REBELS AND SAVIORS

Maelstrom

“Sickbay.”

“Kyle? What are you still doing there?” Maria asked.

“Too many patients to take time off. Maria? Are you sick, hurt?” And before Maria could answer, “Or just wanting to check on Sean?”

“Yes...I mean no. Well, yes.” Maria swore under her breath. “I want to know about Sean, but no, I’m calling about Michael. He’s sick.”

“Sick? Just wait. I’ll come to you.” Kyle signed off and Maria turned back to Michael.

Holding his body close to her, she gently wiped his face with a cool cloth. Even his lips were slightly red, and she couldn’t tell what his temperature was, but to her it was high.

“Maria?” Kyle eased himself between the half-open door, and entered the cold dark room. He followed Maria’s voice when she called out.

Walking in their bedroom, Kyle paused in the dim light to look at the two in the bed. Maria was holding Michael, wiping his face and talking to him softly. Tears were slowly inching down her face, but she didn’t seem to notice it.

“Kyle! Thank god! He’s so sick!”

Kyle quickly scanned Michael and whistled under his breath at the temperature.

“How long has he been like this?”

Maria’s hands kept wandering over Michael's face, and she bent down and kissed him softly. Kyle gazed at her in wonder as a full range of emotions hit him in full force. Backing off, he tried to watch them dispassionately.

“I don’t know. We took a bath - a cold one - before going to sleep. I remember being cold, and he was the only thing warm in the room. I woke up about ten minutes ago because I felt hot...very hot.”

“He’s got a raging infection. I can fix it with antibiotics and give him something to help the fever.”

“Infection? From what?”

“I don’t know. I thought we treated all his injuries. Let’s take a look and see if we missed anything, and if it isn’t an obvious surface injury...” Kyle watched as Maria quickly started searching Michael’s body, hardly paying any attention to him. “Then I’ll need him in Sickbay for a full body scan.”

Maria was gently moving him around when Kyle whistled at her and tossed her one of Michael’s shirts from a nearby chair. Maria looked down and noticed that she had been naked the entire time. Quickly putting on the shirt, she watched Kyle turning Michael over while she buttoned it.

It was on his back, low, and near the left kidney. A small injury that looked too small to cause problems, but deep enough. Kyle scanned the area.

“There is still a piece of metal embedded in his back. Michael must have pulled out the shrapnel, but missed a piece.”

“Should we take him to Sickbay?”

Kyle just shook his head no. “I can do it here easily enough. Truth be told, I’d rather have one of my hearts removed before admitting another patient to my Sickbay.”

Maria held Michael across her lap while Kyle quickly removed the remaining shrapnel and sterilized the wound. Maria’s hand kept slowly stroking his hair as Kyle gave Michael his first round of antibiotics.

“He’ll sleep for a good ten to eighteen hours. Call me when he wakes up. He’s confined to bed rest for two days, and longer if his fever remains. I’ll be back in the morning to check on him.”

“Thank you, Kyle.” Maria and Kyle pushed Michael on his back and covered him up. “This is all my fault.”

“How? Did you put the shrapnel in his back?”

“No, but if I had gotten there sooner Vishnu might not have gone down.” Maria covered Michael up, checking the covers and then rechecking again. “I ran a scan on him and I missed it.”

Kyle remained sitting on the edge of the bed. “Then it must be my fault as well. I ran a scan too and didn’t find the injury. But the real culprit here is a certain Commander who could’ve mentioned it.”

“He could have. That's true. But I don’t see Michael as the type of man who wants to be babied in Sickbay.”

Kyle laughed at that. Understatement. “Of course, you’re right.” Kyle reached over and grabbed Maria’s hand that was stroking Michael’s face forcing her to look at him. “You going to tell him?”

“Tell him what? That it’s his own fault that he...”

“No. Are you going to tell him how you feel about him?”

Kyle was serious, and Maria’s eyes narrowed. “You know too much...Reading me, doctor?”

“Normally, no, but you’re pretty open right now.”

