Sasha pushed the throttle to max and locked the coordinates, turning on the comm siren that would indicate to other starships that they should stay the hell out of their way. Even pirates were known to keep clear of the I.S. Savior, be it due to principals, a fear that if they interfered, the service would no longer cater to them or, most likely, the knowledge that a collision at the speed the Savior traveled would vaporize everyone involved.

Behind Sasha a globular, muscular thing convulsed in its restraints, splattering green and purple mucus all over the walls. Some of the mucus landed on the nu-glass barrier between the sick bay and the cabin with a splat, slowly sliding down and leaving a trail of chunky, gooey mess. It was the Savior’s job to transport high profile patients to whatever emergency service their species needed at the fastest pace the laws of the universe would allow, and this was a very high profile patient indeed. And it was currently spewing goo all over her sick bay.

Beside her a technician frantically read diagnostics being spit out of a computer from diodes hooked up to the alien. “Shit, Sasha. Shit.” 

Sasha rolled her eyes. Despite having worked in the Interstellar EMT service for almost four years, Anthony never really kept his cool. Of course, even Sasha was sweating; their charge was a high level diplomat from the Orion system, and all signs were pointing towards poison being the cause of its current convulsions. The Savior was a human-made and human-run ship, the fastest ever built; while that gave them unique sway over the other species of the Milky Way, it also meant that there were many more political implications if they failed. If they messed this “delivery” up, they could all end up in an alien prison, and those weren’t exactly known for being accommodating to human beings. Sometimes they didn’t even have air to breathe.

Sasha flipped the intercom switch and called out to Artyom, who was in the sick bay with the creature. “Artyom, could you keep our esteemed patient tied the fuck down? And get me a sample of that mucus for analysis.” 

Artyom, the ship’s nurse, gave a thumbs up, barely discernible in the full hazmat suit he was wearing, which was covered in a thick layer of mucus. The suit was multi functional; it protected him from contaminants from the alien, protected the alien from contaminants from him, and prevented him from being exposed to the unique biome that the room created, tailored specifically for whichever species they were transporting. In this case the air was chock-full of carbon monoxide.

Artyom, unlike Anthony, was cool as a cucumber, and soon a little red light dinged next to Anthony, indicating a sample had been processed. Anthony swung around to face a different screen, reading a real-time analysis of the sample.

“Sasha, come look at this.” The fear in his voice wasn’t his usual tremor. Cold, calculated panic had seeped into his voice. Sasha gulped, then swung her own chair over to read the screen Anthony was glaring at.

“Oh jesus.” The color drained from Sasha’s face. The alien had been exposed directly to pure oxygen, which was fatally toxic to its species. If they didn’t get it to a hospital, it would die in the next hour. Not to mention that many of its symptoms would soon become toxic to her crew. Not even near-lightspeed travel could get them to a hospital fast enough. She needed to take more drastic measures. 

She needed the hyperdrive.

Faster-than-light travel had been possible for decades now, but the Savior had been equipped with a state-of-the-art drive that could outpace any other ship ever built. It bent the universe’s laws to its whim. It had only ever been used a handful of times, and each time was a history-defining moment. They were told never to request clearance except in the direst emergencies or for the highest profile clients. Sasha figured this fell into both categories.
She hailed headquarters with the Instantaneous Communications Device, ICD. “Home base, do you copy? This is the I.S. Savior. We have a code 587. Patient going catatonic, at risk of immediate violent hemorrhaging. Patient is a creature with biome code ar-fell-nek-nek-zeta, exposure to oxygen, immediate danger to all on board. Requesting hyperdrive jump to destination.”

She waited for a moment, then got a response, somewhat fuzzy through the communicator: “Copy, Savior. We have sent in a request to local authorities to clear a jump. Please wait for the go ahead.”

“Copy.” She hung up the receiver with a click, then turned to Artyom. She could barely make him out through the layer of mucus that had now coated almost every inch of the sick bay. Beside him, the creature writhed even more violently than before, testing the limits of its restraints.

“Artyom,” she said over the intercom, “How are you holding up back there?”

Artyom’s voice came through over the intercom, breathless, “Shit, Sasha, is it really that bad? I’m not doing – ngh – great.” He grunted as he pulled harder on the restraints, trying to keep the creature down. Even through the nu-glass wall she could tell that they were about to snap. She needed to get this thing out of her ship, now.

