Point of Documentation: Marshall, Phoenix 11

The Captain of the vessel left some time after all the talking was done; and it was a lot of talking as well. He had to recount everything that he had gone through in the past few days in vivid detail to the Captain so that he would understand how dire this all was. He needed them to believe him and take him back to somewhere with an orbital telecommunication hub so he could contact home. Yet, these people seemed less concerned with the threat and more so the logistics of it. It… rubbed him wrong. He understood they had their own interests, but the interests at large were more important.

Besides that; he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off about the Captain. Something was just slightly off about all of the crew of this mech, HMW Betty as they call it. It seemed as if the Captain had some kind of chip on his shoulder when they talked, constantly checking his words as if they could be wrong or incorrect. Marshall knew that all the information he had was correct, even if these backwards planet-living people couldn’t understand that. That and the Captain seemed to keep tugging down on the hat he wore during their conversation.

There was also the mechanic: Cadence. She was a spitfire of anger right out of the gate. She seemed to be watching him like a hawk from the moment he regained consciousness under those lights. It was annoying, but he understood her trepidation. Marshall was an outsider, a new face, and from a place more advanced than them. If it was him, Marshall would be holding a rifle in a corner while his commanding officer sat at an interrogation desk. Thankfully this place was too small for something like that, and missing most of the facilities for it.

The Doctor, Roberts he recalled, had been the most normal out of the two. He seemed to be some tribal-like man thrown into technology. His grasp on medical knowledge was astounding, especially for such a Terra bound society. Whilst the talk was going on, Roberts had just been sitting in the corner writing down things onto a holo-pad. The thing seemed like archeotech but operated well enough for a typewriter Marshall guessed.

They had left each minus the large Roberts. He had stood in the room while going over statistic after statistic of Marshall’s health. It was getting grading after the third question of ‘have you touched any of the strange flowers’ mixed with another location he had no idea of. After nearly half an hour of this, Roberts finally put down the pad on the table. Marshall’s eyes looked to it to gleam anything off it if he could. However, Roberts had turned it off upon setting it down.

“Marshall, I do need to go over some of the items I did find in your check. Not this one,” he said, gesturing to the pad, “but the one that I ran on you to make sure you were clean and not a biohazard to us.” Robert’s face tightened at the end of this.

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Marshall, seeing bad news from a kilometer off, adopted a frown on his face almost subconsciously. “Uh… those words aren’t usually good to follow with one another. What did you find? Did I have trace amounts of radiation or something? A super disease from traipsing across this dirty planet?” There was humor being strained out from his words, but it was so forced that it just came off as words of mockery. Marshall knew this but he needed to hold out a hope that these primates just saw that he was late on a vaccine from seven centuries ago or somet–

“I’ve detected trace amounts of Void-Scourge in your bloodstream. Your blood is tainted by the Voidling plague, probably from coming too close to the Hive without proper PPE.” Robert's words were flat as he spoke this news.

Marshall’s ears immediately began to ring with panic. Roberts said more words, but the only thing that Marshall could hear was that terrible ringing. He knew barely anything about the Scourge, but he did know that anyone afflicted with it were as good as dead.

A hand came down and gripped Marshall’s shoulder. His attention went to its owner: Robert. “Calm down kid, take a few deep breaths. We don’t need you panicking right now, ok? Calm breaths.”

He focused on his breathing. Yes, breathing. Was he having a panic attack? He must be. He gripped the edges of the bed with such strength that it made his hands hurt. At least, that was what he thought. Looking down, he was barely even crumpling up the sheet over the makeshift bed. His hands just hurt, and so did his head and the rest of his body as the stress flowed through him. “O-ok. I think I’m good enough.” He said through his breathing. “Please… repeat what you said after. I… didn’t really hear it.”

Robert looked the boy over with a concerned glance before reaching over and picking up his holo-pad. “I know you’re an Outland– er, a resident from off-world. So I’m going to go over the basics of the self-quarantine you need to do. But first, please put on this scrubber.” Roberts flicked through the holo-pad for a second, then removed a mask-like apparatus from one of the drawers. Marshall slid this over his mouth and began cycling it. It wasn’t too different from the ones they used in basic training for getting used to the full-apparatus of the pilot’s chair. “Now I want you to wear that anytime you plan to be around anyone. Only take it off to clean it in an environment you know you can sterilize after.”

Marshall nodded to this, fitting it to his face as he did this. He spoke out, though the words were a little muffled from this. “What else? I’m already in this deep in the bad news.” The dry sarcasm colored his current mood perfectly now.

Roberts gave a shake to his head and began digging in another drawer. If Marshall wasn’t clear of head, he would say the man just laughed at him. Roberts removed a collection of needles from the drawer and the smile on his face immediately made Marshall recoil. “Oh, nothing much. Just the starting batch of nearly three centuries of vaccines for pathogens you space-born people haven’t interacted with.”

Marshall’s heart rose in his throat at this. Was it too late to tell the man he had trypophobia?