Hellfire (THEIRS NOT TO REASON WHY) (40 page)

That in turn meant most of the wounded here in space were being kept in space, even if it meant overcrowding the infirmaries on every surviving ship and station. Doctor Mishka had volunteered her services to the victims on the
Freely Flowing
, the station which Spyder and his cross-platoon team of forty armored soldiers had helped to defend. A few of the other medical personnel on board the
Hellfire
had volunteered as well. Aware of the good that could be done, Ia had permitted it for a while, but their time was up.

Private Fa’ala T’enku-o was the first one Ia found. Like Jesselle, Fa’ala was something of a biokinetic; the need to help the wounded was like a pressure under the skin for many of the healing-gifted. She wasn’t a xenobiokinetic, but she could still glue-stitch simple wounds, salve and bandage burns, help set and immobilize broken limbs to await the Gatsugi equivalent
of bone-setting compounds, and so forth. Beyond her, four or five makeshift beds down the hall, Private Kaori Isagawa also worked. At the moment, both of them were focused on changing dressings so that the more medically skilled Gatsugi nurses could handle their patients’ species-specific needs.

The corridor smelled of alien sweat, blood, antiseptics, and other strange chemicals. The walls were painted in soothing green and cheerful pastels. The noise of the hospital was a cacophony of the babble of aliens as the injured cried out, while the harried staff tried to soothe their many patients in between treatments.

Ia stopped next to T’enku-o first, a spot of sober colormooded grey among all the brighter hues. “Good work, soldier.”

T’enku-o blinked and looked up, apparently not expecting the Terranglo words. The predominant languages being expressed around them were variations on local Gatsugi dialects, gestures, and colormoods, though even a Human could guess the muddied browns and magentas of the patients were actually hues of pain, and basic gestures were basic gestures. Still, it took the private a few moments to shift from being a medic to being a soldier. When she did, she started again.

“Ah—sir. Captain?” T’enku-o blinked. The Gatsugi female she was tending flipped one of her lower hands in discomfort. The private returned most of her attention to the delicate task of peeling off the old bandage. Alien though they were, Gatsugi bled the same hemoglobin red as Humans, and had wound-sealing properties similar to a Human’s scab-forming platelets. “Easy, meioa, almost done…Did you need something, sir?”

“Finish with this and the next two patients, then return to the ship,” Ia ordered. “We’re leaving within half an hour.”

Her brow furrowed, but she nodded. “Understood, sir.”

“Good meioa-e,” Ia praised. Moving along, she caught up with Isagawa, who was smoothing down the self-sealing end of a clean wrap. “Good work, Isagawa. Finish two more, then join Private T’enku-o in returning to the ship.”

“We’re leaving, then?” Isagawa asked her. At Ia’s nod, she lifted her chin off to her left. “I saw Private Orange over that way a few minutes ago. You want me to find and tell him?”

“I’ll do it,” Ia said. “You have patients to attend.”

Pausing to allow another gurney to go past, Ia went in search of Privates Orange, Attevale, and Smitt. Orange and Attevale
were assisting a pair of Gatsugi nurses in setting a broken leg; the nurses watched the monitors, giving instructions in awkward Terranglo, while Orange and Attevale used their greater Human strength to pull the limb straight and realign the bones. She didn’t interrupt them, just let the pair know they were leaving soon, and moved on to find the next one.

Ia found Smitt in a storage locker not far from the surgery rooms, coordinating hasty inventory work with a Solarican warship coming into the system, since the station hospital was running low on key supplies. He was only a field medic but was adept at logistics and clerical work. More importantly, he could read and speak both Gatsugi and Solarican well enough to translate, albeit with a little help from his military arm unit and the language databanks back on the
Hellfire
.

Spotting her, he lifted a finger in acknowledgment, but continued talking into his headset in Solarican, reaching over the teardrop-shaped head of the short, pink-not-haired Gatsugi nurse working with him. Whatever-it-was slipped and fell down behind the shelving, making the alien crouch and root for it. Smitt pulled down another plexi-wrapped packet and added it to her basket, still talking in the rolling sounds of the Solarican trade tongue.

