“Well now,” Molon laughed. “That’s got to get confusing after a while with so many Angels mucking about.”
“Not really,” Angel replied. “You have no idea how infrequently our presence is even detected. Had it not become necessary to directly intervene using my gifts in order to effect your rescue, I would never have blown my cover.”
Molon folded his arms before the pain in his chest gave him reason to rethink that posture. He chose to lightly drop into a chair.
“So you never planned to go all glowing wings, then?”
“No,” Angel replied. “I had hoped Simmons would trust the security team to handle the planned execution. I could have easily manipulated events to allow your escape, permitting you to overpower me and my team and preserving my cover. Unfortunately Russel’s ire at the destruction of the datacube pushed him to call for Simmons to see to things personally.”
“Didn’t see that one coming, then? I thought your type knew everything.”
“No, unfortunately. Only the Creator can see the future. Sometimes He shares that with us, but this time he did not.”
“So, you saved us, we saved you. Sounds like we are about even then.”
Angel shook her head and lost her soft smile.
“It is more complicated than that,” she replied. “I’d been assigned to monitor Operation Firelake and Senior Interrogator Simmons for a long time. Getting you all off of Revenge cost us far more than you realize.”
“You mean losing one of your Watchmen inside GalSec?”
“More than just one,” Angel explained. “We may never be able to get another agent that close to Simmons. I’ve served on his personal security detail for over two years now, with five more years before that, working within GalSec to earn that posting. I doubt Simmons will trust anyone around him again without frequent, full genetic scans. In fact, once they realize we have infiltrated them, every one of the Watchmen in GalSec, the upper echelons of Dawnstar, and the Provisional Imperium is now at risk of being discovered.”
The impact of what Angel had said weighed on Molon. Outing a spy was one thing, but she was right. If someone as paranoid and ruthless as Simmons suspected there might be spies high up in GalSec or the Imperium, he’d push the limits of technology and legality to find any others.
“So why do it?” Molon asked, not sure if he really wanted to know the answer. “Why risk all that to save a ragtag bunch of mercs from getting prematurely spaced?”
“Orders.” Angel’s face grew serious.
“Orders from who?” Molon pressed, expecting a reemergence of her habit of dancing around the real questions.
“From on high.”
Her eyes remained locked on Molon’s, but it was clear he had wandered near gag-order territory once again.
That was the last straw. Molon stood and hurled the glass, from which he had been sipping brandy, clear across the room. It shattered into a myriad of pieces against the bulkhead. He immediately regretted it as pain lanced through his chest from the broken ribs, courtesy of Senior Interrogator Simmons. That added pain did nothing to soften his tone.
“Enough of that!” he growled at Angel through the intense throbbing in his chest. “Just give me a straight answer for once. Do you seriously expect me to believe some invisible God is giving you marching orders?”
“Captain Hawkins,” Angel replied, showing no hint in her voice of matching Molon’s angry escalation. “All I am at liberty to say is that senior leadership in the Angelicum Host have made it clear that Star Wolf, and Dr. John Salzmann, are vital to future plans.”
“Whose future plans?” Molon growled.
“I am not trying to frustrate you,” Angel said, shaking her head. “I simply don’t know anything more. I would answer your questions if I could.”
“So you admit that your orders come from your superiors in the Angelicum Host, or from the Theocracy, or from Enoch, or someone else under his command, and not personally from some invisible God!” Molon growled.
“In this case,” Angel replied, “that would be a distinction without a difference.”
His explosive response was preempted by the sounding of the door chime.
“Enter,” Molon snapped with far more bile than he would have liked.
Whichever of his crew was coming to see him hadn’t done anything to earn the consequences of his frustration with the Angelicum agent. John Salzmann entered the room.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, captain,” John said.
The doctor visibly recoiled a bit after glancing at the shattered glass on the far side of the room. Doubtless he did not miss the unmistakable aroma of brandy filling the air, nor the sight of the remnants of the golden brown liquid currently drizzling down the far wall.
