Chelen City: Chapter Twenty-One, Part One

 Notes: Sweet resolution...kind of. The start of it. Breathe, my darlins, it's all right.

Title: Chelen City: Chapter Twenty-One, Part One

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Chapter Twenty-One, Part One

 

It could be worse. That was what Elanus kept telling himself as he laid Kieron down on the floor and immediately hooked him up to Lizzie’s autodoc. It started flashing all sorts of warning lights and spouting prescriptions and actions, all of which Elanus immediately approved.

It could be worse, he thought as he watched Regen flow down tubes into Kieron’s body, where the doc had quickly placed needles to ready him for emergency treatment. It could be worse, he thought as pure oxygen laced with a sedative to keep him asleep began pumping through the mask over Kieron’s face. Intubation would be even better, but the doc wasn’t advanced enough for that and Elanus didn’t want to try it when the risk of hurting Kieron was so high. They were close to real medical facilities—as long as Kieron could still breathe, he’d be all right for now.

It could be worse. Elanus knew that because he’d seen Kieron worse, seen him after radiation had all but liquified him, seen him with sloughing skin and a swollen brain and with massive organ failure that could barely be counteracted in time. This? By comparison, this was imminently survivable. Already some of his vitals were stabilizing, although the autodoc was still giving dire warnings. “Immediate advanced treatment required. Do not delay. Immediate advanced treatment required. Do not delay. Immediate—”

“Shut that off, Lizzie,” Elanus snapped, and she did so.

“Is Kee going to be okay?” she asked quietly into the ringing silence, only broken by the sound of Kieron’s lungs slowly sucking in the relentless oxygen.

“Yeah, honey, but we have to get back to Chelen City right now. You can fly us there, right?” Because Elanus wasn’t going to leave Kieron’s side. He might be unconscious now, but who knew what this idiot might get up to if Elanus wasn’t here to stop him? Blowing up the side of the Stellar Cabinet and hurtling himself into space, what the hell was he thinking?

He wasn’t thinking!

“What about the other person, Elanus?”

“What other person?” he asked distractedly as he adjusted the Regen lines so that they didn’t pull so much at Kieron’s limbs. A little red-tinged pool of the stuff was already gathering on the floor, but Elanus didn’t care about that. There was no such thing as waste when it came to keeping Kieron alive. Stars, his poor face…

“The one in the EV suit.”

Elanus’s head whipped around so hard his neck hurt. “What?”

“Numerous people were ejected into space during the implosion, but the only other one who survived is wearing an EV suit. They’re currently moving away from the station at a speed of two hundred and twenty-six kilometers per—”

“I get it, I get it.” Shit. If this was one of the assassins, they could keep sailing into nowhere as far as Elanus was concerned, but if it was Restaria… “Do you have a visual?”

“Yes, Elanus.” Lizzie projected an image of the person on her front screen. They were hurtling end over end, their EV suit trailing a thin line of gas—they wouldn’t be alive for long. “Zoom in.” Lizzie did so. “Focus and find a still of their face.” She complied once more, and—

Yep, that was Restaria. Xe appeared to be unconscious, which was probably a blessing for xir. It made Elanus want to grab xir and shake xir until xe woke up and told him exactly why the fuck this had happened, and what xe wanted him to do about it, because that much was clear. Kieron was nothing but a lure to xir, a magnificent lure with just the right skillset to buy xir some time.

Never mind. Let xir rot in space.

“Kieron?” Lizzie sounded tentative. “Should I go and get them? Only, their life signs are starting to decrease…”

Damn it to the stars and back. “Fine,” Elanus gritted out after a second. “Use the hook to reel xir in and pull xir into the cargo bay. Pressurize it so that xe can breathe and keep monitoring xir life signs, but unless Restaria is on the brink of death, I don’t want to so much as look at xir until Kieron is taken care of.”

Lizzie didn’t say anything else, just gave a satisfied hum and started away from the Stellar Cabinet. Elanus stared at the ruin in the side of Restaria’s quarters as they began to turn, shards and debris flickering past them, and contemplated how it would feel to get rid of the entire damn thing.

Wow. Contemplating an act that would undoubtedly lead to civil war wasn’t exactly what he thought he’d find himself doing today, but some days were like that. Elanus turned away from those thoughts; that was for later. For now, all he wanted to do was take care of Kieron.

“You’re terrible,” he whispered, holding onto Kieron’s one relatively-good hand with both of his. “The worst fiancé ever, I can’t believe I want to marry you so bad. Are you going to do this every year? Find some new way to vaporize yourself? Because I have to tell you, babe, I don’t know if my heart is going to be able to take that. Let’s make this the last time, okay?” He heard Lizzie’s hook deploy, was vaguely aware of the process of bringing Restaria into the ship, and nodded to acknowledge Lizzie’s confirmation that xir life signs were stabilizing.

Good. Good for xir. Restaria was going to need to be stable in order to withstand the firestorm that Elanus was about to rain down on xir.

“We’ll be home soon, Kee,” Lizzie said, her voice a croon. It made the floor rumble comfortingly, a gentle vibration to let her really feel her father’s weight. “Don’t worry. We’ll take care of you.”

“Are you okay, Lizzie?” Elanus asked, still not looking away from Kieron.

“I am now.”

Yeah. Me too.