10 Light-Years to Insanity

by C M Dancha

  The orderly hated submitting each new patient’s samples for analysis. It was an administrative nightmare which took over an hour per patient. He argued daily with his superiors about wasting the time to do individual analysis. It made no sense during an epidemic. Every sick being arriving at the medical depot had the same symptoms. The only thing that changed was the patient’s name, age, and planetary classification.

  He lost the argument each day. What he didn’t know was that the Yandan High Command used the individual analysis reports from each depot to look for beings of interest. These included criminals, revolutionaries, the kidnapped and others wanted for assorted reasons. By the time Morg and the Earthling saw a doctor and were assigned to a treatment ward, the Trifect on Yanda would know they were still alive and their location. Then it was a question of whether this news could be kept secret and used to the Trifect’s advantage.

  “I’m sorry, Officer. I was trying not to wake you.”

  Morg had nodded off again and awoke as the orderly finished his last sample extraction.

  “Yeah, no problem. What were you doing?”

  “Taking fluid and exterior membrane samples. It’s required for every new patient.”

  Morg wanted to protest but he knew it was too late. He was too tired to fight with the orderly. Plus, the depot may refuse to admit him and the kid if they didn’t have the required samples.

  “Officer, I’m done with my initial examination. As soon as there are available floatation stretchers, we’ll get you two moved into the clinic.”

  “How long will that be?”

  “Probably two to three hours, sir.”

  Morg made a snap decision. He couldn’t wait hours for a ride to the clinic. “Wait right here, doc.”

  Morg reached deep within himself and found enough energy to leave the bridge and stumble to the sleeping quarters. He yanked the kid from the gyro cot and heaved him up onto his shoulder. Thankfully, the kid was unconscious. If he had been awake, he would scream in pain due to the rough texture and sharp edges of Morg’s skeletal exterior.

  The orderly was shocked by what he saw coming toward the bridge. He heard stories about the courage and stamina of Yandan Invasion Troopers, but here was a real-life example of it. Heading his way was the Officer carrying the Earthling. The Yandan was staggering but didn't let on that the load was too much for his sickly body.

  “Let’s go. Lead the way.”

  “Huh?”

  “To the clinic. Now! My co-pilot and I aren’t waiting for a damn stretcher.”

  The hardened stare from the Yandan was enough to get the orderly moving. There was no way he was going to challenge a pissed off trooper.

  Morg and the orderly pushed their way through the crowded docking platform. There was so much activity their progress came to an abrupt halt several times. It was mass confusion caused by a lack of leadership. Yelling, screaming, and crying were coming from every direction. The smell of death hung in the air. Morg pushed aside a couple delirious patients who thought they should get off their stretchers and fight. Orderlies screamed to be heard over the commotion. Their assistants stumble-bummed their way through the crowds trying to follow orders.

  “Sister, did you see that?”

  Two Athlon mercenaries lay next to each other on a multi-body stretcher. They were sicker than some beings on the docking platform yet better than others. The illness clouded their memories of how long it had been since leaving Feltte Six. Their best guess was somewhere between one and two weeks.

  There was a third body on the stretcher with them. It was their sister mercenary who died as their ship was towed into the docking bay. Their refusal to ride on single floatation stretchers was delaying their access to the clinic. The dead were not allowed to enter the clinic. Their stretcher wasn’t going anywhere until the sister mercenary was loaded on a death stretcher and sent to the Refuse Room.

  “See what, sister?”

  “I think that was Officer Morg, the Yandan we’re looking for. Look! Do you see that Yandan carrying a human over his shoulder?”

  The mercenary who spotted Morg pointed his direction. She helped her fellow mercenary struggle to a propped-up position. “Hurry, he’s being swallowed by the crowd.”

  “I can barely see a Yandan carrying something over his shoulder. I can’t see his face. Are you sure it was Morg?”

