Hospital Ship (The Rim Confederacy #5) (23 page)

Nothing there at all to look at, in fact
, Tanner thought as he glanced around.
The room was pretty bare.

Beige. Comfy but in a manner that was definitely without personality.

While the office had no personality, Dr. Etter had a personality. Tanner was certain of that as he had run into it quite a bit over the past couple of months.

He had faced—well, to be honest, he really hadn't faced his alcoholism at all. As he was within that nineteen percent of the human population who had that certain variant of the opioid receptor gene OPRM1, it meant a simple shot had cleared his alcoholism completely.

He no longer, it appeared, was susceptible to the lure of drinking—he would never get a buzz from anything he drank. Not a whole night on Randi ales or an afternoon on big Quaran Cabernets would affect him whatsoever. Even a wonderful double-double coffee with that big splash of Scotch would mean nothing to him. His days of drinking were over.

At least that's what he understood—he'd have to check, but if so, this was excellent news.

So in fact,
Tanner thought as he waited for the doctor to finish his notes on the previous patient,
the only thing left was his PTSD.

He tried to think on that for a while and was interrupted by the doctor.

"Captain Scott—Tanner, nice to have this time together. I see from your schedule that we have only two more weekly appointments—and we still have some things to discuss—for instance, what about Tibah and you killing her?" he said point blank.

Tanner was taken aback, and yet he nodded and reached a hand down to his thigh where it met his knee and began to bounce two fingers in a pattern: one, two ... one, two, over and over. It was his measured response, which was supposed to give his brain something else to do when the PTSD suddenly reared its ugly head, and so far, it'd been okay.

Purple eyes ... the violet of that shade of Tibah's eyes was a color he'd never forget.

She was tall—taller than him by at least an inch or two but with jet-black hair, those violet eyes, and a shape that was a killer—and that's what he did.

There was that word again—and yes, he had killed her, and a sob did sneak out, but his fingers never stopped. He nodded once, sniffed back the loose snot in his nose, and nodded to the doctor again.

"I did that, Doctor, and yes, I will forever be the navy man who shot to kill—but had to. I just have to remind myself of that. Oh—I also killed her brother, and yet I feel no remorse for that whatsoever—but Tibah is a different matter," he said, his fingers still beating out that same pattern.

His doctor must have noticed but said nothing and continued to stare at him.

They sat in the office staring at each other. Tanner's finger tapping made the only slightly noticeable noise.

A full minute went by, and his fingers skipped a bit and then slowed. Tanner was unaware but the finger movements stopped. He looked down at his hand, frowned, and moved his hand back up into his lap.

The doctor nodded as he typed something else onto his tablet, and then he turned it off and flipped it over.

"Captain Scott—Tanner, I think we're doing okay—and I will, of course, monitor you 'til you're gone from the Hospital Ship. I saw earlier that you have a new court date for the twelfth of next month—about twenty days from now, and you will be released from our care the day before. You could, if you wanted, let some friends know, and they can meet you down in Neres City Naval base on the eleventh around noon, I hear. They can help you get over to your quarters and re-settled. Court docs should be provided to you by then—but as you know, the decision has already been made—you are judged to be sane. I wonder how that happened," he said dryly and shook his head.

Tanner thought on that and the power of a Royal against a whole planet and their court systems for a moment. The Baroness—at least he thought it was her and not the Lady St. August—had simply told the courts what to do. Simple. As she was the head of state as well as royal blood—they obeyed.

As do I ... as do I.

####

Working of the second row from the top of the cages, Nathan skinned his knuckle, and the sudden sharp pain made him yelp right out loud.

That obviously upset the mouse that was cowering in the back of that cage, and it suddenly leapt out of the cage and all the way down to the floor. The drop should have stunned it—but instead it landed on its feet and scurried away under the big rack of cages beside its own.

Nathan cursed, popped the skinned knuckle into his mouth, and looked for the mouse, but it was gone.

