From Darkness

[l3wt]

ARLAND

James was floating in darkness. He didn't know for how long. He didn't know much of anything, in fact, except for one thing. A long reel of images and impressions his brain was subconsciously sifting through.

Falling into a great white abyss. The acrid smell of gunfire, of propellant gases and burnt air. Blood. Music. Faces, shocked, surprised, frightened. Inert bodies lining steel rooms and passageways, dead, dead, dead.

Some idle higher process of his mind stood up and took notice, then. Was he dead too?

Nonsense, piped up another.

If he was dead, he clearly could not be contemplating the theory, or much of anything else.

That didn't do much to alleviate the creeping, droning dread that seeped through to what few parts of his brain was active at the moment.

The images continued. Faster, now. More intense. He could remember pain. Fatigue. A knife going through someone's throat. A holdout, a last stand, or something like it, a good one. Then, much to his confusion, snow and a great deal of wind, a red trail behind him.

A worried face, female, blonde, shouting at him, hair dotted with specks of snow.

His eyes opened, and he snapped into consciousness, revealing an unfamiliar, blindingly white room - and immediately tried marshaling his hands into scrambling about for a weapon for the second it took his brain to become fully operational and his eyes to adjust to the light. They didn't respond well, and the semi-conscious action achieved little but twitching and a dull, throbbing pain.

Then he exhaled, only now taking note of the fact that everything sort of hurt like hell. He couldn't help but tug the corners of his mouth into a slightly distant smile.

What could be better than that particular pain? The fully cognizant knowledge that, despite everything, he was alive?

For a few moments he remained like that, staring bleary-eyed at the ceiling, listening to the heartbeat monitor, the soft hum of the ship. He felt a pang of regret at the way they'd gone about this job. He'd very nearly gotten himself killed in what was best described as a senseless and overambitious killing spree, and put their lives into the hands of nearly complete strangers over money.

They couldn't afford this degree of careless audacity in the future.

Why the crew of the Wayfarer hadn't attempted to exploit and discard them so far was beyond him. Perhaps basic human decency wasn't completely dead after all. They'd be in for an unpleasant surprise if they tried something, anyway. JADE had been programmed with a dead man's switch.

Regardless, he was grateful, and intent on paying his debts. Very carefully, trying not to provoke his injuries - gunshot wounds to his leg and shoulder, the screwed up ribs from the landing - he slowly coaxed himself into a semi-upright position. He wondered, when he looked, would someone be there, or had he been left to his own devices?

As James stirred and slowly tried to lift himself up, Floretta looked up from the medication cabinet she had been digging through with a small noise of concern. She immediately abandoned her search and walked over to the bed, gently placing a hand on James's shoulder.

"Not quite yet, my dear. It's much too early for that," she cooed sofly in her musical accent. "Let's lie back down for a moment."

James looked like he was about to protest, but was interrupted by Lisa leaping up from the corner of the room. She had dozed off while sitting in the floor, and now looked angry that she had missed seeing the man awake.

"James!" she squeaked, rubbing her eyes as she stepped up to the other side of him. "How are you feeling?"

Floretta frowned very slightly at the clear interruption of her work, but remained silent - taking her hand off James's shoulder and taking a small step backwards.

James obliged, he always was a sucker for the gentle-though-insistent kind. He sank back down onto the bed, then focused his attention on Lisa, making a bold attempt at cracking a half-grin.

"Well," he said. Came out raspier than he'd hoped, and his throat felt like someone had gone at it with sandpaper, but he managed.

"I feel like I've been put through a steel press then shot a few times. I feel alive enough, though."

"I don't feel as though I've lost anything too important, I mean." He turned his head towards the Floretta.

"Or am I wrong?"

Lisa frowned, not certain how to take his response. After looking at him for a long moment, she turned her gaze to Floretta, eyes asking the same question.

The doctor stepped forward again, smiling reassuringly as she spoke directly to James. "No, you certainly haven't, Mr. Arland. As far as these things go, you were fortunate. Your armor took the majority of the force from the shock, and those that punctured luckily did not hit anything major."

She paused, pursing her lips slightly. "That's not to say that gunshot wounds and broken ribs are to be treated without appropriate care and caution, but I think it's safe to say that you'll make a full recovery with an appropriate amount of bedrest."

James nodded slowly. "That's a relief."

He focused his attention on Lisa again. "I... have to apologize. I was reckless, it's how I ended up like this. I risked ruining everything for the sake of a cargo hauler."

She shook her head slightly from side to side. "No, you don't have to apologize. It was part of our plan... for the money, right. Jade and I should have prepared the numbers for your drop better, should've made certain you would land safely. You wouldn't have gotten hurt if we'd only done everything else right."

Her face fell, and all of a sudden she couldn't meet his eyes.

