Blazer first assumed it to be blood. He leapt to his feet and ran towards her before his training took hold. A blast seared past his optics. He dove to the ground as a second fluid source was detected. He trained his weapon towards the Galactic Federation forces nearest to her. Interference from plaser fire marred his sight picture. While the team took careful aim at their targets, the Galactic Federation soldiers fired indiscriminately. The plasma and mass driver rounds left visible traces in the disruption screen that Blazer could backtrack.
Most of the fire rained towards his team or the AT-APT, raking the ground around them. Little, if any, traced towards Marda’s fireteam.
Her status caught him by surprise. Before he could respond a burning sensation knocked him to the ground. Snapped back into reality, he whipped his rifle around and cut loose through the fog towards his attacker. A scream of pain echoed back.
His suit reported a breach and his left side burned with a pain he didn’t recognize. A shot of skin grafting medical nanoprobes with local anesthetics and stimulants pricked him. He rolled aside to keep his attackers guessing. The sound of heavy plasers rained down from the sky. Explosions echoed from the nearby caves. Blazer returned his assault on the Galactic Federation soldiers.
The thermal vents along Blazer’s barrels had just begun to redden when the fighting ceased. Much to his surprise, Blazer found himself panting from the exertion. He scanned the area, his footing growing unsteady.
Blazer turned to Zithe as the Lycan approached, his helmet open, eyes wide.
Blazer couldn’t even question the action before he fell back. He stared up at the sky. His vision dimmed as the dropship hovered into view. He was dimly aware of words, but the pain and painkillers drowned out all sensation before everything went black.
* * *
Gavit couldn’t believe the report as he raced the jet-sled towards the scene. Not only had the assault gone off faster than he’d anticipated, but Blazer was down. His stomach tightened. We can’t lose him, not right after we’ve just got him back. He accelerated as fast as he dared, his passenger squeezing herself close and yelping in response. He almost wished he wasn’t wearing his armor, so that he might feel those breasts pressed against his back.
A grunt from Zithe echoed over the primary link, his beacon right on top of Blazer’s.
“All Units, Drop. We have contacts on the horizon. We need to make our getaway as quickly as we can”
Gavit swung wide, vectoring his optical turret about to get a look towards the distant Geffer base. The dropship’s WSO was right. Multiple contacts, airborne and ground, were closing on them. The force they’d eliminated had been the advance scouts.
She squeezed him even harder in response. I wonder how she’d react if she knew who I am.
Gavit was no stranger to carnage. His stomach twisted as he dropped below the clouds of dust to watch; Chris and Rudjick were laying out the emergency stretcher. The armor along Blazer’s right side had been stripped away. The body gloves and roasted flesh beneath lay open to the toxic air. He tore his eyes away and prepared to land in the right outrigger pod.
Gokhead stood right beside Blazer. Even with Que Dee implanted, the private link request Gavit had established when he’d called Que Dee proved to keep Gokhead out of the loop. Despite that Que Dee could still access the whole team’s sensors to scan Blazer.
That thought really hurt. Gavit vectored the sled in to land: he spotted Matt and Bichard stowing their gear out of the way. They guided him into the bay and grabbed hold of the hovering craft. They pulled it to the deck as Gavit shut it down.
They nodded and headed towards the nearby corral where Arion, Priest, and Hallet had already begun to free the captured civilians.
Gavit finished shutting down the hovering recon craft and it settled into its deck clamps. He released Tris’ harness. She slid back and away from him, cradling her arms close. Gavit turned to her and opened his faceplate. “It’ll be alright, miss.”
Tears flowing free, Tris leapt into his arms. “Thank you, thank you,” she panted. Gavit just rested an arm on her for a moment to comfort her before she looked up at him. A hint of confusion lit the side of her eyes and a moment later recognition hit, making her dive into his arms again. “Gavit Markus, I can’t believe it!” she yelled.
Gavit looked up to Chris staring back at him from the open ramp.
“Gavit, Blazer’s in the med popup with Marda. We could use a hand getting all these civvies loaded before the Geffers get here.”
Gavit nodded and pushed Tris back. “I have to go help the others. We’ll talk soon.”
“Please no,” she replied, taking his hand.
Gavit looked down at the soft skin of her hand in his armored glove for a moment. They were such a stark contrast to each other that he almost had to stare to realize they belonged to the same species. An alert light drew his eyes, revealing Chris scowling back at him. It wasn’t her usual scowl of indifferent disapproval, there was something alien and out of character for her. Whatever it was, she was right, they had a job to do. Gavit patted Tris’ hand and guided her off the jet-sled to a jump seat along the wall of the outrigger module. “You’ll be safe here. Once we have your friends aboard, I’ll check on you.”
