Chapter Text
Schmidt suddenly stood up and squinted at the readouts. “Her blood oxygen level is rising,” he said in surprise.
Icheb saw it, too. He stared at the readings, stunned. “She removed her helmet,” he realized, with a combination of relief and fear – relief, because she was breathing oxygen again, and fear, because that helmet was the only thing standing between the face he loved and the harsh elements.
“That’s not all she removed, sir,” Lira said. “Her speed just increased considerably. At a minimum, I think she took off her external supplies.”
Icheb glanced at the tracking monitor. 16 kph. Not even close to top speed for Maren. He hoped that meant she was at least still wearing the body of her EV suit, because suspected she was just stubborn enough to strip down to her base layers if she thought it was the only way to succeed.
Icheb pushed his chair back from his workstation, stood up, and walked over to Lira. “Get visual confirmation from the shuttle,” he told her. “I want to know exactly what she’s doing.”
Lira’s fingers danced across the console, then paused as she waited for a reply from the shuttle commander. She looked up at Icheb with concern in her eyes. “She’s making a run for it,” she said. “She dropped her gear and helmet in the snow and took off for Alert. Don’t worry, they’re following her.”
Icheb quickly calculated how long it would take her to reach the settlement at her present speed, and turned to Schmidt. “Sir, at her current velocity, she will reach Alert in 5 minutes, 13 seconds. Can she survive that long exposed to the elements?”
Schmidt stared at the tracking monitor for another moment. His look was one of stunned disbelief. “I don’t know,” he said. “But it appears we’re about to find out.”
****
Maren's lungs were on fire. Every breath she took felt like she was being phasered from the inside out, and she cursed her own body for keeping itself warm – at least the searing pain of the cold against her face had almost immediately given way to numbness. She was pretty sure that was a bad sign, but she didn’t care. This was the northernmost permanent settlement on Earth. If their infirmary couldn’t treat frostbite, then they weren’t worth much, were they?
She still felt dizzy from the effects of oxygen deprivation, but she could feel her head clearing a bit. Her vision was recovering, too, but she kept her eyes closed as much as she could even as she ran, because she was afraid the moisture in her eyes would freeze the same way her sweat and the snot that had come pouring out of her nose upon her exposure to the cold air already had.
She was getting close – she was just beginning to make out the shapes of the buildings in the settlement. She wondered which one was the infirmary. She guessed it didn’t really matter – she could show up at any door in Alert and they’d immediately realize she needed medical care. She wondered what she looked like after five minutes spent sprinting through the unnatural cold.
About one hundred meters from the nearest building, she lost her footing on a bare patch of ice, and slipped and fell, hard. Unfortunately, her reaction times were still impaired. She tried to break her fall with her gloved hands, but she was too slow. Her face hit the ice, and the momentum she’d built up running sent her sliding across the sea’s surface until she hit another snowdrift.
“Ouch,” she whimpered, but it was more out of instinct than anything. She was so numb that she hadn’t actually felt the impact as anything more than a massive “thud.” But as she forced herself back to her feet, she could see in the dim twilight that she’d left a red patch in the snow. She reached up and touched her nose with a glove. It came away bloody. Great, broken nose, she thought. At least it doesn’t hurt, she added, trying to find the silver lining.
She didn’t have it in her to run anymore. She knew she was risking further damage to her skin and lungs by prolonging her exposure, but at this point, what did it matter? Five minutes, seven minutes … if she was already at the point where she could break her nose and not even feel it, what difference could another couple of minutes possibly make?
Slowly, she trudged toward the nearest building. As she approached it, an exterior light came on – probably on a motion sensor, Maren figured. Inside the structure, a dog started barking. It sounded large and vicious. She walked up to the door anyway and toggled the intercom.
“I’ll be right there,” a male voice answered over the speaker, after a moment. Don’t you even want to know who it is? Maren wondered, but then again, she figured in a place this small and isolated, no one would expect strangers.
After a few moments that felt like light years to Maren, the door slid open. A slender, balding man of about 40 stood on the other side. When he saw her face, his expression changed from mild curiosity to horrified shock. He didn’t hesitate or ask questions. He simply gathered her into his arms and pulled her inside.
****
Alert was, and had always been, a scientific station. Inside, Maren briefly noticed that the building was mostly laboratory space with a small living area, and that the dog had been put in a crate. The balding man guided her over to the sofa. “Lie down,” he said, in a no-nonsense tone. He reminded her of The Doctor.
She did as she was told. The man returned a moment later with a cold, wet washcloth and dabbed gently at Maren’s nose.
“Can you feel that?” he asked.
Feeling dazed, she shook her head. The man nodded tersely in reply, then strode over to a nearby desk and activated the comm. “Infirmary,” she heard him say.
There was a pause. “Infirmary, this is Jessica,” came a voice over the speaker.
“Yeah, this is Neil Abbott over at the microbial lab. I need a transport right away.”
“Has there been another containment failure?”
“No, no, nothing like that. I’ve got a girl here in bad shape. She just showed up on my doorstep out of nowhere wearing a spacesuit.”
“What in the … “
“Yeah, I know. Just send someone over right away, okay?”
“You got it.”
The man walked back over to Maren and looked down at her questioningly. “What were you doing out there? And where did you come from?”
The warmer air inside the building was starting to allow some of the sensation to return to Maren’s face, and her nose was beginning to throb with pain. “I’m Maren O’Connor,” she said, wincing with the effort. “I’m a cadet at Starfleet Academy. This was my survival test.” Suddenly overwhelmed by exhaustion, she closed her eyes. “Can you please call Commander Llewellyn Schmidt at Earth Spacedock and tell him I made it to safety? And to go fuck himself?” she asked. Then she opened her eyes again. “Okay, maybe not that last part,” she said, making a weak attempt at a smile. It hurt to move her lips, though, and tears sprang to her eyes.
“Okay, okay. Stop talking,” the man said softly. “Try not to move. I’ve got a skimmer on the way to get you some help. I’m Neil.”
“Thanks, Neil,” Maren said. She closed her eyes again. The pain was getting to be too much. The last thing she remembered hearing before she slipped into unconsciousness was Neil’s voice, requesting Earth Spacedock.