by Glenn Smith
A glance over at Heather told him that what Axton had found had affected her in the same way that it had him. She was staring wide-eyed at her screens, nearly in tears, with a hand clenched over her gaping mouth, and Nick wondered if it might finally be time to make her stop watching. But, as before, he decided that she had to face the consequences of her actions. She’d begged him to let her watch, so now she was going to have to deal with what she saw. He looked back at his screens, hoping that he was making the right decision—that seeing all this wouldn’t traumatize his daughter so badly that she would need therapy to get over it.
Axton was approaching O’Donnell slowly, obviously trying not to frighten her any more than she was already. “Crewman Stefani O’Donnell?” she asked her sympathetically. Nick knew it was her, of course, but he felt better nonetheless when she nodded slightly in response, pleased to see that she still knew who she was, too. After all, who knew what kind of physical and mental trauma she might have been subjected to? “It’s all right, Stefani,” Axton told her gently. “We’re Solfleet Marines. We’ve come to take you out of here, back home to Earth. Do you understand?” O’Donnell nodded again, and Nick couldn’t be sure but he thought she might be starting to cry.
“Check her out, Doc,” he heard Adeyemi say.
The sergeant major and Smith continued watching the hall as Engel set his weapon down beside the closet door and then stepped inside. As he approached O’Donnell she started moaning with obvious fear and withdrawing as tightly into the corner as she could, staring up at him with terror in her tear-filled eyes, growing more panicked with every step that he took.
“Hold on, Doc,” Axton told him, raising a hand to stop him. Then she put a gentle hand on O’Donnell’s shoulder and drew her attention back to her, then told her, “It’s all right, Stefani. He’s my friend. He’s a Marine just like me. He’s our medical specialist. He just needs to check you out to make sure you’re okay to travel.” O’Donnell glanced up at Engel and then looked back at Axton as the tears flowed down over her cheeks, leaving narrow streaks on her dirty face. “She’s terrified, Doc,” Axton told him, stating the obvious. “I don’t know if she’s going to let you do what you need to do.”
“That’s okay,” Engel said. His feed was focused straight on O’Donnell, who looked up at him again, so he was likely speaking directly to her. “If you don’t want me to come any closer to you, then I won’t. Max, it looks like you’re going to have to check her out for me.”
Max reached back toward him. He handed her his medical kit and then took a step back, probably hoping that would make O’Donnell feel a little bit more at ease.
“I’m just going to take a look and see what kind of health you’re in,” Axton told her as she fished the medical scanner out of the kit. Then, as she held the scanner close to O’Donnell and slowly moved it up and down in front of her, she reported, “Her heartbeat is a little weak but steady, respiration’s a little shallow and labored, and she has a slight fever.” She set the scanner aside and pulled out a hypodermic, then looked O’Donnell in the eye and told her, “I need to take a small blood sample. It won’t hurt. You’ll just feel a little tingle. Is that all right?”
Both women jumped at a sudden burst of gunfire that ended just as suddenly as it had begun. Nick looked at the other feeds and found that Smith had just shot a lone enemy combatant who had just charged in from the far stairwell.
O’Donnell extended her right arm toward Axton and looked away. Axton withdrew the blood she needed—just a very small amount—and then slipped the tube into the analyzer slot on the scanner. “She’s malnourished,” she reported, reading off the results as they appeared on the device’s small display screen. “Slightly dehydrated, vitamin levels are much too low, and she’s slightly anemic.” She looked back over her shoulder at Engel. “No sign of disease or infection.”
“We can move her, but she’s not going to be able to run out of here with us, Top,” Engel reported in turn.
“I wasn’t going to ask her to,” Adeyemi responded.
“Give her a sedative, Max,” Engel instructed Axton as he unclipped the stretcher’s strap and pulled it off of his back. “One full dose, and then help her out into the hall. We’re going to have to strap her down and I don’t want her flipping out on us and hurting herself.” He backed out into the hall without waiting for Axton to reply and started preparing the stretcher.