He stopped for a moment, and he closed the cage that was now empty to look at the display screen.

The mouse that just flew was 158 days old and almost thirty-five percent past its life expectancy. It fell about five feet, yet it landed on its feet instead of flat on its back or belly like any geriatric mouse should have fallen and landed. Once it landed, it scurried away for security under a rack of cages, and it was hiding right now.

All,
Nathan thought,
traits of anything but a mouse living way past its lifespan.

Vaccine F-17 was truly, so far, the winner in the search to find the longevity cure.

As he knew, testing in mice was usually just the secondary step; human trials were the real last step in finding immortality, and that was the worry of others.

He looked at his knuckle and thought about the mouse that was somewhere on the floor.

It would be best if he caught the old geezer of a rodent and put it back in its cage.

If I could even catch it.

But then again,
maybe I shouldn't do that—at least not yet.

He pushed an extra handful of excelsior into the corner for the nesting materials, ensured the food and water were right up to where they should be, and closed the cage.

On the side of the display, he found the display reset button and tried to figure out how to jam it somehow, but that was beyond him.

He thought it through though—if he left the display as it was, it would be updated by the testing lab AI at midnight, and then with the mouse not in its cage, the display would clear and be blank. If he left the door a teensy bit open and crammed in a thicker piece of the excelsior into the contact strips, the AI wouldn't sound any kind of an alarm notifying him it was open.

Might work,
he thought and he smiled slightly.
How easy it seemed to beat AI.

On the floor somewhere was his vaccine sample for the Casino, and that would give him and Nancy a fresh start.

Do I feel like I've been dishonest?
Not at all, as the loss of a mouse was no big deal.

Do I feel like I am morally wrong?
Not at all
, he thought again as all he was doing was helping him and his fiancée to get a fresh start without the huge load of debt.

How will I tell Nancy?
His thoughts wandered next to his feelings about the whole thing. He realized he'd need to work on that still, as he jammed the cage door closed on the wad of excelsior and noted the door was still open yet wedged shut.

In case, just in case,
he thought.

For a moment, he had a stray thought that was an awakening for how he felt about Nancy. If he gave the sample to the casino and didn't tell Nancy, then he'd have those weekly payments to make that didn't need to be made from his and Nancy's salary. She had also offered up her savings too, and those credits were supposedly paying off debt ... or maybe not, but that thought bugged him as being totally dishonest.
I love my wife-to-be, so forget that ... right ... forget it.

####

Captain Eleanor Vennamo looked over at the helm and tilted her head to one side. Her lieutenant was either asleep at the switch or he had no idea of what lay ahead. She tapped a nail loudly on her console cabinet at the captain's station, and the resulting shake of his head was at least a signal he wasn't asleep.

He half-turned to face her, and the look on his face was one of wonder or surprise.

"Captain, I'm stumped here—there is no bloody way that this makes much sense, but here's what we're looking at—here," he said as he turned back to his console and the normal front display on the view-screen changed. Instead of the Valissian star the
Compass
was aiming at, a yellow super-giant star filled the screen.
Yellow sort of
, Captain Vennamo thought,
was only part of the coloration that was on the screen yet it wasn't really yellow
.

"Talk to me, Helm—and Science too," she said as she glanced behind her at the
Compass
Science officer of the watch. It was Lieutenant Commander Al Switzer on this shift, and he left his station to come up to stand beside her.
I like him—a little bit much at times with the passing on of too, too much back-story,
she thought as she took a strong gulp of her green tea, and she nodded to the helmsman.

"Captain, this is a star that the Barony records show that the last time it was inventoried, it was a simple yellow super-giant. But as you can see, it's grown dramatically and is now twice its previous size. The fact that it's tucked just alongside the RIM nebula here on the edge of our Confederacy might be one reason we didn't notice before, but Ma'am—look at the colors—the double shells are showing red—" and he hit a switch that changed the display resolution, and more of the star could be seen as the camera pulled back.

