The Moonwalker

Chapter 16.5

Humming. Creaking and rumbling. Heat. Clamps in her chest. Swampy humidity on her face. Veering. Slight but sudden. Aula jerks to break her fall, but she can't move. She's cocooned. It takes time for that to sink in. Everything takes time. A deep ache radiates through her body, blunted but persistent. Things feel different. Varied. When she opens her eyes, she catches sight of a blanket. The confines of a visor no longer exist. She's no longer in her spacesuit. 

Aula breathes in. It hurts, but it's not impossible. The bands clamping around her chest are finally loosening up. She gulps air as fast as she can stand. The rumbling underneath her changes. A slight pull signals changing direction. She focuses on what's outside of her immediate space. Low smooth ceiling. Two hatches, two docked suits, beyond her feet. One off-white. One reddish. The smell of pennies slides into her awareness. She cranes her head and manages to catch sight of a chair silhouetted against sharp light. Someone moving. Driving. Harvey.

It's startling to see another person. Aula doesn't know why, but it feels like she's been alone for a very long time.

Something in the air shifts. Harvey's left arm hesitates slightly, then stretches over the dash. Another click. "Hey, Al."

Aula grunts, but it provokes a sudden sharp pain on the right side of her ribs. The sound that leaves her is precariously close to a whimper.

"Yeah," he says heavily. "You'll have to live with that until we get home."

Home. ILUB-1 is non-viable. It's.... He means Earth. She blinks sweat out of her eyes. Of course he does. Their only survival option is EVAC C. They're heading to the emergency module. It should provoke some feeling, but that's all gone. An exhausted resource. She tests her good arm instead. It responds, but it pulls at her side. More sharp pain. She raises her hand high enough to peer beneath the blanket. Shirt cut open. She's naked from the waist up. A chest tube juts out underneath her armpit. Her bad arm is tucked in at an angle to avoid nudging the catheter or its sutures.

The tube slithers out from under her blanket to connect with a clear box that houses what could be mistaken for an oversized thermometer. It's the Medical Chest Drainage System. One of several prototypes to help with suction and fluid containment in low gravity.

Ziva was so excited to test them. We can finally fill the gaps, she said. Expand emergency medicine beyond Earth. It was a call to arms on all her talks about the Moon. The one thing that really animated her. The farther we go into the solar system, the farther we are from traditional trauma. Our patients are no longer bound to one planet.

And Ziva's still pushing that line. Still saving them.

A different kind of pain. One that rolls over Aula for a long time. She rests with it, but she has nothing to reciprocate with. It's just there. A big cold immovable stone on her chest. ILUB-1 is gone. Sam and Ziva are gone. Mission over. Herself and Harvey are stuck living a death sim. Problem stacking upon problem in a relentless cascading failure.

Everyone started calling her Grim Reed back in her ascan days because she relaxed into death simulations. The end result was known. All other variables led to the same outcome. She could handle a bad outcome. She had been handling bad outcomes her entire life. Adversity was familiar. It was everything else that scared the shit out of her.

The rumbling stops. Harvey leans back in his seat and exhales hard. "We're here."

A long pause. Maybe he expects her to respond. Maybe he's steeling himself for the task ahead. He pushes himself out of the seat and walks towards her. He's got that feverish shine of someone who's past their limits. He kneels down beside her and clutches her good hand. Even that leaves him out of breath.