Axton pulled a small device from her belt and used it to burn through the handcuff chain, freeing O’Donnell from the pipe. “We’ll get that cuff off your wrist when we get you back to our ship,” she told her as she gently wiped the tears from her cheeks. Then, as she dropped her equipment belt and started unfastening her body armor, she continued, “I’m going to give you my shirt to cover up with and Doc’s setting up a low-grav stretcher. All you have to do is lay there quietly and let us carry you out of here. Sound good?”
O’Donnell nodded and then leaned forward to wait while Axton took off her shirt. The squad sergeant did so as quickly as she could and then helped O’Donnell pull it on. Then she put her body armor back on over her tee shirt and fastened her belt back around her waist. Finally, she reached into the medical kit again. “This is just a sedative,” she explained, pulling a small ampoule out of the kit and holding it up where O’Donnell could see it. “It’ll help you relax, and that’ll make it easier for us to carry you out of here. You might feel a little pinch on your arm, but it won’t hurt, and then you’ll feel sleepy. Okay?” O’Donnell nodded and extended her right arm again.
Axton pushed her shirt’s sleeve up out of the way, administered the sedative, and tossed the empty ampoule aside, then stood up and helped O’Donnell slowly rise to her feet. O’Donnell needed a moment to find her balance, then gathered Axton’s shirt tightly around her—it looked more like a short dress on her, as its tail hung nearly halfway to her knees—and allowed Axton to guide her along as she walked out of the closet.
Engel’s feed then showed Axton helping O’Donnell to lie down on the stretcher, and just in time, too, as O’Donnell’s knees had buckled when they emerged from the closet. Axton then closed and fastened her shirt to protect O’Donnell’s modesty as much as possible, then helped Engel fasten the restraints around her. “Ready, Top,” Engel said. Adeyemi slung his weapon back and knelt with his back to the head of the stretcher while Smith did the same and knelt facing its foot. Engel switched on the power and said, “Go,” then grabbed his weapon and joined Axton covering their evacuation as Adeyemi and Smith lifted the artificially lightweight stretcher together and started half-carrying, half-guiding it back up the hall toward the main doors in the center of the building.
“Look sharp, Eagle Eye. We’re coming your way,” Adeyemi said when they reached the doors and exited the building.
“Got you covered, Top,” Irby replied. Nick looked over at his feed and watched his rifle’s muzzle as it slowly scanned back and forth across the front of the building and slightly beyond each end. “You won’t have to worry about running into any perimeter guards ahead of you. They decided to take a permanent siesta.”
“Copy that, Eagle Eye. Good work.”
When had Irby taken out the perimeter guards?
Axton and Smith put their heads on swivels anyway as the four of them scrambled as fast as Adeyemi and Engel could carry/guide the stretcher across the hundred meters of open ground toward the jungle. That had to be the longest hundred meter dash of their lives, Nick presumed. A quarter of the way. A third. Halfway there. Two thirds. Three quarters.
Axton grunted suddenly and loudly and stumbled forward to the ground. Heather gasped.
“I’m hit!” Axton cried out.
“No!” Heather shouted. She jumped from her stool as Irby fired on the building, and ran off toward her cabin. Nick almost called after her, intending to reassure her that her friend was only hurt, not dying, but he stopped himself. The truth was that he couldn’t be sure of that. Yes, she’d cried out, but not all mo
rtal wounds killed instantly. For all he knew, she might have been dying at that very moment. He thought better of it and held his tongue, having decided to leave his daughter alone until he knew more.
He turned his attention back to his screens. Smith had helped Axton up off the ground and draped her over his shoulders and was running for the both of them. Irby had just climbed down from his perch and now joined them as they crossed into the jungle and veered slightly to their right, running due east toward the ship. Actually, they couldn’t run anymore, as the jungle had slowed them down considerably, but they were hurrying as best they could without risking further injury to their patient. Patients, Nick reminded himself.
The going appeared to grow more difficult as the jungle grew thicker, but the Marines, of course, drove on, Irby watching their backs and both flanks. Nick glued his eyes to Adeyemi’s feed and willed the ship to appear through the trees ahead of him. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, it did. They were almost...
