Call of Courage: 7 Novels of the Galactic Frontier
Page 153
“They wouldn’t dare so close to the base,” Nova said, incredulous.
“Of course not. But that rumor, if you want to call it that, gave your people excuse to march in here and start going door to do looking for rebels.” The woman took Nova’s uniform and stuffed it into a bag before handing it back to her. “So the Shri-Lan fought back and things got ugly fast. And the people of this town suffer for it. Again.”
The Bellac gestured for Nova to return with her to the main hall. She stopped again at the end of the dim corridor. “Don’t forget for a moment that you are their prisoner here. A hostage. If they didn’t want you for something you’d be dead by now. I advise you not to play Union Soldier around here. If you escape they will kill some of us, any of us, to set an example. I don’t suggest you try.”
Nova nodded absently as she scanned the crowded space, searching for Reko among the injured. There had to be a way to contact her unit. And surely some of these people would know a relatively safe way to get through the front lines. Some of the injuries she saw required far more extensive attention than what seemed available in this crude clinic.
“They would have taken your friend around that bend,” Coria pointed.
Nova picked her way through the pallets on the floor to a less crowded section near the back. It was out of sight from the main entrance and darker. She finally spotted Reko, barely conscious on a thin mattress that was too short for his gangly Centauri frame. Someone had stripped him of his uniform jacket and covered him with a dusty blanket.
“Tomos,” she whispered, crouching beside him. “You in there?”
He blinked up at her and tried a lopsided grin. “Yeah. What is this place? Evac?”
“No. Med station. Patrolled by rebels to make sure their people get treated first. Looks like mostly Bellacs working here.” She tried not to wince when she lifted the thick pad of dressing from his side. “You’re missing a chunk of meat there,” she said. “I’ll try to find a scanner to get a better look.”
“You do that, Lieut—” he frowned, reminding himself that they were among rebels. “Nova.”
She looked up when someone knelt beside her. It was the Human who was apparently responsible for her upon pain of death. He began to replace Reko’s bandages, expert in his task in spite of large, blunt-fingered hands. “We have one scanner here and it’s not a good one. But the doctor said this is just a bad bleeder. We need to get that stitched up.”
“Stitched?” Nova said. “That’ll need a graft. You have no equipment here at all?”
“Not a lot. Your friend here didn’t rate highly in triage.” Nova realized that he was younger than he first appeared. Unlike herself, whose skin was exposed to the sun only on the occasional ground mission, he was deeply tanned and his light hair seemed bleached by weather. His body was dense and powerful, like that of someone used to working outdoors. He smiled wistfully. “I suppose that’s a good sign.”
“They gave me a shot of the good stuff,” Reko said. “Not feeling much pain now.” He nudged her arm. “You have to get out of here, Nova. Get back to the base and get help.”
“I’m not leaving you, Sergeant. Bet on that.”
The medic gave a snort of derision. “There is no way in or out of here without sacrificing more civilians, anyway. You know that and they know that. You’ll have to be our guests for the next little while.”
“This has got to blow over soon,” Nova said.
“Not until your people get some backup, I’m guessing.” He shrugged. “I guess your elevator is more important than a few townsfolk.”
“They attacked the tether base?”
He seemed amused. “I’m probably much less interested in warfare strategies than you are. We are a little too busy for that sort of thing around here.” The tilt of his head pointed out the disorder around them. “And could use a hand until someone gets this under control.”
“All right.” She gave Reko’s hand an assuring squeeze and rose. “You get some sleep, if you can. We’ll get out of here soon enough. Don’t worry.”
Reko squinted up at the medic. “They teach them to say that crap in officer school, you know.”
“I thought it sounded a little rehearsed.”
She followed the man down an aisle between the rows of cots and into a makeshift dispensary. The shelves were nearly empty. “He called you Nova?” he said, handing her a plastic smock and a supply of gloves. “That’s quite a name to live up to.”
She watched him count out single-dose ampules of medication. “I had a bit of a temper as a child. What’s your name?”
“Nathon Lis Djari, formerly of the Tangmak Rift but currently stuck here in Shon Gat, as you can see. You can call me Djari.” He smiled, something that seemed to come easily to him, even here. “And I will call you Sunshine. Far less explosive a name, I think.”
“You’re a poet,” Nova mumbled as she pulled the smock over her head. “And a doctor?”
“I can only wish, on both counts. I’m a farmer. Apparently I took a wrong turn when the shooting started. I hope that Centauri was right when he said you might have some training?”
“Just basic medical. I don’t know much about Bellacs at all. And you have a lot of them here.”
“I guess we’ll learn together. Just follow the doctors around. They’ll tell you what they need.”
They returned to the main ward. She scanned the hall to take a closer look at the few armed rebels loitering near the exit. All of them were Bellac natives, indistinguishable from the neutral population except for their guns. By their stance and demeanor, none of them were trained for this. And none of them seemed inclined to help with the wounded.
An excited babble of voices reached them, speared by a high-pitched wail that sounded the same at the edge of every battlefield. The rebel guards stood aside to allow another stretcher to enter, carried by several harried civilians. A distraught older woman seemed to want to help and impede their progress all at once.
