Corpsman (8 page)

Chapter 11

Liege trudged ahead, her stomach growling.

I should have eaten more for breakfast.

On the patrol the day before, Liege had gotten nauseous and had tossed her breakfast, much to her embarrassment, and she’d vowed not to let that happen again.  Today’s platoon-sized patrol had been planned for three hours—a simple escort of a Navy civil affairs officer to meet with a barrio president—so Liege had figured she could go light.  But plans were just plans, and when the barrio president had suggested he call in the presidents of two other barrios, the Navy lieutenant commander had readily agreed.  So the platoon had set up a perimeter and waited—and waited.  Now, at 1840, they were finally heading back.  Liege hoped that Staff Sergeant Abdálle had called back to Gunny Coventry, the battalion head cook, and asked him to hold hot chow for them.  It wasn’t like it would be difficult; just keep the fabricators warmed up and waiting for them.  Knowing the platoon sergeant, though, he hadn’t bothered.  The guy lived for field rats, telling all who would listen that they made Marines “hard.”

Liege was enjoying her tour, but sometimes, the inherent Marine need to prove they were tougher than anyone else in the galaxy got a little tiresome.  Liege was not the baddest person around.  She’d held her own in the
Commando Meninas
.  They’d thought themselves to be mean bitches, but she knew now their little gang was kindergarten compared to the Marines.  She was serving alongside the cream of the Federation military, and she was not ashamed to admit that she couldn’t kick all of their asses—or maybe any of their asses.  Save them, maybe, but not kick them.

The platoon, in a dual column, crossed Route Gazelle, leaving the closed-in warrens of Barrio Blanca and entering a more open Svea neighborhood.  Liege knew that they were not here to take sides between the Tintos and the Svea; still, she couldn’t help but feel some of the stress leave her as they started on the last leg for their camp.

Liege was trying to spot the fire team acting as route security a hundred or so meters down the boulevard when a crack caught her attention. 

She turned around to spot what had made it when Corporal Wheng yelled, “Get down, Doc!”

It took her a moment to realize that all the rest of the Marines near her were rushing for cover.  More cracks sounded out, and Liege belatedly got her legs beneath her and sprinted for the recessed doorway of a closed shop, pulling her legs in to attempt to keep them out of any line of fire.

Liege was serving as a rifleman, but her prime duty was still as the squad corpsman.  She flipped her display to the squad’s bios.  All twelve avatars showed bright blue and healthy.  She superimposed their positions for a moment to see where everyone was.  They’d been hit just as First Squad was halfway across Route Gazelle.  Liege and Korf were in the recessed doorway together.  Corporal Wheng and Wythe were about five meters to the west of them.  Third Team was across Gazelle, as was Sergeant Vinter, but First had retreated to the Barrio Blanca side of the road.  All except Pablo Sukiyama, who was huddled against a tree in the narrow median.  As Liege watched, several rounds hit the tree, sending splinters flying. 

Pablo ducked lower, trying to get as small as possible.  The tree was only about 20 centimeters in diameter, and Pablo was quite a bit wider than that.

“Do you see him?” Korf asked, peering around the edge of the doorway.

Liege got down flat, then nudged forward, barely getting past the edge as she looked to the west, trying to spot whomever was firing at them.  She saw nothing.

She flipped on the command circuit, and orders were filling the airwaves.  Marines were beginning to return fire, but from the traffic on the net, Liege gathered that the enemy was high above them in a well-fortified position.  From below, the Marines couldn’t get a decent shot.

Liege looked over at Pablo, knowing that if he was hit, it would be up to her to go get him.  She flipped off the command circuit, trying to center her thoughts.  The sergeant could still send her orders, but the general chatter ceased.

Just get up and run for it
, she silently pleaded her fellow Marine. 
Get some cover.

That tree wouldn’t protect him if the enemy gunman took him under fire again.  She drew her legs under her, ready to dart out the moment she saw him hit.   She was scared—really scared.  She didn’t need to look at her bioreadouts—she could feel her heart racing.

Five seconds
. 
I can get to him in five seconds
.

“Shit, they just cancelled the Wasp,” Korf told her.  “I guess they don’t want to take down some svermin’s building.”

The battalion had one Wasp assigned to the deployment.  A single fighter aircraft might not make much of a difference against a well-armed enemy, but here, it ruled the skies.  It would have no problem zeroing the gunman.

The firing from the enemy above ceased, but Liege didn’t notice.  She was rocking forward, ready to go.

