Russ remembered clamoring for air, sputtering and spitting dura-fluid. But she'd already been awake a long time. That much she knew.
Now, the mission was stalled, and the fate of the world was in her hands. Yup, just like in comic book lore, Russ was the sole hero. The Final Girl. If only she possessed powers.
As she stalked the ship corridors, she imagined what her comic's panels would look like:
A poor girl plucked from tech class to become a mechanic.
In the last mission to salvage the population, she's chosen among thousands of others from a military outpost.
The Captain trains her as an alternate, which comes in handy when the rest of the crew starts dropping like flies.
In the event the superiors are compromised, you are authorized to take command.
The instructions had been explicit, and Russ called on her training to get her through. Tiptree and Samuel were in the hangar bay. With Estrenar MIA and Forster in quarantine, they were the only ones still left. She needed them to complete the excavation of Santus.
"Russ."
A small voice scratched at her ear, compliments of the earpieces Samuel had found.
She stopped and depressed her finger on the piece to respond, "Yeah?"
From the sound of it, she was talking to Tiptree: "The excavation ship is taking off in two minutes, and we'll land on Sanctus soon."
"Okay. Message me when you have the samples, and be damn sure to message me if you run into anything."
"Got it. Take care."
Russ found the sign-off funny, and failed to reciprocate.
No matter your status, complete the mission.
She needed to find Estrenar, and Kathar. In that order. Hopefully, Estrenar was okay. Russ felt a smidgen of regret at having left her, but she was a big girl.
I'm sure she's alive.
If she wasn't, Russ would move on to the next. Finding and killing the other traitor.
As a precaution, she checked her body for injuries, but found none. Even missing an arm, Russ would carry on. Unlike most of the crew on board, she had no one back on Earth she cared about. Maybe that's why Captain Forster had chosen her as an alternate.
A keening wail tore from the hull.
Russ changed direction to follow the sound. She was on the hunt, though she worried she'd been here before. But that was silly. She'd awoken hours ago, and there was only one monster left to hunt.
Something grabbed her leg, nearly toppling her onto the metal walkway. Russ yelled and slashed at the aggressor, glad to have missed when Maria Nunez, Jason's co-engineer, raised her head.
"You okay," she asked, falling to her knees to help the woman up.
A severed foot prevented Nunez from rising, and Russ was struck by how ruthless fate's reminders could be. She suppressed thoughts of Jamilet, barely.
Nunez was breathing heavy, with angry welts raised on her cheeks and arms. Russ settled for gently flipping her over, discovering a fist-sized hole in her mid-section.
"How is it?" Russ asked, gingerly raising Nunez up to inspect the wound.
"Not great."
The opening was cauterized, but way too large to be survivable. Nunez met her eyes, seemingly communicating the same thought.
"Let's go to med bay. We can take care of this."
Nunez shook her head, and rasped, "Smokes."
A pack of Escrivain Specials peeked out from a pocket of her coveralls, and Russ shook her head at the contraband.
Nunez was infamous for her flagrant disregard for her own health. At 36, she was one of the oldest surviving adults on the mission, and the only one to indulge in cigarettes. The rumor was she'd started smoking at age 10, the same year she'd been picked as a breeder in Columbia. Instead of learning the practiced art of mating, she had burned a cigarette into a man's ass.
As she placed a lit cigarette between the co-engineer's lips, Russ was inclined to believe the rumors.
"Did Kathar hurt you?"
In between puffs, Nunez said, "Yeah. Asshole."
Nunez expelled the words with great effort. Blood tinged her mouth, like a bad lipstick stain.
"Do you know where he went?"
But the cigarette had fallen from the Nunez's mouth, underscoring her glassy eyes. Russ laid her on the side of the walkway, folding still hands over a still chest. Before walking away, she lifted the laser pistol from Nunez's holster. She got a few steps, and decided to also recover the red and white pack of cigarettes.
Hell, why not.
~*~