by Lee Stephen
Releasing the joystick, Travis rose from his seat to walk back into the troop bay. “We’ll always be the Fourteenth. And it’s ki-yay.”
“What?”
“Yippee ki-yay. A pow wow is what Indians do.”
The greasy, mop-haired technician climbed out of the hole. “If you say.” Once he’d emerged fully, Boris laid on his back and blew out a breath, staring up at the ceiling before closing his eyes. “That is a small hole.”
“All right, so, at least we figured out what the deal is, mostly.” Holding out his hand for Boris to grab, Travis yanked the technician up to his feet. “Now we just have to explain it to Scott in the best way possible come meeting time. Which means a lot of small words.”
“You think we will have a meeting soon?” Boris asked.
Travis nodded. “Hopefully. I’d imagine so. There’s a lot we have to talk about.”
Smiling, Boris said, “Good! I like meetings. We always leave them so happy.”
As the Russian walked toward the open bay door, Travis set his hands on his hips and stared at him from behind. After a moment of silence, he asked, “How can you be so relaxed right now? We’re the most wanted people on the planet.”
Boris pivoted to face his friend. “It is good to be wanted!”
“Not this kind of wanted.” His expression grew serious. “I mean it, man. What’s up with you?”
“I am happy to be alive. In Cairo, I thought I might not survive the escape. I have never felt so close to…whatever it would have been, death or capture.” His smile widened. “But we escaped. And now we are here.” As Travis approached him, Boris stepped down the rear bay ramp and waited for it to close. “I am not worried about what my family thinks. They know me. They will know that I would not do something that would bring so much dishonor to them or to myself. If nothing else, they will just pray for me or wish me well.” The two trekked across the hangar toward the doorway to Level-3. “All of my life, I have wanted to do something that matters. Now, I get to do that. It may not make any sense to anyone else, but this is exciting to me—this is the first thing I have done that is so important.”
Giving him a look as they crossed the threshold into the base, Travis said, “This isn’t the first thing you’ve done that’s important.”
“Perhaps not, but still nothing compares. This is big stuff! I am proud to be a part of it.”
At that, Travis stopped. Looking at the technician with an expression akin to awe, he simply shook his head and said, “That’s kind of an amazing thing to say.”
Boris tilted his head. “Is it? The world knows our names, friend! I know that in time, they will know that in what we did, we meant the best.” His grin returned. “Then we will stop being infamous and just be famous. Cars and women! Everything we dream for, right?” he asked, nudging Travis with his elbow.
Laughing a bit, Travis answered, “It’s gonna take a lot more than cars and women to make this one feel worth it.”
“In time, we will all be heroes. That is what I keep telling myself, and it makes me feel better. It will make you feel better, too.” Looking ahead again, Boris marched straight on toward the lounge. “I am going to look for a chess board—something to kill the time before the meeting you say we will have. Do you want to join me?”
“I think I’m actually gonna just head to the room,” the pilot answered. “Get my head right, figure out how I’m gonna present all this.”
Slyly, Boris smirked. “You should go visit Tiffany. I bet she would be happy to see you.”
“Pfft. If not for a pair of handcuffs and the need to rip the joystick out of my hand, she wouldn’t know I existed.”
“I bet she would! You two spent much time together. Perhaps it is I who is jealous of you!”
Turning to the elevator, Travis cast Boris a parting glance. “Go find your chess board. I’ll see you at the meeting.”
“I look forward to it!” Throwing his hand up in a haphazard wave, Boris marched away down the hall.
For several seconds after Boris disappeared, Travis stared at the empty hallway left in the Russian’s wake. Sighing quietly to himself, he murmured, “Thanks for the perspective, B. Always good to hear it.” Taking a step backward, Travis turned around and walked toward the elevator.
* * *
A single set of doors. That was all that stood between Scott and the culmination of his efforts—from everything they’d endured at Cairo, from their initial insertion to their daring escape. From Krasnoyarsk to where they were now at Northern Forge. What lay behind a single set of doors would tell him whether or not everything had been worth it.
