The Solar Wind (17 page)

             
“Ava! . . . . . . Ava!” She recognized the faint voice as Rowan’s.

             
“Rowan!” Ava croaked, choking on the dust. “I’m down here!”

             
A stream of light appeared over her. Ava switched on her flashlight and aimed it up. “Ava!” Rowan’s voice was louder, right above her now.  A beam of light shone down and then Ava saw her.  “I’m coming Ava!” Ava watched as Rowan casually stepped off of the edge of the floor above, keeping her flashlight pointed down towards her. What is she doing! Ava estimated it to be at least a twenty foot drop. Words failed Ava as she witnessed Rowan float serenely and slowly down towards her like an angel. Ava did not see that Rowan was attached to any harness or cable, what was going on? Rowan landed lightly on her feet next to Ava and knelt beside her.

             
“Rowan is Wesley okay? Is he hurt badly? Is he . . . .”

             
“Wesley is just fine Ava. Don’t worry. . ”

             
“But he was shot, I saw it!” She exclaimed, her voice wavering.

             
“He’s not hurt Ava, I promise you. Everyone’s okay. We need to get you out of here before you go into shock,” Rowan remarked quickly.

             
“Rowan, . .  how did you do that?” Ava asked, pointing to the ceiling, referring to her descent.  Ava was now shivering and shaking with pain and from being cold.

             
“Ava, that doesn’t matter right now, how badly are you hurt?” She brushed the dust and debris off of Ava’s face and hair.

             
“I think my left leg is broken.”

             
Rowan reached down and gently ran one of her hands down Ava’s leg, being careful not to cause Ava any more pain than she was already in. “Yes, it’s broken,” she said softly. “You’re going to be all right Ava, we’re going to help you.”

             
At that moment Rowan looked quickly to her left. Ava followed her gaze. A tall man approached holding a gun in his hand, pointing it towards the two women. Ava gasped, not again! As he entered the field of light Ava saw that he looked thin, dirty, disheveled, unshaven, and desperate.

“What have we here?” He said menacingly as he moved closer.

Ava couldn’t move even if she wanted to. Rowan rose slowly and turned to face the rogue pirate. “You don’t want to mess with us,” she said harshly, her eyes glaring at him. Ava’s heart hammered in her chest. The pirate laughed, apparently amused by her comment. Ava couldn’t believe it. Petite, sweet, little Rowan standing up to this criminal. Ava admired her courage. At that moment Wesley silently materialized out of thin air behind the pirate. Ava’s jaw dropped and her eyes widened in disbelief. She knew she wasn’t seeing things but the things she saw were not making sense to her. The pirate saw the shocked expression on Ava’s face and turned around. Wesley moved quickly and punched the pirate fiercely in the face once. The pirate fell down and did not get up. Wesley didn’t bother looking back at the fallen man as he quickly ran to Ava’s side.

             
“Wesley! How did you . . . what just happened?” Ava managed to say.

             
“Ava, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry you are hurt. This is all my fault.” He wrapped his arms around her, warming her a little and holding her steady in her sitting position. “You are going to be okay. We need you to stay calm and take some deep breaths.” He kissed her forehead. Then he and Rowan immediately began removing her cold, dust covered jacket. He quickly took his own off and they helped her into it, Ava felt grateful for the heat. She looked at him in his dark t-shirt. Not a scratch, not any visible sign of injury, however she observed a small scorched hole on his side. Ava heard the clatter of boots running down a staircase nearby. More light appeared with the flashlights of Andre, Naomi, Justin, Ash and Mia. Everyone came running towards the small group on the floor. Ash eyed the fallen pirate carefully on the way over, he seemed satisfied with his assessment that the pirate was not moving and caught up with the group.

             
“Ava! Oh no! Don’t worry, we’re going to help you!” Naomi exclaimed. She rushed to Ava’s side and then positioned herself behind Ava letting her lean on her to keep her head up. “We never would have believed there would be some marooned pirates here, but we’re okay, they’ve all been dealt with now.” Naomi looked down at Ava’s leg.