  “It sure as hell looked like him. It makes sense he would show up here. He was on Feltte Six too.”

  “We need to follow him, sister.”

  The two remaining daughters of Crex, Stex, and Blex started screaming. “Orderly. Orderly. Get a damn orderly over here and get this corpse off our stretcher.”

  Their stamina was draining fast but the one on the outside of the stretcher had enough energy left to grab a passing orderly. “Get this body off our stretcher and push us into the clinic, now.” Having an Athlon mercenary growl orders was enough to scare the orderly into action. It didn’t matter that they were female. They were big, ugly, and mean enough to beat him to a pulp. Sixty seconds later they were wheeled in the same direction as Morg.

  24

  “Why did you execute the leaker?”

  “It seemed like the right thing to do, Lead Trifect. We couldn’t afford to lose anymore….”

  The Lead Trifect held up his hand bringing to a stop the idiotic explanation from his underling.

  “Did it ever occur to you to consult me when you found the leaker in the palace communications office?”

  “We didn’t think you wanted to be bothered with such a trivial matter. You’ve been under a lot of stress, so we didn’t want to add any more.

  “That was very considerate of you but not smart.”

  “We don’t understand, sir. Why wouldn’t you want the rat exterminated?”

  The Lead Trifect wanted to start screaming but realized it wouldn’t do any good. He was dealing with two Yandans who weren’t very clever. They were unable to think outside the box and see how a lousy situation could be used to their advantage.

  He couldn’t help keeping the sarcasm out of his response. “Was he divulging secret information for personal reasons or selling the information? Was he a lone rogue or working with others? What contacts did he have in the palace and elsewhere? Were there other things he leaked that we don’t know about?”

  The Lead Trifect was having difficulty keeping calm. He considered firing the two underlings. For a split second, he thought a firing squad might be a better remedy.

  He gritted his fangs and spit out his final remark. “You’ve blown a perfect opportunity to use this leaker to our advantage.” He looked across the table and could see that his underlings didn’t understand what he was talking about. “Gentlemen, it’s called misdirection. Once we knew who the leaker was, we could have used him to put out fake information. He was a valuable resource. You use traitors like this to your advantage before executing them.”

  The Lead Trifect closed his eyes and shook his head in disgust.

  “From this point forward, you don’t do anything unless I know about it. Do you understand?”

  The underlings lowered their heads and nodded in agreement.

  “Okay, let’s see if we can unscramble this mess. Tell me exactly what happened.”

  “Medical depot Alpha 30 sent in a medical analysis on two sick beings who arrived there ten hours ago. The analysis reports matched with Officer Morg and Earthling Joseph Conway. They have the same illness which has become an epidemic. The report came in to our traitor. He then sent out this information to a couple private comm numbers. We’re trying to establish who owns these numbers.”

  “Did you interrogate him to find out who the private comm numbers belonged to?”

  A slight smile of satisfaction crossed their faces. “Yes, we did. In fact, we tortured him, but he wouldn’t give up that information. That’s when we decided to execute him.”

  “Do you see now how your overreaction killed our chance of finding out who he was feed
ing information to? If you had laid off him, we could have fed him fake secret information. Then our tech department could have unveiled the private numbers and his accomplices.”

  The Lead Trifect let the scolding sink in before he continued. “The chance of you finding out now who belongs to the private numbers is remote, at best. I’m going to assume he sent the information to Prefect Conway. Who belongs to the second private number is anyone’s guess?”

  “What should we do Lead Trifect?”

  The Lead Trifect began walking around the room. It was the easiest way for him to solve difficult problems. He mumbled under his breath, talking, and debating with himself. It didn’t take long for him to realize his options were limited.

  “If Prefect Conway knows his son is alive then it won’t take long before the news spreads across the universe. Do you remember how fast the transport explosion news traveled? The same thing is going to happen with this. So, what can we do? We can’t get the Shooting Star 38 to Alpha 30 to pick up Morg and the Earthling because we lost it. Do we have any agents on Alpha 30 we trust?”

