Something that had helped him was that they seemed to already know him. Over the last month the exploits of the Star Wolf and her crew had been one of the most talked about sources of news for the base and ships’ personnel.
The crews of the Alamo, Mammoth and the Varuna only added to these stories of adventure until it felt like everyone knew him. He didn’t want notoriety or felt he deserved it and had since tried to keep a low profile. He and Angelique would often stay in their quarters or go to sections of the Mary that were less traveled.
At such times as this though a little notoriety helped like now when he needed to board a ship without orders. At other times it worked against him as senior officers who had yet to see combat treated him with less than warm welcomes.
Returning to the Mary he headed to the ship’s infirmary. Unlike a normal starship the luxury liner had a state of the art hospital complete with a surgical theater and laboratory. Their two doctors split their time between the Mary and the base’s medical center, which had been refitted with the ultra high tech medical equipment from the Brittany. There was talk of making one of the freighters into a hospital ship and removing the medical equipment from the base, but for now it was the best place having already been set up for such duty.
Dating a doctor and having the other base doctor as a sort of surrogate grandmother made his coming and goings to the medical centers unrestricted. He was almost a regular feature and the medical staff expected to see him. Today Doc Beilor had pulled the duty on the Mary.
The base hospital was being used for mostly starship crews and prisoners whereas the Mary’s infirmary was for the base personnel staying on ship. Mike had joked with Angelique that the Mary was the gravy duty, which inspired a stream of French curses.
She quickly set him straight that she got less patients and more research done when she was at the base hospital. The two physicians had been running simulations in preparation to implant the neural interfaces and hardwires. They were optimistic that they could be ready within two weeks. If successful, that would give them two hundred enhanced warriors and fighter pilots.
The Mary’s perks were nicer, but it seemed to have a steady stream of patients that would be waiting for her to arrive and would come until she was relieved. The medics and nurses from the ships and base personnel were spread out over twenty-four-hour duty shifts, but there was always something that needed her or Edie’s special attention. Often she would be paged and have to leave from dinner, a night out or even their bed to attend to it.
When he arrived Doc Beilor was swamped with patients especially little children with all sort of aliments and maladies. With a wave of hello and a friendly smile, he slipped by the front desk and nurses as he made his way to the offices in the rear of the facility. As he had hoped Doc Beilor’s medical computer was unlocked and he proceeded to spend the next half hour solving the next part of his plan. He finished just as Edie came into the office.
“Dear boy, what brings you here?” the elderly physician asked as she crossed the room and kissed him on the cheek.
He smiled and stood up, “Well, several things including your computer, but right now I’d like to take you too a late lunch.”
“You know how to treat a lady, but do tell, what were you doing with my poor medical computer?”
Taking her by the arm he led her towards the door.
“How about over lunch I fill you in and get your opinion, but you’ll have to keep it a secret, especially from Gunny and Angelique.”
“Alright, but you’ll have to tell me why that beautiful child seems to love you so much?”
Mike laughed, “The same reason you do, because I’m a rogue and a scoundrel.”
In some ways he was telling her the truth and didn’t like having to use white lies, but the mission was at stake.
“So tell me all about thorax communication units?”
Before she could answer he noticed an armed guard posted by one of the back examination room’s door. The guard was a member of the Wolf’s crew and nodded to him as their eyes met. Edie followed his gaze and answered his unspoken question.
“The Blue telepathy, Lady Seil-Ca, went into some kind of coma about two weeks ago and we can’t seem to find out what’s causing it?”
He was both shocked at not having kept up on her whereabouts and curious as to her condition. They had been through so much in the last five weeks and had taken so many prisoners. He had naturally concentrated on his work all but forgetting about the strange Karduan noble woman.
“Any symptoms prior to her collapse?”
Edie’s old face broke into a smile.
“Well Doctor Collins, she seemed agitated for about three weeks, had stopped eating and had increased her prayers, but seemed to get no solace from them.”
Mike frowned as his suspicious mind jumped to conclusions.
“Could she be faking it to get moved to a facility with less security?”
“That’s what Officer Bachman thought, hence the guard who I’m told is trained to mask his thoughts from a telepathy.”
“Mind if I pay her a visit?”
She shook her head and waved her hand towards the door, “After you Doctor.”
Seeing his ship’s third officer and Doc Beilor approach, the guard anticipated their needs and unlocked the door.
Entering the room, he saw that she was strapped down to a bed in the middle of the room. The Karduan woman looked thinner than he remembered and her bald scalp was perspiring. She was unmoving and though she was breathing softly and he noted that on every four breaths she seemed to gasp. Taking a hand towel from the nightstand he wiped the sweat from her smooth brow.
At his touch her head moved and he withdrew his hand, but nothing else seemed to happen.
“For a second there?”
“Just a tactile response,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder and gently guiding him away. “Now what do you want with thorax mikes?”