Maria just shrugged as her hand went back to soothing Michael. “What good would telling him do? We don’t have a similar concept or word for what I feel for him. And soon it will be over.”

“Maybe he has a right to know? Maybe he needs to know.”

“Why? So he can be like Max? Stuck in a 'sort of' marriage with no partner? Or so that when I go...and I will go, he feels my end more than he should?” Maria bent down and kissed his head. “He doesn’t need the extra pain.”

Kyle just shook his  head, and stood up to leave. “Think about it. It’s not just for you, Maria. He might not have a word for it or even understand it, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t feeling it. His world walked away from a lot when they made their primary goal to repopulate their world. But of all the matches I’ve heard of or seen...few were happy. The Attilaans are bonded by similar chemistry in their brains. Perhaps there's something wrong with being bonded to someone so similar.”

“It seems to have worked for them. They survived...pulled themselves back from the brink of destruction.” Maria watched him sleep. “I know they feel things that they have no name for, or even want to name. I’d never fault his loyalty and devotion to Max and Sean - or even you. All the people on this ship mean so much to him.”

“He was a freak on his own world. The only way to make a place in their society was to produce children. It was a statusmaker. Michael had the added stigma of being unbonded, but Sean and Max are now equally outcast. Now none of them have mates, and none of them will ever mate with an Attilaan. That time is over.” Kyle looked at his sleeping friend. “He made this ship and its people his own. It’s all he has...all he’s known since he was seventeen. Half a lifetime is a long time.”

Maria just shrugged, a frown between her pretty brows. “It doesn’t make the desire any less. He wants what he could never have, and understands little about what he can...”

“Dreams change, Maria. He couldn’t want something else when it was all he knew...all he ever wanted.” Kyle reached across Michael’s body and framed Maria’s face with his hands and forced her to see him. “Tell him because he needs to hear it, even if it's for only a moments, a day or even a few months. Tell him.”

“He’s been so alone,” she said softly, “as have I.”

“He needs something to save him when you’re gone. Something that tells him that there's hope, and that for a short time in his life he had something indescribable...something righteous.”

“Promise me something?” Kyle just nodded. “When I go...make sure he’s not alone...that he’s okay...for me?”

Kyle didn’t know what to say. How could Michael be okay? Kyle simply agreed because he had no other option.

Maria smiled slightly and casually removed Michael’s shirt. Snuggling under the covers with Michael, she whispered her thanks to Kyle.

“Goodnight.” And Kyle watched as she closed her eyes. Taking that as his cue, he stood up and left them to sleep.

Maria listened to the door shut behind Kyle, and then rolled over on her back bringing a sleeping Michael with her. He was so tired, and it was as if his entire body was concentrating on nothing but rest. She gently held him while he slept, stroking his back and running her fingers through his hair.

