Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

Energy Critical

When he woke, an unknowable amount of time later, he awoke to a dim white light. The throbbing pulse of the sirens had stopped. The room was dark, but an almost imperceptible ambient glow filled the room.

He was coherent now, coherent enough to feel a churning panic rising up inside him.

Fear

Fear for his children.

With monumental effort, Adam lifted his head from the floor, the skin of his face puckering downwards as it stuck to the metal, now cool beneath his skin. The effort caused his vision to black out around the edges, but the fear drove him onward.

He had to

Make sure

They were safe.

"Call.... Arcadia." He croaked, voice no more than a garbled rasp.

His implants did not respond.

His vision flickered.

He whimpered like a wounded animal vision fading, but tried again.

"Call Arcadia." He managed to rally enough saliva to make the words mostly coherent, and when he did, the implant in his neck responded. The dial tone lasted for less than a second before he heard the line click.

"Dad, dad!...." His mind churned in confusion trying to identify the very familiar voice on the other end of the line, "Adam.... Adam, are you okay!"

"Eris." He muttered.

"Yes yes it's me, are you okay!?"

He couldn't come up with a response, his one track mind plowing forward to find the information he really needed, "Eris.... Everyone... okay?"

"We're fine, Avex arrived in time to help. He got our message., Adam please, you have to tell us where you are. Are you okay?"

But he couldn't continue.

He figured out what he needed to know, and he faded away again as Eris frantically called his name from the other end of the line. As he lost consciousness, the call disconnected.

When he next faded into reality, the room before him was dimly lit, but at the very least he could see and partially comprehend what was going on. He lay on the bridge, on the captain's platform crumpled in a heap against hard metal. His body still ached, especially his left side leg and arm, His face felt strange, the skin delicate and raw.

Bodies littered the floor around the room, crumpled in heaps at their stations.

He turned his head, just far enough to see Sunny sprawled in her chair, held upright by the seat restraints, her head lolling forward at an awkward angle.

Was she dead?

Please architect don't be dead.

WIth gargantuan effort, Adam tried to haul himself upright, but his arms shook, and in the end all he could do was crawl on his belly, inch by agonizing inch across the floor. He passed out at least twice on his way there, unconscious for variable and unknown amounts of time, before he finally made it to her feet.

He wasn't strong enough to lift himself, but looking up at her, he could see the slow rise and fall of her chest.

That was enough.

Resting his head against her feet, Adam closed his eyes and let himself go more completely this time.

He awoke several times in the intervening hours, stronger with every pass, but still his exhaustion was so profound that only on the seventh or eight time was he finally able to make sense of their situation.

It must have worked, they had saved the star and survived the warp away. The shield must have dropped at the last one one millionth millisecond accounting for the incredible but survivable spike in heat. The Empyrean had needed every last drop of energy to make the jump possible, and drained the entire crew to exhaustion to do it.

Perhap it was just Adam's imagination, but the gentle current of air that flowed through his hair almost felt apologetic. He could almost imagine the empyrean as a person sitting next to him and running her fingers through his hair as she nervously waited for him to wake up. He wasn't sure how a current of air could feel apologetic, but somehow this one certainly did.

It was when Sunny, finally shifted, did he manage to look up.

Her eyes blinked gold and bleary. Roving eyes fell around the room, concern showing on her face before they managed to drop to where he lay on the floor. She seemed relieved, one hand searching for the buckle on her restraints. Her hand shook as she pressed down, the act of undoing the belt almost more than she could handle, but with incredible effort she managed it.

As soon as the belt was off there was nothing to prevent her from sliding from her chair, and she was too weak to stop it, collapsing to the ground partially on and partially next to him, which he didn't really mind.

Both of them faded out again, this time for longer than before.

The next time they woke up, it was to the sound of groaning and muttered voices.

Adam's entire body was stiff and achy. The skin of his face still felt off, but this time he managed to push himself to his knees. His arms still shook, and he didn't trust himself to stand, but he managed to sit back on his heels, looking around the room. Other members of the crew had woken up attempting to get up just like him.

Ramirez had even made it into a sort of half crouch, not unlike Gollum from Lord of the Rings. His usually artfully messy hair was a curly wreck around his face, his eyes were sunken and red. Adam had seen Ramirez look better massively hung over than he did now.

Impressively the marine managed to make it to his feet for a few moments before staggering back to one knee.

Overhead a noise echoed through the ship.

It was a sad sort of sound not verbal, and clearly not human.

The empyrean was trying to talk to them. The sound she made was regretful, even apologetic. He patted the floor, "its okay, you did what you had to." His voice was a low rasp, but at least it was there. Ramirez tried again, and this time he managed to make it to a standing position, but the look on his face showed he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to be there.

A screen flickered on on the viewscreen display, which otherwise showed a nondescript background of stars.

Narobi appeared in the picture, her orange hair scarf knocked askew, her body visibly wracked with tremors of exhaustion, "Admiral."

"Here." He called, 'The ship, how is she."

"She will be alright, but we have some heat damage."

Adam grunted, "Expected. Is everyone okay." The question was more to the empyrean than it was to narobi

A number count blinked onto the screen. Adam knew that number, the number of active screw members on the ship

They were all still there

Hesighed in relief, and with effort, managed to pull himself to his feet.

Another screen came up, this time of Eris, who he could tell was almost near panic, "Thank the Makers!" She shouted, "Don't scare me like that!" There was a genuine note of anger in her voice past the relief, "You stupid idiots!" Adam let her get it out of her system before speaking.

"Everyone alright?'

She huffed but nodded, "Yes, we are, Avex showed up shortly after you vanished, managed to put up a star nexus. You should have seen how angry he was, blasted everyone else that remained with a vengeance. They're gone now."

Adam huffed, "For now being the key word." He clenched his fists, "They tried to destroy our entire planet."

And that was a sin, he simply could not allow to pass without retribution