust me when I say I'm writing some of this from memory. What can I say, backpacking in Colorado for the win!

Title: Reformation: Chapter Fourteen

***

Chapter Fourteen

Jonah couldn’t see anything.

Well. He could see in flashes, the sudden crack of lightning illuminating the terrain in front of him in flickering waves, then vanishing just as fast and leaving nothing but darkness and rain behind. The water poured off the ends of his hair and into his eyes, slipping inside the hood of his jacket like it wasn’t even there thanks to the unpredictable wind. The light at his waist was only good for a few feet, directed as it was at the ground, and he couldn’t lift it up to look ahead because he had to keep his hands on the cords binding Lacey’s stretcher to him. He didn’t dare let go. Already the wind had tried to rip it from him, the rain had loosened his grip to the point of endangering it, the ground had tilted and twisted him as he plowed across the slick, uneven rock. One misstep, and he’d drop her. If he dropped her, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to pick her up again.

“I gotcha.” He said it for himself, not for her; Lacey was unconscious, and so much better off for it. “I gotcha.” He had her, and he had a destination in mind. He just had to make it there. “I gotcha.” Was he still going the right way? Would he even recognize the bunker when he got there? If he got there? If the lightning died and the wind picked up and the clouds rolled in ever tighter, would he even see it, or would he walk right off a cliff and take Lacey with him.

“No.” He wasn’t going to do that. He had a responsibility, damn it, and he was going to see it through. What kind of person was he if he couldn’t even manage that? What kind of man?

“Nobody’s perfect, Jonah.” Garrett had said that to him once, after what Jonah couldn’t remember, something insignificant that had still gotten Jonah’s brain in an unhappy place. It hadn’t soothed Jonah as much as he’d wanted it to, because if anyone ever came close to perfect, for all his flaws and faults, it was his husband. And right now, anything less than everything would end up meaning…nothing. For him and for Lacey.

Fuck, but it was cold out here. Jonah paused and regripped the straps, taking a long breath as he waited for the next flash. It showed him an uphill slope, maybe as steep as thirty degrees and slicker than all get out, the kind of rock that crumbled beneath your feet and treacherously took you down with it. He had a couple hundred meters of that ahead of him, and just the thought of it made his legs tremble. His hands were mostly numb by now, but he forced them to hold on tighter anyway.

They weren’t that far from the ship. He could turn around, take them back to where they’d be dry, if not perfectly safe. It wasn’t too late to go back. Jonah shut his eyes against the driving rain and ducked his head, inhaling fast and deep. No. He’d started it, he had to go on. There was no way forward but one foot after the other. “Go,” he told himself. “Go. Go, damn it, go.”

Finally his legs listened. They picked up, sluggish and straining against the weight of the travois, but they moved, and everything else moved with them. Jonah forced himself up the hill, slipping and sliding, getting buried up to his knee in scree at one point, feeling the sharp rocks poke at his leg and break the skin around his ankle where his pants had ridden up. Defensive fabric was only useful where it covered you, but he couldn’t bent down and fix it, not now. Not on the hill, not when he was only halfway up. Less than that.

Jonah took a breath, and a step. Another breath, another step. He couldn’t remember working this hard in his life before, couldn’t remember being so cold and numb and in pain all at once, couldn’t remember if his back had ever spasmed like this, or if his hands had ever been so cold he lost all sense of them. He couldn’t remember anything except the feel of driving, needle-like rain, the ache in his shoulders that spoke of Lacey’s weight, the weight of the travois, sitting heavy on them. He felt the burn in his lungs and throat, and the beat of his heart echoed in every vein in his body. He felt it all, and he moved for it. It was terrible, but if it stopped, so did he, and he couldn’t let that happen.

