Redeeming Factors (Revised)

by James R. Lane

  “Jack,” the H’kaah male stated, “there is something that you and I need to discuss.” To the dying man’s amazement the alien added, “Dr. Fernandez has authorized this discussion, as well as what I am about to do to ensure that you will be awake enough to make a rational decision.” L’niik pulled a tiny hypo syringe from beneath his vest and gestured toward the IV array in Ross’ right arm.

  “Hell, son, go on and shoot me the juice, then pull up a chair. I’ll try not to die on you before you’re done.”

  * * *

  It had been a long two days for Jack Ross. His police guard was maintained, but his visitors were few. This gave him a chance to regain a little strength, as well as ruminate on the answer he had given L’niik. Ross knew he would soon be dead; the means of his demise, though, troubled him.

  What if this nutball plan actually worked?

  * * *

  JSO Patrolman Mike Duncan strolled into the main ICU control center at ten minutes past midnight. Officer Todd Southland was seated in a comfortable chair next to the doorway of Ross’ cubicle, his nose buried in the latest C. L. Rose action-adventure novel. Duncan still wore his right arm in a sling, but other than that his uniform was complete and proper, right down to a borrowed left-hand-draw holster for his service autopistol.

  “Hey, Todd,” Duncan said in greeting, “Lieutenant says I’m fit enough to pull a shift here; why don’t you pack it in for the night, go home and catch some zees.” Since the young officer had already put in a long day working traffic detail, Southland didn’t need much persuading.

  “Long as the LT says it’s OK, and you’re sure you’re up to it, Mike,” the man said. “Right now I need the sack time more than I need the OT.” He tossed Duncan the paperback novel he’d been reading. “This’ll help keep you awake. I’ll finish it later; just be sure not to spoil the ending for me, OK?” He grinned as he gathered his meager belongings, then wasted no time leaving the ICU. Duncan dropped the small utility bag he’d been carrying over his left shoulder to the carpeted floor and settled into the chair beside the cubicle doorway. After a cursory scan of the room and its busy people he turned his attention to the book Southland had given him. He studied both the outlandish front cover and the more sedate back one for a moment, then opened the book to the last page of the story. After a moment he smiled, shook his head and turned to the first page and proceeded to “escape” from the more-mundane aspects of life, if only for a little while.

  Around one a.m. the ICU door opened to admit Dr. Felicia Fernandez, who quickly checked on the apparently-sleeping occupant of cubicle seven before moving on to the more-routine aspects of her administrative duties. Ten minutes later, as she was preparing to move on to the critical care unit, veteran monitor technician Doris Tritt suddenly said, “Dr. Fernandez, I think there’s—”

  That was when the “comic book alarm” (so named from the threshold alarms the police speed radar units use to alert an inattentive officer to a speeding driver) sounded. Only in this case it was to warn of a stopped heart, not a speeding automobile.

  Its sounding signaled that the occupant of cubicle number seven had died.

  “Hold it!” Dr. Fernandez shouted as nurses and technicians headed for the cubicle. “There’s a ‘DNR’ order posted for that one, and we’re required to respect it.” DNR stood for Do Not Resuscitate, a directive both welcomed and feared among medical personnel. “I’ll check to make sure,” Fernandez said, hurrying toward the cubicle’s door.” Officer Mike Duncan had jumped to his feet when the alarm went off, and his face appeared to mirror the staff’s apprehension as Dr. Fernandez disappeared through the doorway’s curtain. Moments later she pushed the curtain aside and sadly announced, “It’s over. He’s gone.”

  “There’s nothing—?” Duncan asked anxiously.

  “Sorry, Mike,” she replied. “Mr. Ross made it perfectly clear that no heroic measures were to be taken should his heart stop.” She looked tired. “Well, the monitor said it all, and unfortunately that’s the end of the matter.” The doctor shook her head and slowly walked to the main desk. “Doris, while I’m working on his death certificate I need you to call for immediate body removal. Since Mr. Ross’ presence has caused us so many security problems I want his remains removed as soon as possible. This is a hospital, not a shooting gallery, and the sooner we get everything back to normal around here the better I’ll like it.”

