****
James was standing outside her house when Alexis ran back through the door and out into the sunlight. Without a word, she started back toward the crash site. The bag over her shoulder contained several of the items from the black box and she stayed silent to steel herself for what awaited her at the mangled ship.
Her father fell into step beside her and Alexis allowed herself to find comfort in his presence. As long as she could remember, it had been just the two of them. She had followed in his footsteps going into the military, taking a medical path rather than the combat duties he assumed, and even as an adult still admired and looked up to him.
As soon as they crested the hill she could see the changes that had come over the crash scene. The flames were gone and only shadowy remnants of smoke remained in the sky. They drew closer and she could hear strange clicking sounds coming from deep within the metal. Reaching into the bag, she withdrew a long knife. The edge of the blade sparkled with the tiny microchips embedded along the metal. She turned the hilt around in her palm, feeling the heft of the weapon.
"I need you to stay out here and watch the ship," she told James, "Call in to me if you notice anything strange."
"Like what?" he asked, a hint of both confusion and concern in his voice.
"You'll know," she told him, ducking down to enter the ship again.
Around her the crashed vessel was eerily quiet except for the clicking. She moved along the hallway cautiously, watching the red glow from the emergency lights for any sign of shadows or movement. The sound of a piece of metal falling to the floor ahead of her startled her and Alexis pressed herself to the wall. Sliding around the corner, she saw what made the sound.
A panel lay on the floor beneath an exposed section of the internal components of the ship. Tiny lights flashed within the components, occasionally joined by a small spark. She watched the section in silence for a few seconds. Nervousness rolled through her belly and her hand twitched on the hilt of the knife. A moment later, the flashing diodes within the components disappeared as something dark slithered across them.
Alexis surged forward, pushing herself off the wall to propel her body toward the open section of the wall. She brought the knife down into the thick black tentacle with all of the strength she could put behind it. It bucked against her, nearly shoving her back against the wall, but she held her ground, keeping the knife deeply buried in the rubbery, muscular creature.
A strangled animal scream reverberated through the ship and Alexis finally withdrew the knife. Oily-looking blood obscured the glitter from the microchips and she carefully returned the knife to her bag. The tentacle coiled, then shot down toward the floor, extending from the wall as it slithered toward her. Alexis jumped away from it and began to run.
She could feel the creature hitting the backs of her heels as she ran, pushing her to run faster and harder until she finally burst out of the ship into her father's arms.
"Alexis! What was that scream?"
"Come on," she said without answering his question, "we need to get back to my house."
Out of the corner of her eye she saw the end of the tentacle dip out of the door, then recoil back into the ship. She met James's eyes, then started back toward her house.
Tyrok was quiet on the bed when she entered her bedroom, but she knew that was only an effect of the drug she had injected into his heart. It would not last for long without the next step of the treatment. She pulled the knife out and let the bag drop to the floor. Coming to the side of the bed, she gazed down at him. He was gorgeous, more beautiful than any man she had ever seen, and she felt drawn to him.
She paused long enough to run her fingers along the curves of his face. Her heart was pounding in her chest and she felt tears starting to form in the corners of her eyes.
"I'm sorry," she whispered and reached forward to draw the knife from the base of his throat down the middle of his chest.
She stopped right above his heart and tilted the knife, pushing the tip deeper into his skin. Bright green blood slicked across his body and he arched toward the pressure of the knife. Alexis watched as the microchips glowed, lighting up as if drawing power out of Tyrok's body. When they went dark, she pulled the knife away and dropped it on the floor, no longer wanting to see it.
"Alexis? Are you alright?" James asked from the doorway.
She hadn't realized that he was standing there and felt self-conscious in the way that she gazed at Tyrok. Wiping the tears from her eyes, she dipped a fresh cloth into the water basin and started carefully washing the blood away from his chest.
"I'm fine," she said, putting as much conviction into the words as she could.
"No, you're not. What just happened?"
"I'm fine, Dad. I'm a doctor. This is what I trained to do. I can't get emotional about it."
"But you are. What did you just do to him?"
"There is something in the ship. It embedded Tyrok with control chips so that he and the ship were linked. He was the only one on it because he was all the creature needed. When the ship crashed, it lifted some of the control, but the creature is trying to fix it, which means interfering with the components directly linked to Tyrok. It must have damaged them, because he was crashing. As the creature tried to repair the ship, it was killing him."
"I don't understand."
Alexis finished washing Tyrok and dried him carefully.
"I need you to help me lift him so I can wrap his chest and change the sheets on the bed. He's going to have to stay here for a while."
James allowed the conversation to drop as he helped her lift Tyrok off the bed and place him carefully on the sofa in the living room so that she could replace the bedding that was now soaked in blood and water. He continued to prop him up as Alexis wound long strips of gauze around him to cover the wounds on his chest, then lowered him carefully to the sheets.
"I had to deactivate the control chips," she said softly as she brought the cool, fresh sheet up over Tyrok.
"Is he going to be alright?" James asked.
"I hope so."