Korf let out a laugh and said, “Saint Gregory’s ass!  Scratch one svermin sniper.”

“What?” Liege asked.

“That’s why the Wasp was canc’ed.  We had a guardian angel getting eyes on the asshole.”

Liege was confused, and she turned to look at Korf for clarification.

“Guardian angel?”

“Shit, Doc, sometimes I forget that you’re still a newbie.  No offense,” he quickly added.  “Yeah.  ‘Guardian angel.’  Our snipers.  One of the teams had overwatch.”

“Oh, like the Ice Bitch,” Liege blurted out.

“Yeah, but not her.  Wait,” he said, and she could see him with the vacant face of someone listening to his comms.  “Hornet-Eight.  That’s who did it.  I think that’s Sergeant Maud.  ‘Long Arm,’ they call him.”

“Long Arm?” Liege asked with a laugh, suddenly euphoric that she was not going to have to dash into fire to save Pablo, who was only now beginning to look around in confusion.  “Is that because he can fire long distances, or because he has another arm that is overly long?”

Korf looked at her for a second, his brows furrowed, before he erupted into loud braying. 

“Hell, Doc, I never thought of that.  And who’d have thought our sweet little doc had her mind in the gutter.  Wait until I tell Wythe.”

Liege wasn’t a shrinking violet, but she’d been attempting to present somewhat of a civilized front to the rest of them.  She knew, though, that she could be as earthly as the saltiest dog.  The
Commando Meninas
had quite a reputation for it.  But the relief of no one getting hit and the enemy being zeroed had swept over her, releasing the inner Liege.

Sergeant Vinter got everyone back up to move out.  Liege casually sauntered over to Pablo, making sure he was OK.  It was a far easier walk than what she’d been ready to make.

Liege gave the sergeant a thumbs-up, although she probably already knew that.  The squad leader’s battle AI might not be as sophisticated, as Liege’s as far as bioreadouts, but it was detailed enough to know that Pablo wasn’t hurt.

As the platoon began to move out again, she heard Korf talking to himself.

“And is something else that long, Doc asks. Saint Gregory’s ass! Ha!” 

Chapter 12

Liege wiped the sweat from her brow.  The heat wave outside was bad enough, but inside the old warehouses, it bordered on the unbearable.  She didn’t know why they just didn’t turn on the air conditioners—certainly the warehouses had to have them. 

She ran another quick download of core temperatures, ten minutes after she’d run the last one.  There were the normal slight elevations, but nothing going into the danger range as of yet.  She took a swallow of water, then considered telling the rest of the Marines to drink again.  They were probably sick of her keeping on their asses to remain hydrated.

The platoon was on a search and seizure mission.  Intel had indicated that this line of warehouses, outside of the bonded warehouses at the port, but within two klicks of the Marine camp, might be being used as a cache for weapons.  First Platoon had been given the unenviable job of searching for the weapons.

It was almost fall in this hemisphere of Jericho, but the temperatures had been ungodly hot over the last few days.  When the platoon had arrived at the complex, it had been a blistering 43 degrees.  Inside the stifling warehouses, it was closer to 47 degrees—and without a hint of a breeze.

After two hours of searching, they hadn’t found anything suspicious.  Liege was beginning to wonder if some insurgent was out there watching them, laughing as they cooked while chasing some fake intel.

Liege was getting nauseous again, and she was determined not to puke.  Her tender stomach was becoming somewhat of a joke among the squad, one she was determined to squash. 

“Doc, come to me,” Sergeant Vinter passed on the P2P.

“The sergeant needs me,” Liege told Korf, who nodded as he opened up a crate.

She checked the squad leader’s bios as she hurried over, but they read fine.

“What’s up?” she asked as she met the sergeant by the open cargo bay door.

“Second Squad’s got a medical situation,” the sergeant said.  “They need you.”

“Doc Lester-Mrchenigian’s there,” Liege said automatically.  “She’s just as trained as I am.”

“She’s part of the problem.”

Shit!  Nica? I haven’t heard any fighting!
she thought, her heart jumping in her chest.

“What’s going on?  What’s happened?”

“I’m not sure.  But Sergeant Quincero’s sending over a fire team.  They should be here in a moment.  You go over there and see what you need to do.  When you’re finished, call me and we’ll send a team to get you.”

Liege tried to remember the procedures to bring up Second Squad’s bios on her AI.
 
Due to privacy legislation, she only had access to those Marines under her care.  She could touch-load any Marine’s data, but to pull them off the net when they weren’t co-located took authorization.