He tried to laugh. It wasn't a pleasant sound, and it took considerable effort, but seeing her get melancholy and try to blame herself for all this disagreed violently with him.

"There's no way you could have constructed that guidance system with total accuracy anyway. Besides... You're not the one who decided to jump out of a perfectly good spaceship."

She looked up, frowning sadly. "James, it was... it was part of the plan. And I was supposed to get you down there safely... I'm so sorry. I don't know what I would've done if you had... if things had..."

She blinked furiously as tears crept into the corners of her eyes. "You know what I mean."

Neither of them noticed that Floretta had quitely stepped away while they were speaking, choosing to bury her head back into her search through the medicine cabinet.

James felt infuriatingly helpless, mind gnawing away at finding some way to cheer his partner up, or at least making her stop blaming herself for it all. Perhaps he should try and make her refocus.

He'd chosen a bad time to try and give voice to his darker thoughts. On one hand, he had an urge to vent, to tell her everything that really weighed on him. Tell her how little he thinks of himself sometimes. How the thought of his own death or that of others doesn't seem to bother him anymore, and how that, paradoxically, frightened the hell out of him. That and myriad other worries and cognitive issues he carried around in his mind all day.

On the other, Lisa had enough to deal with right now without having to listen to his bullshit like a damned therapist.

That and the Bretonian in him scoffed at the notion of whining. Stiff upper lip and all that.

"I know. I know. Look on the bright side, though. We pulled it off, I'll be fine, we have the cargo, and soon we'll also have the money, and then we can go back to playing discount supervillains. Just, please don't be so hard on yourself."

She let out a long breath of air, and then seemed to visibly re-gather herself.

"I guess you're right. And on the subject of getting paid... I went ahead and told the freelancers that we were going to the rendezvous with the buyers on schedule. We're actually just getting ready to leave."

She blinked, pausing for a brief moment. "Is that... okay?" Her eyes seemed to beg for his approval.

James nodded reassuringly. "Of course, that's great. There's one problem, though," he began.

"I won't be able to come with you for the rendezvous itself. I'm not able to so much as stand up right now, much less duping the Rheinland Military into buying hijacked materiél. This one you and the freelancers will have to pull off."

She nodded, resolve returning to her features again. "It's okay. We can do it on our own. I'll make sure the freelancers don't try any funny business, too."

She glanced over briefly at Floretta, who was pointedly trying not to pay attention to their conversation as she rummaged through the supply drawer.

James couldn't help but glance over too, and mentally kicked himself for creating an oddly conspiratorial look for the two of them before looking back at Lisa.

"They've not tried anything so far, and the doctor has helped me out. Both are points in their favour. Still, keep your eyes open. And be very careful around the Rheinlanders. Any unusual activity, any heavy ordnance pointed your way aside from the usual levels of security, you get out of there. There's always another buyer."

Lisa nodded. "I'll make sure we're careful. Get in, make the sale, get out. Simple - we've done it before, after all."

She shrugged dismissively, some of her headstrong confidence seeming to return. "I'll keep the freelancers in line, and we'll be back with a pile of credits to split up in no time. Speaking of, it's probably about time for the final prep before we touch down at the rendezvous."

She straightened, looking down at him with a sad smile. "Rest up, James."

He gave a sardonic half-smile in return. "As though I have any choice."

Her smile grew as she turned to speak to the doctor. "Doc, don't let him even think about getting out of bed while we're gone."

Floretta turned to them, relief evident in her eyes as she realized she was once again included in their conversation. "Wouldn't dream of it, dear. Don't worry, he'll be just as you've left him."

James kept talking. His voice sounded sluggish, and his lips still felt distant and alien as they moved, but there was no better way to put on a brave face than with a bit of snark.

"Hopefully I'll be feeling a little better. How many painkillers am I even on? No, really, between you and the suit, Doctor, I probably have more drugs in me right now than your average cardamine enthusiast."

Floretta nodded, as Lisa stepped back and moved to step out of the room. "Yes, you have a number of different medications in your system," the doctor replied, "in fact, it's a wonder you've stayed awake this long. Best to take your partner's advice and get some more rest."

Her blue eyes gleamed as she added, "If you don't, I might have to give you a bit of synthetic encouragement." Floretta smiled as she hefted a syringe she'd pulled from the cabinet.

James slightly raised his hands in mock surrender as he sank further into the bed.

"Yes ma'am." Even in this weakened state he managed an appropriately playful drawl on the last syllable, a clear signal that despite everything, he persisted. He let himself sink further into the anesthetic shroud of sleepiness, and closed his eyes. His breathing steadied within seconds.

Lisa stepped out the door of the medical bay as Floretta moved close to him again, checking his vitals one last time before she'd leave him to sleep.

All credit to Manticore for his parts.