System Harbinger : Legacy Earth 5, page 28
“I’ve never seen anything like it.” She shook her head and crossed her arms.
“Amber agreed to help him,” Lance said as he embraced Valdivia, trying to comfort the stressed Jarog. “We just need to get him to Sol space, and she’ll be able to treat him.”
A sour emotion Lance had never felt before flowed from Valdivia as she remained silent. It sent chills down his spine and left a bad taste in the soldier’s mouth. He took a deep breath, stepped away from Val, and took her by the shoulders while looking straight into her face plate.
“I know, but she’s discreet, the best at what she does, and unless we bring him to a SOAT or Alcazar facility…”
“We can’t do that,” Valdivia replied. “He’ll lose everything.”
“Then Amber is his next best bet. She already has a scan of his brain before the incident. I have complete confidence that she’ll be able to bring him back.”
“You promise?” she asked.
Doubt crept into the back of his mind. He concentrated to keep it in check so she wouldn’t sense it. Nodding, he let Valdivia go and stepped away.
“If there’s a fix, she’ll find it.”
“I’m choosing to believe that, because it’s coming from you.”
“I need to look into something. Do you want to come to my cabin while I do?”
“If I can play more chess with you,” she replied.
“I’m good with that.”
Together they made their way to his quarters. Once they entered, she sat on his couch and turned on the chess board. Lance stripped out of his armor. Looking at his multi-tool, he ran diagnostics on his armor focused on his sheath.
“Are you going to come play with me?” Val asked, looking over her shoulder at him.
Leaning against his desk, he nodded while flashing her a smile.
“I’ll be there in a second. I need to check this equipment malfunction first,” Lance replied. “Why don’t you play on the computer? By the time you’re finished, I’ll be done.”
She shrugged as pieces flickered to life on both sides. The opposing pawn slid on its own first. Lance turned his attention back to his multi-tool. The initial diagnostic came back. No malfunctions of the armor over the last several days. Lance lessened the time over the last twenty-four hours; maybe the wide parameter missed something small. Again nothing. Lance leaned over to the computer on his desk and made it so the ship’s systems could hear him again.
“Computer, I need you to run a secondary check on my armor. I had an enemy pull a weapon off me in combat. I need to know how it happened,” Lance ordered.
“Affirmative, integrating and running diagnostics now,” the ship announced.
Lance’s desk pulsed with a blue light for several seconds before it faded. The ship let out two beeps.
“All biometric defensive locks active, no history of malfunction in armor,” the ship confirmed.
“What’s the likelihood of a miscalculation?” Lance asked pushing off the desk.
“Less than zero point zero, zero one percent… would you like me to run again?”
“Yes,” Lance said as he sat down across from Valdivia. “Run it again.”
THIRTY-FIVE
CHECKUP
Bullets whistled as they flew past Lance’s head. He dove for the closest thing to cover he could find. A pile of the broken S4 armor of dozens of soldiers. Terror gripped him as he scrambled toward a nearby wood. Mud smeared all over his fatigues.
Bullet impacts cracked around him causing flecks of wood to splinter in all directions. Raising his hands to shield his face, the SOAT operative slid under a fallen tree. Turning his attention to his multi-tool, he attempted to call for help. It was gone.
Feeling over his body frantically, he couldn’t find a weapon. Looking around the rain-soaked ground, he found a sturdy stick. Lance ran deeper into the ever-thickening trees. With each step, things grew darker.
Heavy footsteps of his pursuer splattered as they gradually grew louder behind him. Lance found a small hill covered in moss. He clambered up it, using the non-muddy surface to disguise his tracks. Faking left, he went right and hid.
Gripping the stick tightly Lance felt its bark dig into his hands. Its knots sliced through skin as it splintered under his grip, causing them to bleed. The forest around him warped into a clearing. He was behind the only tree in a hundred feet.
