CROSSFIRE - Atlantis DSV - New Cape Quest

Ezard smiled weakly as he looked up from the drawing. “Oh but Lieutenant, you will.
You‟re far too close to this now.”
Callaghan remained silent, daring not to break his gaze with the cold, depthless eyes
before him.
“I have just one question, Lieutenant,” Ezard mused, gesturing to the empty room
around him. “...Has she been worth it?”
An icy rush of contempt filled Callaghan‟s stomach with that question, and he finally
looked away. There had been many times he‟d asked that question, and each time he did,
the answer was edging closer to a part of him he found entirely repulsive. Finally, Callaghan
stared back at the abyss. “...For the price we paid?” he asked in return. “Nothing is worth
that.”
Ezard smiled, perhaps even warmly, for the first time in as long as either of them
could remember. The Captain knocked on the door frame, and a few seconds later the
Marine sergeant who had cuffed him entered the room.
“Hence the expression, Lieutenant... „Every man has his price.‟”
Ezard looked briefly at the marine, and then began walking to the door, not once
looking back at the Lieutenant in his wake. “Sergeant, take him.”
~
...The light in his face burned shadows in to every other corner of the room, masking
the faces of those who held him firmly against the upright gurney in silhouette. Callaghan
fought them, his muscles aching as he tried to tear at the strong grip of the men that pinned
him down. Sweat dripped down his chest as his hands clawed at the sides of the table, the
shadows moving to secure his wrists in leather binds. He felt the calm, sterile touch of
gloved hands against his upper arm as something was daubed there, cold, and wet. He
tensed as he fought the restraints in vain before a face came in to view, a surgical mask
hiding all but their rueful, tired eyes. The voice whispered to him as he began to sense what
they were doing, his breathing becoming sharp and panicked. The needle glinted in the
intense glow of the light above his head, and he tried to look away – finding only those eyes
again.
“I‟m sorry, Ryan...” she whispered.
...Pain.
Intense, burning fire seared through Ryan Callaghan‟s veins as every muscle in his
body contorted and spasmed at the sharp prick inside his elbow. He couldn‟t breathe – the
sounds of their voices growing more distant as the world seemed to close in. Only when the
pressure on his lungs made him feel as though he would burst, did he surrender. Callaghan
opened his mouth, so desperately wanting to scream, and all that could come from his throat
was a hoarse, tortured cry.
But there was something else too as he fell deeper in to that abyss, his mind slowing.
She was there, too. The warmth of her smile, the brilliant intelligence in her eyes, from some
recess in the very back of his mind, something started to fire, and she heard her again.
Sanaa sat alone on the precipice looking back at him. Before her, a vast plain ran out
to an endless horizon as far as the eye could see. “No more questions,” she whispered to
him. “Just one answer.”
A single tear rolled down Ryan Callaghan‟s face, and the world turned to white...
~
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