The Space Colonel's Woman (Dragonus Chronicles Book 1) (19 page)

“Brendon’s going to guide the Major while he lowers you in.” He took the rope and began the knots needed to prevent her from serious injury.

Julia rechecked her straps and buckles for the third time. “Okay.”

“Major, I’m ready.  Let’s do this.”

“Copy.” He answered across the static of their earpieces. “Lifting off now.”

Rescue one gradually rose into the air, taking the slack in Julia’s rope with it.  She raised herself on her tiptoes as the rope tightened until she was in the air.  Her weight supported by her harness and the taut rope.

“I’m clear.”  Julia dangled at the end of a twenty meter rope, ten feet above the ground.  Eyes squinting against the dust stirred by Rescue one’s downdraft. “Let’s head over to the hole.”

Dawson moved Rescue one sideways and Julia swung beneath the chassis like the pendulum in a grandfather clock.

“Easy Major, we don’t want her spinning like a top.” Brendon warned from his position three steps back from the lip of the hole. “Wings, you okay?”

“Yes.” Adrenalin sang in her veins. “Lower away, Major.”

Dawson lowered Rescue one and Julia sank below ground level.  She switched on her headlamp and turned her head in all directions, searching for Mark and his team in the dusty gloom.

“Wings on ground.” Julia radioed Major Dawson, and gave a thumbs-up to Brendon’s silhouette above. “Give me some slack?”

Her line puddled at her feet and she unclipped before radioing.  “Wings, off rope.”

Daylight poured into the hole from above, but didn’t penetrate the looming darkness of the shadows tucked under the jagged edge of the collapsed ceiling.  Julia swathed with her head lamp in a rhythmic pattern to cover every inch.

“Mark!”

No response.

“Damn it!” She whispered, shaky and suddenly feeling a long long way from home.  Julia shoved the growing panic to the back of her mind where there was less chance of it choking her.

“Hayden!”

No response.

“Anora!”

No response.

“Stephen!”

No response.

Julia unhooked a torch from her belt and moved further into the shadows.  The floor was littered with broken roofing, wooden storage boxes, some intact, most turned to kindling, and loads of dust and dirt.  Her search became more frantic the longer she went without finding anything.

“Wings, any luck?” Brendan’s voice called in her ear.

“Not yet.  There’s a lot of area to cover.  You on your way down?  They’re not responding to voice, we’ve got to hurr-” She stopped mid-sentence when her light fell on a boot sticking out from behind a wooden crate.

“Wings?”

“Stand by.”

“I’ve found Hayden.” Julia coughed at the cloud of dust she stirred up in her effort to clear the rubble from Hayden’s chest and check for a pulse under his jaw. “Unconscious, but alive.”

“Dawson’s got me in the air.  With you in two.”

Julia continued her search, thinking about the time Mark had explained how he ran his team.  Hayden brought up the rear, or was at Mark’s side.  So Mark had to be close by.  Brendan appeared next to her, adding his light to hers as he shrugged the field kit from his shoulders and crouched beside Hayden’s inert form.  His body art gleaming like a beacon in their headlamp beams.

“Thanks.” Julia murmured, already focused back on the search.

It was the act of not lifting her feet high enough as she swung her flashlight that had her tripping over a body; catching both breath and balance before glancing down.

“Mark!” Julia fell to her knees beside him. “Thank God.”

She checked for a pulse; the tremor in her hand betraying the calm she was attempting to project.  It was there, pushing back against the pads of her fingers.  Her heart somersaulted in her chest and she leaned in, felt warm air on her cheek.  He was breathing, and had a pulse.  Everything else could be dealt with, now that she knew he was alive.

Because getting them all home wouldn’t be enough of a challenge already.  Mark had outdone Hayden by skewering himself on a metal spike.  Rusty-brown with a screw spiral winding around its length, it was similar to ones used in building foundations.  It protruded from his side with the menace of a broad sword thrust through-and-through to the hilt.  An inch or three either way and it would’ve been all over.  Julia swallowed hard.  Finding Mark had been the easy part.  Separating him from the bar would prove the bigger challenge.