When the ground leveled out, Jonah actually fell down onto one knee, it was so unexpected. He instantly forced himself back up, because no, no, he couldn’t stop, he couldn’t take a break, and what was that sound…

He turned back to look the way they’d come, back toward the little shuttle that had provided so much and been so inadequate in the end. It probably wasn’t even a kilometer distant at this point, he could see exactly where the shallow, flat spot they’d crashed in was, see the wire twisting where it held the ship in place, see…

No shuttle. Holy shit. Even as he watched, the wire whipped around in the wind, still attached to the port on the shuttle. It was just the rest of the shuttle that was gone, the rock beneath it scraped even flatter as it fell away into the sea. Fuck. Fuck.

“Well.” It hurt to talk now, but silence didn’t seem right in the face of what had been so close to utter disaster. “Glad we left.” Otherwise they’d be sinking right now, water pouring in from a dozen tiny faults in the hull, going deeper and deeper or just lodging on the sharp rocks below and Jonah could be drowning right now, he could be watching Lacey drown, he could be spending his last breaths screaming uselessly for his husband, his son…

It was too cold for thinking. Jonah turned away from the ruin of his former path and pressed on, across the expanse that stretched too far in front of him. One kilometer down, one more to go. He could do this. He’d recognize it, he’d seen them before: a dome, something round in the midst of sharp edges, something smooth where everything else was rough. Lighter in color, not the blue-black of the rock but the dull grey of indestructible concrete. He’d see it. He’d see it. He would.

He did. It actually took him a moment to recognize that he was looking at his salvation, it had risen out of nowhere so unexpectedly. The bunker was set a little ways back in a sheltered section of cliff, pointing right at him, it’s old-school rotary handle staring him in the face. “Shit.” He glanced back at Lacey, but her face was covered against the rain. It didn’t matter. “We’re here, darlin’.”

Setting her down was a trial, not because he didn’t want to let go but because he couldn’t, not at first. His hands were cramped into claws, wound ‘round with cloth so tight the stitching was burned into the skin of his palms. In the end he had to crouch and take the weight off to manage it, and his legs screamed at him indignantly as he did. Once she was down, he just had to open the place.

Thank science for non-rusting materials. The handle stuck a little bit, grit in its gears, but once Jonah go it going it turned smoothly, not needing more than a guiding hand to spin in place until the locking mechanism let go, and the door cracked open.

It was dark inside, and the air smelled stale. It was cold too, but it was dry, and as soon as Jonah stepped in the emergency lighting flickered on. He dragged Lacey after him, too desperate to get her inside to appreciate their surroundings yet. He shut the door, moved the shield covering her face and leaned in to make sure she was okay. For one, brief moment Jonah couldn’t tell whether or not she was still breathing, and his heart picked back up into attacking territory before he finally made out the incredibly slow rise of her chest.

“Fuck,” he groaned. “Don’t scare me like that, kiddo.” Reassured, he left her alone for a moment as he forced himself back up to standing and looked around. He could hear the hum of the generator, years’ worth of fruitless power now coming to bear. He saw the cot illuminated by the neon light, the cabinets against one wall that probably had food and water, the best of all, the little Regen unit that glowed with life. It wouldn’t fix everything, but it would keep Lacey stable. Thank fuck.

There was a little table in the middle of the floor, with a book on it. Jonah hobbled over to it and picked up the book. It wasn’t an antique—the pages were a durable blend of metamaterials that were resistant to staining, tearing and other sorts of destruction—but it was a real, genuine book. On the cover were the words The Road. On the inside cover was an inscription: Read this and tell yourself that things could be so much worse.  It was Garrett’s handwriting. Of course it was. Who else would think of stocking an Old Earth survival novel in every bunker?

Jonah laughed until he cried.

Reformation: Chapter Five

Notes: More Jonah, yay! Not exactly in the best shape, but he's here. I'll be posting a little later about my upcoming trip to Cambodia and what it means for Reformation, so stay tuned, darlins.

Title: Reformation: Chapter Five

***

Chapter Five

Jonah woke to the steady splat of liquid against metal as it fell down from up high. He would have groaned, but his vocal chords felt too thick and raw. His eyes were swollen, and his nose was stuffed up in a way that could only mean blood, because he never got sick. He forced his eyelids open and looked around.

Looked down, rather, at the ceiling. 

