Reformation: Chapter Thirty-Five

Notes: So, quite a bit of resolution here, but there is a graphic description of non-con and murder in the first section. No actual rape, but the insinuation that a person has done it before and wants to again. Please approach accordingly.

Title: Reformation: Chapter Thirty-Five

***

Chapter Thirty-Five

“Shit,” Agnieszka snarled against the rocky ground. “God damn fucking—” She lapsed into a language that Jonah didn’t understand but that he assumed was a continuation of her long string of swear words. “—pirates had to follow me down here too?” She bucked her hips. “Get off me, I’m going to kill him!”

“With what?” Jonah hissed, doing his best to hold her steady and keep her from damaging her shoulder any further. “With the gun you don’t have? With a bunch of angry words? ‘Cause that’s not gonna cut it, kid.” He could hear the man circling, drawing slowly closer, and he scooted them more to the side, tighter against the ruined pod.

“I’m a Federation officer, I’m in control of this situation, and I demand you let go of me!”

“I’m not in your chain of command, darlin’, and thank goodness because if I was I’d have to be real disobedient right now.”

“Let go of me!” she snapped. “Let go of me! Let…let go of…” As quickly as it had flared up, her anger fell away, leaving her shivering against him. “I have to fight,” she whispered. “I have to, I can’t go down like that again, I can’t.”

“It’s okay,” Jonah murmured. “It’s gonna be okay, just—”

“Tell you what,” the pirate called out. “If you just give me the girl, no fuss, I’ll consider letting you leave. She and I can find a way to fill a few hours before I get tired of her.” Agnieszka stiffened, but didn’t speak. “Not exactly a romantic locale, but then I’ve never been much for romance,” the man continued. Jonah knew he was only talking in order to distract them from the fact that he was getting closer, ever closer, but it was a hell of a distraction.

“Me, I like ‘em feisty and bound. That little look of hate a woman gives you when you’ve got her trussed up so tight there’s no escape…mmm, I love it. I love watching hate turn to fear. I love the sounds she makes when I use her and she can’t do nothing about it, and then when I’m done and I get ready to cut her throat…oh, there’s nothing sweeter. Most times she starts to cry, although some girls stay tough to the end.” He chuckled. “What do you think this one’s gonna do, huh?”

There was nothing left but to be reckless. Stupid and reckless and hopefully lucky. It was dark out, and Jonah had his flashlight. It wouldn’t be a permanent distraction, but if he could temporarily blind the man then he could close the distance and…and…and do something to the guy. He wasn’t the fighter Robbie was, of course, nowhere near, and he couldn’t even hold a candle to his husband, but he’d had some training alongside Cody as a matter of course after marrying Garrett. He could…

There was no more time for consideration. The pirate was too close, still burbling away about all the awful things he’d do to Agnieszka, how he’d have her sideways and upside down and everything in-between. Jonah took a deep breath, then turned his light on full power and rolled over onto his back, away from the dubious safety of the pod’s carcass and into the line of fire. A bullet hit the ground next to his head, but after another moment he had the beam of light focused firmly on the other man’s face. The pirate swore and ducked, and Jonah scrambled to his feet and threw himself at him.

The first thing he lost was the light, knocked out of his hand by a lucky kick. Jonah wrapped his arms around the guy’s legs and drove him to the ground, but the pirate was already reorienting on him, raining blows down toward his head while swearing up a storm. Fuck, what was he supposed to do once he got him down? He had to—okay, getting the fucker to stop hitting him was high up on the list. Jonah let go of his legs and climbed his opponent’s body, digging his elbows in every chance he got and biting down hard when a particularly persistent hand wouldn’t stop clawing at his face. He was bleeding—he could feel it, odd heat against the rest of his chilly face—but he didn’t stop, he couldn’t stop. He got on top and threw his own punches, some of them hitting, some of them going awry—fuck, he couldn’t see anything in this gloom and his light was gone, he had to—

Their positions were reversed in an instant, Jonah thrown over onto his back and straddled by the furious pirate. A fist impacted his cheek, stunning him, before the man’s other hand closed hard over his throat. The pirate bent close. “Dumb son of a bitch, you coulda walked away. Now I’m gonna rape you before I rape her, tie her up and make her watch me split you in half and then have her in a pool of your own bloo—”

Whatever else he was going to threaten was lost as a glowing wand suddenly struck the pirate in the back of the head, driving him over Jonah’s body and knocking his weight away. Jonah watched blearily for a moment before he realized that the wand was actually a light, his heavy, industrial flashlight, and the person wielding it was screaming with fury. Agnieszka followed the dazed pirate to the ground and hit him in the head over and over again with the butt of the flashlight, until his swearing turned to groans, then gasps, and finally nothing at all. Jonah finally pulled himself together enough to reach out to her, lay a hand on her arm, now covered in gore.