Reaching down, she gently kissed his head, and whispered an “I love you,” at his sleeping form.

~~~

“Sam, report on the current repairs?”

Sam moved in his chair to face Max, and frowned. “It doesn’t look good. With Sean down, and almost half of his repair crews still offship serving time for bad behavior...estimation can’t be made.”

“Do you need some help?” Max turned at the sound of Maria’s voice.

“Maria, how is Michael? I heard...”

“He’s better. Still sleeping.” Max's eyes narrowed to slits as Maria crossed to his command chair, watching her carefully in case she felt the need to push a button or something. “What’s the problem?”

“We need to do repairs, not only on Shiva, but on the recovery craft that engaged in battle, along with almost all of our small fighters.” Maria just waited for him to continue. “We can’t run and hide from Khivar long enough to get repairs underway, we are understaffed - plus Sean is out of commission, as is Michael.”

Maria nodded. “Will a safe haven help you?”

“What did you have in mind?”

“The Thorns.”  That got everyone’s attention.

Max just laughed, half in amusement, and the other half because the closest thing he would ever have to a sister-in-law was certifiably insane.

“The Thorns? No one goes there. It’s not even mapped by Khivar or his sensor arrays.”

The Thorns - a special space anomaly of spatial rifts, energy fields and tackion radiation. The area was considered a trap where few were able to navigate; therefore no one went there. The negative energy sinkholes pulled ships into their fields and drained them, thus rendering the ship ensnared and unable to break free.

“I can take you through it. I’ve navigated it many times.”

Max just stared at the woman. Michael was right. She was incapable of watching over herself, and taking unnecessary risks was almost her mainstay.

“Maria...”

“There is a place in the middle, a haven where we can stay until repairs are made. The trick is to avoid the sinkholes and rifts, and ride the energy and radiation waves.” Maria knew they thought she was crazy. “Khivar will never come there to look for us, and we can take the time to actually get our systems online.”

Max thought about it. Khivar had his arrays everywhere. He would be actively searching for them. They had too many systems down, too many injured crewmen and no time to repair any of it.

“How often have you been through the Thorns?”

Maria laughed. “My people used it as a training field for flight instruction. I’ve been running it since I was a young adult. It's mapped by my ship. I can lead you in. It's just a maze. In the center is a place that is safe. Rather like the eye of a hurricane.”

Max thought for a moment. It was insane, but if they could find a place to effect repairs...Khivar and his people would be searching all the usual places to hide. Pierce would help them narrow the field.

“Okay. Let’s do it.” Max ignored Sam’s look of disbelief. “Do you need to take Helm?”

Maria went to Michael’s security station. “No. I can access the Zephyr’s navigational computer from here. I’ll tie the information into the Shiva’s computer, and plot the course. Sam can do the actual journey to the center.”

The operations officer watched Maria as she quickly worked. Suddenly his computer and system were alive. The main computer bank was receiving an active download from Maria’s ship’s mainframe. It was sending navigational information at an alarming rate.

“Course is plotted in, Max. Any time you’re ready.”

Max looked at Sam and nodded. “Take us in, Sam.”

Sam looked uncertain, but he took them to the Thorns gateway in almost no time at all and using navigational control, entered the labyrinth.

The Bridge crew was mesmerized by the open field of energy ribbons as they entered a lightning landscape only heard of, but never seen. It was shockingly beautiful and intense.

“Cap, I’m reading rising radiation along the hull. In areas where our shields are weakened...”

Maria quickly made adjustments in the computer.

The man just frowned and reread his scans.

“Gar? You were saying?” Max asked, quietly waiting.

“Nothing. The radiation is running symmetrically to our hull. It isn’t penetrating. I don’t understand it.”

Max turned in his seat and looked at Maria. “What did you do?”

“Energy flows from systems of high energy to low. I sweetened the pot, as it were. I changed the polarity of your warp field to emit outward. You aren’t needing to create a warp field at this time, so I pushed the field outward, allowing us to run at impulse within a warp field bubble. That will keep the radiation from moving through the shields as it seeks balance by filling a lower radiation and energy field.”

Max watched as Maria took the helm seat next to Sam, and they navigated through the Thorns without a problem. The two sat conversing the entire time, and even Max had to acknowledge that Maria was right. The Thorns weren’t that difficult to get through. By the time they reached the center, the area was clear in a nice quiet space.

“Maria, why is there no activity here?”

Maria smiled at Sam and turned in her seat to answer Max.

“It’s the same principle that created the corridors we navigated through. The rush of energy enters the Thorns through subspace rifts and ribbons brought from other systems. Because of the energy sinkholes, the incoming energy seeks a balance within the system and rushes to the sinkholes to fill its void. That is the rush of lighting displayed. But what happens is, there are thousands to millions of these microbursts occurring at once, and when one energy field encounters another, they cancel each other out. They balance. It creates a vacuum or a cancelled field.”

“So we travel in the cancelled area?”

“Yes. It is like a neutralized space corridor or conduit. In the center where all these energy fields come together it creates a larger neutralized area...a sort of hub. Here we can stay indefinitely until our repairs are made and the engines and system can be made ready.”

Max quickly sent orders for all stations to report on repairs as the engines came to a full stop in the center of the Thorns. With their sensors on full sweep, they  were able to read any approaching ships. For a short while, they had a hiding place safe from Khivar and his searchers.

“Captain, the sensors are reading nothing.”

“Understood.”

Maria got up to leave, when Max stopped her. “Where are you off to?”

“Engineering. I was going to go work on getting the heat and power re-established to C Deck. And to fix your shields.”

“I wasn’t aware that shields were down except in areas of the ship with hull breaches.”

Maria just laughed. “Well, there are shields, and then there are shields.”

Max stood and walked Maria off his Bridge.

“Making sure I get off the Bridge without touching anything?”

Max just smirked, but then stopped her beside the door.

“Okay, what are you planning?”

Maria just shrugged. “Nothing special. Just replacing your current shields with ones like mine.”

“The reflective ones?” Max’s interest was suddenly piqued. Her shields. He wanted those...bad. Having them would make the Shiva invisible to Khivar’s sensor net, and her shields would be able to transverse other shield technology by emulation.

“How much time will it take?”

“Some work. The new system will need emitters placed over the entire hull. Repairs of damaged areas will need to be first. And it comes with a price.”

“Explain.”

“You can’t be scanned, but that also means that your own smaller support ships, recovery ships and fighters won’t be able to lock onto the Shiva. Your options will be to set established rendezvous coordinates, or to break communication silence.” Maria stretched. “If we also establish these shields on your other smaller ships, that means you’ll be equally blind to them.”

Max nodded. “Okay. So can’t you find a way for the ships to detect each other?”

Maria actually looked embarrassed. “I really wish I could, but currently there is no way. I understand the shielding and how my technology works. But, I’m not a real engineer. I can’t necessarily create new technology.”

“But, you understand our systems enough to fix them, or even improve them?”

“Sure I do, but they’re less evolved than my own systems. I understand almost anything below my own technology. I just doubt that I have the expertise to expand beyond it. That would take an engineer - a real one. There are limits to my knowledge.”

“Okay, then do what you can. Sean will be out of regeneration in about six days. Michael is off duty for another two, which I’m sure he isn’t happy about...”

“Why do you think I’m out and about helping people? He hasn’t woken up yet to hear the good news because Kyle gave him something to keep him asleep for at least eighteen hours of blissful bitch-free whining...but,” Maria just shrugged delicately, “he’ll be awake soon enough.”

“Let’s let Kyle take care of it.”

“Agreed.”

With that said, Maria took off to engineering. She had hours before she would need to go check on Michael again. Looking at the engineer board and all the down systems, Maria went to round up extra help.

