The Initiative: Book One of the Jannah Cycle

by D. Brumbley

“Oh, well congratulations, then. Anna and I were just married a few weeks ago too, after we both got our acceptance.” The rest of his clothes followed one piece at a time, but after some cloth rustling behind the curtain, it eventually became clear that Logan didn’t see the point in actually tying the medical robe entirely over himself. He came out with it folded down and tied around his waist like some kind of single-use kilt, hanging to his knees and leaving the rest of him exposed for examination. He wasn’t the first person that day to either be incredibly comfortable exposing himself or attempt to come onto her by appearing almost completely naked for their exam (Earth-people could be fairly vulgar, it seemed, when they wanted to be) but Logan didn’t appear to be doing either. He knew they were in a bit of a rush, and he wanted to expedite things as much as possible. Him and every single one of the muscles that stood out on his arms and chest as if they had been sculpted out of marble.

  Mercury felt fairly immune to the human form, having somehow learned to look at people more scientifically than sexually, but being with Orion had changed that for her somewhat. She noticed people more, noticed things about them that weren’t necessarily medically related, and she had mixed feelings about the change in perspective. It didn’t help her focus nearly as well, but it made her think of her patients more as people, which was a good thing. She definitely did notice, however, Logan’s muscles and form as she approached him. It was a trend among most of the earthlings, to have well-defined bodies, but not all of the men that she had seen that day looked like the one in front of her. Most of them did hard labor for a living and their bodies proved it. She met his eyes with her emerald green ones for a brief moment before she put aside her tools to perform the medical exam first. “Have you had any injuries or alterations in your physical well-being since your last submitted exam?”

  “Nothing major. Had a few burns and gashes when the station arm came down a dozen clicks from my house, but those healed up just fine.” He indicated the patches on his arm and shoulder where the skin was shaded slightly differently in the wake of being scorched off and regrown and not yet tanned to match the rest of him, though it was a subtle variation. “Nothing lasting, though, no.”

  Mercury stepped in closer to look at his arm and shoulder, and she traced her fingers across the burned area just to make sure everything looked alright. “I’m sorry to hear that you were so close to that.” She said softly as her touch lingered because she was distracted by her thoughts of the incident. “We were on Station Nine right before the accident. We’re lucky to be alive, Orion and I.”

  Logan shook his head as he looked her over again. She seemed like the definition of an indoor-girl, and picturing her in the middle of a crisis was difficult. “I’m sorry you were near it. There was a family living on the farm it came down on, but I can only imagine how many more people were actually on that thing when it fell. It was a terrible thing to see.”

  Mercury’s hands moved away from his scars so that she could continue with her exam, but she didn’t meet his eyes as she continued. “The worst for me was being held like criminal afterward, as if I would do anything to harm all of those people. Just the idea makes me sick.”

  “Well, I’m glad there’s one doctor in the world that takes the whole ‘do no harm’ thing seriously.” He smiled at her, then shook his head before he explained. “Sorry. My doctor back home has a daughter training to replace her who has a bit of a mean streak. Your bedside manner is already a world and a half better than most of what I’m used to from the medical community.”

  That brought a smile back to Mercury’s lips and she shook her head slowly before she gently pulled his head a little closer so that she could check his ears and his mouth. “Usually my expertise is babies and the women that carry them. You really don’t want to get them riled up, or else you’re the one in trouble.”

  “No kidding.” He was glad to see the woman smile, and stood still for the rest of her examination, though it was a little strange to have someone checking him out whose last name wasn’t Weber. “Might have to start actually being nice to my wife, then, if that’s the case. Our physician ran a pregnancy test on her a few days ago, but they told us there was something wrong with the sample or something, they couldn’t get an accurate test. I’m sure she’ll ask you to re-run it here in a minute when she gets in here.”

  “Dr. Patel will take care of her, I’m sure, since she was almost done with her previous patient.” Mercury smiled up at him again before she gave him a nod and stepped back. “Most everything looks good.” She was brief about checking over the parts of him covered up with the gown and then she made her notes on her tablet quickly afterward. “That would be amazing, having your baby up there in Orbit before we go to Jannah. I hope that she’s pregnant. I miss my maternity patients.”

