by JC Cassels
Blade tightened his grip on the hovercycle’s control bars. He tapped the fore and aft brakes. The vehicle bucked and fought against him, but otherwise continued to pick up speed.
“Shit!”
Of all the times for the throttle to stick… Now the steering? It was probably gummed up with some of that oxidized dust.
“Hey, Chase,” he called into his helmet comlink. “I’ve picked up a shimmy.” Blade squeezed the clutch and tried to take the hovercycle out of gear.
“What kind of shimmy?”
“I’m having a hard time maintaining control,” he replied. “And the throttle’s non-responsive. I can’t reduce speed.”
“Try kicking it out of gear,” Chase advised.
“Yeah, no luck with that,” he replied. “I’m stuck in gear and accelerating. I can’t downshift at all. It’s taking everything I’ve got to hold her steady and I’m approaching Biller’s Pass into Flaming Gorge. I need a maintenance crew out here on the double.”
“Hit the kill switch and wait for us,” Chase said. “We’re on our way.”
“Understood,” Blade replied.
He carefully shifted his grip on the wildly bucking hovercycle until he could reach the engine control switch. He flipped it off with his thumb, but the engine did not cut off. Instead, its whine increased in pitch and the vibrations grew worse.
“This can’t be good,” he said. “Hey, Chase, the kill switch isn’t working.”
He glanced around the rugged terrain. The path ahead narrowed rapidly with huge boulders. Densely packed rocks littered the ground. It only got worse closer to the pass.
He was running out of time and options. He really didn’t have a choice.
He took a deep breath and blew it out.
“Scramble a medical team,” he said. “I’m going to have to lay her down before I hit the pass.”
“Understood. Good luck with that, little brother. We’ll see you at the end of the slide.”
It was suicide to deliberately lay down a hovercycle in this terrain. Blade wouldn’t even consider it if he had any other option. Adrenaline flooded his system. He swallowed hard and took another deep breath, willing his pounding heart to slow down. He only had one shot at this and he had to get it right.
Blade steadied himself as well as he could on the out-of-control cycle then hit the kill switch on the antigravity plates. The hovercycle immediately dropped. He stood up on the footpegs and shifted his weight, pulling the cycle into optimum slide position just as it connected with the ground. He hit the ground hard, knocking the breath out of his lungs. He released his hold on the cycle and it swung away from him
As if in slow motion, he felt himself starting to slide. Making minute adjustments with his body, he lay back into a controlled slide.
The cycle hit a large rock ahead of him. The impact sent it spinning into the air. It sailed over him missing him by an arm’s length. Blade barely managed to avoid the rock, but seconds later hit a larger one. The impact sent a wave of agony through his right leg and before he could stop himself, he doubled up in agony. His slide turned into a high-speed tumble.
“Shit!”
Rolling over and over, he lost track of direction, only aware of the ground as he bounced along it. He gradually slowed enough to see another large rock looming ahead of him. Before he could adjust his weight to avoid it, he slammed into it, spinning off in another direction. He had one last coherent thought as he lost consciousness.
Bo is going to kill me.
***
The doors to the mobile triage center slid open for her. Bo raced through and into the darker interior. She’d been aboard Sundance monitoring the communications. If there had been any way to land her ship at Biller Pass, she’d have gone after him herself. Blade had been airlifted to the makeshift medical facility at the checkpoint in the salt flats. Bo had been forced to wait for the Pintubo driver to take her there.
She didn’t break stride as she ran past the waiting area and the reception desk. Edge had said Blade had been taken directly to the exam rooms and that’s where she was headed.
“Marissa, they’ve taken him to be scanned,” Chase appeared at her elbow. “He’s unconscious. It was equipment failure. He was losing control and put it into an emergency slide.”
“I heard the audio,” she said, heading towards the doors leading from the waiting rooms to the treatment rooms. “I thought he did a pre-ride safety check.”
