So yeah, this update took way too long to do and I'm sorry for that. I just couldn't get away from my family long enough to do anything and got distracted with other projects. I apologize for the wait and hope it was worth it.
Several hours have passed since Tesla and Swabbie had ventured out into the darkened fields of snow. Lily, having risen from her restful slumber, began pacing around the windowless confines of the ships interior; saying nothing to Garrus who had returned to the ship sweating fiercely after examining it all. Her mind was in a constant battle to remain in control as the longer Swabbie and Tesla remained away from the ship, the more she began to worry. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust the pair; it was the fact that neither of them knew what was out there. If anything happened to the Captain, she shuddered at the thought, rubbing her arms weakly as she pondered what exactly to do at this time. It was as if everything of use that she could be doing had simply vanished as soon as they landed on the planet. There was no food to be cooked, they weren’t going to washing clothes anytime soon and her knowledge with diplomacy was all but useless at the moment.
Sheepishly turning to Garrus, she noted that their pilot was busy flipping through the pages of some magazine. After a few seconds of reading, he’d turn to the onboard computer shift through a few pages of information that looked to be manuals of some kind. Even from the other side of the ship Lily could tell he was irritated, not only that, the countenance that he wore said it all. The ship wasn’t going to be getting them off this planet no matter how much repair it received. “Garrus? Can you tell me how badly the ship is damaged and is there anything I can do to help?”
The pilot’s head swiveled shocked that there was still someone in ship, having gotten so used to the quiet he had completely forgotten Lily was there. Grimacing for a moment, he looked back down, trying to regain his footing in reality after his focus had broken. “I’d rather not say till everyone is here Lily, I’m not a fan of repeating myself or giving bad news. Plus, I’m just trying to see what all can be salvaged or repaired before I go making any calls; I’m no mechanic, but I’ll do everything I can to make sure that we get the highest amount of mileage as possible out of this rig.” Sighing at the end of his statement, he pushed hands up to his face staring at the now blank heads-up display of the vehicle. It had been designed to pick up anything that regular optics would have missed, plus manufacturing glass for space travel was just plain stupid. The smallest crack meant death for everyone on the ship.
His sour mood only grew when he realized that their Captain still hadn’t returned. Garrus’s head twisted back to the ground where he found his feet to be particularly interesting. “Lily if really want to help, just don’t panic for me alright? I’m not like Captain, Swabbie…or whatever the hell you want to call him. I’m not like him, the guy is great and all, but he is just too calm most of the time; he acts like his choices easy to make, but I can’t do that. I’m no leader and I never will be which is why I defaulted the position to him; even when he was just the janitor, he had a way about him. Just always willing to do what needed to be done and make the hard decisions for others. So right now, I need you to calm down and not panic because I’m about ten seconds from a mental breakdown and if I see you in that same position, I’m going to freak out.”
Those words spilled out from his lips, flowing like a stream at Lily’s feet, who could only bite her lip and nod. She felt the same way he did, knew exactly what he was talking about and couldn’t help but sympathize with him; she was no leader, just as he wasn’t. Yet, she had to be the mother to these people, she had to care for them, they were all she had left. Despite not liking Garrus or Tesla that much to be honest, she knew they were her family now and they were all in this together, at least till they got off this accursed rock of ice.
“Garrus, just stay calm, I’m sure everything is going to turn out alright. Some on Roshire most likely saw the crash and they’ll send someone out to investigate; all we have to do is keep our wits about us and stay alive. While you and I can’t do much to secure food or gather materials, we can at least be here to support the two people who can.” During the time she had spoken, she had moved over to him, placing her hand onto his shoulder lightly. Having done so, Lily gently rubbed at it, causing Garrus to give her a small pained smile before burying his face into his hands.
“Lily, what the hell did we do to deserve this? Yesterday, I thought I was just going to be piloting The Thespian for a few more delivery trips before quitting and taking my services elsewhere. I woke up this morning and thought to myself, it is just going to be another boring day. Yet, this happened and now, I’m stuck on this frozen planet with three other people and no idea if I’m going to live or not.” Lily raised an eyebrow slowly, sighing as she tussled his red hair casually.