As soon as he finished his conversation, he nodded at his CO. “Captain Ia, sir. Do you need me?”

“You have about ten more minutes to wrap this up. Orange and Attevale will be in Exam Room 17 when you’re done; assist them, then head for the ship when they do. I’m here to get Doctor Mishka.”

“Good luck, sir,” he snorted. “They brought in the crew of some V’Dan merchanter an hour ago, and she took over their care. Last I saw of her, she said she was scrubbing up for surgery.”

“Then I think I’ll join her,” Ia told him. She smiled at his bewildered look. “I’m a biokinetic, too, soldier. Not strong enough to be a surgeon, but I can be her KIman. Ten minutes, Private, then grab Orange and Attevale. The doctor and I will follow shortly after.”

“Aye, sir, I’ll see you on board,” he confirmed. He offered a hand to the nurse so she could grasp it with two of hers and rise, and smiled at Ia. “I don’t suppose the ship can leave without her Captain. Good luck with the Doc.”

“Tank you/Grat-tude, meioa,” the nurse murmured, her accent in Terranglo almost too thick to be intelligible, explaining why the two had been using Solarican instead. Smitt turned his smile on her, and she blushed blue with pleasure.

Amused, Ia turned away. Some people preferred to stick strictly to their own species, while others were more open-minded. Personally, Ia didn’t care either way; what her crew did in their off-duty hours—including volunteering in an alien medical facility—was their own business. As cliché as hospital romances were, she knew it wouldn’t go anywhere anyway; neither of them would ever see each other again.

Two turns and two doorways later, Ia stepped into the sterilization hall. The ultrasonic scrubbers tingled unpleasantly as she passed between the banks of projectors, and the heat of the water at the sinks reddened her skin, but they were necessary. Emerging on the far side, she garnered wide eyes and confused-chartreuse looks from the staff. One of the nurses helpfully pointed toward a room off to the left. Ia already knew it was her goal but nodded politely to the gentlebeing in thanks for his help.

She didn’t stop at the observation window. Waving her hand over the access panel, Ia stepped inside, passing through another sterilization arch. Assisted by three Gatsugi, one of them a hesitant xenophysician, Mishka stood at the manual controls for the surgery bot, guiding its tools in cauterizing the Human patient’s internal wounds.

The male nurse with the lilac not-hair was the first to spot Ia. He lifted his upper hands. “No/No/Not supposed/authorized to be/enter here,” he asserted, though he didn’t leave his post at the anesthetics machine. “This room/place is to be/remain surgery/sterile!”

Mishka looked up briefly and scowled before returning her gaze to the control screens. “Captain, this is a restricted environment. You are compromising the safety of my patient.”

“I’m here to assist, actually. Your job, Commander, is to
stabilize
this patient,” Ia stated, moving up beside the other woman. “Not prep him for a full repair.”

“This man has internal injuries,” Mishka protested. “If I don’t finish this now, he’ll die within the week. These people have too many other patients to handle it.”

“Your job is to stabilize him, Doctor,” Ia repeated gently.
“Two days from now, the TUPSF
Granger VII
will enter the system. They have the equipment and medicines to spare. For now, cauterize the last two major bleeders, then biokinetically stabilize him and install a drain shunt in his gut.”

“I’m a little exhausted from trying to psi-stabilize our
own
crew, Captain,” Mishka retorted, guiding the microlasers to the next spot, “or I’d have done that already. And there aren’t any xenohealers on board to help. I already asked. That means I have to seal off every leaking artery, then pack his guts with regenerative gel and monitor his recovery. Gut wounds are nothing to trifle with.”

“The locals will need that gel for more Human casualties when the Salik come back in five days. I’m here to be your KIman, so you can save this one and still obey orders.”

That got Mishka to look up. She studied Ia a long moment, before returning her attention to her task. “You won’t let me bring him with us, will you?”