  Less than ten minutes passed before a large utility gurney, guided by a muscular young black man and a petite middle-age woman, both dressed in hospital utility overalls and sporting employee photo ID badges, entered the ICU and proceeded to cubicle number seven. After spending no more than five minutes in the small room the workers pushed the wheeled table out through the curtain. On it was a man-sized, sheet-covered lump, and once free of the tiny cubicle the pair wasted little time wheeling the gurney through the ICU doors.

  “Thanks for your help, Officer Duncan,” Dr. Fernandez said. “I wish things had turned out better, but—”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean. Ross was quite a guy, and he deserved a better fate that this.” Duncan frowned, then waved his good arm toward the collection of nurses, technicians and other staffers. “Maybe the next time I see you folks it’ll be under happier circumstances.” Then he picked up his utility bag and casually followed the gurney out the ICU doors.

  * * *

  Once the electrically powered doors had shut behind him, JSO Patrolman Mike Duncan became anything but casual as he hurried to catch up with the heavily-loaded gurney that was waiting down the hallway and around the corner by the locked-open service elevator. “You guys are good,” Duncan whispered to the man and woman who had only moments earlier wheeled the gurney out of the ICU. “If I hadn’t known better I’d have sworn you both were legitimate hospital employees.”

  “Man, I was scared shitless,” St. Augustine Police Sergeant Ron Washington muttered, and Lisa Thomas nodded in agreement. “I’m supposed to arrest people who do this kind of thing, instead—” He shook his head in disbelief.

  “I thought they only did this stuff in James Bond movies,” Thomas said grimly, “yet here I am with a couple of cops, trying to smuggle a dying man out of the hospital.” She snorted, then grinned like a kid. “Just last week I was griping about being bored, and look what happens. Jeez.”

  “Do we have everything; equipment, medicines?” Duncan asked.

  “Sure,” Thomas replied. “The kind of life support stuff he needs is really tiny nowadays, and the control unit/power pack is attached to the board strapped to his left arm. He can get by without the IV drips long enough to—well, he shouldn’t need them.”

  “Is he even awake?” Duncan hesitantly asked.

  “They can’t drug me, Mike,” a weak voice rasped from under the sheet, “and with all this commotion, even if I were dead it’d be enough to wake me. Boo!”

  “Same old Jack,” Thomas said with a sad smile. “Cracking jokes on his deathbed, no less.” “Let’s get moving,” Washington nervously prompted.

  “Otherwise, Jack won’t be the only one running out of time.”

  * * *

  After an uneventful ride down on the service elevator the trio wheeled the gurney out through the emergency room entrance, heading straight for the MedTrauma Air helipad. “Relax,” Duncan stage-whispered to the pair guiding Ross’ Go To Jesus Cart, as such gurneys were called. “Nobody’s gonna pay you any attention if you look like you’re supposed to be doing this. There’s always something strange going on around here; we’re just blending into the normal chaos.”

  As the gurney and its attendants approached the big air ambulance idling on the pavement the side door popped open and a familiar face peered out. “We were wondering if you’d stopped off for a pizza,” Green drawled from within the confines of the helicopter’s interior. He was dressed in civilian clothes, his heavily bandaged chest and right shoulder loosely covered by a large denim shirt.

  “Don’t let him kid you,” Cap
tain Shannel Horne yelled from the pilot’s seat in the machine’s nose. “He was the one who wanted to stop for a snack, but I told him Pizza Hut was closed at this hour of the morning.” Her dark face was split with a white, toothy grin, and she added, “Welcome aboard, folks. Get our guest secured as quickly as possible and we’ll get this show on the road.”

  In less than five minutes Ross’ stretcher had been collapsed to less than a foot high, and was securely anchored to the helicopter’s floor. His frail body was carefully strapped down moments later, and the signal was given to Horne to lift off. She throttled up the powerful gas turbines and the machine gently leapt into the night sky.

  Jack Ross was going home for the last time.

