TSN: The Best Laid Plans (Terran Space Navy)

by Paul Phipps

  “I suppose so; you do know that as a Doctor I hate to be on the receiving end of an examination.” She said with a smile.

  And with that Evana brought her back to the Scanner Arch and directed her to stand in the center, hold out her arms and spread her legs as though she was going to do Jumping Jacks for PT. Five minutes later after being asked to turn around twice the Scanner-Arch announced that the Deep Scan was complete.

  Evana looked at the screen intently and then sighed. She asked for a Printout and then caught General Duval’s eye. She motioned him over and asked him to join her when she talked to Colonel James.

  “Colonel, I find myself in an awkward situation. Do you want me to be blunt or not about your results?”

  Colonel James looked at Evana with worry in her eyes and then at the Doctors and nurses studiously ignoring them. “Go ahead, be blunt about it.” She told Evana.

  “Ok, bluntly then, according to the Scanner-Arch you have Pancreatic Cancer that has metastasized. Without treatment you have less than three weeks of life.” Evana told her.

  “Oh My GOD…” The Colonel said as her face turned completely white.

  “On the other hand we can treat it, if you and your superiors authorize it. You will be out of action for around a month though.” Evana told her.

  “Treat it? You mean you have a cure for Cancer?” Colonel James said with total amazement.

  “Well, yes we do. But it’s going to be very radical in your case. Do you want to discuss it further with the Med-Center?”

  “Yes, I think that I do.” She turned to General Duval and said. “General, I request permission to leave.”

  “Certainly, Jane. Go find out what they can do for you. And… I hope that it is totally successful. I don’t want to lose you, you know!”

  And with that Evana directed her to the nearest Trans-portal. Once the Colonel had departed she looked at her list. “Private Ahn, front and center.”

  “Private Ahn, Reporting Lt. Commander.”

  “Good, Good. Private Ahn, I’m going to be blunt. You have a bomb capsule set implanted within your body. You are going to go to that Trans-portal over there and the Med-center will remove it. You will also undergo deep interrogation so that we can determine where, when and hopefully who implanted it in you.”

  The privates’ eyes grew as big as saucers and he turned pale. “Yes, Ma’am! Right away Ma’am” and then without asking permission walked quickly over to the Trans-Portal and was … gone.

  General Duval was a bit bemused at Evana’s sudden forcefulness and at how the Private had instinctively obeyed the voice of command that she had used.

  “Major Evans, you’re next.” Evana said looking at him.

  Once the Major was with Evana and General Duval, Evana said. “It seems like my day for being blunt. Major, you have two major problems. You have an Aortic Aneurysm and another in the left parietal Lobe of the brain. You have high blood pressure and are also showing signs of higher than normal stress.

  According to the readout, all of these things are currently treatable with This Earth’s medical technology. If you want to avail yourself to the TSN’s medical technology you may. It’s your choice.”

  “Can I talk to your Doctors about this diagnosis?” The Major asked.

  “Certainly! Just use the Trans-portal and ask for the Med Center. The A.I. in charge will discuss everything with you.”

  The Major saluted both Evana and General Duval then walked slowly toward the Trans-portal.

  “Lieutenant Johnson, Sergeant Grant please come here.” Evana watched the two men walk toward her. Both were wearing prosthesis. She smiled to herself, ‘At least these two men would be easier to talk to.’

  “Thank you Lieutenant Johnson and you Sergeant Grant, I’m pleased to talk with you. Your scans are normal and you are both in good physical condition. Your prosthesis although working adequately show signs of either skin and muscle irritation or a poor form fit.

  As you are currently our guests aboard the Louis Pasteur I am offering you two alternatives. We can replace the prosthesis for you with a better one. Or we can replace the missing limbs, it’s your choice.”

  Both of them men in front of her just stared, finally the Sergeant said. “Excuse me Ma’am, did you just say you could replace my leg?”

  “Yes, I did.” Evana said with a smile.

  General Duval asked in amazement. “How can you do that?”

  “As I understand it, there are two different methods that can be used. One involves growing a cloned limb and then surgically re-attaching it. The other involves some cell manipulation and re-growing the limb directly from the location of injury and separation of the original limb.

  The Second method is preferred in most cases as it allows the nerves to reconnect more naturally. Both however do entail quite a bit of physical therapy once the process is complete.”

  “How long does it take?” Asked Lieutenant Johnson.

  “It varies according to the severity of the wound and how much needs to be re-grown. If you are interested please go to the Med-Center for more information.” Evana said once again directing the men toward the Trans-Portal.

  Evana watched the men head for the Trans-portal and after they had gone she turned to the General. “We are giving you fifty of these Scanner-Arch’s. They will detect Shaitan’s Breath or any of the currently known infectious diseases that affect mankind. As you can also see they can do a lot more than that as evidenced by the quick scan your people just participated in.”