She glanced at Anthony, who was silently watching the data being fed through the machine. “How are we doing?”

“Honestly, Sasha, it could go at any moment. I have no idea.”

“What the fuck is taking them so long?” Sasha snatched the ICD receiver off the dash and called out to headquarters again. “What is our status on that hyperdrive clearance?”

There was an exceedingly long pause, during which the only sounds were the hum of the equipment and Anthony’s heavy breathing.

Sasha almost hailed them again, when the reply finally came. “That’s a negative, Savior. Hyperdrive usage has been denied.”

Sasha and Anthony paused. That couldn’t be right.

“Sorry, home base. Could you repeat that?” 

“Do not engage hyperdrive. Repeat, hyperdrive clearance denied.”

“Then talk to someone higher up and get it,” Sasha demanded.

“That’s a negative, Savior. This order came from the Galactic Council.”

Sasha paused, her finger hovering over the receiver’s “talk” button. She pressed it, said “copy that, headquarters,” then slowly hung up the receiver.

“What – what the hell does that mean?” Anthony stammered from beside her.

“It means that our friend in the back’s condition is no accident, and someone very high up wants him dead,” Sasha replied matter-of-factly. “And there’s fuck-all we can do about it.”

Behind them a wet gurgling sound erupted from the sick bay, loud enough that it could be heard through the two-inch nu-glass. Artyom’s voice came loud over the intercom.

“Fuck. FUCK. Sasha, our patient is hemorrhaging. It’s hitting the floor of the deck – “ 

Sasha leaped out of her chair to watch through the glass as a steaming orange ooze poured out of her patient on to the floor of the sick bay. Where it touched metal, steam erupted. The acidic viscera began eating through the floor.

“Sasha, if we don’t do something soon, it’s going to eat through the deck.” Artyom was no longer calm. His breathing came in gasps over the intercom.

“What are we going to do?” Anthony was sitting completely still, looking to Sasha for anything, any glimmer of hope. 

Time slowed for a moment. The buzzing sounds of the equipment around Sasha intensified, filling her awareness. A calm washed over her as adrenaline cleared her mind.

“Fuck it,” she said.

Sasha leapt into action, flipping switches, diverting all power to the engines. “Anthony, Artyom, buckle down. Emergency landing procedures, full straps. Now.” His training superseding his fear, Anthony quickly and mechanically strapped into his chair. She trusted Artyom enough to know he had done the same. She strapped herself in to her own chair, and lifted the big red cover on the dash. “Wait, what are you doi – “ Before Anthony could even finish his sentence, Sasha punched the button underneath the cover with all her might.

The cabin s t r e t c h e d, and Sasha felt her innards compress. Her vision went black, then she saw rainbows exploding like fireworks. She thought she could faintly hear Anthony retching next to her, but maybe it was her. She held her eyes closed, and felt like she was falling alone through the infinite void of space. The panic, the adrenaline, felt very far away from her. Everything felt far away. She felt her consciousness start to slip away…

Then, after an indeterminate amount of time, everything snapped back to normal. Sasha, shaking, immediately unstrapped from her chair. She fell over, her legs like jelly. Clawing her way up to the dash, she diverted the power away from the engines. Everything hummed back to life. She looked over to Anthony, who was whimpering and covered in his own sick. 

She jerked her head to look back into the sick bay, but the whole room had filled with noxious gas, presumably from the bile that was still eating its way through her deck.

As she tried to click on the intercom, the dashboard turned red, and another signal took over. 

“ATTENTION I.S. SAVIOR AND CREW ABOARD,” an inhuman voice screamed. “YOU ARE BEING APPREHENDED FOR ILLEGAL HYPERSPACE USAGE AND SUSPECTED MURDER. PLEASE POWER DOWN YOUR ENGINES AND WAIT FOR DETAINMENT.” 

Sasha looked out the window into space to see a blockade, consisting of a gargantuan destroyer-class warship, and about a dozen smaller corvettes swarming around it. Just beyond them Sasha could see the hospital, a massive space station dedicated to treating mega-rich clients like the one currently bleeding out on her ship.

