“I am sure that Raferty Hawkins and Killian O’Hare didn’t stop in at that prison and get wounded just for the hell of it. There is something there at that place.” She looked at Steiner. “When you think about it, the only thing they made sure to accomplish was the killing of the prison’s top administrators and certain guards. On top of that, the two guards we saw executed were both older than the typical guards there. So was the guard O’Hare shot and killed. That means something. They wanted certain people dead and went through a helluva lot of trouble to achieve that. Answer the question as to why those particular people were selected and then killed will go a long way to solving this matter, Fregattenkapitan Steiner. You and your team will leave immediately. Take a platoon of soldiers with you. I want fast answers before they can cover it all up.” She stared at him. “And don’t be afraid to ruffle some feathers if the mission calls for it.”
“Yes, Admiral,” he responded.
With that, the meeting adjourned.
Chapter 23
Raferty Hawkins awoke in the morning as his drugs wore off, and his upper leg started throbbing again. He ignored it as best he could as he looked around the unfamiliar room. He was confused for a second, but then the memories came tumbling over him. The prison attack, the wound, the shuttle to Nemesis, and the long trip aboard Nemesis to this place—it all came back to him in pieces. Then he remembered the overwhelming leg pain and the calm medical people measuring it with a detached air of well-trained specialists going about their work. He knew where he was now and, for the first time since his wounding, he felt that a good outcome was possible. He looked around for a method to call for a nurse or whoever else who would be on duty. As his eyes scanned his near surroundings, a nurse walked in the room.
She smiled a professional smile and talked in a cheerful voice. “Good morning. How is your leg feeling?”
“It aches.”
She gave him the professional sad face. “I’m sorry, but we can’t administer anything for the pain for now. You are scheduled for your surgery shortly. First, our team will examine your wound a second time to ensure all is well from the cleanup work and mapping done yesterday; then the surgery to replace the muscle mass you lost will begin. Unfortunately, the operation is done without a painkiller or sedative of any type. As the team connects the nerves, the only way to measure their success is if you feel more pain, and it registers on our instruments. It is not pleasant but necessary.” She went back to the professional happy face. “After a successful procedure, we will administer a painkiller to ease your discomfort, and you should be up and around very soon.”
Raferty nodded. He had not known the details of such an operation, but he did know about the “no sedative or painkillers” part. Anyone who knew anything about replacement knew about that facet and hoped it would never be necessary for them. Rafe had a more important concern right now. “Didn’t I come in with another patient?”
“Yes. She is in the next room.” The nurse pointed at the wall behind the head of the bed. “She is resting comfortably, still under a sedative. She is scheduled for her operation tomorrow as it takes longer to prepare a hand, wrist, and lower arm. She will have her pain registration and mapping this afternoon right after your surgery. Her wound cleanup was yesterday along with yours, but no mapping or pain measurement was done as her surgery is much more delicate than yours, and the mapping procedure is longer.” Rafe got the professional smile again. “Both of you will be fine. You’re at one of the best clinics on Potenka for this work, and Doctor Bergeron will personally do both operations. You couldn’t be in better hands.”
Hawkins nodded. He agreed with the last statement. He had known Bergeron for many years and had seen him work under very primitive circumstances.
The nurse departed with the remark that his surgery prep would begin shortly. Hawkins laid back in the bed. He gritted his teeth. The pain seemed to pulse, and he felt it down his right leg and as high as his hip. He chanced a look under the bed covers. He wore just a pair of blue shorts. His right thigh was encased in clean bandages tightly wrapped from knee to groin. It was probably just as well he couldn’t see the damage. He saw three square bandages on his upper right arm and another on his right shoulder. He recalled the energy pulse impact he had taken on the right side of his frontal armor just before the hit on his leg. He looked down at the right side of his chest and saw the donut sized bruise on his right breast. He remembered what happened. The hit had been on his chest armor, and the energy pulse had splashed as it failed to penetrate. The “drops” had gone in all directions and burned into his arm and shoulder. He brought his left hand up and touched under the right side of his chin. Yep, a small bandage there too. The collar of his armored vest had protected his neck but didn’t extend far enough out to protect his chin or its underside. Hawkins smiled. A small scar under his chin was an acceptable price to pay for still being alive. He would take that trade any day. He settled back in the bed. He wondered about Killian. He knew Doctor Bergeron would take excellent care of both of them. He just didn’t like being away from his ship and under the control of others. He then shook his head at his own negativity. Despite his discomfort and circumstances, this situation beats being dead. He needed to remember that.
He stared at the ceiling while counting the pulses of pain in his leg. The ache had a rhythm. It hurt like hell, but he was pleased he still had a leg. A direct hit on the center of his leg would have severed the limb. Time meandered on by as he changed things up by closing his eyes and then counting the pulses. He tried to focus on other topics. Killian came to mind again. He reviewed his memory video of her running in the open while shooting like a mad woman. His heart had stopped at the sight. She was lucky she was still alive. He was lucky she was still alive. He couldn’t imagine life without her. Of course, the possibility of violent death was always with them. It was an occupational hazard. It was one thing to be intellectually aware of the prospect and quite another to see it unfolding before you. He needed to sort this out in his mind and in his soul. Just as he was beginning the process, Doctor Pierre Bergeron came in. He was all business.