John looked fearful as he returned his gaze to Molon. Good. Learning when to steer clear of Molon’s temper was a vital survival skill if the doctor planned to continue to serve on Star Wolf.
“If this is a bad time I can come back later.” John’s gaze flitted between Molon and Angel, looking as if he were trying to get a read on the tension filling the room.
Molon relaxed his ears to set John at ease, regretting not doing it as soon as the doctor had entered. John was not to blame for the extended and frustrating game of cat-and-mouse which Molon had been playing with the Malak agent.
“No, John, I’m sorry, please come in.” Molon attempted a grin before realizing a human not used to being around Lubanians might view that as a snarl. “We were just having an invigorating philosophical discussion. How is Twitch?”
“Not good,” John said with a shake of his head.
Molon’s heart dropped into his stomach. He hoped John wasn’t going to waltz around the truth. He’d had just about enough of that from Angel.
“Say it straight, Doc. Is she going to make it?”
Before John spoke, Molon could already read the uncertainty in the doctor’s face. Molon braced himself for bad news.
“She’s stable, for now at least. Her condition is critical. Like I told you before, she’s in God’s hands more than mine.”
This was too close to the nerve Angel had just been dancing on. Molon’s ears flitted backward again, his eyes narrowing. The change in posture caused John to take a step backward.
“I’ve done what I can,” John continued cautiously, “but Molon…”
John’s pause sent a fear through Molon like no mission ever had. If he lost Twitch, he wasn’t sure he wanted to keep doing this. She had been his partner and his friend. They had started this merc crew together. Without her, what was Star Wolf but an empty hull?
“But what, John?” Molon finally mustered the courage to ask. “Spill it.”
“Her spinal cord is severed.”
“So,” Molon replied, hoping John’s worry was more from him being a hermit-world physician than about the severity of Twitch’s condition. “We get her to a TL15 world and have it fixed. They regenerate spinal injuries all the time on core worlds.”
“Not exactly.” John shook his head and swallowed hard before continuing. “Partial spinal injuries can be easily repaired. Clean spinal cord breaks can sometimes be reattached and regenerated, if treated quickly enough. Even severe damage in children has been successfully treated. But her spinal cord isn’t just severed, Molon, it is shredded.”
Molon took a few deep breaths despite the pain that brought. In fact the pain from his ribs was almost cathartic as it gave him something to focus on beside the much deeper pain he was fighting. He was no surgeon, but if a shredded spinal cord had the normally optimistic medic concerned…
“So what does that mean, John?” Molon asked, biting back his frustration and worry. “Pretend I’m just a dumb merc captain and not a neurosurgeon.”
“It’s like this,” John explained. “The force Simmons exerted on Twitch when he grabbed her must have been tremendous. The cranial damage looked bad, but we can fix that easily even aboard Star Wolf. In fact, I have already prepped her for that s
urgery and as soon as she is a little stronger I can do that myself. I have also already repaired the damage to her throat.
“The real issue is, Simmons crushed two of her upper vertebrae, and the bone shards ground through her spinal cord like a shredder. At this point she may not even live through her injuries. Even if she does, I’m not sure her spine can be fixed.”
Molon growled. He fought the urge to pounce on John and rip into the doctor. None of this was John’s fault, but for some reason Molon was furious with him.
“What do you know?” Molon snapped. “You’re just some backwater sawbones. I’ll get her to a competent doctor on a core world and somebody who actually knows something about modern medicine will fix her.”
John shook his head. Molon sensed the doctor was hurting as bad over this as he was, but right now Molon couldn’t care less.
“Be mad at me if you want to, Molon. Lion knows I deserve it. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t hired you all to take me back to Ratuen. However, you need to understand something. While I might have lived and practiced medicine on a hermitworld, I was educated and did my residency on an Old Empire, pre-Shattering core world. I worked under top doctors at a cutting edge TL15 hospital in the Sarren system, Orke sector. That system to this day still has the most advanced medical facilities in the entire Theocracy.