“Hey,” he said hoarsely. “Lieutenant, it’s okay. You can stop now, he’s dead. He’s dead, Agnieszka, he can’t hurt either of us now.”

“He deserves it!”

“I know.” Her arm trembled in Jonah’s loose grip, but had stopped striking.

“He would have done all of that to us, he would have done worse! You didn’t see them up there, the way they fought. They targeted pods, people trying to get away from the battle. I know these bastards, they killed—my friends, so many of my friends, they’re dead—I can’t—”

“You’re alive,” Jonah said gently. “We both are. We should try to stay that way, huh? Let’s leave him here.”

Agnieszka looked at him, her eyes huge and bright in the flashlight’s wavering beam. “Where will we go?”

Jonah smiled, distantly noting how much the motion hurt his mouth. Split lip for sure. “I’ve got a safe place.”

***

Berengaria had never been brilliant, like so many members of her family. She hadn’t inherited her father’s magnificent spark of charisma or turned out with her brother’s patient, insightful ability at manipulation. For so much of her life, she had simply been, had existed and been maneuvered like the pawn she was. Her earliest dreams of a life of ease and beauty had been dashed with the murder of her father, and as her own opportunities had quickly become circumscribed, she had withdrawn deeply into her shell. She’d created a false beauty around herself, a fake paradise that was as ephemeral and dream-like as her thoughts of independence, of fighting back. She’d tried, here and there, but most of her efforts had been blocked by her brother before they’d even manifested in the slightest bit of change.

Brilliance, she’d decided a few years ago, was overrated. She was never going to be a genius, but some of the greatest creations in the universe were the result of persistence, not inspired flights of fancy. So Berengaria packed away her hopes and dreams and settled into the banality of layering her actions so deeply that it would take her own brother weeks to sift through them all. Boring, dull, basic as could be—therein lay her camouflage. And at the very center of it, she employed a very simple trick.

It had taken a long time, and some help from Garrett and others, but at long last, Berengaria had laid out her own web. A combination of biological, mechanical and combination trackers, most of them so small they could barely be detected from her space-side prison, had been placed on each of her brother’s personal transports. The military ones were swept too frequently for bugs to stick, but Raymond was more arrogant about his personal conveyances. It had taken some of her bugs months to crawl their way into his life, but they were there now. She knew when they moved, and had metrics on how often, and where, and whether or not he was on board. That was the reason the biological ones were so important—they carried a little bit of her DNA, and pinged a match to Raymond when he was in range.

And now he was moving. Fleeing. And he was on the right side of the planet for Berengaria to do something about it. Perfect.

She wasn’t the smartest member of her family, and she wasn’t the most persistent either. But, she thought to herself as she started removing the failsafes on her little island’s directional controls, she might very well be the best at vengeance. Because if she only had one chance at taking out her brother, she wasn’t going to fuck it up.

See if he could dodge her entire space station when she dropped it on him before he finished clearing Olympus’s atmosphere.

Reformation: Chapter Thirty-Two

Notes: Back to Jonah, because he needs some love. I don't give him the love he needs, poor thing, but them's the breaks. Enjoy!

Title: Reformation: Chapter Thirty-Two

***

Chapter Thirty-Two

It felt odd, to be watching a battle from so far away. The scope Jonah’d pulled out from a cabinet wasn’t great—it could get through the atmospheric pollution but the ships were still too far away to get a real bead on. All he could make out clearly was the light, light streaming through space from one cluster of ships to another. A light in the dark, each bright beam carrying death and destruction with it.

“What the hell is happening?” he muttered to himself. That Pandora was under attack, well—he already knew that, having been a casualty. But who specifically was doing the attacking? And who were they fighting? It had to be Federation forces of some kind, there was no other fleet out there to bring this kind of firepower. That meant politics had gotten involved, which meant Garrett’s hand was in this somehow. Probably propelling the fleet forward, honestly, given how the president felt about the colonies these days, especially ones under the aegis of whomever he considered his “rivals.”

