Firestar
Copyright© 2009 by Prince von Vlox
Chapter 14
Corey struggled to move. Something was pinning her legs, and her left arm was throbbing. She could feel other aches and pains, but they were minor. A horse had thrown her once, and she felt just as she had that day. But she hadn’t been riding, had she? She couldn’t remember. Her eyes ... there was something in them, and when she tried to wipe it away, somebody pushed her hand back and did that for her.
She licked her lips, tasting blood. Finally she tried her eyes again.
A medtech hovered over her, her face cast into shadow by the emergency lights on the back of every seat. Behind her Corey could see the ceiling of the Bridge. Tanya stood behind the medtech, a frown on her face.
“C’mon, Corey,” Tanya said. “You’re not hurt that bad.”
“Then where did all of the aches come from?” Her voice sounded husky, and every breath was accompanied by a pain in her side.
“You’re in great shape, at least compared to some of the others.”
The medtech slipped an arm under Corey’s shoulders, and helped her sit up. With a start, Corey realized the medtech was wearing the gray shipsuit of the merchant service, not the dark blue of the Navy.
She groaned as something dug at her side. She forced herself to look around, and then wished she hadn’t. Bloody shambles, that was the best way to describe the Bridge. There were bodies and parts of bodies everywhere, and blood was dripping from some of the seats.
“Wh--what happened?”
“We took a couple of hits in the Bridge,” Tanya said. “The Captain is alive, but she lost both legs. They’ve got her in surgery right now.”
Corey started to reach for the console above her, but the medtech restrained her. “ ... ships,” she managed to get out. “Idenux.”
“We’re in hyperjump,” Tanya said. She bit her lip and looked at a pad of paper in her hand. “If my numbers are right, we have about eight hours before we emerge.”
Part of Corey’s brain did the conversion. A ship in hyperjump took between 10 and 12 hours for every light-year, with an upper limit of about four light-years per jump. Only message drones could jump farther. A jump of eight hours wasn’t that far, two-thirds of a light-year at most. But space was big, and it might be far enough for safety. It depended upon their vector when they jumped.
Something Tanya said seeped through the confusion. “Merchant ship? Ships are alone in hyperjump.”
“I told the rest of the convoy to scatter,” Tanya said, “keeping an escort with every two merchants. If they scatter far enough they should be able to get through. Then I docked with the nearest merchant, the Pride of Family Sweetwater--well, rammed is probably a more accurate description--and forced the jump. It’s a good thing, too. I don’t think we would have survived much longer. I’m afraid I left some cats behind. We got most of them in, but those last few seconds were pretty messy.”
“What...” Corey paused to lick her lips, and had to spit out the taste of blood. “Convoy. What happened to the rest of the convoy? Where is it? You told them to scatter?”
“I don’t know.” Tanya’s shoulders slumped. “They had 45 seconds to go before their own scheduled jump, and thanks to you, the Idenux were concentrating on us, not them. I hope they got out.”
Corey wanted to close her eyes and let go. She felt like she could sleep for days. But she couldn’t, not yet. They had too many things to do if they were going to be ready when they emerged.
“Who else made it?” she asked as she grabbed the console and began to pull herself up. The medtech helped her slide into the nearest seat, and then began doing something to her left arm. Corey did her best to ignore the prickles and jabs of pain.
“Chloe Graham in Engineering is still on her feet. There’s you, there’s me, and Sue Federova to handle Astrogation; she has a knot on her head, but otherwise appears unhurt. That’s it for officers. Several seniors are mobile, and some of the crew. The preliminary count is 16 dead and everyone else wounded. There are a couple of ex-Navy in the passengers on the merchant, and we might be able to make up a few of the gaps, if they’re willing.”
Corey flinched; there were 36 crew on an escort and nearly half the people she’d gotten to know on this trip were dead.
“We’ve got eight hours,” Corey said. “Get yourself checked out. I’ll do the same. If there’s anything wrong, don’t let them knock you out. We need to have as many people ready to fight when we emerge.”
“We need to figure out who’s in command,” Tanya said.
“That’s easy,” Corey said. “Con outranks Astrogation. That puts you in command.”