“I also keep up with all of the most recent surgical breakthroughs. That is a requirement to maintain my surgeon’s license. I recertify every year with the Interstellar Medical Board and the Theocracy Board of Humaniti Surgeons.
“I have not maintained any non-human sophont certifications, a condition I will rectify if you allow me to stay aboard Star Wolf as chief medical officer, but as far as human physiology is concerned, I am a fully qualified surgeon.”
Molon relaxed. John had already proven his worth as a doctor. Every time this ship went out, casualties were always a possibility. He just never imagined it would ever be Twitch. She had danced through hailstorms of bullets and beams dozens of times without a scratch. Molon had more holes in him than a moon in a meteor shower, but Twitch had always been untouchable. Maybe her luck had just run out.
“I’m sorry, John,” Molon said, mentally biting himself for needlessly berating the doctor. “It’s just a hard pill to swallow.”
“I understand,” John replied, giving Molon far more grace than he deserved. “You are welcome to get a second opinion, captain. I admittedly am not a spinal specialist, but my diagnosis is not one given in ignorance. Another doctor’s examination is not going to change the reality of Twitch’s condition.”
“So there’s no hope?” Molon said, unable to hide a lingering accusation in his tone.
“I’m not saying there is no hope,” John replied emphatically. “With God all things are possible. I want you to understand I will devote everything I have and use all the contacts and resources at my disposal to help her, Molon.”
“Then what are you saying, John?”
“I’m telling you to prepare yourself. Even if we do find someone, somewhere who can repair her spinal cord, she is never going to have the reflexes she had before. She is going to have to work long and hard just to retrain her body to obey basic commands coming from her own brain. There is a lot of technology out there that can help her live out her life with some major modifications. Make no mistake, though, Twitch is never going to be the same again.”
That thought ate a hole in Molon’s gut. Twitch had been the most independent, driven, dependable partner he could ever have asked for. Their time in the Scouts had seen countless challenges, and more than a few times Twitch’s unflinching nature had been the difference between success and failure, between life and death. It sounded like she was going to need every ounce of that determination to get through this. Molon wondered if the prospect of never regaining what she had lost would ultimately shatter Twitch’s adamantine spirit.
“Thank you, John,” Molon managed at last. “Was there anything else?”
“How about letting me look at those ribs?”
“It’s nothing. I’ll swing by sickbay later to check on Twitch. You can take a look then.”
“Sorry, Molon,” John argued. “Unless you are relieving me of duty as CMO, I’ll take a look at them now. I brought the portable bone knitter anyway, so don’t think I lugged this heavy chunk of hardware all the way here for nothing.”
Molon relented and winced as he pulled off his uniform shirt, exposing his fur-covered lupine torso. John worked around his tender ribcage with the medical device he had brought with him. Molon already began to feel the throbbing pain in his side starting to ease.
“Sorry for being out of uniform,” Molon said to Angel after he noticed the Malak avert her eyes respectfully. “Doctor’s orders, and this human is too pig-headed to argue with.”
“Aren’t they all,” Angel quipped, keeping her eyes fixed on the bulkhead.
“Hey, now,” John replied. “Aren’t angels supposed to be encouraging?”
“Not necessarily,” Angel remarked, a playful tone filling her voice. “Just messengers of truth.”
“Okay, boss,” John said, giving Molon’s chest a firm pat. “All better. You can swing by and see Twitch whenever you want. Patch is with her.”
“Thanks, John.” Molon pulled his uniform shirt back in place noting the complete lack of pain resulting from the action.
“She isn’t going to be awake anytime soon, though” John continued. “I have her pretty heavily sedated. She isn’t feeling any pain from the neck down, at least, but the meds I had to give her to stabilize her for surgery are laced with sedatives and pain killers. In a real hospital I would have given her something less severe, but that’s what you had on board, so I had to make do.”
