✅ Project SETI Trilogy

Chapter Three - Part II: Transfer

          Temet returned to the medbay soon after sinus rhythm had been restored. She wanted to be relieved by that, but she knew that Gabriel was just barely hanging on. She watched as Nova urgently leaned down to breathe for him when the trace stopped moving entirely, and Temet felt her stomach drop—both at that, and the realization that she would be making contact with the human government very soon. She had no idea her political training to be the Archsentinel was going to be relevant so soon, and found herself kind of grateful for it right now. She only hoped she could execute it properly and keep herself out of trouble, and she was nervous to find out.

          "Please, Gabe... you need to breathe," Nova quietly begged when he stopped to catch his breath. "Please..."

          Temet looked at the monitor again, specifically at his oxygen level, and she felt dread when she saw it was just 81% and highlighted in an urgent red. She saw the number spike a bit when Nova continued his rapid-fire ventilation of his lungs, and thought it was a good idea to give him a clearer idea of what was going on.

          "... his pulse is 137 beats per minute," she said, quietly at first, but continued in a more normal volume, "and his oxygen level is 83%. It was lower before, but what you're doing is helping... it doesn't detect any natural breathing, either..."

          "It's this—this blood," Nova touched his jaw line where the blood from his ear was. He trailed down and pressed into his carotid pulse, and he frowned when it beat with irregular strength against his fingers. "He's probably bleeding in his... in his head..."

         Temet could hear the nausea in Nova's voice at the realization. She knew enough to know that internal bleeding was a very bad thing indeed. "Will he... is he going to be okay...?"

          Nova let out a soft growl in frustration as he finished the next rescue breath. He turned to her with an expression of incredulous upset and furious desperation. "I don't know, Temet! I'm not a doctor! All I can do is—is this..."

          Temet's feathers shrunk when Nova raised his voice, and she silently berated herself for the stupid question. Of course he wouldn't know such a thing. She opened her beak to say something, something along the lines of how can I help? But before she could say anything—

          Beeeee—

          ... Gabriel's heart gave out, and she clicked her beak together just once in a sigh. She moved up to the bedside proper again and positioned her hands over his sternum, in the same fashion she'd seen him and others perform chest compressions before.

          "I'll do it," she said decisively. "I've seen it enough, I think I get it."

          A look of simultaneous relief and surprise flashed across Nova's face when he leaned back and saw her feathered hands positioned correctly on Gabriel's chest. He nodded and watched as she started to thrust into him. "It needs to be at a rate of about a hundred beats per minute to work..."

          Temet winced at the feeling of his bones bending and cracking beneath her hands. She glanced at the monitor when it started to chirp at her in the same tone as the flatline to denote she was successfully keeping the patient's blood flowing. Beside his real heart rate of zero, she saw she was averaging around 105 beats per minute with her compressions.

          "Okay, stop so I can breathe for him," Nova gently commanded after roughly a round had passed. He plugged his nose and blew into him deeply, and while it was something he was able to enjoy, just a bit—he knew what he really needed was proper supplementary oxygen, and with each second that passed, he worried the EMS wouldn't arrive in time to save him. "Keep going—count to thirty."