Chapter 9
Oscar was furious. The little droid sat on the end of the bed beeping out phrases that would make any living thing blush. His cycler spit out a hundred words a minute, so fast Miranda couldn’t catch it all. Which was for the best. The words she did hear made her want to put her hand over his output port. She was too busy being poked and prodded by the medic.
“If you keep ending up in my med unit, I’m going to have to start charging you by the hour,” he said.
“How is he?” Miranda asked. She needed to know.
The walk over to the med unit with her battle buddy and Sleepy Farmer had been nothing but pain. Every step gave her the sensation of knife blades in her boots. But none of that mattered. Sleepy Farmer was what mattered.
The medic scanned her with a handheld box. It had a cord wrapped around it with a metallic stick at one end. A sharp beam of red light came out the other side of the stick. Miranda held still, the memory of her mother's stares telling her to be good for the doctor fresh in her mind. The device beeped.
“Turn the other way, please.”
Miranda flipped over to her back, waiting for the tell-tale beep. Unlike the droid rampaging back and forth at the foot of the bed, this device told her nothing. The fresh made med bed’s wool blanket was rough against her still healing skin. She’d been asked to take off everything but her underwear so they could evaluate the extent of her burns. Burns she should have had, having been electrocuted earlier and all that. But her skin was soft and pink like a newborn’s. She felt exposed and on exhibit, even if no one in the room was looking at her.
“Ok, sit up and stick out your tongue.” He scanned her face. She watched as the other medics worked on other soldiers injured in training accidents and wondered how often these things happened here.
Maybe Eric hadn’t been joking when he told her to stay alive all those cycles ago. She heard the beep and then several beeps and buzzes. The cold lights hanging from the ceiling made Miranda blink as she tried to follow the red dot of the scanner with her eyes.
“What’s your name?” she asked. It came out slurred because she was still trying to touch her tongue to her chin. His scrub gown covered his name plate once again. Miranda was curious now. Oscar was ignoring her now. His beeps receded to an inaudible frequency.
“Medic,” he said. “You can close your mouth now.” She closed it but gave him a duh stare.
“Andrew Medic,” he said. Her eyes got wide. So, he was a Farmer turned Medic from the Alpha system. That was rare. The Alpha system was the Empire's first reformed galaxy. Some said that it was terraformed before the Empire became an Empire, but that had to be a myth. Sure, there had been colonies before Alpha, but they were all Lander terraformed planets. Alpha was the first Imperial system. The names were an honor in and of themselves. That’s why when the system reached secondary system names a decade ago, the people had to go by the sub system title. They had skipped AA completely, opting for AB as the starting name for the outer-system galaxy, each renamed after terraformation.
He could see the shock in her eyes.
“It isn’t a big deal,” he said. Miranda’s look told him otherwise. “Don’t make it into one.”
She nodded.
“So, Andrew, or should I call you Andy?” she asked, mischief gleaming in her eyes.
“I go by Medic,” he said. She nodded, accepting his choice, not knowing his reasoning. She pondered it. Why would anyone leave a long-standing world to be an army medic? Maybe he was drafted. Miranda laughed at her own thought. The Empire hadn’t needed to draft anyone since the second colonization wave. They had recruits by the dozens.
“How is Sleepy, I mean, Recruit Farmer?”
“All done. Wait right there. I’ll be back in a bit with the results.” He wouldn’t meet her eyes. Instead, he turned and walked away, not waiting for her compliance.
That’s when she knew. Sleepy Farmer was dead. She looked out the window. The second sun was setting. Miranda’s stomach growled. She’d missed cook hall this morning and her body was telling her she couldn’t do the same for dinner.
“You shouldn’t be hungry at a time like this,” she told her stomach. She’d just survived another attack. An attack that killed people. Sure, Sleepy hadn’t been a friend, but he was a teammate, and he didn’t deserve to die.
