“Carter was a big ol’ flirt. I’d forgotten, but now that you remind me, I remember that about him.” Ricardo laughed. “Cute, in his own way.”
“Are we finished for today?”
“One more exercise, then I’ll take you back to your room and you can get a hypo.”
Ricardo accompanied Hailey and her wheelchair back to her hospital room. A flurry of activity buzzed around the surgical wing of the medical center. Hailey was mildly curious about what was going on, but she was more interested in lying down and getting a dinner delivered to her.
As promised, Ricardo got a nurse to administer pain meds which went straight to Hailey’s blood stream and spread around her body. Almost instantly, she relaxed and melted into the pillows and blankets on her bed. “Mind closing the door?” she asked Ricardo as he left.
“No problem. See you tomorrow.” Ricardo closed the door and Hailey’s room became relatively quiet. She popped open her menu app and ordered a dinner tray to be delivered from the mess hall by delivery robot. She lay her head down and switched on the vid screen, choosing a fairly new release starring the always-entertaining Anthony Roma.
Hailey’s dinner tray was reduced to crumbs on dirty dishes when someone knocked on her door.
“Enter,” Hailey said. In walked Laura. “Oh, hi. Hold on a second.” She paused the vid. “What are you doing here, Lucky? Why don’t you sit down instead of standing there all serious like that?”
“Comet, I need to take you to visit someone.”
“OK. Who?”
“Want the chair, or throw an arm around me? We’re just going down the hall.”
“Who is it, Lucky? Who’s hurt? Is it Derek?”
“No. Come on.”
Hailey swung her legs off the side of the bed and slid to a standing position. She threw her arm around Lucky and hopped out of her room and down the hall. When they went through the door, Hailey stopped short. She let go of her handler and limped alone to the bedside of Jackson Quint. His eyes were closed and various monitors reported on his vital signs. “Jax,” she said quietly. “Can you hear me?”
“He just got out of surgery, Comet. He’s asleep.”
“What happened?” she asked, feeling under the blanket to take his hand. As she ran her hand down his arm, she abruptly stopped at a collection of bandages wrapped around a stump. She turned and looked at her friend. “He lost a hand?”
Laura nodded. “Apparently he was trying to save someone from an oceanic carnivore. A big sucker. He swept the person out of the way and his arm was caught instead. Bit clean off. Well, not so cleanly. He had surgery on the planet to stop the bleeding and stabilize him, then surgery here to prep the arm for a permanent prosthetic. Once the wound heals, they’ll attach it.”
Hailey looked back at Jackson’s face. It had been over twenty years since she had seen him. He looked older, but not really different than the last time when she was twenty-two. “Does he know? Has he been conscious?”
“I’m not sure. He refused to let go of his comm for the last leg of his trip home. That’s the only thing he’s said: ‘Don’t take my comm. I need my comm.’ No one knows what’s so important. His mission was more or less completed. Hawk tied things up on the planet for him.”
“Is Hawk here?”
“No. He dropped off Jax and left on other business.”
“What’s more important than his asset?” Hailey asked, dumbfounded.
“I don’t know, Comet,” Lucky said quietly. “I wouldn’t leave you alone to wake up to news like this. But it’s a good thing you’re here. He’ll need a friend when he learns about his hand.”
Hailey leaned toward his head and stroked his hair. Lucky said she’d come back with a chair for her, but Hailey had another idea. “Sitting isn’t comfortable. Can we just bring my bed in here? I want to lie next to him.”
It took some convincing, but Lucky managed to talk the medical staff into letting the old friends recuperate together. They moved things around to make room for a second bed, then rolled Hailey’s into the room and locked it in place on Jackson’s left side. Through all the activity, Jackson slept. When Hailey was finally settled in her bed next to Jackson’s, she reached out her hand and took his surviving hand in hers. She watched him intently, determined to stay awake until he woke up.
