36. I’m Sorry, Captain #6
Charlie thought to herself, Huh, that's Feodar, and he's supposed to be sitting down.
She turned her head.
Her datapad was lying in the dirt about four inches from her face. The screen woke from a small rock that rolled across. It lit up her whole field of vision with one line of text.
SENT BY: SOLAS, R.
"... oh," Charlie said. "Good."
And then Korallis Minor went out.
REYNA
Torvax gave her everything, she had to give him that. He didn't spare her one second of readouts and checkpoints reached as the shuttle landed back on planet.
Reyna stood in front of her chair and listened to her ground crew start the final phase of the mission. Crew retrieval.
"Shuttle is down. Ramp's open." Kess.
"Jesus, Kess just walked right out. Kess, wait for the—" Tavi.
"Bridge, this is Laith. We have visual on two. Repeat, two colonists at the ramp, both upright, both walking."
Then all the voices went silent.
"What happened?" Reyna asked.
"I'm not sure, Captain," Torvax said. "Readouts say they're all off the shuttle now."
"Bridge," Maren. But her voice was wrong. "We do not have Wickett."
Reyna went stone still.
"Say again, Laith," Torvax relayed.
"She's not here," Maren said, the worry in her voice evident and climbing. “Two of the colonists are here and are walking to us on their own. But Wickett—Charlie isn’t with them.”
Torvax turned to Reyna.
“Bridge, the third colonist isn’t here either.”
“Hey. HEY!”
A new voice came through, muffled from not being on comms and coming through one of the ground team’s headsets.
“That’s one of the colonists,” Maren explained.
“He’s got a broken arm, why is he—" Kess.
“He wants us to follow him.” Maren said softly.
And then Tavi’s voice broke through comms and caused the speakers to screech on the Bridge.
“Then we fucking follow him!”
Reyna stood on the Bridge of her own ship and listened to her crew run.
Heavy breathing. Gravel sifting. Somebody swearing.
"Where—" Tavi.
"There. THERE—" Maren.
"Oh, no. No no no—" Tavi.
"Bridge," Maren addressed the room.
"Laith. Report. Immediately," Torvax demanded.
"We have her. We have Wickett. She's..."
The whole Bridge heard Maren's voice crack.
"... down. Confirming Wickett is down. She's on the ground, there's a colonist—somebody's got her head up out of the dirt—"
"MAREN, GET KESS," Tavi shouted, interrupting Maren's report.
"Kess is right—!" Maren started.
"Charlie? Charlie, hey. Hey, come on—" Tavi's voice, soft but pleading.
"Breck. Report. What do you see?" Torvax said.
"Move." Kess's voice.
"Kess—"
"Tavi, MOVE."
Reyna stood with her fists clenched and her eyes trained on the communications console. She listened to nothing for fifteen seconds. Twenty.
The Bridge could hear somebody breathing, somebody's hand going on and off a comm unit.
And then, new voices again.
"—she wouldn't let me help. I told her I could. The ground kept moving and she wouldn't let me help, she just kept saying she had it under control and to sit down, that it was just one more—"
"Sir, I need you to—"
"You don't understand. It came down on her. It came down on her and Meris pulled her out. Meris did! She got her out by herself and she can barely stand—"
"Sir—"
"Meris wouldn't leave her. We told her the shuttle was coming and she wouldn't leave."
"... okay," Kess said. "Okay. Get me the board. Tavi, both hands under her head, don't move it, don't let anybody else move it. Laith, I want that ramp warm in ninety seconds."
"Kess—"
"Ninety seconds, Laith. Go."
"I'm going, I'm going," Maren said in the smallest voice Reyna had ever heard from her.
More breathing, more movement sounds.
"Kess?" Maren again. "She's going to be okay, right?"
Silence.
"Go, Maren."
Reyna stopped breathing.
Ninety seconds later, they loaded Charlie onto the shuttle. All three colonists were with them.
Reyna heard all of it. The board placement, the count to move Charlie, the sounds of people getting Charlie up off a planet and up a ramp.
"Bridge, we're wheels up. Forty-one minutes to rendezvous."
Reyna keyed the headset.
"Kess."
"Not now, Captain."
"Kess," Reyna pleaded.
"Rey," Kess said softly. "I said not now."
So, Reyna waited.
She waited while a doctor worked, and it was the longest four minutes of her life. She didn't say one word into that channel the whole time, because the woman on the other end of it needed her hands to assess just how badly Charlie was hurt.
"Rey."
"Kess!" Reyna moved to the headset.
"Hey, okay, listen to me."
Reyna went quiet.
"She's hurt, alright? I'm not going to lie to you. I can't see how bad it is yet, but she has a pretty nasty gash on her head."
Reyna gasped.
"But Rey, she'll be okay. Once I know how deep this is, I'll work wonders."
Reyna actually laughed, wet and messy.
"But, Captain, you know as well as I do this girl is a fucking fighter. She’ll fight this and she's going to fight it hard. Your girl's not going to let this knock her down. I know it."
My girl.
Reyna nodded, even though she realized Kess couldn't see her.
"She's hurt," Kess continued. "But she's coming home."