章 77: Against Time
"Alright, we are out."
"Good luck."
Under Tachibana's command and the Revolution crew's guidance, the spacewalk team was now searching for the destroyed ship's data banks. While it was happening, I was listening to their conversations from my command chair.
"This should be it."
"No, that's where the power generators are. I think it should be somewhere below the control rooms."
"Right..."
"How about you go there and I fly there? We will cover more places at the same time."
"Great idea. Just don't get lost."
"Don't worry, I've done this before."
It got boring pretty quickly. I sighed. There was nothing for me to do right now, but wait.
"Kagan, come here."
"Wh- Sorry, come again?" I was surprised.
"To the medical bay, Kagan." said Mei. I left the command chair. Frans and one other crew member were the only two people populating the bridge now.
I quickly made my way to the small medical bay. Mei was there.
"Kagan..." she said. "She is not okay."
By her side, Nuan was laying on one of the beds. She had medical equipment attached all over her body.
"What!?" I said. "What is happening?"
"Only if I knew, maybe I could be more helpful." she said. "I don't know, she was behaving as if she was drunk, then... she just collapsed. I brought her here and the automated medical assistants are taking care of her, but... not too well. She needs real medical help."
I clenched my fists.
"I can't call off the spacewalk now..."
"3 hours wouldn't mean much anyway, compared to all those long days of space travel." said Mei.
"How about we transfer her by shuttle?" I asked.
"That would be even slower, and there are no medical bays on the shuttles." said Mei.
"Any other ideas?" I asked.
"None whatsoever." she said.
I looked at Nuan again. She was sleeping as still as any person could. With her every breath, I could see her chest rising up and down.
"Is there no hospital in one of the nearby space stations?" I asked.
"There is a good one in Hope II Station, but it is on the opposite side of the system right now." she said. "Even Earth is closer to us than that."
"Damn." I said. "Perhaps we might need to apply medical assistance here. Mei, can we contact any professional doctors or something? Maybe they can walk us through procedures, and Nuan will have a slightly better time during transport."
"We could try that." she said. "But where shall I find them?"
"I don't know." I said. "Earth should have millions of medical personnel. Just send an urgent message. We should get a reply within a few hours at most, considering the light lag."
"Okay." I said.
"Wait." I said. "Maybe there are other ships around with proper medical personnel." I said.
"If there were other ships, they are probably dead already." Mei said.
"Commander?" Tachibana cut our dialogue.
"Yes, go ahead."
"We've located the data banks, but... how shall I say it... It is not in a very good position right now. We will need to do some cutting and bending to reach them."
"You have permission to do whatever it takes, just make it quick." I said.
"Aye, sir."
"So..." said Mei. "I'm going to send a message to all nearby medical personnel."
"Exactly." I said. "Wait, I have an idea."
"Which is?"
"Tachibana!" I called him.
"Sir?"
"Ask your team if the Revolution crew has anyone with any sort of medical training." I said. "If there is, I want them back to the ship immediately."
"Yes, sir." he said. After a few seconds of pause, he talked again. "There is a doctor. I'm sending him back right now."
"A doctor?" I said. "Like a fully professional, actual doctor? Thank you very much, Tachibana."
"Don't mention it."
The doctor abandoned the spacewalk team to float back to Lodos' airlock, and we took him in. After he got inside to the main decks, I found him and shook his hand.
"Excellency?" he was baffled. "It is an honor to meet you. I-I-I wasn't expecting to see you-" he said as he tried to straighten up his uniform.
"Okay, enough with the greetings. Long story short, doctor, we need your help. One of our crewmates is in bad condition." I said.
"Of-of-of course." he said.
"This way, doctor." I said.
We went into the medical bay. Nuan was there, laying still with every tool attached to her.
"What happened to her?" the doctor asked. Mei quickly explained.
"Hmm..." he said. "I might need a few scans to locate the problem."
"Will she be alright?" asked Mei.
"I don't know, I need the scans." the doctor replied.
"Oh... right." Mei murmured.
Nuan, on her bed, was guided into a machine. The doctor controlled all the machinery as they performed a set of detailed scans on her body.
"I'm not seeing anything weird yet..." he said. "...except the central nervous system."
"What does that mean?"
"Her brain functions are... may I say... a little 'off'." he said. "I can see unusual sharp spikes and straight lines in her neural oscillation images. Her natural wave phases are all off, out of sync; there are unusual variations in her oscillation frequencies and amplitudes, and there are irregular firing patterns as if she was having a seizure."
"What can we do?" I asked.
"We've identified the problem, but not the source still." the doctor said. "If we can-"
"Wait!" I said. "I think I know it!"
"What do you know?" asked Mei, curiously.
"Her Vineura!" I shouted. "She has been acting a bit weird since her Vineura was damaged!"
"Oh no!" Mei said. The doctor got up from his chair and walked to look at Nuan's head.
"Vineura..." he said.
"Her Vineura was destroyed by an electric shock." I said. "Or I thought it did... Could it be the source of problems? You know, these things work by stimulating the-"
"Yes, I know, I have one myself." the doctor said. "A malfunctioning Vineura... That's probably it."
"Can we remove it?" I asked.
"I can." he said. "It will be an unusual procedure though, I never saw a Vineura in this shape."
"I see." I said. "Please make it so. We count on you, doctor."
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