Wings of Earth- Season One

by Eric Michael Craig

  “I assume he’s medicated?” she said, studying the brainwave readout and repositioning the medical scanner lower over the patient’s head.

  “Thorazapine Hydrosulfide,” he said.

  She stopped and blinked, unsure she’d heard him right. “He’s at that level of psychotic degeneration?”

  He nodded. “We found it was the lowest-tier treatment we could use to get him stabilized and he is more responsive than the other three patients we’ve got.”

  “TSS-C would have to have been active in his system for several years to reach that stage.”

  “That’s why we haven’t excluded the possibility of an unknown pathogen.”

  “Well, let’s start there,” she said, pointing at a cabinet across the room and nodding. Quinn reached in and pulled out a fitting that looked like it would mount to the scanner head.

  “What’s that?” the doctor asked.

  “It’s a trans-spectral field scanner,” she said, as Quinn held it in place so she could hook up the connectors. “I want to get him out of that space suit so I can get a better look at him.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever even seen one of those on a portable platform,” he whispered.

  “Yah, probably not. Lots of cred, and I’m connected to the manufacturer.” She shrugged it off without further explanation. Reaching around him, she picked up a hand scanner to check the unit. “I want to do a fast Genotype Replication Analysis, and then a Fractional Biographic Projection to see if we can pick out anything that’s not supposed to be there.”

  “I’ve read about GRA testing, but I didn’t think it was available outside of the Institute?”

  She looked at him with no expression and he squirmed.

  “You should do your homework Dr. Pettyjohn,” Ammo said, grinning. She’d been standing back in the corner of the MedBay and he almost jumped at her voice.

  “After I’m done with this, we can talk about why I might have one of these,” Kaycee said. “For now, we’ve got work to do.”

  “How long will this take?”

  “An hour or two to get the results.” She shrugged. “The one I had before took most of a day, but we upgraded shortly after I joined the crew of the Dawn.”

  “What’s your plan while we wait on the results,” he asked.

  “I plan to suit up and do a complete physical,” she said. “Not that I don’t trust you to have been thorough, but I need to confirm there’s nothing you missed.”

  “You’re really going to pull him out of his suit? In here?” He looked around, obviously still struggling to wrap his head around the idea that this little MedBay had the equipment for that level of work.

  She nodded. “I’ve got three nano-barrier suits, and the door has molecular-grade seals so it shouldn’t be a problem. You’re welcome to stay and assist.”

  “You’re sure you want to do that?”

  “I need to ask him some questions, and I can’t do that without getting him out in the air.”

  “I don’t think he’ll be able to talk,” Dr. Pettyjohn said. “We’ve had to maintain stable levels of THS in his system to keep him from becoming violent.”

  “Polydexamine should thin that out a bit,” she said. “Regardless, I didn’t come all the way out here to leave without some answers.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Tanis Magabi met them at the bottom of the docking stanchion. He was anything but what his rich melodic voice had led Ethan to expect. Clearly, a light gravity ectomorph, he wore a pressure support exosuit beneath his coverall. He was ten centimeters taller than Quinn, but he appeared to lack the muscle mass to hold his shoulders apart. His face was little more than a collection of angular bones with bright white teeth that flashed brilliantly against his dark skin.

  “We got rules in Tortuga,” he said, glancing at Angel and smiling. “No shootem-ups outa your ship, ya scan?”

  “What?” she said.

  “Lock it up or go home.” He pointed at the holster on her belt and at a security safe on the wall. He waited for her to get the message.

  “It’s just a stunner,” she said.

  He crossed his arms and stared. It didn’t matter to him. He wasn’t moving until she got rid of it.

  “Leave it here,” Ethan said, nodding at the lockbox. She was about to protest, but he stopped her with a lethal hairy eyeball. “No problems.”

  “Yah mon, you don’t know the pitch of the deck. Is true beans. Cap’n J says I keep you from sticking stink to yourselves, yah?”

  “Yah, we stink enough on our own,” Ethan said. “We don’t need to be picking up any spare reek.”

