“Admiral!”

In an instant, Panem was on his feet, hands seizing the nearest supply backpack he could grab in his mad dash for the passageways and laddered shafts that would take him into the deep reactor. Kali yelled, some wordless, incoherent sound, but it was lost in the rhythm of pounding feet, pounding blood. Panem squeezed his eyes against the sensations burning in his chest, the words. It should have been me, it should have been me.

“Lieutenant!” The chief yelled, but it was a sound that Panem didn’t hear, couldn’t have heard, even if it had reached him. In ten seconds he was sliding down the same ladder that had taken him, Faith and the Captain into the depths of the reactor, sliding so fast that the friction bit at his palms and the impact of his booted feet against the floor sent him stumbling, jarred into a painful, broken trot made worse as he choked on a sudden lungful of cruel, deep reactor air.

He couldn’t help it– the run made him gulp and gasp, and with each deep and burning breath he pulled in, he choked and coughed, sputtered and spat. Tears poured from his reddening eyes, moisture turning to a cruel, acrid jelly where the air battered it, infused it with toxins and thick particulates. Hands spasmed with pain, fought with the bag, and through it all he pushed forward, moving as fast as his feet would take him. By the time he got the mask free, it was too late– fighting against the oncoming blindness, he tripped, spun sideways, ankle cracking violently, burning lines of hot agony up bone and into taut and spasming muscle. In the dim, red twilight, he cried out, blubbered and howled, mouth foaming at the edges, saliva turning thick and gelatinous. Desperate hands ripped at the bag, yanked the mask free and jammed it against his face. Breath came quick, gasping and needy, and only slowed after a moment, only slowed once the cruel burning taste of the deep reactor had given in to the filtered air of the mask.

Panem lay there for a long time before he moved again. In the dimness, he lay sprawled out, spreadeagled, one hand a white-knuckled deathgrip against the mask seated uncomfortably against his face. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that the bag contained goggles and cans of deep reactor spray, that everything he needed was in there, but still he did not move, could not convince himself to move. Drifting languidly under crusted-over lids, his eyes saw only the darkness, and it was a sweet escape from the brutal, oppressive heat that ate steadily at his clothes, his body. For a moment, he forgot everything, forgot his reasons, his needs, his dreams– it was only when the unheard sound of Faith’s voice came alive in his mind, echoing back and forth between walls of neurons like some implacable bouncing ball, that he remembered.

Never think for a moment that any Admiral is more valuable than you.

All at once, his eyes strained to open, fought against the crust that knit the lids together in an unbreakable seal. He howled against the mask, convulsed against the floor, against the burning air, free hand rising to mercilessly rip the clotting from his eyes. Within seconds, he had the mask secured, had freed the goggles from the pack and strapped them to his face, and still the Admiral’s voice drove him on, forced him into action.

You’re a smart young man, Panem.

Grunting, baring his teeth under the filtration mask, he worked quickly to spray his body down with the deep reactor aerosol, throwing on almost triple the ordinary dose in an attempt to make up for the lack of a suit. He hardly bothered with the ankle, just bound it in a makeshift support ripped in strips from the fabric of the pack. Thirty more seconds and he was on his feet, moving again but at a slower pace, his eyes and his jaw set, his pack abandoned.

I have to save her. Came the pressing, immediate thought. I can’t let my Admiral die.

Not now, not in a hell like this.

“Panem! Panem! Can you hear me!?” Kali’s voice lashed through the bone resonance speaker built into the mask, desperate, frightened and angry. “Dammit, Panem!”

“I have to get to her.” He said flatly, resolutely. “I have to...”

“Don’t be a fool, Youseff! Don’t throw your life away!” d’Arc’s voice hung hesitant and desperate in the pause. “You can’t help her! With a spike of that magnitude...” Another pause. Panem closed his eyes, gritted his teeth against the pain as he forced himself to move faster. “By the time you reach her, Panem...”

“Someone has to do it. Someone has to try.” He choked. “I have to get her out of there.”

“Dammit Panem, you’re not listening to me! That spike was a mother of a surge. If the Admiral is even still alive it would be a miracle. In all likelihood she’s just a stain on the floor, and...” d’Arc’s voice turned hesitant, choked on it’s own words. “Fucking mother of Christ, Youseff, don’t do this. Please don’t do this.”

“I have to.” He repeated resolutely. Blurry eyes took in the numbers of the corridors, feeding facts to sluggish bits of mind that plotted a course his broken body would unerringly follow. Despite the jarring walk, the stumbling, stabbing, painful stride, he kept going, kept driving himself to go faster, to close the distance between himself and the Admiral as quickly as he could manage. Two, maybe three minutes and he would be there... two, maybe three minutes would pass before he could pull his Admiral from that hellfurnace that was the innermost core of the deep reactor, before he could carry the ship’s highest ranking officer, her most valuable piece of human resource out of El Diablo’s lair and bring her safely back to the world of the living.

Hang on, Faith. He pleaded in the vaults of his mind.

Just a little longer.