  That made Logan smile again, even though he had to clear his throat as she finished checking the parts of him that were covered with the medical robe. “Always a pleasure to meet someone who enjoys their work. How long have you been doing it? Your husband said he was twenty-four.”

  “I’m twenty-two, but I’ve been working on my education since I was fourteen. I just finished my residency last year.” She smiled warmly right back at him as though she hadn’t just seen every part of him. When she approached him again, though, it was with needles. “I love my work. I love seeing the miracle of life. Because cliche or not, it is a miracle. A messy one, but still.” She held up one needle and gave him a polite smile. “Quick prick first, then the two syringes. I’ll do my best to make it painless.”

  “The Messy Miracle. There’s a title for the first book of your memoirs.” He smiled as he offered his arm, bracing himself slightly for the needles. He wasn’t going to let himself act bothered in front of a complete stranger, and an Orbital to boot.

  True to her word, the blood draw was only a pinprick of pain, the two shots afterward were similarly simple and painless. She tossed the syringes into biohazard box and then gave his shoulder a reassuring pat before she tucked her hair behind her ear. “You can get dressed, we checked off all the boxes for you. I’ll wait outside while you dress so that I can take you to get your new uniform and finish the rest of the registration process. We’ll need to rush a bit, though. They’re strict about takeoff times.”

  When he did redress himself, he didn’t bother putting his shirt back on, since he had gone a fair percentage of his life without wearing one anyway, and as she’d said, they were in a hurry. He could feel the anti-CV drugs she’d given him working their way through his system, but it was nowhere near as excruciating as the initial dose had been, a slow sizzle rather than internal combustion. They passed Anna and Orion on the way out, and she was already wearing a flight suit and standard-issue boots. The change in outfit made him grin, since it seemed to make things a little more harmlessly real, especially when it was Anna who was wearing it. “Very sexy.”

  Anna stopped to make some ridiculous modeling poses before she grinned and moved away from Orion back to Logan’s side. “I’m sexy? Look at you, walking around shirtless. You’re supposed to save that for me.”

  “We’re in a rush. Go get checked out by somebody other than me.” He pulled her close for an instant and then sent her on her way with a smack to her backside before spinning to follow Mercury to pick up his own uniform.

  The whole exchange just made Orion laugh. “Yeah, you’re newlyweds alright.” He went to lean against the wall outside Dr. Patel’s office as she finished up with her patient. “Somebody somewhere has surely done a study about how soon after marriage the ass-slapping stops, but I haven’t dug it up yet. I’ll have to see about finding that. My guess would be a year, maybe a year and a half?”

  “Who says it has to stop?” Anna said as she watched Logan walk off with the tall, redheaded doctor. “My parents were crazy in love all the way until my mom died. Even now he talks about her like she’s the best thing in the world.”

  That made the grin on Orion’s face fade, since he
couldn’t imagine having lost his mother so young, but he knew he had to keep in mind that most of the Earth-born he was going to be working with would have lost their parents by their late teens or early twenties. If they still had living parents, they weren’t likely to still be living when they came back from Jannah for the first time. “Well I’m sure she was. Crazy in love doesn’t always mean ass-slapping, though. It definitely should, in my opinion, but that’s not an opinion shared by everyone.” He shook his head to clear it of an image he didn’t want. “I think if I ever saw my father slap my mother’s ass, I would have him arrested until we could figure out what kind of demon was possessing him. Very much not their style.”

  “Well, my husband better always enjoy slapping my ass. Even when we’re old.” She smiled as Dr. Patel came out to retrieve her. “Excuse me while I get cured and felt up by your friend here. I’ll be back.”

  “She gets frisky. Fair warning.” He smiled at her and went to sit down by the wall of windows that faced out toward the shuttle, relaxing in the few minutes he was likely to have left before he had to get back to work hauling everybody up to space. He knew all the theory and had simulated the entire thing dozens of times, but the actual doing was always going to be something unique.

