Tymber Dalton - Bightmares

Aaron acted unusually quiet and brooding. She didn’t press him, knowing this situation weighed as heavily on him as it did her. She tried to read him and felt a dark cloud of gloom. Since that didn’t help her confidence, she tuned him out.

Emi spent the trip to the surface in quiet contemplation. She had an idea and hoped the governor would go along with her. Aaron wouldn’t be thrilled, but she had to do it.

“I need to wake Dr. Martinez again.”

Aaron shook his head. “Absolutely not. I don’t want you anywhere near him.”

“We’ll take him to their brig. He won’t be in a rage the entire time. You saw him. He was fine for hours. He might be able to help me and Donna figure this out!”

Aaron looked to Gregor and Sam. “What do you think?”

Sam shrugged. “I’m not really thrilled with the idea either. I’m even less thrilled about standing by and watching people die.”

Gregor nodded his agreement. “The three of us can keep her safe. We’ll tether him with the energy shackles. If he rages we’ll just step out of the cell and let him be until he settles down.”

Aaron leaned in and kissed her before he stood to put his protective suit on. “Please, be careful.”

“I will.”

Governor Martinez was more than happy to allow it. Taber helped them move the doctor to a brig cell they emptied. Then they secured him. Taber waited for everyone else to step out of the cell before he gave Dr. Martinez the shot to wake him up.

Dr. Martinez’s blue eyes slowly fluttered open as they filled with confusion. “Where am I?”

Emi stepped forward. “The brig. I’m sorry, but we need to keep you awake. Maybe you can help us figure this out.”

He nodded. His eyes focused on his wife, who stood in the hallway. “Can you all excuse me for a moment? I need to talk to Dr. Hypatia alone.”

Aaron started to protest, but Emi held up a hand. “No, it’s okay. He’s okay. Just keep the cell door open. I’ll run if he rages.”

Taber stepped out as Emi knelt beside the doctor’s bunk. She didn’t dare touch him but sensed his deeper purpose. “What is it?”

His eyes flicked over her shoulder, to everyone watching, then back to her. “I’m a class 1 empath, Dr. Hypatia. And a class 3 clairvoyant. Natural, not trained.” He studied her, his eyes full of unspoken meaning.

Emi silently swore. He knew.

“We have a serious problem, don’t we?” he softly asked.

She nodded.

He glanced over her shoulder, then back to her. “Do they know? Your captain does, I feel it. Do the others?”

“No.”

“How long do we have?”

“ISNC forces will be here in a few days. We have until then.”

He smiled. “Nothing like trying to beat a deadline, huh?” Then his face grew serious. “I worried about this when it first started because I know full well what was in the contract we signed. As a doctor, I know they’re right, that they can’t risk it spreading. But, frankly, I don’t want to die.”

“I know.”

He nodded to the observation window that looked into a conference room. “Can you set up a large display in there? There’s a two-way com. We can go over data together.”

“I’ll get it done right away.”

He nodded and laid his head on the bunk. “Okay. I’ll wait here.” Then he smiled, his blue eyes twinkling with mischief. “I’m a little tied up right now or I’d be a gentleman and help you set things up.”

Emi laughed. She had to save him. All of them.

“Promise me one thing, Dr. Hypatia,” he said.

“Only if you call me Emi.”

“Emi.” He grew serious again. “By whatever means you have to, if we can’t figure this out…” He looked grim. “Drug her if you have to, but get her off this planet if we run out of time. Promise me.”

“I promise. But it won’t come to that.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Within two hours, Dr. Sascha Martinez sat in a chair by the observation window, going over everything point-by-point with Emi and Donna via a three-way com link. He’d waved off his wife’s offer of toast in lieu of chicken broth. He sipped it as he studied the files on the screen.

“I feel like I’m missing something huge,” he said. “Like it’s right in front of us and it’s so freaking obvious that we’re overlooking it.”

“Sascha, we’ve gone over and duplicated your preliminary results,” Donna said. “Water, food, air, ground. Nothing in the samples indicates environmental. There are no abnormal results.”

One of Sascha’s specialties was epidemiology. Of all the people to figure it out, he should be the one. “Did the supply ship crew come back clean?” Emi asked.

“No problems reported,” Donna said.

They all fell quiet for a few minutes, studying the data.

“What’s changed in the last few months?” Donna asked. “Something has changed in your environment. Is it possibly tied in with seafood?”

“No,” Sascha insisted. “Nothing.” He stood and paced, running a hand through his hair. “You have to wake up more men, restrain them, and keep them awake. We need test samples from them while they’re raging.”

Aaron, who sat observing in the corner of the conference room, spoke up. “That’s too dangerous.”

“I know,” Sascha said, “but what if we find different results when someone’s raging? That might be the key. All the samples we’ve gotten have been from unconscious men.”

“I agree,” Donna said. “I think we need to.”

Emi and Aaron stared off. “Agreed,” Emi said. “Now, how do we do it?”

“How many restraints do you have?” Sascha asked with a teasing smile.

With Taber’s help, they picked the last five men infected and moved them into the second brig cell. With arms and legs restrained, they woke them up and waited.

And waited.

Two hours later, the men were sitting up, talking, and no worse for wear.

“We need a different bunch,” Sascha said, sipping more soup. “There’s got to be something.”

“Can we at least get something to eat?” one of the men joked. “I feel like my stomach’s trying to digest itself from the inside out.”

Emi gave orders to the men’s wives, who anxiously hovered nearby, as to what the men could and couldn’t have. Soup, applesauce, broth, nothing heavy. An hour later, the men had eaten and each been allowed a few private—albeit still restrained—minutes with their spouses. By the end of the day, they still had not duplicated the rages in any of the other men.

Emi refused to return to the Tamora Bight that night. “I need to stay here and work on it.” She planted a kiss on the front face shield of Aaron’s protective mask, then wiped the lip prints off. “Kiss the twins for me, okay?”

He didn’t look happy about it, but he gave her a hug and returned to the lander with Gregor and Sam.

Ilse took Emi home with her. Despite the situation, Emi relished her first long, hot water shower since leaving Earth. It was a luxury they didn’t have on the ship, limited to sonic showers when not in a port with abundant natural resources. When she emerged from the shower, she found Ilse sitting at her kitchen counter and staring at the oven. In it, more loaves of bread were baking.

The governor wanly smiled. “It’s my hobby. I love to bake. I figured I’d make some for Sascha’s breakfast in the morning.” She broke down sobbing as Emi hugged her. “I love him so much! I can’t lose him!”

Emi sensed the governor knew more than she let on. Sure enough, she said it. “Special orders were issued, right?”

Emi couldn’t lie to the woman. “Yes. I’m sorry.”