Chapter 5

In the mess hall we were caught up by Regot and Beeln. Apparently the rumour mill in Ground Force runs faster than official communiques (and is generally more accurate as to what’s really going on).

“Can’t believe you got an Officer discharged and on only your second day,” Beeln gasped out.

“He was a total shlecker,” Valla replied.

“So everyone is saying, but apparently he had friends in high places,” Regot added.

“Shouldn’t have been abusive in front of the AIs, particularly the way he was,” Dorit shrugged, as Culsen approached.

“Nice one, Kiria. That shlecker has had it coming for years,” she said with a grin.

“I really didn’t want to take him on, but shit, that full zap for questioning his reasoning hurt like hell,” I replied.

“He gave you a full zap for correcting him?” she asked, looking a bit confused.

“Yes, apparently he didn’t notice we were all wearing air packs but not grav-packs on our armour,” I replied with a wry smile. “So he called me a dunce for saying all I needed was a grav-pack, which I could have taken, but then he went on to zap me when I pointed this out.”

“Full zap as well?”

“Yes.”

“Damn, no one’s supposed to give a full one unless you’ve been put before a tribunal first,” Culsen mused. “All part of you being Officers on base and not being under full military regulations in a war zone.”

“He then went on to call her an upper level ... er...” Valla began.

“Shleck, no wonder his feet didn’t hit the floor on his way out,” Culsen laughed. “You’ll be on a few people’s shit-list now, but they’ll have to abide by the rules as well, so no worries. Plus, he hasn’t any friends in the Healer Service,” Culsen grinned before heading off to no doubt add to the rumour mill.

It was the same when I got back to Healer-med. I was immediately cornered by Prefect Telli and questioned as to what had actually gone on as there was now a lockdown on the official information coming out about it.

“Apparently the whole thing is turning into a major scandal,” she informed me. “With a lot of other branches putting in their input to the now ongoing Court Martial.”

“Oh my! I certainly didn’t think his treatment of me as being worthy of a Court Martial,” I replied, completely disconcerted.

“It wasn’t, but too much stuff that had been brushed under the carpet whilst he was running free was revealed when the results of the enquiry came out.”

“Does that put a bigger target on my back?” I asked, now worried.

“No, it actually gives you a bit more protection. Anyone going after you will be watched,” she noted. “Binh’s circle are pretty well known and I’ve asked the AIs to move your schedule around to avoid them.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem. Now, report to Healer Dass to begin your induction into GF Healing.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Now, now, it’s names only in here,” she chided me.

“Sorry, Telli.”

“Better. Now, off you go.”

“Greetings Kiria. Welcome to GF Healing,” Healer Dass, a civilian specialist welcomed me when I reached his location.

“Thank you, Healer Dass,” I replied formally.

“Right. First things first, let’s get your wand sorted.”

“At last!” I breathed out softly, getting a smile from him.

“I was exactly the same,” he nodded. “You’ve done well to get this far, now you get the honour of owning the symbol of our profession.”

It was a typical healer’s wand, not one of the specialised types designed to remove birth control or assist a meditech. Dass then got the centre’s AI to set it up for me in the various security settings so that it would only work for me or my designated representative.

“Why the higher security settings?” I asked.

“To stop those Troopers who will steal anything not nailed down selling it on the black market,” he explained. “It’s not an AI, it just interfaces with the AI in your suit or the ones in planetary medical centres or ships.”

“How good is the suit interface?”

“Pretty good. You’ll be able to fix anything on a battlefield or at least keep the Trooper alive long enough to get them to a more advanced facility.”

“Impressive,” I nodded.

“It is. It’s also why your armour costs a lot more than even a standard Officer’s armour.”

“Does the wand automatically link to the better AI server?”

“Yes,” he nodded. “Now let’s go through the basics with it.”

Dass then took me through some of the settings on the wand that interlinked to my open com channel set up on my optical nerve, giving my brain a direct view of what the wand was seeing. He showed me the various tools built into it for gravitic manipulation of joints, anaesthesia, deep scans, diagnosis and nanite insertion to deal with any conditions diagnosed.

“You’ll get neural learning tonight,” he explained. “You’ll then be assigned to a duty Healer to assist in their work, followed by some practical work in the training centre.”

“Practical work?”

“Battlefield healing. We use lifelike dummies to show you how as well as what condition you can expect your patients to be in, re-attaching limbs etc.”

“Right,” I nodded.

“It’s a lot of work. Yes, we can give you the knowledge easily, but, the hard part, as ever, is knowing how to put it into practice to the point where you use the wand intuitively.”

Dass then showed me where to stash the wand in my armour and took me on a tour of the Healer med centre which essentially was an admin block attached to the base medical centre.