“He did. Hell, I did. Everything checked out.” Chase shook his head. “It’s not good,” he said. “He would’ve been fine if he hadn’t started hitting boulders, but there wasn’t any way to avoid them, not at that point in the terrain.”
Bo winced at the thought. Bile rose in her throat.
“How bad is he?”
“Pretty bad. Preliminary scans on site showed a concussion, multiple broken bones, broken ribs, punctured lung, internal injuries… He needs a better medical facility than they have here,” Chase said. “They’re working to get him stabilized so they can move him to the med ship they brought in for the race.”
“When will he be stable for transport?” she asked.
“I don’t know. They won’t let me see him and I can’t get anyone to talk to me.”
“They’ll talk to me. Where is he?”
Chase led her to the examination room. Without hesitation, Bo palmed open the door and strode in. Chase followed closely.
The techs and medics moved around the gyrostretcher in an efficient, though frantic ballet, medicating, tracking the patient’s vitals, doing all they could to get him stable enough for transport to the waiting medical ship.
One of the techs shifted and Bo got her first good look at him.
Her steps faltered. She felt like she’d taken a direct hit from a shockwave. Her shields collapsed, Her main systems offline. All the fight drained out of her. She’d been dead in space once. She hadn’t felt this helpless.
He looked like hell. His face was bloody and swollen. What wasn’t purple with bruises or red with cuts and scrapes was unnaturally pale. His riding leathers were ripped and filthy, his gloves worn thin and torn. They had removed his helmet and stabilized his head and back. The ventilator hissed and clicked with each breath.
Tears stung her eyes and she blinked against them. She took the last few steps to his bedside on unsteady limbs. Cold and numb with shock, Bo reached to touch him, if only to reassure herself he was still there.
“What do you think you’re doing here?”
“Ma’am you can’t be in here.”
She looked to the woman working to get him stabilized. “Can I touch him?” Bo asked. The tears broke free from her eyes and rolled down her face. “Please.”
The woman’s sharp gaze flicked over her and her expression softened with genuine compassion. “Not yet, ma’am,” she said.
Bo glanced back at Blade, his breathing punctuated by the hiss of the ventilator. She swallowed back the sobs threatening to rack her body. Clenching her hands into fists, she held them at her sides and watched, waiting.
She wanted to scream her frustration. Chase slid his arm around her shoulders and pulled her out of the way. His expression was unusually grim.
“He’s coming around,” someone announced.
Bo shook off Chase’s arm and raced to his bedside. She slipped her hand into Blade’s. Leaning close, she tenderly caressed his forehead and spoke quietly in his ear. “It’s okay, flyboy. I’m here.”
His eyes turned to her, dull and flat, missing their customary spark.
Bo pulled off her veil, baring her face to him. His gaze traced her features. His brow furrowed as he tried to make sense of the situation.
“Who let this woman in here? Get her out of here!”
“Stupid fan club. These crazy women will do anything to get close to their heroes.”
“Security!”
Bo looked up as a large uniformed officer seized her arm, pulling her away from the bed.
“She’s not a fan,” Chase said. “She’s with me.”
“Well, who the hell are you?”
“I’m his brother.”
A female tech held up a hypospray and moved towards Blade.
Bo looked quickly to Blade to see if he’d spotted her.
“No, don’t!” Bo shouted, an edge of panic in her voice.
She knew the exact moment he registered the woman with the hypo. Blade’s eyes narrowed. He clawed at the tubes in his arm and reached for the ventilator as he struggled to rise.
“Oh, shit…Chase! The hypo!”
With one eye on Blade, she wrenched her arm free from the officer’s grip. Chase shouted an obscenity and shoved the nearest security guard out of his way, only to trip over a medical cart.
Everyone started shouting at once.
“Hold him down!”
“He’s trying to pull out his tubes.”
The doctor in charge moved quickly to his bedside. “Blade, settle down!”