Heather suddenly appeared from among the trees running straight toward Adeyemi, and then on Irby’s feed as the sniper spun his head forward and raised his rifle toward her.
“HEATHER?!” Nick shouted, jumping to his feet as Irby thankfully turned his rifle to one side without firing. “What the hell are you doing?!” He knew he should run out there after her, but his eyes remained riveted to Adeyemi’s feed until she dashed right past him, then jumped to Smith’s feed when she darted past O’Donnell on the stretcher and then stopped just a few yards ahead of him, only to disappear from sight as he passed her and she presumably started running back toward the ship beside him.
“Is she all right?” he heard her ask urgently over both Smith’s and Axton’s feeds as he sat back down.
“She got hit low in the back... right below her armor... but she’ll... she’ll be okay,” Smith replied, gasping for every breath.
Nick wondered if that might just be wishful thinking. Smith wasn’t their primary medic and he certainly hadn’t had time to examine Axton’s wound. He hoped the sergeant was right, of course, but he didn’t feel as confident as the younger man sounded.
Moments later the feeds went dark and Nick heard Heather and the Marines enter through the airlock, and he got up off his stool and ran back there to meet them. To meet her.
“Heather!” he exclaimed, glaring at her as he backed himself against the wall just outside the galley to let the Marines rush past him with their patients. “What the hell were you thinking, running out there?!” She tried to run past him with the Marines, but he threw an arm out in front of her and stopped her, and then held onto her while he reached around the corner into the galley and tapped the button to close the airlock. “You could have gotten hurt or even killed out there!”
“I wanted to try to help Max!” she shouted back at him as if that were all the explanation that he should have required.
Nick grasped her by her shoulders and held her tightly, being sure to remain between her and the Marines. “Look at me, Heather,” he told her, and when she failed to comply he raised his voice and sternly repeated, “Look at me!” This time she did, and he stared directly into her eyes and held her gaze. “Her team was out there with her. There was no way they were going to leave her out there.”
“But she’s hurt!” Heather threw back at him as the ship’s engines started powering up.
“I know that, but no one’s better able to help her than they are.”
“This is the flight crew,” came the pilot’s voice over the intercom. “Brace yourselves for emergency lift off in five seconds.”
Nick grabbed hold of the nearest safety handle—one of those mounted at shoulder level on the bulkhead near the galley door—and then walked Heather around him so that she could grab hold of it as well. “Doc Engel is an experienced combat field medic, Heather,” he reminded her as she grasped the handle and held on. “He’ll take good care of her.”
The engines rumbled and the ship leapt from the ground and soared skyward.
* * *
Hours later, after they’d dodged three planetary patrols and safely escaped from Sulaini controlled space, Nick, Lieutenant Commander Johnson, and Sergeant Major Adeyemi gathered together in the galley to go over the mission—a sort of informal after-action reporting session—and to identify and discuss any and all potential loose ends that they might need to tie up back on Earth in order to keep all news of their unauthorized mission completely under wraps for the foreseeable future. The members of the flight crew had volunteered one of their cabins to serve as Engel’s medical bay so that he could treat Crewman O’Donnell and Squad Sergeant Axton in relative privacy, and Heather had finally settled down.
God knew what effect all of this had had on her, Nick pondered as he gazed over at her, sitting at the table near the opposite corner, nibbling on a snack. Only time would tell whether or not she might need to see someone to help her cope with it all.
Engel walked in just then and dragged a sleeve across his forehead as he approached the table where the three men were meeting. “I have an update on our patients for you, sir,” he said, reporting directly to Nick.
“Go ahead, Sergeant,” Nick told him.
“The good news is, O’Donnell will recover fully... physically, at least,” he began. “She is malnourished and dehydrated like Max said, but I’ve got two I-V’s in her arm taking care of that. She has multiple contusions all over her body, six broken bones in her left hand, and two broken ribs. She’s been beaten pretty badly, Admiral, more than once.”
“Sorry motherfucker,” Adeyemi mumbled, shaking his head.
