Pandion (Genera #1)

Chapter 39

H arumine was glad beyond measure that he’d had the foresight to use the seatbelt provided to him. The roll across the side of the ferry was violent and nauseating, but at least he was attached to his seat at the end of it.

Kagesawa however…

Kagesawa? Kagesawa!

He’d held on to the controls most of the way, so he’d only taken a tumble once they’d hit the water, but he’d already been in a sketchy condition before this. Harumine unfastened his seatbelt, glanced out into the murky grey sea and turned to help Kagesawa, who was sprawled over the armrest, coughing and vomiting violently.

Blood? Is it blood? Internal bleeding? Harumine hurried to lean over and look.

Red drops had formed a splatter pattern below him, but it was from his various cuts. He’d vomited bile. The docking robot bopped to the surface and swayed in the relative calm of the waves.

“Can you hear me? Are you all right?” Harumine pulled Kagesawa back onto the seat. He was still panting and coughing, eyes closed, clenching his teeth between the coughs.

No… No, you fucking asshole, I’m not OK! You were supposed to save yourself. He held his left arm across his chest. With the ragged, deliberate breathing, he sounded like he was in a lot of pain, but he was dampening the link to keep it from Harumine.

“I couldn’t leave without you.” Harumine was determined to hold that slippery bar of soap in his hands until this sank in, once and for all. Before it was altogether too late. “I love you.”

Don’t… Kagesawa opened one eye to look. He closed it immediately, the tear falling down regardless. Don’t say that.

“Why not? I might say it again, now that you finally heard it.”

I was so fucking scared. Goddamn, Satoru… He opened his eyes again, now openly crying.

“I love you.” Harumine leaned over to kiss him gently. If this pod leaked, sunk and they died, then at least he’d managed to make this stick.

I love you too, but you can’t do this shit to me. Kagesawa was shaking now that he’d let go of the controls and released the tension. Ah, shit this hurts. He carefully lifted his arm. Well, everything hurts. I can’t breathe.

He was breathing, though. It was laborious, but he’d stopped the frantic coughing and gasping.

“OK, well, we need to get you to a hospital, so we can’t let this thing drift further out to sea. Any suggestions? What on earth are you wearing?” Harumine frowned at the sight of Kagesawa’s feet and what must have been the charred remnants of the slippers from the complimentary amenity kit. The soles had been half peeled off.

I feel like utter shit. Ayase is not responding. Can’t you figure it out?

“There should be a rescue operation heading this way, but will they see us in this thing? Why is it blue?” Even if it wasn’t designed to be an escape pod or a life raft, surely something operated at the docks, even occasionally in the water, should have been painted a brighter contrasting colour?

We’re probably fucked.

“Such commendable optimism. Can you still operate this thing? Does it have enough fuel to reach the life rafts? If they’re still there, we might get picked up.”

I don’t know, I don’t… I don’t feel so good. He dry-heaved and held his head in his hands.

Despite this, he grabbed the controls again and reconnected to the robot. He did some testing with the track-system and what was left of the arms that had sustained considerable damage in the tumble. Once he was satisfied with his tests, he set on to automate the track propulsion with a plugin.

Connect to the system. Grab this control. Roll, pitch, yaw. I’ll handle the acceleration and brakes. He leaned back and closed his eyes, but the docking robot made a low-pitched whirring sound as the tracks started to move and propel it forward.

Harumine tried the controls. He’d had some basic training on vehicle handling, but this particular docking robot was not part of his curriculum. The controls were intuitive, and the thing performed expectedly, but looking at the code as it passed into the system, he could tell Kagesawa’s impromptu plugin had simplified things significantly: Harumine should have been giving it an array of seemingly random, simultaneous commands to make it do these things.

It was incredible to think Kagesawa had been manning the robot using those types of commands all the way from the car deck and up to this point, alone. No wonder then that it had been rough going. How had he even managed to get it moving as smoothly as it had?

Harumine steered clear from the nearly submerged Sunfish Memuro, periodically checking the GPS on his palm reader to not lose track of where he was.

The fuel tank was almost empty. There was no sight of the life rafts on this side of the ferry. Circling around, Harumine spotted two tiny orange dots and corrected their course to chase them. With no land in sight and with the ferry disappearing from view, the two dots were their only beacons of hope.

“Give me all the power this thing has. We’re heading straight at them.” He kept his eyes glued on the dots, not daring to blink for fear of losing them. Kagesawa optimised the power output and the docking robot accelerated. It was no speed boat, but Harumine soon no longer had to squint to keep the rafts in sight.

Once close enough, he told Kagesawa to ease up, opened the hatch and took a deep breath of fresh ocean air. Ahhhhh. He let the sensation wash freely through the link, but unfortunately, since Kagesawa was dampening, he probably couldn’t feel the full benefit of it.

“Over here! We’re here!” Harumine waved at the raft. Several of the other survivors turned to his direction and started waving back. They’ve seen us. “ We need help! Can you toss us a rope?“ He arranged for the docking robot to be tethered to the life raft and climbed back inside to check on Kagesawa.

“How are you holding up?”

Could be better. My head is killing me.

“Hang in there. If they’ve already taken care of the other rafts, it probably won’t be long before they tow us to shore. I’m going to go back out to keep an eye on the tether. Let me know if you need me. Oh,” he turned back to Kagesawa, “and stop dampening for me, all right?”

It hurts.

“I know it does. I want to know how much.”

Harumine waited for Kagesawa to reluctantly let go of the link. It was bad, but thankfully not as bad as Harumine had feared. Now that the link was open, he sent back some soothing vibes and climbed back out to make sure they got rescued.