Came clear, finally, upon the night sky. Smoke, a thick, rising plume. It drifted by stars, obscuring the view. Stars. She liked watching stars, the memory occurred to her dimly. Had enjoyed lying in the open, planetside, and watching the stars. In space, stars lost their romance. No. But they were different. Attainable. The unattainable was more romantic. She thought.
She felt, she realised, rather bad. Senses came clearer. Her stomach felt numb. It was a horrible numbness, the numbness of impacts. She remembered. Remembered getting hit, getting that grenade in the cruiser. Remembered impacts, and falling. Then nothing. But she'd known she'd get hit. Had known, and gone for the grenade anyway. Why? And then she remembered Mahud, and the world came crashing in once more.
She lay on her back for a moment longer, listening to the rise and fall of sirens somewhere beyond the crackling flames and the pinging of heated metal. Then she rolled over. That felt bad. That felt very, very bad. With great, concentrated effort she got slowly to her hands and knees. Her midriff refused to cooperate. She felt weak all over. And could feel, as she got her hands properly beneath her, the pulling restriction of puncture wounds across her stomach and lower chest. The sticky feeling was blood. Looking down on the pad beneath her, it was entirely red.
With an even greater effort she pushed up to her knees. And then sank slowly down to her haunches. Sat there, kneeling on the landing pad amid the burning wreckage of the fallen cruiser. There were pieces of it everywhere, littering the pad. A blackened corpse, sprawled over the front dash of the aircar. Two of them, still burning. Humans. Straights. They died so easily. Skin burned, and flesh tore. So fragile. No wonder they created machines of such strength and power. Technology, to overcome their weaknesses. Herself.
As she turned her head slowly she could see another body sprawled face down on the pad. She'd shot him in the back. It had been so easy. And so good, in her fury, and her grief. She'd been mad. Mad like it had often terrified her to think about. They'd cut her up. They'd killed Mahud, the last hope she'd had of salvaging something from all those years, from that entire, former life. Murdered him, like all those innocent civilians. They'd made her so horribly, grievously angry. And this was the result.
A cool wind swept the pad, blowing smoke. A howling of distant, airborne engines. The sirens were closer. Death was everywhere. She could smell it on the wind. Could feel it in the air. Horror and destruction. She looked back toward the fallen body. Turned herself in its direction and started crawling.
She did not want this life. It disagreed with everything she'd wanted to be. With every one of her dreams and aspirations. She'd wanted to be beyond all of this, she'd wanted it so very badly. And this was what came of her very best efforts. No matter what she did, or what she tried, she was a killer. Where she went, death followed. And her concern for those about her, her love for them, became a killing rage, when they died, and wreaked vengeance on all. There was no escape from it—it was all that she was. It had been there from her inception. It was the founding thought that had given her life, her entire reason for existence. She could not fight fate. She could not fight God. The stench of blood and burning flesh filled her nostrils, and this ... this, was her life.
Well, she wanted none of it. She wanted it stopped. She wanted an end to the pain.
The dead man's rifle lay by his outstretched fingertips. She ignored it and reached for the pistol at the back of his waistband. It was a big, powerful calibre, plenty effective from close range. She sat down heavily beside him, her brother in death, clicked off the safety, and thought about it. Thought of skull thicknesses, and trajectories, and possible approaches that might or might not work ... there was a roaring now in the air and a buffeting of howling wind across the pad, but in her dazed, pain-filled mind, nothing could deter her from her purpose. She'd been so determined to do something good in her life, when she'd come to the Federation. Well, now she would.
Base of the skull, she thought to herself, visualising. It was weakest there, where an external trajectory was unlikely to go. She knelt upright with a great effort against the roaring wind, turned the pistol about in her hands, and put the muzzle into her mouth.
"Sandy!" A distant voice above the thundering gale. "Sandy, for God's sake! Put it down!" Angled it back, pointing upward, not wanting a ricochet that left the job unfinished ... "Sandy, pat the gun down! now!"
A popping sound, and something smacked into her side. The jolt was minimal, little more than a distraction. She refocused, gripping the handle more firmly ... and felt her fingers slipping. Then her vision began to go. Blackness gathered and she tried one last, desperate time to squeeze at the trigger, but her balance was going, the pistol fell from unresponsive hands and the only thing that remained as she thudded limply to the ground was the roaring in her ears.
