In some deep recess of his mind, Yusuf realized what was happening. This was a memory, a beautiful dream that was slowly turning into a nightmare. He thought he knew what must be happening. He must be waking up from the long stasis sleep onboard his ship – the Al-Altaf. Then an even deeper logical part of his brain told him that was not possible.
He had come to know about the waking up nightmares of stasis from the doctors, only many days after having woken up completely. He couldn’t be facing those nightmares right now and yet know about it. This must be later. This must be something else. There was only one way to find out. Like in Bangkok, he will have to force his gaze up.
Yusuf noticed that the stiletto heels on which those legs had been standing had transformed into real stilettos. In fact the blades had curved into talon shapes very much like his pet Eagle as a child, Shakira’s talons. The legs were trunk like thick now with wrinkled and deathly pale loose skin hanging over those limbs. As he forced his gaze up, the base of the limbs got thicker until he could see what those limbs were attached to.
The limbs were attached to enormous size Shaitans standing on that raised platform in a row. Unlike the Shaitans he knew, these had teeth! A circular set of huge teeth all around the underbelly of the Shaitans, and suddenly the Shaitans jumped from the platform on to Yusuf and sunk those teeth into his body. Yusuf screamed. He howled and he screamed over and over again, and yet he did not die. He kept feeling the pain and he kept screaming.
Yusuf could hear his own scream in his ears now, as he slipped back into a moment of lucidity. He was lying on something, and he was moving. He realized that he was in motion from the jerks he felt, but he could not see anything. It was pitch dark. He was strapped on tight for he could barely move any part of his body. He commanded his helmet faceplate to switch on, and when he got no response, he realized that he wasn’t wearing his helmet.
Yusuf heard a familiar voice somewhere in the background, over his own screams and the sound of distant battle that was reaching them, echoing and flanging through the tunnels. He struggled to place the voice but in his addled mind he took sometime before he realized it was his squad mate. Pvt. Hua Hin pleaded with someone. “He is coming around! You have to give him another shot doc. The man is in incredible pain. He will burst his lungs screaming!”
“Can’t do that Private. If I give him another of those shots, his heart will burst with overload of hormones, before his lungs burst from shouting. He is maxed out I am afraid. I can put him to sleep only after the Captain has seen him and decided what medication is safe. His DNA mapping in my database is tagged with a special medical condition, which prohibits be from giving him the standard sedatives.
We are just a few minutes from the surface. You are his mate, talk to him, calm him down. And push the bloody drone faster. It is going slow right now to keep up with your snail’s pace. Show some haste for your friend soldier, and shut the fuck up. I have my hands full with Private Arnez right now.” The Medic huffed and puffed from behind as he answered Hua Hin.
‘Hands full was a metaphor’, for the Medic was doing all the medical related work with his mind, thought clicking away inside his brain, adjusting the flow of various fluids being pumped into the grievously wounded Private Arnez, even as he monitored the wounded soldier’s critical parameters inside his head. Field medical work had gone through a lot of transformation since the medics started being tech-heads.
Fields medics could do a lot more cerebral work while dodging bullets, and so they did. They pulled up the records of the wounded Marines instantly and special conditions for the soldiers were highlighted by the system, as in the case of Private Bin Talash. A rare genetic condition meant that he was extremely allergic to standard sedatives.
Fifty years ago a case like this would have died on the battlefield as the Medic would have followed standard procedure and administered him sedatives, which would have put him in a state of shock greater than he was in right now, and killed him. Yusuf’s case had been instantly highlighted to the Marine medic, and he had administered a hallucinogenic alternative, which helped but was not as effective.
That didn’t mean that the Doc’s hands were free. Just like Pvt. Hua Hin he was straining his back and every muscle in his body holding up one end of the field stretcher that was climbing a steep 30° incline. The field stretcher was a self-contained life support and emergency medical support system, with its own power supply. That is what was keeping Pvt. Arnez and Bin Talash alive right now.