But Garrett had mustered a fleet and sent out. Of course he had. Jonah smiled for a second before pushing the thought of his husband away. Garrett had to be fucking frantic, and just thinking about it would be enough to push Jonah over the edge if he wasn’t careful. He couldn’t dwell on what was going on in his husband’s mind, and he couldn’t bear to think about Cody or, worse, Lacey, so he stared at the sky and let the distant violence quietly fill his mind. It was almost meditative, in a horrible way. So much so that he barely noticed one of those bursts of light getting bigger. Definitely brighter. So bright that—

Jonah pulled the scope away from his eye and watched, transfixed, as what looked like an escape pod hurtled through the atmosphere, limned in fire. The farther it descended, the brighter the fire became, until all of a sudden some sort of threshold was passed, and the blaze went out in less than a second. Jonah tried to track the pod then, but it was too dark out, and he lost it to the building clouds in moments. He didn’t have time to wonder about its fate, though; seconds later another pod began glowing in the sky, then another, until the stars themselves were overshadowed by the glory of a hundred human meteors hurtling through the darkness, each one lighting its own way.

They covered the sky from horizon to horizon, it seemed, spread out so far that he had no hope of keeping track of them all. A few seemed on track to come down fairly close to him, though. Those ones he managed to follow in the darkness, watching but more hearing the moment their chutes opened, the ancient method of slowing their speed boosted by anti-grav units. Two of them drifted down into the water, and Jonah pursed his lips and prayed that whoever was in those pods had the sense to keep the anti-grav going as long as they could, to help keep the pods on the surface of the angry sea. The water was tough to navigate with a fully-functional ship, it would be hell on those awkward, egg-shaped pods.

A gentle movement caught his attention, and Jonah turned to watch one of those pods float down no more than a kilometer away from him, hitting the ground with a crunch he could hear even though the landing had been relatively calm. He shuffled around to his knees and bit his lip. He could go and investigate it. He probably should; it would be good to gather some intelligence, and maybe whoever was in the pod could tell him something about what was happening up there. On the other hand, it was entirely possible that whoever was in that pod was an enemy fighter. If Jonah went to spy on them and got caught, or followed back to the bunker, then he’d be giving them Lacey. That was the last thing he wanted.

In the end his curiosity won; he had to know more. He could be quiet, bring the scope and watch from a distance until he was sure it was a friend instead of an enemy. If it was a friend, he could offer his own aid, poor as it was. And if it was an enemy, well…he could avoid them. Come back to the bunker and lock himself in, and hope they didn’t look around too hard.

Yeah. That sounded like a great plan.

Wonderful, now he was hearing Garrett in his head. He must be goin’ crazy. “You don’t get a say when you’re not here, darlin’,” he whispered before getting to his feet. He was going to check it out. He’d be careful.

A kilometer in the dark was hard going, even though it was a lot easier without the rain making every step a peril. Jonah used his light as little as possible, moving slow and mostly stopping himself from stumbling. He pulled himself over sharp-edged knolls and finally hunkered down in a crevice about a hundred yards out, reconfiguring the scope for the close distance and lifting it to his eyes.

The pod’s paint was charred from its entry, making identifying it by its markings impossible. The hatch was open but he couldn’t see anyone moving around, no evidence that anyone had emerged from it yet. Disoriented? Injured? He couldn’t know without moving closer, and he wasn’t going to do that until he had a better idea of what was happening here. Despite the way it tugged at his impatience, Jonah settled in and waited for whoever was in the pod to reveal himself.

In the end, it ended up being herself. A young woman eventually emerged from the hatch, moving slowly and groaning loud enough for him to hear over the wind. She was moving like a hundred-year-old natural; right, she’d probably been banged up good inside that little thing, even if she’d strapped in. He watched her rub her left shoulder with her right hand, wincing before letting it go, then touch her ear, as though she was speaking into a comm. A military comm unit, in fact. And even in the dark, Jonah could see the insignia on her shoulder. This girl was Federation. A lieutenant, it looked like; a young one.

He moved before he’d made a conscious decision, stepping out of the rocks and onto the small shelf where the pod had lodged. The girl looked his way instantly, tension filling her frame. “Who’s there?” she shouted. “Who are you?”

“I’m a friendly,” he replied. “Resident of the Box.”

She didn’t relax. “What are you doing out here, then?”

Jonah sighed. “My ship was shot down a while back. I’ve been out here since long before you fight began.”

“What’s your name?”

“Jonah Helms.”

She went still for a moment, before a little of the wariness bled out of her posture. “Cody Helms’ father?”

“Yes!” Oh shit, had Cody been on that ship? Was he out here in a pod somewhere, bobbing like a cut flower on the water? “Was he with you?”

She shook her head. “No, but his quadmate was my shadow for a while. Cadet Parrish.”

Darrel. If Darrel had been on board, then Grennson surely was as well. “Is he all right?”

