Want (Numbered Book 1)

by Magus Tor

  He pointed her in the right direction, and Aurelia went over to check out her new charges. Lung collapse guy - Michael, she corrected herself - was doing fine, so she left him be. The other five either had serious penetrating wounds that had resisted being glued shut with a wound stick or broken bones, including a woman with a badly crushed ankle. Aurelia took her time looking everyone over and was satisfied that all was well when the senior med Worker joined her.

  He assessed all the patients, nodding as he went, until only two were left. Seeing the woman's crushed ankle, he looked up at Aurelia.

  “Fixable?” he asked her.

  “Yes,” she said. “More than fixable. The skin isn't broken, which means we can track down all the bone shards, so reconstituting the bone shouldn't be a problem.”

  The senior Worker looked unconvinced.

  “And,” Aurelia continued, hurriedly, “she's a chem Worker, so unlikely to be on her feet for long periods of time.”

  “Okay,” the man said. “Fine. Leave her to the Hospital Workers then; they'll make the final decision.”

  Aurelia let out a breath that she hadn't realised she'd been holding. The broken ankle woman was out of it and hadn't heard what had been said. She'd never have any idea that a seventeen-year-old girl had just saved her life.

  The senior med Worker moved on to the last patient, Michael. His experienced hands and eyes soon told him what had happened. He stood.

  “Alright, let the others rest; this one you can inject,” he said, pointing at Michael.

  “No.” Aurelia was as surprised as the med Worker at how defiantly her voice had come out.

  “No?” he said.

  “No,” said Aurelia again. “There's no sign of brain damage; he was conscious and coherent before I tranquilised him. His lung is functioning fine for now. There's no reason to inject.”

  The senior med Worker studied her. “Have you injected before?”

  “Once,” Aurelia said. “Under supervision. But I see no need to do it now. As long as the skull is reconstituted, he should be back to normal within a couple of weeks.”

  The med Worker looked back down at Michael, thinking. “What did you do to his lung?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Reinflated it,” said Aurelia without further explanation, keeping her fingers crossed that she wouldn't be asked to give one.

  The med Worker nodded. “Fine. I'll do rounds again in an hour, and if his condition downgrades then I'll inject him then. If not, he can stay.”

  When he was gone, Aurelia sank to the floor. She was exhausted and also confused. She wondered why she'd gone to such lengths to save a patient she didn't know. It was against everything that she'd been taught, and yet, and yet it had seemed right. The conversation she'd had with Nicholas in the shuttle bay’s viewing room lurked at the back of her mind. A deck steward came by and handed her a cup of something warm, which she accepted gratefully. Nicholas. Did he survive? she wondered. There was no way for her to find out right now, so she pushed the thought from her mind and checked on her patients once more.

  Aurelia was rewinding a bandage around the woman's broken ankle when she heard shouting come from the central column. Like the rest of the med staff, she jumped to her feet and rushed to the sounds of the cries.

  Pushing through the other workers, she recognised the voice. She forced herself to the head of the pack and entered the central column before anyone else.

  And there, as she had known, was Nicholas. But he wasn't alone. Staggering under the weight of it, Nicholas was carrying the body of an unconscious man. A man that Aurelia also recognised. Jonathon Hansen.

  Chapter Five

  Everyone knew Jonathon Hansen. His face was familiar from vid screens, his voice from speeches, his name because he was Elite. Being a Hansen meant that he was one of the top five ruling families of the Empire, but that wasn't the only reason he was famous. Barely twenty years old, Jonathon Hansen was touted to be the next president. He had graduated training at only twelve, and he had then moved on to study politics at Lunar University, the only tertiary education possible in the Empire. And he had shone. With the rare ability to speak to everyone at the same time, to reconcile those who had been thought irreconcilable, to negotiate, and most of all never, ever to say anything that he didn't mean, Jonathon was the ideal candidate.

