by Chris Hechtl
“Ah. But showing your hand by having a preference might violate your image of neutrality,” Jeff murmured as he considered the problem. He was still grappling with the idea of being away from Sandra and the kids for weeks, perhaps months. It was one reason he'd resisted the idea in the first place. He wanted to take them with him to see more of the galaxy, but that was the selfish part of him he noted. It wouldn't be fair to tear them out of school. And political rallies aren't really a place for kids.
And then there was the security situation. Plus, funding … gah, this was going to get expensive quick!
“You'll need to find funding; I can help with security. Sort yourself out. Remember the axiom—prior planning prevents piss poor performance. Plan this like one of your campaigns,” Admiral Irons stated. The governor nodded wryly. “Take your time if you need to do so; the position isn't going anywhere obviously.” What he didn't say was that the media and some senators had pushed for someone to fill the vacancy after the admiral had disappeared. “When you are ready to make a run, we'll announce a special election and work out a date. The sooner the better since it will mean less campaign time.”
“What about the others who throw their hats in the ring?”
“Some may do it to raise their public profile. Others might genuinely want to win. Others might want to bring something to the attention of others on the Federation stage. We'll see.”
“This is … bigger than I'd thought. I'd started to save but not at this level. I'm a small-town boy, going from there to the world stage, and now this …”
Irons snorted. “Just be glad you aren't trying for office in the old times. You'd be run all over the galaxy!” He shook his head. “You can do this. The good news is once you've got your foot in the door and you are established you'll be there for the follow-up elections. And once you are in office, I can use you as my proxy to send you out to visit other star systems or you can stay here and I'll do it.”
“I see. Got it all planned out, eh?”
“Not hardly. I've got the basic long-range goals but they are vague. We've still got a lot of hurdles to jump to get there. Any one of them can trip us up along the way.”
“So, I can count on your support? Publicly?”
Irons cocked his head and then shrugged. “Everyone knows I've been in your corner from the beginning, Jeff. Yeah, you've got it.”
“Thank you.”
“I suggest you have someone do some opposition research on you while you can. The same sort of thing you do for the governorship but look for anything no matter how small that could trip you up. Then frame ways to deal with each for each scenario and star system.”
“Ah. Fun.”
“Yes. And be careful drawing money from your next campaign into this campaign. There are laws on that so make sure you cross all your T's and dot all your I's carefully. And file the proper paperwork when you are ready.”
Jeff nodded. “I guess there isn't a way to appoint me or sneak me in?”
“If we tried, people would scream bloody murder now,” Admiral Irons said with a shake of his head. “They have to have their say.”
“Gotcha. Okay. We'll play it straight.”
“That's the best policy. You'll have more legitimacy with the public than me since you'll be elected. If you get there that is.” He paused for a moment, obviously in thought.
“What?” Jeff finally prompted.
Admiral Irons sighed. “I was just thinking about the new worlds joining us. Some are going to bitch because they didn't get their two credits worth in too. It is going to be that way with each world too. Fun.”
“Cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“Right.”
“I'll get my people on the campaign. Talk to you later?”
“Yeah. I've got to get going too. Say hi to Sandra and the kids for me.”
“Will do,” Jeff said with a smile. “See you at the next barbecue,” he teased as he signed off.
Chapter 24
Antigua
It usually took years to train a first-rate doctor, Nara thought as she studied her class of six students. Years in a classroom, lab, internships, and then years in a practice building up their confidence and experience before leaving them to go out on their own. The navy had shortened the process through sleep teaching and implant downloads, but some things still needed to be handled in a classroom. Nara was glad she still had that contact, though she had to admit the caliber of her latest class were higher than her first-year med school students.
Admiral Irons had finally authorized her to spread the wealth sort of speak, to train established navy doctors in handling higher level implant procedures as well as their care. Losing two of her nurses and Doctor Willis to that stupid air car accident hadn't helped. That sort of loss had driven home the point all over again that they needed to diversify the knowledge not contain it. That helped prevent painful losses and gaps.
Not that it had been an easy argument. Admiral Sienkov had been on her shit list, along with Monty for weeks until they'd relented and let her train medics to handle the next class of Marine Recon, SEALs, and the first draft of Army Delta Force recruits. From there it had been a short hop to get the best of that group the security qualifications to move into the rarefied circles of the Cadre medical establishment.
The Cadre still had a severe crunch on their numbers and loosing personnel on Destria didn't help. But they were learning from the experience. And they hadn't lost McClintock, which was a major plus in her eyes.
“This is an introduction. Everything we discuss here is classified at such a high level that if you even breathe a word of it in your sleep you will regret it. The intel pukes get you and will wring you and anyone you mention it to dry. Then I get my turn,” she said, eyes flashing. “I'm serious. Don't talk about this outside of these buildings. Don't talk about it over lunch, nothing at all over coms of course. You will be monitored by your implant software for the rest of your lives. Get over it.”