  Magabi laughed, flashing his bright white teeth in another dazzling display. “Come on, Walker-mon I show you the pretties of my town,” he said, turning and heading down the corridor to the lift. Angel had to fast trot to keep up with his long lazy strides, but Nuko was almost jogging.

  It became obvious as they explored the vast community of Tortuga, that Magabi was the administrative brains upon which it rested. He knew everyone and everything that went on. More times than Ethan could count, someone would walk up and ask him a question, and without fail he knew what they needed and where to get it. Sometimes he’d use his odd patois when he spoke, but just as often he’d drop it to give a clear answer.

  Often a child would run up and throw their arms around his kneecaps and give him a hug. Even the older youth would pitch him a ball and he’d stop to throw it back and forth a few times before they moved on.

  Following him through the domes, it was evident that Tortuga was not just a pirate base. Despite the heavily armed ramparts that he made sure to show them, it was by far a more living, breathing community than he would have expected. It had a history, and a culture of its own, as well as a future that drove it forward toward a destiny it had yet to realize.

  Ethan watched how Magabi moved through his town and profoundly understood that they had a right to be proud of what they’d built. Especially since it clung to the icy tomb of a dead Tacra Un and well beyond the edges of society.

  After touring everything that anyone might have considered to be important, they stopped in a place called One Eye Jack’s. It was a tavern in most ways, but as Magabi led them past a vast collection of artifacts to a booth in the back, Ethan also recognized it as a bit of a museum. Historical whatnots hung from the ceiling and sat scattered on what looked like wooden rafters and shelves. Some objects were behind glass fronts, but others were open to the air.

  It was an eclectic place, but in Ethan’s mind it felt much like what he would’ve owned himself, if he had been a tavern keep rather than shipmaster.

  As soon as they sat, a server walked up with four metal cups and a real glass bottle. She set them on the table and with a fast twirl, spun and headed away, leaving Ethan starting after her. She wore an odd outfit of lightweight cloth bunched up over her breasts and held in place by a tightly laced corset. Layers of bright colors hid everything between her bare shoulders and the top of her knee-length skirt.

  “Yah mon. It’s traditional,” Magabi said, catching Ethan trying to figure out why she was dressed so strangely. “They wore garb like that in the first Tortuga.”

  “Back on Earth in the preindustrial age?” Ethan asked. “It was an island community wasn’t it?”

  He raised an eye in surprise and then nodded. “Many generations ago my family was ‘Afrikaahn Maasai.’ My gawdawful-great-many-grandparents escaped from a slave ship near there. They joined a crew of privateers that ran the Caribbean more than 300 years before man climbed into the black.”

  His speech lost its casual patter and Ethan picked up that this was something important to him.

  “For twenty-five generations my family has sailed as privateers,” he said. “Tortuga is my blood. It is my breath.”

  “I see that,” he said, looking down at the table. It shocked him that he could feel the depth of Magabi’s commitment, and the mantle of responsibility he carried for the inheritance hi
s ancestors had passed to him. It was a humbling thing to know a person’s destiny anchored that far into his past. Glancing up, he realized that Angel and Nuko were chewing through the same realization.

  Magabi poured them each a tall shot of the rum and banged the bottle down on the table hard. Lifting his tankard, he waited for each of them to raise theirs. “Long may Tortuga be free,” he said.

  “Free,” Ethan echoed.

  Slamming his drink, Magabi hissed, clearing his throat, and smiling sadly. “You know, Captain Jetaar is a good man. He’s fighting a good fight.”

  “What fight is that?” Angel asked. Her tone didn’t sound challenging, as much as wanting to understand.

  “To free the slaves of the Coalition,” he said, lighting off another blinding flash of white teeth. “I serve with him because he knows it’s a privateer’s duty to always fight oppression.”

  “It’s everyone’s duty to fight oppression, isn’t it?” Ethan said.

  “At least it should be,” Nuko said. She was still staring at her cup.

