Chapter Eight: Out of the Storm — Part 5
Runa worried over Shadow’s wounds. She stripped Shadow naked with the thoroughness of a mother and the professionalism of a nurse.
“She’s covered in abscesses. I’ll start draining them. Get a doctor over here already; she’ll need surgery, and lots of nanowork.”
“None of the doctors can get through the storm.” Mandrake sounded desperate. He turned to face Shadow, his eyes going wide with fear. “You went and got yourself messed up again. You’re getting too damn good at that.”
Shadow was too tired to talk. She sat quietly on the stool, wondering if she shouldn’t just pass out and let her friends deal with the details of putting her back together.
“Damn the storm.” Runa said, nearly to tears.
“You didn’t just insult me, did you?” Shadow asked, edging forward slightly.
“Of course not, dear. Sit still, we’ll have a cot for you in a minute.” Runa said, having decided, apparently, that the bar table wasn’t good enough.
Shadow missed that part, wondered if she missed anything else.
Mandrake walked in with the cot. “– and we’ll have a doctor here if I have to drag one in by the hair.”
Shadow looked back and forth, at Runa and Mandrake, her thoughts scattered. She had lost the ability to see color, and the bluish gray world she was in had a haze to it, making her feel sluggish. Her senses, normally inhumanly acute, were dimming to distant points, memories and reality overlapping with illusion and delusion. Shadow started to fall, and Runa caught her, helping her to sit on her stool. Runa wiped the blood off on her apron, motioning for Mandrake to hurry up with the cot. Mandrake fought to get the thing open, all the while searching his mind, frantically trying to think of somebody who could get a medical team through the storm. He settled on the local military, again, only this time he would be more aggressive.
“Com-sphere, contact Galactic HQ, medical division.”
“I haven’t got enough money to pay for a medic. I need to land a job first.” Shadow said.
Mandrake let out a low hiss. “You let me worry about that, woman.” He motioned at Runa. “Get a towel and staunch that leg wound. She’s bleeding all over the fucking floor.”
The com-sphere following his every move, Mandrake finally got the cot forced open and set upright. He threw a blanket over it, in case the doctors wanted to move her more quickly to another bed. Shadow, too weak to resist, lay down on the cot, waiting patiently for help, or to die, whichever came first.
“She’s visibly anemic.” Runa’s voice strained with worry.
“Guess that’s why I missed my last period. And here I thought I’d gone and gotten knocked up.” Shadow whispered sarcastically.
Mandrake finally got through to the chief medical officer at the base, using a series of desperate but well calculated lies to reach the man. “Tyson here, what’s the problem?” Tyson didn’t expect any problems. The storm kept the Chran from attacking, and he had taken care of all the casualties of the last front line battle. He had expected, this evening, to sit in his quarters and drink his liver into submission.
“I need a medic at my Pub as soon as possible. I’ve got an emergency.” He filled Tyson in on Shadow’s condition.
“Ignoring how you got me on your ringer, how the hell am I supposed to get through the storm?” Tyson wondered.
“If your fat, happy troopers can get their lazy butts through the wind and sand just to get drunk, you can find a way here to stay sober. If you don’t I’ll find my way to you.” Mandrake said, cutting communications abruptly, hoping it would be enough.
“You want to talk about what happened?” Runa said, holding Shadow’s hand, afraid to do anything else.
“Yeah, please tell us your story.” Mandrake pulled up a stool next to Shadow.
“What’s there to say? I got ambushed on the far side of Sector Seven. The bastards tore my cargo rover to pieces. They killed my crew, and left me for dead.” Shadow stared at the ceiling. “Everything’s kind of a blur after that.”
“You shouldn’t have been in enemy territory.” Runa said, both concerned and scolding at once.
“Tell me about it, but I had a job there. Some friends needed a weapons cache; they needed to keep sector seven under Grid control. I patched myself up enough to start walking, took a bladder of water, and set out for here. I got attacked a second time. I don’t remember the details. Must have walked right across the front lines, and had to fight my way through. Opened up all the old injuries, and added a few more to the list. My clothes would stick to the clots and tear them open.”
It took twenty minutes for Tyson to make it to the bar: Record time, considering the horror of the storm. A typical doctor, he had thin, refined hands and a muscular frame, he also had eyes as black as onyx, and an eccentric disposition. He took one look at Shadow and let out a very unprofessional slur of profanity. He moved to her side, opening his kit and pulling out packages various instruments. His bedside manner was also unusual. He looked first at Runa, and then at Mandrake, who was busy draining puss from a nasty abscess on Shadow’s leg. He shooed Mandrake away.
“I’m here now, son, I’ll take care of that.” He paused, his voice suddenly soft. “What did this to you?” Tyson wondered angrily, looking back at Mandrake. “I’ll need to use your com-sphere.”
“Com-sphere, recognize Captain Tyson.” Mandrake said, pointing to the medic.
The com-sphere went straight to Tyson. Tyson cleared his throat. “Com-sphere contact HQ.” The com-sphere opened a line, a sleepy medic greeted Tyson with a lazy salute. “Get two medics and a surgeon to my position, with twenty pints O-Negative. We may need to clone fresh organs, and we’ll be doing intensive surgery, so make sure they bring us the Alpha Red kit, type 2.1.”
“Yes sir, we’ll send the staff and the supplies immediately. Breaking contact.” Tyson paused for a moment. “Com-sphere, return to Mandrake.” His eyes shifted to Runa. “I really didn’t believe, when you called, that you had somebody this bad on your hands. Usually when I get a call from the locals, it’s a sick kid.”
Tyson hefted his surgical kit next to Shadow’s cot, filled a syringe, and smiled at her. “I am going to warn you, this field anesthetic is a body wide local. You’ll be awake, but you won’t be able to move or feel anything. If things get too gruesome for you, we’ll put a towel over your eyes, and you can try to sleep for a little.”
Shadow felt the drug enter her body, leaving her defenseless, both to the doctor’s scalpels, and to attack. Unable to move or feel any part of her body, except for her throat and mouth, Shadow wondered what would happen to her if the Chran took Sector Nine during the storm. Just because the Chran never attacked during a storm was no reason to expect them to continue with such unchanging tactics, Shadow had learned early on in her experience to never rely on the predictable. Her mind drifted until Tyson’s colleagues showed up and everybody got sterile. Rather than watch them cut into her, Shadow opted for the towel and a nap. Part of her suspected that even if she could feel the knives, the cut of the blades couldn’t possibly feel worse than the injuries she had suffered prior. The last thing she saw before the towel covered her eyes were Tyson’s eyes, worried but confident, looking down at her as he checked, one last time, that her eyes were dilating properly. Tyson said something loaded with profanity to the other surgeon, and Shadow fell asleep.