She waited a beat, studying them. Then she smiled. “But, you already knew that, so let's get into the discussion on general nanotech. This is an overview and a question and answer session. We'll get into details as we run through the various procedures. You'll find we recorded every implant session. So, for your sins and mine we get to go over them and look at the steps involved and learn from my mistakes,” she said with a brief smile.
There was a small chuckle in the room.
She privately hoped this class would cut the mustard. About half of any given class could handle the demanding surgical sessions. It was not just learning it all, plus the various species involved, retention wasn't an issue with implants, it was stamina and being able to maintain focus and deal with the tricky bits. Cadre level implants were no joke.
Which was why they were still training doctors to the levels required.
“All Cadre have active nanotech. In fact, we all do, but they have it in spades.” She frowned, pursing her lips as she noted her audience. There was still a mix of revulsion there but almost completely hidden in the undercurrent. On the surface, they were all keenly interested. Good enough.
“There are security considerations in all nanotech grown out of the first and second A.I. war and updated during the Xeno war. We'll leave discussing those for another time. This is just a basic introduction.”
“Ma'am, about Warrant Jethro McClintock and the other Cadre …?”
“Oh?”
“Why didn't they heal instantly? And those killed …”
“Well, contrary to public opinion Cadre can be killed. It's not something we brood about of course.” Heads nodded around the room. “Nanotech is a tool. The A.I. in the Cadre use them along with their implants and the suits to keep the host alive. But you can't regenerate tissue from nothing. For instance,” she showed them an image of an arm and then of it being severed. More than one person grimaced at it.
“Now, you'd think this was possible,” she said, hitting a link to show a
series of tentacles branching out from the fresh cut and then form into a new arm. “That is not normally the case. The tissue has to come from somewhere obviously. If the host can't reattach the severed limb then it has to be absorbed. Or the A.I. has to draw from internal reserves, but those are severely limited. Far too limited to do something on this level,” she said dispassionately as she looked at the image behind her.
“Fresh meat is pretty much it. Or a supply of stem cells keyed to the host's DNA or blanks that can be provided by medics. But the second problem with this is that there is no way for the A.I. to direct that sort of growth in that time. The A.I. has to direct the placement of every cell, make connections; it's a lot to do.”
“So, it is easier for the A.I. to patch a host's injuries.”
“Right. But even they can be overwhelmed given enough injury to a host body. And some things you just can't walk away from.” She showed them holographic images of the dead. “With enough body insult, the host body dies despite the attempts to save them by their implants, A.I., and suit. And you can't get around being buried or blown up.”
“In the case of Warrant McClintock, he had suffered injury that should have killed him. He was shot near point blank with armor penetrating rounds in his armor's weakest point with his shields down. His A.I. Bast had microseconds to react to the injury. Not enough time to turn his body let alone spin his shields backup. Remember, he was coming out of cloak.”
“So, there is a limit. Is it preprogrammed or something that is inherent in nanotech?”
“It is both. In Jethro's case, Bast scrambled to save what she could but the rounds that had penetrated his armor hadn't had enough kinetic energy to escape it. Therefore, they ricocheted around the interior turning his body into a colander.” She showed them images of the injuries and then a hologram of Jethro's body and the projection of how the rounds and shrapnel they had generated had bounced around inside his body. The paths they took hit a lot of tissue.
“Her programming had her preserve his brain first, since without it there is no host. On her own, she would have failed with this much injury. However, she wasn't alone.”
She showed them an image of other nanites that invaded the host body and began repairs, starting with the most critical ones. “Normally A.I. do not allow other nanites into the host body. They destroy them; it is a part of their programming. They act as something of an artificial immune system to protect the host. We'll get into protocols on how to get around that later.” She paused and took a sip of water then set her cup down and continued, turning to the replay. “Bast took the remarkable step of working with the other A.I. to make the repairs. They worked in seconds to stabilize the host and stop the internal bleeding long enough for proper medical care to arrive on the scene and take over. Then they withdrew.”
“So, they worked with his tissue to stop the bleeding or at least the major bleeds?” a student asked.
“Yes. Just the basics, and they kept the heart pumping and blood oxygenated.”
“But there are stories of Xenos growing limbs or of Cadre regrowing some.”
“They are stories,” Doctor Thornby stated coolly. Her students reared back in surprise. “Some were made to scare people. I assure you, like in physics, you can't make matter from nothing. You can't make energy; you can only transform it I believe the saying goes. Well, the same goes for matter. You have to have the base material to work from. In the case of the Xenos, something else is going on, something we're not seeing. That is no surprise; we've never got an up close and personal look at how they operate.”
“For which we can be grateful since we'd probably not survive the experience long,” a student murmured.