Blade punched him with enough force to send him reeling into the tech with the hypospray. Someone screamed. Security officers moved to assist the techs struggling to hold him down.
Chase scrambled to his feet.
“Where are the restraints?”
“Get that sedative over here!”
“No!” Bo twisted and struck the security officer, breaking his hold on her. She ducked under his arm as he reached for her. She sidestepped his partner. Shoving her way through the knot of techs struggling to subdue Blade, she planted herself between them. With one hand on Blade’s arm, she held out her other hand to ward off the woman with the hypospray. “Stop and just listen to me! He’s Inner Circle! Sedatives won’t work on him!”
At the sound of her voice, Blade stopped fighting.
“The man is dangerous!” The doctor in charge struggled to his feet and glared at her. “He’s going to injure himself further if…”
“You try to give him that, he’ll likely kill you,” Chase said sharply, pointing at the hypospray. “If you’re not smart enough to shut up and listen to her, then I say let him do it.” He stepped up beside Bo and glanced down at his brother.
“He was trying to pull out his tubes…”
Bo took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Look, he’s not just IC, he’s a Predator.”
“So what does that mean?”
“He’s been trained to resist sedation and kill anyone who tries to drug him,” Chase said. “He doesn’t even realize what he’s doing.”
“Have you seen his chart? The only person this man is capable of killing right now is himself!”
Chase shook his head. “Yeah, if that was you or me, sure. But that man…the things they’ve put him through…the things they’ve done to him…he’s not like normal folk. His…his brain is in backwards.”
“Certain drugs…common drugs that reduce cognitive function can trigger a defensive response,” Bo said. “At his core, this man is a highly-trained killer. Predator training is deeply ingrained.”
“Unless you have someone who is certified and has the clearance to treat a Predator, all you’re doing is endangering everyone in this building.”
She glanced down at Blade, who watched her. “He’s a medic, he can understand what’s going on. He’s got incredible self-control. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone, I swear. He would rather have the pain than risk hurting someone. I can keep him calm if you let me stay with him, but you cannot sedate him unless you follow the proper security protocols…please.”
The doctor glanced from Bo to Chase and then back again before nodding tersely. Chase shooed away the techs trying to hold Blade against the table. He met her stare with a reassuring wink.
Bo smiled her thanks. Chase had his brother’s back, as usual.
“What security protocols are you talking about?” the doctor asked Chase.
“Do you have a datapad?”
The doctor waved over a tech with a datapad and handed it to Chase. “Here’s the contact info for the First Sector IC,” he said. “Tell them you’re treating an agent with Predator Certification…”
Happy to turn over the formalities to Chase, Bo bent down and tenderly kissed Blade’s brow before pressing her forehead against his.
“By all that’s holy, please be good, Dev.” Tears stung her eyes, but she forced a smile as she lifted her head. “You crashed your hovercycle – again,” she said, her voice breaking. Bo bit her lip and blinked rapidly to banish the tears welling in her eyes. Drawing a deep breath, she swallowed hard and tried again. “You’re pretty banged up. We’re trying to get you stabilized for transport and we can’t do that if you fight everyone. I promise you, we’ve got your back. As long as you behave, they’ll let me stay with you. I need you to stand down, love – understand? Stand down…please.”
Unable to nod or speak, he relaxed back onto the bed and closed his eyes by way of affirmation.
A wave of relief washed over her. Bo started to step back, but Blade’s hand closed around her arm.
He opened his eyes and peered up at her in silent question.
“I’m not leaving you,” she promised. “Show me the same courtesy.”
“Marissa, do you remember his code?”
His hand caressed her arm before he released her.
“I’ve got that,” she said.
His stare followed her as she stepped back to let the medical team get back to work. He studied the faces of the techs around him before he closed his eyes once more.
Satisfied that he was cooperative for the time being, Bo took the datapad from Chase and entered his Inner Circle ID code. “They’ll send the nearest agent with appropriate clearance and training. It usually doesn’t take long. Dev tends to command instant response.”