Well, shit. Of all the outcomes he’d predicted, flipping his ship upside down wasn’t on the list. He’d have to check and make sure the engine coolant wasn’t leaking into the maintenance compartment when he and—

“Lacey!” Memory hit him like another blow to the head. Jonah twisted to the side to get a look at her. “Lacey?” She hung limp in her harness, unresponsive. Still just knocked out, Jonah hoped. If he was only waking up now, then it made sense a natural would be a little longer at it. He couldn’t see any blood, so there was that. 

Not that he could really tell the color of anything under the glare of the blinking yellow emergency lights. He needed to get her down and see if he could still fire up the ship’s medical system. The medbot wouldn’t be able to inject her with Regen, but it could still diagnose and treat simple things.

Okay, then. Jonah had to get himself loose before he could take care of Lacey. He let his head dangle and fumbled for the release catch that would open his harness. His fingers were slick and heavy, and his right wrist hurt bad enough that he switched hands after a moment, reaching cross-body to undo the catch. Almost…almost…

The webbing kept him from falling flat on his face, thankfully. Jonah got his feet under him, testing his balance on the slight curve of the ceiling before he pulled his arms free. The control panel in front of him was almost entirely inert, black except for the transmitter light. SOS. Jonah wondered whether or not it was a good idea to keep that going, all things considered. They’d been shot down by hostile forces, and the emergency system would lead anyone right out here. On the other hand, pirates wouldn’t be interested in hunting down one lone ship, while friendly forces out of the Box would. Better to leave it on.

Jonah stumbled the little distance to Lacey’s chair, needing his arms for support just to stay on his feet. He brushed her long, pale hair back and cupped her face in his hands. His fingers left glistening smudges. “Lacey? Honey, you with me?” No response. He needed to get her down.

Undoing her harness was easier than working on his own; catching her was another thing entirely. Lacey was a slim girl, but she was tall and Jonah was far from his best form. He managed to keep her off the ground, barely. It send a shooting pain through his ribcage, but Jonah gritted his teeth and ignored it as he half carried, half dragged Lacey down the hall to the medbot.

The medbot, like the engine failsafes keeping their fuel from irradiating the ship, had its own emergency generator. The bot wasn’t immersive, but Jonah could make do with the handheld diagnostic tool. He set Lacey down, primed the bot for emergency measures, then picked up the wand and touched it lightly to Lacey’s head.

“Diagnosis: concussion, moderate. Fractured ribs: 6, 7, 9, left side. Internal abdominal hemorrhaging: ruptured gall bladder.”

Fuck, that didn’t sound good. “Treatment options?”

“Limited. Remand patient to the nearest medical facility immediately.”

“No can do, I need treatment options for here.”

“Regenerative—”

Jonah slapped the side of the wall, then immediately regretted it when his wrist throbbed painfully. “No, dammit, I need treatment for a natural! You know how to do this, you goddamn machine―you’ve been treating Cody for years, now figure it out!”

The medbot blinked contemplatively for a moment. “Recommended: painkiller injection, localized anti-inflammatory, stabilizing gel for fractures.”

“Confirmed. Get on with it, then.” The process of actually getting the recommended treatment into Lacey, usually a minor symphony of lights and tiny pinpricks from the medbot, came down to Jonah grabbing the things it indicated out of the cabinet behind it and injecting them himself. He thanked his stars that Lacey was still unconscious through his fumbling.

By the time he was done, she seemed to be resting a little easier, at least. Jonah slumped down onto his hands and knees beside her, turning laboriously into a sitting position and just breathing for a second. He could feel his own ribs giving him problems, and his head ached fiercely. Half-heartedly, he touched the wand to himself.

“Diagnosis: Concussion, moderate. Fractured ribs: 4, 5. Broken nose. Internal bruising. Sprain to right wrist extensors. Recommendation: Regen.”

“Of course,” he muttered. “Of fucking course.” One little shot and he’d be spruced right up, while Lacey had to deal with goddamn ruptured organs and all she got was a painkiller. Part of Jonah wanted to refuse treatment, whether out of a bizarre sense of solidarity or guilt. Personally, he suspected guilt.