“Worst of all, though...” Engel continued, “she’s...” He paused and looked over toward Heather, who was examining her cookie quite intently, very obviously trying to appear as though she wasn’t paying any attention. “You sure it’s okay to say all this in front of her, Admiral?”
Nick glanced over at Heather and found her looking over at Engel—she’d heard him ask and didn’t look any too happy about it—and then told him, “It’s fine, Sergeant. Go on.”
“Yes, sir. As I was saying, she’s obviously been raped.”
“That son-of-a-bitch,” Adeyemi spat, leading Nick to wonder if maybe the sergeant major had a daughter of his own as well.
“Now, I’m no doctor, of course, but,” Engel went on, “judging from the various stages of bruising and all the tissue trauma I found, I’d estimate she’s been raped several times... at least. Maybe even dozens of times.”
“I told you Pagano was one sick psychotic son-of-a-bitch,” Adeyemi angrily interjected. “We should’ve flown over that fucking building and bombed the shit out of it on our way out to make sure we got him.”
“Easy, Sergeant Major,” Johnson said in a gentle tone. Then he reminded him, “We don’t know for sure that he was even there.”
“Still would’ve made me feel better, sir,” Adeyemi countered. Then he looked at Engel and asked, “How’s Max, Doc?”
“That’s the other good news, Top,” the medic told him, his own relief as evident in his expression as Heather’s was in the sigh Nick heard her let go. “The round hit the bottom edge of her body armor and deflected downward through her ass cheek and out the front of her left leg, but it only grazed the bones and didn’t hit anything vital. She’ll be sore for a while, but with the right care she’ll recover and be back to her old self again in a few weeks.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
“You got it, Top.” He turned his eyes back to Nick and asked, “Anything else, Admiral?”
“No, thank you,” Nick replied. “Just keep taking good care of our girls. Dismissed.”
“Copy that, sir,” Engel affirmed on his way out.
Johnson stood up and walked over to the intercom panel on the wall. “Flight crew, this is Lieutenant Commander Johnson.”
“Go ahead, Commander,” the lieutenant colonel came back.
“Set course for Cirra, please, Colonel. And let Grainger Base know we’ll b
e delivering a couple patients to their hospital.”
“Copy that. Grainger it is.”
Cirra. Nice. Nick looked over at Heather again and found her chasing her cookies down with a bottle of water. He hadn’t been to Cirra in years, and now he was going get the chance to take her around to see with him like he’d promised. And then he was going to take her back home to Colorado Springs and finish raising her as best he could, and never, ever take on another military mission.
Chapter 44
Earth Standard Date: Thursday, 12 May 2168
Dylan stood and stared at the Albion with relief. It was finally over. Every member of the shipyard’s security and starship engineering staffs had been forced to work double shifts through every duty cycle for the past four weeks, but that, too, had finally come to an end. Most of the security police augmentation force that had been assigned to the shipyards temporarily were packing up their gear and preparing to depart for home, and Major Hansen was due to follow them in the next day or two. Dylan had taken a liking to him, but it would be good to see him gone anyway, if for no other reason than his departure would leave Dylan with one less thing to worry about. Despite the fact that the major couldn’t possibly have suspected what was really going on, Dylan had nonetheless found himself walking on eggshells around him.
Over those last four weeks, every vessel operating in the shipyard’s immediate vicinity, military and civilian alike, had been boarded and searched, visually and instrumentally, before being allowed to depart the area. Every member of every crew had been identified and accounted for. Whether their ships were in dry-dock for maintenance or repair or just laying over for a brief visit hadn’t made any difference. No exceptions had been granted. Even those vessels that hadn’t physically docked to the facility at all had been searched, as had the entire facility itself, at least twice. More than a thousand personnel in all had been questioned and untold tens of thousands of man hours had been expended directly in pursuit of the investigation. And throughout that entire process, Dylan had had to continue functioning as a security policeman, even participating in the investigation once he returned to full duty, knowing that at any time he might be identified as the intruder and be placed under arrest.