  “We will have to check, sir.”

  “Do that. I want an answer within the hour. I want to know who they are, their backgrounds and how long they have been in our service. If we don’t have a trusted agent on Alpha 30 then locate the nearest one who can get there within a day. Do you understand?”

  The underlings saluted and scampered off to check confidential agent profiles for Alpha 30 and nearby quadrants. After screwing up so many times they were beginning to question their competency. It seemed like every decision they made was exactly the opposite of what the Lead Trifect wanted.

  The Lead Trifect sat at the meeting table and searched for positives in this predicament. He finally stumbled on one. He now knew where Morg and the Earthling were. With a bit of luck, he could contact Officer Morg, explain the situation and set a sound plan of action.

  Maybe things weren’t as bad as he thought at first. The Earthling and Officer Morg were too sick to go anywhere, unless…unless they were taken forcibly. The Lead Trifect jumped up out of his chair. How could he have been so blind? If he knew where they were then others knew their location. The palace leaker had seen to that.

  In their sickly condition, Officer Morg and the Earthling were prime candidates for kidnapping or worse.

  Under his breath, he said, “Brothers, please don’t screw this one up.” He sat back down and waited for the return of the other two Trifect.

  25

  Eight hours later, Morg and the kid finished the doctor examination and a battery of tests. The medical staff wanted to assign them to different recovery wards. They used every excuse and reason they could think of to separate the two of them. Morg wouldn’t have any part of it. He wasn’t going to let the kid out of his sight. It was hard enough keeping track of him when he was in good health. God only knew what mischief the kid could get into being delirious.

  “Do you realize Officer Morg that Joseph Conway is sicker than you?”

  “Yes, I understand, doc. And, I’m sure you are going to tell me that if I go in his ward with other patients like him it will delay my recovery.”

  “That’s precisely what I was going to tell you because it’s the truth.”

  “I understand and hold you blameless if that happens. I can’t afford to let him out of my sight, doc.”

  The doctor gave up trying to convince the Yandan officer. He had too many other patients to see and worry about to continue arguing.

  “Okay, son. I give up. It’s your health so good luck to you. I’ve given you a double dose of serum. It’s not a cure but you should start feeling better in a day or two. From that point on, it’s up to your body. Only time will tell. You’ll either recover or die. We don’t know why some patients recover and others don’t. This is an odd illness with a mind of its own. So, good luck. Hopefully, I’ll see you around the hospital a week from now.”

  The doctor gave Morg a friendly pat on the back and walked off. He had dozens of new patients to see before his eighteen-hour shift ended. So far, he was lucky and not caught the illness. The continuous molecule scrubbers in the hospital were invaluable in preventing the disease from spreading. The doctor didn’t know who invented molecule scrubbers but wanted to meet him. He wanted to personally thank this being for saving his ass many times over.

  Morg looked at the Earthling who was in the bed next to his. The kid was out cold. Between injections, inoculations, painkillers, and other drugs, the kid might sleep for a solid week or more. At least, that’s what Morg hoped. It was a lot easier keeping an eye on a semi-comatose Earthling as opposed to one who was wide awake.

  Morg lay back and thought about closing his eyes. He needed more sleep, but something stopped him from nodding off. It was a gut feeling that someone was watching him. It had started hours before when they were assigned to the recovery room. It was the same feeling he experienced on the battlefield. A couple times he felt snipers watching him from several miles away. He couldn’t see them but knew they were out there somewhere. It was the same feeling he had now. Someone was watching, and their intention was to inflict pain, just like battlefield snipers.

  The only advantage he had was that the recovery rooms held thousands of patients. It was unlikely his enemy would attack in a sea of witnesses. The downside was that so many beings wandering around made it difficult to pick out the enemy. Even if he caught someone staring, it wasn’t proof they intended to harm him. His only hope was that the enemy wasn’t a lunatic. A suicide killer using this mob of beings as cover would be damn near impossible to stop. He couldn’t stop his eyes from closing. He fell asleep wondering if there was a private room the kid and he could move to.

