The Battle of Hollow Jimmy

by Becky Black

  "We… We didn't ask," Lon said, voice quiet, but protesting. "Someone called her and she showed up."

  "It would have been worse if she hadn't," Anishk said. "We'd have lost both patients."

  "Worse?" Bara said, voice still calm to her own surprise. "Your waiting room is empty. Meanwhile Sheni could double her prices and people would still go back to her rather than come here. Now explain to me, Doctor, how the fuck it could possibly be worse!"

  They both shrank back from the yell.

  "You're supposed to be doctors aren't you? What the hell is the matter with you? Women have babies every damn day on this station. It's like a fucking nursery."

  "The complications were severe," Anishk said and seemed to rally, holding her chin up now. Some of the old ‘I'm a doctor, you may grovel before me' arrogance showed up.

  Lon spoke, pleading. "Even Sheni said she hadn't dealt with such a difficult case in years. And, ma'am, I'm sorry, but neither of us have the experience of obstetrics, that's all. We're trauma specialists."

  "Oh believe me, you'll be trauma specialists for sure if you don't fix this. You'll know everything there is to know about trauma."

  Not enough fear now from Anishk. Some, but plenty of anger and even contempt too. This is bad. This is bad.

  "Fix it how?" Anishk asked, not backing down. "After that newspaper story I can't see why anyone would come back to this clinic again."

  Bara looked down at the paper in her hands, crumpled, torn, stained with the sweat from her hands now. My hands are sweating? That's what this has brought me to? The story. The damn newspaper story.

  "You will think of something," Bara said. "You are meant to be the oh-so-brilliant young doctors." She turned away and marched from the room, her bodyguards following.

  "Where now ma'am?" One of the bodyguards asked.

  She gripped the Chronicle harder.

  "The newspaper office."

  ~o~

  As soon as the door closed behind Bara, Lon sank into one of the waiting room chairs and put his head in his hands. He could hear Anishk slamming around, but didn't want to look up at her.

  He'd thought he would never again experience the fear he'd felt yesterday, at the moment Sheni first held the unmoving, silent, baby and Lon knew it must be dead. But she'd laid the boy on the bed, started CPR, and given him drugs. And the first weak cry brought Lon to tears he couldn't control.

  So how could he be that scared again? He knew how. They almost lost two lives yesterday. Now his life and Anishk's were on the line. Bara was capable of anything. He saw it in her eyes. Normally he would diagnose mental illness with a checklist of symptoms, but sometimes it just yelled at you from their eyes and you knew. You'd have to decide what to classify it under at some point, but it all came down to the same thing. Barking at the moon, batshit fucking crazy.

  "Lon. Look at me."

  He looked up. Anishk stood in front of him with her jacket on and her doctor's bag in her hand.

  "I'm going. Back to Sheni if she'll have me."

  "Ani…" He shook his head. "Ani, you can't. Bara will kill you."

  "She can try. But I won't go through anything like yesterday again. We should have called for Sheni ourselves. We let our fear of Bara interfere with our clinical judgement. We screwed up bad."

  "I know."

  "Come with me."

  He wanted to, he really did. But he didn't have her courage.

  "Someone has to keep this place going."

  "For what? You think there'll be any patients?"

  "There were a few this morning."

  Anishk snorted. She put her case down, and then strode over to a desk with some printouts on it.

  "These are the patients I've had this morning."

  One by one, she held up the printouts before screwing them up and tossing them over her shoulder, with each one she said the same words over and over.

  "Drug seeking. Drug seeking. Drug seeking. Oh, wait, this one was different. He also wanted to sell us a blood donation." She tossed that last balled up printout at Lon and he stood up as it bounced off his chest.

  "Please, Ani."

  "She threatened us! She stood there and threatened us with violence. Can't you see now what she is? She didn't set up this clinic for the sake of charity. It's part of her game, part of her war. This isn't a medical facility, it's a… a… military position. And I'm deserting."

  She grabbed her case again and turned to go.

  "Ani, can't you see that she'll carry out that threat if you turn against her? Didn't you see that? That she's crazy."