“Doesn’t seem too busy,” I noted.

“Mostly training accidents and weird genetic diseases picked up on planets by Troopers that need a base facility to fix.”

“Isolation facilities?”

“Yes, though your armour is self-isolating.”

“So we wear armour for the base facility?”

“Always,” he nodded.

“Culsen was right, it is a home from home,” I smiled.

“Ah, she fitted you?” he asked, adding, “me too.”

“Yep,” I nodded.

We spent the rest of the working period going over various details to do with the wand and admin procedures including how and who to go to for help if I was stumped.

“Whilst initially you’ll be working with a Healer, eventually you’ll be thrown in at the deep end,” he chuckled. “It can be daunting, but try not to panic and go methodically through the steps we’ll teach you. Then, and only then, ask for help ... unless the patient is going to die on you; then scream loud and hard.”

“Yes, Healer Dass,” I nodded.

“OK, shift is over. Go and relax,” he finished. “Tomorrow you start for real.”

Other than having spent several rotations chatting to friends on tri-dee as well as meeting up with the group of us who were becoming my friends on base, little else happened on my rest period. The grapevine did inform me that Binh had been stripped of his rank and summarily dismissed from Ground Force for persistent abuse and breaches of the morality code (justice is swift in the Empire as the AIs generally see and hear all, even if they usually aren’t allowed to act until there is an official complaint). He had been ejected from the base and was now gone. His friends in high places were now keeping a very low profile and hence I was pretty safe from even petty revenge.

I awoke early and, other than a mild headache from what had to be extensive neural learning, I swiftly showered and dressed, had breakfast and prepared for a new day. The morning’s training was all classroom based and about shields. The Empire uses shields extensively to prevent collisions and, in space, as a first resort to keep air in. They’re apparently a combination of the attraction/repulsion technology we use in grav-tech. What we were there to learn though was how to do emergency repairs, bypasses and replacements of the various units in order to pass through a shield while in our armour without letting all the air out if passing from a section into vacuum. If you know what the tuning code is, your armour can pass through a screen in the same way a shuttle could and the trick was in finding the code. The other thing we were taught was how to change the code to defend against enemy infiltration. (Shields of course are useless against hyperbeam weaponry, hence our use of self-sealing and repairing armour.)

The second part of the day was what I was looking forward to when I reported to sub-commander Hallon, the GF Healing Healer at the base hospital, my head brimming with newly installed knowledge.

“Greetings, Kiria,” he welcomed me. “Let’s get you started by doing a ward round where you can use your wand to diagnose those you are about to see.”

“Greetings to you, Healer Hallon,” I replied keenly.

“Looking forward to it I see?” he chuckled. “And it’s just Hallon unless we’re in front of a patient.”

“Yes, Hallon, I’m looking forward to it. This has been my dream since I was a young girl.”

“Yes, I recognised the look,” he grinned. “I was the same on my first day and people like you keep my enthusiasm going.”

He led me out into the ward area, which was just individual cubicles, pretty much the same as the room I’d been assigned.

“These are our long-term treatment patients,” he explained. “This is Specialist Tiq and you’re going to tell me what’s wrong with her.”

“Greetings, Specialist Tiq.”

“Greetings, Tribune Kiria,” she replied, slamming an arm across her chest.

“Tribune Kiria is a Healer-in-training and will be examining you today,” Hallon explained. “So just describe your symptoms whilst she uses her wand to examine you.”

“Sir!” she replied with another salute.

“So, Specialist Tiq, tell me what is happening to you?” I asked pulling my wand out and activating it, seeing the blue dot that told me it had linked to the base AI.

“Numb patches all over my body, sir,” she replied nervously.

“When did it start?” I asked, beginning a basic scan of her nervous system.

“Just less than a binary cycle ago. I thought it a minor issue, but then it spread, sir.”

“Were you anywhere exotic or been on planet somewhere?”

“No, sir. I’m a construction Specialist and was working on preparing a boarding unit to be carried on a destroyer.”

“All humans in your crew?” I enquired, puzzling over the data I was receiving which showed that key neural nodes in her nervous system were being degraded by some means.

“Yes, sir.”

“Not been ... sampling some humanoid charms?” I asked as the wand was picking up a DNA resequencer virus that was pervading her system.

“No, sir.”

“Got a boyfriend?”

“Not any more... , sir,” she grated out.

“It’s OK. You are infected by a resequencer virus, though the AI here is using nannites and beginning a DNA rewrite on the affected areas. Unfortunately the resequencer appears to be pretty aggressive, hence it’s taking time to put you right,” I explained.

“Correct,” Hallon nodded. “Specialist Tiq was infected by her ... man friend who picked up the virus after a drunken coupling in the main civilian commercial area with a Trehallan humanoid.”