“You’d better,” she replied and he rushed back towards the ramp. Chris’ disapproving gaze kept shifting between the pair of them the whole time.
Gavit eyed her.
Gavit nodded and took one last look back at Tris as she stared after him.
UCSB Date: 1005.009
Medical Bay 12, Cathedral Seven, Gumlewp System
There was a certain surreal quality to the three positions Marda had taken since her return to service. Not only was she the team’s reserve medic, she was also the co-Chief Medical Officer in one of the Cathedral Station’s many medical bays. On top of those, she’d kept up her regular flight patrols.
This cycle that had become even more evident. Ordinarily, field medics were just that. Once they’d returned to the receiving station, they’d hand off their patients. For M
arda, that wasn’t the case with the movie crew they’d rescued. They’d returned directly to Cathedral Seven after their escape. Therefore, to maintain continuity of care, the whole of the surviving crew had been sent to her medical bay, even Blazer.
Keeping Blazer under her care was usually considered against protocol. As her husband, and squad leader, she was too personally involved to make clear decisions on his care. That left her no choice but to assign another doctor to him and to advise only as necessary.
Flying was the duty she looked forward to most. It was also the duty she was least able to engage in since her return to service. Had it not been for their mission, she would have been on the flight rotation this cycle. Instead, the whole team was grounded for a decle, which was standard station practice after a mission.
Marda’s stomach churned as she read the latest report on the survivors. With the exception of the Chret, in their environment suits, everyone had some level of lung damage. She couldn’t ascertain at first why some had escaped with only minimal lung scarring until Rudjick had stopped in to get autographs. Everyone he’d asked for a signature had been near ready for release - the stars of the movie. Zithe’s report on the equipment they’d recovered confirmed that each of the stars had had their own filter masks. The crew had been forced to share the remaining three.
Marda approached the isolation booth where the Chret waited in their native chlorine environment. She gazed in at Eberian. His wings would never be the same and there was nothing she could do about that. She hated the idea. Even now, surgeons from across the station examined him, discussing how best to proceed. He was beyond distraught about the injury. He regarded the loss of his leg as nothing more than an inconvenience. Chret leg prosthetics were indistinguishable from their natural-taloned appendages, even low-end ones. His perfect wings, however, had made him famous.
She pulled up his latest conversation with the grief counsellor. “It’s over, it’s all over. Do you think I built my career on my stellar acting ability? No! My wings, the formel, they came to see their flawless beauty. They made me the envy of every tiercel, because they knew that their wings would never be so grand. Did you read my last reviews? Those elders ripped my acting apart and said I was only on the holos ‘because of what hung on my back.’”
Marda couldn’t listen any more. She checked his outgoing stitches. The list was full of private nanosurgeons across the Confederation. Each one was shorter than the last. Then there was his guest list. Aside from someone from the casting agency, it was empty. None of the other actors she’d discharged had even returned to visit him.
She turned away, choking back tears, and ordered a suicide watch. She needed a win. She headed to the bank of private rooms and her hearts swelled. The sensors in Blazer’s room indicated that he was awake. She hurried towards his room, excited to see him after the coma she’d induced aboard the dropship.
The weapon the Galactic Federation had used against him still remained a mystery. What at first appeared to be a simple armor breach and plaser burn had proved far worse. The size of the plaser burn had caught her off-guard when she’d first seen it. It wasn’t the pinpoint or gash injury common to wounds of the type. There’d been some sort of splash effect that had covered much of his side. Zithe reported rumours of a new Galactic Federation Mass-Driver Round that featured a shaped-charge plasma core.
That matched with what she’d observed, at first. The slug must have breached the armor before the core had burst to pour plasma onto the exposed flesh. The Confederation had a mass-driver round that functioned similarly, and she knew how to treat that. As she and the other doctors had cared for Blazer however it turned out to be far more complicated.
Aboard the dropship, she’d treated it using standard practices. After stabilizing the wound and removing the dead tissue, she’d applied skin grafts. Upon second examination, Marda had noticed that the injury had burnt through his electrolytic layer. She’d thought nothing more sinister of it at the time. It would complicate his recovery, certainly, extending it an extra decle for the additional surgeries needed, but no more. Shortly before returning to the station however she’d found that none of the grafts had taken. Worse, to her horror, the ‘burn’ had grown.
That had left Marda no choice. Without any idea what had happened to Blazer she had had to quarantine not just him, but everyone else who’d come into contact with him and his wound. For an agonizing cycle she could do nothing but watch as the station’s surgeons removed not only the damaged tissues, but half the skin on the left side of Blazer’s chest, back, arm and upper legs. It might have been more than was necessary, but they had to prevent any further spread. She couldn’t even comfort, or gain comfort, from her son, his telepathic calls to her once she’d come within range heart-breaking.