It was past 23:00 when Jackson stirred. Hailey got up on her elbow and shimmied closer to him. She let go of his hand and caressed his face the way he had done when she woke up on NSI. Jackson took a few minutes to pry his eyes open, but when he finally did, he saw Hailey looking down at him in the dimly lit room.
“My comm,” he said. “I need my comm.”
“Jax,” she whispered. “It’s me, Comet. Did you get my message?”
He closed his eyes, then opened them again. He looked at her face again. “Comet,” he whispered. He closed his eyes and laughed weakly. “Surprise,” he said before opening his eyes once more. She smiled broadly at him and he returned the greeting. She crawled closer and leaned in to kiss him. “Hailey,” he said, kissing her as many times as she kissed him. She knew by his use of her real name that he was pushing past his LM’s ability to regulate his brain chemistry and feeling real love for her. She had already sidelined her LM, and now squeezed close to kiss him passionately. He replied in kind, savoring the rare indulgence in the best part of life.
At length, Hailey backed off feeling confident that he understood her feelings. He studied her face – every part of it. “You’re so lovely,” he said at last.
She smiled. “And you’re still the studliest, hottest man in the galaxy.”
Jackson chuckled softly. “Got a few scars,” he admitted.
“Who doesn’t?” she asked. He lifted his injured hand to touch her, then saw that his arm ended just below the elbow. He looked at it in horror, then seemed to retrieve the memory from his temporal data node. He set the arm down gently at his side and looked away from Hailey.
“It’s OK if you want to scream, or swear, or cry. I’ve got your back,” she whispered. He turned his face back toward Hailey’s. Tears pooled in his eyes. “Go ahead,” she said. “I’m here for you.”
She hugged him as he cried into her shoulder.
Co-recovery
Hailey slept diagonally on her bed, resting her head on Jackson’s chest and keeping an arm around his middle. He laid his full, left arm around Hailey’s body. They awoke when the space station’s simulated daylight brought morning to their shared room. Hailey rolled back to her own bed when Jackson’s doctor entered to check on him. “Agent Quint,” Doctor Ruut said, “how are you feeling this morning?”
“Bipolar,” Jackson answered.
The doctor nodded as he raised the head of Jax’s bed, helping him sit up. “An appropriate response. I take it Agent Ramirez is a friend of yours.”
“We were in the academy together.”
“Wonderful! A friend and a few laughs go a long way toward a quick recovery.”
“There you are,” Hailey’s doctor declared as she entered the room. “You moved.”
“My friend was brought in last night. We’re enhancing each other’s recovery,” she said with a sideways look at Jackson’s doctor.
“Indeed,” Dr. Ruut said. “Any friend would do, even a pet.”
“Jackson likes the big dog behind the kitchen,” Hailey said.
The doctors puzzled over her statement. Then Dr. Ruut remembered. “Ah! Bluto, the chef’s dog. Why, he died over twenty years ago.”
“There was a dog on the space station?” Dr. Kandahar asked. “Must’ve been before my time. So, Agent Ramirez, how was therapy yesterday?”
“Therapy?” Jackson asked.
“Busted up my leg for the third time in five weeks,” Hailey informed him.
“We’re just a couple of broken Wraiths, aren’t we?” Jackson said solemnly.
Hailey looked at him with compassion. “Put us together and we have enough working parts to make one decent Wraith,” she jo
ked.
Jackson attempted a smile, but it was half-hearted at best. Hailey squeezed his hand.
“Well, we each need to speak to our patients in private,” Dr. Ruut hinted.
“Right,” Dr. Kandahar agreed. “Agent Ramirez, care to take a few steps outside? I’ll get your crutch.”
“No,” Jackson said emphatically. “You can talk to me in front of Comet. I don’t want her to leave.” The doctors glanced at each other.
“I won’t leave him if he wants me here,” Hailey added.
“As you wish, Agent Quint,” Dr. Ruut conceded. Dr. Kandahar excused herself, promising to see Hailey later. Dr. Ruut continued. “I’m sure you can recall the details of what happened on your mission from your TDN. I can tell you what we’ve done since then and what we recommend for the near future.”
