Hospital Ship (The Rim Confederacy #5) (27 page)

As the gun finally came free, Tanner crouched down and took a few steps away from the wide-open airlock behind him. He drew a bead on Jocko and held up his hand to tell the man to stop. But Jocko did not stop, and he aimed his stunner at Tanner. Tanner put one foot out on the wall of the force-field corridor to his left and pushed off hard to slide to the right.

As he did, he squeezed the trigger, and two things happened at once.

Jocko's mouth snapped open with pain as he was hit, and he twisted to his left as the force of the bullet took over in this low gravity and lifted him off his feet.

But the force of the recoil of that shot also spun Tanner at the same time. He tried to keep his eyes on Jocko as his body also spun to his right, and he slammed into the force-field corridor wall. He whipped his head to the left first and then in a full circle as he brought his foe back into sight.

Jocko was hit bad it seemed to Tanner; there was blood floating like a small cloud around him, and he was jerkily still trying to bring his stunner to bear. But with one hand, Tanner was sad to see, he tossed an envelope or something like it up—up and out of the corridor through the top of the force-field corridor. Whatever it was, it sailed off end over end, and Tanner figured that was the sample and that re-entry back down onto Neres would burn it up as it fell from orbit.

He watched carefully to see if another round was needed, and he realized he was in outer space, cold and freezing but still alive. It had been at least a half a minute, and he knew this was more than he'd ever want to do again.

Jocko was done, he realized as the blood cloud continued to grow, and he looked back over his shoulder to the ship airlock. He stood slowly, took the very few steps back to get inside, and thought he never wanted to be in space like this again.

He stepped over the sill and slapped the emergency close button, and the huge hot blast of air almost knocked him down as the door slammed shut and the force field dropped too. Marines grabbed him and lay him down, and he felt like shit—cold, cold shit. He half-smiled at his attempt at humor, and he wondered if anyone would ever believe him.

He went through a short burst of the shakes and shudders as his body tried to warm itself up; he heard one of the marines, probably the medic, say that this was normal. The medic must have been on the emergency channel as he was also yelling for support and screaming about "No one on this god-damn ship should get second-class med help." There was a flurry of hands in a few minutes as he was lifted, gently placed on a gurney, and wheeled away.

His voice shaking, he asked that someone go and get Jocko, and he was assured that was happening right now.

His voice sounded funny, his muscles ached, and his major joints creaked as he tried to flex his knees and elbows. But his eyes felt awful as he had his eyes closed up tight. The underside of his eyelids felt like they were resting on ice balls.

Voices talked to him as they wheeled him to Emergency, and all were concerned with his health and his wellbeing.

"Better than Jocko's" was his only choked out answer.

####

While Tanner was in a Barony ward, enjoying all the attention, all hell had broken out on the Hospital Ship as a result of the Caliphate attempt at stealing the Ikarian vaccine.

That came to light immediately, and the covering by the Caliph was about the best she'd ever seen, the Lady St. August thought as her heel tapped on the floor of the conference room. She wouldn't have called it "holding court," but that's exactly what it was—she was hearing some testimony and yes, excuses and rationales and then making a decision.

It had fallen to her, as the Baroness was on Ghayth dozens of lights off; she was the Barony today.

Earlier, she had simply fired Dr. Bassem. She told him bluntly that she not only believed him complicit in the attempt to steal the vaccine, but that Hospital Ship security cameras and recording—surreptitiously yes—had proven him a liar. He was escorted off the ship, taken down to Neres, and then transferred over to the Caliphate Embassy for their removal off planet.

She then heard from the Ramat, the secret police of the Caliphate that had a small detachment here on the Hospital Ship. She listened. She told them she didn't buy their innocence in all of this, and she ordered them off the Hospital Ship within twelve hours. She was closing their detachment offices and residences too. There would never be another Ramat allowed on the Hospital Ship.

Then she heard from Doctor Mendoza, whom she was sad to learn, used the recent to-do to try to get more budget money out of her. He argued that the AI needed upgrading and the ship needed new power grids, and then there was the issue of the latest union uprising of the healthcare orderlies that had him worried. Him. "Not me," she said to herself, and she thanked him for his time and he could contact her aide and arrange to meet with the Barony financial ministry at his convenience.
Typical
, she thought,
I'm here after an incursion incident and he wants more budget credits
.

She heard then from this Nathan Ward and his fiancée, Lieutenant Irving, and she listened with a small degree of interest. She understood about addiction. And she understood about love. And she understood how Ward had succumbed at first to the lure of the trade of debts for the vaccine, but that was something he had apparently re-thought. His woman was good for him, she realized as the lieutenant gently interrupted his story to get him to explain more fully or to show that he knew it was wrong. She liked that. But there was going to be a price to pay for it, and it came to her suddenly.

"Fine—Lieutenant, yes, yes, yes, I get it. I know what addiction can do—so here's what I'd like you to do. Ward, I'm firing you from the secret labs research team as of right now. In the next few days, you will receive official Barony orders to put together a small team to look at and study the fauna over on Ghayth. You're heading the team ... um, and I'm increasing your research rank to match that new lead status. But you're on Ghayth for, say, the next two years. You, Lieutenant, will be back on board the
Atlas
when you're ready, and that's my decision. Questions?" she asked and she received stares and nods and not a word was said.