She tried two codes, then had to query her AI.  That wasn’t good.  The fact that she’d had to query would be noted and sent to the chief.

No getting around it
, she thought. 
But I need to know what’s happening.

Within a few seconds, Second Squad’s bios filled her display, and it was immediately clear what was wrong.  Of the 13 Marines and one corpsman, nine had elevated body temps.  Three were over 40 degrees, with Nica 41.3.  Temperatures like that could be fatal.

Liege rushed to the open cargo door, looking around to the right to the warehouse being searched by Second Squad.  No one was in sight.

“I’m going, Sergeant,” she yelled back at her squad leader.

“Wait!” Sergeant Vinter yelled, but Liege was already dashing out into the sun.  For a moment, the air brushing past her was welcomed, but as she ran, she started to gasp as her body temp rose.  Two Marines came out of the warehouse and headed her way, and Liege crossed the baked areas between the two buildings, dodging into the shade alongside Second Squad’s building.

“This way,” Corporal Reverent Son shouted when he spied her, waving his arm as if to speed her up.

Liege slowed to a quick walk, breathing heavily, the hot air making her dizzy.  She reached the corporal and PFC Jessep Warren and let them guide her in.

Liege thought it was hot in their warehouse, but this one was even hotter at 48 degrees.

“All of you, drink, right now!” she passed on the platoon command circuit.  Second Squad had their own net, but Liege didn’t take the time to have her AI query and join that circuit.

“We are drinking, but we don’t have much,” the corporal said as Liege hurried to where two Marines and Nica were prone on the ground.

“What do you mean, you don’t have much?” Liege asked and she knelt beside Nica.  “Why not?”

During hot weather conditions, the inner layer of a Marine’s skins had a membrane that wicked sweat via capillary cohesion to an osmosis reclamation module.  Along with a urine reclamation unit, purified water was re-introduced both into the camelback as well as a tiny lattice of cooling tubes woven into the fabric.  Simple body motion powered the heat exchange, keeping the water in the tubes five or six degrees below the ambient temperature.

“Well, uh, we kinda didn’t activate the piss catchers,” Corporal RS admitted.

“You what?” Liege asked, her attention riveted on the corporal.

The urine reclamation unit was woven into the material of the skins trousers.  In high-temperature situations, a simple command from a Marine’s combat AI activated it, and when a Marine felt the urge, he or she just let loose into the trousers and let the unit do the rest.  This was such a situation, and Liege knew that the command had been passed.

“We, uh, most of us didn’t activate them.”

“Why the hell not?” Liege asked, getting angry.

“You know.  The piss crystals.”

When the urine was collected and run through the first reclamation step, solids in the urine were left behind.  These small flakes could be a little hard, and some people didn’t like the feel of them as they moved about.

“So you let a little itch overcome common sense? 
Filha da puta
!”

Liege was about to explode at their stupidity, but she didn’t have time for that now.  She could see the squad gathered around three prone squadmates.  She rushed up, shouldered several Marines aside, and started her assessment.  It was obvious that all three were suffering from heat stroke.  All were flushed with hot, dry skin.  All three unconscious or semi-conscious.  All three were panting with short, shallow breaths.  She didn’t need a formal scan.  She knew she had to get the three back to the battalion aid station.

“Golf-Two-Actual, I need an immediate CASEVAC, Level 1, at my pos.  Three pax,” Liege passed back to the lieutenant.

“Is that a Level 1?  Confirm.”

“Roger.  Level 1.”

“Roger that.  Sending that up now.”

Liege wasn’t surprised that the lieutenant had wanted to confirm.  A Level 1 was for life and death situations.  Either a Navy shuttle or the one of the two Storks would be dispatched, and with the current situation, that meant the Wasp had to fly cover.  That could affect any contact elsewhere in the AO.  As the platoon was not in contact, the request might have seemed odd to the lieutenant, but the call was hers to make. 

And it was the right call.  The three were victims, just as much as had they been combat WIAs.  If their temperatures were not brought down and brought down quickly, they would die.  It was as simple as that.

Liege ran a quick scan on each of the three and uploaded her readings to the aid station.  She knew they would be ready for them—if the three could get there in time.  If not, it was stasis and a hope that their brains were not too fried for a resurrection.

Liege had to give her three patients more time.  She reached over to release the sealing seam on Nica’s blouse. 

“Get their clothes off,” she said to the Marines standing over her.

Several of them knelt to follow her command.  Sergeant Quincero took off Nica’s boots, as Liege rolled her to her side to remove her blouse.  Together, they pulled off her trou.

