Aftermath

Dannel ached.  The pounding, all-over ache assaulted his senses with shrieks from every muscle and nerve in his battered frame.  Blood?  No, he decided, not his own but sticky on his skin and clothes just the same.  “How long?” his groggy mind asked.

The floor was hard and cold beneath him and a dim light – Marrik’s? -- shone at an eerie angle, rising from the floor a few feet to his left to cast surreal shadows on the walls.  Why so dark in here?  His weapon lay on the floor to his right and instinctively his hand groped for it.  Gaining purchase, he dragged it close with a rasping sound that echoed in the silence.  The feel of the stark, cool metal offered him some primal comfort.

He struggled to a sitting position and bone-jarring pain surged up Dannel’s spine dashing itself like a wave on the back of his skull.  He winced and sardonically acknowledged to himself that the battle must have gone well if he could accomplish so much.  The surrounding carnage and the fact that he seemed intact told him it could easily have been much worse. “How much worse?” he thought with a start.

There were bodies and parts of bodies everywhere.  His eyes sought familiar shapes among the dead.  The light – Marrik’s!  The dim light escaping from beneath his crumpled body shone an ugly red.  Dead.  Very much so.  No doubts -- torn nearly in half.

There… some ten feet away… Lirra.  Slumped against the wall, bloody, a gash in her face running from her forehead down her right cheek nearly to her chin.  Her weapon was still in her hand.  Well, she never was one to retreat.

Dannel revised his initial assumption.  The battle had not gone well at all.  He crawled across the gore-strewn floor to Lirra.  Maybe, just maybe…

          Chasbri was well hidden from the scene playing out before him. He watched as Dannel crawled toward Lirra, hoping against hope that she was still alive. Of course, Chasbri knew that she was. She had to be.

          Dannel reached Lirra and gingerly touched the gash on her cheek. He pulled a piece of her already torn shirt free from underneath her body armor and made a feeble attempt to stop the bleeding. Relief flooded his senses as he realized that she was alive. Barely, but still, alive.

          His battered body screamed with every slight movement, but he shoved the pain signals to the back of his mind. He had to help Lirra. He knew that somewhere there would be a medical station and he had to find it.

          He heard a soft whimper to his left. “Chasbri!” He thought. “Chas, come out, boy, it’s all right now,” he whispered. He knew that the Daesko would hear him, even though his voice was almost inaudible. The soft rustle of Chasbri’s fur caught Dannel’s ears as the Daesko wiggled from his hiding spot.

          “Chas, boy, we have to find the med station. Lirra needs help. Can you help me?” Dannel’s intense look cut through Chas’ fear and the Daesko nodded.

          “Of course,” Chasbri squeaky squealed to himself because Dannel would never understand him. “Lirra has to live, just as you do.”

          Chasbri waited patiently as Dannel struggled to his feet. He tottered a bit as blood rushed to unused parts. He’d been out quite a while before regaining consciousness. Slowly and with determination, he bent over to pick up the still form of Lirra. Her gun fell from her hand as he lifted her off the ground, Dannel gritted his teeth in an effort to steel the pain coursing through his body. He nodded to Chasbri to lead the way.

          Chasbri lifted his damp little nose and twitching his fur-tufted ears, he headed toward a corridor on the opposite side of the room.

          Dannel groaned. “Oh, yeah, it has to be way over there!” He muttered. Chas smiled to himself as he led the way across the gore-strewn metallic floor. Chas picked his way as carefully as he could through the dead bodies and pieces. He couldn’t avoid the blood, not that he could care about the messiness anyway. Blood wasn’t so bad; it was a matter of perspective, really.

          Lirra’s blood-soaked dark hair hung in a matted mess, almost touching the ground. It had worked itself loose from the tight braid she had twisted it into this morning before they had went into battle. Dannel choked back the overwhelming feeling that he might lose her if he couldn’t get her to the med station.

          Chasbri clicked and whistled, making what Dannel knew to be soothing sounds. Chas had a knack for knowing when he was upset and tried as best he could to comfort him. Dannel looked at the little creature waddling in front of him, concentrating on the path that the Daesko was picking out. Chas would find the safest, quickest way. He always did.

          Reaching the other side of the room, Chasbri hesitated for just a moment before entering the corridor he had picked. He seemed to wait for Dannel to catch up before continuing. There were a few bodies scattered here as well. The carnage wasn’t as bad as in the main room, but it was bad enough. Dannel couldn’t detect any sign of life as they passed the still forms. Chas didn’t stop to investigate, either, so he knew there were no survivors here.

