" I was in a dead run for the medlab, charging down the halls unmindful of the one-sixth gravity or the fact that there were several closed doors." I was in a dead run for the medlab, charging down the halls unmindful of the one-sixth gravity or the fact that there were several closed doors. "She's up and moving, and I don't think she's fully sentient yet. You two are much closer than any drone I could get to her." I could hear Derek's feet behind me as we approached Med Lab. "You've got trouble, Ken, she's just swallowed something I can't identify. It came from the bathroom, I haven't got a camera there." "Cleaning supplies?" "I don't know." "Great," I said, reaching out and grabbing one of the many recessed handholds situated along the corridor, this one by the door to Medical. I felt the tendons in my shoulder object, ignored them, released the handhold as I came to a stop and palmed the doorlock. The door opened and I looked inside. There was a loud, yowling screech as something, the vulpin, struck me at the side. I reacted with equal violence, tempering it with the knowledge that she wasn't responsible for her actions. Hair-trigger martial arts can be funny that way. I felt pain along my left side, ignored it as blocked with the left, responded with my right in a vicious grab that she dodged. She took two blurringly fast steps backwards and then leapt at me. I prepared to dodge when a high-pitched whine reached my ears from behind me. The leap turned into a painfully slow fall as she slumped unconcious in midair; In the one-fifth gravity she would hit her head on the far wall. I jumped between her and the wall and took the the brunt of her velocity between her shoulders and my arms. "Ooof!" "What happened?" Derek asked as I tried to clear my head from the impact between the body and the wall. "She woke up without us, I guess." I looked down and heard a strange gurguling noise coming from her throat. "Go into the bathroom and find out what she was going through in there!" I ordered immediately, picking her up and dropping her on the platform she'd originally been lying on. "Derek! She's having trouble breathing again!" "It's worse than that," he said, running out of the bathroom. "She did get into the cleaning supplies. I think she drank some sodium hydroxide. |