  “Officer Morg. Officer wake up. Do you hear me, officer?”

  Morg’s eyes popped open as fast as a thermal missile leaving its silo. He reached out to grab the being bending over his recovery cot. He was frightened and ashamed that any unknown stranger could get this close. His internal danger alert should have resonated throughout his body and woke him up. He had every intention of breaking the intruder’s arm and disarming him. Instead, he stopped before applying any pressure to the arm.

  Looking down at him was a female Landan. At first, he thought it was Luna from Feltte Six. She had the same natural beauty. Her hair, eyes, and complexion were the same soft beige color. The only difference was that this female was older with age and stretch marks on her face and neck. She could have easily passed for Luna’s birth giver.

  She gave Morg a broad smile as she pretended to be a medical aide. She took each of the three medical analysis devices from her smock and ran them over Morg’s head, abdomen, and lower body. When she finished looking at the read-outs on each device, she pushed a couple of buttons. A concerned look crossed her face as she started talking to Morg.

  “I sure wish I knew what all this crap meant.” She put the devices aside and continued. “Officer, don’t say anything, just listen. I’m a Yandan agent. It’s not important you know my name. I’ve been sent here to get a message to you from the Lead Trifect. If you understand what I’ve said, roll your head to the left and then to the right.”

  A smile crossed the agent’s face as Morg did as she instructed. She began a hand examination of his head and chest area attempting to replicate how a real doctor would examine a patient.

  “I’m going to give you a placebo pill. As I lift your head to take a drink, I’m going to slip a recording button into your ear. On the button is a message from the Lead Trifect. To activate the button simply touch it with a hand appendage. It will continue to play the same message until you want to stop it. To stop it, touch it again with an appendage. When you get up and walk around, crush the button between your appendages and dispose of it. If you understand, roll your right eye to the left.”

  “Good. Excellent. Okay, officer, here’s the placebo.”

  Morg leaned forward and tried to lift his head like any good patient. He could barely fe
el the button entering his ear passage. There was no question the Landan had done this type of insertion before.

  “Good luck to you, officer.” The pretty aide winked and started an inspection tour of the ward as she made her way to the exit. She was lucky none of the patients asked for assistance and other aides didn’t give her a second look.

  Out of the corner of one eye, Morg watched the Landan walk away and eventually leave the ward. He didn’t want to activate the button until she was gone. He kept his mind occupied by wondering once again what a wink meant.

  “Officer Morg, this is the Lead Trifect. To confirm my identity, your commanding officer during the invasion of Goltog was Fritase and your mate is non-functioning. You have sent us one message in the ancient Yandan language used in battle. You have three offspring and they are driving us nuts trying to inherit your estate and benefits.”

  Morg was skeptical about the Trifect’s identity until he described what his offspring were up to. After hearing that, he was absolutely certain the Lead Trifect was on the button recorder.

  “Officer, I have a number of things to tell you. First, you are in extreme danger. I have reason to believe you and your cargo are kidnapping targets. It is likely that Prefect Conway from Earth will attempt to kidnap his son. There may be others looking to kidnap or kill you and your cargo. Unfortunately, I don’t know their identities. Secondly, word has gotten out that you and your cargo were not killed in the transport explosion. When you checked in at Alpha 30 your identities were flagged and sent to the Palace. Unfortunately, we had an espionage agent in the Comm Center who intercepted that information and gave it to our enemies. Also, I’m sorry to report that Commander Fritase was killed in the transport explosion. I know the two of you had a deep respect for each other.”

  Morg wasn’t sure he heard the Lead Trifect correctly. Transport explosion? Commander Fritase killed on the transport? What was the Lead Trifect talking about?