Jackson nodded.
“Doctors throughout the Empire have made amazing progress in prosthetic arms and hands. The SWORD researchers have not spent time on that field of technology since Wraiths so seldom lose body parts. So I’m sorry to report that we do not have more advanced tech than exists in the rest of the Empire. That being said, prosthetics are common and have made life perfectly normal for the people who use them.”
“But…” Jackson anticipated.
“But your life is not a normal one. Only time will tell how much of your right-hand skill set will return once you master the use of the replacement hand.”
“When will I get it?”
“In three to four days your arm should be healed. You’ll notice that there are seventeen wires sticking out of the terminated limb. We placed those in preparation for attaching the prosthetic which will be wired up permanently to your arm. Then you’ll go through physical therapy to gain use of the hand. Once you’re comfortable with it, you’ll go through retraining for shooting and bladework and hand-to-hand combat.”
“I understand.”
“I know this has been a very generalized explanation. I’ll forward the details to your tablet so you can read up on it at a time of your choosing.”
“Thank you.”
The doctor looked at Jackson carefully. “Are you all right, Agent Quint?”
“Yes, sir,” Jax replied neutrally. He didn’t look at the doctor or Hailey. He just stared straight ahead.
“Losing a part of your body is traumatizing,” the doctor said sympathetically. “It is advisable to speak with a psychological therapist in order to work through the loss.”
“Yes, sir,” Jax replied.
“OK, then. I’ll let you rest and catch up with your friend. I’ll check on you again later today.”
“Thank you.” The doctor left. Hailey took Jackson’s left hand. She rubbed sympathy into his left arm. “I can feel it,” Jackson said, finally looking at Hailey.
“Feel it?”
“The hand. I look down and it’s not there, but I feel it there. It’s all balled up in a fist and it hurts.”
“You should tell the doctor about that.”
“They’ll think I’m crazy. My hand doesn’t exist anymore. It’s been swallowed and digested and shat out the back end of a red fin shark.” Jackson put his left hand over his eyes. “What am I going to do, Comet? They’re never going to let me work like this. You heard him. Wraiths don’t lose limbs. Only this idiot managed to do it!”
“You want to hear what this idiot did?” Hailey said. “While you were saving someone’s life by sacrificing your hand, I was using my barely-held-together shattered leg to kick a crutch into a wall. Popped the hip joint apart in a stupid rage. Had to go through a second surgery. Then, they send me out to evaluate a new agent and I manage to dislocate it again – on a mission that wasn’t even mine.”
“But you’ll heal eventually.”
“So will you, just … differently. Think of it as another implant. Hey! What if the geeks downstairs can tweak it a little for you? You know, give you a vice grip or magnets in the fingers. That’d be so cool!”
Jackson laughed genuinely. “Comet, you haven’t changed that much since you were sixteen.”
Hailey smiled. “All I know is, nothing matters as much as seeing you again. I’ve missed you so much. I’d live with a lame hip my whole life to be with you.”
Jackson invited Hailey to sit on his lap. She managed to climb onto his legs and put her arms around his neck. “Now what?” she teased.
“Kiss me, Gimpy,” he said, sliding his remaining hand up her shirt and caressing her undamaged breasts.
“Kiss me, Lefty,” Hailey replied, leaning forward.
Hailey only left Jackson’s side when she was required to do her physical therapy. By the second day back, Jackson went with her to use the weight machines. He had no other injuries from his latest mission, so he wanted to keep up his fitness level. He also wanted to watch Hailey work out and improve day by day. His presence helped her stay positive about the slow progress.
“So, you two have been friends for, let’s see, more than thirty years, but you’ve only seen each other twice in all that time?” Ricardo asked.
“Yeah, since we left the academy anyway,” Hailey confirmed.
“What’s your cumulative time together since you shipped out?”
“Approximately?” Jax asked.
“Yeah. None of this tenth-of-a-minute Wraith crap. Round to the nearest day.”
“Sixty-nine days,” Jax provided.