Centurion.
Though there were more reasons than just the Ceratopian to visit Northern Forge’s medical bay, the big picture demanded the alien be his primary concern. No one from the Fourteenth had been allowed into the medical bay the night before, when Centurion was in the most dire condition, and Scott hadn’t heard any updates that morning. He needed to know if H`laar’s bodyguard was still alive. Closing his eyes briefly as he drew in a breath, Scott exhaled slowly then reached out to press the door button. The door whisked open, and he stepped inside.
The medical bay was stark, typical of a room of its type with tile floors and white, painted walls. At the far left, just to the side of the door, sat Auric and Catalina. Panning left, Scott spotted Natalie and the rest of Falcon Platoon inside the quarantine cell. They all looked his way. A second quarantine cell was next, containing an alert Ju`bajai. At long last, as Scott’s inspection took him to the far right of the room, he found what he’d gone there to see: Centurion. The massive Ceratopian was lying atop a pair of beds that were pushed together and which looked barely capable of keeping the massive beast in place. Tubes and wires covered the alien’s body and a makeshift oxygen mask partially hid his face. He looked a total mess…but he was breathing. That Centurion had made it this far in as rough a condition as he appeared was a miracle.
There were two individuals inside the medical bay other than the injured and captive—a nurse in her twenties with a dark-brown pixie haircut, and the doctor himself, Gavriil Shubin. Though Scott had met Gavriil briefly the day before, the calmness of the room offered him a better chance to take the doctor in. The doctor was a tall, middle-aged man with short, albeit curly, russet hair. He looked like a doctor, right down to the all-business, there’s-a-good-chance-I’m-smarter-than-you look on his face. Rising from the desk he was sitting behind, the doctor raised an eyebrow. “Captain Remington, can I help you?”
“Yes, actually,” Scott answered. Hobbling across the room, he smiled cordially at the nurse as he passed her. She didn’t bother smiling back. “I was hoping to get an update on everyone.” Briefly, he looked back at the nurse. There was something about her eyes. They were dark blue and callous in a way that was almost familiar. Did he know this woman? His focus returned to the doctor. “Our guys.” Then to Centurion. “This big guy. Everyone.”
Gavriil’s mouth downturned. The only way Scott’s mind could interpret it was almost like a look of disappointment. Sighing in a manner that made no attempt to disguise itself, Gavriil’s eyes shifted from Scott to the nurse. “Marina.” He went on in Russian. “Tell him whatever he wants to know.” Apparently unaware that Scott could understand him, Gavriil returned his focus to Scott and continued on in English. “My nurse, Marina, will assist you.”
His nurse? Casting the disinterested Marina a brief look, Scott focused back in on Gavriil. “If you don’t mind, I’d kind of like to get all this from you. No offense,” he said to Marina, who looked utterly disgusted with him.
Propping his elbow on the desk, Gavriil massaged his eyelids irritably. “Captain Remington, there is nothing I can tell you that Marina cannot. If you cannot see plainly, I am very busy. This,” he said, motioning to the Ceratopian, “is not what I deal with. Please excuse me for being curt, but I am doing what I must do. Marina is an excellent nurse and will explain everything. Thank you.”
A
nd that was it. Scott wasn’t even given a chance to rebut. Gavriil’s eyes went back down to his desk, and he said nothing more.
From behind him, Marina spoke. “What would you like to know?” Her tone couldn’t have been more laced with indifference. When Scott looked at her, he saw that her expression matched it. Still, those dark blue eyes stood out. Where could he have seen this girl before?
“Look,” he said, “I didn’t mean to come across as patronizing. What I mean by that, is—”
“I know what patronizing means.”
Scott’s mouth hung for a moment. “Okay, great.” He didn’t intend for it to sound as sarcastic as it did. “Just give me the rundown, then. You know what rundown means, right?”
If looks could kill, he’d have already been a corpse. Turning away with revulsion, she said, “This way.”