She passed the datapad over to the doctor.
“He must be important.”
He handed it back to the tech, who raced off to make the arrangements.
“He is to me,” Bo said.
The doctor started to turn away but hesitated and looked back to her. “There’s a lot of scarring on his respiratory tract…any idea what may have caused that?”
Bo nodded. “Ditoxicin.”
The doctor paled. “Di… How long ago?”
Bo looked to Chase.
“What? You mean that same stuff that nearly killed you?”
Bo nodded. “How long since he came home from the IC? About four, five years?”
“Yeah, that sounds about right.”
The doctor pursed his lips and shook his head as he noted it on his datapad, adjusting Blade’s treatment accordingly. “Here I was thinking he was just some kind of pretty boy actor who liked to play hero,” he said. “Turns out he isn’t playing, is he?” He rubbed his chest absently. A small smile touched his lips. “I guess I’m lucky he didn’t hit me as hard as he could have.”
Bo’s lips twitched. “You have no idea.”
“Say, what happened to the lady with the hypo?” Chase leaned closer. “She took a pretty good punch, too.”
Bo’s brow furrowed. She looked around at the faces of the techs. “I don’t see her…”
The doctor shrugged. “She must be working out of the dispensary. She’s not part of my team. If you’ll excuse me.”
The doctor stepped back into the action, directing Blade’s care with a new gleam of respect in his eyes.
Bo made it a point to stay close to Blade, but out of the way of the medical team. Chase hovered anxiously nearby, unable to keep from pacing. One of the techs sharply ordered him out, but the doctor countermanded the order with a quiet word.
Blade made no further attempt to fight them and they had him stabilized very quickly. When the medical transport team arrived, the doctor spoke briefly with them. With sympathetic looks, they consented to allow Bo and Chase to accompany Blade to the medical ship.
“I just received word that the IC agent you sent for should be waiting for us on board the medship,” the medic in charge said as the shutt
le’s engines roared to life.
Bo nodded her understanding and moved closer to Blade.
The medic filled a hypospray and leaned over Blade. “Agent Devon, can you hear me?”
His blue eyes opened and he looked up at the man without much interest.
“Blade, I’ve been authorized to give you something for the pain,” the medic said. “It’s just a hypo filled with Hanira, see?” He held up the hypospray and the bottle of Hanira. “Is that okay with you?”
Blade tried to nod.
The medic swabbed a spot on his neck before he pressed the hypo against his skin and dosed him. “There now,” he said. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” He swabbed the spot again and offered Bo a reassuring smile. “He should be able to rest a little easier now,” he said. “I used to be a medic with the Mighty Eighth. I’ll make sure they take good care of him.”
Bo nodded. Blade had served with the Mighty Eighth Search and Rescue as a medic when he’d first joined the Consular Guard. To this man at least, Blade wasn’t merely a patient. He was a brother.
He patted Blade on the shoulder. “We look after our own.” With a nod to Chase, he moved away to give them a little privacy.
Blade took stock of his surroundings. When his gaze settled on her, the crease between his eyebrows faded. She slipped her hand in his and her shoulders sagged in relief when his fingers closed around hers. For probably the first time in her life, she was content to be a passenger while someone else flew. She tenderly stroked the hair at his temple.
“That’s good luck isn’t it? Leave it to you to get a medic from your old Consular Guard unit,” she said. She attempted a wobbly smile. “There’s an IC agent waiting for you on the medship. They’re not going to let me stay with you once we get there. I won’t be going far. If you need me, I’ll breach the hull to get to you if I have to.”
The corners of his eyes crinkled in amusement.
“I mean it and you know it.” Bo squeezed his hand gently as she smiled. “I want you to be good and let them help you get better. You promised to take me to Altair, remember?”
He squeezed her fingers by way of response.
