Empyrean Iris Story Collection

From Pain

Krill walked onto the bridge early in the morning more than expecting to find Captain Vir blasting his music and doing something subjectively stupid while waiting for the rest of his crew to wake, but when he walked in, he found the commander sitting in the Captain's chair plotting the daily course and examining the engineering statistics.

She must have heard Krill enter, and turned in the chair to look at him, "Can I help you, Krill."

"Where's the captain?"

The woman went quiet for a moment, "He won't be piloting today. He's not feeling well."

She turned away after that allowing Krill to leave the room in silence. That was weird.... As the medical officer aboard this ship, the Captain should have called him in if he was feeling ill.... Perhaps he was too sick to do so, and if that was the case.... Shouldn't krill do something?

It was decided, it was his duty aboard the ship after all, so he went to the Captain's quarters and knocked quietly. When no answer came, he knocked again.

"Captain, it's me Krill, Commander Jenson said you were sick."

There was silence then, "The door's unlocked." Something about the human's voice was wrong, not as.... Light as it usually was.

Pushing open the door, he stepped into the room as the door slid shut behind him. The man was sitting on the edge of his cot. He was a mess, his hair was tangled about his face, his clothes were rumpled, and it looked like he hadn't gotten out of bed accept for to sit up. His prosthetic leg was discarded some feet away, and his face was slicked with a light sheen of sweat. One had absently rubbed the stump of his missing leg.

Waffles, the dog, sat next to him, resting her head on his shoulder trying, as it seemed, desperately to help him though she couldn't.

"Captain, what's wrong." Krill demanded

Shakily the man shook his head, "Krill.... I it's nothing you can help me with."

He stood confused, "But you're sick."

"Not in that way." The human whispered sinking back onto his cot, one hand clutching at his missing leg pain crossing his face in a testament to his agony, "Phantom pain doesn't have a cure.... And neither does nightmares."

Krill moved forward a bit not used to seeing the human in this condition, haunted, in pain.

"Why/" He wondered

"Because, the nerves in my leg, when they were severed, they were damaged horribly. Every nerve up to my spine remembers what happened...." He closed his eyes, "Some nights, I just can't shake the dreams..... Being torn apart."

Krill stood quietly before the man spoke again, "Did I ever tell you how I lost my leg?"

Krill stayed quiet giving only a shake of his head.

"It two years after first contact, and we had finally finished peace talks. The Drev had taken over their planet and were threatening to do it to the rest of the alliance. I, and a thousand others were sent in as a show of good will. I was only 22."

***

The smoke around him was thick and choking. The sky above was a wash of burning red, blotting out the star beyond. The alien terrain rolled below his feet, as the young soldier stumbled through the mist, walking over bodies of his fallen comrades. A distant alien raptor gave an eerie call, like a raven as harbinger of death.

The rest of his platoon was dead, ripped to pieces in one horrible massacre, he had been the only one to make it out alive.

Foot catching on the edge of a rock, he stumbled to his knees. Around him, the walls of the basin rose up to enclose them. Outcropping of dark gray rocks, lit with the red light of the sky, gave the impression of a landscape awash in blood as if he stood on the palm of a massive creature waiting to curl its fingers around him and crush the life from his body.