“It will be time to operate shortly,” he announced as he came to the side of the bed. He looked down at Hawkins. “You know what’s coming, so I won’t go into it. We put handrails on the operating tables. Grab and hold on.” Rafe nodded. Bergeron switched topics. “The ship that brought you wanted to know when to come back. I told them a week. This morning I talked with a man named Shelby Pope. Destiny sent him to look after you. He has a team with him, but I didn’t see them. I almost didn’t see him. He sat in the waiting room for a couple of hours before anyone said anything to him. I hope he wasn’t offended by that.”
“He’s not,” replied Hawkins. “In fact, that is what usually happens. People just overlook him as he goes about his business.” Rafe gave Bergeron a tight smile and added lightly. “For some people, that is the last mistake they ever make.”
Bergeron nodded. He knew the type of business Raferty was in and could surmise what his business associates were like. He approved of this one. “I didn’t think Destiny would send some first timer for this assignment. Anyway, he is setting up his team outside the clinic but will have his people wander through at various intervals. I said that would be fine. He gave me a comm number to call him if necessary.” Rafe nodded in response.
Bergeron and Destiny Flores had met years before as she had been a key player in getting him off Bolindale and to Potenka. She had been one of the first investors in his clinic, and the two of them had become good friends. Of course, Destiny was good friends with many people. She just worked that way.
A nurse and a floating patient table came in and lined up next to the bed. Hawkins was rolled over and moved to the table’s flat surface on his stomach. The platform reversed course and moved out of the room and through the corridors to the operating rooms. Hawkins was placed in the center of the room between two trays of instruments. The four-person operating team waited
silently for the table to be locked in place and then moved next to Hawkins. They communicated quietly as Raferty closed his eyes and reached forward and clutched the bars on the forward edge of the table provided for exactly that purpose. He accepted the offer of a mouthpiece and clenched it his teeth in preparation. The procedure took almost three hours, all spent in ever increasing pain. Raferty sweated and occasionally grunted when a particularly harsh bolt of agony hit him. The experience was worth it as Bergeron whispered in Hawkins’ ear that the replacement surgery was a complete success. Rafe nodded in reply and was given a sedative so he could blissfully slip away.
~ ~ ~
Hawkins surfaced from his personal trip to subspace and looked around his dark room. The window with opened curtains showed that it was night. There was only the outside hallway light shining under the door fighting against the blackness. Raferty wondered about the time and glanced down at his bare wrist. His wrist didn’t know what time it was. He was slightly annoyed at that as he knew he would glance at his wrist at least a dozen times more in the next few hours and, on each occasion, his wrist still wouldn’t know the time. He wanted his watch back. His eyes drifted to the small closet near the door to the bathroom. He decided to make the effort to check the contents behind the closed closet door. Hawkins threw the one blanket back, sat up, and swung his legs out. He discovered he had to move his numb right leg with his two hands to have it accompany his left leg. As he sat on the bed, he noticed the cool temperature the hospital maintained at night. He let a wave of dizziness wash over him and then recede away. He rose and stood with the majority of his weight on his good leg. He hobbled to the closet and clumsily opened the door. His personal gear was there along with a pair of hospital pajamas. He donned the pajamas over his blue shorts and bandaged thigh and then found his watch. He strapped it to his wrist and looked at the time. His watch was currently showing the time for Longwall on Bolindale. He clicked through the time zones on his watch until he arrived at the time for Aquaban, capital city of Potenka. It was just after eight o’clock local. He nodded to himself. He always felt better when he knew the time. He reached up, pulled a blanket off the closet shelf, and wrapped it around his shoulders before closing the closet door. He smiled to himself at the progress made and set off for the room next door. He hobbled along and leaned on walls as he opened the door and exited his room.
Raferty entered the dimly lit hall. He saw the nurses’ station and moved the short distance to that desk currently occupied by one nurse. She gave him a crutch, a reading tablet, and assurances that O’Hare had come through her mapping procedure very well, and her attachment was scheduled for noon tomorrow. He thanked her, moved to O’Hare’s room, and quietly entered. She was on her back in a single-sized bed with only a lone blanket and hospital pajamas keeping out the chill. He moved to her and quietly looked down at the sleeping figure. It had been a close call for her. He was glad she hadn’t run out of lives. He was also glad for himself as his life was better with her in it. She made his life more exasperating and annoying too, but he was glad all the same. It had been a close call and, usually, close calls went the other way as the universe and the Badlands were not that benevolent.
