Story Seed - Ambulance

Image Source: http://tryingtofly.deviantart.com/art/Teddie-s-space-refuge-530950399

The stolen shuttle approached the nebula at half a thousand klick per second. It felt absolutely ponderous to the pilot. Killian craned his head back and made eye contact with Hez, she nodded before tearing her eyes away. She deployed another layer of chemical bandages over Jak's chest, the prior layer having already gone damp with a deep red of arterial blood. "How much longer K?" Hez asked, "This is the last unit of synthblood and I think he's still leaking it out as fast as I can put it into him. Jak needs a proper doc and proper facilities or-"

"I know!" the pilot snapped. He growled a sigh, "Damnit, sorry. This bucket is half blind and steers like a sneg; if I try to put any more speed on we may not make it at all." Outside the thin gasses of the nebula were starting to become more dense, and less transparent.

"Do it, I don't wanna have to see my brother bleed out," Hez snapped back. She was barely holding together, and every time she looked down at herself covered to the elbows in her brother's blood she stepped a little closer to losing it.

Killian growled something and pushed the throttle forward another two notches. The shuttle lurched and gained another couple hundred klicks per second. He fingered the ring on his left hand, and cast another backward glance at the two bloodsoaked passengers. Grimacing he pushed the throttle forward another tick and felt the shuttle gamely pick up speed.

Almost immediately there was a sound of something pinging off the hull, and before he could swear a shape loomed out of the thickening mist at them. Killian yanked hard on the control yoke and jammed his foot to the floor actuating the dorsal thrusters on full. The craft protested as it slide down and to the left, sowing chaos in the passenger compartment as anything lighter than ten kilos went flying. "Next time," Killian grunted, "I steal something with full inertial control."

Outside the view panels the asteroid rolled overhead and new threats asserted themselves even as the gas and dust of the nebula continued to grow in opacity. "Everything alright back there?" he asked.

"NO!" came the panic is shaken reply.

"Oh good, cause things are going to get worse before they get better." Killian willed himself to put out of mind the fact that this was basically a suicide run at this speed. He put out of mind that the man he loved was bleeding out behind him and he couldn't even be there because Hez couldn't pilot an elevator let alone a shuttle. He put everything he could out of mind and concentrated on making a stolen shuttle that handled like a mulish sneg dance blindly through an asteroid field with the goal of finding the eye in the middle. He even put out of mind that he owed Teddy ten thousand credits and the station's owner might not agree that this shuttle was worth enough to cover the debt and the medical costs.

Killian set his jaw, blanked his mind, and gripped the controls so hard that his wedding ring bit into his finger. One damn thing at a time ... he told himself as he danced with death for the his life and the life of his husband and sister-in-law.