  He heard static click through the receiver he had tucked into his ear before the day’s activities got under way, and narrowed his eyes a little, reaching up to tap the pod inside his ear canal. “Somebody trying to check in? Your mic might be blown.”

  There was silence for a moment on the other end of the open connection as he and apparently the other five security officers posted to the retrieval waited for one of them to check in and answer, but no one did. Voices started chiming in quickly after a five second delay, all of them following protocol.

  Carl’s deep voice was first. Espinoza code 10 on the tarmac, eyes on Fitch and Adebayo on board, confirming code 10, no touch on Johnson, St. Pierre or Mikkelson. Talk back.

  St. Pierre code 10 on the front approach. A young man’s voice came across, sounding nervous. Eyes on Mikkelson, confirming code 10 on the south side. Saw Johnson a few minutes ago sweeping north parking lot, no eyes for maybe five minutes. Talk back, Johnson.

  There was nothing further from the communicator, and as the seconds stretched on, Orion got up and got into motion. He could see Carl already moving out the windows, closer to the north lot than he was. “Johnson, if you’re getting this, come inside and switch out that mic, you’ve got a dud. St. Pierre, Mikkelson, Fitch, and Adebayo stay put. Eyes up.” He moved quickly through the facility, ignoring everyone else nearby as he did his best to look out through any available window to get a look at the north lot, but the exit wasn’t in a convenient spot. He could’ve broken through the glass in a window somewhere, but causing a scene when there might be nothing to cause a scene about wasn’t something he was willing to risk.

  By the time he got outside, he heard the yelling, and realized that making a scene would have absolutely been the right risk to take. A single shot was fired before he could see who might be shooting, and his hand was immediately back on the mic in his ear. “All points, code 2, north lot. Fan back, cover down, unknown targets.” He crept up to the corner of the building, and saw Johnson on the ground before he saw Carl come up from between two abandoned cars, Carl having just gotten slammed in the face with what looked like a baseball bat. The person swinging the bat was wearing a flight suit as if he was about to get on the shuttle, but Orion didn’t recognize him from the crew heading down that morning. An Earth-born, from the looks of the scruff on his face and the slightly wild look in his eyes. Orion didn’t see a gun in the man’s possession as he continued to beat at Carl, and took a step away from the corner of the building with his own gun raised. He knew how to use it, even if he’d never fired it at a living person before. Knowing how and doing suddenly became much farther from each other than he had ever before given them credit for. “Drop it!”

  The man with the bat swung around to look wildly at Orion, and the moment’s distraction was all Carl needed to grab one of the man’s arms and snap it with an audible crack and a screech of pain from the assailant. The next few moments were a blur, though, as the man collapsed to the asphalt but came back up with a knife directly into Carl’s ribs through the seam of his flight suit.

  As soon as Orion saw the stab coming, that was all he needed to push him across the space between knowing how and doing, and his bullet sailed straight through the assailant’s brain, spraying blood partly on Carl and mostly on the window of the car next to them. “Fitch, go get the doctors. Two down, single stab wound and possible shattered jaw on Carl, no assessment on Johnson. Move it! Adebayo, St. Pierre, Mikkelson, sweep the lot, row by row. Talk back every aisle. Eyes in the cars as well as around them.”

  Orion continued to approach slowly, his eyes on the assailant and the surroundings just to make sure the man had been alone. Once that was verified and the other three were starting their sweep, Orion holstered his gun and ran to Carl first to apply pressure to the wound in his stomach. The hit to his face should have knocked the big man out, but Orion helped ease him to the ground next to a car as Carl groaned in pain. “Easy, pal, just hold pressure on the stomach. Can you talk?”

  Carl shook his head, blood pouring from the side of his mouth where it looked like his jaw had been broken. He couldn’t even open his eyes through the pain, but he pointed his broken chin toward Johnson, and Orion took his meaning.

