Stars Forever Black: Book I of the Star Lion Saga

by A. L. Bruno

  Nesheim moved in next to Conrad, crouching instinctively.

  “How far?!” she yelled, looking ahead.

  Conrad glanced at his helmet’s display and spotted the waypoint marker. “Ten meters, bearing 330,” he replied.

  “Just point!” Nesheim barked.

  Conrad pointed. “That way! Learn to read a compass, Doc.”

  Nesheim ignored Conrad’s criticism and dashed forward, moving behind Fitzpatrick, her med team sticking close behind.

  Goddammit, Conrad thought, then took one last glance around the landing zone. “Get us there, Lieutenant!” he ordered.

  Fitzpatrick pumped his left fist once, spun a circle in the air with his left index finger, then pointed ahead. The marines moved forward slowly, surrounding the doctor and her team, weapons at the ready. Conrad closed and followed, sidearm in hand.

  Conrad had known something was wrong the moment the general quarters alarm blared in his berth. He had leapt out of bed, mind spinning. Are the Motinai already here? he’d thought, reaching down to his coffin locker for his combat gear. He was halfway into his pressure suit when the captain’s voice echoed over the 1MC.

  “All hands,” Boothe’s voice steady, “this is the captain. Commander Roberts, our intelligence officer and shipmate, has been gravely wounded by a terrorist attack on the planet's surface.”

  Conrad had stopped in place, stunned. They attacked him? He shook his head, furious. Dammit, I knew this was too much for one person!

  “Our mission now is to retrieve our shipmate and give him the best medical treatment we can,” Boothe had continued. “Commander Conrad, Lieutenant Fitzpatrick, Lieutenant Malley, and Doctor Nesheim, meet me in Briefing Bay One immediately.”

  The words had spurred Conrad. He’d slipped back into his bag, throwing the unused protective gear onto his bunk. The captain’s words had continued, her voice a study in calm.

  “As for the rest of you,” she had said, “stand to your posts. Trust your leaders and trust your people.”

  Conrad caught a glance of himself in the mirror. I’ll shave later, he thought, pushing his feet into his boots.

  “Now let’s get Commander Roberts home,” the captain had concluded. “Boothe out.”

  Fitzpatrick’s left arm shot back, his armored hand raised in a “halt” motion. The marines stopped, then immediately turned to track their environment, weapons ready. Even Nesheim dropped to one knee, though her head was fixed firmly on the building ahead.

  Saranatari’s medical clinic looked no different than any of the other buildings in the village. There was a neon sign that read “Open” (helpfully translated by Conrad’s helmet) and a symbol that looked like a chalice surrounded by a snake, but other than that the building could have been a bakery for all Conrad could tell. Only the mass of heat signatures from the wounded within let him know that the place was a spot of some import.

  “I need to get in there!” Nesheim said, straining to move ahead. Fitzpatrick turned, annoyed, and brought a single finger to the front of his mask.

  “Our man could be dying in there!” Nesheim fumed. “Don’t tell me to be quiet!”

  “Doctor!” Conrad snapped. Her helmet turned in his direction, the gold film of the clear tritan faceplate reflecting his own heavily armored appearance back to him. “These men know their jobs. Listen to them!”

  Nesheim didn’t answer. Instead, she turned away, her head locked on the clinic.

  “Let’s cut to it, people,” Boothe had started. “Roberts is badly injured, and so is the Kionel’s granddaughter.”

  Conrad, Malley, and Fitzpatrick all stood at the briefing room table, too keyed up to sit. Boothe, however, sat at the head, while Dr. Nesheim worried over her medpad. Chief Okoro leaned over the holodisplay controls, his eyes reddened from lack of sleep.

  “They hurt Adelisa?” Malley asked, shocked. “What happened?”

  “We don’t know,” Okoro answered. “They’re trying to downplay it, but they’re lying.” He accessed the feeds from the major networks, but, surprisingly, none of them had any video of the attack to share. Instead, all they saw were helicopter shots of revelers moving away from Saranatari. At last, a spot on the pavement had shaken into view, the cobblestones stained red.

  “That’s too much blood,” Nesheim advised. “We have to get to them now.”