You can’t help her if you don’t help yourself. When had his inner voice started sounding like Garrett? Get the damn shot, feel guilt later. Or better yet, never.

The medbot had helpfully lit up the syringe with the Regen in it. Jonah took it and shot himself in the thigh. Less than a minute later, the double-vision he hadn’t even realized he’d had disappeared, he started to breathe easier as the muscles around his fractured ribs relaxed, and his headache vanished. Even his nose cleared up some, which—dumbass, he must have hit himself in the face with his own hand to break it.

“The wonders of modern—whoa.” Whoa, because the ship had just moved. It had moved. What the hell? Jonah took his jacket off, stained as it was, and laid it over Lacey, then headed for the back door. There was a porthole there, an old-fashioned one that usually just looked out on the blackness of space. Right now, though, it looked out on a wall of water lashing the ship. Jonah didn’t know exactly where they were or how they were oriented, other than upside down, but clearly the storm had caught up to them. The top of the ship wasn’t nearly as firm a landing place as the other side was, and whether it was rain or actual waves, the fierceness of the storm was moving them around. Too much movement and they might be swept away.

The ship had stabilizing, magnetic tie-downs that could be used in bad weather, but they all presumed that the ship was upright when they were deployed, so they’d be useless. Or…

“Oh, please still be on board.” Jonah headed for the storage compartment. The magnetic tie-downs were a newer innovation for the ship, retrofit into the old casings. The old version had been rather crude, by Central System standards, but a good solution for landing in adverse areas and conditions. The expanding harpoon heads had worked in rock, in dirt, even to a degree in sand. They were disruptive and environmentally unsound, but right now that was exactly what Jonah needed.

“C’mon, come on.” Spare parts for the engine, spare parts for the shielding, a box full of—oh, hey, good thing he found those before Cody got curious one day, because Jonah didn’t want to explain the use of analogue sex toys to his kid. Ten had probably told him all about them anyway. Harpoon, harp—there. There was…

One. One harpoon. Not even two, to distribute the load. No, he got one fucking harpoon.

Better than none. Jonah headed for the casing at the back, the one that had the shallowest angle to overcome. If he could get the harpoon into that one, he could swivel it so that it landed just a few meters away. The manual controls responded sluggishly to his handling, but the housings for the harpoon and the mag locks were a perfect match, and it didn’t take long to refit.

He’d have to divert a lot of power from one of the generators to get the juice for a good stick, though, and engine containment wasn’t an option as long as they were trapped inside the ship.

So. Emergency beacon or medbot.

“Fuck.”

 He had no idea how long they’d be stuck out here. The beacon could bring either good to the rescue, or bad down on them so hard they never even saw it coming. The medbot was basic, at its core, but provided help that Jonah couldn’t even begin to guess about. Then again, it had already recommended a hospital for Lacey. How much better could it do?

In the end, Jonah had the bot identify all the injections he’d need for Lacey, just in case it lost power completely. The ship was wiggling on the rock now, back and forth, helpless to the power of the hurricane. Whether they were on the verge of going over a cliff or not, he didn’t know, but he didn’t want to find out the hard way.

The power reroute was easy. Aiming the harpoon into the darkness and hoping for a stick was harder, but Jonah just took a deep breath, pointed it down, and fired.

The light on the top of the casing glowed green. It was sunk.

The light illuminating the medbot, and Lacey, went dark.

Reformation: Chapter Two

Notes: Some Jonah POV for you. Omigosh, don't hurt me.

Title: Reformation: Chapter Two

 

***

Chapter Two

 

Photo from http://bgh.ogqcorp.com/share/h/D53D3

Jonah winced as he heard his ship’s thrusters whine indignantly and wondered, for not the first time, why he was doing this. “Ease up on the throttle, Lacey. You’re gonna rattle us right apart at this rate.”