  Politics in the Empire were, well, both complicated and simple. Aurelia had a basic understanding of the workings of government, but she was sure that things weren't quite as easy as she had been taught. In theory, each block of a city named a candidate, and one candidate from every ten blocks was chosen as a representative to the City's Assembly. Each set of ten representatives was further narrowed down to just one who would then go on to the City Council to represent the nine others in his group. The Council itself was ruled by three members, all of whom were Elite, chosen from a group of Elite candidates by the Worker Council members. This was supposed to be a compromise between a dictatorship and a democracy. The three ruling Council members were allowed to sit on the High Lunar Assembly to represent their city's interests in the capital. Finally, the High Lunar Assembly elected the President, who could choose ten cabinet members for his government, but all cabinet members also had to be Elite.

  The concept of political parties as such didn't really exist, though Aurelia was more than aware that they had existed in the past. These days it was a question of personal promises and constantly changing alliances and enmities, which was why Aurelia was sure that the political situation in Lunar was far from simple. A president reigned for a decade, at which point he would be replaced. It was technically legal for a president to be his own replacement, effectively extending his tenure for another ten years, but that had never happened.

  With the current president just months away from the end of his term, the only candidate that the Ruling Classes could so far agree on was Jonathon Hansen. And now, here he was. Aurelia switched to work mode, hurrying to Nicholas's side and taking Hansen's legs as Nicholas swung round to take his arms.

  “Over here,” said Aurelia, directing him as the rest of the med staff parted to let them through.

  They placed Hansen on the floor, next to Michael, and Aurelia immediately bent to examine him. Moments later, the senior med Worker joined her.

  They worked in consort, neither speaking.

  “Found: leg wound, concussion, responsive but unconscious, lesser injuries on right arm and right leg,” said the senior med Worker at last.

  “Concur,” said Aurelia, indicating that she had found exactly the same.

  “Nothing life threatening,” said the senior Worker, sighing with relief and sitting back. “We're going to need some security Workers in here; I'll get them. In the meantime, keep an eye on his pulse and start cleaning that leg wound out; we'll see if we can stick it.”

  Aurelia got to work. She was so engrossed in her task that she didn't notice Nicholas sit beside her until he spoke.

  “So you are really a med Worker, then?” he said with a tired smile. “You were so confused about Clones that I was starting to doubt that uniform.”

  Aurelia snorted but kept cleaning the leg wound.

  “He's going to be okay, right?” Nicholas asked.

  “Yeah, he should be fine.” Aurelia looked up and saw that Nicholas was bleeding from his cheek. “And what about you?”

  “I'll be alright. Better than most from my deck, anyway,” he said.

  “Hit hard?”

  “Deck 31 was almost destroyed. It's pretty much healing film holding the entire ship together around there,” he said.

  “How did you make it out?” asked Aurelia, wondering how he could have suffered so little damage, and letting the number 31 roll around in her head for a moment. She'd heard that number before, relatively recently, but she couldn't remember where.

  Nicholas blushed. “I was in the toilet,” he said.

  There was no time for further conversation, as the senior med Worker arrived with secur
ity.

  “Thank Gods,” said the large, gruff sec Worker, looking down at Hansen. “We thought he was dead when we didn't find him on his deck. Who found this man?”

  “I did, sir,” said Nicholas, standing up.

  “Sleeves,” said the sec Worker.

  Nicholas pulled up his sleeves and turned his wrists to show his number.

  “Very good. Where did you find him?”

  Nicholas cleared his throat and wet his lips before speaking again. “In the stairwell, sir.”

  “And why were you in the stairwell?”

  Again, Nicholas coughed a little. “My deck was destroyed. There were no other survivors. I was looking for someone, anyone, and I found him. I think he'd tried to climb the stairs and passed out, sir.”

  “Hmmm.” The security Worker nodded. “Possible, I suppose. The med Worker assures me that Mr. Hansen is going to be fine, so we'll talk to him when he wakes up and confirm your story.”

  Aurelia wondered if she was the only one who saw Nicholas's cheek twitch at this.