“You know Garrus, I might be a little more sympathetic with you if you hadn’t used me as a bargaining chip with the Captain. I get what you are saying, but it is hard to give a damn when your previous actions say contrary to what you are stating; you were likely going to run with a load of money and use either myself or Tesla like your personal sex toy for the rest of our lives. So…’little man’.” Lily stated the final part with a chuckle before straddling him and hovering over his body. Her hands came up grasping both sides of his face as she put on a rather innocent look. “You should know better than to try to play the pity card on a woman you just treated like an object, because no matter what you say…I’m weary of you now and I’m never going to let you anywhere near my body. So you can look, but you’ll never get to touch.”
A giggle left her lips as she finished teasing him, getting up and thankful that he had provided enough of a distraction to get her mind off of Swabbie and her adoptive father for the time. “By the way Garrus, you won’t die, I’ll make sure of that, just so I can watch you blue ball as penitence for your actions.”
“Oh come on, don’t be like that Lily.” Garrus retorted too stunned by what had just happened to really say anything else, his eyes now bugging in stupor. “I just…well…alright you got me red handed. I was trying to secure a place for myself in life; I didn’t exactly think this was going to happen. I wanted a warm body by my side on cold nights and I wanted enough money to start over somewhere and be able to relax and forget about what happened. So…it won’t do any good for me to lie to you, you were dead on in your observation.” Garrus stammered at the start, but by the end he was speaking his usual flat tones, leaning over and returning to his bored look as he rubbed one of his arms.
“Well, you’re an honest bastard. A bastard, but at least you’re an honest one.” Lily commented back to him, sighing as she turned back around, putting her arms under her breasts with a small pout. “I can’t believe you would try to manipulate two poor women, one that has been trapped in a box for God knows how long and then another that just had everything robbed from her. You’re a piece of work Garrus, but you’re one of the people I have to rely on, so I forgive you…for now.” Waving her hand in front of her face, Lily sat down leaving the pilot not only confused but slightly irritated by the exchange. It hit him soon after that the point of it hadn’t been to mess with his head, but to take his mind off the current troubles they were facing.
“Smart lass.” Garrus huffed under his breath before leaning back in his seat, his eyes becoming glued to the ceiling before the lids grew heavy. It had been about four hours since they landed, Swabbie and Tesla still hadn’t returned and all the excitement and exertion had left him exhausted. “Just going to close my eyes for a minute and rest….” He mumbled before slumping over and nodding off.
Another two hours passed before Swabbie and Tesla returned from their hunting trip; the Captain panting heavily as the trudge through the snow wasn’t exactly any cake walk. His body was sore and he was drained from the loss of blood, grumbling weakly, he nodded at Tesla whom he was leaning on. The code to the ship’s door coming back to mind as he punched it in hurriedly; he wanted out of this God forsaken cold and back inside the warmth of ship. Never had the sound of an electromagnetic lock disengaging been so beautiful to him; the buzzing noise growing before the pistons inside dropped straight down. Immediately the doors opened before him, a small hiss acknowledging the force that was pulling the doors apart before Swabbie was allowed to move inside.
Tesla watched him enter first and slump down on the bed, removing his coat and laying it down to his side; meanwhile, she busied herself with reclosing the door and carrying the food they had gathered over to the kitchen area. As she left it in front of the sink, she could already hear the squealing of Lily from the other room; she had hoped they could have avoided the drama of their Captain being injured. Fate had other plans though, heaving another sigh, she walked into the room and noticed Lily fussing over the impromptu bandages and looking up worried at the Captain. “Lily, please, I’m fine can you just clean the wounds please, stop kicking up such a fuss.”
Swabbie was clearly trying to calm down the female, who looked like she was about to burst into tears while Garrus looked on, not believing the size of the massive red marks across Swabbie’s chest. “Captain, look at your chest, it looks like you got into a fight with a bear or something.”
“Believe me, I wish it had been a bear.” Swabbie said truthfully as he cringed when she tore the fabric off of his chest revealing the entirety of the wounds; causing her to gasp. Large black spots had formed where it was beginning to heal over, but his skin was still stained bright red from where the blood had been spilled. The Captain could barely control Lily as she moved around frantically, nearly tearing the medical supplies off of the wall trying to get out the bandage and a wet rag to properly clean the wound. “Thanks for cleaning these Lily, we didn’t have anything out there we could have cleaned it with.”
