✅ Project SETI Trilogy

Chapter Two - Part VIII: Agony

          Gabriel, through much trial and error, managed to navigate through the mothership's ventilation system and find the medical deck. He arrived there about two hours later, tired and frustrated from aimlessly climbing and crawling around. Right now, he was observing the pink-crowned Daxut secretary at the front of the medical clinic through a small hole in the vent above her—he'd never seen an adult of the species before. He found her gold pupil-less eyes deeply unsettling, but couldn't quite put his finger on why.

           He moved on and took great care to crawl as slowly and as silently as he could. The tunnel led over the door into the back and branched off into the several different areas beyond. When he was past the reception area, he could hear something—he thought it sounded like singing, but... it was unlike anything he'd ever heard before. The melody was soothing but haunting at the same time, and even though there were two distinct sounds—a low accompanying bass sound and a shrill and crystal clear sopranissimo lead—it sounded like it was coming from the same source. The same organic source.

          He felt oddly compelled to find out where it was coming from and followed the sound straight down and through the fifth tunnel on the left. The ventilation shaft went over one of the small handful rooms that seemed to be in active use at the moment, and then it abruptly dropped off at a ninety degree angle behind one of the room's walls. There was a dim blue light shining up through the slitted vent covers that seemed to be the standard throughout the mothership, and he was grateful for it. At the very least he could see where he was and wasn't wandering totally blind.

          The singing stopped when Gabriel accidentally scraped along the bottom of the tunnel with the metal sole on his boot instead of on the soft padding on his knees.

          Fuck. Shit. You goddamn fuck up, he silently berated himself as he froze in place and held his breath. Please think it's a drone. Please think it's a drone...

          After about fifteen seconds, the creepy yet intensely soothing vocalizations continued, and Gabriel let out a sharp relieved sigh. He inched himself forward, just enough that he could peer down through the vent.

          He had to try very hard not to audibly gasp. He'd found him—he'd found Nova. He almost couldn't believe his eyes. He stared down unblinkingly for a solid thirty seconds before he was able to put together a lucid thought and simply took in what he could see directly below.

          The first thing he noticed was that he didn't seem to be breathing on his own. There was a mask pressed airtight against his mouth and nose, and there was a slight hissing sound that coincided with his chest rising and falling. It made him want to crash through the vent right then and there and tend to him, but he closed his eyes and took a moment to ground himself instead.

          He frowned upon realizing his shirt had been ripped open at some point and tried not to think about what that meant too hard. There didn't seem to be anything else amiss about him, at least, not that he could see from this angle. There was a low rhythmic beeping that registered to him as a heart monitor sounding off, but he couldn't see where it was coming from. He counted the beeps for a full minute, and was further relieved that his heart maintained a steady and healthy fifty-seven beats per minute.

          Seated right next to him was another Daxut, but this one had a bright blue crown instead of pink. Her throat moved dramatically with the intense vibrato in her singing, and he could just make out her beak vibrating in a similar fashion. He wasn't sure what to make of it. There was something... tender about it, and he couldn't help but feel immensely relaxed by it himself. But beneath that, his gut was screaming that there was something terribly, terribly wrong.

          No, he thought when that feeling of unease came to a head when Nova's monitor suddenly stopped chirping. The Daxut briskly stood up to tend to the asystole alarm that blared a few seconds later. No!

          He watched with a tortured expression as the creature below opened a small supply drawer. Within were several flat rectangular cartridges, bundled together and organized by colour. She took one and slid it in place in the applicator that had been hanging from her utility apron, bent the prongs so they were facing the same direction instead of each other, and pressed it against Nova's sternum.

         A few seconds later, the beeping resumed, but it was fast and erratic and accompanied by an alarm. He heard the Daxut click her beak a few times as she opened a panel in the wall and positioned the three-electrode defibrillator around his heart. He still felt rather tense, but upon realizing what it was, he felt a pang of arousal in his groin. She interfaced with the touchscreen in the open panel, brought it to a charge, and the shock was delivered as soon as the joules were available.

          Nova jerked and shook, then remained still afterward. There was a pause, but the previous alarm continued; so she charged it again—this time with a higher electrical output. She discharged silently, and they both watched as his chest contracted and his arms sprang up.

          Gabriel held his breath as the monitor got a read on him, and he continued to unconsciously hold it when the first alarm he heard began to sound off again. He couldn't move, couldn't barely think; he didn't know what to do except sit there and watch helplessly.

          The table was promptly lowered so that the long-armed alien could lock her joints and beat into his heart properly. Her compressions were deep enough to cause his belly to distend dramatically, and his head nodded along with each thrust into his chest.

          He wanted, desperately, to go down there and help, and his eyes did wander over to the soldered edges of the vent and the additional screw-like appendages at the corners of this particular section of tubing, but he fought himself to remain still.

          Finally, around the fortieth compression, the monitor beeped, and Nova's attendant turned to observe it. He was in sinus again, and even though it started off slow in the low-thirties, it steadily increased until it was in normal resting range again.

          Gabriel squeezed his eyes closed in intense relief. When he opened them again a few seconds later, he saw the mask on his face automatically release when his respirations started to come regularly again. With Nova's condition stable, he was able to think clearer about what he needed to do next. He thought it best to remain just where he was—where he could see him and within earshot of any conversation that the Daxut might have with him or anyone else.