“Come,” Djari said and rushed toward them. He waved at the men to carry the stretcher to an open spot on the floor where a stained mattress had only recently been vacated. Nova helped to transfer the injured youth, wincing over the lack of clean supplies for these people.
The boy, his hair a wild pattern of blue and violet streaks, howled in pain and weakly fought to keep them from checking his wounds. “Hold him down,” Nova snapped to one of the men. She tore the blood-soaked shirt to reveal a bullet wound. The woman behind her cried out at the sight. Nova grabbed a handful of bandages from someone and pressed them into the wound. She looked over to Djari kneeling beside her and saw that he understood the hopelessness of this injury. “That’s not an Air Command weapon,” she said quietly. They raised the boy’s shoulder and she felt beneath him. “Shot in the back.”
“We can’t help him,” Djari said. He glanced up at the woman. “I’ll try to find something for the pain until…” he trailed off and stood up. For a moment he just gazed over the rows of pallets. Perhaps he meant to say something more but then he turned and walked away.
Nova covered the boy’s injuries and then motioned to the woman who had come in here with him. The others had gone, leaving only the quietly weeping Bellac at his side when Nova turned her attention to another casualty.
And so it went. Victim after victim needed medicines they did not have, water they had to ration, equipment that just did not exist in this part of town. Nova did what she could, using her rudimentary training to patch up laser burns, bullet wounds, lacerations and broken bones. There were just two doctors here and a handful of medics. Even the basic scanner in her lost data sleeve was more adept than the single diagnostic tool they had here. She worked at Djari’s side to move victims, clean equipment and tools, carry out the doctors’ orders and distribute what little food was brought in by the locals.
“Sunshine,” Djari whispered when, hours later, she walked past him to fetch more saline from their meager stores. He gestured urgently.
She rose, hoping the charges wouldn’t rattle as she walked. Djari caught her hand. “Bring back a splint for her arm.”
She looked down at the Bellac, frowning.
Djari squeezed her hand. “She’s not a rebel right now,” he said. His soft gray eyes shifted to their patient. “She’s someone who’s going to be in a whole lot of pain when she wakes up. Let’s not add to that.”
“Are all farmers as big-hearted as you are?”
His brows drew together and he released her hand. “Sometimes I think it’s only us farmers that care about any living thing these days. Would I do anything less for her than I would for some livestock?” He patted a damp cloth on the woman’s face where a massive bruise was forming. “Would anyone risk this if they didn’t have some reason, some cause, whether I understand it or not?”
Nova nodded. “I’ll hurry.” She made her way to the corner where Reko was resting uncomfortably on his pallet.
He tried to sit up when she lowered herself beside him but soon gave up. “Nice of you to visit.”
“How are you doing?” she said, tugging on the cuff of her trousers.
“Like there’s someone chewing on my ribs. Doc doesn’t think they can stitch that up. Going to be one hell of a scar.”
“Maybe it’ll be a dashing one. You can brag about it.”
“What have you got there?”
She briefly held up one of the charges. “Are you up to a bit of tinkering?”
“I think so. Not exactly my field, though.”
She tucked all but one of the cylinders under his blanket. “Easy. Open this end; I’ll try to find you something to pry it with. There will be two wires in there, leading to this ring. Pull out the one that looks coppery. Might be hard to see in this light, so be careful. It’ll make the thing explode on impact without the gun. Convert only half of these, just in case we do get our hands on a pistol for it.”
He looked doubtful. “Can those explode on me?”
“No, you have to bash them hard enough to break.”
“So you say. Are there a lot of rebels here?”
“Hard to say. Some are easier to spot than others. They’re not talking much if they are.”
“Try to get some intel, anyway. I feel totally useless lying around here, not knowing what’s going on out there. Did I hear Rhuwacs earlier?”
“Yeah, there are a few of them outside, making sure we don’t leave. There are two other Union soldiers here, both badly burned and going nowhere. At this point I’m guessing we’re all hostages. I’m not hearing a lot of artillery now.”
He nodded. “Maybe they’re talking. I sure would like to see the inside of a real hospital right about now.”
She rose to return to work. “You and a few dozen others. I’ll bring you some water.”
The hall had grown dark and stifling once the promised sand storm reached the town and the windows were shut tightly against it. Thankfully, the weather also seemed to have halted the battle and the arrival of new casualties slowed to a trickle. Nova helped to deliver a baby amidst the chaos; a new experience that left her both shaken and amazed. Hours passed and they seemed like days. Blood, tears, filth. Nova moved numbly through her chores, resolved to let her body do the work and keep her mind from taking in what she saw here. She felt unequipped to comfort those who came in more shell-shocked than injured and left those to the more gentle ministrations of Djari and his people.
His capacity for caring for these broken and frightened people seemed infinite. Nova found herself watching and, she realized, learning more from him than the doctors. His smile was sincere and applied at just the right time, his touch soothing and cool, his voice calm. His patience remained when Nova herself wanted to shout at a hysterical husband or snap at a helper for making errors. But he was as fatigued as anyone else here and she saw an expression of despair and even anger creep over his face more and more frequently.