It had a standard port, which could dock with any of the large drones. The problem was that the field stretchers were heavy, even for the relatively lesser gravity of Jehannum. A standard battle drone did not have enough power to haul a stretcher all by itself. It took two drones attached to two ends of a stretcher to haul it.
At this stage of the battle where drones were busy fighting or dying, the Medic had been lucky to get two drones, but he had two stretcher to be hauled. So one end of each stretcher was being hauled by a human lifting it up. The medic and Pvt. Hua Hin were getting a new appreciation of how much heavy lifting the drones did for the humans.
Hua Hin started talking to his buddy as advised by the medic. “Hang in there Yusuf, we are almost on the surface. The docs will fix you there in no time. It is just a matter of a few more minutes.”
Between his screams Yusuf pleaded to his squad mate. “Unstrap me Hin… please. I can’t breathe. I can’t feel my arm! It has gone totally numb.” Yusuf started convulsing from a mix of claustrophobia, panic, pain and delirium.
Hua Hin didn’t have the heart to tell his buddy that the reason he could not feel his arms was because it was no longer attached to his body. It might have sent Yusuf into a mental shock. Hua Hin just said. “You have a special genetic condition Yusuf. The doc can’t give you regular pain killers, which is why you are feeling so much pain. Just a few more minutes buddy, and we will be on the surface.”
“Just shoot me in the head… please Hin… I can’t take it anymore.” Yusuf sobbed and pleaded.
Hua Hin was thankful that his face was drenched in sweat even in this cold tunnels near the surface. It hid the tears freely flowing across his face right now. He was glad when he saw the light of the elevator area in the pitch darkness, which would take them up the last hundred odd meters up to the surface and the GK base. The GK base had become their main forward operation center in the last 6 months that Hua Hin’s brigade had been on Jehannum.
When the two stretchers reached the elevator, the elevator was still on its way down. Hua Hin cursed the elevator for being so slow, although he knew why it was so. It was the first major and permanent ingress route that the humans had managed to make and hold into the tunnel netherworlds of Jehannum. The first elevator had been rigged up by the Engineers in a hurry and probably under constant counter-attack by the Shaitans.
It was meant to be a rough and ready way for the Marines to get in and out of the tunnels below. Now it had been many months since this sector had been threatened in any way by the Shaitans and this tunnel had become one of the main supply routes to the frontline almost a hundred kilometers away in many directions. There were many relief holes dug by the Engineers closer to the frontlines, used by the marines.
Those ingress and egress were even more crudely and hastily done than this one, and most did not have an elevator. Marines winched it up and down those holes. They were meant for light supplies or emergency access points for retreat or advance in the heat of the battle.
This elevator leading straight into GK base was the main supply route for heavy equipment and large troop movements. That is the reason, Hua Hin could see the engineers widening the hole, and a more permanent elevator with a larger capacity and speed being installed. Unfortunately for Pvt. Arnez, it didn’t come fast enough. He flat-lined before the old rickety elevator reached below to the base of the hole.
Hua Hin head the medic shout unending profanities at having lost a patient on his watch. He cursed the elevator, he
cursed the engineers for installing such a slow elevator, he cursed the Shaitans, and their accursed world. He even cursed Pvt. Arnez for not holding on for a few more minutes. Hua Hin went and held the medic tight. “Doc! Doc! Its Ok… Its Ok. Sometimes flat-liners come back. You know it Doc.”
“Not him Marine. Not Pvt. Arnez. He has no hope in hell.” The medic said as he removed his helmet more out of frustration than anything else. It was the first time that Hua Hin got a chance to have a look at the face of Doc. It was the face of a man his age, who would have got on to the ship around the same age as he did. A man who may have been chronologically alive for over 25 years, but otherwise a man barely out of his teens.