“But Sue has date of rank on me, and you were a Squadron Lead. You’ve exercised command, and I haven’t.”
Corey shook her head. “None of that matters. I know what it says in the Regulations. Succession to command is based on rank, but if the ranks are the same, then we use our duty assignments. If Sue was a Third Officer, she would be in charge. But she isn’t, and you were on Con.”
“But--”
“I was a Squadron Lead,” Corey interrupted. “That doesn’t count except among fighters. Ship Crew rank is the only thing that matters in a case like this, and I’m an Acting Fifth Officer, while you’re a Fourth Officer. That’s all there is to it.”
“I’d really feel better with you in charge. Can’t I give you a temporary rank or something?”
Corey started to shake her head, and stopped. It felt like something had come loose in there.
“You can’t,” she said. “Only a senior grade officer, Captain or above, can assign a temporary rank, and there aren’t any present. And before you ask, the captain of the merchant doesn’t count. Tanya, you can’t give the command to someone else, that’s all there is to it. Look, I’ll gladly give you my advice, but you’ll have to make the final decision.” She winced as the medtech coated the end of her arm with something and applied a bandage. She hadn’t really thought about what that meant. She’d lost her hand. It was gone, and never coming back. But for a bit of luck that shot might have killed her instead of just taking her hand.
She forced that thought away. Mustang needed her. Tanya was officially in charge, but from their conversation she knew Tanya would do whatever she told her. She wasn’t sure she liked that, but it was something she couldn’t ignore.
“We should get you in surgery, Ma’am,” the medtech said. “Your arm needs to be treated right away.”
“What do you need to do to it?” Corey asked.
“We have to debride the flesh to prevent any future problems. That’ll also let us prep you for later when you’ll get a prosthetic.”
“How long will it take?” Corey could feel the pain now. It was like a dam had broken and the pain washed over her. She breathed through it, but it was tough. She wanted to curl protectively around her arm.
“It’ll take a couple of hours to prep you properly, maybe longer, at least an hour for the surgery, and then an unknown amount of time for post-surgery recovery. It’s hard to say.”
“Can you give me a clear head before we emerge from jump?”
“I can’t guarantee that, Ma’am,” the medtech said after a pause.
“If you don’t, I can’t be sure that any of us will live to see me get a prosthetic.”
“But you could lose the whole arm.”
“Think about it,” Corey said. “You’re putting 1,500 people at risk to save my arm. That isn’t a good trade. What can you do in a couple of hours?”
“The surgeon could best judge that, Ma’am.”
“Then take me to her.”
“She’s working on First Officer Brillon,” the medtech said. “I don’t know how long she’s going to be.”
Corey felt her anger rising. Normally she kept better control of it, but the pain was eroding all of her control. “Let’s go sit in her office,” she said. “I’ll bleed all over her nice deck, which should get me some attention. That worked for my sib when she broke her nose falling off a horse.”
Reluctantly, the medtech helped her to her feet. Tanya helped her out the hatch, and then returned to the Bridge to direct repairs.
It took more than 15 minutes to negotiate the passage between the ships. Apparently Tanya had been right when she said she’d rammed the merchant. A personnel tube connected the ships, but it had several sharp bends in it. The tube was in null-G, and the medtech had to help her get turned around when they entered the merchant’s gravitational field.
The passageways on the merchant were wide and spotless. It was a sharp contrast to the narrow corridors of the escort. Corey saw faces peering at her from cabins. Some were children, but most were adults, and they all looked concerned.
She staggered down the passage, leaning heavily on the medtech. At one turn she caught a glimpse behind her. She was leaving a trail of blood drops behind her. Somebody would probably complain about that. ‘An official complaint has been placed in Officer Andersen’s record for unauthorized bleeding on the deck of the merchant ship Pride of Family Sweetwater. Officer Andersen should have taken steps to prevent such bleeding, and... ‘ She grimaced. That was probably what the memo she’d get would say.
The medtech settled her in one of the chairs in the clinic. Corey could feel exhaustion creeping over her. It had to be the shock of her injury wearing off. She fought it. She knew that if she fell asleep she wouldn’t wake up until they reached Setosha.