“Last I knew.” She finally relaxed, and Jonah made his way over to her side, making sure she could see his hands the whole time. “The ship was being evacuated. Darren was one of the last to leave the bridge, I think he stayed there to make sure the General came with him.”

General? What was a general doing being in command of a ship? “You mean admiral?”

“No. General Caractacus was charged with leading the fleet here from Olympus. He’s…” Gradually it dawned on the lieutenant that this news might be more than a little revelatory for Jonah, and her voice trailed off. “Oh.”

“Oh.” Miles was commanding the fleet? That made no sense, unless, again, politics had come into play. Miles was retired; it was a big deal for him to be reinstated, and Garrett would have fought it every step of the way. Holy hell. His husband had to be going out of his mind.

“I’m Lieutenant Agnieszka Reyes,” she offered by way of distraction. “It’s…nice to meet you, but...not really like this, you know?”

“I do.” Jonah replied on autopilot, his mind working at lightspeed. He had to make sure. “You’re sure my son wasn’t on your ship?”

“He wasn’t assigned to the fleet, from what I know. It’s possible that—” Whatever she was going to say next was cut off with the pain of her gasp, and the sudden burst of darkness on her arm that could only be blood.

Jonah moved without thinking, tackling Reyes to the ground and hauling both of them behind the pod as more gunfire broke the peace of the night. Actual gunfire, with—hell, were those bullets? Who in the universe still used actual bullets?

“Come out, come out, poor little Olympians!” A shot rang off the top of the pod. “Come out and I’ll make it quick, I promise.”

Well, fuck.

Turned out that space pirates had escape pods too.

Reformation: Chapter Twenty-Seven

Notes: I now it isn't long, but it's some of your favorite people! Jonah! Cody! Ten! Not all together quite yet, but still, we're getting there. Enjoy ;)

Title: Reformation: Chapter Twenty-Seven

***

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Jonah knew it was dangerous, but he had to get out of the bunker. He couldn’t stay and listen to one more rasping breath from Lacey, couldn’t listen to the Regen unit fight her body’s failure for another second. She’d been unconscious ever since the crash—two weeks, God, had it really been two weeks? It was incredible that she was still alive, but that wasn’t going to last much longer. Her organs were starting to shut down, and no amount of Regen was going to start them up again. She needed direct intervention, maybe even organ replacements, but until they got back to the Box…if they ever got back to the box…

Two weeks of failure. Two weeks of careful, delicate forays out from the bunker, so cautious after almost getting found. They weren’t far from the city, Jonah knew they weren’t, but the few miles might have been a mountain range for all his likelihood of making it through, while towing Lacey, and not getting shot down on the trip. The bombardment of Pandora City seemed to have diminished, at least, but there were still ships patrolling all around it, searching for breaks in the shield, for suspicious heat signatures, for new ways in.

There were no ships out tonight, though. Jonah lay on his back and looked up at the sky, beautifully clear after the last storm had blown over yesterday. The stars were sparse out here on the Fringe, none of the glittery nights he remembered from his brief stay on Olympus, but he could name every one of them. It had been a thing for Cody for a while when he was a child, learning all of the star names and then promptly making up his own, along with brand new constellations. Jonah raised a hand and traced a line between two faint white stars, looping it down to a third, reddish one near the horizon. The Fishhook, Cody had dubbed it. “But not a real one, Daddy, because it’s not nice to the fish,” he’d added seriously after telling Jonah its name.

“Good call,” Jonah had said. “I’m sure the fish will appreciate that.”

God, he missed his kid. He missed him like he missed home, but he was so grateful that Cody wasn’t here. Jonah was already failing one child. If he’d failed his own as well, he didn’t think he’d be able to live with himself. Garrett would probably have some strong words for him about that…but then, Garrett probably would have found a way out of this situation a week ago. It was only thanks to Garrett thinking ahead and stocking these damn bunkers that Jonah and Lacey were still going. Everything in there was a little reminder of his husband, and the only comfort that Jonah was likely to get at this point.

He wasn’t going to run out of food any time soon. He had the generator, he had shelter, he even had Regen for himself if he got injured again. None of that would be any good to him if Lacey didn’t make it, though, and at this point…well. He wasn’t sure what the odds were, but he’d be surprised if she lasted through the night. He should be in there, comforting her. Staying beside her, even though she couldn’t feel him, even though she’d never feel anything again.

Jonah’s breath caught in his throat, and he blinked hard to clear the tears from his eyes. Damn things, making the sky blurry, making it seem like the stars were…moving… Only, no. Those weren’t stars. And they weren’t satellites. Those were ships, the brightness of them visible to the eye for the first time, and they were—firing on each other?