~~~

Max frowned at the temperature of the C Deck. Maria was correct. It was cold. Entering Michael and Maria’s quarters, Max knew almost immediately that Michael had awakened. And he was unhappy.

“Dammit, Kyle, let me up from here!”

Max entered and quickly swallowed a smile. “What’s going on, little brother?”

Michael’s eyes narrowed as he suspected that Max was amused. Rattling a restraint on his left hand connecting him to the bed, Michael looked highly pissed.

“Tell this jackin’ jay, two-hearted Nellian worm to release me!”

Kyle just shook his head no. “Absolutely not.” He pointed a finger at Michael. “Your history of following medical advice is for crap. So until I say you’re ready for active duty, this is were you stay.”

“Maxwell...”

Max put up his hands. “Sorry, Michael. You know that the Medical Officer’s orders supercede the Captain’s in all things regarding the welfare of a crew member.”

“I’m fine! Great. I don’t feel tired, and there is too much to do to be tied up to a bed.”

“You’re hardly fine. Maria called me here in the middle of the night because you had a raging fever, you were unresponsive, and...when the hell were you going to mention the hit you took to your back?”

“I pulled out the shrapnel. It was nothing.”

“Nothing? You missed a piece. You know it poisons the blood. Your fever was the first step in many towards your death. You got lucky that Maria was with you and called me.”

Michael suddenly seemed to realize that something, or specifically someone was missing. “Where is she?”

“Working, like everyone else.” Max answered easily, smiling at his brother in spite.

“You? You’re letting her touch the ship unsupervised? Are you insane? She takes unnecessary risks, and...” Michael looked at his bound hand and groaned. Of course. “This is her fault.”