“Not unless you want to be drawn and quartered for Grand High Treason. We’re officially at war now, Doctor,” Ia told her. “The Admiral-General won’t allow it. Earth, Beautiful-Blue, and two dozen other worlds are right now fighting off invasions of robots, attack vehicles, and mechsuited frogtopi. If you disobey my orders, your punishments will be doubled because we’re at war…and doubled
again
because I am a duly acknowledged military precognitive. So no, I will not let you bring him on board.

“I say to you now—as a precog—that all you need to do is stabilize him so that he’ll survive for at least three days, and in two days, the
Granger VII
will be by to pick him up and finish caring for him.” Ia held out her hand. “You’ve just cauterized the last of the major bleeders in his abdomen. Encourage his body to heal what else it can, and move on. You’re a very good doctor, but a terrible triage nurse. You need to know how to prioritize. Now, take my kinetic inergy and stabilize him. I have it to spare, and you have the training to use it.”

Mishka looked between Ia and the unconscious man on the table. Nose wrinkling, she spat out a Russian word, no doubt a curse, and programmed the robot to withdraw its arms. “Get a drain shunt,” she ordered the green-tufted prep nurse, moving around the end of the console. “His guts will continue to leak despite the cauterization, and they’re much like yours;
abdominal pressure can build up and kill him. I’ll need to resterilize my hands. Doctor Nuwii, you’ll need to close up the patient once we’re done. Captain, if you’ll move up on my left, you can grab that hand—I trust you’ve been sterilized, but have you done a KI transfer before?”

“I’ve already suffered once from xenobacterial sepsis myself, Doctor,” Ia replied dryly, moving as bidden. Sharing KI wasn’t difficult for her. The hard part would be making sure her precognition didn’t trigger with the prolonged skin-on-skin contact. “I have no intention of making anyone else suffer like that, either. And yes, I have shared kinetic inergy before. Let’s get him stabilized. We have to be out of here in eight minutes or we’ll be too late to help the next batch of civilians under attack.”

Three Gatsugi officials awaited them at the airlock leading to the gantry connecting the
Freely Flowing
to the
Hellfire
. Arrayed in formal white clothes accented with blue, peach, and other hues, they bowed with supple grace as Ia and Jesselle approached.

“Captain/Officer Ia,” the shortest of the three stated, the one with the extralong lavender not-hair. “We are/represent the Collective War Council. We wish/intend to present/give/honor you/your crew with awards/medals/honorifics for your valor/courage/skill/assistance this evening/tonight.”

“I would like/be honored to accept, meioas, but my ship and crew have to go/be on our way now/immediately,” Ia told them.

“Is it not the Terran way/style to honor your soldiers/warriors?” the tallest, pink-haired alien asked.

“It is, but I won’t have time to stop by for a ceremony for three months and seventeen days, Gatsugi Standard,” she said.

The middle-sized one, the female with peach not-hair, tipped her head and studied Ia with those black mouse eyes, which could see partway into the infrared. “It is true/true, then/yes? You are she/the Prophet/the subject/person of V’Dan prophecy?”

“Yes/Yes/I am she,” Ia confirmed. Unsnapping the breast pocket of her Dress Greys jacket, she pulled out three datachips. “Here are the prophecies I can give you/reveal at this moment/point in time. They are cross-referenced/indexed under both
Terran and Gatsugi Standard time references. The first two are not vital to obey/heed; they are merely/predominantly to prove/benchmark my abilities/accuracy. Please heed/follow the rest.”

“You give/share these/this information to save/spare our people/race?” Lavender-not-hair asked her, accepting the chips.

“Some of it, yes. Some of it, no. Not everyone can be saved. Some will still die despite our best efforts,” Ia stated simply. Soberly. “I grieve in shades of grey for their loss/demise. But I am a warrior/soldier. I will save/rescue those/what I can, and avenge the rest. If you will excuse/pardon us, we have to leave/go, now. The war has only begun/started, and many other lives/sentients need vengeance/saving/our help.”

They bowed, and Ia and the doctor bowed back. Mishka stayed silent until they were halfway up the long, chilly gantry. “If you didn’t want any more medals from them, why did you wear those?”