Jethro Goes to War (Wandering Engineer Jethro's tale) (15 page)

“
Yeah, he
did,” Jethro growled.

“
Something I'm
missing?” the doctor said looking from one to the other.

“
Leo...”
He looked at Sergei who gave an ear flick in place of a shrug. He
cleared his throat. “Leo would kill male cubs.”

“
It wasn't
just him. His followers did as well,” Sergei growled.

“
True.”

Doc sucked in her
breath and then let it out slowly. “That... sucked.”

“
It's nature
ma'am,” Jethro said not looking at her. She looked at the
panther in confusion. “Male cats tend to kill off the kits of
rival males in the wild. He did it to prevent them from challenging
him,” he said, turning to meet her troubled gaze with his own.

“
But in doing
so he alienated the other males in the group,” the doc said
nodding.

“
Something
like that. If they knew it was happening. Unfortunately males tend to
be... accident prone.”

“
Curiosity
killed the cat?” Doc asked sounding amused and appalled.

“
Something
like that.”

“
Well, it's
over and done with now. No sense crying about it. Can't change it,
can't... Whatever,” Sergei sighed, sitting back against the
pillows.

“
Get some
rest. You are going to be on your toes and running until you drop in
next to no time.”

“
Looking
forward to it,” Sergei said amused.

“
Masochists.
Nuts,” she laughed.

“
He just wants
to blow stuff up ma'am,” Jethro said with an amused ear flick
and tight lipped smile. She laughed.

“
All right,
have fun with that. Just don't blow anything important off. I'm
not
promising to put it
back if you screw up spectacularly enough. I'll check in on you
later.” She left.

“
You okay
buddy?”

“
Just fine,”
Sergei said, reaching up and turning his reading light off. Jethro
could make out his glittering eyes in the dark. “Hunky dory as
nana says. I'm fine. Don't worry about it.”

“
Okay. Just
remember, the corps is family. You ever want to talk...”

“
I like you
Jethro, but not that much,” Sergei growled playfully. Jethro
snorted and rolled over.

...*...*...*...*...

Jethro woke and
blinked as an icon appeared on his vision. He tried to focus on the
spinning ball but it seemed to move. He stopped, rumbled a sigh and
then narrowed his gaze. After a moment a mouse pointer appeared. He
used his index finger to trace the pointer to the ball. The ball
blinked and then disappeared in a shower of fireworks. After a moment
a HUD came up.

“
Welcome
Recruit Jethro of Anvil Feline clan to the introduction to your Heads
Up Display or HUD for short. This will introduce you to some of your
simpler implants as well. As you have by now noticed using your index
finger as a mouse pointer will allow you to navigate your HUD in two
dimensions. You can also point with it when it is in three
dimensional form. Do you wish to try now?”

He blinked and then
shook his head. “Very well. Accessing secondary training
protocols,” the artificial voice said. “In order to make
this an enjoyable experience that you will more easily learn we are
going to do this as a game. Please pay attention to the basic rules.
As your skills improve we will add additional resources for you to 
learn and master. Shall we begin?”

He blinked and then
settled himself. He double tapped his index finger on yes.

“
Very well,
for now using your finger for the mouse will serve. However when you
are in a combat condition or linked into a network this may not
serve. We shall explore alternative methods of communication in a
moment. In the meantime let's explore your computer knowledge.”
A series of icons appeared on the left side of his vision. “Click
any of the icons to get started.”

He harrumphed a sigh
and closed his eyes. The icons and HUD vanished for a moment then
reappeared in his mind. He grunted and then pointed to the first icon
and double tapped.

 ...*...*...*...*...

“
Wondering
about the debrief?” Doctor Thornby's voice said in his ears.

He looked around
confused and then grimaced and closed his eyes. “Yes Commander
I was,” Jethro said. His fingers traced circles on the bed
sheets.

“
I'll be there
in a minute.”

A few minutes later
she came through, nodding to the nurse on shift and then sat on the
edge of the bed. “You are a special case.”

“
I am ma'am?”
he asked amused. He'd already known that. There weren't many
panthers, and no other panthers in the corps.

“
And you know
it,” she said slapping his thigh. “Don't deny it,”
she grimaced. “We'd planned on giving you the stealth recon
package, but unfortunately we don't have that on file. At least not
all of it. We've got the recipe for the basics though, which is what
you do have.”

“
Ah.”

“
There was a
limit on what we could tamper with. For instance your muscles and
skin. If we gave you the same upgrades the others got it would
interfere with your ability to use your chrometophores to cloak.”

He winced. “I
was worried about that ma'am. It seems to work fine though.” He
held up a hand and cloaked. She nodded hiding her anxiety. It was
more than a little freaky to see a patient disappear like that. If
the sheets and pillow weren't still tented and dented she'd have
sworn he wasn't there.

“
That's
because I held off on that and your muscles. Usually we change the
muscles to make them more efficient. We reinforce the tendons and
muscles with micro actuators and also add more nerve bundles to
improve twitch response. But in researching you I found that it would
interfere with your infrared dampening ability.”

“
Yes ma'am,”
he said decloaking.

“
It's not all
doom and gloom,” she said. She patted his leg. “We did
get you the metafactors for health and recovery. You'll heal fast,
and you can mentally control some responses you couldn't before.
You've got the packages so you can dump chemicals into your body when
needed.”

“
Yes ma'am.”