  * * *

  The big Bell helicopter was once again carefully resting in the relatively tiny floodlit open area next to Ross’ house, its engines now silent, the four huge rotor blades still. This time, however, the machine was not the only exotic aircraft sitting under the night sky on the estate’s property.

  Jane, Ross’ campy little movie-replica space ship, had been rolled out of her garage-hanger to sit in the driveway near the front porch, silently awaiting the people who would give life to her metal carcass.

  Inside the house a scene like something out of a macabre movie was unfolding. In one corner of the downstairs foyer a hospital gurney was parked; on it was the shattered body of a once-robust man, his ebbing life maintained for the moment by powerful drugs and sophisticated technology.

  In another part of the room a small knot of people, humans and aliens alike, argued desperately, fear adding to their emotion. Their fear was not born of concern for their personal safety; they feared for the gurney’s occupant.

  “I’m telling you I can’t fly that goofy little ship!” MedTrauma Air pilot Shannel Horne angrily exclaimed. “It doesn’t matter that I can fly damned near anything else; I’ve just never flown something powered by a damned jumperdrive, and I’m not about to take flight lessons while transporting a passenger as fragile as our Mr. Ross.”

  “Shannel,” Green implored, “with Cory nowhere to be found you’re our only hope in this. I’d do it, but I don’t have use of my right arm, and while I’m a lot of things,” he grinned evilly, “ambidextrous I’m not.”

  “I’ve flown jumperdrive-powered ships,” Shapiro offered, “but not THIS one, and certainly not with this kind of cargo. The Patrons ship is back in England, and we can’t get it back here in time.” He shook his head sadly. “As for flying Jane— I…I don’t dare.”

  The four H’kaah and the three other humans present were no help, none having experience piloting any form of airship, much less a starship.

  “Sorry, guys,” came the feeble voice from the gurney in the corner, “but I’m not in much of a position to be of any help, either.” Even though he was dying, Ross couldn’t resist adding to the angst over the piloting dilemma. “Of course, if I were in condition to fly my ship I probably wouldn’t need anybody’s help, don’cha think?” While the man didn’t laugh, he did manage a lopsided smile.

  Before the others in the room could offer any kind of response they heard an old high-performance car roar up the street to brake hard near the estate’s front gate, then Ross’ old Corvette came blasting up the drive and slid to a noisy stop next to Jane. A few moments later the front door of the house opened and Cory Ross hurried in, saying breathlessly, “Sorry I’m late, but I had trouble finding Captain Horn’s replacement pilot’s home, and—“ He saw the unattended gurney in the corner and his face instantly lost its color; Cory Ross feared that his father hadn’t survived the trip from the hospital. Then the cadaver-like form chuckled and the young man’s mouth hung open in shock as he realized that his father was still very much alive. “Dad!”

  “Alive and in barely living black-and-blue,” the elder Ross whispered as his son hurried to his side. “And now that you’re here I think you might be just what the doctor ordered.”

  * * *

  Four lapin aliens, one hospital gurney complete with strapped-down human patient, six other human passengers, one human pilot at the controls. Jane was overloaded to the point that the passengers were forced to cling to one another to keep from floating in the zero-G environment well above Earth’s surface. The middle pair of seats had been removed and Ross’ gurney hastily tied to the mounting brackets, which left secured seating for only five, including the pilot. All other passengers had to hold onto, or be tightly held by, those lucky enough to be belted in.

  Captain Cory Ross was the only seated, secured person free of a nervous, parasitic-like seat-partner, but he was too busy to fully appreciate it.

  Jane was fast approaching the time when she would be required to jump from a near-Earth position to someplace unimaginably distant, and Cory Ross had just called up a program on the little Toshiba computer’s screen that only one other person on board had ever seen.