  “That’s the plan, Doctor,” Boothe had replied. “You up for a drop?”

  “Just get me to my patient.” There was no bravado in Nesheim’s reply, just the words of a concerned professional.

  “What about the mission?” Malley asked. She was paler than normal.

  “The mission is to retrieve our man now, Lieutenant!” Boothe flared. Malley straightened into the position of attention. Boothe, however, was not finished with her. “But your mission is to tell me who the hell did this. Clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Malley replied sharply.

  “Get to it then. Now!”

  Malley didn’t need to be told twice. She turned and ran towards the hatch.

  Fitzpatrick spun his left finger in the air again, then gestured towards the clinic entrance.

  “Do we have to go in like an invading army?” Nesheim complained. “We’re here to help.”

  “We don’t know who did this, Doc,” Conrad reminded her, performing another scan of the area. “We have to be careful.”

  “That makes it okay to scare the living shit out of them?” Nesheim challenged, grunting as she was moved forward by the fireteam.

  “If it keeps my people alive,” Conrad replied, “yes.”

  Nesheim snorted in disgust.

  Fitzpatrick swept his left arm forward from his waist, then kicked in the door to the tenali’s clinic.

  “So, we go in, get Roberts, and get out. Is that it?” Conrad had asked.

  Boothe nodded. “That’s it.” She fixed Fitzpatrick with a piercing stare. “Are your marines up to that, Lieutenant?”

  “Absolutely, ma’am,” Fitzpatrick replied confidently. “Just tell us where we need to be.”

  “What about the granddaughter?” Nesheim asked.

  “Adelisa,” Okoro injected.

  Boothe’s features hardened. “Your mission is to retrieve Commander Roberts,” she said. “That’s all. Am I clear?”

  “If I can help her—” Nesheim began.

  “Am I clear?!” Boothe roared, standing.

  Nesheim looked furious but nodded. “Aye, aye, ma’am.”

  “Good.” Boothe straightened and placed her hands on her hips. “We’re burning daylight, people. Get to it.”

  Screams erupted the moment Fitzpatrick and his marines burst into the clinic, weapons ready. The clatter of metal dropping to the floor followed, doors slammed, and the authoritative yelling of both male and female voices in Tenastan echoed. Then suddenly, silence. Conrad tensed, then realized he hadn’t heard any weapons fire and relaxed.

  “They’re going to think we’re monsters!” Nesheim complained as she stood outside the building with Conrad. “How the hell will they want to work with us now?”

  “We’ll worry about that later,” Conrad replied. “First we get Roberts.”

  But she’s right, Conrad conceded.

  “Secure!” Fitzpatrick’s voice hissed into his helmet. “Clear to enter.”

  Nesheim didn’t have to be told twice. She rushed in, removing her helmet as she moved, her team running to keep up.

  “Get your helmet on now, Doctor!” Conrad ordered, following her inside. When he saw the facility that housed his officer, however, his stomach dropped.

  The first room the fireteam had secured was some kind of waiting room. A dozen civilians slumped in their chairs, heads down, most sporting minor injuries from the day’s attack. They avoided eye contact with the Terrans, and Conrad spotted more than a few shaking uncontrollably.

  The clinic staff stood behind a glassed-in desk, their hands raised, eyes wide, while two doors offered passage to the clinic beyond. Everything
about the building looked impossibly primitive, and for the first time Conrad genuinely feared for Roberts’ life.

  “Roberts!” Conrad barked, his translator handling the language. “Where is he?!”

  A young woman frantically pointed to the door marked “Emergency”, her bright gray eyes wide with panic. Nesheim dashed in, helmet in hand.

  “I’m not going to tell you again, Doctor!” Conrad warned. “Put that helmet on!”

  “I’m here for my patient,” Nesheim replied, “not to be a goddamned boogeyman.”

  Conrad followed her into a short white corridor covered with warning signs. At the far end was room marked “Surgery”, while the small doors that lined the hallway were numbered “Prep Bays”.

  Conrad looked ahead at the operating bay, his stomach rising into his throat. His helmet painted heat signatures of staff working frantically on a prone figure in front of them. Nurses moved back and forth, removing items and retrieving others, while the doctors dug into the person’s abdomen. A moment later, Conrad’s suit identified the figure as female and he sighed, relieved.

