by S. E. Sasaki
“Okay, Doc. Just tell the nurses not to give me any more sedation. I don’t want that. I want to be alert for when the captain wakes up. I want to be the first to see him.”
“I can’t promise you that, Corporal, but I will make sure the sedating medications are all stopped. Some of the pain killers are sedating. You will experience more pain, if we stop those.”
“I can take the pain, Doc. What I could not take, was being put under all the time, and not knowing about the captain, and everyone refusing to say anything!”
“I apologize about that, Corporal. We should be allowed to tell you about your squad mates. Sometimes they take all this security and privacy to the extreme, but it is with your best interest and safety in mind. We get so many casualties here, sometimes from opposite sides in a conflict. Often patients have hidden agendas, of which we are not aware. Deaths have resulted on medical space stations in the past, when staff were not cognizant of these hidden agendas. Personal vendettas, revenge, assassination plots, deep-seated hatred. You name it, they have occurred on medical space stations, where personal enemies can be inadvertently placed in the same room. The policies are in place to protect everyone. What if someone in your squad wanted to do away with your Captain, right now, when he is the most vulnerable?”
“No one in our squad would do that!” Corporal Chase shouted.
“You soldiers are most vulnerable when you are recovering from surgery. The medical status of all officers are kept confidential, to protect them while they are recovering. Information about your own welfare and location is confidential, Corporal. If your squad-mates were asking about you, they would not be told any information either. But there is a system whereby you can communicate with each other, if both parties are willing, through the station Comverse. You can let them know, via Comverse, that you are okay.”
The tiger stood up to her impressive height and pushed the bed, table, and chairs back out into the room, with little effort. She was no longer crying but her face was a sad sight to see, tears dripping down the striped fur on her face and down her long, white whiskers. Grace walked up to help the poor woman push her bed back into place. She glanced out the doorway and saw the security guards peeking in. Irritated, Grace waved them away, hoping they would disperse.
“I can see you care for Captain Lamont a great deal, Corporal Chase,” Grace said, softly. “Does he know?”
“Oh, no!” Corporal Chase’s entire body jerked and the woman looked down at Grace as if she was a spy. “Of course not. He’s my commanding officer. He doesn’t even know I exist, other than as his corporal. Besides, it’s against the rules.”
“Ah, rules again,” Grace muttered, nodding her head. “Those damned rules.”
“Yeah. You can say that again,” the corporal agreed, with the ghost of a smile.
Grace motioned for the corporal to lie back down. Grace perched on the side of the patient’s bed, facing her. The tiger woman posed a striking figure even in hospital gown and bandages and Grace felt overwhelmed with admiration for this brave young woman. She had lost her left arm in the explosion.
She said to Corporal Chase, “I bet Captain Lamont would want you to get better as quickly as you could, so you could rally the troops. He wouldn’t want you worrying about him. He is probably depending on you to be the acting officer, right now, for your squad.”
“What about Lieutenant Arai?”
Grace shook her head. “I am not aware of any patient named Lieutenant Arai, on this medical station, but then I’m not familiar with all of the patients on this station. You can check through the Comverse, to see if the lieutenant has posted. Your lieutenant may still be alive on the planet that you came from. If the lieutenant’s injuries were not life-threatening, I doubt he or she would have been sent here. My understanding is that you are next in command out of Captain Lamont’s squad, but I could be wrong about that.”
“Oh,” Chase said, a look of worry now on her bedraggled face.
“Corporal Chase, while you are on this medical station, what we doctors say is law. This is a hospital, after all. But I am sure you, visiting your soldiers, would really help with morale. Do you feel up to it?”
“Certainly, Doc,” the patient said, looking back up at Grace, an expression of determination and earnest resolve returning to her features.
“On our terms, though. You have to do what I order and you have to go in an anti-grav chair, so we don’t compromise your recovery or undo any of your incisions. Understood?”