  General Duval nodded his head slowly. “When can you deliver them?”

  “We can do it now or at another time that is convenient to you and your personnel. They are fairly easily transported on a flatbed truck so you can place them where you desire. I do recommend that you use these fifty first to train your personnel and to allow the CDC to use them so that they can place others as needed.”

  “I see… Thank you for the gift of them.” He said with feeling.

  “You’re welcome. Now let’s continue the tour of my marvelous vessel, shall we?” Evana said with an impious grin.

  After moving all of the remaining Physicians and Nurses to the Emergency Room, Evana continued the tour.

  “The Louis Pasteur Emergency Room has fifty treatment rooms and two Emergency Surgical Suites attached. These are separate from the regular Three Hundred bed facility. There are an additional ten Surgical Suites available for routine or in some instances more specialized surgeries.” Evana was saying.

  One of the Doctors raised his hands and asked, “What if you have more emergency cases coming in than you have the room for?”

  “A good question, we would be using a basic triage rule in that instance. The patient would be stabilized and then place in a Suspended Animation Capsule. When there was time and space available they would be brought out of Suspended Animation to be taken care of.” Evana told her.

  “Suspended Animation? How does that work, do you freeze them?” asked another Doctor.

  “Not generally, Freeze style animation is really only good for extremely long duration. We use several different methods. The most energy intensive one simulates the slowing down of time itself. We really only use that one in very traumatic situations.

  Our most common method is a total immersion of the patient in a BIO-MED gel. We can reduce the occupants’ metabolic processes to near zero. It’s especially effective on burn victims, and is the preferred treatment for them.”

  One of the Nurses raised her hand at that and when Evana acknowledged her she said. “I’m Major Padgett, I have six extremely serious burn cases from a CH-47 crash on my floor. They all have third degree burns and two have internal burns to the Lungs and esophagus. Can you help them? Because they won’t survive otherwise with what we can do for them.”

  Evana looked to General Duval and asked, “With your permission we can try to save them.”

  The General Shook his head vigorously, “Yes, yes, if you can do it, then
definitely YES!”

  “Henri, get an Air Ambulance with six Bio-med cells over to the Base Hospital. Major Padgett, take whomever you are going to need to facilitate the transfer. Henri will have the Air Ambulance follow your orders. Just take the Trans-Portal and you will be on the Ambulance.” She directed the Louis Pasteur and Major Padgett.

  Shortly after that Evana took the group to the Hospital portion and showed them the facilities and various Surgical Suites.

  * * *

  Louis Pasteur/ Comm Mode: “Evana, the Air Ambulance has returned with the six burn patients. One of the patients’ wives was visiting and asked to come along. I told her yes that was fine. We are going to put them in Rooms ten through fifteen.”

  Lt. Commander Thomas/ Comm Mode: “Thank you Henri, who is their attending physician?”

  Louis Pasteur/Comm Mode: “Major Padgett said it was a Major Gerard. But he is unavailable due to a family emergency.”

  Lt. Commander Thomas/ Comm Mode: “OK, I’ll take care of it here.”

  “Our burn patients have arrived and are being transferred to their rooms. I understand that Major Gerard, their attending physician is unavailable. Who here would like to come with me to check them over?” Evana told the group at large.

  A young Captain raised his arm and said, “I’m Captain Loveless, I am familiar with the patients and their treatment history.”

  “Excellent, come along then.” And Evana separated herself from the group and headed for the Tran-Portal.

  A few seconds later they were in room ten and Major Padgett was also present. The patient was a young man of around twenty. He was missing his right arm from just above the elbow and his right leg from just below the knee. He had been loosely wrapped in gauze but the Bio-Med gel was dissolving it away as well as flaked off dead and charred skin. He was floating in the exact center of the Cylinder that formed the Suspended Animation Capsule.

  Evana spoke out loud, “Nurse, what is the patient’s prognosis?”

  A hologram of a nurse appeared and she began to speak. “The patient has a good prognosis. We are removing dead and damaged tissues at this time. Cell regenerators are being placed by nanites at this time. The missing limbs will have a 98% chance of successful regeneration.”

  “Thank you, Nurse. Is there an estimate of time when treatment is complete?”

  “At this time we believe that he will be fully repaired in four days.” The Nurse hologram reported.

  “Excellent, let me know if there are any changes please.” Evana said.

  The Army Doctor and Nurse were staring at each other in disbelief. Finally Major Padgett said.

  “Four Days for a full recovery! If you only knew of how many of these poor broken soldiers I’ve seen.” She said with a catch to her voice.

  Evana looked at her with sympathy. “Yes, me too when I was in the U.S. Navy. It breaks your heart to see a young person’s life be damaged or taken away from them because of the needs of the service. But now I can do something about that and I am.” She finished with conviction. “Let’s go look in on the rest.”

