chapter 12 [https://i.imgur.com/08gTMAB.jpg]
Concept art for Planet X1147Y Mining Facility B, The Foundry Room.
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"You were pushing me! I couldn't breathe, I was passing in and out while I standing!"
"You think that matters? We were trying to get into the manhole, you were taking too long!"
"Ugh you. don't. Listen! You didn't even help out fighting even though you were at the back. You're the biggest coward here!"
Everyone was pointing fingers. Fear controlled them and they didn't know how to properly respond.
"EVERYONE BE QUIET!" Ella yelled out and drowned out the bickering.
Lucy stood up on a crate and began to talk. "We're scared, I get it. But if you want to be angry, get angry at the captain, not your fellow recruit. They're struggling as much as you are. We're safe now, that's all that matters."
She paused and looked around. Everyone had stopped and turned to listen. She pressed on, "we need to work together to keep this place safe. We can't relax yet. I want everyone to report to Ella. She will hand out jobs, and we're going to get through this together."
Lucy jumped back down and then took Ella to a small janitor's store room, filled with cleaning equipment, closing and locking the door behind them.
“Give me a status report.”
“As far as we know, no one died.”
“Thank the Goddess.” Lucy sank to the floor, relieved.
“Elizabeth, I’m not cut out to be a leader. I don’t know how to lead. You saw what happened. I lost control. The people are fighting amongst themselves even though there's clearly a threat outside. I can't even unite them against a very real threat.”
Ella crouched down and looked at Lucy. And then slapped her in the face.
“OW! What was that for!”
Ella then hugged her.
"What?" Lucy was confused, but then returned the hug.
"We almost died Lucy. All of us."
Lucy stayed quiet. It was true. They had barely escaped the jaws of death.
"So many things had to go right for no one to die. You telling everyone to leave. You telling everyone to move faster. You telling everyone to run. You coordinating a defence. There's one constant, and that's you as a solid leader. None of us would be here without you, so I mean this with love, but get over yourself. We need you, leader, now more than ever."
“Why don’t you lead? You’re so motivational.”
"Don't make me slap you." Ella stopped hugging Lucy and smiled at her sadly.
"You've been supportive the whole time. You helped me achieve all that. Why don't you take over?"
Ella slapped Lucy again.
“OW! Okay maybe I deserved that.”
"Listen, I can't lead. I- I'm too selfish." Ella crossed her arms and avoided eye contact with Lucy, but then grinned. "But, I’m a great whip. Mmm. I’m a good tool, but a terrible leader. And if you don’t start doing your job, I’m going to start whipping you as well young lady.” She raised her hand again and Lucy flinched.
Ella chuckled and instead extended the raised hand and offered it to Lucy. Lucy gingerly accepted it.
Ella smacked her hand away. “Again. Firm.” Lucy tried to grab her hand again.
“Firmer!”
“Good! Now grab my wrist, not my hand.” They clasped the other's wrist and Ella pulled Lucy up.
The got up and dusted off their clothes.
“So, my glorious leader. We’re surrounded by a horde of monsters. We have no way of protecting ourselves and no way of getting to the destination safely. What’s your plan?”
Lucy sighed and rubbed her temples. “We’ll need people to scout the compounds for more threats, in case some of the monsters got in. If we’re safe, it would be good to stay the night here. Let people rest and prepare for tomorrow. The monsters are scared of direct sunlight, maybe we can safely leave this place in the morning.”
She sighed again.
“We’ll need to find a source of food and water for the rest of the journey. Bedding to sleep at night. Protection against the monsters that we will likely meet. Broken pipes, splintered wood, anything. Most of all, we need information. The basic hologram map isn’t enough. This is a Citadel facility. There must be some sort of communication device that we can alert the captain of our situation. That, or maybe there is information about the surrounding lands, flora and fauna to help us plan and prepare our next move.”
Ella nodded along with her plan but then frowned at her last sentence. "Captain Sunderland? You want his help?"
"I hate him as much as you do. It's just..." she faltered. "The one thing I can trust with him is his good leadership. He'd know what to do."
"Okay, I'll see what I can do."
“How many are injured?”
“Okay. Now for the bad news.” Ella grimly replied. “10 people are critically injured, another 40 people have minor wounds. Uh Lucy? No, Lucy, stand back up. There you go. Look, if we don't fix this problem, that's 50 people who will get sick and die.”
“Okay. We’ll need more people to search the compounds. There has to be some first aid lying around. Temporise the situation until we can get a proper solution. If we can contact the Citadel, maybe they can send help. If not, we’ll have to take them with us and quickly take the portal back to the Citadel.”
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“On it boss.” Ella moved to open the door and leave.
“Ella, wait.”
“Mmm?”
“Can you show me where the wounded are?”
Ella smiled at her, "of course", and opened the door. Everyone was waiting outside and starting bombarding them with questions.
"Alright you lot, let us pass! Lucy needs to see the injured, I'll give you jobs on the way there!"
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Eric was carried into a room by 3 people and placed on the ground next to Jaden, Mervyn, and Killian. They were lying on the floor of a foundry, a spacious open concept room with large metal containers and decommissioned furnaces. All the equipment was largely rusted, but remained standing. The room was spacious enough to place all the wounded on the floor.
Eric struggled to talk, but lying on his side, he was able to cough up clots and blood and breathe a little easier.
“You look like rift sludge.” Killian chuckled.
“You look. like one of. those monsters. ate you. and spat you out.” Eric retorted.
Jaden laughed, “This little rifter. All gooey from head to foot. Here we are getting bitten all over and sporting puncture wounds, but this lad is mating with the damned things.”
Killian tried to get up but winced in pain and lay back down. “You’re lucky I can’t move Jaden. You better watch out later.”
