Susan was alive! Sure, her face and arms were bruised and lacerated from being dragged into this alien hell pit, but given the circumstances she was lucky not to have worse injuries. She seemed to be slipping in and out of consciousness, her eyes fluttering softly while her chest rose and fell faintly in time with her light breathing. I placed one hand on her shoulder, and with the other I raised her chin gently.
"Susan?" I asked, meekly. "Can you hear me? I'm here to rescue you. Please, please hear me.."
After a few moments, she stirred and tilted her face towards my voice. Her eyes eased open slowly, as she tried to process the sight in front of her. She spoke in a strained, croaking whisper.
"Arven?"
She recognized me. That was a good sign, at least she was lucid enough to recall my face. With a reassuring voice, I said
"Shh, easy now. Let's get you out of here."
I used my sonic on the shackles restraining her, and eased her gently to her feet. After a bit of wobbling, she managed to support her own weight without using me as a crutch. I could tell she was starting to come around. She rubbed her face attempting to clear the fog from her mind. She began firing questions at me, words tripping over each other as they tumbled out faster than she could think.
"What? What are you doing here? What happened? Why?"
"Easy. Easy, relax." I urged, warmly.
"Relax?! How can I relax? How can you be so calm, we're surrounded by death! What's going on?" She cried, pushing me away from her.
"Look. This isn't how I'd hoped to have this conversation." I sighed. "There are far more things in this Universe than we think we know, and we're standing in one right now. There's an alien creature who crashed here, we're in that very ship now. He wants to harvest us to replenish his cybernetic crew." I began to explain.
"What the....!" Susan began, before bursting out in harsh laughter. "Oh. Good story. Fantastic story, Arven. What film did you nick that one from? Aliens, what are you on about?!"
"Look around you!" I said, forcibly. This wasn't going how I'd planned. "This place is not of human design. The mutilation is inhuman. We don't have time to argue anyway, we have to stop the Cyberman before he escapes."
"Cyberman? Is that the best you could do? " she scoffed.
"I didn't make this up! Look around, it's happening!" I pleaded, defensively. "Oh, this isn't how it should go..." I sighed.
"A-ha!" She cried. "You admit it then, you've set up this whole thing. How did you want it go exactly? That I fall into your open arms when you valiantly rescue me? That we march off into the sunset arm in arm?"
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Did she really think I'd faked this entire thing as some engineered scheme to win her heart? Where was the Susan who stood up to the Vakarians without protest? The Susan who believed in me and inspired me to lead a revolution?
"This isn't like it was the first time I told you." I whispered mostly to myself, though Susan heard it too.
"First time? What are you doing, drugging me if things don't go well enough for you? Good luck trying it on me again."
She was hysterical now, railing at the unfathomable consequences of where she was standing. Too late, I realized why she was reacting differently. During the Vakarian invasion, it was kill or be killed. We were a team, a unit standing in solidarity and enduring the hardship together. I'd failed to consider how Sue would cope with me swanning in seemingly unhurt while she had been the powerless victim of a vile creature. I'd expected to find a different Susan here, and if I wasn't careful I'd risk causing her a nervous breakdown. It was breaking my heart to hear her accuse me of attempting to trick her so maliciously, but I forced myself to ignore it. It was just the stress talking. I hoped.
"Susan. Do you really think I'd ever do anything like that to you? To anybody? How would somebody even begin to arrange it anyway? It's impossible." I said, forcing calmness into my words.
"I, of course not... but it makes more sense than aliens. Jesus, Arven. What's happening to us?" She replied, wary, but without the fire she'd been expressing. I like to think she noticed the pain in my eyes.
"I'll explain as briefly as I can. This isn't our first time encountering aliens. Last time though, everyone except me lost their memories when time was reset. Since then, I've been the only one to stand ready to defend Cork against the next threat."
Sue shook her head incredulously. "You must be insane. You've lost it, that's what's happened. But look around, I see it too. We're both mental. Say I believe you... why keep it a secret? Why not tell me, or anyone?"
"Would you have believed me?" I asked, bluntly.
"Probably not... but you might have convinced me over dinner." She said, smiling sadly at me. "No. Not even you could be idiotic to keep something like that a secret, letting it eat away at you without talking to your friends..."
There was a brief pause as she thought about what she'd said, while staring into my eyes.
"What am I saying, of course you're that big an idiot! Look at you! You'd keep a broken leg from your doctor to keep him from having to treat it. You impossible idiot. This is why you've been acting so weird these past few months, isn't it? "
With that, she closed the gap between us and embraced me fondly. As we parted, I softly said. "I didn't want to risk anyone getting hurt. Battling aliens is a dangerous business"
"Well, that worked out well, didn't it?" Susan joked, properly smiling for the first time since her capture. I squeezed her hand gently. "I'd rather know the risks and face it head on than be an oblivious and innocent victim Arven."
"Noted." I replied, sharing in her smile. For a second, I forgot the chaos and carnage surrounding us, and the mission we where engaged in. "There's time enough for chatting later though. We still need to see how many researchers can be rescued, and there's a Cyberman to defeat."
"I won't pretend to know half of what you're on about, but I'll trust you understand it."
I scanned around the room for something useful, some kind of computer terminal of instrument panel. Susan pointed me towards a recessed screen beside the conversion chamber.
"I've seen the metal guy use that to operate some machinery? Might be useful to you?"
I walked over to it and attempted to wake the screen from hibernation. After a bit of fiddling with my screwdriver, I had access. I browsed through the available data, before finding some more information on the little parasitic Cybermites, hoping to find a way to free the researchers infected from its control. Unfortunately, the process appeared to be irreversible. Once the parasite connects with a host, there's a limited window as it asserts control, but once it's tendrils make contact with the brain stem and hijack the host's system, and attempt to remove the parasite renders the host braindead. I could sent out a pulse to overload the devices remotely, giving them all a quick end. It would be painless too, as the parasite removed all pain signals. Before I could make up my mind on what to do, Susan anxiously called my name.
I turned to see what had frightened her, and saw several Cybermites emerging from tangles of wire on the floor. Immediately, I turned the sonic on them, firing controlled pulses hoping to fry their circuits. I managed to take out three before they reached us. Susan stomped on another, while I attempted to dislodge on that had leapt onto my sleeve. Once I dealt with that one, I turned to see how Susan was faring. My stomach sank and was replaced by a growing sea of cold dread in my core. The last of the Cybermites had just latched onto her temple.
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