Lacey scowled from where she sat in the copilot’s seat. It wasn’t all that different from her expression when they’d lifted off an hour ago, honestly. “It’s this storm, it keeps screwing with me. I thought this thing had stabilizers?”

“It does, but you have to practice things the hard way too,” he reminded her. “You’ll be tested on whether or not you can fly one of these ships without stabilizers to help you. Eventually I’ll shut off one of the engines too—” he shut his eyes briefly as the ship jumped and almost spun out on an updraft for the tenth time in two minutes, “—but not today,” he finished. “C’mon, you’re better with this class of ship than you think. Just handle the controls like you did in the simulation.”

“But this isn’t a simulation!”

“No, which is why you’ve got to—proximity alert, Lacey, we’re getting too close to the heart of the storm.” The ship was built to withstand lightning strikes, but the manufacturers hadn’t imagined how bad storms could be on Pandora. “Get us some altitude.” She grunted and leaned into the throttle. It wasn’t easy, but the ship gradually veered away from the hurricane that was whipping across the edge of the ocean as she set them on a higher course a bit closer to land. “Now can I use the stabilizers?” she asked around gritted teeth.

Jonah checked their position. “Turn the autopilot on.”

“I don’t need the autopilot!”

“You need a break, honey. Turn the autopilot on for a minute, okay?”

“Fine.” Lacey pracically slammed the lever into auto mode. Instantly the ship’s course steadied. Jonah set them to flying in easy circles, then turned toward his son’s childhood best friend.

“What’s going on here, Lace?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She didn’t meet his eyes, though, staring sullenly out at the lashing rain that beat across the viewscreen. It didn’t obscure the holographic projection of their course, but it sure made things dark in the cockpit.

“I’m talking about you jerking around on those controls like you’re trying to hold onto a catterpet’s tail. You’ve flown one of these before, Lacey, and I’m right here with you. You don’t have to be nervous.”

“I’m not nervous.”

“Then what are you?” No response. Jonah suddenly felt tired. “Fine. You want to keep it to yourself, that’s your right, but I’m not going to let you take your mood out on my ship. We’re heading back to the Box.”

That got her attention. “No! I don’t want to go back yet!”

“Well, I’m not going to let you fly when you can’t focus, and it’s my ship.”

“I’ll do better, I promise.”

Jonah sighed. “Lacey…”

“My dad is leaving today, all right?” She blurted it out like it had been suffocating her. “He took a contract to fly for one of the syndicates. He’s going to command staff aboard a cruise liner in the Central System.”

Jonah was dumbfounded. “What about Ellie and the other kids?”

Lacey’s eyes went flinty. “He’s taking them with him, of course. Why not? They’re his normal family. He doesn’t have to worry about them having an asthma attack or getting the Ceylan Flu. I asked if I could go with him, but he said I was an adult now and I needed to learn to make my own way in the ‘verse.” Her hands clenched into fists. “That’s why I have to learn to pilot one of these. How else will I ever get off of Pandora?” She looked away, but not before Jonah saw her eyes fill with tears.

“Nothing ever happens here! Cody gets to do everything, he gets to go to the Academy and visit Perelan and his whole life is so exciting, and I’m stuck here doing nothing except being given shots!”

“Y’know, not all of that excitement was good for Cody,” Jonah pointed out. Lacey waved his cautions away with the blithe dismissal of an immortal teenager.

“Yeah, but he got through it all fine. And Krystal left six months ago, and Jo’ El is going to work as a miner. A miner! He got a job on a mining ship, even though he’s a natural! Why can’t I do that? I want to go somewhere. I want to do something with myself. And I’m going to do it without my fucking father’s help.”

“Lacey.” Jonah set a hand on her shoulder. “You know he loves you. I’m sure he just wants the best for you.”

Her face crumpled. “No he doesn’t.” Before he could react, she’d unbuckled her harness and flung herself into his lap, pressing her face to his shoulder.

Jonah sighed and patted her back. “Aw, honey.”