  He exploded into a rolling laugh. “In a perfect world we’d all be privateers, yah?” he said, leaning back and throwing his elbow far across the back of the seat.

  “Maybe so,” Ethan agreed. He gulped down the last of his rum and frowned.

  “You know Captain Jetaar tells me he likes you because you fight for that same cause, even if you haven’t declared your heart yet.”

  Ethan shrugged then nodded. A year back he’d never have thought he could admit that, but it sat close to square.

  “I know who you really are Walker-mon,” Magabi said, refilling Ethan’s tankard. “You freed those Ut’aran slaves. You see the truth around you.”

  “Even when it’s better if he didn’t,” Nuko whispered.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Kaycee and Dr. Pettyjohn watched as the diagnostic scanner began to pump out its results. There was a limited but measurable amount of TU-142 detectable in his system. “There it is you were right on the TSS. It's enough to warrant treatment, but there isn’t enough of it in his system to be presenting this level of schizophrenic symptomology.”

  “It shouldn’t be, but it is,” Dr. Pettyjohn said. “Unless he’d been exposed somewhere else a long time before he got to Tamilis?”

  “That would be possible but are the other three patients members of his family or did they maybe all come from the same place originally?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “They’re all unrelated. I can’t even say for sure they knew each other before they climbed into a shuttle together.”

  “Let’s table that for now and see what else Marti can come up with before we spend a lot of time digging a crater.” She turned to face the patient where they had him strapped down to the examination bed. When they got him out of the suit, he had almost no unusual presentation. His pupils were dilated, and his breathing was shallow from the Thorazapine, but other than that he was unremarkable.

  He nodded. “What about the other tests?”

  She tapped over to another screen. “The Genotype Replication Analysis is close enough to call it done, but the Fractional Biographic Projection has a way to go.” She scrolled down the screen scanning the raw data. “Good news is that there’s nothing organic that shouldn’t be in his system,”

  “So, he’s not contagious?” Ammo asked, sounding hopeful.

  Kaycee shook her head, slipping her isolation helmet off her head and letting it fall back over her shoulders on the straps. Tapping a button on her chest panel the suit flap released, and she peeled the rubber skin down to her waist. It was horrendously uncomfortable wearing a barrier suit, and hers fit right. Parts of Ammo were a bit too big for hers and as she shimmied her way out Kaycee realized that it was a good thing the orderlies weren’t watching.

  Dr. Pettyjohn had stretched his suit to the limit and when he pulled his off, it snapped loose like a balloon, making several obscene noises that were enough to even make doctors want to giggle. “That’s a relief,” he said, shaking his head and trying not to blush.

  She glanced at the door and saw Quinn staring in at them. She nodded and gestured for him to open the door. The air seal popped as they rejoined the rest of the ship’s life support grid. “I take it this is a good sign,” he said, coming in and handing them all a gojuice and what looked like a pink hairy fruit of some kind.

  “You eat fresh peaches on a freighter?” the doctor asked as he took the fruit and bit into it hungrily.

  “Momma always said that to eat well, was the best revenge,” the handler said. “I figured you’d all be hot as a June bug on a skillet and could use something cold and sweet.”

  “This has got to be the strangest ship… and crew… I’ve ever run across,” he said wiping the corner of his mouth with the end of his sleeve.

  “Probably so,” Kaycee said, turning her attention back to the screen as it chirped an alert. She wobbled her head back and forth, frowning.

  “He’s got some severe enzymatic imbalances and there are signs of biochemical interaction with street level drugs. From what I’m seeing it would probably be Blackroot and Keto-Blue.”

  “Would that be enough to cause the schizophrenic issues the Doc is talking about?” Quinn asked.

  He looked at the numbers and shook his head. “That’s right in line with what we found in our initial tests. He was a serious user, but it’s not anywhere near as bad as I’ve seen before. KB is hard on the nervous system, but it stabilizes serotonin levels. I think he’d be worse if he weren’t premedicated.”

  “That’s true,” Kaycee said. “Especially since you said he was running to the manic rail.”