             
“Do you see anything that we could make a splint with? . . . If we can find something. . . a small metal rod? We could stabilize the fracture. . .” Ava’s voice shook as she looked around at the people gathered near her. The stress had caught up with her and she fought back her tears. She wanted to stay strong. She believed they had all come down to help carry her back to the ship.

             
Andre, who remained standing, looked down at Ava as she spoke, and then looked up to the ceiling. He raised his arms up high. Then, the few lights above that had not been removed in the desertion process, began to glow, producing an almost blinding light compared the darkness Ava was used to. Andre lowered his arms. Ava squinted and looked around her, seven concerned faces looked back at her. She could not understand what was happening. People do not float lightly down from great heights, appear out of no-where, or make two hundred year old lights illuminate by themselves. She was beyond tired, beyond cold, in terrible pain, and now she was afraid of her friends. No one seemed interested in looking for a makeshift splint for her leg.  The crew silently re-positioned themselves around her while Wesley studied her leg. He quickly lifted the sleeve of her pant and tore it up to the knee effortlessly, as if it were nothing but tissue paper. He had been careful not to move her leg so this maneuver did not cause her additional pain. Andre moved towards Ava’s right side and knelt down beside her, placing his hands on her right leg. Naomi wrapped her arms around Ava’s waist tightly. Rowan gently took her right arm and Mia took her left. Ash continued to stand, keeping an eye on the pirate. Justin also remained standing, watching from a few feet away. What are they doing? Ava couldn’t understand why Justin didn’t help, wasn’t he supposed to be a medic? Just as Ava anticipated that they would lift her Andre spoke: “Wesley, if you are going to do this now is the time!”

             
Ava looked at him then back at Wesley who gazed intently at her. She wondered what Andre meant by that. Just as she mustered the energy to ask what they were doing Wesley with sad, solemn, worried eyes locked into hers simply said, “I’m sorry Ava.” Ava watched helplessly as Wesley lifted his hands and slowly placed them both down on her bare broken leg. Ava screamed immediately, the sound echoed over and over loudly around them. The pain! Ava had never experienced anything like it. It felt like a thousand red hot electric needles were being shoved into her leg all at once. She struggled, trying to free herself, to pull away from him but it was no use. The crew held her so tightly that she could not move. How strong they were! What were they doing to her? 

“Stop , . . . please stop!” she sobbed. Ava continued to try and resist, her face was flushed and wet from the tears rolling down her cheeks. She had not cried out loud over anything in many years, but the pain felt worse than anything she could imagine, it felt like he was tearing her leg off. Although the tears blurred her vision and her body shook from the erratic breathing from crying, she could see that he was simply touching her leg, apparently concentrating intensely on whatever it was he was doing to her.

             
After what felt like an eternity, but in reality was only a minute, he released his grip off of her leg and Ava felt the pain disappear immediately. He took his right hand and lightly ran it down the length of her shin, lifting his hand off when he reached the ankle. A relaxed, relieved look appeared on his face, as if he were satisfied with his work. Ava, still breathing hard, tried to comprehend what had just occurred. She suddenly did not trust any of them. The crew still held her steady but had relaxed their hold on her. She looked down at her now free leg and pulled it up toward her, away from Wesley. No pain. That’s impossible, Ava thought. Had he healed her broken leg? She looked at Wesley who broke eye contact with her briefly only to glance at Justin, standing nearby. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Justin move towards her. He knelt by her side and reached both of his hands towards her. No one spoke as he placed his hands gently on her head with one thumb on each temple of her forehead. Ava had no time to react, as soon as he touched her everything immediately went black. Her body fell limp with unconsciousness taking her as Justin selectively removed several of the memories of the night, including what had just happened. After a few moments Justin removed his hands from Ava’s head and stood up. Andre, Rowan, and Mia let go of their hold on Ava, gently placing her arms at her side. Naomi continued to hold Ava as Wesley moved into position and lifted Ava up into his arms.

             
“Wesley, Ava’s going to be just fine. She won’t remember any of this nightmare,” Justin said quietly.

             
“Let’s get out of here,” Andre announced.