Scott wasn’t trying to come across as rude—he knew that nurses knew their stuff. It was just that in this situation, with so much at stake and so much going on, if Scott had the option of talking to the man overseeing it all, then that’s what he wanted to do. Apparently, however, Valentin Lukin was not the only cold presence in Northern Forge. The doctor was serving up stiff competition.
As she approached the beds with Auric and Catalina, Marina spoke. “Patient one,” she said, indicating to Auric, “has a comminuted fracture of the right patella.” She eyed Scott. “You know what patella means, right?” He didn’t know that or comminuted. It didn’t stop Marina from continuing on. “A patellectomy was performed, which took place last night. He is on heavy pain medication. Patient two,” she motioned to Catalina, who was listening intently to the frosty conversation.
Scott held up a hand. “Wait, hold on. So he had a pallet-what?”
“A patellectomy. Kneecap surgery.” She moved right along. “Patient two has a closed tibia shaft fracture on her left leg.” She eyed Scott as if he was stupid. “She has a broken shin.”
While he didn’t appreciate her smartness, the laymen’s term translations did help him out. The nurse continued.
“A crude splint was put in place, which prevented more extensive damage than what is already present.”
From the bed, Catalina smiled weakly. “Svetlana did that.”
Scott would have guessed. It was no surprise that Svetlana had been a help to the Falcons. “Svetlana is part of the Fourteenth,” he explained to Marina. “She’s our unit medic.”
Raising a brief, yet critical brow, Marina said, “That would explain the crude part.”
At that, Scott reacted. “Hey, now, wait a minute.”
“Patient two will also require surgery, which we will attend to today,” said Marina, going on as if she’d said nothing obtuse. “As you can see, her pain medication is at a minimum.”
No—Marina wasn’t getting off that easily. “First of all,” said Scott, “this is not patient two. Her name is Catalina. And his name is Auric. And what’s up with the smart attitude?” She didn’t have to like the fact that he was there, but there was no reason to project her irritation with him onto other people. “There’s no reason to call what our medic did crude. She’s just as trained in this kind of thing as you or the doctor. “
“With all due respect—”
Scott didn’t believe for a second he was about to receive that.
“—a medic is not comparable to a doctor or a nurse.”
“You’re wrong. They treat us, they do check-ups, they prescribe medicine. They’re just like you, except assigned to a unit.”
Marina’s face turned a shade red. Her voice nonetheless stayed controlled. “Do you know what an EDEN medic does when they find a problem with an operative? They call a doctor, and the doctor responds with a solution and a prescription.”
That wasn’t true. Scott was sure of it. He was pretty sure of it. He…thought he was sure of it? Looking away, he tried to recall ever actually seeing Svetlana write out a prescription. He couldn’t.
“I went to school for four years to become a nurse—at Pennsylvania University, the best nursing school your country has to offer.” She raised a smugly informative finger. “Doctor Shubin, as I’m sure you can surmise, has gone much farther. Your medic received two years of ‘training,’ which is essentially learning how to plug a bullet wound and seal up a cut before she can reach a real medical staff, such as the one you have here.” The flushness of her face lightened a touch. “So once again, I say to you, with all due respect: your medic is not comparable to a doctor or nurse—and her splint was crude.”
Scott didn’t know what to say.
“Now,” the pixie-haired, dark brunette said as she stepped past him, “follow me, and we will discuss the Ceratopian.”
Clearing his throat as he looked up from his desk, Gavriil said, “I will take over from here. Thank you, Marina.”
The suddenness of Gavriil’s willingness to help was only somewhat surprising. The back-and-forth Scott had been having with Marina wasn’t exactly discreet. As much as the doctor didn’t want to have to give Scott a guided tour of his office, he probably wanted to deal with snippy attitudes even less. As Marina abandoned Scott without argument and returned to her tasks, Gavriil approached Scott and forced a smile. “You must forgive Marina. She is what you Americans call a ‘pepper.’”
Scott could think of a few other words to describe her.
“Now,” Gavriil said, “the Ceratopian. How much do you know about him, injuries aside?”