“Mark!” She shouted, rubbing her knuckles over his sternum. “It’s Julia, can you hear me?”

He groaned but didn’t regain consciousness.  Julia started wadding absorbent pads from her field kit around the spike as Levi was being lowered in to the hole.  The backboard, basket and third field kit hanging from another rope next to him.

“We’re still missing Anora and Doctor Garrett.” Julia called over open comms while she squeezed Mark’s arms, legs, and torso in search for injuries concealed by the black fabric of his off-world uniform.

She was trying not to think about the fact that they couldn’t pull the spike free.  Mark would bleed to death before they got him back to the glider, let alone Phoenix’s infirmary.  A difficult task made more complicated because the spike was anchored to the bunker floor. 

“Found them.” Levi radioed from further along the same wall. “Doctor Garrett’s coming round.”

Julia could tell because the complaints had already started.  She smiled; she’d rather listen to Stephen’s barrage of abrasive displeasure, than never hear his voice again. 

“Major Dawson?”

“Go for Dawson.”

“We’re going to need a hacksaw, and a couple of your Marines down here now, please.”

“And a couple of free-end ropes tied off to the underside of the wing.” Levi added.

“Understood.”

Julia focused her attention back to applying fresh pressure pads on top of the sodden ones. Beneath the layer of grey dust coating every inch Mark was pale from blood loss.  They had to hurry.

“Where do you need us?” A Marine asked, making her jump.

Julia pointed to the spike anchoring their commanding officer to the ground. “Here.”

“Oh.” The hulking guy with light blue eyes, breathed on a gasp and Julia wondered if he was going to contaminate the field more than it already was by puking up his lunch everywhere.

“This’d be why we need the hacksaw.” She snapped, tone harsher than she’d meant it to be. “We have to get him on a back board to immobilize any spine injuries before you start sawing.”

Zeb helped her slide the board as far under Mark as the spike would allow.  Then collared and strapped him down.

“Right.” The second Marine placed a long-fingered hand on Julia’s arm to get her to look at him and not Mark’s washed out expressionless face. “We need to hold the spike as still as we can, while Lieutenant Michaels saws from underneath.  Okay?”

She nodded and straddled Mark’s thighs, the sharp spiral of the spike biting into the soft flesh of her palms.  It would be easier said than done, she knew.

For every slide of the saw, the spike fought back sending vibrations up her arms and into her gritted teeth.  Julia held it as still as she could, sweat making her palms slick, and offered up her gratitude to the universe that Mark was unconscious.  It had to be excruciating.  Once the saw had bit a groove into the spike, Lieutenant Michaels sped up; each of his push-pulls staining the pads with blooms of fresh scarlet.

It felt like hours later when the saw thunked through the final slither and Julia allowed a painful breath into her lungs.  She stuffed more padding under Mark’s hip and helped Zeb position him further on the board, adjusting the leg straps before using duct tape to tie off the spike to the board’s central hand grip.

Julia groaned and stretched out of the awkward position she’d been holding through the ordeal and felt the fire of protesting muscles as she rolled her shoulders.  Stephen had a bowline rope wedged in his armpits and was being hoisted out of the hole.  Anora was sitting upright, holding four-by-fours to her head as she waited for extraction up to daylight.

“Kate?”

“Go for Kate.”

“Colonel Holden is a status two.  He’s unconscious.  We’ve detached the rebar from the floor and anchored it where it’s impaled.  We’ll need to evac A-SAP.”

“Copy that. How’s Mr Cooper?”

“Awake and grumpy.” Brendon said with a laugh.

Hayden confirmed Brendon’s diagnosis by groaning into his radio. “I will be well.  Get Holden out of here, so we can all go home.”

“Personally, I like Hayden’s plan.” Julia got to her feet, shouldering the field kit and following the two Marines who were carrying Mark toward the halo of light.

