Book 1: Every Storm Runs Out of Rain [Jenlisa]

Chapter 5: Clear

The first sign that something had gone wrong was when Jisoo was ordered to the communication centre ten minutes after they had finished their conversation. They had only the time to exchange a bewildered glance before Jisoo made her way there.

The second was when Jennie was paged to prepare the medical bay.

"Dr. Kim, are the preparations for the package complete?"

"Captain," Jennie acknowledged the call, not looking up from where she was adding the finishing touches.  "They will be in a minute."

"Good. I'm sending Jisoo back to the lab. I want her to take over once the package comes in. Should be just like storing ice."

Jennie looked up, confused. She had been looking forward to getting her hands on the specimen. "Captain?"

"I need you to prep for medical treatment. The team was unlucky to have encountered an automaton during package retrieval. They managed to bring it down. Lisa is on her way back now but Jin stayed back with Bambam to deal with the authorities."

Jennie's heart leapt to her throat. She had seen what automatons could do and what they did best was leave destruction in their wake. Even if the team had succeeded in taking the bot down, it might have come with a sacrifice. "What the fuck was an automaton doing at the collection point? Is everyone alright?" Belatedly realising the curse word that had come out from her mouth, she apologised quickly. "Sorry Captain. That was unprofessional."

"Nothing to worry about, Doctor. I understand your concerns. Based on what I could see, Bambam's going to be out of commission for a while but he should be fine. Jin is unscathed. And Lisa sustained superficial injuries, I think."

"You think?" Jennie prompted, unaware that she had started pulling at the bottom of her hair in increasing panic. "How superficial is superficial?"

"I just caught an abrasion on the side of her head. She seemed healthy enough to be bickering noisily with Jisoo so I'm certain she's fine." At this, the Captain let out a long exasperated sigh, "I don't know what's wrong with those two."

At that piece of information, Jennie let out a breath she was unaware she had even be holding. "Okay, okay." Although her heart was still beating fast, she gathered herself and reminded herself to be professional. She was relieved when her voice projected calm and composure. "And Bambam? Will he be coming back to the ship in due time? I can always prepare a healing pod."

"That won't be necessary. I'm checking him into a hospital in JYP. Jin will take care of it."

"As you say Captain." Jennie set aside her hurriedly scribbled instructions for Jisoo and strode briskly to press the button that would raise a divider between the infirmary and laboratory.

"Jisoo will be receiving Lisa at the dock. It should not take her longer than twenty minutes to return from the collection point so be ready by then."

Despite what the Captain had said, it took almost double the time before Lisa returned to the ship. Jennie spent her extra twenty-minute waiting time wearing a trough in the floor of the infirmary with her back and forth pacing. She had checked her communicator umpteenth times, in the hope that Lisa would reply, but her texts remained ignored. By the time, she heard Lisa's and Jisoo's return, she had worried her bottom lip so much that she had chapped them.

"Unnie, can you please relax! I told you I'm fine! You know I've had worse!"

"Aish! Idiot! Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"I'm really okay, Unnie. Bambam is the one you should be worried about."

"I am! But he's not here for me to worry about, is he? Let me take a look at your hands."