Dr. McKee emerged from her small operating room a few minutes later. “I have to return to your commanding officer,” she said, “but Arianna insisted I had to see you.”
“What there is left of me.”
“Nonsense. Get in the examining room and we’ll see what we can do.”
Corey slowly got to her feet and followed the doctor into the examining room. Her blood-soaked shipsuit was cut off, bagged, and removed.
“No cuts,” Dr. McKee said after a quick check. “It looks like most of that blood isn’t yours. That’s good.” She did several other checks before finally stepping back and pursing her lips. “We can tape up your ribs--one of them is broken, by the way--and I can give you something to control any possible infection in your left arm. It will have to be treated, and soon, but we can hold off on that for another day or so.”
“I thought a wound from a beam weapon automatically cauterized the wound.”
“It never does a complete job,” the doctor said. “There are bits and pieces of your shipsuit in there, fragments of metal, and other odds and ends. And then there’s the damage to the arteries and veins. I need to do some work on it before I release you back to temporary duty.”
“How long will all of this take?”
“An hour, at most. Don’t do any bending, though, and keep focused on what you’re doing. Believe me, I’d rather have you in my operating theater.” She shot a glance at the medtech. “But right now I’ll settle for a temporary fix.”
Dr. Mckee took a syringe and a small bottle from a cabinet. “This will make you woozy for a bit, but that should go away in a couple of hours. When was the last time you ate?”
“Just before emerging from jump.”
“I’d have preferred you hadn’t eaten anything at all, but that can’t be helped.” She cleaned a spot on Corey’s left arm and gave her a shot. “There, get some rest. See me in about four hours.”
“What about my arm? You said--”
“I have another patient to get back to,” Dr. McKee said. “I’ll see you in four hours.” She turned and left the room.
“We have quarters here on this ship for you, Ma’am,” the medtech said. “But I suppose you’d be more comfortable in your own cabin.”
Corey felt a little dizzy. She tried to control it by staying focused on one spot on the bulkhead. When that didn’t seem to work, she smiled at the medtech. “Let’s find that nearby cabin,” she slurred. “And tell Fourth Officer York where I am. She’ll worry.”
She felt the medtech help her to bed. That was the last she remembered until someone shook her awake.
“Ma’am,” someone said in a low voice. “Wake up, Ma’am. We need you.”
“Huh? Wh-what?” Corey struggled up through the covers. Her mouth tasted like something had died in it. Her left arm ached, and so did her knees and her side.
“What’s going on?”
“Officer York sent me to find you, Ma’am.” The woman clicked on a light. She was a Navy Tech with an arm in a sling and a bandage on her face. “We didn’t know where you were, and she wants to do some planning now that we’ve emerged from jump.”
“Emerged from jump?” Corey tried to shake her head. She had to be dreaming. They had to do their planning while they were still in jump. After they emerged they’d be too busy.
“What time is it?” Her shipsuit and boots were missing. She groped for something to wear, and came up with nothing. “When did we emerge?”
“About an hour ago,” the tech said. “Nobody could find you or the medtech who treated you. Finally somebody thought to ask the whale running this ship. She said somebody was sleeping in an unassigned cabin near the medical clinic. I took a chance that it was you.”
Corey wiped the sleep out of her eyes. “Find me something to wear,” she said, “and then I have to get back to Mustang’s Bridge. We’re in normal space, and we can’t stay here too long.”
“I know we’re boosting,” the tech said, “but I don’t know what the plan is.” She pulled the blanket off the bed and wrapped it around Corey. “There, Ma’am, that’s the best I can do until we get you back to your cabin.”
The lights in the passageway were dim, probably simulating ‘night’ on the merchant. That was just as well, it seemed to be keeping most people in their cabins. The null-G personnel tube was a relief, though orienting herself for the gravity in Mustang was tricky. And she never would have gotten out of the personnel tube without the tech’s help.
She had to work her way past two different repair crews, one in gray shipsuits, before reaching her cabin. It was a relief to shut the hatch and block out the noise.
“I think I can manage from here,” Corey told the tech.
The tech smiled. “If you say so, Ma’am, but getting all of those zippers one-handed can be a problem. I’ll just wait.”
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