  “She’s in surgery,” Nesheim muttered, horrified.

  “Better her than him,” Conrad responded, then looked over the rest of the space. It didn’t take him long to find Roberts. The only other unsuited figures in the space lay in a room two doors farther down. Next to a prone figure lying face down, Conrad spotted the signature of another nurse applying dressings.

  “There!” Conrad called out, but Nesheim had already beat him to it. She sprinted forward, flung the door open, and barged inside, Conrad and her med team in tow.

  The nurse—an older woman with a thick mass of silver hair secured beneath her cap—gasped the moment Nesheim and Conrad entered, shocked at the figures in hulking armor before her. She held her ground protectively in front of the bed, hands held up defiantly.

  “Don’t hurt him!” she yelled, Conrad’s suit translating almost instantly. “He’s my patient!”

  Who the hell would want to hurt a patient? Conrad wondered.

  “I’m a doctor,” Nesheim replied in heavily accented Tenastan. “Let me help him.”

  The nurse’s eyes widened, surprised, then moved away.

  “He’s lost a lot of blood—” the nurse began to Nesheim.

  “Thanks,” Nesheim interrupted as she rushed to Roberts’ bedside, “but I’ve got this.” Her suit-mounted med sensor lit up, scanning her patient.

  Conrad looked down at the bed and instantly regretted it.

  Roberts lay face down, his back wrapped in a thin layer of bloodstained gauze. An ugly, jagged wound ran from his right shoulder, across the upper part of his spine, and ended over his left lung. His exposed, already scarred skin was a sickly gray, while a bag of liquid hung from a nearby metal stand, its plastic tubes jammed unceremoniously into his arms.

  “Damage to C6 and C7,” Nesheim reported, the scan results suspended in a holo in front of her. “Evidence of osteochondritis deformans juvenilis dorsi,” she continued. “No damage to the lung, thank god,” she replied.

  “How is she doing this?” the nurse asked, stunned.

  “Quiet!” Conrad shot back. “Let her work.”

  The nurse nodded nervously, her eyes never leaving the holodisplay.

  “Fuck!” Nesheim cursed. The nurse jumped back, startled. Even Conrad’s heart beat a little faster after the outburst.

  “What’s wrong?” Conrad asked.

  “They’re pumping him full of some kind of steroid,” she growled. “Probably trying to keep the swelling down.”

  “Will it work?” Conrad asked.

  Nesheim shook her head. “We have to get him back to the ship—now!”

  Nesheim’s order barely left her lips before her med team rushed in, extending the portable antigrav gurney from its backpack storage. Within moments they’d shifted him to the hovergurney and moved him into the corridor, nanocuffs in place across his biceps and thighs.

  “Prep for dust-off,” Conrad called out over his helmet comms. “Secure the entrance and ready for cover.”

  “Copy,” Fitzpatrick replied. A moment later, a series of new waypoints appeared on Conrad’s display, and he spotted the tagged marines taking up their assigned positions.

  “Let’s move out,” Conrad ordered. The med team nodded, then eased Roberts forward, Nesheim at their side.

  The door from the surgical theater burst open and an older, dark-skinned man rushed in. He waved his hands frantically, the thin cloth cap that rested on a receding hairline falling to the ground. The man’s gray scrubs were covered with the most blood Conrad had seen since the war had ended.

  “Please!” the man cried out in Tenastan, translators working to keep pace. “Wait! You can’t move him!”

  “Exec!” Nesheim snapped. “Roberts doesn’t have time for this!”

  Conrad took a step towards the man, his armor whirring in the confined hallway. He stared down at the medic like a giant confronting a pygmy.

  “Sir,” Conrad said, raising his voice but trying to keep his tone calm. “We need to take our man.”

  The doctor gestured frantically towards Roberts, but Conrad just held up a hand.

  “You can’t help him,” Conrad continued, “but we can.”

  The doctor—of that Conrad was now certain—looked over at the team surrounding Roberts, then sagged. “Nal dui,” he said, exhausted. The words “thank you” echoed into Conrad’s earpiece a heartbeat later.