“Whatever water you have, pour it over them, starting at the head and going to their chests.  Don’t bother with their arms and legs.”

Liege unhooked the drinking tube of her camelback and let the water pour first on Nica’s face, then she trickled the stream over her chest.  She had a liter and a half left, and all of it went over her fellow corpsman.

Liege ran her scan over Nica:  40.9 degrees.  She was still too hot.  She scanned Eddie and Beaver.  Beaver was just below the magic temp of 40 at 39.8, but Eddie was still 40.2, his heart still racing at 220.

“Is that all the water you have?” she asked.

“Yeah, we’re all dry.”

“How soon for the CASEVAC?” she passed back to the lieutenant.

“ETA eight minutes.  I’m trying to goose them.”

Eight minutes?  To fly two klicks?  What the hell’s wrong with them?
Liege wondered as panic started to take hold of her.

Nica was panting while her pulse raced back and forth between 210 and 180.  Her eyes were rolled back into her head, her skin dry and hot.  It was almost as if the water Liege had poured on her had evaporated like drops on a hot frying pan.

“I want Doc Gnish here now!” she passed.

“He’s on his way,” the calm voice of the lieutenant reached her.  “But you’re there now.  You’ve got this.”

Liege ran through the options in her mind.  She could give each of them a shot of Hemocaps, but there wasn’t enough liquid volume in them to do much good in as far as cooling them.  None of her injector recipes would help in this case either, except maybe to slow heart rates.  But the heart rates were symptoms, not causes.  She had to get them cooler.

Well, there was one thing that could help.

“Since you haven’t been using your urine collectors, you all must have full bladders.  All of you, piss on their blouses,” she ordered.

“Doc?” Sergeant Quincero asked, obviously confused.

Several of the other Marines looked to Corporal Hineman, Corporal “Know.”

He seemed to contemplate what Liege had said for a moment, then he nodded and said, “Ah, evaporation.”

He hit his zipper seal, pulled out his penis, and started to piss on Beaver’s blouse.

Liege wanted to roll her eyes, but she refrained.  She knew that the rest of his squad thought the corporal was some sort of walking google, but she was the only medical expert here, and she shouldn’t have had to get Hineman’s approval.

“Try and get the entire thing wet,” Liege said. 

Within moments, the other Marines were emptying their bladders on the clothing.

“Isn’t piss hot, though?” Sergeant Quincero asked.

“Not as hot as these three are,” Liege answered, picking up one of the blouses and waving it in the air to cool it down.  “And it will cool off pretty quick as it evaporates.”

She took the wet skins and put them on the chests of the three, continually scanning their temps.  Nica’s was still hovering dangerously high, but Beaver’s was dropping.  He started mumbling and struggling to sit up.

Doc Gnish, accompanied by three Marines, rushed into the warehouse. 

He gave a questioning look to Liege as he scanned Eddie.

“No water.  I had them piss onto the blouses.”

He nodded, then unhooked his camelback drinking tube, pouring some water onto Nica’s forehead.

“Is there anything else you can do?” Liege asked him.

“No.  You’ve done about as much as possible out here.  They need to get back and into lavage.”

As if on cue, the sound of a Stork landing told them it was time.

HM2 Gnish quickly took charge, assigning three Marines to each of the stricken.  With him on their asses, they carried each of them outside.  Liege followed in trace until they were loaded on the Stork, and the big bird lifted up and flared right to return to the camp.  Nica and the two Marines would be in the aid station within three minutes, getting the treatment they needed to save their lives.

She’d been tempted to jump on the Stork herself, but it would have served no good.  And with Nica gone, she had to remain with the platoon.  This was still a war zone, and they could be in contact at any time.

“Uh, Doc, how’re you going to report this?” Sergeant Quincero asked quietly as he came alongside her.

“What do you mean?”

“You know, about us not using the piss collectors.”

He was shifting his weight from leg to leg, anxiously waiting for her response.

Liege was pretty upset with him.  It was his job to keep his Marines safe, and letting them turn off the collectors could have killed Nica and Eddie.  But it might not have been just the urine collectors.  It was extremely hot in that warehouse, and they should never have been put in the position to work inside for two hours as they had done.  Bypassing the collectors certainly contributed to the heat stroke, but it wasn’t the only cause.

“I’m not sure, Sergeant, just what’s going to be in my report just yet.  I have to go over my treatment notes.  But right now, you are standing down.  All of you are to sit in the shade until we can get you back.  Understand?”