  In room fourteen there was a young woman who was obviously very pregnant. She was watching the young man floating in the cylinder intently. She looked up as Evana, Major Padgett and Captain Loveless appeared from out of the Trans-Portal.

  Evana introduced them to her and she said.

  “I’m Shawna White; this is my husband, what’s left of him anyway.” She said with a whimper.

  Evana smiled and said, “Well, in that case let’s find out how he is doing. Nurse, prognosis please.”

  Once again a hologram of a nurse appeared. “The patient’s prognosis is excellent, initial therapy is 87% complete. Cellular regenerators are now fully in place. Unlike the others there is no need of limb regeneration. There are several broken bones, mostly along the right rib cage. The right lung and liver were penetrated. These have been repaired and the bone regeneration is coming along nicely. The right femur was shattered. Nanite repair was initiated while in transit and is now 80% complete. Muscular tissue and connecting fibers are now in the repair process.

  Skin regeneration is also coming along nicely. The patient will be fully functional in thirty three hours unless unforeseen difficulties arise.”

  “Thank you Nurse! Mrs. White your husband will be fine and be ready for release to physical therapy on Wednesday.” Evana told her.

  “You mean…” She swallowed, “You mean he is going to be ok?”

  “Oh yes, he’ll be back to his old self once the Physical Therapy is finished. But you will be able to talk and be with him by late tomorrow evening. If you like, you are welcome to stay here with him until then.” Evana told her.

  “I would love too, but our daughter is in Day Care. I need to get her. May I do that and come back.”

  “I believe so. Please go and do that now. We will be here until later this evening then we need to be going to our next duty station. We will provide transportation to bring you and your husband back home though. So don’t worry about that at all.” Evana said soothingly.

  Then Evana and the two Army officers left the treatment room.

  * * *

  In the large reception room Evana smiled to herself later on as she watched all of the visitors chatting to the various Holograms and each other. She had a cup of coffee and a pastry that Henri said was of Norwegian origin. Whatever… It was delicious. There was a viewscreen depiction along one wall of a park with a pond. She could see people wandering around the park looking at the view in amazement.

  Colonel Hernwell sat down at the table she was at. He was eating a Hamburger with Fries. He sat quietly and looked over the throng as Evana was doing. Once he was done, he said. “Thank you for letting everyone see this marvelous vessel. The news media will be begging for any video or photographs they can get their hands on.”

  “Yes they will. All they need to do is ask though. The Louis Pasteur is meant to save lives, not take them.” Evana told him. She then gave him a penetrating look. “Do you and your people have everything you think you will need aboard yet?”

  “I think so, the A.I. told me that he can provide most of the things we need and if not he will send a vessel back to get it for us.”

  “Henri told me that he has assigned quarters for everyone that is going and that there will be a regular nurse and Doctor coming along to take care of our Burn Victims and Colonel James and the others as needed.” Evana told Colonel Hernwell.

  “When will we be leaving for the IUR?” The Colonel asked.

  “I believe that we will depart around 2000 Eastern Standard. The IUR is eight hours ahead of us so we will go slowly enough that we will arrive around 0700 their time.”

  “That still sounds quick to me.”

  “It is fairly quick, we will be in very low Earth Orbit for most of our trip there. I suggest that you and your people take advantage of the travel time to get some rest. The next few weeks are going to be very busy for us all.”

  She smiled and looked around once again and then said. “It’s almost time for our guests to go home. I do hope that they have had a good time!”

  Pentagon, 1150 EST, Monday November 16, 2026

  Commander Ansel Webster and Lt. Commander Gunnar Johansson of the Terran Space Navy are in a large conference room. What was supposed to be a small working meeting between Gunnar and General Owens Advanced Fighter Development Group has turned into a briefing on the TSN activities in the Iranian United Republic with the Secretary of Defense, the Under Secretaries and the entire Joint Chiefs and their immediate staff.

  “And finally, the IUR’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard General Staff is still attempting to come to grips with what we have accomplished. They are being pulled, tasked and counter-tasked in several directions. Our analysis of intercepted signals indicates that they are going to concentrate their efforts on internal control of strategic Infrastructure, food storage and distribution.

  As long as the TSN doesn’t engage in direct
combat they are just going to watch us. I expect that they will be drawing up plans for various offensive and defensive operations to deal with us. We will in turn keep watch on their units so we won’t be blindsided by a ‘sneak’ attack.” Gunnar finished up his initial presentation.

  “How is the evacuation of Foreign Nationals coming along” asked Secretary of Defense Anderson.

  “Very nicely, we have set up a schedule to send an evacuation ship daily to each Embassy or Consulate to pick up anyone who wants to be evacuated out to our M1 base.” Ansel answered.

  “And what about all of the tankers and merchant ships that are trapped behind the Blockade screen?” asked the Secretary.