Jonah scrambled to his feet and squinted up at the battle. What the hell? When had this started, when had things changed? Who was fighting who? A scope, there had to be some kind of scope in the bunker…

He wouldn’t be able to see much, but he was going to catch every detail he could.

***

If there was one thing Ten didn’t like, it was being told what to do.

Well, in perfect honesty, there would never just be one thing Ten didn’t like. The universe was full of things that were stupid, inefficient, incomprehensible, and just plain dumb. It would be impossible to list every single one of the things Ten didn’t like, because it was a list with no end. Every time one thing came off it, two more were added. But right at the top of the list was a dislike for being told what to do, because ninety-nine times out of a hundred, Ten had a better handle on whatever was going on than the supercilious person informing him of what had to happen next.

Quickly climbing that list, though? A thorough and virulent dislike of people trying to tell Cody what to do. Yeah, sure, Ten did it hirself every now and then because Cody wasn’t as alert as he should be and it was worrying, what if the man piloted himself into a black hole someday because he let himself get distracted by, whatever, fluffy catterpets needing adoption? It was the sort of thing Cody might do, was what Ten was getting at here. Ze couldn’t put anything by Cody when it came to being a self-sacrificing moron, which was why ze started putting in place precautionary measures as soon as Cody told hir the deal he struck with his heinous, hidebound, vacuum-sucking bitch of a grandmother.

“I’m mostly concerned she’ll turn tail as soon as we get to Pandora if things aren’t calm,” Cody had confessed earlier in the week, his hands stroking a nervous pattern across Ten’s back as they huddled together on their cot. Jack hadn’t been back to his ship ever since they first boarded. Apparently the matriarch of the clan was keeping him close. Ten snorted to hirself. Like ze’d ever rely on someone so fundamentally useless to assist with something as important as keeping Cody safe. “Bypass it and head straight on to Pollux.”

“It would be a waste of resources. Food, fuel, money—a total waste.”

“Yeah, one that she’d love to take out of my hide.”

“You’re not letting her, though.” Ten lifted hir head and looked at Cody bluntly. “You’re not letting her wear you down. She doesn’t have the right to touch you, much less punish you.”

“Of course not!”

“Good.” Ten had snuggled back in contentedly. “Then there’s not going to be an issue. Trust me.”

“But…no one’s being put in danger, right?”

“I’m a genius, not an evil genius, of course no one’s in danger.” Not mortal danger, anyway.

“What did you do?”

“What makes you think I—”

“Ten.” That was Cody’s “I’m not kidding around” voice, and Ten responded to it even though ze didn’t like to. “Really. What did you do?”

“I…might…have reprogrammed a section of their hygiene protocols to force a massive overflow into the central tank as soon as our speed is cut enough to establish orbit.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that as soon as we stop to take a look at Pandora, the shit tank is going to overflow. Like, massively. There are spilloff pipes, but half of those have been very slightly compromised, just enough to spring a leak or two or, perhaps, two-hundred and eighteen. It will force an emergency shutdown of the engines due to environmental hazards, and take at least a week to repair. And by that time, if we’re close enough?” Ze glanced over at Cody’s shrouded bike. “Well, I guess we’ll be hoping the modifications to that hold up, won’t we?”

Cody hesitated for a moment before a huge smile split his face, and Ten sighed with relief. Internally, of course, it didn’t do to share that ze had been nervous. “You think of everything, don’t you?”

“I try.” Ten shut hir eyes and pressed a kiss to Cody’s shoulder. “I really try.”

Reformation: Chapter Twenty

Notes: A new chapter of Reformation, yay! With Jonah getting cabin fever, and then trying to fix it by tempting hellfire and damnation. Good job, babe ;)

Title: Reformation: Chapter Twenty

***

Chapter Twenty

There were only so many things Jonah could do before he ran out of ways to be responsible. After he staggered into the bunker, he got Lacey set up on the cot and attached her to the Regen unit. Even though the serum didn’t work on her the way it would on him, it was still full of nutrients and painkillers and would keep her hydrated, which was better than nothing. He watched the slender needle penetrate her arm, read her values on the diagnostic screen and watched her pulse and blood pressure stabilize, and let out a sigh of relief. Lacey was as good as she was going to get right now, and still unconscious. He could move on to settling himself.

Jonah checked the cabinets and found the enhanced water, preserved food and a bunch of blankets. He drank until his thirst was gone, used a few of the blankets on Lacey and took the rest to make himself a pallet on the floor. He let the Regen unit check him quickly, not wanting to strain its resources, but apart from a minor electrolyte imbalance and fatigue, he was still good. He lowered himself onto his pallet and almost immediately fell asleep, with the satisfaction of a job well done.