          His aching muscles began to scream as Chas led him down the hall. He wasn’t in such great shape either. Even though Lirra wasn’t really all that big, she was pretty solid, having spent most of her life working out, staying in shape. She was almost as tall as he was; yet she was as different from him as the sun from the moon.

          The trip through the twisting corridors was uneventful. Chasbri hesitated every so often, as if double-checking the direction he was leading Dannel in. Moments seemed like hours as they wound their way through the passages of the space station.

          Dannel concentrated all his strength in single-minded purpose to get Lirra to the Med Center. He knew enough to get her hooked into the life unit and run the diagnostic program. His father had been Chief Medical Officer on Targis VII, so Dannel had learned a bit about the medical worlds machinery. At this moment, that seemed a lifetime away. He gritted his teeth in determination to just put one foot in front of the other one.

          Dannel realized through the trauma induced semi-conscious state of instinctual movement that Chas had stopped. Chasbri uncoiled his long, fur-tufted tail and reached up with it to the access panel that opened the door. Chas waddled his pear-shaped body through the door into the Med Center.

          Chas was honestly surprised at the lack of bodies in the room. Most of the Medical Staff must have left to help the injured or dying. “Not that it did them any good.” Chas thought to himself.

          Dannel stumbled into the room and toward the life units. The coffin-shaped treatment centers seemed so far away. He was limping heavily with fatigue at this point. Sweat and blood dripped from his sand colored hair, running down his cheeks and past his strong, square jaw-line to drip onto his torn leather jacket.

          It was all Dannel could do to lay Lirra carefully in the life unit and not just dump her into it. Once the unit supported her body, Dannel leaned hard against the machinery. His arms and legs felt like Jell-O, but he knew he had to keep moving.

          Chasbri had crouched down a few feet away, patiently watching the intense instinct for survival play out. He watched as Dannel, his hands shaking, reached for the control panel at the foot of the unit to activate it. It would run a diagnostic program to determine Lirra’s status and prepare data for her course of treatment. It was truly modern medicine at its best.

          As Dannel unsteadily activated the unit, he had no idea that this was the only unit left in existence. Nor did he know that the Med Center happened to be located in the central hub of the space station into a piece that could self-sufficiently detach as a separate space vehicle. This ship held a main bridge with total exploration capabilities, living quarters, a science station (which held enough seedlings and animal species chryo-eggs to repopulate a small world) and the Med Center that they were in now.

          Dannel did not know, as he stood there struggling to save Lirra’s life, that the ship had undocked from the main station and was moving toward a pre-set destination.

          Dannel wavered unsteadily as the life unit began repairing Lirra’s broken, battered body. He felt his consciousness slipping from him as he crumpled to the cold, metal floor of the Med Center.

          Chasbri watched the drama play on, the innocent look on his face seemingly filled with concern. He waddles over to the life unit and hopped up to view the control panel. The unit had sealed the gash on Lirra’s face and had started the grafting process needed to repair it. She wouldn’t even have a scar. Her internal vitals had been stabilized. The unit had staunched any internal bleeding and was repairing her damaged organs and fractured bones.

          Chasbri’s toothy grin widened as he noted that Lirra was going to be just fine. He knew that Dannel would recover as well. Dannel might be exhausted and weak physically, but ultimately he was strong and would overcome the frail state he was in now.

          If Chasbri could have laughed out loud, he would have. This furry little body didn’t allow him that pleasure. He wasn’t quite done with this little body yet, either. Dannel and Lirra both trusted this little creature and he counted on that.

          In the days, months and years to come after they both recovered and awakened to the reality of their situation, Chasbri would be there. He would be there when they discovered that they were the only two humans left alive. Anywhere. He would be there when they realized that they and they alone had lived through what myths, legends and doctrines had called “Armageddon”. They had survived the end of the world.

          They would begin anew with hope and dedication, just as Adam and Eve had done so very long ago. And just when they thought they were secure in their new-found Eden, Chasbri would be there to sow his seeds – just as he had always done.

          Chasbri felt the gentle presence of the One as he reveled in his webs of deceit, but then it had always been so and would always be so. Chasbri – Chaos Bringer hopped down from the life unit to sit sympathetically by Dannel’s unconscious body, weaving his webs, the picture of innocence.