“You’ll have to catch us first, assholes,” Sasha said, knowing they couldn’t hear her. “Anthony, turn on the fans in the sick bay, get that smoke out of there.” Anthony did as he was told, and Sasha glanced behind her as the smoke cleared. Artyom was still strapped to his chair, and he gave a weak thumbs up. Satisfied that things were as stable as they could be, Sasha returned her attention to the blockade in front of her. She pulled out the control stick for the ship’s railgun.

As humankind’s strongest leverage in the political sphere, the I.S. Savior acted as a nuclear deterrent of sorts. The transportation technology on board was much more advanced than any other species had made, and it and its crew were responsible for transporting some of the highest profile individuals in the galaxy, from politicians to high level criminals. If you had the money, you could ride on the Savior. And if you messed with humanity or the Savior, you risked excommunication and damnation; the next time one of your important politicians got sick, they may not make it to the best hospital in time.

This didn’t stop everyone from trying to take them down, however. High profile clients meant the Savior had a target painted on its hull. As such, humanity had fitted it with the biggest fucking railgun the Milky Way had ever seen.

Sasha gripped the control stick, a red targeting reticle showing up on her screen. She had fired on plenty of individual pirate vessels, but they had never had to face a small army. Beside her Anthony strapped himself back into his chair, too dumbstruck to even protest. Sasha centered the reticle on the destroyer. The gargantuan ship took notice of the arming of the railgun, and she saw the familiar glow of particle cannons warming up across its hull. They would never risk firing first, for fear of excommunication, but if it looked like she had been the aggressor…

“STAND DOWN. WE DO NOT WISH TO HARM YOU. IF YOU SURRENDER PEACEFULLY, YOU WILL FACE THE DUE PROCESS OF THE LAW. IF YOU DO NOT COMPLY, WE WILL ELIMINATE YOU.”

“Get the fuck out of our way,” Sasha said, and pulled the trigger.

Using the same technology as their hyperdrive, the railgun accelerated a particle beyond the speed of light. It punched a hole clean through the destroyer, blasting huge chunks of debris into space behind it. Three or four of the corvettes were caught in the path of the particle, immediately diminished to atoms. 

The rest of the corvettes opened fire, a light show in space, but the Savior was a small target, and Sasha was fast on the controls. She punched the throttle, maneuvering through the hole she made in the destroyer. The corvettes ceased firing, lest they do further damage to any survivors in the destroyer, and decided to pursue instead. 

As soon as the Savior cleared the destroyer, the corvettes opened fire again. The particle cannons whizzed by the hull of the ship in a dazzling display. Sasha corkscrewed the small, maneuverable ship, but it wasn’t enough to deflect the sheer amount of firepower being leveled at them, and a shot landed. Lights flashed red on the dash; one of the Savior’s engines was down. Sasha swore. She looked above her, the hospital looming like a monolith.

She pulled back hard on the yoke. The Savior careened upward, putting it between the corvettes and the hospital. The corvettes immediately ceased fire, not wanting to damage an internationally-owned station.

Sasha hailed the hospital. “Attention, this is the I.S. Savior, requesting immediate docking. We have a patient on board, level Alpha, who is undergoing code 587 hemorrhaging. If you don’t open the bays, I will fucking blast them open myself.”

The Savior rapidly approached the hospital. Sasha watched the hospital’s bay doors. They remained closed. She activated the smaller cannons at the bow of the ship, to prepare for the worst. Her finger hovered over the trigger as the hospital loomed around them, enormous, almost swallowing all light.

Just as Sasha moved to pull the trigger, one of the bay doors started opening. Sasha glanced around to confirm everyone was strapped down, as they wouldn’t have time for a soft landing. 

She tried to throttle the decelerators, but a warning light popped up. Her decelerators had also been damaged. Shit. 

The Savior careened toward the hospital, much too fast. They passed the bay threshold, and the speed of the ship triggered the hospital’s defense mechanisms. A massive amount of expanding foam erupted out of the walls of the bay, enveloping the Savior, but it wasn’t enough to stop its momentum completely, and the ship crashed through the bay walls, depressurizing the room behind. The sound was deafening, filling Sasha’s awareness, as the hull of the Savior scraped at the walls of the hospital. Red lights flashed everywhere in the cabin, and Sasha feared her chair would become dislodged in the chaos. Finally, three rooms in, the Savior came to a rest. Foam enveloped the Savior in a dark blanket, and Sasha lost grip of her consciousness.