Major Dawson had picked up Anora and had returned with an empty rope dangling from Rescue one’s wing.  Julia hung both her harness and the board’s looped ropes onto the carabiners.  She stood with Mark levitating at her waist, her hand on his arm, and waited the few long seconds before her feet were lifted free of the dust and debris.  The fresh air felt nice on her sweaty grime-coated face and she smiled a weary smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth.  There was a long way to go, but at least Mark was out of the dark that could so easily have been his tomb.

“Hold on, handsome.” She whispered, the board’s edge pressing across the tops of her thighs as they swayed gently. “We’re nearly there.”

Kate came running across from her triage by Glider three; getting to Julia and Mark just as Major Dawson touched them down.  Julia’s knees buckled with the return of gravity and she disconnected both her and Mark from the rope so the major could go back for Hayden and the others.  Kate eyed her with a sympathy Julia couldn’t bear to acknowledge while time was against her.

“We have to leave now, or I’m going to lose him.” The confession was jagged; the sound of boots grinding on broken glass, and her throat ached from holding it in so long.  She swiped the back of her shaky grimy hands across her cheeks and sniffed.

“No. You’re not.” Kate said; her no nonsense medically-instilled demeanor winning out. “He’s strong, but we do have to hurry.  It took three hours to get here.”

Major Dawson had lowered Rescue one back into its parking spot and was calling his men in while Brendon, Levi, and Zeb packed away the gear.  Hayden, a quiet calming presence in the cacophony and clamor of imminent departure, crossed his ankles and dropped smoothly to sit opposite Julia.  A motionless and pale Mark lying strapped to his backboard between them.

“Will he live?” Hayden asked, the blue and scarlet vignette of the tattooed mask, stark against his shock-faded tan.

“Of course he will.” Julia said, harsher than she’d meant to be. “He has too.”

She may have established a life of her own here in Dragonus, but it was a life that began and ended with the injured man in front of her.  The place inside of her that had bloomed to life with the first press of his lips on hers, threatened to wither and die at the mere thought of losing its other half.  Yeah, she wasn’t going to put up with that.  Not when they’d only had one short year and some change.  There was still too much left to do, to learn from each other, to share, and to give.  She wasn’t done with her colonel, and she hoped to whoever was listening that he wasn’t done with her either.

“He’s been through worse.”

Julia appreciated the consolation offered from behind the curtain of silver-blond hair, turned blue-gray in the fading afternoon light.  It did help to have the words spoken aloud; even if it took much effort to believe in them.

“I don’t doubt it.” Julia ground out as she pushed herself to her feet.  She hardly thought of it now, but if all of this was real, then the episodes of
Phoenix Rising
she’d watched back on her Earth were no doubt based on actual missions here in Dragonus. 

Oh God! Season two’s glider crash. 

Season three’s Arcadian prison camp double episode. 

Julia felt sick.  They’d been two of her favorite episodes.  To think her friends, her fiancé, had suffered through it all, and worse, since television glamorized everything.

“You, Anora, and Stephen’ll have to go back with Major Dawson in Glider three.”

Hayden gave no reaction beyond a sharp nod as he got to his feet in one graceful movement and headed toward the gathered Marines.  Major Dawson would have to find another pilot from among his men, to fly Glider one back.

“Guys.” Julia called, gaining the attention of her team with ease. “You’ll have to go back with the Marines.  Kate’ll come with me and monitor Colonel Holden.  We’ll be lighter that way.”

She would need every advantage in this particular race against time, and the lighter Rescue one was, the faster she’d be – or at least that was the theory.  Julia could feel her body responding to the challenge.  The massive dose of adrenalin being dumped into her bloodstream was making her itch to get going, to feel the controls beneath her palms and the asteroid field in her rear display.  Because, once that happened she could put her foot down.  She would have Mark back to Phoenix and under Doctor Peyton’s scalpel in record time.

“Let’s get him on board.” Brendon said, squeezing her shoulder before crouching to grip the head of Mark’s board while Levi took the foot.