  “Hold pressure on the stomach. If you bleed out while I’m in command, it looks bad on my resume. Remember that.” He patted Carl on the arm once gingerly before scurrying away, staying low to the asphalt as the other three reported that their first aisle was clear.

  Johnson was barely breathing, with multiple gashes on her arms that looked like they might have been defensive wounds, and a single spot of blood dripping from the side of her head where it looked like she had been struck with the bat. She was out cold, and Orion had to wonder what kind of insane concussion a hit like that could produce. He gave the attacker himself only a cursory glance to make sure he was actually dead, but kept his attention between binding up the gashes along Johnson’s arms and making sure Carl wasn’t bleeding to death. Luckily it was only a few moments before Mercury and Dr. Patel came running out of the building, though it felt like the entire thing had taken much longer than the ninety seconds or so it had actually been.

  Mercury was immediately in action, kneeling at Carl’s side with her medical kit. With him apparently stable, the first syringe she gave him was a triage mix of painkiller and antibiotic. She didn’t even wait for his body to relax before she started ripping at the fabric of his clothes to get to the stab wound, since it was bleeding the most. Dr. Patel was at Johnson’s side, though she was frantic. Apparently working in a situation where she might get attacked wasn’t going well for the doctor, but she was doing her best.

  Since Anna had barely finished up her treatment, she came stumbling out of the building behind the doctors, clearly all too willing to barrel into a situation that was hostile. She looked around and narrowed her eyes a few times before she looked back at Orion. “They wouldn’t attack the security for no reason. It’s a distraction.” No one had asked her advice or her opinion, but she gave it anyway. “Did anyone stay near the shuttle?”

  Orion looked toward the shuttle as she said so, and there were a few people standing outside on the steps leading up to the doors to watch the entire scene, whispering to themselves about what they could barely see from the windows. Anyone could have…but they were alone, in the middle of nowhere. He hadn’t seen anyone else, and the others were radioing in that they found no one else in their sweep of the parking lot. Somehow, that didn’t make Orion feel any more at ease. “Adebayo, St. Pierre, back to the shuttle, talk down the bystanders. Fitch, go start pre-flight checks. Run them twice. Mikkelson, sweep the interior of the building, tell everyone it’s time to get in the shuttle and get strapped in. Time to go.” He
took his hand off his earpiece with a sigh as he watched Mercury work on Carl, then turned to look at Anna. “Idiot with a baseball bat and a kitchen knife doesn’t seem like a terrorist threat to me. More like a psycho chip on his shoulder against the Consortium. You think somebody’s trying to sneak on board?”

  Anna shrugged, since she didn’t know what someone would do. “Wouldn’t that be the best cover-up, to make you think it was a one-shot? I mean, it’s no secret that Orbit…some people think that Earthlings are idiots. It would definitely make it easier on someone if everyone thought that one crazy person was the biggest threat.”

  Orion nodded his agreement, looking to the shuttle and waiting to hear from Adebayo and St. Pierre, who had taken the gawkers back inside. “Mercury, how long would it take to DNA-check everybody on board? What’s our passenger count, two hundred nineteen? Something like that?”

  Mercury didn’t look up as she attempted to stitch Carl’s wound closed, her hands already covered with his blood. She needed to check his jaw as well, but she was trying to hurry. “Check everyone? How quickly? The scanners are fast, but I don’t know that we could check everyone and make it in time for takeoff. And we really shouldn’t linger or we could get grounded.” Mercury looked up at Orion at that. “If they feel the threat is great enough, they might not allow us to go back for a long time.”

  Orion looked back and forth between Mercury and the shuttle, weighing the possibilities and the risks of the launch. “Is he going to be stable enough to get him on board and secure him?” He needed more information before they got going, and looked back at Dr. Patel as well. “Is she?”

  Mercury finished sewing Carl up and then she nodded. “There are medical transport pods on every ship. We’re going to have to use both of them.” She wiped her bloody hands on her scrubs and then looked up at Orion again. “But we have to move fast. I don’t know if he’s bleeding internally, and this building isn’t equipped with what I need. There should be a scanner on the shuttle, though. We need to get him on the ship.”