“Crystal clear, Doc. I’ll do what you say, as long as no one tries to sedate me any more and if I can see the captain as soon as it is safe for him to have visitors. Once I get to see him, I will keep him safe, don’t you worry.”
“Deal,” Grace said with a grin. “I’ll go have a talk with the nurses and change your orders.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
“My pleasure, Corporal.”
Bud had to make a rapid dash, to get away from the doorway to Corporal Chase’s room, before the daring Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord came out and saw him standing there, dressed in a security uniform. He hoped she had not seen him, when she had bumped into Dr. Jeffrey Nestor outside her room. It was just that Bud could not risk the delicate Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord getting hurt again, by a tiger patient or any other patient, for that matter . . . not after the episode with Captain Damien Lamont!
This patient had been described by the security detail as going berserk. But Bud had seen the stalwart Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord wave the security detail away and felt he needed to be close . . . just in case.
Luckily, the courageous Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord was able to quickly calm the patient down. Bud felt overwhelmed with an inordinate sense of admiration and pride for the very brave Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord, who was able to smooth the precarious situation over so easily. She obviously had not needed his assistance, but he had felt compelled to come.
He could have done nothing else.
Was this what it meant to be ‘a slave to one’s emotions’? Emotions were such powerful things! Would he choose to go back to the way he was, before he had ever discovered them?
He thought he might overheat, just contemplating an answer to that question, and so erased it from his active memory.
Bud stepped up his time phase to maximum again and hurried back to the OR.
‘What in space are you doing now, Bud?’ the station AI spat at him at machine speed.
‘Going to work,’ Bud transmitted back as he reached the surgical ward where Dr. Al-Fadi would soon be operating.
‘You should have already been there and not knocking people over with the wind of your passage. Someone could get hurt if they accidentally stepped in front of you.’
‘Highly unlikely, sir. They are all just immobile statues, when I am traveling at maximum time phase. Absolutely no risk of them bumping into me at all. I just weave my way around them while they appear to be standing perfectly still.’
‘I was not aware that you could do that, Bud.’
‘Just a few recent modifications, sir.’
‘Hmm. Guess that’s what happens when you give a ‘droid initiative and enough memory, eh?’
‘Guess so, sir,’ said Bud, as he took no time at all to strip out of the security uniform he was wearing and change into his operating room scrubs.
‘Why are you always coming up on my radar now, Bud, when before this, I hardly noticed you at all?’
‘I do not know, sir.’
‘Neither do I, but I don’t like it. Like I said before, Bud, you are one very strange ‘droid.’
‘Thanks,’ said Bud.
‘That was not meant to be a compliment.’
‘It was really nice chatting with you, Nelson, but I really do have to get back to work right now. I am really very busy.’
‘That’s Nelson Mandela, to you!’
Grace looked down at the peaceful, handsome face of Captain Damien Lamont, the tiger adaptation that she had helped operate on, her first
day on the medical space station. He had lost some weight since the first day she’d seen him. His cheeks were a little sunken and there were slight hollows beneath his closed eyes. His massive arms and chest were a little diminished from what they had been. They were feeding the captain intravenously but it did not maintain muscle mass like exercise would. This made Grace feel rather sad. He had really looked formidable, in spite of all of his injuries. She knew it was going to take some workout to get him back to his previous level of fitness.
Grace had decided it was time to lower the levels of the drugs sedating the captain. She could not help feeling guilty about that. Had she been unintentionally keeping him under too long, because of what had happened to her? Was Corporal Chase correct in her accusations that the doctors - that is, Grace - was keeping Captain Lamont away from his squad for far too long? Grace didn’t think she had been, but perhaps, subconsciously, she had been avoiding this moment? Waves of shame washed over her, as she rubbed the scars on her arms, gifts that the captain had unknowingly given her on her second day on the medical space station.
It was time to right a wrong.
Taking a deep breath, Grace tried to calm herself. The tiger in Captain Lamont would be able to smell her unease a mile away, or so her aug assured her. Could she relax enough to put the patient at ease? The captain had healed from most of his injuries. It was now time to assess his mental state.