* * * *
Dim sounds registered. Echoed faintly. It sounded like a long way away. Everything did. Like looking down a long, long tunnel, blackness all around, and a faint prick of light in the distance ... growing larger, and brighter, and then she was blinking, blurred light assaulting her vision and making her wince, blinking hard.
Smells. A harsh, familiar smell. It triggered memories. And then, suddenly, it became clearer, with a growing rush of fear and pain. Vision cleared further and she could see the white, antiseptic floor beneath her, and that horrid chemical smell in her nostrils. Working sounds around her. Voices. The beep of monitoring equipment. Numbness all over, impenetrable in her present state. She struggled for her voice as the fear got worse.
"Help me," she managed to whisper hoarsely. Coughed once, a stronger, vocal sound.
"Cassandra," said a nearby voice, unfamiliar, and something else that she lost as fear grew to panic, and she realised herself face down in an operating surgery again, awoken from one nightmare to be dropped headlong into another even worse, strapped, drugged and immobilised while doctors cut her open again and she could do nothing at all...
"Oh God," she managed to say in stronger, shuddering voice. "Oh God, help me. Don't ..." Her voice cracked, sobs of pure fright. "... don't cut me, please don't cut me ..." And then there was a man talking to her, but she didn't know him, and didn't want to hear him, she just wanted out of this horrible life, out and gone for good, she couldn't take this, she just couldn't stand it...
"Just stop it!" she screamed at them, voice approaching normal as her control reasserted. "Leave me alone, you bastards! Oh God, someone get me out of here! Someone ... please!" She broke off, sobbing, face down and helpless, locked into place beneath the knives and probes, unable even to look about and see, her head locked into a metal brace and staring immovably at the floor ...
"Sandy!" A familiar voice, and then someone moving at her side, filling her peripheral vision through the tears. "Sandy, it's me, it's Vanessa."
Worried sounding, and then a face, crouched alongside and peering at her, frightened concern in her eyes. Touched her face with gentle fingers. Desperately worried. The sobs continued, uncontrollable.
"Sandy, it's okay." Leaning close, warm breath upon her face. "You've been hit, Sandy, it's not bad ... you took some slugs in the stomach and a few in the chest, some of them went through and others were stopped dead by those damn armour-muscles of yours ... the ones that went through did a bit of damage but these guys've patched most of it. It's just that the ones that went through are lodged in your back and causing problems—that's what they're doing now, they're just getting them out. You hear me? It's nothing serious, they're just taking out a few slugs."
Looking and sounding very worried. The fingers stopped stroking her face and moved to her hair above the head-brace. Warm and comforting. The sobbing receded slightly. Sanity returned. The panic began to fade. She felt weak, drained.
"They've made a couple of incisions in your back," Vanessa continued talking to her, hand stroking her hair, "they've pulled back some skin and they're going after the slugs ... it's just that it's a bit unfamiliar to them, Sandy. They're pretty s
ure about the basics, but they wanted you awake in case you started feeling something in your legs or shoulders. That whole spinal region is much more different from humans than the rest of you. They just wanted to be sure they didn't do any damage. Okay?"
Pulled back some skin. She recalled what that meant, what a GI's dermal tissue behaved like, that it could be pulled away from muscle, peeled back in sheets for convenient access ... oh God, that was what she looked like now, with Vanessa here and watching ... new panic rose. A new fear.
"Don't look at me," she croaked. Crouching down further to see her face, Vanessa looked worried all over again. "Please. Please don't look."
Understanding dawned in Vanessa's eyes. Sadness.
"Oh Sandy," she sighed. Leaned further forward, and kissed her gently on the cheek. Rested her forehead there, a gentle pressure. Hair tickled softly at her ear. "Sandy, I quite honestly don't give a shit. Actually, it makes me a hell of a lot less squeamish than the organic stuff I've seen. You're much more convenient, not so much of that messy, gooey stuff." A pause. "Shit, I shouldn't be talking about that, should I? Just ignore me, I've been on duty so long my brain's dissolving."