After an informative lunch he reported back to the Wolf to pull a six-hour duty shift as command officer. He had relieved a bored and grateful Commander Hutton, and with only a skeleton crew onboard he had time to spend the afternoon reading debriefings. The intelligence reports came from the trade logs of the captains of the sloops and armed trade ships.
One disturbing line of information popped up and grabbed his attention. It was from a rumor obtained from a deep space trader that was overheard at a bar on Sterling Six. It stated that some of the League Worlds had not only turned over their Confederation prisoners including servicemen, constables and officials, but also Earth trade representatives of the Ameri-Corp Industries and their families. It seemed a perfect way to remove rivals and competition, just arrest them and turn them over to the enemy.
After Commander Richards relieved him, he returned to the Mary, went to the gym and worked out for an hour and a half. Rushing to his quarters so he wouldn’t be late he got home just before his roommate.
Angelique Duarte looked tired and he shook his head as he made her sit down and propped her feet up. Hurrying to their small kitchen he called back to her.
“So how was your day?” he asked, knowing how she usually liked to tell him everything that had happened.
She especially liked to repeat anything she thought was silly or stupid. By the time he got back to her with a glass of red wine she was already asleep.
Shaking his head with a smile he gently picked up her long thin form in his arms and carried her to the bedroom where he laid her on the bed. Taking her shoes off he lightly kissed her cheek and returned to the kitchen to make dinner. An hour later the French doctor awoke to find that her young man had not only made her dinner, but had run out and gotten flowers for the table.
Looking for him she found him in the shower. Stripping off her clothes she joined him in the shower deciding that dinner could definitely wait.
Dinner was late and a little overdone, but nice. She had two big news items for him, the first being that the ha
rdwire neural implants were ready. This was encouraging to Mike as he was one of the first on the list to be hardwired and he was both anxious and nervous about the procedure.
What made him really concerned was how nervous it made Angelique. She made no bones about the procedure being dangerous, but the end result would be a soldier who was faster, stronger and able to interface with a star fighter or a suit of powered battle armor.
The second piece of news made him choke on the piece of roll he was eating.
“That Blue telepath finally came out of her comma.”
“What?” he managed to get out between coughs.
Standing up she went behind him and gave him a hard slap on his back. She then leaned down and whispered in his ear.
“Her first words were, where is my Collins?”
Mike’s face turned red and he tried to stammer out an answer as he began to choke again. This time she gave him a good slap on his back with enough force to let him know she was pissed.
“She’s whacked out!” he commented, which made no sense to her. “The woman has some kind of infatuation with me and it’s not my fault!”
Angelique sat down and gave him a kind of half smile.
“That is what Dr. Beilor said, I just wanted to hear it from you.”
“Damn you’re evil!” he swore shaking his head and reminding himself to never ever cross her.
She frowned a pouting little girl frown, which made him smile. In response she got up and crossed to his chair and sat on his lap. Giving him a kiss she then reminded him with her French accent.
“You know I have a scalpel?”
“Not funny!” he said, tickling her which lead both of them to fall to the floor engaged in a wrestling and tickling match. After about a minute the couple found other things to do on the floor.
Twenty minutes before the meeting he carefully slipped out of the bed and quietly dressed. Mike had set his palm pad to page him, but his lovely sleeping beauty was fast asleep. It was almost midnight when he reached the ship’s lower level gym. There were very few people out and about along his route and he made good time through the vast ship.
Stepping off the lift and onto the Tudor Deck he saw that the area appeared dead. There was no activity at all in the hallway as he rushed to the nearby fitness center. Passing though the outer doors he went by the empty lobby and into the locker room.
Finding it empty he headed to the main gym’s basketball court and saw Dover, Daley and Cappilo standing by the double doors.
“Is this it, just the four of us?” he asked disappointedly.
Lt. Dover frowned questioningly and looked to his two compatriots.
“Well gentlemen, are we it?”
Rufo couldn’t help it and smiled even though he was trying hard to keep a straight face.
“No boss, we’re not everyone,” Martin replied and touched the door’s control panel.
As the double doors opened he looked into the main gym and saw that there were dozens of people within. There must have been at least forty of his alumni from Harpers’ Academy, the rest being on duty back on the Wolf.
Surprisingly, Ensign Kelly from the Alamo and at least half of her crew were also there along with Ensign Barry Stevens and most of the Mammoth’s people. Lt. Eric Jaffman and his entire repair team, who had once been the crew of the Varuna, were also present. In all there must have been at least a hundred personnel there.
Mike smiled and then frowned at his three friends.
“What happened to keeping it just to the Wolf Pups?”
Cappilo shrugged, “You know how it is.”
Not waiting for another answer he entered the gym as the crowd parted before him. It was a great compliment to him that so many people had come out in the middle of the night to what was clearly an unauthorized meeting.
As he passed through the crowd to the center of the gym he made eye contact with friends and comrades as he smiled and nodded his head trying to elude the confidence they expected from him.
At the center of the group there was a small makeshift stand created from several exercise steps. Standing on the platform he was about a head taller than everyone around him and he cleared his throat reminding himself to project and use his command voice so that he could be heard.