“Out of eleven thousand, four hundred and twelve days,” added Hailey for dramatic effect. “You know what’s one of my favorite memories? That day we were slashing nexacors together.”
Jax smiled at the memory. “That was fun.”
“Only Wraiths would consider that a fun time,” Ricardo said, shaking his head. “Agent Ramirez, let’s move on to the reverse hyper-extension exercise for your hamstrings.”
“You’re the boss.”
“And don’t you forget it,” Ricardo replied lightly. “You know, you were talking about Carter Flynn the other day. He said Wraiths with LMs had no sense of humor, but that’s certainly not true with you two.”
“Oh, he was just trying to rile me,” Hailey replied. “That’s Carter.”
“Who’s Carter?” Jackson asked.
“He was a contemporary of my father. Actually, he field-trained my father when he was first shipped out. Carter’s retired now. Been retired for quite a while, come to think of it. We met on a mission I was on.” Hailey stopped talking while she concentrated on her exercises.
“Take it a little slower,” Ricardo coached, “that’ll work it better.” He glanced up at Jackson. “Do you need anything, Agent Quint?”
“No, just taking a break,” Jax said, watching Hailey sweat on the equipment. “Actually, do you have any bicep exercise I can do with my right arm?”
Ricardo stared at the amputated arm and thought. The usual exercises required a hand to hold a weight or a bar. “How does the area below the elbow feel?” he asked.
“Not much pain, but not much strength either. I’m not supposed to disturb this part,” he said, waving his left hand over the healing stump end of his arm, “so no push-ups.”
“Tell ya what, I’ll speak with your doctor and have something rigged up for the next time you’re here. Acceptable?”
“Acceptable. Thank you.”
“…Fifty,” Hailey huffed, reporting to her therapist that she had finished the assignment he had given her.
“Good. OK, another ten on the abductor, ten on the adductor, then you can call it a day.”
Hailey dutifully performed her exercises to the satisfaction of her therapist, then left the weight room with Jackson. “Are you allowed to get that bandage wet?” Hailey asked.
“Not supposed to. Why?”
“Well, I was just thinking that we should probably take our showers together so I can help you get all clean while you keep your bandages dry…”
“You are not subtle at all, you know that?” Jackson teased.
“Let’s shower in my quarte
rs. Then we can rest on my bed and no one will disturb us.”
Jackson put his arm around her shoulders while she hobbled down the hall with her crutch. He whispered near her ear, “I don’t want to do anything that’ll wreck your hip again. How would we explain that?”
“Yeah. Four times on the same joint… Ram’ll fire me for sure.”
“Comet, at first I thought that losing this job would be devastating, but I’ve started to think differently. Maybe I’ll never be back up to specs. Maybe I should retire.”
“You think they’d let you retire when you probably have a good fifteen years left in you? I don’t think they’ll think they’ve gotten their money’s worth outta you.”
“I’ve given them twenty-seven years and my right hand!”
“I hear you. I’m just not sure they will.” They reached Hailey’s door and she opened it with a thumb print.
“Damn,” Jackson said.
“What?”
“I just realized that I can’t get into my own quarters or my single. They’re all on thumbprint locks – my right thumb.”
Hailey sighed. “Maybe they can etch your old thumbprint into your new hand. They must have it on file.” Jackson muttered something about the damn red fin shark. Inside, Hailey leaned her crutch against the wall and turned to put two arms around Jackson. “What were you doing with a damn red fin shark anyway?” she asked.
“The man I was chasing found himself at the end of a pier. The bastard grabbed a child as a shield, but when he realized I could shoot him anyway, he opted for a distraction. He threw the kid over the rail, into the bay. The mother was screaming, the bystanders were saying something about sharks in the water, my target ran. I had to get the kid.”
“Of course.”
“I shot the bastard, then I dove off the pier to get the kid. He was thrashing around in the water. The sharks were coming ‘round to investigate. I saw one going for a bite, so I pushed the kid and the shark got my arm instead.”
Hailey's Comet Anthology Page 39