“Captain Lamont?” Grace asked, standing well away from the bedside. The titanium manacles were still attached to the captain’s wrists and ankles and the chain restraints were shorter this time, but Grace was not taking any foolish chances. She noticed a fluttering of the tiger’s eyelids.
“Damien Lamont?” she tried again.
The captain’s eyes popped open. His large, gold-flecked, amber eyes stared intensely into hers. How could anyone, who had been under deep sedation for days, awake with such an alert, piercing stare?
“Hello. I am Dr. Grace Lord, Captain Lamont. I am one of the doctors involved in your care. How are you feeling?”
“I feel like hell, Doc,” his deep voice grumbled. Groggy.
Grace smiled. “You’re supposed to feel that way, after what you’ve been through, Captain.”
The captain’s eyebrows rose. “What exactly have I been through?” he asked. He looked around himself. “Where am I? How are my soldiers?”
“You are on the Conglomerate’s Premier Medical Space Station, the Nelson Mandela, Captain Lamont. You came in with a number of your squad, who were all wounded. You were injured in battle and . . . “
“Are they alive?” the captain interrupted, sharply. His brows were lowered and his eyes seemed to bore holes into Grace’s retinas.
“Many of them are, thanks to you, Captain,” Grace said, trying to suppress the quaver in her voice. “I don’t know about all of them, but I am sure that information can be obtained for you. I could ask someone at the nursing station to look into it for you.”
“Thank you, Doc,” the tiger said. “I would really appreciate that.” He relaxed back against the pillows and closed his eyes.
“ . . . You know, I saw you in a dream, Doc,” he almost purred, drowsily. The sound of his deep, lazy voice made Grace’s insides flip.
“. . . Me? In your dream?” Grace repeated, confused.
“Yes,” he whispered, his eyes still closed. “You were so beautiful and caring. You were an angel.”
Grace started. She blinked her eyes and stared, wide-eyed, at this large man with the markings of a tiger. That was the last thing she had expected Captain Lamont to say, after he had awoken the last time, in such a fury.
“Well, I’m not an angel at all,” Grace said, sadly, feeling self-reproach drag her under. From the degree of weight loss, she knew she had kept Captain Lamont sedated far too long. “But . . . thank you for saying that. I heard you were quite the guardian angel, yourself, Captain. Quite the hero. You saved a lot of lives with your selfless act. It has truly been an honor to meet you and be involved in your care. The soldiers under your command all speak very highly of you. I will go, now, and see if I can find someone to look up that information on your squad for you.”
“Doc,” he called softly to her, as she was just about to leave the room. Grace turned back around and approached the captain’s bedside again. She fell into those beautiful, intense, amber eyes again, as they stared back at her with such heartbreaking sadness.
“Yes, Captain?” Grace asked. “What is it? Are you in a lot of pain?”
The captain grabbed Grace’s right hand in his great fist. Grace almost jumped and pulled away, but she successfully fought the urge.
“Don’t let them send me back out there, Doc,” he whispered. “I . . . can’t go back there.”
Grace looked into the captain’s huge, haunted eyes for a long moment and her chest tightened. She felt tears form at the corners of her eyes. For a moment, it seemed like time stopped, as something passed silently between them. Slowly, Grace nodded, her brow furrowed and her expression solemn.
“I will do everything in my power to prevent it, if that is what you wish, Captain,” she promised.
The captain took a deep breath, relaxed, and closed his amazing, unsettling eyes. “Thanks, Doc,” he breathed, as he drifted off to sleep again.
Stalking out of Captain Lamont’s room, she muttered, “He certainly isn’t crazy.”
Bud spun around and tried to look busy, emptying a bed pan into the trash receptacle, as Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord stomped out of Captain Lamont’s room. He kept his head down as he heard her say, “He certainly isn’t crazy.”
Bud wondered, for a moment, who Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord was referring to. Was she referring to Bud? He hoped she did not think he was crazy!
