Red Mist by Charley Marsh

Author:Charley Marsh [Marsh, Charley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-945856-33-4
Publisher: Timberdoodle Press

9

Everyone had gathered around Lexa’s still body in her bunk when the lights in the main cabin flickered again.

“Stay here with Lexa,” Rita told Yani. She grabbed John’s arm. “You come with me.” She propelled him to one of the helm seats. “Sit.” Her tone of voice left no room for argument, not that she would have let John argue with her. The Dog was her ship and she expected everyone on it to do as she asked.

Rita slid into the command seat and fired up the Dog’s diagnostic screen. “Do you know how to use the screen in front of you to gather information on all the life forms in the ship?” she asked John as she flipped from one system schematic to the next, never taking her eyes from the screens.

“Uh, yes. Yes, I think I can figure it out,” he replied. He keyed in several commands and watched as data flowed across the screen in front of him. “What do you want to know?” he asked.

“First, give me a count on life forms larger than one cell.”

“Well that’s obvious, there are f—ah, I see. Just a moment.” He keyed in the qualifier and read the data. “According to this there are five life forms larger than one cell inside the ship at this time.”

“Good, that’s good.” Rita took a moment to look at the healer. “That means that Lexa isn’t dead, she’s being held in some kind of stasis. The red mist doesn’t kill us, it takes us somewhere and leaves our body looking dead, but not dead. Can you work with that?”

“In what way?” asked John. “What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to devise a stimulant to wake Lexa up. While you attend to that I’m going to see if I can find a way to disengage from that pesky mist. I want it out of my ship.”

At that moment the lights flickered and the screen in front of Rita went blank. A few seconds later it flashed back on. “Damn. We don’t have much time. John, hurry up with that stimulant, will you?”

“What can I do to help?” called Yani from Lexa’s bunk.

“You stay with Lexa,” Rita answered over her shoulder. “As soon as John has the stimulant I want him to give it to her. Since we can’t allow the time for her to find her way back on her own, she might need you to guide her back from wherever she is. Talk to her, hold her hand. You’ll know what to do.”

The lights flickered again. Rita flipped over to the environmental screen and swore at what she read there. She left her helm seat and stalked toward the air lock at the rear of the ship, muttering ugly words at the red mist that now spread over more than half of the Dog’s interior main cabin walls.

Once inside the airlock she grabbed four enviro-suits and breathers and two extra sets of gloves. She handed two of the suits to Yani.

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