"Which means, Captain, that this is a supernova in waiting," the Science officer stated flatly.

He went on, of course, and she sipped her tea.

"As we know about this kind of process, the yellow super-giant runs out of its hydrogen fuel; then as it expands and grows into a hyper-giant, it moves to burning its helium, and the color goes red which is what we are seeing now for the first time here on the RIM. It will grow and grow too into a full hyper-giant, bright red, luminous even. Yes, this star is in its death throes, Captain, and it won't be a hundred years in my opinion until it goes nova. It'll burn up that helium quickly and then move through all the heavier elements until it builds up a solid iron core—at which time that core will collapse and boom—a Type II supernova, Ma'am. Right here on the RIM. Perhaps in our lives ..."

She could tell that if it were up to him, it would be today. "Last time we know that this happened?" she asked dryly.

"A few hundred years ago, inwards—part of the reasons why the Taylor Wars erupted, Ma'am," Switzer said. "May I ask, Ma'am, that we send a probe off to the RIM Navy on this as well as have our Ansible officer send off the latest stats and some images too, Ma'am? One thing more—that it is usual that there is a naming process too, in that the one who finds this can usually request that the RIM Astronomy section name it after him—or her, Ma'am," he said and he turned to go back to his station.

She thought about that for a moment, then turned to her Ansible officer, and tilted her head back at her Science officer.

"What Lieutenant Commander Switzer said, please follow up on that. Get the probe off and then send all those stats and images et al. to the Astronomical section of the Navy too—and please make the formal request that this be named after the Barony—the Barony Nova would be nice, I believe," she said and the tea was done.

A few hours later, the Baroness dropped by to sit in the Royal only chair, and Vennamo caught her up on all the details of their trip to Ghayth and the extra item that they had found a star that was a nova candidate and they'd reported same to the RIM Navy people. Vennamo shared that she had decided to call it the Barony Nova—presupposing that was okay, she asked and received a half-listening nod from the Baroness.

Today, she wore coral; the color of those anemones you see often on a barrier reef, sort of subdued yet saturated at the same time. When the Baroness moved, her skirt and matching blouse waved like it was being lit with a small spotlight that washed over the shades and made them shimmer and glow. How she did that, the captain had no idea—on her, that outfit she knew would look "plain Jane." Perhaps, it was the body imaging and millions spent on building a physique that could support that kind of outfit, or not.

I have no idea, but this I do know. There was not a man on the bridge who was immune to her looks.
She shook that off as she realized she'd been asked a question and she had no idea what it had been.

She busied herself with a couple of keystrokes on her captain's console and pretended to be busy. A moment later, she looked up at the Baroness and said, "Pardon, Ma'am?"

The Baroness was toying with her necklace, playing and twirling the largest Eon gold braid she'd ever seen.
That must have cost five years of a captain's pay
, she thought. The necklace must have lost a bit of its interest as she dropped it and sat up a bit straighter as she crossed one leg over the other and said, "Our ETA on Ghayth, Captain?" and she smiled. But it was an empty smile, Vennamo thought, as she quickly looked up at the sidebar on the front view-screen display.

"Ma'am, we're due in about thirty hours at this speed. We could, of course, use our Tachyon over-drive to increase our speed and arrive by mid-evening, Ma'am. What would you like us to do?" she said. Being the captain on the Baroness's personal destroyer was a job she once had relished—and to be honest, it was still a lot of fun in many respects. "Except when there was a butt in the Royal chair," she said to herself, and that was more often than not.

The Baroness shook her head. "No, tomorrow will be fine, Captain," and she began to issue out orders to the bridge crew.

"Ansible, please notify Ghayth administration of our arrival, and I want a meeting five minutes after we get there on our current status. Please have all section and department heads in attendance—fly them in if needs be, but I want experts at the table—got it?" she asked but she didn't even wait for a confirmation.