“You idiot, you unbelievable idiot. How in the hell did you get yourself hurt like this? What could you have done that nearly got yourself cut in half?” Swabbie looked up, Tesla was already looking away ashamed from behind Lily and out of Garrus’s line of view; Lily, too focused on Swabbie, was paying her no attention and looking down at him like some sort of mother severely disappointed in her son for some stupid stunt that he had pulled. Leaning backwards, the Swabbie breathed out slowly before looking dead into Lily’s eyes.
“Yeah, I was a bit stupid, there was some weird animal out in the wilderness. It saw us and let out a warning growl for me and Tesla to back away; instead of heeding it, I thought I could scare the beast away by rushing it. It didn’t take the bluff and nearly killed me, if it hadn’t been for Tesla I would be dead right now.” Lying to the woman, Swabbie found her holding a rag moist with hot water over his chest, the sensation of the heat stung him, but also felt good at the same time. Hissing at the touch, he let her work without a word, feeling soap entering his wounds and burning like hell, but he didn’t pull away or even bother to do much more than cringe slightly.
During this entire time, Tesla stared at him wide eyed, biting her lip and nodding thankfully at him. Slowly, she sat down on the bed across from the pair; Swabbie meanwhile noticed that Lily had put down the soapy rag and had pulled out a cotton swab and some rubbing alcohol. “Ahh…fuck.” Swabbie whimpered as the press of the wet cotton sent a new wave of pain rushing through him; cringing almost violently as he felt the alcohol seeping it across the full length of his chest.
“Well, maybe this will teach you not to play hero next time Captain.” Lily answered sternly before beginning to wrap up the wounds in clean bandages, slowly twisting each around his entire body and pressing them down. Having finished her chore, she brushed her hands off grabbing Tesla’s arm and pulling her off towards the kitchen area. “And you missy, you’re coming with me, I need some help in the kitchen and I don’t want mister hero cutting his hand off thinking he can scare whatever you scrounged up into cooking itself.” Grasping her wrist, Tesla squeaked a little bit and shot one last glance at the Swabbie before moving with Lily around the corner leaving only Garrus and their Captain in the room together.
“So, you brought back some food, nearly got yourself killed. You always find some way to balance yourself don’t you bud?” Garrus commented as he walked in sitting down next to his friend and huffing a brief sigh.
“I take it you are going to give me some more bad news huh Garrus?” Swabbie responded as he brought his hands down between his knees and curled his fingers around each other. “I kinda expected it to be bad, don’t have much of a clue how bad, but give it to me straight. I’m tough so I can take whatever you throw at me.”
“I know you can,” the pilot stated before looking back up, “this ship is never going to fly again Swabbie. Just about everything was obliterated in the crash. The engines are near completely destroyed with the only viable part of them being shoved up into the ship and unable to be pulled out. The other one has been completely broken off, our distress beacon was completely shattered, communications don’t work anymore. Hell, let me just put it this way. The only things that are working on this ship right now is the emergency power and water; we can still have lights in the ship, we can still cook and we have heat. We’re basically living in a glorified trailer right now Captain.”
Swabbie looked up at the ceiling, knowing the girls had heard this, but were at least not getting emotionally about it at the moment. Sighing, he brought his hands together once again, contemplating on what to do next. “Alright Garrus, I guess we’ll just have to make do with what we have right now. We’ll do whatever we can to make ourselves comfortable and survive until someone comes to get us or we find a way to signal to the planet above us. It just seems like for all that we get done, something brings us back two steps.” Another sigh left his lips as he pulled off his flat cap, setting it down beside him before running his hands through his hair. Unable to really think of a next course of action, he just hefted another sigh before rubbing his face.
“No use worrying about it right now, I’m in no shape to go searching for anything and I think it would be best if I stayed off my feet for a little while. At least until my chest heals a little bit.” Glancing back up, he could smell the meat cooking in the next room along with the sound of water boiling next to them. “Garrus, can you tell me one thing though…how long do you think our emergency power supply will last us?”