Waking up was…not as satisfying.

Lacey was fine—she had moved from unconscious to asleep, and Jonah wasn’t looking forward to explaining to her exactly what was happening or what she was going to have to deal with, but she was stable for now, and that was the most important thing. The storm was still raging outside. They were safe, they had survived. Great.

Greeeeeat.

There had to be more to do. Jonah went through the cabinets again, taking notes on all the food and water and rationing it out in his head. On one of the bottom shelves was an old-fashioned radio, the kind that had been passed around way back at the founding of the colony. They’d been prepared for a lot of contingencies early on, making sure people could contact each other and the colony ship no matter where they were. A lot of those emergency preparations had fallen by the wayside as the colony matured, but Jonah was pretty sure he could still figure out how to work the thing.

He pulled it out and attached a line from it to the generator, and held his breath as he waited to see if it would initialize. It should—it was practically an antique, a combination of analog and digital that hadn’t been popular since Old Earth, with no way to access an implant but with the span to detect most modern frequencies. It should work.

The screen flashed on, and Jonah rubbed his hands together. “Good.” He found the dial—an actual dial, a device that only saw regular use on Drifter ships and even there, was considered passé—and began scanning for frequencies. All he got was a lot of static.

Jonah frowned. “Maybe the concrete’s too thick.” He’d have to go outside. He was surprisingly okay with that.

It was still wet, cold, and blowing out there—surprisingly refreshing after the stuffiness of the bunker, which had a circulation unit to keep the air from getting stale, but that was sluggish at best. Jonah left the door open just a crack to keep the radio plugged in, and then propped the tarp he’d taken from the travois up to protect them from the rain. Jonah settled in over the radio and began to turn the dial.

There—a steady ping, ping, ping. That had to be the emergency beacon. At least it was still broadcasting. Jonah hadn’t been sure it had survived the shuttle’s descent into the ocean. He hadn’t seen a beacon inside the bunker yet, and until he was sure they weren’t going to be shot at again, he wasn’t going to turn it on even if there was one. A little further—these were the frequencies that were dedicated to the Box, the ones that the colony had originally inhabited. They’d expanded since then, but these were the foundations of Pandora’s communications. He should have been able to hear something from them. Instead there was just…an auditory blank. Not even static, just emptiness, like the wavelengths had been destroyed. Or were being blocked.

The shield. If the colony had gotten it’s shields up, then nothing was getting in or out. That was it. It had to be.

Jonah took a deep breath and kept going. He turned the dial as far as it would go, through all the available frequencies, and then back again. Nothing but the emptiness and the ping and—wait. There was something else, just on the edge of his hearing. It was so faint he thought he might be imagining it. He increased the power and reached for it again. It was fuzzy, but it was there. And—huh. It was getting clearer. Jonah turned the power to high and listened closely for a long moment. There was a particular rhythm to the signal, something kind of familiar, almost like—

“Shit!” He shut the power off and pressed himself back against the bunker as he looked up into the dark sky. Maybe he was wrong, maybe it was just a—nope. That wasn’t lightning, it was too steady. That was a contrail from a ship. It was too far away for Jonah to make out the specs for it, but that wasn’t important. What was important was that it was closing in on the coast, heading toward the left of the bunker, near where—

Plasma fire exploded from the nose of the ship, scraping over the cliff’s edge and down into the water indiscriminately. It rained hell down on where they had landed and below it, until a fireball erupted from the ocean. It was a secondary explosion—that had to be from the shuttle, it must not have sunk too deep. Well, it was sunk now.

The ship pulled back, then began to circle. Jonah hoped to whatever God there was that the bunker looked less like what it was from above. But nothing could get through the concrete, not this formulation, so even though they had the generator on they’d be safe.

Only…he’d left a crack in the door.

“Shit!” Jonah pulled the power wire free, reached over and heaved the door shut. He didn’t have time to get himself inside; he had to stop any signals as quick as he could. Even the slightest power signature might cause problems if the ship was especially touchy, but hopefully there was enough feedback left from the explosion that it hadn’t noticed them. Nothing was on, and he didn’t have any active implants or devices. He watched, breathless and afraid, as the ship circled closer and closer. At least if it shot them, it would be over fast. If it shot them…well. Cody and Garrett would have each other. Lacey’s dad had more family, he’d be all right. Everyone else would survive.

They’d be miserable.