  "You know what I saw?" Anishk turned back to look at him. "I saw fear. Under the rage and the insanity, I saw terror of what she can't control. She doesn't know how to deal with what she can't control, so all she can do is kill it. And I'm not waiting around for her to kill us."

  ~o~

  I really should have invested in that lock.

  Chervaz stood up as Bara and her men rounded the top of the staircase. She looked terrible, her face pale and gaunt, eyes sunken. Her moving hands caught his attention. Scraps of torn paper clutched in them, until she opened her hands and let the paper fall to the floor. A glance told him it was the remains of today's Chronicle.

  "Mr Chervaz." Her voice was a hiss, through her teeth, fighting for control, for calm.

  I'm going to die. The certainty came to him, as he looked at the two bodyguards behind her. They didn't look terrible, except in the sense that they induced terror. No, they looked healthy and strong and as if they were looking forward to doing a thorough job today.

  "What can I do for you, Captain?" He kept his voice level, calm. It felt like facing a vicious animal. As soon as he showed fear, she'd go for his throat.

  "I wanted to talk about the story in your paper, about what happened at the free clinic yesterday. I want to know why you would write such a biased story."

  "I don't believe it's biased. I reported the facts. All of the quotes were accurate. If there are any factual errors, I'll be happy to print a correction. If there are additional facts that I'm not currently aware of, I'll report on those too."

  "Do you think I'm a fool, Mr Chervaz?"

  Fool wasn't a word he'd thought of in relation to her. Several others that he wouldn't say to her face, but not ‘fool'.

  "No, ma'am, I do not."

  "Then why do you ask me to believe you are a neutral party in all this?"

  All this? Was she standing there admitting to him that she was engineering conflict on the station? Did it matter, since he'd never get the chance to tell anyone?

  "Captain, since you opened the free clinic, every edition of the Chronicle has included the opening times, the services available and a note that everyone is entitled to free treatment there." This seemed an odd way to beg for his life.

  She sighed and some of the intensity dulled out of her eyes. She shook her head. "I'm sorry, Mr Chervaz. It's just that I feel so strongly that humans are getting a poor deal on this station. Your paper doesn't seem to reflect that."

  "With respect, this poor deal you allege is your opinion."

  "Not only mine, many people agree with me."

  "I'd be happy to speak to anyone who has evidence of it."

  "Perhaps they don't feel they can come to you. That you wouldn't give them a sympathetic hearing."

  "I'd give them an objective hearing," Chervaz said.

  "Ah, objectivity." She leaned against the back of a chair, hands tight on it.

  Chervaz realised his own hands were gripping his desk, as if hanging on to a rock in a swirling river. If he let go of the desk, he wouldn't be able to keep himself from backing away towards the wall, like a coward. If he did die today, he could at least die like a soldier.

  "You're so proud of your objectivity," she said. "You think it's a virtue. Have you considered that it could be a vice? You're human, Mr Chervaz. You print your paper for the humans who live here. Don't you think it's time you and your paper were a little more pro-hu
man?"

  "Pro-human? Or pro-Bara?"

  Oh nice move, poke the lioness with a stick. Serve him bloody well right, Jaff would say. He rushed on, trying to erase what he'd just said. But he doubted she'd forget.

  "I'm pro-truth, Captain. I have a duty to the truth. If I let my reports be biased towards anyone then I am nothing but a mouthpiece."

  She shook her head. "I didn't realise that you were quite so vain. The champion of truth? You print a news sheet that sells for pennies and has more commercials than news stories." She ground the scraps of paper on the floor with her heel. "Pathetic. Meaningless. Tomorrow, people will be using your paper to wipe their backsides."

  Chervaz didn't answer this time. No point. Once you got to the insults, the conversation had lost any meaning. And she was only posturing anyway. If the Chronicle was so meaningless then she wouldn't be here. As for people wiping their backsides with it. Well so long as they read it today, Chervaz didn't care what they did with it tomorrow.

  Perhaps she decided she liked that as a good exit line. She turned away and strode to the top of the stairs. He sighed with relief thinking he had escaped death today after all, but then froze, when she stopped, and spoke to her bodyguards. Before she moved on down the stairs, Chervaz heard her quiet order to them.

