"Hank, get your ass in gear."
Henry was in his lab working a microscope when Logan came rushing in cradling a heavily injured woman in his arms. The interruption had startled Beast but upon seeing the extent of the woman's injuries he decided that it was probably better to ask questions later. Bishop and Gembit had also entered, followed by a man and another woman that Henry did not recognize but assumed to be friends of the injured party.
Beast motioned for Wolverine to place the woman on the steel table in the middle of the room. He started placing gauze on the wounds and instructed Wolverine to put pressure on them in order to slow down the bleeding. After hooking up an IV drip Henry checked her pulse. It was faint and resembled the fragile fluttering of a butterfly. Things looked dire for her.
"Gambit, find Storm and have her report here immediately to assist me. Bishop, usher everyone else out into the hall and contact Dana on the communicator. Tell her it is absolutely imperative that she get here at once." Henry barked as he started to rip the woman's garments around the wounds without disturbing the gauze.
Bishop poked his head through the door not long after he had left, "I informed Dana, Jean and Scott that there was a medical emergency and they are on their way."
"Good." Beast grunted through clenched teeth as he worked, "I just hope Dana arrives soon. This woman is losing blood at an accelerated rate. If that doesn't kill her she may just go into arrest. What happened?"
"I'll tell ya' later." Wolverine answered as Storm ran in, scrubbed up, covered her clothing, and took Logan's place at the woman's side. Logan made a quick exit before Beast ordered him to leave.
There were large blood stains in his shirt from when he was carrying Ursa. Her blood covered his hands all the way to his wrists. All he wasnted to do was get cleaned up. Being covered in blood had never bothered him before as it did at that point.
Andromeda was leaning against the wall in the hallway. Orion sat a couple of feet away from her with his knees brought up to his chest and his head resting heavily on them. They just stayed there and waited alone. The larger, dark man and the man with the red on black eyes seemed to have vanished. The smaller man was still in the lab room with the blue doctor. Eventually a stately looking woman rushed past them and vanished behind the door as well without even seeing them waiting. Even in her haste the woman exuded a type of sophistication and control that Andromeda noted within her mind.
*She reminds me of the dorm mistresses.* Andromeda thought to herself.
The "dorm mistresses" had been slaves like Ursa, Orion and her. These were the women who wholly accepted their captivity and became the lap dogs of their slug masters. These women were poised and were given positions of power over the lower slaves. All of them had a calculated coldness about them and were often cruel to the other slaves. One dorm mistress would be assigned to a group of fifteen to twenty slaves and was in charge of keeping order among the ranks. The group would live together in a small cell and all the cells in a group were called adorm. Some of the dorm mistresses were eventually promoted to higher stations if they remained loyal and kept a tight leash on their assigned slaves.
Andromeda had been a lower slave for years and did not submit well to the authority of the dorm mistresses or the masters. Yet her looks were praised and she ended up becoming a pleasure slave whose function it was to "entertain" slug masters and higher positioned slaves. Her disposition led to her ownership constantly being shifted from one angry master to another. Eventually she was bought by Mojo under the function of being an entertainer for his shows. Out of all of her masters Mojo was the most ruthless and demanded complete submission. He seemed to take special delight intrying to break her. The harder she fought the crueler he seemed to become.
It was under Mojo's ownership that she met Ursa and Orion. They were both entertainers and they worked well together. Their friendship formed a bond between the three. In fact, after a while, they found they were able to share a psi-link even though Ursa and Orion had no telepathic powers.
Andromeda found that she had telepathic abilities early on but she was forced to keep them hidden. Telepathic slaves were considered to be too dangerous and powerful to control. As a lower slave she remembered one slave, a man, who had exhibited telepathic powers. One night a group of higher slaves were sent to jump him in his sleep and he was taken away. Andromeda didn't see him again for a long time. When he was finally returned to their group the bright man that she had known was a vegetable. The masters had him lombatimized to prevent him from ever using his powers.