Keep moving, please keep moving, keep moving, go, go. And after a long, terrible moment when it seemed like the ship was going to come down right on top of them, it did move on. Jonah watched it disappear into the clouds, stayed where he was in the rain for another ten minutes just to make sure he wasn’t going to draw it back when he opened the door, then shakily reentered the bunker, set the radio to the side, and collapsed in a heap against the wall.

They—whoever was attacking them—were actively scanning for new signals. They hadn’t given a damn about the beacon until Jonah had started messing with the radio, and then…better safe than sorry, apparently. Even though the shuttle was underwater, it hadn’t stopped them from eviscerating it. So. No reaching out, no using the radio, no jury-rigging something that might help them penetrate the energy shield. He and Lacey were most definitely on their own.

“Someone’ll come looking for us.” Eventually. Once the threat was met—if the threat was met and contained. And without an emergency beacon, they’d be harder to find. Due diligence would eventually send someone to check the bunkers, but who knew how long that might take?

There were other things in the cabinet that Jonah could look at, down where he’d found the radio. Hardcopy maps, a schematic of the bunker itself. Right now, though, he couldn’t bring himself to try and tackle responsibility again quite so fast. Not when his last attempt had led them so close to disaster.

He sighed, got to his feet and dried himself off as best he could. He grabbed a ration bar and a packet of jerky, checked Lacey’s vitals one more time, and then grabbed the book from the table and settled in next to the cot. “The Road,” he said. “By Cormac McCarthy.”

It was time to gain a little perspective.

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 Eleven

Notes: On we go, back to Pandora and Jonah and being in the thick of things. Poor guy, I'm just fucking with him over and over and over again. *sigh* I kind of love it. Enjoy!

Title: Reformation: Chapter Eleven

***

Chapter Eleven

The ship still moved.

Jonah wasn’t surprised. He’d only managed one tether, and the shuttle was perched on her back—it would be stranger if she didn’t move, the way the storm was raging out there. He’d been expecting a few shimmies, a little slip and slide here and there. What he hadn’t been expecting was the consistency of their movement, a constant grinding back and forth across the stony precipice, making the ship shudder and pitch against the harpoon. If he hadn’t landed a solid hit in the rock, they would have already been in the sea. As it was, Jonah didn’t feel too optimistic about their chances of staying where they were for long. They needed to move. They needed a rescue.

“Need a fuckin’ miracle,” he muttered to himself, one hand pressed to his forehead, the other laying gently on Lacey’s shoulder. She was easy, at least, none of her vitals giving him any cause for alarm. Not again, not yet. It wouldn’t last, though. Easy never lasted.

He went through his options yet again. They never changed, but at least it gave his mind something to do now that his hands were idle. “Stay here and wait for rescue.” Well, that wasn’t gonna be an option for much longer. Not that he knew that for sure, because he didn’t, but it was safer to hedge that bet than bluff with nothing in his hand. The longer they sat still, the likelier it was that they wouldn’t get out of this.

“Try to send out a better signal.” Yeah, they had the emergency beacon, but who knew who was listening for that? What if there was no one to listen? Jonah shook his head; he couldn’t operate under the assumption that Pandora City was lost. If that was true… Anyway, it didn’t matter, because he’d used up almost all of the spare power.

“Try and get to the underground.” He knew the location of the big shelters, like all residents of the Box did. He had no idea how to get to them from here, though. There were back doors, but those were hidden, and anyway, those shelters were a long ways off, if they were even still viable. Nope. Not happening.

“Try and find another shelter.” Except there was nothing out here. Nobody had ever homesteaded out this far—why would they, when most of the population was made up of naturals who needed the nearness of the infirmary to give them a regular boost, and when the landscape was so desolate and brutal? What was there out here to entice a person? According to Garrett, this area was one of his personal hells. And he would know; he’d spent over a day holed up in a concrete bunker when his shuttle had been washed away while he was trying to set up a climate modelling experime—

“Holy shit.” The bunkers. Jonah hadn’t thought about those in close to a decade. They were leftovers from the original colony mindset, one that had included pushing out of the canyon the Box was located in and making a go of it in other places. The bunkers had been installed along the edge of the cliff, about ten of them, waystations between what would have been villages before folks gave it up as a bad idea, because the weather was simply too violent.