Looking down at his hands, he saw they were doused in blood. No wounds from the stick were visible any longer. Clicking of a magazine change filled the clearing. Lance’s heart pounded, adrenaline surged through his body, and his stomach ached as he investigated the darkness of the tree line for a plan.
Nothing came to mind. For once, no idea of escape, fight, or negotiation revealed itself to him. To his horror, dozens more men in black armor emerged from the forest, their guns trained on Lance.
“You may as well step out,” a familiar voice called from his pursuer.
Lance emerged from behind the tree to see the man bent on killing him with his weapon lowered. The SOAT noticed all the others closed in around him. If one got close enough, maybe, just maybe he could grab the gun and make a break for it.
“Don’t even think about it,” the man in black sneered. “Even with one, you wouldn’t make it to cover.”
“If you’re going to kill me, just get it over with,” Lance snarled, clenching his fist as he planned his next ten steps.
“Isn’t suicide a capital sin?” the man in black asked.
He tilted his head to the left. His helmet retracted. Lance let out a gasp of disbelief. His muscles tightened. Planting his feet, he prepared to fight the man before him. The man with his face.
“You can’t beat him, Lance,” a soft woman’s voice cut through the dark.
The fight instantly left the soldier as Amber emerged from the woods. She wore a crisp, clean, white flowing dress that contrasted starkly against her dark surroundings. Her hair was meticulously tended to unlike she’d ever had it before.
Pushing past the visage of Lance, Amber approached him. She gently ran her fingertips over the side of his face. It sent a cold chill down his spine of both fear and desire. She looked into his eyes and cracked her caring smile. Her eyes flickered from the warm, kind pools that he was used to, into a cold, cruel blue.
Amber grabbed the back of Lance’s head and gave him a deep, passionate kiss. She pulled him close to her, the sweet taste of her lips sending endorphins he hadn’t felt in a long time rushing throughout him. He leaned into her, gently cupping her face in his hands as he returned her kiss.
The doctor broke away after several seconds. She looked up at him, her eyes just as blue as his. A shy smile spread across her face as she looked down for a moment. Returning her gaze to him, her warm, kind features shifted to anger.
“You’ll get them all killed, their blood will be on your hands!” she snarled. “There’s only one way to save them!”
Three flashes erupted from between them. Three points of heat burned within his stomach. Lance’s legs weakened as he staggered back. Looking down, he saw there were three bullet holes in his stomach where the Veles operatives shot him on the Manifest Destiny.
Dropping to his knees, his vision blurred as Amber stepped back and wrapped her arm around the armored man with his face. Lance’s strength drained from him. He fell into the mud as the world around him faded to black.
“It’s the only way, Lance. Give in to it!” Amber goaded.
As everything went dark, Lance’s eyes shot open. His chest burned as he struggled for air. Grabbing the sheets of his bed, his cabin spun around him. Fear and panic enveloped him as he struggled to hold focus.
He attempted to take a breath; he was unable to. It was like someone knelt on his chest and squeezed his throat. Pushing off his bed, the soldier sat up. With his lack of balance, he fell to the cold floor, smacking the side of his face against the metal.
Drenched in sweat, the cold sent a shock through his system. His airways opened. Taking a deep breath caused his oxygen deprived lungs to burn. Rolling over to his side, Lance’s body convulsed as he involuntarily coughed while trying to meet equilibrium.
After several moments of orienting himself, the soldier rolled onto his back, splayed out on his floor. Its cold nature brought an odd peace to his overheated skin. It was refreshing. His stomach, where he’d been shot, ached as if he’d been hit again. Feeling around, there was no blood.
With no energy, he just lay there for a while. Concentrating on his breathing, Lance was able to get his heart rate back to normal. Once his extremities stopped tingling from his surge of adrenaline, he rolled over and got himself back to his feet. A knock rattled through his cabin door.
“Captain, is everything okay, sir?” the ship’s human doctor called out from the other side.
“Give me a second,” Lance replied as he grabbed a pair of gray sweatpants and put them on.
