Claimed by the Captain | [COMPLETE]

Chapter 2

Word Count: 6627

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Part of me couldn't fathom how things went from so good to so bad.

Devonport coughed from the red powder that rushed into his lungs, and I could see in the dissipating cloud that his body was shaking from just how hard he was coughing. I rushed to clap him on the back, hoping to help loosen any powder that he'd already breathed in so that he could cough it out. I glanced into the sample pack as I did so, where the tightly-closed flowers I had retrieved had presumably chosen just a few moments ago to bloom and drop all this pollen.

"Hekate, reseal the hangar," I told the ship's computer. "Report back to Central Command that Captain Devonport ingested a foreign agent."

"Reporting code alpha-seven-nine back to ISEA Central Command."

The hatch dividing the hangar from the rest of the ship slammed closed, and we were hit with another blast of disinfectant that cleared away the pollen but made the captain's coughing slightly worse for a moment. Without the pollen hanging in the air, however, he slowed down to a couple wheezes until he was breathing normally again.

I immediately reached forward to grab him by the arm, helping him to his feet. "We have to go to the medical bay."

His voice was thick and raw from his coughing as he stared at me with watery blue eyes. He seemed a bit out of it after his coughing fit, his expression looking a bit dazed. "What?"

"You've breathed in a foreign agent and need to be quarantined for medical observation," I explained while walking him over to the hatch. Glancing up, I called, "Hekate, prepare the way for the med bay."

"Following procedures for code alpha-seven-nine by preparing quarantined ship segments for passage to the medical bay."

The hatch for the hanger rose to reveal that one of the two pathways leading out of the hangar and deeper into the ship was sealed off to prevent contamination. It was easier in any Seven-Niner code, the alarm for potential medical emergencies with unknown substances, for Hekate to seal off sections of the ship and move us through them while sanitizing the section we last passed through rather than let us pass through the ship normally and then have to sanitize the entire ship at once after Captain Devonport was secured in the med bay's observational quarantine. As we moved to the left, the hatch closed again, and Hekate announced that she was sanitizing the hangar once more.

"Is this really necessary, Doctor?" Devonport asked as I walked him through the section, shaking off my hand on his arm a moment later. "It was just some pollen."

I gave him a hard look. He went through the same preparation procedures as I did for this expedition and passed through them as successfully as I did. There was no telling what effect ingestion of that pollen would have on his body, and we both knew that, but it was always the case that no matter how much someone logically knew in theory about medicine, as soon as they themselves got sick, they became as fussy as any other patient. I should count myself lucky he was a star-pilot and not an MD, or I would probably have to drag him, which was bad news for me considering our differences in athleticism.

"Grand so," he allowed as he grit his teeth, following me up to the next hatch in the hallway. "S.O.P.."

"Exactly."

Section by section, Hekate opened and sealed portions of the ship a couple more times until we were in the medical bay. Once there, I brought him into the quarantine bay and sealed him in. With a final disinfecting of the med bay, I was finally safe to take off my helmet.