She drummed her heels against the underside of the cot, thinking through the problem. A chill ran up her spine. She wasn’t particularly cold sitting there in almost nothing, her bony ribs and developing muscles on display for anyone that glanced her way. That’s when she noticed him. There was one person looking. Her battle buddy stared at her from a chair. He’d parked himself in front of the med cabinet. He held a palm size vidscreen, but he wasn’t looking at it. He was looking at her with his bored sneer on his face, his eyes scanning her up and down. Miranda had to look over her shoulder to see him.
She chose to turn her head back towards the other half of the room. She watched Medic stick his laser slider into a holoport in the wall. A vidscreen popped up. Images flashed across it. Most likely her body scan, and the computers recommendations after compiling the diagnostics.
Medic pulled the stick free and headed back over to them.
“Well, it looks like your nanos are at it again,” he said. He rubbed the back of his head, clearly flummoxed. His eyes, a warm shade of chocolate brown, looked at her over again before he shrugged.
“I’m issuing you a shot,” Medic said, “ten units of diazoimine to help with nerve ending response stabilization.”
“That means?” Miranda asked. After all that had happened to her, she was sore. Part of her hoped she’d get a day off. More than just an hour or two in the med unit.
“It’s a pain reducer. It lessens the mind’s interpretation of the signals it’s getting from your nerve endings temporarily.”
“Common, Doc,” she said. He gave her a dirty look before continuing.
“You’ll feel less sore so you can go back to duty sooner.” He pulled a bottle out of his pocket and then reached past her to get an injector from the supply cabinet, only to find Farmer blocking it.
“Hey you,” Medic said. Farmer pointed to his chest in a ‘who, me?’ gesture.
“Yeah, you,” Medic said. “Hand me that injector, will you?” He pointed to a shelf above Farmer’s head. Farmer turned around and reached into the cabinet. He pulled out a long metal cylinder.
Medic took it and rested it against the vial he had in his hand.
“You are going to feel a little prick,” he said. He was right. For a moment everything was fine.
“Thanks, Doc,” she said.
“Medic,” he said, “I’m no Doctor; not yet, anyways.”
“Thanks, anyway, am I free to go?” She asked. Miranda rose off the bed and eyed her pile of clothes. It wasn’t exactly chilly. The whole planet was a roasting pan. Still, she was tired of Farmer looking at her like she was a piece of meat on display.
Miranda felt her lungs tighten. She tried to take a breath, but for the second time in a handful of days it didn’t come.
“Can’t breathe,” she wheezed. The fireworks were back. They danced across her eyes, giving her quite the show.
“What the...” Medic’s words got cut off by a large beeping sound coming from the laser wand box. He swore.
“She’s going into cardiac arrest!” he yelled. He pulled the box out of his pocket. “Stand back,” he ordered. Farmer took a step back away from the bed. Medic placed the wand straight down, plunging it into Miranda’s chest. Miranda felt a sudden burst of pain near her ribs. Then she heard a loud pop. She sucked in air, happy to be able to breath again.
“Are you trying to kill her?” came an all too familiar voice. Miranda looked over to see her favorite three Ironsides lined up at the foot of her bed.
“I’m trying to save her life.” The two men stared at each other for a good minute. Miranda didn’t care. The black was starting to recede from her vision, making
everything better.
“How did you...” she tried to say. Her lips formed the words, but with little breath, they remained unsaid.
“We were in a meeting and came running,” Eric said to her half-asked question. Then he put his attention back to Medic.
“I don’t know how this could have happened,” Medic said, holding his head in his hands. He was shaking. The adrenaline from saving her life faded from him. Now he was just a pile of nerves.
“How much of this did you give her?” Eric demanded.
“Only ten micro granules,” he said, his teeth chattering so hard Miranda could hear it in his words.
“You gave her 100 mgs,” Eric said looking at the injector, “no wonder her entire nerve system shut down.”
“No, I gave her ten.” He tried to defend himself. Eric’s hand clenched into a fist then relaxed.
“You read the line markers on the injector wrong.” Eric’s tone was cold iron. There was no wiggle room.