Next
, she thought and that got her to Tanner. His court-sanctioned time of ninety days was up in two days.

She made a note on her PDA to double-check with the head of the Appellate court; Tanner would be found sane tomorrow in public and that was that. She knew the Baroness had already made that a fact for the judge, but she wanted to both confirm that as well as let the man know she was a Royal too.

Once that happened, Tanner would receive his orders to report to the
Atlas
as captain. And she knew the
Atlas
was going to go to Enki and look into whatever was there—oh, there'd been the addition of the
RN Marwick
to that small group as well as the Duchy's
DS Triumph
along for the ride too.

But that was not what the issue was—it was Tanner himself that she still wanted to think about. He'd been cured, the reports said, of his alcoholism. So they said. That remained to be seen—and if she had to be totally honest, it was this "bad boy" thing that attracted her to him at first.
Wonder if it's true, how it may have changed him. No way to know unless I spend some time with him.

And that was what she planned, but no more than just interest.

Then, there had been that kiss a few weeks back ...

Epilogue ~

It took quite a bit of time to first find the signal, then track it, and then pull up alongside of it, but the small two-seat scout ship did just that after two full days of searching. Above Neres, behind the orbit of the Hospital Ship, the scout had sectioned off the grids and had slowly traversed back and forth across the whole grid, looking for the package.

Almost twenty miles behind the Hospital Ship, on the far outside edge of the orbit, a small blip came up on the scout's forward view-screen, and they both grunted at the same time. "Bingo," one said and his hands smoothly turned the scout to face the blip head on.

It took at least four more hours of back and forth in slowly shrinking sector sweeps until the beep was dead ahead and close. Very close.

The pilot nodded and said, "Time," and he slowly moved the helm to the port side as the co-pilot got up and went back only a few feet to the airlock door.

"Suits on and up," he said and both of them dropped their helmets into place and gave them a twist to lock out the coming vacuum.

The co-pilot nodded and then punched a code into the lock panel. The airlock flipped up and open, and the air within the scout instantly whooshed away.

He looked at his tablet that he'd perched on the chest of his suit, and with a hand gesture, he had the pilot gently use thrusters to move the scout closer slowly as the beeps grew more regular and louder. As the scout slowly sidled toward the signal, he kept signaling the pilot for more thrust and then more again. At one point, he pushed his hand forward as the beeping became a bit slower, but then it picked back up again. The beeps now were a steady shrill tone.

He nodded to the pilot who shut down the scout thrusters, and he looked up and down, left and right, and then said, "Ahhh ... there she is," and he swooped out into space with a large net-like scoop, quickly yanked back the net, and checked the contents.

"Got it," he said and he slammed his hand over the emergency close plate, and the airlock door quickly closed and the air was pumped in from the scout's O
2
tanks. The air must have been okay as the chimes went off and the two crewmen took off their helmets, and both stood and peered into the net.

Inside the net, on its side, lay a bag that held what appeared to be three mice. Dead mice, as there was no movement at all. Frozen solid at absolute zero is not a death that anyone or any creature would choose, but it was what had befallen these mice.

Looking at the dash, the pilot said, "AI begin recording please, audio and video, please, on all cameras and mics." He looked back at the net and its contents.

"Time is 2217 hours, and our session begins as we have just recovered the package. It appears to be a bag with three mice in it that are dead. At least as far as we can tell, there is no movement at all. Opening the bag now," he said as he leaned forward, picked up the bag, and placed it on the floor of the scout.

"Bag was still sealed," he said as he opened it, "and from what we can tell, both the GPS signaler and the O
2
reservoir are still live and active. Opening the bag, I have just touched each of the sample mice, and all three are dead, cold, stiff, and in fact, probably frozen solid."

He took out the O
2
reservoir and the GPS signaler and placed them to one side. Then he sealed the bag back up and smiled at his co-pilot.

"Time of initial superficial post-mortem is now 2221 hours and we are complete. Samples will be now placed in the scout's safe and transported back to the mothership. End of session," he said and the sample bag was placed in the scout's safe. The pilot quickly started her up, and they zoomed up and off to one side.

Up in high orbit in half an hour, the scout entered the landing bay and came to rest with its special cargo. Ramat guards came out to take the contents of the safe to secure medical storage.

BOOK SIX OF THE RIM CONFEDERACY

Desert Planet

Prologue ~

The line ups on the access ramps had been long, and yet thousands had stood at first in the sands, then later on the stone walkway and finally had used the steps to go down, down into the deep of the planet and still they came on. Following each other, they finally got to the lowest levels and as the huge wide corridor slowly doubled back on itself, towards the WORDS muse pyramid, they slowed with the sheer numbers of observers who had come. It was hot of course, as it always was and some fanned themselves with the flyers that had been distributed about this Claim trying to cool themselves even a bit, but to no avail. At least they were all out of the hot white sun, an A1 which meant it was almost at the top of the white class of star, with hot hot stellar winds that landed on Enki.

Being third in orbit around the sun was just poor luck many thought, as that made the sun even brighter and hotter; Enki lay at the interior edge of the Goldilocks zone. Which meant that the sun always shone and the heat was always there. Here in the darkened tunnel that ran from the exterior access ramp to the WORDS pyramid, it was usually at least somewhat cooler but now with thousands of Enkians all surging forwards to get to the Claims forum, it was just plain hot.