  "Make certain you break his hands."

  Chapter 24

  Maiga ran into Sheni's clinic. Before she could speak, the clerk pointed. Maiga ran through into the treatment areas and almost fell over Jaff, who paced up and down outside the doors that read ‘Surgery. Authorised personnel only."

  Damn meeting turns into being taken out to lunch and listening to a lot of banter between Wixa and the sellers and, because it's only polite, she'd turned off her Snapper. When she'd turned it on again, she'd found the messages, a dozen of them, one after another. She'd run. Wixa followed her, but soon fell behind. Maiga didn't wait.

  "What's happening?" she asked Jaff.

  "Sheni's got him in surgery," Jaff said, his voice choked and tight. "Nurse said it looked bad."

  "She did it, didn't she? Bara. She did this."

  Jaff nodded. "Bitch was seen in the area. Someone saw her come out of the office apparently."

  "I'll kill her."

  The words snapped out and amazed her with their ferocity.

  "Get in line." Jaff's voice was fierce too. A snarl. "Cowardly bitch has run off though. Trebuchet took off out of here an hour ago." He shook his head. "Cowards. Fucking cowards."

  A sound behind her made Maiga glance around to see Wixa arriving, panting and sweating. She leaned on the wall.

  "I have gotta sit down," Wixa panted. "Or throw up. That's an option."

  "You didn't have to try to keep up." Maiga turned away again. "How long has he been in there?"

  The door opened before Jaff could answer and Sheni came out, accompanied by Anishk. Maiga frowned. What was she doing here? Did Sheni ask for assistance? Jaff and Maiga at once crowded the doctors, wanting answers.

  "He will be fine," Sheni said, pulling a white cap off her head, and scratching a hand though her thin hair. "It was a bad beating; he had internal injuries and several broken bones, but he will be fine. We've stopped all the internal bleeding and set the bones. The regeneration therapy will do the rest." She passed a hand over her face and sighed. "The biggest problem was his hands. They were smashed, very deliberately, very thoroughly."

  Jaff made a low growling sound in his throat, then turned away and raised a fist at the wall. Maiga closed her eyes and waited for the crunch. And in the darkness, she heard Chervaz scream as the bastards smashed his fingers. One by one? Or with a couple of stamps of a boot?

  I will kill her.

  "Young man, I don't want to have to operate on your hand too."

  Sheni's quiet admonition must have made Jaff think twice about pounding his fist into the wall. No crunching sound came and Maiga opened her eyes.

  "We have repaired them as best we can." Sheni gestured at Anishk as she said ‘we'. "The bones will heal, but the worry is nerve damage. We've done what we can there and now we can only trust the regeneration therapy to finish the repairs."

  "Thank you," Maiga said, her voice calm now. Jaff though still jerked and twitched, full of pent up rage and Maiga smiled to see it. Because she had started to formulate a plan to use that anger.

  Wixa moved past her with a chair and Sheni sank into it gratefully. For the first time Maiga noticed how tired she looked. She'd already had a busy day and then several hours of surgery. She must be ready to drop.

  "You need rest, Doctor," Anishk said, putting a hand on Sheni's shoulder. "I'll monitor him overnight."

  "Thank you, my dear." Sheni took Anishk's hand for a moment, gave it a grateful squeeze. Maiga recalled her question from earlier.

  "What are you doing here?"

  Anishk frowned at the blunt question, but looked defiant. "I've come back to work for Dr Sheni again."

  "She was invaluable here today," Sheni said.

  "Returning a favour. And I am a trauma specialist." Anishk smiled at some private joke perhaps.

  Maiga smiled too. Cross one more off Bara's list of allies. Right, the doctors would take care of Chervaz. She had something else to take care of.

  "You." She grabbed Jaff's arm and pulled him away. "You're with me. Wixa…" She considered for a second. Wixa might be tougher than she looked, but Maiga didn't want her getting hurt. "Stay here."

  "No chance!" Wixa protested, following them out into the waiting area. "Vaz is my friend too."

  "Wixa, I want someone on guard here that I know I can rely on."

  Wixa stopped. A determined look appeared on her face, and she nodded.

  "Then you've got her."