“Next to nothing. He was a bodyguard of some sort, we think. That’s about it.”
Walking to the far side of Centurion, Gavriil examined the slumbering beast’s neck wound up close. Leaning away again, he stepped behind one of the many machines attached to it. “He is a strong specimen. I doubt many could survive the extent of injury he received. But one can look at him and tell he is something unique.” He pointed. “There are muscle masses, such as here, and here, that few Ceratopians possess. They are intentional.” He tapped his finger against one of the machine’s displays, its contents unseen to Scott. “I would liken it to what you would expect to find in a professional athlete…or perhaps more appropriately, a gladiator.” Gavriil nodded toward the alien. “He was bred for combat, as his purported role of bodyguard suggests.”
“Aren’t all Ceratopians bred for combat?” Scott asked.
Walking behind another console, the doctor answered simply, “Not like this.”
Crossing his arms and staring at the sleeping giant, Scott said, “We call him Centurion. I guess that name’s pretty appropriate.”
Gavriil glanced Scott’s way and smiled. “It personifies him quite well.”
“You speak good English.” The words just blurted out.
Chuckling softly, the doctor nodded his head. “I got my medical degree from Harvard.”
Scott blinked. “Harvard? In Massachusetts?”
“That is the one. Ice-cold winters, blustery winds. Yet like the tropics when compared to this hellish place.”
“I have to ask,” Scott said. “You went to Harvard, she went to Pennsylvania. What in the world are you guys doing here?”
Stepping away from Centurion’s table, Gavriil strolled toward the quarantine glass where a silent Natalie and the Falcons were listening in. Sliding his hands into the pockets of his white coat, he leaned back against one of the room’s support beams. “Marina has her own reasons. I am here because I was needed,” he said, looking at Scott directly.
Scott didn’t understand that at all. “There must have been a million other places you could have gone, yet you came to the Nightmen?”
“I am not here for the Nightmen. I am here for the poor of Norilsk, many of whom work here in the forge. Norilsk is a forgotten city, captain,” he said, shifting to get more comfortable. “Its days of being a major industrial influence are long over. Times are very difficult, and the Nightmen pay very well—though we will see how that will change, with Ignatius van Thoor dead. But a place like this needs a doctor. In a forge, there are ma
ny injuries. This was an opportunity to help the impoverished, and I took it. I feel no shame over that.” His focus returned to Centurion, as he walked to the far side of the medical bay to retrieve a pair of disposable gloves. Sliding them over his fingers, he glanced Scott’s way. “If you will excuse me for a moment, captain.”
“Whatever you need to do.” Watching as Gavriil approached the Ceratopian, Scott found his curiosity piqued anew. Even having spent his final minutes of Cairo and all of the flights thereafter in Centurion’s presence, he still found the massive beast fascinating.
Centurion was the first black Ceratopian Scott had ever seen. Just like humanity had its races, so apparently did the horned warriors. A vast majority of Ceratopians were some shade of tan, enough so that many EDEN operatives never encountered a Ceratopian of a different color during their careers. Supposedly, though, the black ones were more formidable. They were hardy. The black-skins came in two variations: violet markings and green ones. Centurion was the latter. The green streaks and patterns that contoured his body were strikingly bright, almost neon. They looked as if they’d glow beneath ultraviolet lights. In a way, the alien looked majestic.
Positioning himself behind Centurion, Gavriil began to unscrew a series of tanks that were attached to the end of the table where the alien’s head was resting. From these tanks ran a pair of large tubes, which in turn ran to what looked like a massive oxygen mask of sorts. It was a clumsy fit.
Once the tanks were unscrewed, Gavriil carried them to the far side of the medical bay, where a pair of new tanks were retrieved out of a large metal cabinet. The doctor screwed them in place where the previous tanks had been removed. Throughout all of it, Centurion never moved. A minute later, after giving the alien another look over, the doctor removed the disposable gloves and tossed them in a waste bin. “And that is that,” he said, offering Scott a small smile.