Walking to the door, he pressed the button to open it.
“Sir, I got a notification that your…” The doctor trailed off as he noticed how sweaty Lance was.
He peered at the empty bed; a look of concern overtook the physician’s expression.
“Are you okay, sir? The ship warned me you were in cardiac distress.”
“I’m fine,” Lance replied with a nod. “Just a really intense dream.”
“I’m glad to see you’re okay, sir. Protocol, however, does dictate that if I’m summoned to a cabin, I have to conduct a physical just to make sure everything’s alright. May I come in?”
“I’m assuming if I say no, you’re going to pull the ‘doctor outranks everyone when it comes to health,’ aren’t you?”
“If I have to, sir.”
“Fine,” Lance relented, stepping to the side and motioning into his cabin. “Come on in.”
The doctor entered, motioning to Lance’s couch. He obliged and sat down before leaning back and looking at the sweat-soaked sheets of his bed.
“I don’t think I’ve asked your name yet,” Lance said, looking at the doctor. “Sorry about that.”
“No need, you’re a busy man, I get it. I’m Dr. Crestbow,” he replied as he pulled several sticky tabs off his data pad. “Do you mind telling me what it was you were dreaming about?”
Lance looked up at the doctor as the monitoring tabs were put on him. He bit the inside of his cheek before shaking his head.
“I can’t remember,” he lied. “I just remember waking up.”
“Mind telling me what presented when you woke up?”
“It felt like I’d just run a marathon,” Lance replied while Dr. Crestbow looked at the readings on his data pad. “My throat was tightened up, I could barely breathe. Peripheral muscle tingling from adrenaline comedown and obviously a lot of sweat.”
“Is that all? Any blurred vision, muscle fatigue, headache?”
“Of course, all of those, blurred vision likely because of the way I woke up, muscle fatigue because of the post adrenaline surge and headache, likely from the high blood pressure of the entire situation.”
“You know how to follow back symptoms.” The doctor chuckled with a shake of his head. “Not a whole lot of my patients do that.”
“If you have a bullet wound in the field, you don’t treat the hole; you treat the bleeding as deep as you can. Same with when you don’t feel well. What is it you guys call it? Differential diagnosis?”
“Yes, that is what us guys call it,” Crestbow replied with a chuckle before motioning toward the office chair. “Do you mind if I take a seat?”
“By all means,” Lance replied.
The doctor slid into the chair. He continued to look at his pad. Tapping his chin, he swiped several times on his screen.
“What’s wrong, doc?”
“Oddly, nothing.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
“Yes and no. If the ship was reporting you in cardiac distress, then I’d expect to see elevated heartrate…”
“Trust me, doc, it’s elevated.”
“Yes, but not nearly as much as I’d expect. Your blood pressure is normal and there’s nothing that would indicate something was going on internally.”
“I have had S4 enhancements.”
“Those make you to be in peak human condition, not superhuman. I’d still be able to see residual elevated levels… I’m not seeing that.”
“What are you telling me?” Lance asked, leaning back on the couch.
“From everything that I’m looking at, I’d say your experience was psychosomatic. I’m not discounting it wasn’t real—something clearly did happen—but from a medical standpoint, I’m not seeing any evidence to suggest a serious physical response.”
Lance leaned forward; he sat his heart rate spike on the pad. Raising an eyebrow, he flicked his thumbs.
“I know you’re not telling me what I think you are.”
“Nothing in a psychiatric capacity yet. But I would like to observe you, watch your field mission recordings just to ensure we never get to that point.”
The doctor picked up his tablet and crossed his legs before leaning back in the chair.
“If you ask me, I think we overcorrected,” Crestbow confessed. “We got to accepting of things like PTSD to the point where people who needed quality care were getting quantity treatment with meds shoved down their throats… that’s what led to the incident on the black mesa. Now we’ve regressed back to where we were over six hundred years ago.”
