Citadel: First Colony by Kevin Tumlinson Read Free Book Online

entire right side was one big bruise.
    He closed up her suit and helped her to be comfortable. What was he going to do? He had no formal medical training, and most of what he knew came from movies and television. He had taken a safety course once, years ago, but he was sure that CPR would do more harm than good at this point. It was the only part he could remember.
    Even if he had been a trained physician, his burned hands made him effectively useless. In fact, it occurred to him that he was in as much danger as she was. They both needed serious medical attention, and that meant getting back to wherever the module had crashed. Someone among the survivors would have medical training. It was the girl’s only hope.
    He couldn’t do this alone. “Just rest. I’m going to see if I can find anyone to help.”
    She gripped his arm. “No, please,” she said, barely whispering. “Please don’t leave me.” She sobbed and winced from the pain in her side. She suddenly coughed, and a light spray of blood splattered forth.
    This was bad.
    It seemed likely she had a punctured lung, and Thomas wasn’t sure what the hell to do about it. Should he move her? Or should he leave her and try to find help? Neither seemed like a great idea. It might be better to stay close, tend to her, and hope that someone came to rescue them soon.
    He couldn’t see out of the undergrowth, which was thick around them. He had no idea in which direction they’d been thrown after the blast. The module could be anywhere, and if he moved out in search of it, he might become lost and entangled in this alien brush. No good for either of them.
    Still, how could he sit here and do nothing? He stood and listened, hoping to hear sounds from the crash site. Either the brush and forest were too thick, insulating him from sound, or they’d been thrown further than he’d thought. Maybe both.
    “Hey,” he said to the girl, kneeling beside her once more, “what’s your name?” He instinctively felt he should keep her awake and alert. Or was that just for head injuries? He cursed himself for having no medical knowledge whatsoever.
    She coughed a bit. “Melissa. Melissa Martin. Lissa for short.” She actually managed a smile.
    “Lissa,” he smiled back. “I had a cousin named Melissa, back on earth. Mean cook,” he said.
    Lissa coughed and winced. “I ... can’t cook,” she said, and Thomas thought she smiled again. She was tough. Scared, but tough.
    “Lissa, I’m going to step away. Just for a second,” he added when she seemed ready to protest. “I’m just going to scout around for a few feet, see if I can find any sign of the landing module or the crew. They can’t be far. We were thrown out by the blast, but we have to be close. I’ll be in ear shot the whole time, ok?”
    She nodded and lowered her head to the ground.
    Gingerly, trying not to use his burned hands, he rose to his feet and began walking a perimeter. He picked a distinctive-looking tree as a landmark and kept it always on his left as he made an ever-expanding circle. True to his promise, he stayed close enough to hear Lissa cough and groan as he pushed through the heavy brush. Every few moments he would stop, remaining still while he listened for signs of the crew.
    This was taking too long. Lissa was in bad shape, and if she didn’t get medical attention soon, she’d die. Thomas felt responsible. It was he, after all, who had screwed up with the manual release for the module. This crash, Lissa’s injuries, the injuries and deaths of the rest of the crew—it was all on him.
    Again.
    He shook his head, fighting back the self-pity and loathing. This wasn’t the time for it. The weight of responsibility for all of this made it even more crucial that he save Lissa. He pressed on in the staggered walk-pause-listen-walk pattern.
    Finally he heard something that sounded very much like talking. It was faint and distant, somewhere in the thick brush, but it was nearly unmistakable.