  “For now, stay here on the medical deck. Get that cut seen to as well.”

  The sec Worker left, and Aurelia and Nicholas were alone again.

  “Here,” said Aurelia. “Let me look at that cheek.”

  She grabbed a wound stick and a disinfection pad and got closer. She knew something wasn't right here. There was something that Nicholas either wasn't saying or was lying about, and she didn't know why. It obviously had something to do with Hansen, but what, she couldn't say.

  Nicholas drew in his breath and gritted his teeth as she cleaned his wound.

  “I thought Clones were supposed to be brave,” she chided him.

  “I thought med Workers were supposed to be gentle,” he said, grimacing.

  “Baby. It'll only take a second.”

  She went back to treating his wound. She was just sealing the cut shut with the wound stick when the senior med Worker came back.

  “All okay here?”

  Aurelia nodded.

  “And what about him? Do I need to inject or not?” He pointed at Michael.

  “He's stable, respiration normal and pulse evened out,” said Aurelia, looking the Worker in the eye.

  “Fine.” And he was gone.

  “What happened to him?” asked Nicholas.

  Sometimes, thought Aurelia, the best way to gain a confidence was to give one. She finished up Nicholas's treatment and put the wound stick down. The she sat back on the floor and quietly told the Clone the whole story about Michael. He listened, saying nothing, but lifting an eyebrow in surprise every now and again.

  “You were supposed to inject him,” he said when she was done. “Those are the rules.”

  “I know,” she agreed. “And I'm not sure why I didn't.”

  “Because,” Nicholas observed, “killing isn't as easy as you might think.” He looked around the deck where various med staff were treating patients. It was quiet enough to whisper, but not so quiet that they might be accidentally overheard.

  “Tell me, Aurelia. Does the word Resistance mean anything to you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Hmmm.”

  Nicholas looked as though he was about to say more, but the senior med Worker came through the door of the central column at that moment and clapped his hands.

  “Okay,” he announced, “everyone here is as stable as possible, and there are more wounded than we had thought. A further three decks are being cleared below for more patients. We'll be stretched for med staff as it is, so if you have someone who can be discharged upstairs, please send them now.”

  Aurelia looked at Nicholas. “You'll have to go up,” she said. “I'll clear it with the senior med Worker. He'll tell security where you are.”

  He nodded. “We shall continue this conversation, Aurelia,” he said as he got up. “You're a very interesting girl.” He gave her an intense, piercing look and then left.

  Now what was all that about? Aurelia was even more confused now, and she had spilled her secret as well. She had a feeling that Nicholas wasn't going to tell anyone, but still, she hadn't got the hoped-for secret from him in return. And this Resistance business? She wasn't an idiot; she was well aware of the historical meaning of the word resistance but had no idea how this might be important to her life right now.

  A murmuring sound shook her from her thoughts. Hansen was coming around.

  “Shhh, you're in good hands,” she said as he began to struggle slightly.

  His eyes opened, and she was shocked for a moment at how completely blue they were. And then he smiled.

  Her stomach squirming, Aurelia remembered having a slight crush on Jonathon Hansen when she was younger. That smile reminded her why.

  “You've been injured,” Aurelia told him, trying to remain professional. “But you're going to be fine.”

  Hansen grimaced as he moved his leg. “It hurts a bit,” he said, but he was still smiling.

  “Well, there was a big, gaping wound there until recently, so I'm not surprised.”

  Hansen laughed. “Med Workers with a sense of humour? That's a new one.”

  “Politicians who can laugh - that's a new one,” responded Aurelia before she could stop herself.

  But Hansen just laughed harder at this. Then he winced as he tried to move his leg again.

  “Shall I get you some pain meds, Mr. Hansen?” asked Aurelia.

  He shook his head. “I'll deal with it. And maybe you should call me Jonathon?”

  “And why's that?”

  “Because all my friends do. And I'm pretty sure that once you've had your hands inside someone's gaping wound, as you so delicately put it, then you're bound to become friends.”

