Incendiary

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. I can say from experience that they are wrong. The screams I’ve heard in space echo between my ears; I don’t think I’ll find peace from them.

Standing alone at docking bay Delta-27 with nothing but the singed clothes on my back and clutching a bag containing the remnants of my life on Arcan, I looked out of a window at the vast expanse of the galaxy, a sight glittering with the light of far-off stars.

The soldiers told me to get on the ship, and I had. The last moments my feet felt solid terra had been filled with flame, fury, and fear.

I turned away from the window. Nothing would be the same.

I’d never been off-world before. Airborne, sure, but never higher than the twenty to thirty-thousand feet cruising altitude of a prop plane. At a rumbling sound that shook the floor beneath me, I looked up as the sleek starship that had rescued me detached from its dock and surged forward into the inky black. If anyone were to ask me right then to describe the faces or names of the soldiers that had dropped me off to save my life, I would die immediately. I was barely beginning to process that I was no longer on my home planet, let alone the events that had transpired over the last thirty-eight hours. I couldn’t even remember the name of the station I was standing on now. It had seemed so small from the observatory window of the starship, but what had looked to be a diminutive space station from a distance had slowly loomed into a massive tubiform structure floating in the abyssal emptiness of the galaxy.

I couldn’t tell whether it was night or day. It had been so dark when I’d been picked up that it could have been either. How did they tell time out here? I shoved a hand into my bag for a canister of water they’d given me onboard the ship, and unscrewed the cap.

“You the kid?” A deep voice barked into the bay. I almost dropped the canister.

A human in a charcoal Consortium uniform was approaching in stout stride, arms crossed, nearly two feet taller than I and unsmiling. His deep sepia skin was lit to glowing by the light of fluorescent bars embedded in the ceiling and his face was lined for every year of service. A pair of medals pressed primly to his chest gleamed.

“Who’s asking?” I growled, standing straight. He could have been my father’s age. The thought sent a searing pain through my chest.

The soldier stopped short and gave me a once-over. “Answer my question and I’ll answer yours,” he responded shortly. If he was expecting a salute, I didn’t know to give one. A stray on the station with burned clothing and a bag half-full of the past? He could see I wasn’t Consortium. “Yes,” I replied shortly.

“Technical Sergeant Darrow Fortescue. I’m here to escort you to the medical ward for examination and intake.”

“I’m not getting poked and prodded,” I warned, and braced myself lest he reached for me.

“You have no leg to stand on here, kid. Pick up your bag and let’s go. I’ve enough things to do without having to babysit.” He gestured over his shoulder and turned away. He gave me a look that was sympathetic, but only appropriately so. “The reports we were sent said you were dropped off alone,” he said as I fell into begrudging step behind him. “Correct?”

“Yes.”

“To the point. I like it, kid.”

“Kid?”

“You’re the youngest on the station, you’re not going to get called much else. Got a name in case someone starts thinking about treating you like an adult?”

“I want to be called Bellamy.” Fortescue noted this with a nod. We passed into an enclosed hallway, paused to be seemingly scanned for abnormalities and were approved through with a whirring chirp of an onlooking drone. The man looked over his shoulder at me as we made our way. “Any family?”

“I thought you said you read the report.”

“It only said you were rescued alone.” He led me into an elevator and entered a floor number with three digits into the pinpad. I wasn’t particularly fond of small spaces and pressed my back into a corner, attempting to look as casual as possible while doing so and clutching my bag with both hands, starting every time the elevator jolted.

“Dead,” I whispered. I blocked the images that threatened to force themselves behind my eyelids. Barred myself from recognizing the slack jaws; bloodied faces; sprawled out bodies; severed limbs.

The elevator began to spin in front of my eyes and the Sergeant reached out to put a sturdy hand on my shoulder as I swayed. “Easy, kid. We’ll get you taken care of.”

If I hadn’t felt so sick in the moment, I would have shrugged his help away. Instead, I looked at my feet and let the nausea pass. In time he pulled his hand away and pulled a rectangular screen out of his breast pocket as the elevator ground to a stop. Fortescue consulted a set of numbers and words that flashed by in seconds too quickly for me to see, and looked up as the doors to the elevator pulled open before us. “Medical Bay 258,” chimed a smooth electronic voice.

The ward was even more pristine and sterile than the Consortium ship that had picked me up. In my scorched hoodie and ripped jeans, I felt ever a foreign creature stepping in behind Fortescue. I clung tighter to my bag as he led me forward.