“No, I didn’t,” the Medic said. He took the injector from Eric, looked it over, then went silent. The only sound was a puff when his butt hit the padded stool behind him.
“How do you feel?” Eric asked, ignoring Medic and his meltdown. The words were muffled by his helmet’s translator, but Miranda was used to it. She wondered why he was still wearing it. They weren’t out on a mission. They were in a hospital, for the sake of the Empire!
She remembered that Eric, Adam, and Fox had only taken off their Ironside masks when they were alone together with her in the interrogation room. She shook her head to clear it. Whatever their reasons, they’d decided this was not the time or the place to be unmasked. Not that it mattered. It wasn’t like she wanted to kiss him or anything.
If her brain hadn’t been spinning from her near death experience, Miranda might have thought about it more. As it was, all she cared about was getting to the cook house before they stopped serving.
“I’m fine,” she said standing up. It took effort, but being hungry was worse. She wobbled a bit at the top but the bed steadied her. Eric gave her a once over from under his mask. She was still mostly naked. She reached for and put on her pants, then shoes, finally pulling her shirt over her head. It caught one of her arms and a button tore a path down her flesh. It hurt, but she refused to recognize it.
“Am I free to go?” she asked now that she was dressed. Medic was still sitting down where he’d slumped against the wall. He crooked a finger at her and lowered his voice to a whisper.
“I heard it from on high that you start weapons training tomorrow,” Medic whispered in her ear. “Do us all a favor and watch out. I’d hate for you to misfire and end up back here again.”
The words ‘end up back here again’ echoed off her mind.
“If I have my way, you will never see me again, Medic,” she said.
Miranda took Eric’s outstretched arm and together they started to the cook house for dinner.
“You hungry?” Eric asked.
“I’m so hungry I think I could eat a converter,” Miranda said.
“Where is your little droid guy?” he asked. They both looked around. Oscar was nowhere to be seen.
“I don’t know.” Worry rose in her throat. One minute he was there beeping curses out to the world, and the next he was gone.
Chapter 10
She felt a punch to her stomach. Tears streamed down her face, uncontrollable torrents of salt water. She fell to her knees, unable to stand. She heard a voice, but couldn’t understand it. It wasn’t forming words; just noise. She recognized it, somehow, and was surprised to realize it was her own voice. She was wailing, weeping uncontrollably.
She hadn’t had time to grieve for her family. She’d been so wrapped up in trying to survive. It wasn’t until this moment, when she’d lost Oscar, that everything she had held back let loose. Like losing Oscar breached the dam she didn’t even realize she’d created.
She curled into a ball, the faces of her mother, father, brothers, and sisters overwhelming her. Memories played out before her: mending socks with her mother, chasing Oscar with her brothers. Happy, smiling faces slowly morphed into blank stares with dead eyes; echoes of that fateful morning. The morning after Oscar had run away the last time.
The stupid droid. How could he wander off again? And why now? Didn’t he realize she needed him?
“Come on, we need to get some food for you,” Eric said. He half dragged, half carried her to the cook house. Her body remained racked by sobs, fully out of her control as she sat on the ramp outside the cook house. The ramp was for deliveries and step-incapable droids, so no one was likely to bother her. The sounds of silverware making fast work of slop flickered on and off as people passed in and out of the doors. They cast shadows on her, but no part of her cared enough to move from where Eric had dropped her.
“I need a health pack,” she heard Eric say to a cook. The cook had come outside to enjoy his break, having gotten through the dinner rush, but still waiting for the clean up. He was a wide man that melted flat from the side. He had a square head and his shoulders stuck too far out.
“Here,” he handed her a triangular packet. She looked at it not knowing what to do. Her tears still painted the world in rain.
“Fine.” Eric sat down next to her and pulled off a straw that had been attached to the back, which she hadn’t seen. “There you go,” Eric said, sticking the straw into the pouch’s top. He handed it back to her. A light overflow splashed her hands.