  “How dangerous was he?” the handler asked.

  “I’m not a psych doc, but I’d call him dangerously psychotic,” Pettyjohn said.

  “I want to go ahead and bring him around,” she said. “I need to talk to him so we can see what else is at play.”

  “He’ll be tough to control,” he warned. “What are you hoping to find that’s worth bringing him out of happy land?”

  “I don’t know, but I have to know what he saw.” She knew it was personal to her, and she was afraid that if she admitted it to him, he’d pull the patient out of her care. She grabbed a dermal vapor dispenser and hooked the feed tubes up to the pharma-synthesizer before she turned to face him.

  “Why?” He asked.

  She could see in his eyes he was leaning toward making that decision. She glanced at Quinn, and the handler winked as if to say, I’ve got your back.

  Taking a deep breath, she leaned back against the bed. “My family disappeared on Starlight. I need to know if what happened on Tamilis is the same thing. If it is, then we all need to know what’s going on. If he can give me anything at all, maybe we can find out what’s happening.”

  “It is personal,” he said. “I suspected as much.”

  She nodded.

  He chewed his lip for almost a minute and then let out a slow breath. “We need to give him at least 400 milligrams of polydexamine to thin the sedation enough to even get him to hear you. I’ll monitor his vitals while you try to make contact.” He stepped around her and dialed the drug into the synthesizer while she finished the hook ups.

  Quinn checked the straps and Pettyjohn nodded. “He’ll be, blow-you right-out-the-airlock-insane, so make sure you’re ready for anything.”

  Kaycee stepped up to the bed and laid her hand on his forearm. Ammo shot her an assault level glare as she used her Urah Un to connect to the patient’s nervous system.

  Even though it didn’t provide the kind of link that she would have had with someone wearing one of their own, it did let her feel the level of reaction he was having to the drugs. She needed to have a much finer control of how far up they brought him but it wasn’t without serious risk.

  “Let’s start out with 100 milligram and then add 100 a minute until he starts to respond,” she said, closing her eyes and riding the feel of his body’s electrical impul
ses.

  After the third wave of the amphetamine hit his system, she felt his brain twitch. Slightly. Like distant thunder. “Easy now, he’s starting to feel it.”

  “He is?” Pettyjohn asked. “I’m not seeing it on his vitals.”

  She nodded. “Cut the flow to fifty and stand by if he spikes.” She opened her eyes and stared at Ammo who stood on the opposite side of the table.

  Kaycee could feel the thunder becoming a brittle crackling and she almost let go. She sucked in a sharp breath and bit down on her lip.

  “Stop here,” she said. “He’s awake.”

  “Flow zero at 430 mil,” he said. His voice sounded distant in her ears, but she could still hear the skepticism in his tone.

  “Mr. Vega? Cantos? Can you hear me?” she asked in a soft voice.

  His arm twitched, and she gripped it gently, working to maintain a connection.

  “Cantos, I’m a doctor, I’m trying to help you. Can you hear me?”

  His arm jerked, this time more forcefully, and his face danced through a thousand expressions before he sucked in a deep breath and went rigid.

  “His heart rate is jumping,” Pettyjohn said.

  “I feel it,” she whispered. “Cantos come on. I need you to find me. You’re safe and we’re trying to help you.”

  He jerked his head back and forth and a strange gurgling sound snarled its way out through his clenched teeth. “Get away!” he gasped. “Can’t run!”

  His eyes flashed open as he chased invisible memories around the room. “Fire!” “Burning lake. Ground is…. Fire!”

  “Sky… Run!”

  He locked eyes with Kaycee and sucked in another breath. It hung in his chest and he shook until the bed under him rattled. “I feel you,” he hissed out.

  Lightning bolts exploded across his nervous system and her hand launched itself away from his arm. She collapsed back against the cabinet like a malevolent force had tossed her away. The echoing violence of the severed connection rang in Kaycee’s mind and she stared down at her Urah Un like she expected it to be smoking. It wasn’t, but her hands were both trembling uncontrollably.