A woman with long grey hair tied up behind her ears looked up from an array of screens as we approached her counter. She had a stethoscope draped over her shoulders and a necklace of round white stones around her neck. The woman was shorter than either myself or the Sergeant, and wore a crisp, white coat with her rank and title emblazoned on the chest piece. Dr. Shavi Clearwater. I wasn’t sure whether the beaming smile she gave us made me feel more or less afraid. Her teeth were as white as the floor. “Yes, Technical Sergeant?” She asked, saluting. Fortescue greeted her with a nod and gestured for me to step up beside him.

“Doctor Clearwater, this is Bellamy. She was picked up from Arcan-” The doctor’s eyes flashed back to me and then away, so quickly that I wouldn’t have been able to bet they’d done so. “-and dropped off by the CSV Euron. Follow examination and intake procedures, and ensure nothing followed her up. Is that clear?” Confused, I looked sideways at him, but no explanation followed.

The doctor’s eyebrows drew together. “Of course. Thank you for bringing her. Her, is that what you prefer?” She turned wide eyes onto me, and it took me a second to realize what she was referring to. “Her is fine.” I shrugged.

“Very well then. You’re free to go, TS. I’ve got Bellamy’s back from here!”

“Take care of the kid, Doctor.” He tapped something into the screen in his palm and then looked at me. “And you, take care of yourself. I’m sure I’ll see you further on.” It struck me as I watched him stride back towards the elevator that he had said further on, rather than later. An odd deviation. “Thank you,” I called meekly after him. He raised a hand without looking back and the elevator doors slid shut behind him with a smug thud.

“Soooo, Bellamy,” chirped Dr. Clearwater. Her heeled shoes made a clicking sound that echoed against the walls as she circled out from behind the counter with a square, transparent bin in hand. “I’m going to take you to a room where you can undress. If you put your things into here, I’ll make sure they’re taken care of. We’ll dispose of those dreadfully burned things too.” She gestured to my burned attire. My chest tightened. I shrank back a step, shaking my head. “What do you mean, taken care of? I want to keep them. I need to keep them,” I stammered. My heart began to race and my palms grew sweaty at the thought. “This… this is all I have left, Doctor,” I added softly. I blinked rapidly to keep the sting in my eyes from growing and swallowed against a lump in my throat.

“Oh!” The woman shook her head and put up a reassuring hand. “Don’t worry, sweetheart! I’m not going to dispose of anything, it’s only for safekeeping,” she promised, and held out the bin. “This will be safer, keep everything together.”

“I want to keep the bag too.” Without warning, the threatening tears finally sprang to my eyes. I hugged the bag to me and took a deep breath to steady myself. The doctor seemed to make a silent decision as she watched me, and after further deliberation she gave a nod. “Very well then. You can put the whole thing in here. Go on.” She shook it. I slowly moved forward, plucked it from her hand and stepped away. I didn’t want to be closer to her than was absolutely necessary. I wasn’t sure whether it was the difference in height or the kindness she oozed, but whatever was putting me off about her was strong enough that my gut couldn’t ignore it.

“Come, I’ll take you in. I’m going to ask you to undress – don’t worry, nobody will disturb you – and put on some scrubs you’ll find on the stretcher inside. You do look the worse for wear, sweetheart.” I turned away to hide a displeased scrunch of my nose at her continued use of the endearment. “We’ll clean you up,” she continued, starting to lead me further into the ward, “run some tests on you to make sure you’re not bleeding somewhere we can’t see, and diagnose and fix whatever comes up.” Dr. Clearwater led me out of the small atrium and down a large hallway, the staccato clicks of her heels drilling into my thoughts. She wasn’t the only person in the ward; a pair of what I assumed to be other doctors looked up as we passed and eyed me curiously before ducking back down to the work on the screens before them.

A nurse was bending over a body in another room we swept by. I peered in just in time to see him extracting a tube from its mouth. My tongue felt suddenly dry. I quickly looked away and scurried to keep up with Dr. Clearwater. “Are you going to put a tube down my throat?” I asked. She led me into a room and separated it into two sections by pulling a heavy curtain through its middle. There was a stretcher to one side with a stool and side table laid out beside it, and a set of dark screens were fixed upon the walls. The beige flooring here felt rubbery underfoot.

“There will be some pinches and pulls, perhaps some wires and tubes externally depending on what we find, but certainly nothing down your throat. If it would make you feel better, I’ll get a nurse to talk you allll through it after you’ve been cleaned up and made ready for examination, okay?” Dr. Clearwater batted her eyelashes at me over her shoulder and flounced forward to make sure the curtain was securely set. She seemed energetic for someone with grey hair. “I’ll wait out here.” She moved around the curtain, and I heard her pull something open and begin to tap away at a keyboard. I could see her silhouette through the fabric and narrowed my eyes to make certain she couldn’t see me. Once satisfied, I placed the bin and its contents onto a table next to me and took a deep breath.

