FTL-31…Faster Than Life.

*Before…

I sigh with relief and there’s tears starting to flow.

I look to the back and it’s the co-pilot and another person down a hole blow through her chest.

“We’re here, power and propulsion is at minimum we’re somehow not venting atmosphere but we’ve two down, repeat we’ve tow down.”

The com voice comes over again. “Hang tight we’ve a recovery ship coming, the battle’s over we pushed the tekkers back.”

It’s good news but hard to cheer for is with the way things are in here right now.

I do smile a little though as I say back. “We’ll be waiting, that’s good news sir, that’s good news.”

I try to not think about it as us being clear for now.

*And Now…

I’m very much numb and in shock as we’re landing and then we’re getting boarded by the medi-teams and there’s the really sickening splatter of blood hitting everything again as we’re suddenly in gravity and what was in free float falls.

Which makes me start to have the shakes.

I’m literally not sure if I’m scared to this point or I’m angry to this point and I’m right on the edge of screaming and just losing it or punching the hull or what’s left of it.

I jump a little when one of the medics touches me and then they’re walking me out of the carnage that had happened and I’m shaking for sure now and once I’m out of the skiff and on the regular deck plating my legs give and I’m sitting there while there’s other medics getting to me and I can sort of feel them synching up with my OBC and checking my vitals and things and then I’m getting a breather mask on me for oxygen and settled onto a stretcher and I’m being treated for shock.

It becomes a little blurry after that and at one point I think I was giving report or trying to and then it was getting seen too or it was before that and then it was getting cleaned up.

Washing the blood off.

And suddenly I needed that shower cycler more than anything that I have ever needed in my life.

And I’m washing off other people’s blood and I’m crying while I’m doing it and I can’t get why I’m not dead?

I’m glad that I’m not dead but why me?

I was right there in the line of fire maybe even more so and I wasn’t hit or wounded but those around me and beside me were.

Part of my brain actually gets all logic obsessed and I’m running the numbers while I’m in work-out sweats and Corporal Stillwater shows up to collect me.

Part of me had to know the numbers, trying to get some kind of rational reasoning behind the way that I’m feeling.

Then she says something that makes me sob unexpectedly.

“We’re clear; we’ve been ordered to and jumped out of Zodiac Space.”

The fact that we’re out of the combat zone…it just slams into the back of my brain and I start crying.

She actually comes over and she sits beside me and she pulls me over and does that shoulder to shoulder leaning hug thing.

“Bad one?”

“Very bad…why me?”

“Why you what?”

“Why did I live?”

“You’d rather the alternative?”

(Sniffle.) “No…”

“But you made it through in one piece.”

“It really just feels like pieces, lots of pieces piled way too organized.”

She actually chuckles. “Yeah, you get that way after things like this.”

“How do you deal with it? I never signed on for being on the front lines…I…why does this stuff keep happening?”

Stillwater looks at me. “Honestly I get help. I go to my councilors when I need to, they’re not a bunch of bullshit and they do know what they’re doing. And I take the time to heal…get my head on as right as I can get it.”

She pulls out a large can of Soycafe from this shoulder bag she has on her and she presses the tab in on the bottom and she pops the top and it makes this fizzy sound and then there’s steam rising up from it and she passes it to me.

It’s black but I can drink it that way it’s starting to be one of those military things that I’m learning to do.

She pulls another one and gets it going too and I’m holding mine letting the warmth from the can send heat through my fingers and that’s actually helping as is the hot coffee. I feel cold a little in my hands and feet and I’m fairly certain it’s a combination of shock and exposure from the venting and things that we had going on in the shuttle/skiff.

She takes a drink. “As for why this keeps happening honestly and it’s by no mean official or anything but I think we’re looking at a war.”

“A war?”

She takes a sip and she nods. “I’ve been hearing reports; the Tekkers are nibbling around the edges of their space and around the edges of other places too. I think this…I think this is them testing the waters.”

“Some tests……bastards.”

“Insane…soul killing cybernetic bastards actually. And I think that they’re coming and something had changed in their space that moved them to this way faster than the higher ups everywhere had once thought they might move.”

“That’s not good.”

“It’s not good and it’s conjecture too Stone. I’m just making guesses and too many of them really.”

“You sound like you know what you’re talking about?”

“And so do a lot of online crackpots too. Look Erin, it’s bad now, we’ve been through things that a cadet ship shouldn’t see and I’ll be the first one to admit to that but we’re pulling out and heading right in. and we’re going to need you. We’re going to need you training and learning and very importantly having your head in the game with Sense-nav. You have talent, and we’re going to need that with The Tekkers or Pirates or Terrorists or even with dicey nav stuff that we’ll need to get a ship through.”

I look at her and she gets up and she helps me stand with her. “Come on you need to get to medical and you need to see the doctors and you need to definitely talk to someone after all of this that’s not me.”

I nod and walk with her and sip my drink and it’s sort of just…it helps and I’m not really sure of the exact trip to medical but I’m met there by a few friendly faces that I knew from my last stay here when I was wounded and then I’m placed into their care.

The first thing was getting a little bit of something into me besides the Soycafe hot can and that was just some flavored syrup nutrient packs and some meds that made me feel a bit more floofy…like the world was fuzzy and from there it was spending some time getting cleaned up with a long bath and having help.

Yes some of the companion, councilor types will go and bath with you and I think some of it’s that touch and things are soothing if needed or wanted but it’s also to have someone that’s trained to be there and to just be there if things go wrong or we have a freak out.

Belinda the one assigned with me she listened as I washed and she took over when I had the shakes and it’s really odd how much when you’re falling apart having someone washing your back and your hair.

And yes even after the cycler another bath...something soft, cleaner in a deeper way I needed.

After that it’s soft workout clothes and then I was shown a room to sleep and where I could talk to people both out in the common part of the ward and even some of the online places in the medical system.

I sleep first.

Part of my brain is in wounded animal mode and Belinda helps my synch my OBC to the system and it’s a little strange, no it’s a lot strange knowing that I’m going to be seriously monitored with my sleep and breathing and neural activity and all sorts of things that have to do with taking mental trauma and shock.

It’s very big brotherly in a way and at the same time there’s something to be definitely said about having a sort of safety net where if I’m nightmaring bad that someone will know and either let someone know or even have the option of engaging me with stims and waking me up from it.

I settle in to the room/sleep pod that I’ve been given and it’s warm and cushiony and even that adjusts to my comfort levels through the OBC link and I’m soon drifting off as the gravity lessens and there’s soothing music being slid into my awareness through the cyber link.

I didn’t know that I could feel that exhausted on the inside.

Well a different kind of exhausted.

Before my change I was more than exhausted at being someone that I never really was.

At least that part is better.