Marda and the others were deemed clean of any trace of the unknown substance inside of the cycle. But Blazer had spent the following cycle and a half floating in a nano-infused nutrient tank to rebuild the skin he’d lost. She brought Chrisvian to see him once, after his new skin had grown into place. The soft, pink tissue had looked smoother than her toddler’s.
Marda rushed to the room to find Blazer not just awake but sitting on the edge of his bed. She breathed a long sigh of relief and uttered a prayer of thanks under her breath. She almost felt like she was dreaming as she walked in. “How are you feeling?”
Blazer shook his head. “Still fuzzy. How long have we been back?”
Marda indicated the floating clock hologram behind her; she read the fatigue still in his eyes. “Three cycles.”
Blazer gasped in disbelief. “What in the universe did they hit me with?”
Marda shrugged. Zithe’s order for an immediate dust-off once they’d had everyone aboard, while prudent, had left them precious little evidence of the nature of the weapon used against Blazer. “We don’t know yet. Intel is still scrubbing your armor for any traces. But they’re saying some kind of mass-driver round with a bio weapon core. Once it breached your armor it began to eat your skin.”
Blazer shivered in horror and fingered his new flesh. Marda could read him like a screen. Doubt and uncertainty filled his face. She could relate, still in shock that he’d taken such a hard hit or that such a weapon even existed. “How much was regrown?” he asked, looking at a growth peeking out of his medical gown.
“It was pretty extensive,” she replied and pointed to his upper thighs poking out beneath the gown.
Blazer’s hands fell to his crotch. “Um…”
Marda shook her head. “Men! Yes, even that.”
Blazer started to open the gown to peek and Marda rushed up to stay his hand. “It’s fine, I oversaw its reconstruction.” She decided to grin just a little. “I may have enhanced it.”
Blazer raised an eyebrow at her. “You’ve never complained before.”
“I was being polite.”
Blazer shook his head and held up his hands, a different concern twisting his face. “Did anyone else get hit?”
Marda shook her head. “The forensics team scrubbed everyone else’s armor. Some took glancing blows, but the rounds didn’t penetrate or burst. We were lucky.”
She regretted that the instant she said it. The implication was that Blazer had gotten unlucky, careless, or worse, distracted. Blazer being anything but mission-focussed was against his nature. It was why he’d developed his dual personality. Out there he was all business, mind on the mission, nothing else. It had kept them alive through their missions at the academy and against the Gorvians, and why she’d reluctantly accepted it. She hadn’t wanted to consider what it would mean if becoming a father had changed that ability of his to compartmentalize his thoughts and emotions. “What happened out there?”
He shrugged and scratched his eyebrow. “It’s like you said - I got unlucky. I guess.”
Marda recognized Blazer’s tell in an instant. She crouched down in front of him, took his hands, and looked him in the eyes. “Blazer, you’ve never been that unlucky.�
�
Blazer smirked and looked over her right shoulder. “Last few times we’ve been in combat we were in mech-suits. I must have gotten complacent,” he replied, his hand twitching.
“Don’t lie to me, and don’t give me excuses! What happened?”
He sighed, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “I’ve been playing it back in my head ever since I woke up. The way we got spun up, then down, then back up again, it ruined my center. I focus on issues the whole mission. I’ve never had to deal with such bureaucratic trash before,” he explained, his frustration ringing through.
“Station politics are different from shipboard,” she explained, thumbing the back of his hand to soothe him. “More loops to navigate.”
“Right. So, once we’d deployed, I just wasn’t fully there. Then once you’d made your drop from the AT-APT.” He paused for a moment as if remembering exactly what had happened. “When you jumped, I got an alert over my command net from your suit.”
Marda couldn’t believe that and pulled back in shock. Her drop off had gone off without a hitch. Then she remembered the odd questions Blazer had asked. “What kind of alert?”
“Foreign high protein intrusion in your torso,” he said closing his eyes to try and remember the exact phrasing. “Two of them. I thought you’d been hit.”
Marda’s eyes went wide, rage welling up within her. “You have to be kidding me!” She couldn’t be sure what to feel in that moment. She hadn’t considered how being a mother would affect her mission effectiveness. Apparently with Blazer’s ‘game face’ set, he, and her suit, had mistaken an accidental lactation for an injury. She looked back at him and took his hands again to steady her own, and to keep her from slapping him for his foolish mistake. She stared at him, straight in the eyes, sure to have his attention before she spoke again. “It was milk. When I hit the ground, I leaked milk.”
Hell's Razer Page 6