             
“Don’t have to tell me more than once,” Ash commented as he moved towards Mia and slid an arm around her shoulders.

             
“I’ll meet you back on the ship. Andre, once we’ve reached a safe distance, I want you to blow this worthless heap of scrap metal into dust,” Wesley ordered.

             
“My pleasure.”

             
The sound of boots hitting the floor echoed loudly as the crew ran towards the staircase and back towards the ship. Wesley stood holding Ava tenderly in his arms and closed his eyes. If anyone were left watching, one would have seen the two of them fade to nothing as the overhead illumination dimmed back into darkness. Wesley reappeared a few moments later with Ava in her quarters on the ship and gently placed her on the bed. He had removed her boots and his dusty jacket by the time Naomi joined him to help clean all of the dust off of Ava and place warming blankets on her as best they could. Neither of them flinched as they heard the sound of the cannons firing, obliterating what was left of E.S. #1 as the ship glided away.

             
After Naomi and Wesley finished seeing that Ava could rest as comfortable as possible, Justin arrived with a cold pack for Ava’s leg and one for her head. Wesley placed Ava’s leg up on a few pillows as Justin applied the packs.

             
“Rowan and I can watch over her for a while if you’d like to get cleaned up. You look like you could use some rest, Ava’s going to be out for several hours.”

             
“How can I rest after what just happened? She could have died tonight! I need to be more careful with her. How could I have thought going to that abandoned station for repairs was a good idea?” Wesley remarked, clearly upset with himself over what had happened.

             
“It was a good plan. You could not have known there would be pirates marooned there. Who would have anticipated that? E.S. #1 is in the middle of no-where, it’s far, even for the boldest pirates.”

             
“How much of this is Ava going to remember? The pain must have been excruciating, I hoped I would never have to do that to her.” His voice was practically a whisper.

             
“She’ll recall everything up until we land on the station. After that she’ll simply remember exploring the hangar, tripping, twisting her leg, falling and hitting her head. I took out the pirates, her fall, and everything else after that. The memories I gave her will be enough to explain the ache in her leg that she’ll experience and the mild headache she’ll wake up with.” He lifted the cold pack off of her leg and felt the newly healed bone. “You did a great job healing her by the way, it’s nice and solid.” He put the cold pack back down on it.

             
“Healing myself is easy, healing others has always been so difficult for me. Trying to control the energy is . . . draining. I guess I have the best chance with Ava than with any other human.”

             
“That’s true. She is one of a kind. We are all very happy for you to have found her after all of this time.”

             
Rowan poked her head in. “Wesley, why don’t you take a shower, change into some fresh clothes and have something to eat? Ava’s going to wonder why you are covered in dust when she wakes up. We can stay with her if you like.”

             
He sighed. “I suppose I should. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.” They could sense his reluctance to leave her as he rose to walk out.

             
After what seemed like a blink of an eye, Wesley returned, looking about the same, minus the dust and holey t-shirt. He felt so guilty over what had happened he did not want to leave Ava’s side until she woke up. He wanted to be there if she needed anything. The others checked in infrequently to see if he needed anything as they wanted to give him his space.

             
Wesley moved the small desk chair to the side of the bed and waited for Ava to wake up. He leaned back and closed his eyes, wondering if they had done the right thing. He and his crew had travelled the universe for many years and seldom encountered situations with humans that endangered their lives. There was practically nothing he felt he could not handle, but being in love with a human had changed things. Humans were much more fragile than his kind for one thing. They aged, they could get sick easily, succumb from hunger more easily, suffocate easily, and break bones easily. A small part of him regretted that Ava was human. This was not how it was supposed to be. All these long years he witnessed each of his crew members find their match, their true other half of their kind. He did not know why his match happened to be a human, it didn’t seem fair, and it didn’t make sense. However, all isn’t fair in love he reasoned. Shortly after he discovered Ava, his affinity for her consumed him. The shock that she was human quickly faded and he embraced what might be his only chance at love. He knew he would eventually tell Ava the truth about himself and the others. However, he wanted to wait for a more appropriate time, not during an emergency. He hoped she would be able to accept him, he believed that she would.