Pulled back to look at her again. New tears were gathering in Sandy's eyes, but for a different reason. Vanessa smiled sadly at her and wiped them away before they could gather and spill.
"Not that it's a pretty sight, mind you," she continued. "But then it's not supposed to be a pretty sight, is it? I mean, if you think I'm going to get scared off because you don't look pretty with your skin missing ... well, that'd be pretty shallow of me, wouldn't it? I might be small, but I don't reckon I'm shallow... although mind you, I'm the best person for crouching down like this because I'm the only one who can get low enough to look you in the face. Oh here, this won't do," wiping away more tears, "veteran combat soldier crying like this. Can't let the rookies in SWAT see this, you'll never live it down. Hurt your promotion chances too, you never see Ibrahim crying. Mind you, I never see him fucking either, so I don't know if that's much of a bright spot on his part..."
It nearly got a smile, and Vanessa's eyes lit up as the lips twitched.
"A-hah! Signs of recovery. You're gonna be fine, just patch everything back together, get you laid a few dozen times by an assortment of handsome hunks of my choosing and you'll be right as rain in no time. You know that..."
"Ricey," Sandy croaked.
"U-huh?" Waiting patiently.
"You talk too much." Weakly.
Vanessa grinned. "Well at least you're back to stating the obvious, that's a good start." And paused, smiling. "So how are you feeling now? Better?"
"Better than what?" Sandy retorted weakly. Terror subsided, her voice was no longer so strong. The drugs did that, loosening muscles and vocal cords alike, deadening responses.
"Well okay, forget better. Are you feeling slightly, mildly, averagely or totally fucked?"
Sandy thought about it for a long moment. Wanted to take a deep breath, but the life support made it unnecessary—she was getting enough air through some damn machine she was hooked up to. And she remembered her diaphragm wasn't in such good shape.
"Totally fucked when I woke up. Then you came along, and now it's only average." Eyes locked on Vanessa's. Vanessa was smiling, emotion in her eyes. "Thanks," Sandy whispered.
"What for?" Vanessa said dismissively, and kissed her again, twisting her head about so that this time, it got her firmly on the lips. Sandy blinked. Vanessa pulled away, looking sheepish. "Might not get another chance," she explained.
Sandy managed a weak smile, and Vanessa looked pleased all over again.
"You're a scoundrel," Sandy murmured at her. "Try it again and I'll bite your jaw off."
"Homophobia," Vanessa replied, smiling calmly. "See, you're not perfect after all. You need to be bisexual to be perfect, we appreciate everyone."
"Okay then." Sandy managed with an effort. "Try it again. You never know, I might like it better the second time."
"Tease," Vanessa scolded. "That's a very mean thing to say to me—you know I'll fall head over heels."
Sandy didn't reply. Humour was too much of an effort, now of all times. Conversation was. She only knew that where there had been blackest despair, there was now ... hope. Not a bright hope. That remained a long way off, like a distant dream. But she no longer felt so empty, and there was something good, something worth looking forward to. Again.
"Sandy?" said a new, male voice into the silence. Someone crouched on her other side, looking at her. "I'm Doctor Li. Li Jianjun. Are you in pain?"
"No," she whispered. Wanting to turn her head, but not unable to. "No, I can't feel much. Just some tingling. The buffers cut off any really bad pain. I feel reflex pain normally, but nothing longer."
"Okay." Doctor Li nodded, taking that in. "Okay Sandy, now the Lieutenant's told you what we're doing ... I'm sorry you woke up so suddenly. That was our fault, we didn't know how fast it would happen when we brought you back. We overestimated." We, Sandy guessed, meant the other doctors. She thought there were at least four, and probably others advising.
"Now everyone here is biotech, Sandy," said Doctor Li, as if reading her mind. "In fact, we've got probably the best biotech surgeons on the planet here in this room right now. You'll forgive us if we find it all more than a little fascinating ... but we're not here to study you, Sandy, we're just going to patch you up. The damage isn't great. You should make a full recovery. Now, if you have any questions at any time, about anything, just ask. Okay?"
"Okay," she whispered. Doctor Li gave her a gentle, reassuring pat on the head and regained his feet. "Ricey?"