  “Can we go now?” Nesheim called back, annoyed.

  Conrad nodded.

  “Let’s move, people!” Nesheim ordered.

  “Kijit nam Tishta!” the doctor yelled. “Wait a moment!” their helmets translated helpfully.

  Nesheim turned back to the doctor. “I’m sorry,” she said, moving towards the door. “But we don’t have time.”

  “Anvu kurt atra!” the doctor yelled after the translation had finished. “Neither does she!”

  Aw, shit, Conrad thought, realizing where this was headed.

  Nesheim turned away and stepped towards the lobby exit. Then, slowly, she stopped.

  “Doctor,” Conrad urged, “your shipmate needs you.”

  If Nesheim heard Conrad, she didn’t acknowledge it. “How bad is it?” she asked, turning back to the doctor.

  The doctor’s features brightened. When he spoke, the words came out in a rush.

  “We’re trying to close the gastric perforation,” the translator reported, “but the wound is too deep. She’s hemorrhaging. Even if we can stabilize her, sepsis is almost a certainty.”

  Nesheim closed her eyes, and shook her head, frustrated. “Fuck!” she muttered again.

  “Doctor!” Conrad shouted. “We have to go!”

  “Not yet, Exec!” Nesheim snapped. She turned back to the doctor. “Can you prep her for travel?”

  “Aij!” the doctor replied. “Yes.”

  “Good!” Nesheim said. “Close her up,” she instructed, slowing her speech to let the translator catch every nuance, “and get her to our boat.”

  “Belay that!” Conrad bellowed.

  The Tenastan doctor stopped, unsure as to what to do next.

  “Prep her now!” Nesheim insisted, her eyes boring into Conrad. The Tenastan doctor nodded, then raced towards the operating theater.

  “We have our orders, Doctor,” Conrad admonished.

  “And I have my oath, Exec,” she countered.

  Conrad looked away, his gut rolling.

  “Are you really going to say no?” Nesheim pressed. “After they tried to save our own man?”

  Conrad looked away. “Damn it,” he muttered. “We do this and there’ll be hell to pay.”

  “Demote me, then,” Nesheim snarled. She stared up at him, determination in her brown eyes. “But I won’t let either of them die. Not if I can help it.”

  Conrad, sighed, then nodded.

  “Do it,” Conrad ordered, and Nesheim and her team moved.

  The locals did
n’t react well to the Terran marines loading Adelisa onto Nightingale. A crowd had gathered after the marines entered, complete with news crews. The cheers they’d offered when Roberts was escorted back to the boat turned to howls of fury when their prone Adishta followed. Within seconds the recovery team was pelted with everything the civilians could throw. One marine caught a screwdriver above his right eye, while another was hit in the forehead with a particularly well-aimed rock, both of which bounced harmlessly off their helmets. Finally, they were aboard, and Nightingale lifted off, dashing back to Hyperion.

  Conrad looked back at Roberts and Adelisa in their healing pods aboard the boat. Medbots crawled over their exposed skin, peeling away infected tissue, suturing wounds, and working to stabilize their patients. While Conrad wasn’t a doctor, the repeated howl of alarms from their enclosures made it clear that things weren’t going well.

  “Captain isn’t going to like this,” Conrad muttered.

  “This isn’t about keeping the captain happy,” Nesheim replied, moving unceasingly from one pod to the next. “It’s about saving lives.”

  “Keep that in mind when she’s ripping you a new asshole,” Conrad replied.

  Nesheim paid no attention to Conrad’s concerns. She focused instead on her patients, determined to do what she could.

  “Who did this?” Boothe roared at Lieutenant Malley. Her voice boomed across the med bay as she reviewed the holodisplays of Roberts’ wounds.

  Conrad leaned against the bulkhead, his sweat-soaked bag drying in the ship’s parched air. The marines had long since fallen back to their quarters farther aft, while Nesheim rushed into surgery with both patients. As expected, the captain was furious that they’d brought the Phelspharian woman aboard but knew better than to interfere with the CMO’s work. That there would be consequences was certain, but for the near term all that mattered was that Roberts was getting the medical attention he needed.