“Amen. If I can direct your attention to this image,” Doctor Thornby triggered another image, this one of Tobias later in life. “This is Tobias McClintock, Jethro's ancestor. If you note the body, he had scars and other defects. Some might have been for show. Some were old injuries obviously. Over time the A.I. can normally heal that sort of thing. His A.I. at the time didn't which we find very odd given that he was a panther and scars are debilitating to a functional cloak. But, we don't have any information as to what was going on there other than supposition.”
Her students leaned forward to stare at the image of the cat with interest.
She shook her head. “He had been through hell; that much is obvious. Cadre go where other men fear to tread. Where no one in their right mind would or could survive. Yet he did. For that we can be grateful since he had descendants that led to Jethro and others like him.”
She let them linger on the image for another minute before she cleared her throat. “Now, moving on …”
~~~^~~~
Letanga nodded to the doc in passing. He was getting a healthy dislike for anything medical related and was grateful that he now had his full implants and Satet to manage them.
Not to mention his nanites. With the nanites he no longer had to go to a therapist if he had an ache or pain. He no longer had to be scanned regularly, though the doc insisted every operator was checked every six months or after each deployment.
She had little to complain about. The nanites in his body made repairs whenever he had a problem. Bursitis? Not anymore! A pulled tendon? It was healed overnight. Bruises faded in hours. With their enhanced systems, it took a lot of punishment to do them damage.
Still, if Destria taught them anything, it was that they were not invulnerable supermen. They had to watch themselves and try not to get a swelled head.
Which was easier than it sounded. He had a feeling when his cousin returned Jethro would find a way to pop some heads and get everyone back to the ground. Until then though, he had to deal with the latest crop of students for his sins.
~~~^~~~
Nara knocked on the open door after her meeting and then entered the office at a mumbled come in registered.
“You wanted to see me?” she asked Major Joshua Lyon as she entered. He was sitting at his desk eating his lunch. “I presume you want to discuss the group I just left?” she asked the Cadre leader as he hastily rose and wiped at his mouth with a napkin.
She waved him back down as she came over and took a seat.
He swallowed and then got out a question. “How are they?”
“You just had me put the fear of you and ONI in them if they ever breathed about stuff outside these walls and you want me to talk?”
He snorted. “Quit kibitzing and spill, lady, I don't have all day.”
She gave him a mock withering look and then snorted to herself. He indicated she should take a seat across from him. She reached out and took half his sandwich without asking. He opened his mouth to protest, thought better of it when he saw her challenging twinkle as she took a bite, then just sighed and let it pass.
“They'll do so far. We'll see how their endurance is. I swear we need to run them through a marathon or through your hell week or something.”
“Maybe. I forgot how much of a bitch it is to your personnel until I saw you in action,” Major Lyon said.
“It is that,” she sighed. There was a persistent rumor that Joshua wouldn't remain a major for too much longer. His profile had been slightly elevated when a reporter had done a story on the Special Forces working in the hurricane relief efforts. “So, are you coming out in the open and handing Recon over to someone else or …?”
“Not anytime soon apparently. It's a good cover for Cadre,” he said with a shrug. “You should work on a filter program. I assure you we do for the security side.”
“Yeah, but you don't leave me with a large pool to work from.”
“No, but you do the initial selection,” he said as he took a bite of his remaining sandwich.
“True,” she said as she set her sandwich down on a plate and then snagged his pickle. He didn't even protest. She snapped it in half and gave him one part as a token and then took a juicy bite of the other. “Dang, good,” she said.
“Yeah,” he agreed as she caught som
e juice with her fingertips. He handed over another napkin. “Mars said you used the archive footage of Tobias?”
“Yeah. I see you were keeping tabs on me,” she teased reprovingly.
“I wasn't,” he replied with an indifferent shrug, and he turned and pulled a water bottle out of the small fridge he had near his desk. He held it up to her.
“Ah, gimmy,” she said greedily, hands out expectantly.
“My my,” he teased with a resigned shake of his head as he handed it over. She twisted the top off and took a drink. “How the mighty have fallen when hunger pangs strike. You must be ravenous during a surgical session. I'm surprised your patients don't have tooth marks,” he teased.
“No, most have too much fur and aren't my type,” Nara replied as she took another sip. “Implants help keep us on our feet I admit. But I think I'm going to start a mandatory fitness program. Keep everyone in tip-top shape, above and beyond what the minimums are.”
He nodded. “Good for you.”
“I'm also wondering about the procedures. I'm wondering if we should use a full surgical team. Have one doctor and surgical nurse focus on one part of the process. They hand it off and then the next chum in line takes over.”
Joshua nodded slowly. “Could work if you've got enough. What about A.I. support?”
“Admiral Irons is working on that. I'm supposed to get more A.I. other than Ensign Asclepius. Just having some dumb A.I. scattered around would be of immense help,” Nara said as she grimaced. “I like Asclepius. I'd rather see him in a medical base overseeing everything rather than sticking to me like glue. But he's here. We need others elsewhere.”