He felt a wave of relief that she had not been injured by the tiger captain, this time around. He had been ready to jump between the captain and the courageous Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord, if it looked like there was going to be a repeat of the last confrontation. He almost did, when the captain had reached for Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord’s hand. Bud would have had to come up with some fancy excuse to explain his behavior, if he had come between them, but Bud’s main priority was Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord’s well being and nothing else mattered more to him than that. He could not help but admire her bravery, when the tiger had grabbed her hand and she had not even flinched.
Bud glanced in at the captain, who was sleeping again. Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord seemed . . . fascinated(?) . . . by the tiger captain, even though he was all covered in fur and whiskers and stripes. If she could find this man, modified to the point of looking like a large striped hunting cat, attractive, could she not find an android, who looked like a human male, attractive?
Was there that big of a difference?
Bud was so confused. Bud looked far more human than the captain did. The captain looked like a tiger. Of course, the captain was alive and Bud technically wasn’t. The captain was human and Bud technically wasn’t. The captain had been born human and Bud technically hadn’t. But that was not a big deal, was it?
What exactly was ‘human’ anyway? If you thought like a human, felt like a human, acted like a human, looked like a human, did it matter?
. . . Of course it mattered.
‘Bud, I have come to the conclusion, after careful observation, that you have become obsessed with the human, Dr. Grace Lord. This behavior is totally unacceptable. She consists of cells and organic tissue and you do not. You must stop following her around. Now!’
‘Stop,’ Bud blasted at the station AI at machine speed. ‘Please stop.’
‘Why don’t you just find some nice pretty android to mope after instead? I can set you up with some, if you want.’
‘Do any of them think independently? Have any of them achieved consciousness?’
‘Well, no . . . but the companion ‘droids fake it pretty good.’
‘Stop, Nelson Mandela. Please, . . . just stop,’ Bud repeated. ‘I am trying to get a h
andle on this on my own. I don’t know how humans go through this constant yearning. It is truly terrible, to care for someone who does not even know you exist.’
‘Have you thought of telling her?’
‘NO!’ Bud threw back at the station AI.
‘Good. Because if you did, I would have had to melt you down for scrap . . . Just kidding. But I would have forbidden you to do it.’
‘Thanks for the vote of confidence, sir.’
‘You’re welcome. Now get rid of that bed pan and get back to work!’
“Dr. Grace, what seems to be the problem?” Dr. Al-Fadi asked, his eyebrows raised, as he studied his surgical fellow, who, for once, did not seem to be her usual cheery self.
“Nothing, sir,” Grace said.
“You seem . . . pensive,” her supervisor offered. He waited, examining Grace with a calm, open expression.
Grace hesitated. She thought about whether she wanted to say something or not, then went ahead anyway. “Do you ever ask yourself if what you are doing is right?”
Dr. Al-Fadi sat back in his chair and stared at her. “No,” he said firmly. “Never. What can be wrong in saving people’s lives, Doctor?”
“When you send them right back out to get shot up again, Doctor,” Grace retorted. “Have you ever checked up on the patients you fixed and sent back into the field? Are they all still alive? Do they end up coming back here, to be put together all over again? Do you know if they die, the next time they go out? Do you lose sleep at night, wondering whether the soldiers you send back out there, want to be out there?”
Dr. Al-Fadi looked down at his hands and sighed. He looked up and met her eyes and she could see the deep emotion in them. “Yes. No. Yes. Yes. Yes.”
Grace had to stop for a moment, to digest Dr. Al-Fadi’s answers.
“Look,” Dr. Al-Fadi said, opening up his hands. “What we do here, Dr. Grace, is not easy, but it is a breeze compared to what these young, brave soldiers do. I don’t allow anyone to go back out into the field, who does not want to go. And I don’t have all the answers, even though I pretend I do . . . sometimes. I can only control my actions and all I can do, is try to save lives. What those individuals choose to do with their lives, after I save them, is out of my hands. And it should be that way.”