“I knew he’d never take me with him.” Her words were muffled, but he could make them out. “He brought me here just to leave me, he only waited until I was old enough to be on my own and now he’s going back to his life in the Central System. He doesn’t care, and I don’t want to be here anymore!”

“Well…” Hell, Garrett was going to kill him for this. “You could always come back with me.”

Lacey’s shuddering breaths suddenly froze. “Re-really?”

“Sure. If you get your pilot’s certification, that is. You could help me run supplies between here and Olympus. Garrett can walk you through getting the permits for it.”

Lacey pulled back and looked at him. “Are you sure it’s okay?”

“Not completely,” Jonah said. He had to be honest. “But we can talk to Garrett about it when we get back. I’m supposed to comm him in an hour.”

“We should go back now!”

“Nah, we’ve still got some—” The proximity alert suddenly shattered the relative silence, screaming at full volume. Lacey jumped back and Jonah reached for the controls, checking the computer. “What the hell?” The ship rocked as something blasted past it. Lightning? But they were well away from the center of the storm. “Buckle in!” he shouted at her as he took over flying. “Computer, identify projectile!” Maybe something had gotten swept up in the hurricane, maybe it was a really large chunk of ice—

“Classification: energy projectile.”

“Like lightning?” Lacey asked as she strapped herself back into her seat, face pale.

Jonah shook his head grimly. The computer knew how to differentiate between natural and man-made strikes. “No, that was a plasma weapon. Somethin’s shooting at us.”

“Shooting at us?”

The proximity alert picked up again. Jonah made a split-second decision and hauled back on the thrusters while cutting power down to the engines by ninety percent. The ship rolled onto its end, torpedoing down toward the roiling ocean beneath them faster than the g-shield could adjust for. The next burst of plasma fire missed as well, but Jonah couldn’t count on the storm to keep helping them and hindering whoever was attacking them. They needed to get back to the Box.

He thumbed the communicator on. “This is Helms, calling Box Station. Station, do you copy?” Nothing but static. “Station, do you copy?”

“Why won’t they answer?”

“It might be the storm,” Jonah said. He didn’t articulate what else it might be. If something was firing on them in the middle of a fucking hurricane, then it was likely that Pandora City was under attack.

“What if it isn’t?”

“Lacey—shit!” Jonah ripped the ship to the right, not quite far enough to avoid the next blast. It grazed the belly of the ship, and the sudden blare of security alarms almost drowned out the wailing proximity alert. Jonah grimly checked the controls. Well, there went their landing gear. “I’ve gotta put us down.” He could see the edge of the cliffs that protected the colony from the worst of the weather.

“Put us down where?” she demanded. “There’s no protection out here from the storms! We’ll be swept off the rocks into the ocean as soon as the hurricane hits the coast.”

“Either we take our chances on land or we get blown to pieces in the air!” Jonah diverted the power to all non-critical functions and boosted the excess to the thrusters. This was going to be hell on the engines.

He increased their speed by seventy-five percent, losing most of their maneuverability in the process. The cliffs were coming up fast, but the proximity alert was starting to pick up speed again. Their angle of potential descent was so narrow… a lot depended on whether or not the bottm of the ship would be able to handle the impact. The thrusters could help there, but only as long as Jonah didn’t blow them out during their mad dash toward the lesser evil. Three kilometers. Two. One…

A flare of energy crackled across the viewscreen, killing the computer. The ship wavered, but managed to maintain its altitude. Only now, Jonah couldn’t actually see any of the projections that had filled his vision a moment ago. The last plasma strike had taken out all the automatic functions.

“God motherfucking damn it all to deep space hell,” he muttered. “Okay. Brace yourself, Lacey, this is gonna be rough.”

She was staring blank-faced at the dark screen. “I can’t see the ground.”

“I remember where it is, we’ll be fine.”

“I can’t see the ground!”

“Well, you’re gonna be feeling it any second, so get ready for—”

The impact snapped Jonah into his harness so hard he felt two ribs break. Blood filled his eyes, gushed from his nose. White light turned to red, which quickly faded to black.

Jonah passed out before the ship finished rolling.