“
It's just
like your body does on it's own. These though you can control
consciously. Adrenaline, methamphetamine, and other chemicals you'll
get in the debrief.”

“
I did ma'am.”

“
All right,”
she said. She nodded. “We've reinforced your skeletal system,
but I couldn't do much for your nerves. Again the stealth thing. We
just don't know enough about it. You and another patient have the
same problem so we held off.”

“
Okay,”
he nodded wondering who the other patient was. Letanga maybe?

“
The rest is
pretty simple. Smell, hearing, and vision enhancements. Jacks to
allow you to jack in to equipment. And a wireless officer's net link.
Something Admiral Irons insisted on each of us getting.”

Jethro whistled
softly. “Officer's implants?”

“
Everyone has
them. We're growing fast, we need to push people up and we can't
afford the repeated downtime this takes.” She waved to the
clinic as he nodded. She crossed her arms and tucked her chin down.
“For some, they will be pushed before they are ready,”
she admitted. She sighed shaking her head.

“
To summarize
though, you've got most of the same package as everyone else, but
you're not as strong, and your skin is still vulnerable,” she
said. He shivered at that. To much scarring and his cloak would be
next to useless.

“
But you've
got regenerative tricks up your sleeve like everyone else, so you
should heal with minimum scarring,” she shrugged. “At
least minor and moderate wounds. Minor wounds will seal themselves in
minutes and heal in a day.”

“
Cool. But my
ancestor...”

“
Yes? What
about him?”

“
He was pretty
heavily scarred ma'am.”

“
That happens
in combat. Especially the extensive combat you marines are famous
for. If you overload your system with damage it can't keep up. Try to
keep that in mind.”

“
Yes ma'am,”
he responded, thinking. He looked over to the gunny who was coming
back from another therapy session. He had his arm in a sling.

“
I thought you
were told not to use that?” Doc asked mildly. He grimaced. The
nurse with him looked over to her.

“
He clocked it
on a bar ma'am. Bone bruise,” the nurse said dryly glancing to
the doctor. She went over to the station as the gunny sat. She came
back with an ice pack for him. “He's doing much better though
ma'am.”

The doctor nodded,
watching the gunny shift his shoulders to get comfortable. His new
hand was flexing, and the fingers were curling and uncurling. “I'd
say you're doing much better,” she nodded. She had worried that
he would have trouble getting the use of the limb back. Judging from
his finger movements that was unfounded. Now they just had to help
him work on control.

“
The sooner
I'm back on duty the better.”

“
Can't stand
hospital food?” she teased with a grin.

“
Something
like that ma'am,” he said with an ear flick.

...*...*...*...*...

They stood around,
patiently waiting for the doctor and her final assessment. “You
are all healthy and cleared.” They heard over their links. A
few looked startled. Jethro flicked his ears in amusement.

“
Disgustingly
healthy actually. So you've got no excuse not to get back into
training so you can learn to kick ass,” she smiled as she came
into the room.

“
Yes ma'am,”
Valenko said as they came to attention.

She nodded.
“Dismissed.”

The others filed
out. Jethro held back, waiting so he could be the last to leave.
“Commander. Doctor. Thank you.”

She smiled. “My
pleasure. Just repay me by not getting killed. I put a lot of time
and effort into your furry ass,” she growled. She frowned after
a second. “Or in using your implants to get court martialed.
You do and I'll rip them out. The hard way,” she warned, one
finger up. He saw the sincerity in that look.

He nodded, sober.
“Um, I was wondering, why did you... I don't know how to say
this. Why did you join up? When did you become a believer?”

“
Who said I
never was?” she said leaning back against a bed. She smiled.
“I've always been one son.”

“
But you
charged a lot here. I mean before,” he waved to indicate the
clinic.

“
And I still
do. Those that can afford premium service pay through the nose to get
it. Especially if it is elective care over required,” she
grimaced, running a hand through her hair. “Look son, there are
a lot of factors involved. I never charged as much as I did for the
money. It was to pay for the free clinics.”

“
Oh,” he
said, digesting that statement. He blinked at her. “I didn't
know that ma'am.”

“
Most people
never did associate the two. They thought I was doing it for
nefarious reasons. Or just to keep tabs on the population, or to
prevent an outbreak,” she shrugged.

“
Or to start
one,” he muttered wincing. She glared. He held up his hands
helplessly. “A rumor. Nefarious like you said. Untrue.”

“
Definitely,”
she growled, eyes flashing. “I couldn't stomach seeing rich
people be pampered while others suffered. I am after all a doctor. I
got into this to help people. Not to get rich,” she said
firmly. She laughed a little. “Double shifts six or seven days
a week, hell no. I've got no life. Nothing to spend money on if I
wanted.”

“
Ah,”
Jethro blinked. “Well ma'am, perhaps I can take you out to
lunch as a thank you sometime.”

She looked at him in
surprise and then chuckled. “Sure. It's a date. Pick the time
and place and run it past my scheduler.”

“
Right after I
graduate ma'am I'll do that,” he chuckled as she walked out.

 ...*...*...*...*...

“
It looks like
they are doing well,” the gunny said watching the squad lying
in their racks and occasionally gesturing into the air above
themselves. A few muttered to themselves. They had been released from
sickbay three days ago but were still getting into the feel of
things. There had been some incidents in training, injuries so they
were now a lot more careful about their speed and power. The heady,
giddy feeling of being a superman had been tempered. Just the way it
should be. Now they needed to temper that with responsibility.