People were around him but he couldn’t see them, only hear their footsteps and mention of putting him back under. Something definitely hadn’t worked. In his last lucid moments of begging for death, he realised somewhere at the back of his mind that tests were being conducted on him. He could also still hear Veidan’s anguish.
Another eternity later Rennin awoke to see white once more. His breaths immediately became a laboured panting but his eyes focussed this time, and the white haze sharpened enough to become the ceiling and walls of a medical bay.
He tried to sit up but found himself strapped down. The skin on his arms was frighteningly translucent, with dark purple veins snaking up and down. He tried to say something but his tongue was swollen and the insides of his cheeks felt terrible like he’d been trying to eat them. All he could taste was the metallic tang of blood. He managed an unintelligible grunt and before he knew it a face was over him with bright neon-green eyes and a surgical mask. “Hello, Private Farrow.”
“Unh…” was all he managed. Even that much hurt.
“I am Medtech Decora. I’m in charge of your recovery. I’ll say first that since you full-orga place such a high value on vanity that you should avoid reflective surfaces for the time being.”
Rennin didn’t care what he looked like, he was just relieved the pain was over with. “Sh-olen…”
“Dead, I’m afraid. The cure ravages the body to expel the bioweapon. His body couldn’t handle the shock.”
Rennin closed his eyes and let out a huff that may have been an attempt at grief, then looked up at Decora with blurry eyes. “How long?” he managed a little clearer.
“One standard week since the Possession went down. You’ve been here for five of those days. I would have gotten to you sooner, but we were under orders not to bring Indigo Reign into the base, but I know a very clever pilot. So many of your crew were afflicted that I have been able to perfect the treatment.” Rennin was about to answer when a screech of pain across the room deafened him.
Lieutenant Veidan.
Decora ran over to the stricken android that’s more chained down than restrained. “He’s waking up. Valhara, help me.”
Rennin hadn’t noticed the other android in the room and for the life of him he can’t believe he didn’t, she was nearly seven foot tall. She could have been a new model, her skin was too perfect, completely unweathered. “What do I do?” she asked softly with a worried expression.
“Hold him down.”
Valhara did so, but Veidan’s convulsions were so intense it didn’t seem to help much. He vomited up cold steaming blood. “Hurry!”
Decora injected him with something once, twice then a third time. Veidan initially failed to respond but was eventually finally subdued back to sleep.
Decora sighed. “Thank you, commander.”
Valhara simply nodded, looked to Rennin then sat back down near to Veidan’s bed. “How often does he do that?”
Decora narrowed his eyes staring at the wall for a moment. “Every three point six hours on average.”
“You have the,” Rennin took a fluidic breath, “cure,” he panted. His lungs felt like he could only take half a breath.
Decora smiled. “He is cured. It’s just very complex, his code has been almost completely rewritten. All his buffers have been shut down, and it has introduced new coding regarding his pain receptors,” he said, as if admiring it.
The Medtech’s eyes turned fierce and Rennin felt a sudden chill in the room. “Whoever designed it knew a great deal about our algorithms.”
“An inside job?” asked Valhara. “Who?”
“Unsure, I am still collating. A GA scientist, Azra Onorati, is credited with engineering it.”
“We should have killed her when we first discovered her,” Valhara said.
“She’s a civilian.”
Valhara inclined her head for a moment, “They’re easier.”
Rennin felt faint, but didn’t want to sleep yet. Seeing Nexarien Decora face-to-face is so rare and Valhara rarer still. “Is Veidan… contagious… to you?” he huffed.
“Not anymore, no, but even though we’ve stopped the viral cells reproducing we’re having a difficult time recoding him from the nano-cell reprogramming.”
Rennin gurgled a query.
“Basically, his body is being instructed to be in pain. We’re going through his code and correcting the foreign input.”
“How can a virus… work… on…”
“Yes I believe I know where you’re going with that. Try to think of an android virus as a tiny little factory rather than an invasive cell. And once the antivirus works, we can install the modification in the rest of us that are still afflicted by Indigo Reign.”
“H-how many?” huffed Rennin.
“Forty-eight of us are currently in induced coma because of it.”
“Why didn’t… you test…” Rennin’s eyes rolled up briefly.
“On others?” Decora finished for him. “Because Saifer is the first one afflicted that has a real chance of surviving the test treatment.”
“We were left… to die.”
“Originally, yes. Godyssey thought it appropriate to let you sit out the infection until you died, thereby providing hard evidence that Indigo Reign is a weapon to be outlawed. Your sacrifice would have saved many more lives. In theory. But we still wouldn’t have an antidote or vaccine. I found that unacceptable.”
“W-where are these others?”
“Here.”
“Where’s… here?” he asked blacking out.
“You are aboard the Crucible.”
Rennin had never been aboard the grand medical frigate. Four capital ships had been specially built in matching arcs to fit together, making a cylindrical unit to house the central medical body between four armoured gun platforms. CryoZaiyons were clearly no longer tolerating medical craft being fired upon.
The central block contained both medical and living quarters, with a large amount of storage. It was big enough to treat an entire battalion of critically wounded soldiers, and capable of dealing with all known surgical procedures.
The capital ships around the outside were mostly hollow to make room for excessive armour plating, and incredibly huge drive engines that enabled the gargantuan ship to make leaps to hyper transit. The capital ships themselves were all armed with standard defence turrets and energy turbo-cannons but the heavy artillery between them were something designed especially for the Crucible.
It wasn’t only the largest of their ships but also a devastating weapon.
Once upon a time, the medical units brandished Red Cross emblems across unarmoured hulls, shifting troops from the battle zone to rehabilitation clinics. But once the GA humanist forces began blasting relief frigates out of the sky, the CryoZaiyons weaponised their medical ship to defend the wounded.
Rennin was in a recovery area in the quarantine section of the Crucible. He was placed in a ward with other people recovering from Indigo Reign and even some CryoZaiyons who were still considered a possible threat to the general population of the ship and Earth itself.
The cure Decora was working on wasn’t quite finished, but Veidan had finally stopped screaming and shaking. At first he was only lying down, completely incapacitated. Eventually they’d locked enough of his system down to keep him stable but anytime he tried anything else, even sitting up, he’d begin to convulse and involuntarily spasm. At least he was no longer in pain. He’d just start shaking, go to jelly and collapse.