Dr. Crestbow leaned forward and turned on the chess board. The pieces flickered to life. He grabbed the knight and moved it past his front line. Lance leaned forward and moved one of his pawns.
“Anyone shows the slightest sign of psychological trauma… you’re a soldier; I’d be more worried about you if that was the case,” he said, moving his other knight out into the field. “They get discharged and blacklisted, which is not okay. I’d prefer to observe and assist in helping you to adjust to any issues as they come up before the world crumbles around you, so to speak.”
Lance released his rook, watching the doctor’s eyes as he thought through his next few moves.
“You’re not a shrink, doc.”
“Actually, I am,” he countered. “Fully licensed psychiatrist. But when you’re given the opportunity to go into deep space, you take it, even if it’s in your other field of expertise.”
Lance slid his queen out onto the board, taking one of his knights. The doctor countered by moving a pawn into position to take his queen.
“Computer, turn lights in my cabin to ultraviolet.”
At Lance’s command, the lights shifted. He inspected Crestbow’s exposed skin. No signs of the Veles mark.
“Thank you, computer.” The lighting shifted back to normal.
“What was that?” the doctor asked, moving a piece.
“Nothing important,” Lance countered, both verbally and on the board. “How do I know you don’t have allegiances to the Alcazar or Sol military command?”
“Check my file. You’ll see I was a civilian physician who ran a small, affordable practice with no ties to any government agency and would be pulled into local hospitals in mass casualty situations.”
“Then how’d you end up landing a job on the Gladius?”
“My trauma mortality rate with complications was less than two percent. One of the lowest in the solar system.”
“And what about the ones who were lower?”
“They’re on places like the Manifest Destiny and Pericus Observatory Station. They didn’t want to give up a cushy posting for one that’ll take them to the fringes of the galaxy.”
Both men moved their pieces several times. The doctor sighed and shook his head as he uncrossed his legs and stood up.
“It’s probably a good thing too because a nightmare that large would’ve gotten you reported by anyone else,” Crestbow said.
Leaning over Lance, he pulled the sensors off the soldier’s chest and placed them back on his data pad before tucking it under his arm.
“Judging by the way our game is going, you’ll have me in checkmate in four moves. I want you to keep in touch with me. If you’re feeling on edge or like you need to talk, my office is open. Also, Mattias is stable. He’s resting and should be right as rain by the time we get home.”
“It’s actually three moves,” Lance corrected as he nodded to the doctor’s offer. “Thank you for the offer and update.”
He stood up and escorted the doctor out of his cabin. As the door shut behind him, Lance walked over to his bed and stripped the soaked sheets away. Putting them in the dirty hamper, he got some fresh sheets and remade his bed. Retrieving his boxing championship coin, he conducted a bounce test on the sheets. It passed.
“Computer… unless I’m actually dying, do not call for assistance again,” Lance ordered. “In fact, don’t listen into this room unless I’m holding the microphone button down on one of the control panels in here.”
“Affirmative,” the computer replied before going silent.
THIRTY-SIX
THERAPY
Lance had several less than restful nights on the ship. He found himself strolling the corridors to fill his time while the rest of the crew slept. As he passed Kolar’s cabin, he heard soft muttering coming from the other side of the door.
After he tapped the command to open the doors, they hissed as they obeyed. Kolar leaned over several data pads all slowly scrolling through what looked like articles on Jarog physiology, based on diagrams he caught glimpses of.
“No, no, that wouldn’t work, it’d probably just make everything worse,” Kolar muttered as he stroked his crest.
“What are you doing?” Lance asked as he leaned against the bulkhead.
“I’m boning up on my Jarog physiology,” Kolar replied, not looking up from his pads. “It’s been a while, so I thought I’d refresh what I’ve learned.”
“Are you trying to help Chadavia?” Lance probed, stepping into the room.
“He’s a bit of a pain in the butt, but he’s a good guy. I don’t like seeing him all debilitated and broken. It’s just depressing.”