"Right here." Leaning in close again, with the doctor resuming work.
"Don't leave me."
Vanessa smiled, hand in her hair again, a soft, comforting presence.
"Not a chance. No chance at all."
Chapter 19
At 10:16 the next morning, Katia Neiland walked into the private hospital ward. Sandy looked across in surprise, and lowered her paperback. The President walked unescorted across the sun-splashed floor, smiling at her.
"Hi," she said. Stopped by the bedside, a hand upon the visitor's chair.
"Hello." Weary eyed and fuzzy-headed, her voice remained at best a soft murmur. An eyebrow quirked in mild surprise, looking past the President toward the doorway. Then refocused with gradual, deliberate calm. "Where's your entourage?"
"Leashed in the corridor, sniffing nurses' backsides." Smiling in apparent good humour. "You two make a nice couple."
Sandy glanced across at Vanessa, who lay alongside on the broad hospital bed. Sleeping peacefully, brown curls strewn about a face that seemed to Sandy perhaps incongruously angelic, now that the mischievous energy in her eyes was safely hidden behind gentle, closed eyelids. Dressed in the customary, post-armour tracksuit that had followed her shower, lying comfortably above the covers. Only a small weight on the mattress.
"She was on a thirty-hour rotation including the Berndt Operation," Sandy replied, gazing at the sleeping Lieutenant. "Maybe three hours' sleep in between. Then she had me to attend to all last night. She got to sleep about six hours ago, I reckon she'll wake up in another eight, if she's lucky. It takes it out of you."
"And what about you? Why aren't you sleeping?"
Sandy shrugged faintly. "I hate sleeping under drugs—they're still in my system. I wake up feeling even more tired than when I started. I woke up two hours ago and thought I'd read instead."
"Hmm. What is that?" The President stepped forward and lifted the book in her hand, studying the cover. "Jagdish Singh. Is he any good?"
"Typical Indian drama, lots of marriages, scandals, gratuitous high-fashion and excuses for fancy costumes ... it's fun, it passes the time."
Neiland settled back into the visitor's chair with a sigh. Looked about at the broad windows that stretched around the large room, letting in the sunlight. Outside, it was a lovely day. Endless blue sky beyond the reaching towers. The room
was well furnished—a deluxe suite. Security required it. And their guest deserved it.
"So," she said, looking back at Sandy. "How are you feeling?"
"Doctors briefed you, I suppose?" Sandy murmured. Neiland nodded. "Well this is where I get grateful I'm not a straight human—I'd be dead five times over. I just feel numb all over. Can't move, can't eat properly, breathing hurts ..." She shrugged. "... I'll be okay."
"Christ, after stopping an automatic burst point-blank, that's something to be thankful for."
"There was a car door in the way," Sandy replied, quiet and hoarse. "Slowed them a bit, flattened them, made them tumble. Uneven impacts, they didn't penetrate as much." Neiland was staring. Sandy managed a faint smile, remembering the line they'd always told straights who asked. "My stomach's rated at fifty percent tougher than a vest. Most of me is."
Neiland reached and took her hand. Held it in both of her own, feeling between fingers and thumb. Probing. Sandy watched, blue eyes gone sombrely curious. Flexed her fingers slightly, a faint ripple of movement beneath Neiland's probing examination. Neiland looked at her, mild amazement in her eyes.
"That's pretty zeeked," she said. Borrowing from her son's vocabulary, Sandy guessed with faint amusement. "Feels completely human. You've even got the same veins ..." probing with a curious forefinger, tracing a line.
"Cosmetic," Sandy told her.
"Even so." Turned over her palm, as if reading the lines. Felt at the wrist. Frowned as she searched. "No pulse though."
"Lower blood pressure," Sandy murmured. "Much thicker consistency, much more efficient. Keeps up sensory energy mainly. Feedback nerves, temperature, organs. Muscles don't need it, that's mechanical. So I only need about twenty percent the blood that you do." Neiland looked fascinated. "Don't ask me any more. Biology isn't my strong point."
"Biology," Neiland murmured, continuing her examination. "That's what it is really, isn't it? Artificial biology. Nothing mechanical about it."
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