True to the doctor’s word there was a set of Consortium grey scrubs sitting on the stretcher. I fingered the thin cloth cautiously and lifted a section up to examine it. I’d never worn scrubs before. I pulled myself up onto the stretcher, began to shrug off my hoodie, and grimaced against the burnt smell of it. I peeled off my jeans one leg at a time and folded them up neatly beside me, counting marks of melted skin where the holes in the denim had left me vulnerable. The skin was puckered where it had met with flame, and I let out a hiss as my curiosity got the better of me. A brush of my finger against the burns set off a wave of pain. There was blood, it had dried in spots all over my body, but it didn’t bother me.

“What colour was your hair?” Dr. Clearwater asked. Her typing had paused. I looked up at her silhouette. Was?

“Brown.” I patted my head, made to run my fingers through the chin-length hair I’d known to be there. Clumps of it came out into my hand. I brushed over bare spots where I assumed burns to be and leaned back against the stretcher while the room swam before my eyes.

“Eye colour?” The doctor chirped.

I took in a deep gulp of air. “Same.”

“Do you wear glasses?”

“No.” I only had one sock and one shoe on. I hadn’t noticed until now. I pulled them off slowly, wiggling my toes experimentally, and checked my bare foot to find several more cuts and burns marking its bottom. I couldn’t feel it yet. The thought chilled me with dread – was I hurt elsewhere and just not feeling it yet? How badly had I been thrown thrown around?

“Do you take any medication?” The doctor resumed typing as I answered in the negative and pulled the scrub top over my head and arms. My limbs were beginning to stiffen, the tension in my muscles surfacing with the pain.

“When was the last time you slept? Do you have a medical card?”

Now that I looked back I likely hadn’t slept since Arcan. The realization made my eyes sting again. “I don’t know. And no,” I added softly, “I didn’t think to grab it.”

She didn’t pry.

The new clothes felt airy around me, too loose for it to feel comfortable. It must have been up to two sizes too large. “These are kind of big, are they going to be a problem?” I hopped off the stretcher.

“There are drawstrings, dear.” I felt around the waist band of the scrub pants for them and looped my fingers through the string I found peeking out of the front, knotting them once I’d ensured the pants wouldn’t fall to my ankles. More tubes of fluorescent lighting blinked down at me, fizzling as the energy within fluctuated. I packed my burned clothes and my one shoe into the bin and smoothed down the front of my shirt. “I’m done.”

“Perfect.” Dr. Clearwater rose from her chair. “I’m going to step into the hall to call for a nurse and then we’ll get this show on the road. Are you feeling any pain?”

“Yes.” My body was starting to throb in different areas, hot surges of energy that pulsed apace with my heartbeat.

“That adrenaline sure lasted you a while! You’ve come a long way, honey. Take a seat, have a breather, I’ll be right back.” She peeked around the curtain to give me an once-over and gave me a thumbs up of approval. I slouched onto the stretcher and hauled my legs up onto it so I could lay back as she exited the room. My head felt heavy against the headrest. I made to close my eyes against the bright lights, but the images that had filled my mind in the elevator were waiting for me behind the lids. I kept them open after that.

I let my senses relax as best as I could, inhaling with some difficulty and exhaling what air I’d been able to take in. The screens on the wall remained blank, monitors of some sort. The technology here was much different from what I’d known at home. I listened for the sounds of hard drives whirring and found nothing, but could just pick out the sound of Dr. Clearwater’s conversation outside of the room.

“-likely to pass out any second. I don’t know how they didn’t float her in on a stretcher, she looks dead on her feet… No, no sign of proselytization… They wouldn’t have had time to… Well, how long does it take to manifest?”

I sat up.

“...only needed one, but you should have kept a spare. This one’s barely an adult! Traumatized, hardly says a thing. Going to be hard to get her to talk. The frontiersmen on Arcan weren’t known for their outgoing natures either.” The doctor’s voice started to fade. I slipped off of the stretcher and limped across the room to listen to one side of the door, intensely aware of the heavy thud of my heart against my chest.

“We’ll run the tests, full workup, and have them sent your way ASAP, ma’am.” She paused, and I heard the sound of her heels as she began to walk back down the hallway toward my door. “Did they burn it all?”

I fled back to the stretcher with a soft yelp of pain, closed my eyes, feigned sleep, fought to push away the images that flashed behind my eyelids once again, just in time to hear the smirk in her voice as the door began to slide open.

“Good.”