Between

Chapter Thirty

Medical bay aboard the OSV Nightjar, approximately 975 miles off the coast of the Neutral Islands

Wren Miller couldn't stop staring at the Captain—Silas, he'd said his name was—as he left the medical bay. She had no idea what was going on, why there had been alarms and lights and so many...stressed...individual sailors. She sat on the cot where he had left her, Eva North, and the unnamed female ensign a few meters away in her own cot. What was wrong with these people?

"Lay down," Doctor North's voice came from behind her, and she tugged Wren's hand away from her neck and snatched the medical pad, soaked in fluorescent blue. She held it in front of Wren's eyes as the young woman looked up at her. "Don't let anyone see this either!"

The Doctor tossed the bloody cotton in a covered trash receptacle, and then spoke to them both.

"The plan is simple. Stay quiet, both of you. You're both injured. Miss Miller—" North caught her nervous gaze. "You're not 1927-7. Under any circumstances. If anyone in this room is 1927-7, it's Ensign Purcell here. Understand?"

"I—But I don't—Okay," Wren stammered, unsure of herself and the feeling of her throat constricting made it too hard to ask questions or argue for long.

North bent to rummage in a cooler for a few seconds, and when she returned she had a labeled bag of dark red blood which she pinned on a rack and rolled over to Wren. She handed her an IV, but there was no needle attached.

"Keep this tucked under that bandage on your arm. They see that preposterous blue blood of yours, it's all over, just like the Captain said."

Wren did as North instructed, tucking the blunt hose between her skin and the bandage wrapped around her elbow.

"Both of you—Try to keep your breathing and your heart rates under control as best you can," the Doctor continued on, dropping another bag of blood on a rack near Purcell this time. The sailor nodded. "If things get hairy and you can't, go for broke. Make it worse. Make it seem like a real medical emergency."

Wren's mind was spinning in confusion, frustration and fear. Something wasn't right here. What could possible get a crew of Corzeans so riled up? And what did it all have to do with her? Why was she getting special treatment? Then she saw Eva North slipping out of her white lab coat long enough to cover herself in another, more familiar uniform.

A Corzean uniform.

The lab coat went back on, but the ugly green showed through near her neck as she closed the lower buttons of the overcoat. When North spotted her, her eyebrows shot upward and she scolded her to lay down again. Then the Doctor approached her, grabbed the rag still soaked with Ensign Purcell's blood, and began to smear it on the wraps around Wren's head.

"What the hell are you doing?" the blonde cried, trying to duck away, but the Doctor didn't let her. "That's disgusting! That's...not...sanitary!"

"Honestly, Miss Miller!" North shouted once she had finished, and tossed the rag onto the same tray as the scalpel. "I need a reason for your head to be wrapped, and I can't exactly use your blood, now, can I?"

From behind them, Purcell sat bolt upright and whispered, "Shhh! Someone's coming!"

North shoved Wren down in the cot, Purcell dropping on her own to do the same, and she squeezed her eyes shut. She could hear the Doctor's shoes tapping on the cold floors, off into some distant corner of the bay. Then the familiar clank and creak of an opening hatch interrupted the sound.

"Kinda empty in here ain't it?" came a man's voice, and Wren felt her muscles go tense, but her eyes stayed closed. Heavy, booted footsteps made their way in her direction at the same time Eva's footsteps did the same.