Reaper settled me down on an examination table, and for a moment, I feared he would leave me. To my utter relief, he only took a couple of steps back, while Jessica approached me.
“Hello, Janelle. I’m Jessica, the team’s Medical Officer,” the human female said in a sweet, warm voice that reminded me of my mother’s when she was trying to soothe me.
Her kindness, now that my initial euphoria had finally calmed down, made me feel even more terrible for the rudeness I had displayed towards her and the others. They had helped open the way for me to get out of my prison, and I had completely ignored them, pushed them away even as they tried to give me much needed assistance. I looked for nice words to express my mortification but came up short.
“Sorry I pushed you,” I mumbled, feeling awkward.
“No, don’t be,” Jessica said in a friendly tone. “I should be apologizing to you. It was quite insensitive on my part not to realize you needed a moment. We were just so happy to find survivors, and you’ve suffered so much. I got carried away in my impatience to make you physically better while forgetting that emotions are just as important.”
I smiled gratefully at her understanding, wishing I could see her face instead of this blurred silhouette.
“First, I’m going to check your implants to make sure none of our equipment could negatively affect them, and then we’re going to get you in the particle shower before we begin your full exam,” Jessica said.
My face heated with embarrassment. Now that the air around us was so clean and fresh, my own stench was beyond shameful. It was a miracle she still managed to keep such an impassive yet friendly expression instead of wrinkling her nose in disgust. I thought of apologizing again, but, unlike my earlier rudeness, the defectiveness of our hygiene facilities had been out of my control.
“Yes, thank you. I dreamt of washing again,” I said with sincerity.
“I can imagine,” Jessica said cheerfully, while scanning my implants. “I’ve been on certain missions where bathing wasn’t an option for too many days to count. Hmmm, yeah, this is bad. These implants have to come out completely, but they’re not a threat right now as long as you don’t use them anymore.”
“I have Janelle’s optical aid,” Reaper said. “I’m going to work with Madeline on a temporary replacement until we get back home and get her the latest technology.”
“Great,” Jessica said with approval. “Now off you go. I’m going to take good care of this young lady.”
“What? No!” I exclaimed. “Don’t go!”
For some silly reason, the thought of him leaving this room filled me with the irrational fear that I’d never see him again.
“I will be nearby,” Reaper said gently, taking my hand. “I will come back when you are done.”
“But… Why can’t you stay?” I said in an embarrassingly whiny voice.
“Because we have to undress you,” Jessica said gently, although with obvious confusion.
I bit back the urge to say ‘so?’ and pursed my lips instead. I understood that you weren’t supposed to walk around naked in front of others. I didn’t mind if Reaper saw me naked. I’d been naked in front of the Creckels many times before. In truth, in the past years, I’d taken to only wearing a lab coat when I was cold to make it last longer. I realized too many years in isolation and being alone at such a young age had deprived me of worldly knowledge as to how one was expected to behave in society. It would be yet another challenge for me to overcome.
I shrugged but said nothing.
Reaper caressed the back of my hand with his thumb. “I’ll be nearby. You can mind-speak to me at any time if you ever feel scared or panicked, okay?”
My throat tightened, but I nodded. To my utter shock, he leaned forward and gently pressed his lips on my forehead. I liked that, a lot. Before I could recover enough to say a word, Reaper turned around and walked away. I stared at his blurry silhouette until he fully disappeared.
6
Reaper
I settled down in the meeting room, surrounded by the rest of the crew. My eyes kept flicking towards the door, feeling antsy with the need to go be by my woman’s side. My face heated at the sympathetic look from Doom and the teasing one from Reklig. Clearing my throat, I straightened then gave them a quick summary of what I had seen below.
“There are two dozen Creckels down there, including a handful of young,” I said. “They are all significantly undernourished. Even if we ration our current food supplies, we won’t have enough to make the journey back to their homeworld with all of them.”
Doom nodded with a slight frown. “We can go hunt some Zebiers and stack up on their meat. It’s not prime cuts, but it will be fresh and should be nutritious enough for them.”
He cast a glance at Stran who growled his approval with a nod. I repressed a smile. I couldn’t recall seeing the Creckel so excited or happy, even when rejoicing at the prospect of killing Kryptids.
I turned to Thanh. “We have enough to last until after we’ve gotten them out of the base?” I asked her.
She gave me a sharp nod. “Yes,” our pilot responded, flicking her long, straight black hair over her shoulder. “We have enough to last us a week.”
“Good! We should be opening the way first thing in the morning,” Doom said. He hesitated, then gave me an assessing look, immediately setting all my senses on alert. “How is your female doing?”
“She’s fine,” I said cautiously. “Jessica is taking good care of her. Last she mind-spoke to me, she was starting a nanobot treatment to cleanse Janelle’s blood and system from all the bacteria from her implant infection and the bad food she’d been eating.”
Doom nodded slowly again, the intensity of his stare telling me there was more he wanted to say.
“Spit it out,” I said in a semi-growly tone. “You know I don’t like beating around the bush.”
Doom snorted, and Reklig smirked.
“I am wondering why she’s the only human survivor,” Doom said carefully. “Where are the others? How did she survive the gassing of the base? What did they live off of this whole time?”
I frowned, not liking one bit the unspoken implication. And yet, they were valid concerns that I, too, would have expressed had we rescued someone who wasn’t my soulmate.
“I am sure there is a clear explanation, but I was too busy tending to her urgent medical needs to interrogate her,” I said, regretting immediately my snarky tone.
Doom didn’t get offended and smiled instead sympathetically. Although he looked no older than twenty-eight and would only start showing signs of aging once he reached one-hundred and fifty, at sixty-five, our team leader truly possessed a wisdom far beyond his age. He always instinctively seemed to know how to handle whatever tension or emotional distress others felt.
“I would have personally spanked you if you had handled the situation otherwise,” he said mockingly, defusing the tension, and sparing me a well-deserved chastising.
I snorted and gave him a sheepish grin.
“I peeked around when I went down to bring food and water to the Creckels,” Reklig said. “The good news is that they haven’t eaten your corpse. That would have been creepy. But they did consider it...”