The bunkers…as far as Jonah knew, those hadn’t been touched in a long time, but after Garrett had gotten back from his ill-fated little expedition, as miserable and bedraggled as a wet catterpet, he’d insisted on upgrading their capacities. “So that no one else who has to weather a storm out there does it knee-deep in freezing water without a fucking light to see by,” he’d said. There would be a generator. There would be basic facilities. There would inevitably be a Regen unit, because Garrett always, always planned for the worst outcomes, and the last time he’d been out there his natural pilot had almost succumbed to hypothermia. It had scared the shit out of him. Jonah hadn’t paid much attention to that story, more interested in the marriage proposal that had come right after the tale of woe. Now, though…

Jonah struggled to his feet, feeling unaccountably woozy before he remembered that he hadn’t eaten in God only knew how long. He dug a ration bar out of the locker by the defunct Regen unit and bit into it as he rummaged around for the map of the area. They were old-fashioned, these maps, pretty much useless when you were in a working shuttle, but that was another thing that had been included as a “just in case” measure, since the planet was so unpredictable. “C’mon,” he muttered, pawing through the flight log—printed out and stored by the shuttle itself, so it was nice and easy to maintain. The map had to be in here somewhere…

“Gotcha!” At the back, of course. Jonah spread it out on the ground and squinted at it in the dim light of the emergency beacon. There they were, the bunkers marked as little circles along the edge of the cliffs. Two of them had X’s through them, a sign that they were now defunct and hadn’t been maintained. Neither of those were the closest to him, though…were they?

Jonah wracked his aching brain, trying to come up with the answer. He knew where they’d crashed, he could see the display burned onto the backs of his eyelids. They were about twenty klicks out from the Box, north thirty-four degrees, west seventy-five or close enough, he could get into the fractions if he needed to but…Jonah followed the course in his mind and found their likely landing spot, then looked for the closest bunker.

There it was. Less than two kilometers away, if he was right. If he was right. If he could get there through this storm―or should he wait it out, then go? And should he go by himself first, to make sure he was right, or should he bring Lacey along right away? He’d have to carry her, rig up some sort of sled to drag her along. It wasn’t gonna be easy, and he was tired. Jonah didn’t know if he had the energy in him for more than one trip, much less dragging Lacey along behind him, but he didn’t know what other choice he had. The ship was still wriggling like a living thing, and if they went into the sea after all the goddamn work he’d done to keep them in one place, he’d never forgive himself. Or live, but that was another issue.

He’d need to bring food. Sanitizers. As much power as possible in the form of batteries. The beacon…no, not that. The bunker might have its own, and given that he didn’t know who was listening, well…it was just safer this way.

Not safe. What was safe anymore? But safer.

Jonah didn’t let himself think about it too much, just packed as quickly and methodically as he could, trying to remember all the things he’d been told were important back when he’d taken that outdoor survival class. It had been a requirement for every colonist of Pandora, but Jonah had never re-upped it after the first time. Call it the Drifter in him, but he was more comfortable inside—a home, a ship, a city—than he ever was outside. All that space, all that strange openness…frankly, it gave him chills. Garrett had never teased him about it, sweetheart that he was, and after the first few camping expeditions he and Robbie had organized, he’d taken Jonah’s reluctance to heart and not tried to talk them into any more. And Jonah had been glad. Glad.

Fuck. He was a goddamn selfish son of a bitch, was what he was. And now he was going to trek across rocky, unstable terrain in the middle of a downpour, trying to navigate under a pitch-black sky. Robbie could have done it blindfolded. Hell, Garrett could probably do it with both hands tied behind his back, for all that he was a city boy at heart.

“Next time I see you, we’re going camping,” he promised his absent husband. “Sleeping outside, starting fires with matches, all that crap. We can take the kids.” Cody and Ten, Darrel and Grennson…Jonah couldn’t let himself think about them, not right now. “Anything you want, darlin’.” Anything, as long as we’re together.

He glanced out the porthole at the back of the shuttle. The grinding wasn’t so bad now, and he could actually see through the rain. It was an ebb, he knew, not an end, but Jonah would take it.

He knelt down over Lacey. “Okay, honey. Sorry in advance about the cold, but if this goes right, I’ll have you warm again soon.” Warm, and better taken care of. He shifted her onto the stretcher he’d cobbled together, then bundled the both of them up in all the weatherproof equipment he had, then made sure the rest of the supplies were tied securely to the base.

“All right, then.” He slung the fabric supports over his shoulders, then knotted them around his waist. “Time to get out of here.” Opening the back door manually was a pain, but he managed it, and was greeted by a blast of icy rain right to the face.

Lightning flashed, illuminating the puddle in front of the shuttle, and the thin, jerking tether that looked frailer and frailer by the second.

“Great,” Jonah said with a sigh, then started their descent, the route fixed firmly in his mind.

He’d get them to the bunker if it was the last thing he did.

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.