“Good evening and thank you for coming out at what should be an ungodly hour for some of you,” he started, drawing a rumble of chuckles from the various duty shifts, some of which should be asleep right now.
“Before I continue let me remind everyone that this is a rogue operation and that you could be in trouble for just being here. If anyone wishes to leave no one will consider it uncalled for.”
He waited a moment as everyone stood fast. Mike smiled in appreciation.
“If at the end of my briefing there are those among you who don’t wish to join in our little black-ops that is entirely your choice, one that I’ll respect no matter what your choice may be.”
Again the crowd stood fast and remained silent waiting for him to continue. In the back of the room the double doors opened and a large group of men entered the gym. From his elevated position he could see that the newcomers were older men, all of whom he knew.
At the front of the group were Gunny Masters, Chief Warrant Officer Padre Zimmerman, CPOs Watts, Burke and Bell. Mike looked to Cappilo as the gray wolves approached and joined the crowd.
“This is why we maintain operational security.”
Rufo nodded and looked down to the floor as his smile vanished from his face, “Noted, sir.”
Jack Masters reached the front of the crowd and looked up at the elevated junior officer.
“Mister Collins sir, what the hell is going on here and why the hell weren’t we included?”
His old friend’s face looked serious, but there was a hint of a smile in his eyes and in his tone of voice as he spoke. Mike correctly assessed that they were more upset about being left out than at the thought running off to join up in a rogue operation.
“Well…” he started and then went into his prepared briefing, accepting that the gray wolves were going with him.
An hour later Mike was pleased at the surprising results of his meeting. His next hurdle was to explain his crazy plan to Angelique. Reaching his quarters, he was equally surprised to find the cabin’s door unlocked. He had been sure that he had locked the door when he had left.
Entering he saw that nothing was out of the ordinary in the living room or in the kitchen. Heading for the bedroom he heard something fall to the floor, which was quickly followed by a loud thump just as he reached the open doorway.
Stepping into the entrance he could see that the room’s light was off and that the outline of a female figure was just visible from the reduced light coming from the main room. He was about to call to the computer to raise the light level and make a joke about her being clumsy when the female figure turned towards him. She rushed over to him and embraced him strongly as she called him her love.
What surprised him was that she had spoken to him not in French, but in Karduan. It took him off guard for a second as he realized that Angelique didn’t speak Karduan. Breaking their embrace, he pushed her away as she struggled to hold him and breathe in his scent. As they separated he could see that it wasn’t his French love, but instead it was the Blue telepath, Lady Seil-Ca.
“No, No … let me hold you my love,” she argued struggling against him as he tried to hold her at arm’s length. Her hospital gown was splattered with blood and in her hand was an old style surgical scalpel.
Mike’s heart leaped as he realized that the blood was red and that he was panicking in his concern for Angelique.
"Where is Dr. Duarte?” he demanded, trying to look past her and into the dark bedroom.
“No, you are mine!” she screamed. The Karduan woman quickly took advantage of his distraction and pulled her wrist free of his grasp as she drove the blade towards his heart.
The scalpel would have struck home except as she started
her thrust a flower vase that had been previously on the dresser, came smashing down on the Blue’s baldhead. Behind the fallen Karduan stood a bloodied and enraged Angelique. A stream of French curses escaped her lips as she stood over the fallen woman.
“You’re wounded!” Mike exclaimed and ran to the dresser to recover his med kit.
“I’ll be fine,” the doctor said, placing pressure on her shoulder’s wound. She realized that the Blue had missed any vital organs as well as her subclavian artery.
Rushing back to her he saw that she had knelt down next to the unconscious Karduan and was administering to her wounds.
Surprisingly enough, a security team rushed into his room only minutes after he had summoned them. Dr. Beilor had found the security guard assigned to guard the Karduan in a sort of coma. They were lucky that no one had died and that the guard had recovered in only a few short hours with no memory of what had happened.
Edie theorized that the Karduan telepathy had somehow induced the coma as well as her having some sort of addiction to Mike’s pheromones. Her own comatose state had probably been a result of her sudden separation from him after the Wolf had been forced to leave the crippled Alamo.
“You’ll have to pay her a visit every few days until I can make an inhaler of your scent,” Doc Beilor stated.
Mike shook his head and couldn’t believe their luck both good and bad. It made him wonder what could happen next?
Chapter Eighteen
The guard shoved him hard and Mike stumbled as his chained feet tried to move a little faster in response. Austro Prime’s summer was just as he had remembered it, windy and warm. Fellow Confederation prisoners and armed human guards surrounded him as they were herded towards the waiting Karduan shuttles.
The plan had been going just as he had envisioned it maybe even better than he expected. At his meeting in the gym, he had laid out his idea. The assembled crowd of crewmen listened in shocked awe as he detailed his scheme.
The Log of the Gray Wolf (Star Wolf Squadron Book 1) Page 45