  "Thank you." Maiga and Jaff strode out of the room.

  "Where are we going?" Jaff asked, keeping pace with her.

  "I thought I'd go have a drink," Maiga said. "How about Dav's?"

  Jaff grinned like a wolf. "Oh yeah. That sounds like a real fine idea. Right now, I have a hell of a thirst."

  As they strode on, he pulled out his Snapper and tapped away. How did he do that while walking? A couple of times she had to grab him and pull him aside to keep him from bumping into people.

  "What are you doing?" she asked.

  "Oh, just messaging a few friends. Why not make it a party?"

  Maiga smirked. Oh yes, a party would be even better.

  The party guests waited for them near Dav's. Maintenance workers most of them, some still in their overalls, others in civilian clothes. A few aliens among them too.

  "Guys," Jaff said. "Okay, long story short. You all know my friend Vaz, the one who comes and sits with us in the bar sometimes. Well, Captain Bara had him beaten up, real bad."

  "Why?" A woman called, above the angry mutters and protests from the rest of the group. "He's a sweetheart, wouldn't hurt a fly."

  "Bara didn't like a story he wrote in his paper," Maiga said, making them turn to her. "Well I don't like her beating up my friends."

  "Me neither," Jaff said. "So we thought we'd send her a little message."

  "Anyone who doesn't want to spend a night in the holding cells should bail out now," Maiga said. They looked at each other. Nobody bailed out. "Then follow me."

  The people moved aside to let her through and she heard them fall into step behind her. Jaff caught up and walked at her right side.

  The bouncers on the door of Dav's looked as if they wanted to protest as the group piled in, but Maiga gave them no chance, as she swept past and into the bar. As soon as the group entered, the room fell silent. Oh, this place has changed, Maiga thought. All the customers were human. How strange, near to the docks and the market, the busiest areas of the station, a mass of different races.

  After a long, slow stare around the room, she led her unit to the bar.

  Dav stood there, his face pale and nervous. He'd lost weight, she thought.

  "I don't have anything for your friends." Dav nodded at
the aliens in their party.

  "You don't?" Maiga said. "Now that's very poor business practice. Turning away custom." She leaned across the bar. "Now why would you do that? I mean you, of all people, have always been ready to take the money of anybody who walked in the door. Just who told you to change your policy?"

  "Maiga." Jaff's quiet voice sounded a warning, but she'd already seen the shape loom behind her, reflected in the mirror tiles which lined the back of the bar. She lashed out with her right foot and a yell came from behind as she connected. The man behind her collapsed. She spun around.

  Chairs scraped, everyone stood. Ready. Maiga recalled she had her knife, but she had no intention of drawing it. This wasn't a place for weapons, this was a place for fists and feet and teeth if need be. For the pure knuckle-skinning satisfaction of it.

  Jaff charged, unable to wait any longer. He yelled and launched himself at a couple of huge men who had a table full of empty glasses. And then both sides followed his example, screaming battle cries and charging.

  Maiga reached back and grabbed a fistful of Dav's shirt, pulling him across the bar.

  "Pay close attention. I'm sure you'll want to make a full report."

  "You're crazy," Dav said. "You know that Captain Bara protects this place."

  "And I protect the newspaper. You tell her that."

  Maiga grinned savagely, and then shoved away from the bar into the fray.

  Chapter 25

  "Now that was fun."

  Maiga smiled at the triumphant tone in Jaff's voice. The two of them sat on the floor in a holding cell, backs up against the wall. Several other people from their side in the fight shared the cell with them, but they left those two alone to talk.

  "Painful fun," she said, pressing on a bandage covering a scrape that ran from wrist to elbow on her right arm. Her hands were bloody and painful, and she ached everywhere. But it had been worth it.

  "But we pretty much just declared open war on Bara," Jaff said. "She's not going to let that pass."

  "There's no ‘pretty much' about it," Maiga said. It had been exactly what Jaff called it. A declaration of war. A double act of defiance, to destroy the bar and to declare the paper under Maiga's protection. Smashing up the bar could be a simple act of revenge. But declaring she protected the paper--that was different. That was a declaration that Maiga was stepping up and making herself a player on this board.