“No thanks, I don’t want to add to your goop pile.”
Killian tried to get up, this time forcing himself through the pain to sit up. He yelled in pain as his wounds opened again and began to seep blood.
“Hey, stop it both of you.” A pale skinned, bald lady pushed him back down. “You’re hurt. The last thing we need is for you heroes to be fighting amongst each other.”
“Sorry Cindy.” the Killian gasped.
“I’m impressed," Eric said, "you’ve managed. to defeat these. boys when even. a horde of. monsters couldn’t.”
“Hey, stop hitting on Cindy. You already have Ella, Cindy’s mine.”
“Wrong, I’m no one’s. The moment you’re better, I want you out, the lot of you. You’re nothing but trouble.” She rounded on Killian and Jaden, “but if you learn anything, good manners won’t hurt.”
Cindy smiled and held out a hand to Eric. “I’m Cindy”.
“Eric.” He reciprocated a smile and accepted a shake.
Eric could feel the heat of the gazes of Killian and Jaden from his peripheries and chuckled.
“Aha, here are the bravest on Planet X1147Y.” Lucy and Ella entered the room, followed by a number of other recruits.
Ella stayed at the peripheries and talked to the recruits while Lucy walked up to the four of them and knelt on her knees, speaking intimately to them. “You’re lucky to be alive.”
They gulped and the mood in the room dropped a notch.
“But here we are, all accounted for, because of your actions. On behalf of the recruits, I thank you for your sacrifice.”
“Likewise Lucy. If you didn’t pull us from the monsters, we would be dead.” Mervyn shivered.
Lucy patted Eric’s shoulder and laughed, “I guess that makes us even.” The others gaze lingered on Eric's shoulder with some jealousy.
She stood up and stepped back, pulling Cindy with her.
“How bad is it?” Lucy looked to Cindy.
“I’m not a doctor, I don’t know.” Cindy averted her gaze.
“Well, they're opening their eyes and talking at least.” Lucy sighed.
“I’m worried about Eric. His foot is so mangled. I think I can see bone, and the bleeding hasn’t stopped. The monsters must have done something to their wounds to make them keep bleeding.”
“What do you need?”
“Honestly? A miracle. I have no idea how to help them.” Cindy replied, “we need to stop the bleeding somehow. Bandages for compression, I guess. There’s also so much dirt in their wounds and we have no water to clean them. They’re almost guaranteed to get infected.”
The situation was grim. Lucy pursed her lips. She took a deep breath in and smiled cheerfully before walking back and talking to the men, “good news, there’s supplies here in the facility. We’ll get you sorted out soon enough.”
Her response was met with cheers from the four. Lucy shared a glance with Ella. That woman was too smart; she knew something was up.
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Zac was watching the interaction. Eric was by far the worst injured in the room. His face was a pale grey and was sweating from his forehead. His suit sported hundreds of small gashes and looked more like rags attached to his skin. Every wound was slowly oozing blood.
Ella was busy coordinating with the other recruits before they ran away asking for more recruits to come to Ella for jobs. Others explored the facility looking for supplies. Everyone had a job to do.
He could hear her talk, “Look for anything. Bandages, clothes, wipes. I don’t care if you have to mummify them, I want these four men to have stopped bleeding by the end of the hour.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Others were running back, “Ella, we’ve found this”, and Ella was shown some brown overalls. “Everything is years old and caked in dust.”
“It’ll have to do.”
Lucy continued to walk around the rest of the room, talking to the rest of the wounded, shaking hands and patting shoulders. Once there was a lull in the recruits coming for orders, Ella peeled off from Lucy and sat down with the four men to continue to talk with them. Their circle was laughing together and every now and then Ella would place her hand on Eric’s shoulder or chest.
Zac smiled. They’re a good bunch.
Zac was suddenly reminded of the scene outside. He was running to catch up with the others and saw Eric turn and stand inbetween the recruits and the monsters. He saw Eric brace against the horde and saw monsters jump and climb on top of each other, willingly meeting him head on.
Zac remembered Eric bursting out of the trap, grey metal armour covering his whole body. He was slashing furiously without a care, but for every death, 2 more monsters took their place. Soon Eric was overwhelmed by the numbers and the monsters had found gaps in his armour to tear into his flesh.
Zac remembered as he ran to save Eric, he saw the other three join in, armoured to the toe, fighting to free Eric and also becoming overwhelmed until they were four large wriggling masses.
Zac had reached an armourless Eric and quickly punched and kicked the monsters, freeing Eric and the others from captivity. He had grabbed the monster aiming for Eric's head, which had clearly displeased it because it had started to chomp at the air and squirm, trying to free itself from its invisible captor. Zac placed it in front of other little monsters and it surprisingly had bitten down on them, settling for any flesh, chomping them in half. He picked up another monster and then used them as chomping machines, clearing those dangling on his flesh. Then Lucy and the others had also joined and coordinated a tactical retreat.
Returning to reality, Zac smiled at Eric and the others. They were alive. That’s what mattered.
The four injured circlers were in fact very lively. They complained as Cindy ripped up the brown overall and wrapped them in it.
“Cindy be careful, argh!!”
“Cindy, I’m okay, I’ve stopped bleeding, really look! No Cindy, don’t come closer, arrghhh!”
“Escape without us, Mervyn. Save yourself!”
“Guys, help me, arrghhh!”
“Don’t be such a drama.” Cindy was exasperated at them and Ella continued to sit next to Eric, not lifting a hand to their aid and instead laughed at their misfortune.
Zac laughed as well. He closed his eyes and put his index and middle fingers to his forehead, lips moving with no sound. He was saying a familiar silent ritual… smite me for my infidelity.
He opened his eyes again and decided to leave the room. His friends were well looked after.