L'Dopterra 1: Homecoming - Chapter ten

10 THE AWAKENING

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As David attempted to wake Alexis, Douglas freed Levi from his bindings and moved to the other bound crew member. Carefully removing the tape from the man's bloodied face, he attempted to revive him, but there was no response. Upon checking the man for a pulse and signs of breathing, he found nothing, so he returned his attention to Levi.

"Can you get up?” he asked. “We need to move."

Levi, bloodied and sore, struggled to his feet. With Douglas' help he hobbled over to David and Alexis at the grate.

"What about..." he began to ask, pointing at the man, still bound on the floor, but stopped as Douglas lowered his eyes and shook his head mournfully. Douglas helped Levi sit down next to Alexis and knelt beside them.

"We have to move her," he told David. "We can't stay here. I heard more of them on this deck."

"Help him down," said David, gesturing to Levi. "I’ll slide Lexi down to you. I can't wake her up."

Once they were all safely back inside the service crawl, Douglas reached up and closed the grate behind them and looked around to figure a way out. "We can't stay here either. They had to have heard her screaming."

David continued his efforts to revive her. "Come on, Lexi, wake up."

Levi pulled himself up from the floor and moved across the wall a few feet in the direction of the stairwell. He stopped and put his ear up to listen.

"What is it, Levi?" David asked.

"I hear something." He scooted down the dark hallway a bit more. "Like a sort of tapping sound."

Douglas snapped his head back to David. "We have to go," he said. "I'm not taking any chances." He saw the mobile tablet lying on the floor at the base of the stepladder and reached down, picked it up, and turned it on. On the screen was the schematic of the crawl they were in and the map that Alexis was setting up, showing the various ways to enter the deck above. "Here. There’s another stairwell down this tunnel." He pointed in the opposite direction of the noise. “If we get her there and block the door, it could give us time to revive her and make a plan."

Douglas reached down and pulled Alexis up, holding onto the tablet to use it as a light source. "Help Levi. I'll carry her."
As he got to his feet, David wrapped Levi's arm around his shoulder and the four made their way to the stairwell.

Several minutes passed as they moved slowly through the crawl, being careful to listen and not make much noise. Alexis was beginning to wake up on her own.

"I'm sorry, David," she muttered several times as they approached the steel door to the stairwell.
"Don’t try to speak," Douglas said, trying to comfort her. "You're safe."

David and Levi, following directly behind, sped up to get closer to Douglas. "She awake?" David asked urgently.
"Not quite, but she's starting to come around."

They finally reached the stairwell, and Douglas carefully set Alexis on the floor. Her eyes were still closed and she was still mumbling.

Douglas gestured to David to be quiet as he slowly opened the door to peek inside.

"The lights are working in here," he said. He stepped in and looked down the center opening of the stairwell and listened. Determining that it was safe, he gestured for David to bring Levi in and retrieved Alexis.

David and Levi sat down against the wall and Douglas set Alexis down beside them, propped up on David's shoulder. Douglas looked around, trying to figure out a way to block the door but couldn’t find anything obvious.

I guess it’ll have to be me for now, he thought as he slid his back down the door and planted himself onto the floor.

"NOOO!" screamed Alexis. It was as if no time had passed since the fight on the deck above. David moved quickly to put his arms around her and comfort her.

"Hey!" he whispered. "You're okay. We're fine."

"What happened?" She looked around, concerned about her unfamiliar surroundings. "Where are we?" She spotted a worn-out Douglas sitting against the door.

"You saved our lives," she said.

Douglas nodded at Alexis with a hint of an exhausted smile.

David put his hands on her cheeks, focusing her attention back on him.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

She nodded, and he kissed her softly and pulled her head to his chest.

While leaning on David's chest she remembered what had happened on the deck above. Every time she closed her eyes to blink, the incident flashed in her head. The look in the man's eyes as she thrust the pry bar into his neck, the warm, sickly sensation of his blood splattering onto her face and arms. She looked down at her hands, covered in blood, and found the two large gashes, one in each palm.

The experience was nearly too much for her to handle. She could feel herself slipping away as her mind tried to protect her from the trauma. She peered back up from her hands to find her brother sitting next to David, looking down at her. He was beaten and bruised, wearing his fear and worry heavily on his face.

She lifted her head off David's chest and reached over to Levi, touching his cheek with her fingertips and leaving a small smudge of blood.

"Are you okay?" she asked. The more controlled part of her personality began to surge up from behind the fear, rage, and anxiety, and she felt a calm settle over her as it took over. She knew that she had to push the experience deep down and move forward to protect the people she loved. She needed to be strong, or they would not make it.

Alexis sat up and looked for her pack. "I need a communicator," she announced.

Douglas pulled his own off of his belt and handed it to her. "I don't think they’re working down here," he said as Alexis grabbed it from his hands. "We tried to reach you several times before I came to get you."

Alexis pinged Salazar's com several times but couldn't get through. "Well," she said as she got to her feet, "that means there’s a junction to repair. Where are we?"

* * * *

In the conference room, Jennifer was working the math. She had already determined that there was enough power to maintain stasis for several years and was now trying to determine the logistics of moving the entire remaining crew down and into the stasis pod before the ship reached the planet.

The course was set prior to the explosion, and without a flight deck there was no way to start the normal landing procedure.

"We have less than six hours," she announced to the room. "At that point, the ship will begin entering the planet's atmosphere. After that, anyone not in stasis will be in for a very rough ride.”

"And we'll be able to detach the deck in time?" Salazar asked.

"No, ma'am. We will be too close to the planet. If we detach the stasis deck, we’ll break through the atmosphere in an uncontrolled fall."

"Okay, but Stasis can handle that, right?"

"It was designed to withstand a collision with an asteroid. It can handle the crash. I'm just not sure about the heat," Jennifer replied. "If we want any chance of survival we need to crash with the rest of the ship and let Stasis protect us. Even if the ship breaks apart, the hull should mitigate the heat long enough to ensure we make it to the surface."

Salazar turned and collected several documents and a tablet off the center table. "Don't mention the heat part when we're explaining this to everyone."

"Salazar, I’m pretty sure that this is how they are planning to survive the landing as well."

"What do you mean?"

"The power readings tell me that someone has already prepped the stasis pods for exactly what we’re trying to do."

"Okay, that's not good." Salazar sighed, realizing that this added an element of conflict that she was hoping to avoid.

"Well, yes and no. It takes at least twelve hours to fully prep the pod. We wouldn't be able to do this if they hadn't already done it for us."

Suddenly, Salazar received a ping on her communicator. Hesitating for a moment, fearing that it may be Palmer calling to demand a response to his terms, she slowly put the com to her mouth. "Salazar."

"Alexis here."

"I’ve been trying to reach you. Status?" Salazar turned to find a chair.

"I have Douglas, David, and Levi with me," she answered. "We are on the stasis deck, not far from the pod. Something is going on down here."

"We know," Salazar replied. "Do you have any way to get back here?"

Jennifer stepped forward and placed her hand over the communicator. "Hold on."

Salazar looked down at Jennifer's hand, shocked that anyone would interrupt her. "Okay… what?"

Jennifer backed up. "Sorry," she said, remembering her station. "If they’re up for it, I think they can help us more from down there."

Continue to chapter eleven