  Aurelia smiled and introduced herself. She then explained to Jonathon as best she could what had happened. He simply nodded at the news, as though there was no mystery in why a space shuttle should be attacked randomly for the first time in Aurelia's memory.

  “When will we make it back to Lunar?” was all he asked.

  “Er, they said about ten hours or so, last I heard,” Aurelia said.

  Jonathon nodded again. “And what shall we do to pass that time, then?” His teasing smile was back.

  “You've got some minor wounds that could use cleaning,” said Aurelia.

  “You're so romantic. Alright, let's do it. It'll be almost a date.”

  Aurelia laughed again. “Flirt,” she said and grabbed the first aid box.

  Her hands were gentler this time, and several times her fingers brushed the warmth of his skin. She tried hard not to hurt him, and she tried hard not to notice how warm his skin was. For the sake of the Gods, this was Jonathon Hansen, possible future president, she reminded herself. Having dirty thoughts about a Clone was bad enough, but having them about the future world leader was worse. Although, actually, she wasn't sure if he would be.

  For the next few minutes, she forced herself to concentrate solely on doing her job. When she was done, she knelt next to him.

  “All good,” she said.

  “Tell me, Aurelia,” he began, and for a second she was reminded of Nicholas’s saying those exact words a few minutes ago. “What are your plans?”

  He sounded truly interested, so she told him about her posting, adding that she wanted to be a great med Worker to help people. “And what are yours?” she asked, not really expecting an answer.

  “To be a great leader, so that I can help people,” he said, catching her eye and smiling.

  His eyes were starting to blur. “You need rest,” Aurelia said. “Shall I give you something to help you sleep?”

  “No,” he responded. “I think I can sleep unaided right now. Will you be here when I wake up?”

  He sounded so much like a small child that Aurelia stroked his forehead before she realised what she was doing.

  “I will,” she promised.

  As more patients were sent to the lower hospital decks, Aurelia found her patient load doubled and t
hen tripled as med staff were moved out to deal with others. There was no chance to rest, though she was reaching the point of exhaustion. She had no idea what time it was, but it must be long after midnight, Earth time. She yawned and stretched as she got up to move to her next patient.

  As she walked around the deck, she heard two men talking quietly. Looking over, she could see the green of security uniforms. The word “attack” caught her attention, and she bent over, pretending to examine the patient closest to her as she eavesdropped on the conversation.

  “I'm telling you, I heard it from Collins, so it must be true,” said the first man.

  “Bullshit,” said the second.

  “No,” the first protested. “He was first to respond to the flight deck, he heard the transmission come straight from Lunar, and it specifically said that the ship was under attack because Hansen was on board. You saw the guy come in; he's here. It's got to be true.”

  Aurelia frowned and straightened a bandage, lifting the patient's wrist with her other hand to take a pulse.

  The ship was attacked because Hansen was on it. But why? That didn't make any sense. Who wanted Jonathon dead? He wasn't even president yet. The two men were still speaking, so she moved a patient closer to hear better.

  “Then there was a security breach; you heard the alarm,” said the first man.

  “So?”

  “So, someone was moving around the ship who wasn't supposed to be.”

  “Coincidence,” the second man said.

  “Maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe someone here knew about the attack before it happened - that's all I'm saying.”

  “And you can't prove any of that, so you'd better zip it,” the second guy told him. “Loose lips sink ships and all that. If I were you, I'd keep your suspicions to yourself.”

  Security breach. That was it. Aurelia remembered being up on the flight deck. The first thing that had happened was a security breach on deck 31; the co-pilot had specifically mentioned it. And that was why the number had rung a bell when Nicholas had said it. He had been on deck 31. Aurelia pondered this as she took yet another pulse. So many pieces, and so hard to fit together. It was like doing a jigsaw puzzle with no edge pieces and half the middle missing. But she had one more clue. Now she needed to figure out whether Nicholas was the source of the security breach, or whether he'd seen who was.