“What is?” Maria asked at the door. “What are you blaming me for now?” Michael rattled his bound arm at her. Maria just shrugged. “I didn’t do that...though it’s a great idea.”

“You called Kyle. You set him on me. And now look.”

Max ignored him, and studied Maria. She was filthy. Her hands were bleeding in a few places, and she looked tired. It had been almost six hours since they entered the Thorns and she took herself off to do repairs.

“How’re repairs going?”

“Not good. We’ve got over twenty hull breaches and internal sensors are offline. Sixteen subdeck corridors are blown in, injectors are also offline, the crystalline matrix is showing a full scale fracturing, inertial dampers are...”

“I think I’ve got the picture. I spent this morning helping to reroute blown paneling on the Bridge.” Max rubbed his scarred cheek. “How long?”

“Two weeks. Things will be better when Sean is able to work. His main assistant was killed, and half his repair staff is off the ship. This is the worst time to be understaffed.”

“Who is taking control?”

“Keller and Jonesy. They’re coordinating all important and essential systems first including all hull breaches and environmental systems. We lost all power to hydroponics and had to set up temporary heaters and oxygen-carbon dioxide mixed generators. It’s still down, and that system is essential or all the food banks will be gone.”

“I’m going to go check on it now. Internal communications are down again so wear a com badge, Maria.”

Max started to leave, as was Kyle, when Michael called to him. “You need me, Maxwell. Tell Kyle to release me.”

Maria just rolled her eyes and took herself off for an extra special cold shower. She had repaired the environmentals for this deck, but she wasn’t sure when the systems would come online.

Max stopped angrily. “What I need is for you to use your head! I’m sick of watching you try to get yourself killed. So shut up and rest! You’re off duty until I say so, and that will be when Kyle okays it. Are we clear?” Max looked at his brother hard. “I said, Are. We. Clear?”

“Yeah, we’re clear.”

“Good. Now be a good boy and let Maria feed you. I’ll check back on you later.”

Max and Kyle left the room. Both men headed for the lift until they remembered it was still offline. Taking access tubes, they both climbed the deck.

“Well that went better than I expected. Luckily I went to check on him just before he woke up or I’d have never got the restraint on him. I give him five more hours and he’ll be climbing the walls in boredom.”

“I give it less. Michael doesn’t do inactivity well.” Max started to head away from Kyle to return back to work. “What’s the final count, Kyle?”

“Eighty-seven dead, thirteen still critical and twenty in regeneration. Sickbay is swelling with the injured.”

Max nodded his jaw clenching. “I should’ve destroyed that system before I left.”

Kyle touched Max’s shoulder. “I know, but doing such a thing is beyond us. Beyond you. That's a tribute to you personally, Max. Your people would have exacted revenge and rained destruction on them until all of them were annihilated. You didn’t. You've evolved.”

“The hell I have. I wanted to, and I would have if Michael and Maria had died. What I left them was the horror that Khivar will settle on them.”

“His hands...not yours.”

Max rubbed his face. “Khivar? Does he even have hands anymore? He’s like a scary story you tell your children to keep them behaved and honest.”

“I have an order for you, Captain. Forget getting back to work, and go take some down time. We’re in Maria’s playground, safe for now. Let's rest so we can fight stronger tomorrow.”

Max thought about it and nodded. Heading back to the access tube he had just vacated he waved Kyle goodbye on his way back to his quarters.

“Bridge?”

“Aye, Captain?”

“Tell operations to order a full ship step down. I want only skeleton crews on for the next twelve hours. Repair crews are to fix only what is utterly essential and the rest can wait for the step down to end. No cooking tonight. Order replicator use for all personnel.” Max paused. “Are replicators working?”

“Not all of them, Cap. I’ll reroute them to the ones that are. Anything else?”

“No. Just goodnight.” Max turned off his com badge and laid back in his bed. Waiting. He knew she would come. She always did when he was tired, too tired to fight it. Serena.

~~~

“Maria. Come on, just look at it!”

“No! I’m making us some food.”