“I understand,” Molon replied. “It is probably better I not have to talk to her until I figure out what in the galaxy I am going to say.”
“I get that,” John said, sadness filling his tone before looking up and shooting Molon a wavering grin. “I do have some things to discuss with Angel, that is, if you two are done with your invigorating philosophical disagreement.”
“Yeah, we’re done,” Molon replied, shaking his head at John’s comment and attempt to lighten the mood. “However, you two should carry the conversation elsewhere. I need to collect my thoughts.”
“Actually, of the two things I have to discuss with her, the first one you need to know about as well.”
Molon furrowed his brow, his ears perking forward.
“Okay then, spill it.”
John reached for something beneath his collar and pulled out a small cube dangling from a chain around his neck. Molon stared in disbelief at what appeared to be Elena Salzmann’s datacube dangling from John’s hand.
“Surprise, captain!” John said, adding a “ta-da”.
Molon’s breath caught in his throat. His eyes narrowed as he eyed the seemingly impossible existence of the cube.
“Dub destroyed Elena’s datacube on Revenge,” Molon said with a shake of his head. “We saw him.”
“Yeah,” John replied, “but we also saw Elena die on Ratuen. I’m thinking our eyewitness testimony isn’t worth a lot right now.”
Molon laughed. “Fair enough.”
“Seriously, though, this is a copy Dub made after we left Tede. I had him scan the custom datacube to build a reader. It seems he went above and beyond the call of duty and scanned the contents too.”
“So are you saying,” Angel interrupted, “that this contains Elena Salzmann’s malmorphsy research?”
Molon growled as he spun to face Angel.
“That’s another thing,” he snapped. “How do you even know anything about that?”
“I was assigned to Simmons, remember? That research is at the heart of all this mess.”
“Yeah, mess is right,” John answered. “I’m keeping a copy for myself, as I intend to have the R&D guys at Salzmann Pharmaceuticals start work on a line of malmorphsy-related treatments.
I’ll take extra precautions not to let what we are working on leave Tede —no way I want the PI or Dawnstar back on our trail. In the meantime, though, given what both the PI and the Brothers of the Lion were planning on using this for, I wanted to put a copy in the hands of the Theocracy and the Angelicum Host so they could use it proactively to counter any possible xenocidal bioweapon.”
“Your sentiments are noble, John,” Angel replied as she took the datacube. “I will see this gets to Enoch and his researchers.”
“Thank you, Angel,” John replied. “I just could not live with myself if Elena’s research was used to harm your people.”
The Malak angel flashed John a sweet smile.
“You need not worry yourself further about the welfare of the Angelicum Host, or the Daemi for that matter.”
“Really?” Molon replied. “You aren’t worried these crazy Brothers of the Lion want to wipe the Daemi out, even if it means taking your people along for the ride?”
“There is no danger of that,” Angel reassured.
“What do you mean?” Molon scowled, as he anticipated another round of mystical hokum.
“By design,” Angel explained, “we are incapable of becoming ill due to any naturally-occurring disease or artificially engineered pathogen. That is just a reality of our biology.”
“But you are still taking the data because…?” Molon pressed
“This research will be useful in developing vaccines for Humans as well as Fei, Lubanians, Doppelgangers, Dractauri, and the myriad of other non-human sophonts. We will work with Enoch’s people to develop antigens designed to defend against any derivative bioweapons that might arise as poisoned fruits of Elena’s research.”
Molon’s ears twitched as a disturbing thought came to him. He turned to John.
“Who else knows you have this?” Molon asked.
“Besides you two and Dub?” John answered. “Nobody.”
“Keep it that way,” Molon said, breathing a sigh of relief. “If GalSec gets wind a copy of this still exists, Russel and Simmons will burn a swath of destruction through the remnants of Humaniti to get their hands on it. Dub will keep this secret without doubt, but you can’t tell anybody else.”
Star Wolf (Shattered Galaxy) Page 43