The medic was crying openly now. He looked up and noticed the name printed on Hua Hin’s armor. “This is the first man I have ever lost Private Hin. This is the first one.” He wept a bit more, and Hua Hin had to place his arms on the medic’s shoulders to nudge him to get up as the slow elevator came to a clanging halt. They put the two stretchers on the elevator, as rest of the people waiting for the elevator held back. Wounded always had priority.
It was many days later, and Yusuf was about to be woken up for the first time since the surgery. His squad mates had been given special leave from the front lines to be there when he wakes up. In this harsh and hostile place, a Marine’s squad mates were the closest family he had. In Yusuf’s case that support from his mates would be needed even more, to help him get over the psychological shock he was about to receive.
When Yusuf woke up, his buddies got into the chat mode for the first few minutes, greeting him with profanities, that were the standard staple of the Marines as terms of endearment. It had been Hoja, who was the most eloquent of the lot, who had been ‘chosen’ (more like forced) to break the news to Yusuf as gently as he could. He had to do it now, for Yusuf was starting to feel around himself to take stock of his body’s condition.
“Listen Yusuf. There is something you need to know about your… your condition I mean.” Hoja stuttered. “I… I mean you are fine, and you are going to be perfectly fine… just that…”
“These two pussies chickened out, and put you up to breaking the news to me didn’t they?” Yusuf asked as a tear streamed across his cheeks. “I know what you are going to say my friend, I was suspecting it for the last few moments when I my arm felt weird. Are they going to send me back Hoja? I cannot go back. Not like this. I cannot go back home like this. I don’t want to go back. This is my home now Hoja. I came here to make a life, a new start. This cannot be happening to me!” Tears were flowing freely across Yusuf’s cheeks now.
“No. No. No!” All three of Yusuf’s friends shouted out together. Everyone in nearby beds looked sharply at them.
“It is not what you think Yusuf. Your arm is actually far better than it was before. It is just that… it is just a bit different now.” Hoja said to his buddy.
“Fucking say what you want to say Hoja. Don’t play games with me. You are supposed to be my friend, so just do me a favor, and fucking say what you want to say, and don’t beat around the bush.” Yusuf was shouting at the top of his voice. The staff had briefed the patients nearby about the situation and the news being broken to Yusuf, so they were understanding and pretended to ignore what was going on.
“Ok. You are right Yusuf, I should have been more direct with you. So let me tell you all I know, and I will not even pretend I understand the technology behind all this. It came in the latest supply drone HMS Barnaby, and Dr. Ghosh the topmost doctor available on this world performed the surgery personally on you. The technology is some kind of re-growth technology.” Hoja said.
Yusuf looked at him in horror, so Hoja quick continued. “NO! It is not what you are thinking. Your arm has not been regrown. This re-growth machine or whatever it is, cannot grow back an arm. The doctors said that it can only grow back small and uniform body parts like your ears, nose, and parts of the kidney or liver. That kind of stuff. So we can all relax if the next time a Shaitan were to chop off our nose or ear.” Hoja gave a nervous laugh.
Yusuf was not amused, so he tried once more to cheer him. “Although the doc was specific in letting us know that it cannot grow back our dicks, so we better not forget the padding under our armor.” Hoja watched Yusuf’s reaction and decided it was not working so he gave up his attempt at humor.
“Anyway, an arm is too complex, with too many parts for this re-generation machine. What they have done is re-attach your original arm.” There was a visible relief on the face Yusuf. “There have been some modifications that had to be made to your arms.” Hoja hesitated.
“What modifications Hoja? Don’t be such a dick, man… Give it to me straight NOW!” Yusuf shouted.
“Nothing that is visible outside buddy. Your arm will look exactly the same as before, except for a nasty scar you are going to carry all your life at the point of re-attachment… but they had to add stuff inside your arm to make it functional Yusuf… artificial enhancements. Given how you freak out with artificial things inside your body, the docs wanted to let you know that they were absolutely necessary for your arm to be functional.” Hoja said.
“Oh my god! Ya Allah! I feel violated.” Yusuf started hyperventilating.
