And Khoth was still sliding.
But he was actually going in the same direction of the squid. It shot out of the cell and raced down the hallway. It levitated over his and continued to the far end of the hallway. The Osiris turned on as it moved. Lights that had been dormant blazed to life, blinding Khoth. Doors that had been sealed, opened at the squid’s approach. A thrum went through the entire ship. The Osiris was coming back to life.
Khoth jammed his feet against the walls and turned on the magnetic locks. He jerked to a halt just as the squid flew over him. He grabbed hold of those coils that were not wrapped around Jace’s body. For a moment, he stopped its forward momentum.
“ARGHHHHH!” Khoth cried as he strove to keep the squid in place.
But there was another zap and his suit’s magnetic locks failed. He was now flying along with the squid. He wrapped his right arm around the coils as he reached out with the left hand for something to hold onto. But the walls were smooth, even the thresholds gave him no chance to curl his fingers into the insets and gain some purchase. The squid headed for a lift that throbbed to life. The doors smoothly slipped open and the lights seemed to explode around them. The three of them were inside of the car and it was rocketing upwards before Khoth got his feet underneath him.
Khoth jumped up and spun around so that he was facing the squid. The seeming hundreds of tendrils curled around Jace in what seemed a protective stance. Other tendrils were suddenly lifted up and facing towards him. Spikes and claws all dripping with neurotoxins were aimed towards him. His exo-suit would block many of them, but not all. There were simply too many. The space was too small. He had nowhere to go. If the squid wanted him to die, he would.
What if this isn’t an enemy? Gehenna was supposed to be in that cell. Gehenna wants to save Jace. Maybe that’s who this is. Maybe she’s just trying to save Jace.
“Gehenna?” Khoth asked, his voice breathless, even as he was up on the balls of his feet and swayed from side to side.
The squid’s translucent head flashed with yellow lights. His exo-suit’s system fuzzed. He frowned.
“I cannot understand you,” Khoth said. He could see Jace’s body among the curling coils. “Jace is very ill.”
Jace might be dead.
His Xi hurt to even think that.
There were more flashing lights. Deep blues that were almost black. Greens the color of Haseon forests. Yellows like the morning sun.
“Are you trying to help Jace?” he asked. “Because I am trying to do so. I need to restart his heart. I need to get him breathing. Damage is occurring that cannot be undone.”
There were suddenly two straight lines that appeared on the squid’s face. The red line showed an erratic rhythm.
Heartbeat. That is Jace’s heart. It’s beating.
The blue line was more of a sine wave.
Breathing.
“So you’ve got his heart back and his breathing relatively stable. We need to get him--”
There were frantic flashes of lights. His exo-suit suddenly buzzed. He lifted up his right forearm and instead of his own vitals, there were words written in Thaf’ell.
Must get Jace to core.
He frowned. “Core? You mean the Osiris’ core?”
Yes.
“Gehenna, is that you?”
Yes. Nice to meet you, Commander Khoth Voor. Help me?
Khoth’s gaze dropped to Jace.
“Can you save him?”
Yes. I do this for both of us. There was a pause and then Gehenna told him, We will have company when the elevator doors open. Ready? Three… two… one…
Khoth spun towards the doors as they silently whispered open. They had reached a level where the humans had breached. Khoth was staring into the eyes of three soldiers who were staring at the lift as if it were possessed. They hesitated before lifting their weapons. Khoth went for the one to the left. He lunged forward and hit the human soldier on the back of the neck. The soldier went down, unconsciously, as if all the sand had been released from his body. The other two were hit with electric zaps. Their bodies arched before they, too, fell unconscious in heaps on the floor.
Gehenna floated ahead of him with Jace’s unconscious body in her coils. Khoth followed closely after her down the hallways that now flared with the Osiris’ own light rather than the humans’ strung lights. They met soldiers and scientists around every corner. The scientists ran. The soldiers didn’t have a chance to even reach for their weapons before either Khoth had downed them or Gehenna had.