  “What in God’s name is that?” Green squawked as he peered around S’leen’s ears. “That looks like a tactical radar display, but—”

  Jack Ross managed a weak laugh, then wheezed, “Didn’t you ever wonder why I gave my little tin can ship the name Jane?” When he got no suitable response he explained, “Many years ago there was a book, published and updated on a regular basis, called Jane’s Fighting Ships. It was a gold mine of information on the world’s major military battle vehicles, both naval and aircraft.” His audience still didn’t make the connection so he added, “This little ship, amusing visual pun that it may be, is also equipped with some very nasty, very deadly weaponry as well as sophisticated military electronic jammers and such, all courtesy of my friends in black places. She’ll be quite a ‘fighting ship’ should it come down to that, and Cory is completely familiar with her capabilities.”

  “Jesus, Jack,” Lisa Thomas exclaimed, “do you really think we’ll run into trouble?” The big male H’kaah, L’niik, was strapped into the seat next to Cory Ross, and Thomas was secure in the alien’s soft yet powerful embrace.

  “If we run into human opposition,” Jack Ross husked through a terribly bruised throat, “we’re betting that at first they’ll be too busy laughing at this absurd-looking ship to take it seriously, and that’s when we’ll bust their ass. Still, we should have the proper codes to pass through any human blockade, but if we have trouble with aliens— Well, we’ll deal with that when-and-if it happens.”

  “If everybody’s ready,” Cory Ross stated, “we’ve got ten seconds until jump.” He swung the chair around to look at his passengers, then he gave special attention to the helpless figure strapped to the collapsed gurney. “Dad, are you sure you can survive the jump? It’d be a real shame to deliver a corpse to the people L’niik says are waiting at the other end of the hole.”

  “Dammit, Son,” the senior Ross rasped, “if I don’t do this I’ll be dead in less than a day anyway, so I don’t see that I have much of a choice. Let’s go!” At that moment the little computer triggered the jumperdrive’s primary operational phase, and the comical-looking starship jumped to a point in orbit around an Earth-like planet circling a star some 300 light years from Earth.

  There was always a momentary physiological flutter experienced by travelers in jumperdrive-powered ships at the completion of an Einstein-defying jump, and those who knew what to expect simply endured the brief discomfort. Jack Ross, however, was a special case in that he was on respiratory life support, as well as being pumped almost to bursting with powerful drugs guaranteed to boost his vitality—for a short while. The possibility that the stress of the jump would end his life was very real.

  “Dad!” his son yelled the moment after the alien world blinked into view on the ship’s view screens. “Are you—?”

  The bandaged form on the collapsed gurney shuttered, but his machine-aided breathing continued without a pause. “Damn, what a rush!” Ross gasped. “I felt—that—in parts of my body that haven’t felt anything for days.” Several seconds passed, during which the little ship’s o
ther occupants exchanged worried glances and whispered comments. Ross eventually added, “Still, if we can’t get this done without making another jump, I—Son, I don’t think I’d make it out the other end of the hole if we have to do it again. My old engine’s been stressed beyond its limits; the rods are knocking, the valves are rattling and the main bearings are shot.”

  “Christ, Dad, don’t you give up now!” the young man said anxiously. “We’re almost there. I know you don’t like to fail any more than I do so hang on.” S’leen worked free of Green’s protective embrace (much to the man’s regret) and drifted over to Ross’ prone form.

  “Jack,” she said in a serious tone of voice he’d rarely heard her use, “you’ve worked hard to bring my people, and me, this far. Don’t leave me, not when I need you more than ever. Remember, L’niik and C’maat and F’haan need you, too.” She bowed her head over his chest, stretching her long, silky ears over his face.

  “Ack! No fair!” he squawked. “That tickles like the devil, and I can’t move to scratch my nose!” S’leen giggled, then gently rubbed her velvety hands over the unbandaged portions of his face.

  “That will have to do,” she said with a smile as she floated back to Green’s protective one-armed embrace. “The flight will get bumpy soon, and until you’re able to hold me again Nolan has offered to keep me safe.”

  “Noach, you traitorous mamzer,” Ross snarled, then weakly laughed. “You can’t even wait until I’m dead to put the moves on my companion.”

  “Hell, Jack,” Green said weakly, “I’m bunged up from a gunshot wound of my own. It’s all I can do to keep a restraining arm around S’leen; I certainly can’t—”