“It smells fruity,” she said, trying to muster up a smile. Her eyes burned. The puffiness blocked out the twilight before she remembered where they were and at what time. She took a tentative sip. Honey and strawberries wrapped in Seventh day afternoon sun danced on her tongue. It reminded her of her favorite parts of home. For a moment she was warm and happy. Then the knowledge that she could never go back to the place that had made that joy flooded her again and she went back under. The tears got worse if that was even possible.
Something inside her just knew. When these tears dried up, her parents would be gone. Not her sister’s marriage kind of gone. The kind of gone people don’t come back from. That it wasn’t just her parents. It was her brothers and sisters and niece and nephew. They were all gone.
There was nothing she could do to get them back. No place she could go in this life to meet them for dinner. All she had was her own need to keep living because they couldn’t and the knowledge that they would want her to keep going as much as she wanted to taste her mother’s pancakes.
The straw popped free from the back.
“I have things, news really,” he said. He took a long sip of his own metal triangle thingy. “It has to do with what we talked about before.”
“I don’t...” she tried to get the words out, but nothing came. Her head slumped onto his shoulder. She had no more energy to keep it up. His shoulder armor was stiff, but not hard. It felt more like her father’s best shirt after her mother starched it for church. Her tears faded to whimpers, the pain numbing as her body softened under reality.
“They’re gone,” she said. It was the first time she’d said those words out loud.
“I...” He put an arm around her shoulder and just sat there on the ramp with her.
Troops made their way in and out of the space, oblivious to the Ironside and the puddle of a recruit huddled next to him. The lights had flickered on in the absence of the suns. It was close to midnight.
“We need to get you back to your barrack,” he said. “Whatever this is, you’ll be better in the morning.”
“On the plus side, tomorrow’s Seventh day.”
‘Rest,’ Miranda thought. She would finally get some rest.
She took one last drag on the liquid sunshine, letting it fill the hole she now knew rested in her core. Then she fell into bed, boots, and all.
“We have a treat tonight,” Sergeant Dan said. “Our good Chaplain has decided to stop by for our shared circle.” Everyone got to their feet. Miranda scra
mbled into line in time to salute.
The Chaplain returned their salute saying, “Carry on.” They relaxed their pose, looked at one another, then went back to sharing. Share circle was tradition. They’d been having one since the first Seventh day. It happened after the Seventh day meal, before lights out. Most of the time everyone just wanted to get it over with. Talking was discouraged in general. Miranda felt weird opening her mouth in front of her drill instructors. One of them always led it. In fact, they were already more than halfway through when the Chaplain walked in.
Grumpy Farmer had been halfway through telling them one of her stories about how she used a hover thresher to get revenge on her older siblings.
“The look on his face when he realized the controls were automated... It was glorious,” she said, a smile on her face. People nodded. Miranda noticed that when Grumpy Farmer’s smile reached her eyes she didn’t look all that grumpy. Grumpy Farmer raised one arm and passed the proverbial stick.
“I don’t like to be forced to get to know yous,” Farmer said, his tongue sliding into a lander accent on the last word. He stared blatantly at the Chaplain, like all of this was his fault and not just something they did every week at this time for the last nine cycles. After a tense moment he continued.
“Saw a dead body two cycles in a row,” he said. “I don’t like the dead. Doesn’t matter who it is, they creep me out. That’s why I never wanted to go into the military. All that death and stuff. I must have been like 11. There was an accident at the mining colony I lived in. Something to do with imbalance, they told me later. I got trapped in my house. Food and water sure, but my Mum was trapped with me.” He paused there.
“Dead, killed in the explosion. Things like that change you. Make other things ok. Because we all must die once. Then we get sorted.” He shook his head as if he hadn’t meant to say that much. He continued talking about the week, but Miranda wasn’t really listening. She wanted to know why the Chaplain was there. Was it because they’d lost two soldiers in the last two cycles? That made sense.
Imperial Hilt (Imperial War Saga Book 2) Page 6