For a long time she worked on using her abilities in subtle ways so she wouldn't get caught. At times she could quietly creep into the minds of the guards or higher slaves and manipulate their actions. That was only saved for cases of emergency though. (There were a handful of instances where a guard would come close to beating a slave to death and she would have to dissuade them in order to save a life.) She didn't want to risk doing it to often or everyone would become suspicious.
In time she was able to hear the thoughts of others as if they had spoken them out loud. It was completely unintentional after a while. It was as if she had soaked them in from the surrounding air. It startled her in the beginning and it became distracting. Out of necessity she ended up creating a mental shield for herself that blocked out some of the mental noises from the atmosphere all around her.
Ursa and Orion were the only ones that knew about her abilities. They were the only ones that she trusted enough with her dangerous secret. In a place where betrayal among slaves was common, most slaves would have sold her out for the mere prospect of easing their heavy burdens. Ursa and Orion, on the other hand, never once considered it. They were the only ones Andromeda could trust.
Ursa was the gentle one. Her quiet nature made her almost invisible to the guards and she often escaped being beaten because of it. If Andromeda or Orion were ever hurt or sick Ursa was their nurse. She was dependable and her delicate frame hid her quiet inner strength.
*It should be me in there and not her.* Andromeda thought to herself when the opening door interrupted her inner reflections.
The man who had been carrying Ursa came out of the room. He too barely glanced at Andromeda before walking briskly down the hall and disappearing around a corner. She unintentionally read his thought as he walked by and they only confirmed what she already knew. Ursa was bleeding to death. She could feel her psi-link with Ursa fading with every passing second.
Andromeda looked at Orion from the corner of her eye. He looked so small and defeated which was out of character for him. His stubbornness was rivaled only by Andromeda's spirit. They would often argue and Ursa would keep the peace between the two. Andromeda assumed that was why they were such a perfect match for one another.
Ursa and Orion shared a link that went beyond the ones Andromeda shared with either of them. She could not begrudge them that one happiness in their painful existence. At times though she envied them.They had dreamed together of one day being free and living their own lives. Now this was their first day of freedom. It was not supposed to be like this...
Andromeda chanced to touch her link with Orion. His thoughts were heavy. They fluctuated back and forth between blaming himself for leaving and hating Andromeda for the situation they now found themselves in. This risky plan of escape had been hers and he had been against it from the beginning. He only conceded after Ursa had begged him to go along with it. NOw Ursa was dying and it was Andromeda's fault.
*Maybe he's right to hate me.*
If Orion was registering Andromeda's presence he was not responding to her thoughts. He was more than likely lost within his own raging emotions. He too was feeling Ursa slip away from him.
Suddenly Andromeda felt a growing void engulf her. All of her senses were screaming at her that something was wrong. The shock dawned on her painfully that she could no longer feel Ursa's link. Orion's head jerked up as though he had been given an electric shock. The blue doctor, clad in a white lab coat, trudged out through the door and into the hallway to face the waiting pair.
Andromeda could hear his one thought echoing through her head, *How do I tell them?*
Henry had worked hard to save her but he simply could not stop the bleeding. It had always been hard for him to lose a patient, but it was even harder to inform family and friends. He tried to sort through his mind for the appropriate words in such a case. ("I did my best...nothing else could be done...I'm sorry...") What was he supposed to say to the two individuals waiting in the hall?
As it turned out, Henry didn't have to say anything. As soon as he walked through the door the man who had been sitting on the floor jumped up and ran past him into the lab. The young man flung himself onto the lifeless body and gathered her into his arms, sobbing. The man's emotional display was a polar contrast to the woman who was simply standing in the doorway. Her countenance betrayed no sign of remorse or grief.
Henry made a vain attempt to speak with her. He gently explained that the damage had been too extensive and he had been unable to stop the bleeding in time. The woman continued to remain stoic and gave him no sign as having heard him. She continued to gaze from a distance at the young man crying as his heart was breaking.
In the end all Henry could do was sigh. He and Storm left the two strangers alone with their dead and made their way to meet Dana, Scott and Jean as soon as they arrived to explain the recent turn of events.
End of Chapter 3