White Space

55

 Accacia couldn't help her shivers. She was starting to fear that she would develop a fever. That would mean they'd failed to catch the little bastards hijacking her body. She didn't want to think about it, but she couldn't keep it out of her head either. She'd just lost a hand. Half her arm, for Christ's sake. She needed a break. She needed out of here.

 She sighed deeply while she watched Yemon go look for the demolition charges Narayanan had hidden somewhere in the suite. Since the bastard took the only weapon they had, Yemon thought it necessary to at least bring the bombs with them. Not that Accacia could see how a bunch of super powerful bombs could further their position, but she would not argue. She was too tired for that. She just felt that she needed someone to trust. And she decided that she'd start trusting the soldiers. It was her best bet. Once Jaleel had also disappeared to look for surface suits in Narayanan's bedroom, Accacia stood up from the computer and turned to Doc.

 "I couldn't help but notice you were quivering." She said.

 "I'm fine." Doc sighed. "But you must be tired. Don't you need something for the pain?"

 "No. I'm going to be fine." She tried her best to make her own shivers disappear. "Besides, it's just the stress. I don't have any other symptoms, so..."

Accacia kept scrolling through Narayanan's records, if for nothing else, just to make her blood boil. In a few minutes, Yemon returned with a small metal box and opened it with a whistle.

 "Yep, this is what I thought it was." he looked at the two women. "It's super heavy-duty stuff. You don't get this unless you have a high enough level clearance."

 He took out a small, round object, like a canister with rounded ends. He turned it around and put it away in his backpack by the couch.

 "There's only two of them left." He said. "My God, if he used these, no wonder there were seismic readings all over the place." He put away the other one in a different compartment. "Only one of these would have been enough to wipe this place clean off the face of the earth. I wonder how the damage was contained to the upper levels, though."

 "He must have had a plan." Accacia said, shaking her head.

 "Alright ladies, please put these on." Jaleel arrived, holding up a pair of terribly colorful suits. They were even sleeker than the ones they used to have back on the station. Those were fine too, but these seemed to be so much nicer. They took them and started putting them on.

 "What about his climbing gear?" Yemon asked, holding his helmet in his hand.

 "No luck. I guess he probably took it with him. There were several suits though."

 "Yeah, all right." Yemon said, looking absently at the black wall behind the desk. "We'll make do. Once we reach the shaft, we'll be safe, anyway. It won't be fast, but we should be fine."

 "Shouldn't we just stay here and wait for you then?" Accacia asked while rolling the suit up her legs. Doc silently offered to help, but she slapped her hand away, shaking her head. Doc shook her head and stifled a cough in response.

 "It might be too dangerous. What if we can't come back for you? Those things are probably still out there."

 "And maybe they are already munching on Navin, so we don't even have to hurry." Jaleel said.

 "Might be. But I'd rather not risk it."

 While Accacia was struggling to put the suit on without the use of another hand, the screen on the desk came back alive. The soldiers looked at each other and Yemon went around to check it out. He cocked his head and leaned in close, and Accacia could already see that only a jumbled mess of colors reflected off his face.