Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

Juno and Astrid were lying together on a bunk. Igor, Cai and Fae were on the beds opposite, silent, too cold to sleep, although Fae’s face was buried in the crook of her elbow and Juno could see her chest rising and falling slowly.

‘I don’t know,’ Astrid admitted. ‘But they were far enough away to escape. And Commander Sheppard’s a good pilot. If anyone can get them home safe…’

‘And then what?’ Juno asked.

‘We lick our wounds,’ Cai said, ‘and keep going.’ He kept glancing at the door. Juno knew that he was thinking about his garden, about the shattered spires and uprooted plants, mentally tallying the weeks of work it would take to repair.

‘And we were hit,’ Eliot said, rubbing his hands together to try to warm them, huffing out air on his frozen fingers. ‘We’ll have to repair the ship before Saturn.’

‘It might take an EVA or two to fix,’ Igor said.

‘But the thing we do right now,’ Fae told her, ‘is wait.’

Juno nodded, grateful for the body of her sister that she could curl into.

Two hours later, the sensors alerted them: the Congreve was on approach.

^{9.30 P.M.}

WHEN JESSE AND HARRY climbed out of the airlock and back on board the Damocles, Juno realized that they looked oddly similar. Side by side, she noticed for the first time that they were the same height. Their faces twisted with the same desperate fear. For a moment, overwhelmed by their miraculous homecoming, Juno leapt forward and threw her arms around Jesse. ‘You’re safe,’ she gasped. But Jesse pushed her away, shaking his head.

‘No,’ he said, and raised his hands up to the light. Juno saw that they were smeared in blood, a livid red, almost too bright to belong to a human. ‘It’s not mine,’ he said before Juno could ask.

Harry nodded to the open door of the airlock and said, ‘It’s his.’

They all fell silent when they leant over the threshold and saw the body of their commander slumped against one of the walls, barely recognizable, blood soaking his flight suit, eyes white and rolled back in his head.

It seemed absurd to consider now, but Juno had never seen Solomon Sheppard sleep before. Fae she’d caught a couple of times, stretched out on the gurney in the infirmary, pillow etching crease-lines into the side of her face. And even Cai, whom Jesse had once spotted napping at his desk. But not Commander Sheppard. His heart was like the beating heart of their ship. There was something reassuring about the quiet vigil he seemed to keep in the control room.

‘How long has he been like this?’ Fae asked, already unbuckling the collar of his flight suit to check his pulse and breathing. Juno leaned in; she thought she could hear irregular gasps coming from his throat.

‘Hours,’ said Poppy. ‘As long as it took for us to get back here.’

‘He was answering to his name for a while,’ Jesse told them. ‘But now…’

‘What am I doing?’ Fae asked Juno, who blinked in confusion. But, then, her training came back to her.

‘An A to E assessment?’ she said.

‘What does that mean?’

‘Airways, then breathing.’

Fae had already finished checking both. ‘His airways are at risk,’ she said. ‘I need you to help me get him to the infirmary.’

Harry and Jesse came to her aid, clearly glad to be told what to do. Harry linked his arms under their commander’s, supporting his head, and Jesse grabbed his legs. In that fashion, they followed Juno and Dr Golinsky down the corridor, pulled him up the ladder, along the bridge and into the little room.

‘What are we going to do?’ Harry asked, staring at the body of their commander on the gurney. Solomon Sheppard was a frightening sight, lips and fingers already purple, mouth hanging open.

‘I don’t know,’ Jesse said.

‘For the duration of this mission and for the foreseeable future, Igor is commander,’ Fae said. Then her voice took on an authoritarian edge. ‘But, in this room, I’m in charge, and it’s too small for any non-essential persons.’

‘Harry’s injured too,’ Poppy said. She was in shadow by the door. ‘His arm.’

‘It can wait,’ Harry said. Although, now Juno looked at him, she could see he was gritting his teeth against the pain. ‘I can come back.’

‘You, sit there,’ Fae ordered. ‘Jesse, Poppy, report to Commander Bovarin. Juno Juma, tell me, what is C?’

‘Circulation,’ Juno said, watching Jesse and Poppy disappear.

‘Good.’ Juno watched as Fae pushed a tube into their commander’s throat and connected him to a ventilator. Colour slowly began to return to his lips and nail-beds. ‘You know what to do. Heart, BP, capillary refill.’

Juno nodded. She pulled her stethoscope off the wall, placed the cold chest-piece to his sternum and listened to the hollow drum of their captain’s heart. She reported the number, then repeated the process for his blood pressure, oxygen saturation and capillary refill – which she tested by pressing a finger against his skin and counting the seconds it took for his skin to flush pink with blood again. It was difficult to tell in the cold.