Not wanting to act the officer among these people, Nova finally enlisted Coria’s help to organize the exhausted workforce into shifts so that some of them could get some rest.
Dawn was not far off when she returned to Reko’s corner to check his wound.
“What’s going on, Nova,” he mumbled when she replaced his bandages.
“Still the same. Did you get those charges done?”
“Yeah. Under my knee. Get anything useful?”
“Not much. Air Command is sniping at the front line to keep them busy but the bombing has stopped. Rebels keep shoving civilians and Rhuwacs at them. We’ve seen this before.” She looked at her hands that burned and had turned rough with the use of the harsh disinfectants. She had seen battle and she had been part of it. What she had not seen were places like these, hidden away behind the front line where people came to die, to have shattered limbs removed, to await arrest by Air Command who rarely backed out of a battle once begun. To know that they existed was a long way from living in one.
He accepted a cup of water. “Command’s not going to risk pissing off the governors by taking the town back by force.” He squinted up at her. “No offense, Lieutenant, but you look terrible.”
“Thanks.” She pulled up a blanket she had found somewhere and curled up beside him. “I could sleep for a week. What do you think Command will do with this place?”
“Wait them out, maybe. Cut off food supplies. By now they’re probably evacuating as many of the locals as possible. Could end up dropping a little dust if the weather clears.”
Nova groaned. The ‘dust’ he referred to would, when dropped from overhead, blanket the town in a relatively fast-acting aerosol drug that would temporarily incapacitate rebel and civilian alike. Its effectiveness depended on how intent their enemy was on taking revenge on the locals before succumbing to it. She had been deployed for that tactic just last year, over Tannaday. It had left her feeling intensely unclean.
“It’d be a last resort,” he said. “They won’t like the idea of more coilers in here somewhere and the storm isn’t going to let up for a while. We’re definitely looking at no-fly. Did you get anything useful from the rebels?”
“Not much. Sounds like they’ve pretty much used up the Rhuwacs they brought. The tether hasn’t been compromised but that’s no surprise. Someone said that one of the transformers got blown, though.”
“Any objective?”
“Same crap. They’re trying to get Bellac’s governors to give up on the Union. Refuse the alliance and keep the jumpsite neutral. Without a Union relay station at the gate. As usual, they’ve got nothing to bargain with.” Nova closed her eyes but an image of a little girl that had come in earlier kept appearing behind her lids. There had been blood in the stiff little braids on the child’s head. “I have no idea why this blew up today, though.”
“Yes, seems odd. Unless someone really fouled up, I don’t see the win here.”
Nova awoke a few hours later to the sound of roars and curses outside. There were no windows at this end of the building but she made out Rhuwacs and the voices of their handlers. She pulled her blanket over her head for a moment to block the ugly noise, hoping what she was hearing didn’t mean the end of a captive’s bid for escape.
She sat up, eventually, blinking and rubbing eyes that stung from exhaustion and the dust still hanging in the air from last night’s storm. The light of dawn had found its way into the hall and some of the others moved among the injured, wai
ting for their turn to sleep a little. She rose and bent over Sergeant Reko. But he had not awoken to the noise and when she touched his face it was hot and dry. She cursed quietly and checked his injury.
“Morning, Sunshine. How is he doing?”
Nova looked up when Djari joined her. He didn’t look like he had slept much these past few hours, either, but his striking smile seemed to brighten this corner. “Got infected,” she said and bit back another profanity. For some reason it seemed to her that this man probably didn’t care much for foul language even among soldiers.
He checked Reko’s temperature by touch. “Maybe today we’ll get out,” he said. “It’s been quiet.” He shrugged when another Rhuwac bellow seemed to shake the walls. “Except for them, anyway.”
“Your optimism is spooky, you know that?” Nova dipped a cloth into a basin of almost clean water to cool Reko’s face.
He watched her use the rag to wipe the back of her own neck. “What else is there?” he said quietly and she wished she hadn’t spoken. “How else can you live like this? How can anybody?”
“Nobody is supposed to.” She hesitated before placing her hand on his arm. “You’re right, we’ll get out. These things run their course.”
He gazed at her without speaking and somehow that made her blush. Glad for the inadequate light, she dropped her eyes and pulled her hand back to fuss with Reko’s bandages. “So what’s a Human civilian doing all the way out here in Shon Gat? You seem a little out of place here.”
“I am,” Djari agreed. “I was born on the base at Siolet. My father was killed when I was still very young. My mother eventually took up with a Bellac farmer and moved out to the Tangmak Rift. Anai root and some livestock.”
“You’re a long way from Tangmak.”
“Know why I’m here?” He looked as if about to reveal a great secret. “Trying to get to the skyranch. I’ve asked for work up there. Already talked to some administrators. I know what Bellacs like and I know how to grow it. I’ve been studying up on moisture recyclers, hydroponics, soilless farming. I’m practically hired already!”