* * *

Sasha awoke slowly, not recognizing her surroundings. It was incredibly bright, and it smelled sterile. What had she been doing? How did she end up here? She couldn’t remember where she was last. Sounds returned to her; a steady beep, beep, beep reverberated in her head. She opened her eyes, but just barely. She could see bright lights shining from a metallic ceiling. 

She tried to sit up, but her wrist caught painfully on something. She looked down and her vision cleared on a rudimentary yet sturdy pair of handcuffs. She was chained by one wrist to a bed in the hospital, wearing nothing but a hospital gown. 

Suddenly, traumatically, she remembered what had happened. She gasped, covering her mouth, then tried frantically to uncuff her wrist. She pulled until it bled, then gave up, too exhausted and more than likely a little concussed. 

“Somehow I think even if you managed to get out of those cuffs this wouldn’t end well for you.” A voice, deep, authoritative, and, most surprisingly, human, came from a chair beside the bed. Sasha jumped, then whipped around to face the intruder. 

He was an older man, maybe sixty, handsome in a political way, dressed well but not excessively so. The only obvious sign of flashy wealth was a ring he had on his left hand, clearly made of exotic metals and jewels from God knows which planet. He stared at her with a cool, calculated intensity. Those eyes were used to looking down on people. 

Through her concussion Sasha realized she had seen this man before. The Savior had transported him to a remote treatment facility after he had contracted a rare and extremely deadly virus from an invasive intergalactic species. She also knew, with sudden clarity, that he was a member of the Galactic Council. 

“How long have you been there?” she asked. The words stuck in her throat; she had been out longer than she thought. 

The man smiled earnestly. “I knew you were awake before you did. I wanted to be the first person to greet you when you woke up.”

Images of the violent crash flashed through Sasha’s mind. She sat up, the cuffs digging painfully into her wrist. 

“Where is Artyom?” 

“He’s stable. Woke up yesterday. He sustained some light chemical burns from the corrosive material when his suit tore during the crash, but thanks to your decision to vent the fumes he’s largely unscathed. You’re also lucky you happened to crash directly into a hospital.” He shifted forward, clasping his hands. “That was some quick thinking you did last week. A lesser captain would have been toast five times that trip. I guess that’s why they put you in charge of the most important vessel in the galaxy.”

She eyed him cautiously. Last week? How long had she been out? 

“Your patient made it, by the way. Very fortunate, all things considered.” 

There was something there, in his voice, that made her wonder at his motivations. Had he been the one who denied them hyperspace clearance? Was he playing against the person who did? If there was a hint of something in his voice, it was gone too rapidly to nail down. The man had decades of political power under his belt, and had too many walls to penetrate. 

“What do you want?” Sasha asked curtly. 

The man sighed and sat back in his chair. 

“I wanted to be sure that I was the first person who saw you after the incident. You’ve stirred up quite a shitshow out there. There’s debate over whether or not the Savior and its crew committed an act of war.” He arched an eyebrow. “Their case is compelling.”

Sasha was silent. 

“You saved my life once,” he continued, “so I wanted to return the favor. I used my clout to prevent the Council from arresting you and convicting with no trial. They wanted to use you as a scapegoat for the poisoning of your client, and as an excuse to escalate conflict.”

He paused to let this sink in. Sasha wasn’t surprised.

“So now I owe you, is that it?” Sasha knew as well as he did that any power over the Savior was power over the political discourse of the entire galaxy. Entire planetary systems of government had been overthrown because of strategic positioning of the Savior’s one-of-a-kind capabilities.

“Not at all.” The man smiled, letting the warm facade fade just enough to show the wolfish ambition that lay just below the surface. “Just speaking frankly, one friend to another. Speaking of friends, that Artyom is one hell of a medic. I’m glad nothing worse happened to him on this trip.” 

Sasha froze. The man smiled broadly, put his hand firmly on Sasha’s shoulder, and stood up.

“I’ll be in touch, Sasha. Don’t be a stranger.”

And with that he was out of the room, the door shutting like a gavel behind him, leaving Sasha alone to contemplate the dire situation she now found herself in.