Garrus only brought his hand up to his chin, rubbing it once or twice before looking back down. “Well, we have to pretty much constantly run the heat to keep ourselves from freezing to death, plus whenever we have to cook. I give us a little less than a week’s supply.” Staring at each other, the two only nodded, Swabbie pulling himself up and almost falling over as the pains in his chest returned when he had to cough. “Here…let me help you.” Garrus answered, lifting his friend up slightly and letting him lean on him before walking with him into the kitchen where a rather large pot of stew was being prepared. Steam continually rising off of the surface as Lily looked like a machine rather than a human dicing up the tubers they had found, expertly pulling away a prickly looking core and tossing it into the trash can.
“Don’t try and eat those…they're poisonous.” She explained rather quickly before she took the raccoon like creature, now having been sliced into equal portions of red meat were being tossed into the pan to brown before going into the boil. Swabbie and Garrus, who were pretty much stereotypical bachelors in that they had rarely ever cooked for themselves were amazed, even Tesla had simply moved aside to let the woman work trying to avoid the hand she was holding the knife with. It only took another twenty minutes before the meal was completely prepared, the mixture of tubers and a few leafy plants that Tesla and Swabbie had picked up now making up a hearty looking stew with ‘raccoon meat’ making up the protein. All that was left over was the squirrel, which was being roasted with some of the grease from the raccoon fat to add flavor.
“Well enjoy everyone.” Lily answered pleasantly, though still glaring at Swabbie for his ‘stupidity’ out in the field. Dinner went over well with some mild conversation about what they would do once they got off this planet, Garrus talked about a new ship, Lily and Tesla giggled and had a little ‘girl’ chat, talking about how a nice hot shower would feel and a chance to go out into the night would feel. Swabbie couldn’t help but laugh and talked about the club scenes back in his home town. All of them knew it was a shallow comfort, but it was the only comfort they had. Swabbie managed to devour two bowls of the stew, finding it delicious, but knowing he had to conserve any food that they had. Only about a fourth of the pot had managed to be eaten, which was then left sitting on the counter with some plastic wrap over it, seeing as the fridge had been busted in the resulting crash, one of the only signs on the inside that they had crashed at all.
“Well Lily, that was delicious and all, but I should get some sleep and heal up before the morning. We don’t know how long that stew will last and we should definitely try to see if we can’t find an outpost or something out here.” Smiling, the Captain wished everyone good night before retreating to the only other room, aside from the restroom, and claiming one of the bottom beds. Laying in it, he collapsed exhaustion taking him without any fight at all. So deep was his slumber that he didn’t even notice when Tesla and Lily joined him in bed; not feeling their weight displacing the mattress, nor their body heat next to his.
Come the morning, the only thing either Tesla or Lily could think about was his body heat. Swabbie had yet to wake up, despite several hours having passed and he was sweating profusely; Lily’s hand touched his skull and could feel the fever raging through his body as she pulled the bandages away from his chest and yanked the covers back. She could already see the problem, bright red lines were branching out from his wounds like spider webs; the wounds having turned darker and now slightly yellow. It was acting fact through him, Garrus had been woken up by the fussing of Lily and Tesla and now stared stupefied by the condition of the captain.
“Garrus, I’m the only that knows how to nurse these types of wounds and keep him alive for as long as possible. The wound must have already been infected when he got in, but it wasn’t spreading like this, we need penicillin and the ship doesn’t have any. I know there are a few plants that grow naturally on this planet that can supply us with it. Here, take Captain’s anti-gravity boots and Tesla and go find them. I’ll be waiting here.” She stated bluntly thrusting the boots into Garrus’s hands as she looked down at them, doing as she asked without a word and getting prepared for the journey out into the wilderness.
“Just keep him alive till then Lily, we’ll do what we can.” Garrus responded unnaturally quickly before taking up the coat and yanking it onto himself and pulling out the velocity knife, still coated in the beast’s blood from yesterday. “Come on Tesla.” He called before opening the door and looking out into the wilderness, pondering which direction to go.
A. Head east toward the mountainous region where a few trees can be seen breaking just out of the snow.
B. Head west, towards the forested region Tesla and Swabbie explored yesterday.
C. Head south into the snow where nothing can be seen.
D. Head north deeper into the field of Dosrochire flowers.
