Andrew Morgan - Vessel

‘Oh, god,’ he heard Aleks say, closer this time. ‘Oh my god…’

And then he felt it, a blooming ache with a bright centre of excruciating fire. ‘Have I — have I been shot?’

Aleks ran over, and Banin too. Banin was tucking a mini-pistol into a chest holster. So that’s what the second burst of thunder was , Sean thought.

‘It’s in his shoulder,’ Banin said, pulling off his jacket and ripping a strip from the sleeve. ‘He’s losing blood. We need to get him to a hospital.’

‘What about Bales?’ Sean said. His voice sounded distant, pushed away by the growing flower of his suffering.

‘He’s dead.’

‘Dead,’ Sean whispered. Despite the pain, he was the happiest he’d felt in days.

‘I think she’s over there — yeah, there she is.’

The voices sounded muffled, a blanket of semi-consciousness shrouding Sally’s head.

‘I think she’s hurt.’

Black faded to colour, and the shadows of the voices fell on her.

‘Are you okay?’

Sally felt a groan escape her lips, a groan that magnified the thumping behind her eyes. ‘What’s happening…?’ she mumbled, the words an effort to speak.

‘God, she’s out of it,’ one voice said to the other. ‘We’ve been sent to get you. I think you’ve had an accident.’

‘There’s a lot of blood,’ the other voice said in a concerned tone.

Sally felt the back of her head, and sure enough her hand returned with a glossy red sheen. ‘I’m fine,’ she mumbled, colours twinkling in front of her eyes as she tried to right herself.

‘Woah there, I don’t think you want to be doing that.’

A shadow loomed and a man appeared, crouching down in front of her. He pressed against her shoulders to stop her moving.

‘Come on, Wilson, give me a hand here,’ the man said, looking over his shoulder.

Sally felt herself being scooped up, steered through the micro gravity by guiding hands. ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

‘We’re taking you home.’

‘Home?’

‘To Earth.’

A thought flashed in Sally’s mind, freezing her ridged. ‘Is Mikhail okay? Don’t forget Mikhail.’

The guiding force stopped, and two faces appeared in front of her. They looked confused.

‘Is there someone else up here with you?’ one said to her.

‘Yes.’

‘There isn’t supposed to be,’ the other man — the man called Wilson — said to the first.

‘Go and check,’ the first replied.

Wilson darted away.

‘He’s here,’ Sally called after him, ‘and he’s not well. You need to help him.’

After a while, Wilson came back. ‘I looked everywhere, Taylor. This place is deserted. It’s a ghost ship up here.’

‘No,’ Sally said. ‘Look again. He’s here. Mikhail’s here. He needs your help.’

‘Is she talking about Romanenko?’

‘Sounds like it. I thought he was dead?’

‘He is. Wow, she must have hit her head really hard.’

They were taking her away. Away from the station. Away from Mikhail. They were leaving him behind. ‘No!’ she shrieked, thrashing from their grip. They redoubled, trying to hold her still.

‘Calm down!’ Taylor yelled as he tried to grab her flailing hands. ‘You’re going to hurt yourself!’

Tears pooled in Sally’s eyes as she thrashed, turning her vision to mud. She kicked and she screamed, the agony in her heart a thousand times that in her head as she was forced away from the only thing that made her happy. ‘Get off me!’ she wailed, trying to rip her arms and legs from the strong grip of Taylor and Wilson. ‘You can’t do this to me!’

‘Hold her still will you—’

Sally ripped free, and took advantage of her freedom by swinging out hard. Her fist collided with a bony structure that collapsed under the weight of her swing. Wilson, blurred through her tears, recoiled.

‘Shit!’ he yelped.

‘Are you okay?’ Taylor asked, forgetting to grab hold of Sally. She kicked herself away, extracting an oof as her foot sunk into soft flesh, and she tumbled backwards. He’s here, she thought, Mikhail’s here and I have to find him. She paddled through the air, not bothering to wipe her tears away, searching blind.

‘Mikhail!’ she cried out, fire splitting her head in two. ‘Where are you, Mikhail? We have to go now!’

Taylor and Wilson scrabbled after her, and she could hear their palms slapping hard on handholds as they dragged themselves along. She couldn’t see them, but she knew they were coming.

‘Have you got the first aid kit?’ Taylor said.

‘Yeah — here it is.’

‘Good.’

A hand clasped Sally’s ankle, and she kicked about to wriggle free in time to see a needle thump down into her leg. She struggled, but the more she did, the more she seemed to push herself away from the room, away from the International Space Station, until it was all just a pin-prick of light in the darkness of space.

Sean was fortunate. The bullet had gone right through his shoulder, missing anything important. It still hurt like hell, though, but not so much that he couldn’t manage a visit from Banin, who had come to see him at the hospital.

‘How are you feeling?’ Banin said, looking around the white room with distaste.

‘Fine, thank you. I should be out in the next day or so, as long as I don’t get an infection. How about you? You don’t look like you’re a hospital person.’

Banin grunted. ‘I’m usually here to look at a dead body.’ He didn’t need to say anything more.

‘I suppose that’s a good reason. So, what can I do for you?’

‘Do you mind?’ Banin said, pointing to the edge of the bed.

‘Not at all.’

Banin sat. Sean felt like years had passed since this man had saved his life.

‘I need to get a statement from you explaining the whole shoot-out situation. It’s a pain I know, and probably the last thing you want to talk about right now, but I’ve got to do it. We secured some footage from a lorry driver’s dash cam that shows Ryumin veering his own way off the road, but still, I have this formality to take care of.’

‘I understand. It’s not a problem.’

Banin smiled. It didn’t suit him. ‘I appreciate it.’

They talked at length about the incident, and about the hours Sean spent in the barn leading up to it. All Banin needed was the specifics relating to the shooting itself, and nothing of the station or of Sally was mentioned.

‘Once again, I appreciate your help,’ Banin said, putting his notepad away.

‘Not at all. I appreciate you saving my life.’

‘Just doing my job.’

Banin stood to leave, then hesitated.

‘Sean,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose you ever did get to the bottom of the whole aliens thing, did you? It’s been bugging me something fierce.’

‘It’s been bugging me too.’

Banin sat back down again. He leaned in close, eyes alive with curiosity.

‘Did you hear? They sent someone up to get Sally. She’s here in this hospital, in fact. They brought her in this morning from Kazakhstan.’

‘So Bales was telling the truth…’ Sean muttered. He shifted up into more of a sitting position, which drew fresh pain from his shoulder. Banin leaned in to help him. ‘Thanks. But you know what’s been bugging me most?’

‘What?’

‘Ruth Shaw.’

Banin wrinkled his brow. ‘How do you know about Ruth Shaw?’

‘She was the only survivor of the group at Roswell that discovered the first vessel. Why?’

‘I did some digging on Bales’ — Banin reached into his pocket and passed Sean a folded piece of paper — ‘and look what I found.’