“Stop behaving like a bloody Jehovah’s Witness Yusuf.” Michael shouted. “You are the only one in the whole company who hasn’t got the tech-head implant due to whatever irrational fear or weird religious belief that you hold on to. There is nothing un-Islamic about an implant, and didn’t you say that you came here because you wanted to get away from those religious zealots? Now you are behaving like one!”
Michael looked at his friend’s face. Yusuf was quiet, because he could not fight the logic, but that didn’t mean he was happy. Michael went next to him and put his arm on Yusuf’s shoulder. “Hey man. I am sorry for shouting at you. This is rough time for you, but let me explain why they had to insert things in your arm before re-attaching it, and how it has made your arm better.” Michael paused to recollect and ensure he got the facts right as he had been briefed by the doctors.
“First your arm, even if it had been attached immediately, would have never been able to restore all the connections of the nervous system to its exact original position. You would have had a numb and paralyzed arm hanging on your shoulders, more as a burden than a useful body part.
Second, your arm had been crushed pretty badly. Some of the bones were beyond repair. So this body-part machine regrew all the bones in your arm. They could not have just replaced a few of the bones, because the regrown bones are over 20 times stronger than the natural bones, so any natural bone remaining inside would have snapped the moment you tried to do any superhuman stuff, that you would be able to do now.
I know you are going to say. ‘So I wouldn’t have done any superhuman stuff’. The problem buddy is that your brain does not consciously control the force you exert every time you use your arm. It is your muscle memory which is doing it, and it adjusts very fast to whatever strength it can get away lifting. Very soon you will be performing feats of superhuman strength with that arm, whether you like it or not.
Your arm bones are enhanced with some serious steel and carbon nanotube reinforcements, and so is your muscles with synthetic muscles, woven into your natural muscles. You know… the same muscles that make up the Predator drones. It will take some serious strain to tear a ligament. All in all you are one of the first humans to enjoy the fruits of the latest medical enhancements, and turn your arm into serious superhuman shit. Congratulations buddy, you are now officially the strongest arm wrestler ever in human history.
Oh… and one last thing. The neural reattachment to the rest of you could not be done without putting your nerves where they were re-attached through one of the neural interface machines. The nerves in your arms talk to the nerves in the rest of the body through that neural interface. So congratulations once more for now becoming a tech-head officially, although some of the full capabilities of being attached to the spine will
not be available to you, especially the in-brain vision feed stuff, although I can tell you that is probably for the better, it gives me serious headache every time I use it. The stuff is overrated.” Michael concluded and heaved a sigh of relief. There he had said whatever needed to be said.
The four friends plunged into a bout of silence as Yusuf digested all that he had been told. Suddenly he spoke up and changed the topic altogether. “So how is the war going guys? Seriously, no bullshitting this time.” He looked at Hua Hin, who was least likely to bullshit, because he simply didn’t have the talent to do it.
“Well we have more good news than bad news, so I guess that means that the war is going better now than it was going before. The Sarge said that it is too early to say that we are winning, but he can say with confidence that we are no longer losing like we were a year before. Still our losses have been bad. The 17th company was wiped out completely. They got cut off and were slaughtered. We are having a memorial and a minute’s silence for them tomorrow.
We are holding our positions in most places now, and even made a few advances. The Shaitan offensive is getting more desperate by the day, as they fail to take back positions. They are fighting in a suicidal manner now. They may be getting slaughtered in their offensives, but they take down a few of us with every skirmish. It makes little difference to them, but a lot to us. They number in millions while there are still less than 10 thousand humans on Jehannum.
Our supply situation to the frontlines is much better now. We have consolidated our supply routes and fortified them further. Sarge said that the supplies from Earth is also going to improve drastically with the supply drones.” Hua Hin finished his report. He may not have the talent to bullshit, but he was very organized in his thoughts.
“I had never heard of supply drones. What are they?” Yusuf asked.
Retribution (Shaitan Wars) Page 40