Raferty pulled a chair from the room’s corner and sat down next to O’Hare’s bed. He wrapped his blanket around his shoulders and slid each end under his thighs to hold it in place as he covered as much of his pajama-clad body as possible. It was chilly despite the blanket, but he had been cold before. Rafe suspected the low temperature was to keep patients in their beds under their covers so they would get rest and not get the urge to roam about the clinic in the middle of the night. After he had secured his blanket about him, he opened his reading tablet. He searched through a list of books until finding one he liked.
For hours Hawkins read his book aloud into the night. The only light in the room was the glow from his tablet and from under the hallway door. The only sound was his soft voice serenading the silence. No staff members visited. No sounds from outside of the room broke the rhythm. During this time, Killian O’Hare never moved. Just the slight rise and fall of her chest marked her as still among the living. Sometime after midnight, Rafe stopped reading to have some water.
“Don’t stop,” O’Hare rasped quietly. “I want to know who the murderer is.”
Hawkins took a drink and then smiled in the darkness. “Considering the story is about King Arthur on old Earth, I think you will be waiting a while on a murderer. If we take the broad view, the murderer will be Lancelot for killing Camelot.”
“I guess I must have been dreaming, and you were somehow narrating my dream.”
“As long as I’m in there somewhere, that’s the important thing,” Rafe replied as he rose on shaky legs. He steadied himself by gripping the bed’s headboard and then picked up a flask of water from a small nightstand next to the bed. He held the straw to her lips. She felt the shape, took the straw in her mouth, and had several sips. She shook her head; he withdrew the flask and set it back on the nightstand.
“Is it cold in here or am I about to die?” O’Hare’s voice was stronger after the water.
“Yes and maybe.”
“At least I should die warm. Are there any more blankets around?”
Rafe had been ready for that question. He limped toward the closet. “One in the closet and my blanket from the closet in my room which is currently around my shoulders.” Using his glowing tablet for illumination, he retrieved the second blanket from the top of the closet and spread it on top of the lone blanket currently covering O’Hare.
“What about you?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” he replied.
“Your leg patched up?”
Without thinking about it, he reached down to the bandages on his leg. “It’s all good; it aches a little, but I’ve got some fine drugs working for me. I think it was a success all around.”
“Good, very good,” she responded and then added, “Are you sleeping here?”
“I will if you want. The chair is comfortable enough, and I can get the second blanket from my room.”
“I prefer your blanket and your body next to me. We’ll both get more rest that way.” There was a slight pause, and she added, “The mapping procedure this afternoon was no fun, and I know I’m getting a new hand tomorrow. I also know it is going to hurt like hell. I want you with me now.”
Raferty nodded in the dark. The single size bed would work just fine for the two of them. He closed the cover on his reading tablet and set it on the nightstand. He then slipped his blanket from around his shoulders and spread it over her. He crawled in on her left side. He slid his right arm under the lower edge of her pillow under her neck and then he wrapped his left arm just below her damaged left arm lying across her midsection. He rested his head on the edge of the pillow with his chin snug on her shoulder. His body molded to hers. Muscle memory. She brought her right arm up from her side and her right hand grasped his left forearm just above his wrist.
“Comfortable?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied softly. “And you?”
“I’m good.”
Silence overtook them in the darkness. The only sound Raferty heard was her light breathing. He thought she was drifting off to sleep, but she surprised him with a question.
“What would we have done if it hadn’t happened?”
It was a broad question, but Raferty knew exactly what she meant. What would the two of them have done if the attack on Bolindale years ago had never occurred? Raferty had had an answer to that question for a long time, for most of his life as a matter of fact.
“I would have left the group in one year, two at most. I would have wanted you to go with me.”
“Why?”
“Because I would have needed your courage and your support. And I loved you.” She was quiet for a few seconds so he continued. “I would have wanted us to get married too.”
“Why?” She sounded interested now.
“Because I would have
wanted the security of us being bound together. And I loved you.”
“We have seen people walk out on their marriages all the time. The security is an illusion.”
“Most things are an illusion, but I would have wanted it anyway.” He paused and waited for a comment, but none was forthcoming. He had been hoping she would have committed to an answer, but she did not. Despite the fact he had not thought of this particular subject in years, and it really didn’t matter anymore, it was suddenly very important to him to know her response. He asked, “Would you have?”
She answered immediately in a firm, committed tone. “Yes, I would have gone with you, and yes, I would have married you. I loved you too.” She then added in a quiet voice. “And I never would have left you. No matter what.”
Although he wasn’t sure why, Raferty Hawkins was very happy with the answer. As he reviewed her response, he realized that this was the first time he had physically touched her in roughly sixteen years. He subconsciously tightened his grip around her midsection.
Killian responded to the tightening hold. “I did just say I would never have left you then, and I am not going to get up and leave you right now.”
Rafe answered, “I just realized this is the first time I have touched you in sixteen years, and I was enjoying the moment.”
Silence jumped in once again, and several seconds passed. For the second time, Hawkins thought she was going to sleep. Once again, he was fooled. “I’m sorry I hated you,” she said in a barely audible whisper that almost cracked.
Duty and Obligation Page 18
